Author's Chapter Notes:

HI

Back to Dean's birthday and the boys are at Bobby's.

Two things -

1. The timeline may not run just right with the show - forgive me but Sam needs time to put this together.

2. Bobby knows about Sam and Dean conversations about Dean in Hell. Poetic license applied there, I mean you know that he's going to find out at some point anyway, right?

M xx

Birthdays, Bobby and Banter

Jan 24th

Dean was clutching the coffee in front of him the same way a drowning man clutches at a life raft in a stormy sea.

"Still feeling a little rough there bro.?" Sam grinned at him and turned the music up.

Dean scowled across the seat at him and hit the off switch.

"Hey, what happened to driver picks the music?"

"My car…my rules. I say we enjoy the peace and quiet for a while."

"Ouch, if this is what turning thirty does to you I think I'll skip it." Sam punched Dean on the arm. "Such a grouch."

"If you don't let me get some sleep you won't have to worry about reaching thirty…and this, is nothing to do with age, just alcohol consumption and lack of sleep." Dean put a heavy emphasis on the last word and settled against the door of the car.

Sam grinned.

He gunned the engine and then let the revs fall back before doing it again, the lurching motion of the car making even him feel queasy. He kept doing it until he felt his brother's steely glare on him.

"Dude…what the hell are you doing to my car? If you break it…you're gonna fix it!" Dean's voice was a growl but Sam ignored it.

Sam turned to him and stuck out his tongue. "I'm bored, you won't let me listen to the music so I need to do something to amuse myself." He managed his best whine at the start of the sentence. Dean rolled his eyes and then groaned at the effort.

"God I get older and you regress to a six year old." Dean switched the music back on and turned it down. "You turn it up or do that again with the car…and I'm going hurl…and you're gonna clean it. Clear?"

Sam smiled a little victory smile. "Yup!"

Dean muttered something about pain in the ass little brothers under his breath and closed his eyes again hoping that he could have a dreamless hour or two of sleep before they got to Bobby's place. He cranked the window down a little and drifted off.

"Well if it ain't the birthday boy. Been celebrating early?" Bobby smiled as the elder Winchester slouched past him without so much as a word.

Sam slapped his brother on the back and earned the mother of all scowls. "Out most of the night…can't handle the pace anymore Bobby."

"I hear getting old does that for you."

"Well you should know." Dean turned to the older hunter and smiled. "How old are you again Bobby?"

Bobby snorted. "Old enough for you not to be asking and young enough to still kick your ass."

"Anytime you'd like to try…except maybe not right now."

Bobby laughed and shook his head. "How come he's in this state and you're not?"

Sam threw his duffle down and sat down. "My research in the bar was looking up the internet on the laptop, Dean's was seeing how much he could drink in an hour and still stand and finding out what the t-shirt on the barmaid was referring to when it said 'Believe me - I'm worth the trouble'."

"Boy never could resist a challenge. Was she?" Bobby looked over to the kitchen were Dean was downing two more headache tablets and a ton of water.

"Oh hell yeah. I am going to go lie down for a while, let me sleep this off and I'll do anything you want me to later. Ok?" He threw his brother a glance as he spoke, already heading to the bedroom.

"Bet that's what he said last night too." Bobby spoke in a staged whisper.

"I heard that old man." Dean didn't even break stride just finished his walk to the bedroom, kicked off his boots and his jacket and was asleep almost before his body touched the bed.

Sam stuck his head round the door. "Dean?" He smiled at the lack of response from his brother and then shut the door. "He's out of it already."

"You finished what you were working on?" Bobby walked into the kitchen and grabbed two cups. "Coffee?"

"Yeah and yeah." Sam picked up the laptop and opened it on the table.

"D'you managed to get in touch with the other part of his surprise?"

They grinned at one another.

"Yeah, I've to go fetch later tonight." Sam pulled up the file he was looking for and Bobby started to read through it.

"This musta taken you ages. Hope he likes it."

"Think it's too much?"

Bobby paused. "Nah. This better work 'cos if it doesn't I'm tempted to put a boot up your brother's backside and knock some sense back into him, not that he had much to start with."

"Just don't do it today ok?"

Bobby smiled sweetly. "I'll try."

Dean's mouth had more sand in it than Gandhi's flip-flops when he woke up. He rolled over and smiled at the bottle of water next to the bed with the note 'water for the desert' attached to it. Dean sat up and drank the whole thing almost in one go. "Guy could get used to this maid service."

He put the bottle back and scratched his hands through his hair, grabbed a quick shower and then wandered through. Bobby was sitting in the other room, nose in a book. He looked up as Dean walked towards him.

"God, the dead rises again." He smiled at Dean and settled back in the chair, pinching the bridge of his nose and then rubbing his tired eyes. "Though you were going to sleep right through the day there."

"Funny…and tempting as that would be…no way Sam is gonna let me do that. Where is he anyway?" Dean looked round the room.

"Not here…he said something about a list and left."

Dean missed the smile on the older hunter's face as he groaned and rested his head on the table. "I was hoping he'd forgot. Still." He looked at his watch. "Only six hours of today left, and then he'll leave me in peace for another year."

Bobby got up and crossed to the laptop. "He left something on this for you." He opened the laptop, booted it up and turned it to Dean. "I'm gonna go out for a bit, you want anything?"

Dean was totally distracted as the laptop started to run a little picture of bunnies and pink balloons across the screen. "What?"

"I said I'm going out, do you want anything?" Bobby was trying hard not to laugh at the expression on Dean's face.

He could have sworn Dean jumped as the balloons burst and the words 'Happy 30th Birthday Dean' appeared.

Dean turned to him with an almost concerned look on his face.

"Do you think it's 'cos I'm always calling him a bitch that my brother is such a girl?"

Bobby laughed. "Nope, I reckon it's the hair."

Dean grinned up at him. "Think I should cut it off one night when he's sleeping?"

"Only if you don't want to reach thirty-one, remember John trying to get him to cut it?"

Dean made a 'maybe you're right' face and then he turned serious for a minute. "Think I'll actually get the far? Thirty-one?"

Bobby shrugged. "Well you died and still made thirty."

Dean raised his eyebrows and bit his bottom lip. "Good point."

"Technically though you were dead for four months so I suppose you haven't actually made thirty yet, you're really only twenty nine and a bit."

Dean tried to work the logic in that.

"Ok, my headache is coming back and if you're gonna split hairs, I'm actually nearly seventy – forty years in Hell and all that."

"Does that count though if you're dead?" Bobby looked at him expectantly.

Dean raised his hands at his side and shrugged. "You're asking me? How the hell should I know?"

"Stick with thirty?" Bobby held out a hand.

Dean took it. "Yeah."

"Ok." They shook hands. "How did we start this conversation again?" Bobby lifted his cap and scratched his head.

"I have no idea….weren't you leaving?" Dean got up and fetched a coffee.

"I think I was." Bobby fished in his pocket. "Sam said to give you this but you're to open it after you've looked at the file on the laptop."

Dean turned the envelope, with his brother's chicken scrawl of his name on it, over in his hand. "I'm I going to like this?" A little worried tone had crept into his voice.

Bobby patted his shoulder. "Honestly? I have no idea, but the boy has worked hard on it."

"Ok." Dean reached across and pressed enter on the laptop, grinning as the bunnies morphed into playgirl ones. "Now that's more like it."

He looked up and Bobby was gone.

He paused before he hit enter again. "Let's see what you've been doing."

tbc