Hey, uhm...what happened to all you wonderful reviewing people? Do you guys not like what's happening anymore?
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It's a small miracle that Bobby doesn't trip over his own feet and break his neck falling down the stairs in his mad dash for the 'library'. He makes it there in record time, punching the light switch, expecting several black-eyed sons of bitches trying to kill the two fun-sized Winchester boys for whatever goddamn reason.
No demons have gotten past the devil's traps, though. It's just the boys in a heap on the floor next to the couch. Dean is shaking like a leaf, still wrapped up in his woolen blanket and Bobby could swear his eyes look puffy and red. Sam is sitting next to him, holding him down with both his hands, little fingernails digging deep into his brother's shoulders.
"What the hell is going on here, boys?"
Bobby's voice is still raspy from sleep (or lack thereof). Dean makes a visible effort to pull himself together while Sam shrugs and pushes his brother back down.
"Dean had a nightmare."
"Nightmare?"
"'m fine, B-bobby. D-don't worry 'bout it."
Bobby has learned to ignore Dean's assurances of being fine a long time ago, so he turns to Sam instead. Looks like he's the only one right now who isn't still half asleep, what with the whole being-awake-for-over-a-year-thing.
"What're you holdin' him down for?"
Sam turns his puzzled, empty, green eyes from Bobby to his hands on Dean's shoulders and back to Bobby.
"I'm being supportive."
Right. Bobby rolls his eyes and frees Dean from his brother's supportive death grip.
"What kinda nightmare?" he asks while Dean peels himself out of the older hunter's arms and climbs onto the couch to hug his knees.
"About hell," Sam provides when it becomes obvious that Dean isn't planning on talking much. "He keeps dreaming about torturing me…or my soul or whatever."
"Aw, hell, Dean," Bobby runs his hands through his thinning copper hair. "I thought we were over that."
Dean makes a face that says Yeah, well clearly we aren't.
Bobby wants to shout at him that maybe PTSD isn't something you rub a little dirt on and get over after all, but he's feeling too sorry for the little boy who's reliving his days as apprentice to the great torture master of hell with his baby brother in a starring role, so he ceeps his mouth shut. Besides the moment passes when Dean squares his shoulders and rubs a tired hand over his eyes to get rid of the last traces of his crying.
"Hey, Sammy?"
Wow, when was the last time he heard that name?
"Hm?"
"I need a fucking drink."
Alright, so Bobby is tired. And he isn't used to having the munchkins around anymore. And he's still sorta shell shocked from all the screaming and yelling and almost falling down the stairs oh, and did he mention that he's tired? So it takes him several moments to register that a little boy is carrying a full bottle of tequila towards his ten-year old brother and that maybe that's not the most brilliant idea in the world. And then it takes him another few moments to realize that Dean is uncapping the bottle and moving it towards his trembling lips and -
"Bobby! What the hell is wrong with you?"
Bobby has just about managed to slap the booze out of the kid's hands.
"What's wrong with me?" Bobby's growling now. "What's wrong with you? You can't drink that. You're a child for chrissakes!"
"I'm thirty-two!"
"Well, your body ain't and I'm not about to let you poison yourself."
"A little tequila isn't gonna poison me. Geez, Dad let me drink all the time when I was ten."
"Bullshit" Bobby scoffs. Because he may have had his problems with the man but there is just no way he was that bad a father.
Dean makes another face at being called on his bluff and mumbles something along the lines of "well, he wouldn't have cared either way."
Bobby runs his hand through his hair again and turns away. It's way too early to be dealing with Dean's my-daddy-didn't-love-me-issues. "Yeah, well, I care and if you let me catch you anywhere near my stash again you'll be spending a couple hours staring at a corner in the panic room," he grumbles and adds an irritated "that goes for you too" in Sam's direction because the boy looks really confused as to why giving alcohol to a kid might be a bad idea.
Heaving his tired bones off the couch, Bobby tells Dean to go back to bed and Dean looks at him like he's lost his mind.
"What?" Bobby snaps. "What now?"
"He doesn't really sleep after a nightmare." Sam helps out again when Dean just shrinks back into his corner of the sofa and Bobby immediately feels bad. "Not unless he gets really drunk first."
Bobby doesn't know what to do with these boys and their fucked up coping mechanisms, so he tells them that he certainly plans on going back to bed and Dean can stay up and help his brother do research if he wants to.
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"Bobby?"
No! Nonononononono! Not again!
"Sam, get back here!"
"Bobby, wake up!"
"Sam!"
"What?"
"Get back here, Bobby's sleeping?"
Exactly, Sam. Listen to your brother. Lemme sleep.
"So?"
"So let'im sleep."
"Why?"
"'cause he's not a freakin' robot like you. We've bothered him enough for one night."
"I'm not bothering him, I'm trying to tell him something."
"We can tell him later. Now c'mon. People with souls need to sleep."
Please have this fight downstairs. Please!
"I thought souls were supposed to make you care about stuff. Why would he rather sleep than know about the curse?"
