Dean rose as he normally did: early and without enough sleep. Sammy was still sprawled across the makeshift bed that Dean had been lucky enough to avoid this visit to Bobby's. He stepped over his brother with care, and headed downstairs, stretching his arms out on the way. He could nearly touch the ceiling now. That made him smile. Dean remembered when getting up Bobby's stairs was like climbing a mountain and he could get lost in the beat up maze of cars in the Singer Auto field.
The house was quiet. Dean checked in on Bobby's office. The old guy was sleeping with his face smashed on a book that looked soft from use as a pillow if not reference. A string of drool hung from Bobby's slack jaw. Dean thought he looked adorable. Smiling slightly, Dean made his way into the kitchen where he began preparing breakfast.
A couple of old apples and a box of Nutty-Os were his only ingredients, but Dean managed to pull together a decent breakfast amid the machetes and hunting knives lying out to dry on the counter. The cereal was a bit stale, and the apples a bit soft, but it wasn't road food, which, despite his claims to the opposite, Dean was tired of.
"See you've helped yourself," Bobby stood in the doorway.
Dean raised a spoon, "Guilty as charged."
"Throw me an apple, wouldja?" Dean tossed it. Bobby caught the bruised fruit and bit into it, letting some of the juice dribble into his beard. "John's gone."
Dean stood slowly. He had hoped that his father had just been out sleeping in the car he preferred to a bed. "Why?" he could feel anger bubbling in his gut. Dean should have gone on the job with him to cover. His Dad's first rule was that the Winchesters stuck together no matter what. And right now he was breaking it. The hypocrite.
Bobby rubbed his beat up baseball cap nervously, "Said something 'bout a Gorgon in Maine, I think it was. Didn't want you boys tagging along."
"Dammit, Bobby I'm an adult!" Dean stood, ready to pack his bags and pull Sammy out of bed to track his father down if he had to, "Gorgons are at least in the top ten of most dangerous shit on Earth. You expect us to stay here while he goes and gets himself turned into some creepy-ass statue?"
"Don't raise your voice at me, son. I told him the same thing." Bobby waited for Dean to offer a retort, but the boy just scowled at his feet, "In the meantime, I enrolled Sam at the high-school," That didn't solve anything for Dean who had just finished his last year— with decent marks too— and he was about to say so when Bobby cut him off, "I got a job for you, too."
The way Bobby was looking at him, Dean knew it would be torture, probably with crap pay. "What is it?" he rubbed his forehead, resigned to staying camped out in Sioux Falls.
"You can work the phones," Bobby cackled, as he turned away and went back to his office.
The phone labeled FBI in peeling masking tape started to ring. Dean's eyes bore holes into it with a hatred he normally only reserved for Cindy Lauper.
"Get started now," Bobby called from the next room.
"I expect pie," Dean shouted back as he picked up the receiver, "Federal Bureau of Investigation…"