Wait, what?
"Great job, Samantha, you woke him."
Bobby forces his eyes to open to take in the grey morning light. There's no way it's even one minute past 5:30. Great. That brings his total amount of shuteye to a measly two and a half hours. Not like he's and old man who needs his rest to function or anything.
He turns onto his other side and his nose almost collides with Sam's.
"We figured out what spell the witch put on us." He doesn't sound proud or satisfied or anything at all.
Bobby looks past the shaggy brown hair to where Dean is hovering by the doorway, like it's an invisible barrier that he doesn't dare cross.
"Maybe, Sam." He's mumbling and studying his bare feet again. "We maybe figured it out. We aren't really sure. Sorry, you can look at it later, Bobby. Go back to sleep, okay?"
Alright, c'mon, Singer. Voice. Words. Use them.
"Wha…what kinda…what?"
Good job.
"We found something about a de-aging curse that's worked with mirrors and – "
"We're not really sure it's the right curse, though. Really, you can look at it later."
But Bobby is already peeling himself out of his nice warm and comfy blankets. An unattractive grunting sound escapes his lips when he manages to get his old bones off the bed and fuck, getting older is a bitch.
"I'll be right down, boys" he rasps past the tiredness in his throat while picking up his trucker hat from the nightstand. "Make me a cup of coffee, Dean, will ya?"
Dean does that thing where he straightens up and shouts "yes, sir" and hurries away down the hall. Dean damn well knows that it makes Bobby uncomfortable as hell but that doesn't seem to change a thing. Never has.
Five minutes later he joins to boys in the kitchen where Dean pushes a steaming cup of black coffee across the table and it looks so good right now that Bobby decides not to comment on the cup in the boy's own miniature hands. He'd rather have him drinking coffee than tequila, anyway.
Before he gets to taste the own first sip though, Sam has dropped a small leather bound book in front of him.
"This is the spell." He opens the book on one of the last pages.
"Might be the spell. It's Aramaic or something. We're not sure exactly what it says." And then the quiet unsure mumbling turns to utter disgust. "And it's in poet form."
Bobby reads over the tiny, faded script and a satisfied smile forces its way past the tired lines of his mouth.
"You boys got it about right. Mirror spell. You look at the mirror, it turns you into a ten-year old. Usually used for blood rituals." The sick part isn't even that such a spell is possible. It's that people have a use for this kind of fucked up crap. Some sick bastard sat down and figured out how to de-age a fellow human being so they could use their blood for some sort of voodoo. And then they felt the need to write it all down and spread the word, because apparently there are enough creeps in the world who'd like to try their hand on the same thing. Sometimes Bobby's glad he specializes in demons. Humans are just too screwed up. "Yup. That's your spell."
"Awesome. How do we undo it?"
"We don't."
"What?"
"We don't." Bobby points at the last two paragraphs. "The spell only lasts for a week. Six more days and you'll be back to normal."
"Six days? I don't wanna be in this fucked up body for six days."
"It's you own body you're talking about, dude, you realize that, right?"
"Oh, you can't tell me that you feel comfortable looking up at people again, mini-sasquatch."
"Boys!"
"Aw, c'mon Bobby, this sucks! I can't drive, I can't hold my gun straight, I can't even rob a frickin' Walmart without having somebody call my uncle Bobby!"
Bobby tries not to take offense to the way his name is uttered like a foul expletive. It doesn't matter, anyway, because there's no way of undoing the curse and Dean will just have to live with being dependant on another human being for a couple of days.
He pours the boys the Lucky Charms he bought for breakfast and hopes that kids' cereal won't lead to a repeat appearance of yesterday's sugar overdose. They make the stuff specially for kids so it should be safe on the sugar front, right?
He makes another cup of coffee for himself and starts musing on what to do with the boys for the rest of the week. What would they usually do? Well, do research, grab a couple of weapons and go out on a hunt. What did they use to do? He can't even think back to a time when the boys would just turn up at his door step without needing his help fighting evil. He can have Dean work on some of the cars, he figures. He always liked that. And Sam liked…well, that doesn't matter, because Sam doesn't like or dislike much of anything anymore. They can all play poker, maybe. Or something more age appropriate. Like…Bridge. Okay, so sue him, Bobby doesn't know any kiddy card games. Maybe he could take the boys to Disney Land, just to torture the employees with the only two ten-year olds on the planet who would spend their time there scowling at the staff and threatening the fluffy mascots with bodily harm, should they try to hug them.
Bobby snickers and sends them out to play in the yard until he can think of some real activity. He's in the middle of making a list of what survival supplies to buy to be prepared for the rest of the week (shoes, socks, some more shirts, M&M's, a lock for his liquor cabinet,…) and then all hell breaks loose.
Gates is barking his tiny lungs out and Dean is yelling and someone's laughing and then Bobby hears that dreaded, smooth British accent that makes the fine hairs on the back of his arms stand and his skin crawl and he's running for the door.
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Next up: The King of Hell (because he's awesome and my life is seriously incomplete without him)