Chapter Four
Clannnnggggggg "AaaaaaaaaFUCK!"
Dean's head shot up at the distinctive sound of a gas cylinder being moved.
"Kid's got your mouth, that's for sure," muttered Bobby, not looking up from his newspaper.
"What the hell are they doin'?" Dean wondered, going to the window.
"Improvisin', adaptin' and overcomin'," chortled Bobby, as Dean watched his son wrestle with the cylinder. Frankie watched, arms folded, her eye-rolling practically audible, then headed for the gates. A moment later, she was back with the gargoyles.
"That's cheating," Dean complained, as RJ obviously explained how he wanted them to hold which bits where while he welded, "When I was his age, I would've had to figure out how to build a jig."
"At his age, you did," Bobby reminded him. "Took you three tries to get the handlebars straight, if I recall correctly."
"Yeah, well, it's tricky," Dean grunted. "Plus, I wasn't allowed to weld by myself until I was his age. I could strangle that woman."
"Well, her Daddy put the gas axe in her hands when she was eight, it was only natural for her to do the same with hers." Bobby chortled at the memory – whilst staying with the Jaeger pack, RJ had watched Connor and Sabine practising their welding, and agitated to have a try. With gleefully malicious benevolence, Ronnie had spent the week coaching him in soldering, welding and even took him to the workshop to do some ammo casting, so that when his ten-year-old came home and announced that he was now competent to do metalwork by himself, Dean had pitched a fit, and threatened to fill Ronnie full of silver. (Her smiling assertion that his boy was not yet capable of casting silver rounds that could be fired, but she'd be happy to keep coaching him, did nothing to de-escalate the situation.) "At least you know that he's been taught by someone who knows what she's doin' – he'll never set a bench on fire."
"I guess," muttered Dean, reflecting that if he'd had a stern momma werewolf standing over him while he learned, he might've been a bit more careful with the whole open flame thing too.
"Anyway, it's nice for him and Sabine to have something to do together, when the wolf brats are here," shrugged Bobby.
Dean's head whipped around. "Whaddya mean, 'something to do together'?" he demanded.
"Just that," Bobby beamed innocently. "They're good friends, and it's nice that there's somethin' they can do together to keep 'em out of mischief."
"He's too young for 'mischief'," growled Dean, "And if I thought for a minute that he was even lookin' sideways at Ronnie's whelp..."
"Hold ya horses, ya idjit," chuckled Bobby, "They aint even teenagers yet! All I meant was, it's better for 'em to have somethin' constructive to do, rather than sit inside in front of a screen. Wholesome." He blinked guilelessly up at Dean. "Very useful, metalworking. I'd be encouraging it."
Dean looked out the window again; his 'little boy' was assiduously pulling on his protective gear, and overseeing the donning of goggles by his cousin. "Oh, God," he groaned, "My kid's growin' up, Bobby..."
"Suck it up, buttercup," grinned Bobby smugly.
"...And where the hell did he find out about sequential gearboxes?" Dean demanded. "That sort of shit is really difficult to pick up from a book."
"Didn't stop you figurin' it out," Bobby reminded him once more.
"Yeah, but it took me weeks! I destroyed the first one, and stripped the gears off the second one! I've had a look at what they're doing – I think top gear is a lost cause, but otherwise, he's getting it together, like he was following instructions, but I haven't..."
Dean's eyes narrowed as he turned to Bobby. "Have you been helping him?" he growled. "Bobby, have you been explaining motorcycle guts to my kid?"
"Nope," Bobby turned a page of his paper serenely, "If I had, I wouldn't tell ya, but nope. You've seen me – me and Sam have been busy researchin' a couple of potential jobs, and I got that translation to do. It aint me."
"Then if it's not you, who..." the sequential selectors in Dean's head clicked from first through to top, without even using the clutch. "I'll kill him," he stated firmly, "She taught him to weld, and now her asshat pair-bond husband is subverting my kid, when I get my hands on him next, so help me I'll..."
"Dangle amusingly from one paw when he picks you up by the scruff of your jacket, probably," predicted Bobby. "Make sure you do it when I'm around to watch. Or at least get someone to take pictures."
"I'll tell Ronnie, then," Dean fumed, "I'll tell her what Andrew is doin', and she can tear him a new one for me, she'll go completely momma-bear on his ass, and..." he stopped, listening to himself. "Fuck," he sighed.
"I believe the expression you're lookin' for is 'Dicks Before Chicks'," suggested Bobby, picking up a pencil. "Now, why don't you go and do something more useful than whining about the joys of parenthood, and leave a body to commune with the gods of the cruciverbalists in peace." He folded the paper carefully, and studied the crossword. "Or you can get yourself some coffee, and help me, here. Let's see, 'Our musical achieves the impossible' – what do ya think, referrin' to a Broadway show, or an anagram?"
Muttering something about crazy old farts who were clearly losing their marbles and no amount of exercising the grey matter would hang onto them, Dean stalked out.
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
After the kids had torn through the kitchen later, snacking like starving zombies in a neurosurgeon's office (and Frankie filling in the last couple of crossword clues with Bobby), Bobby made his way to the study, where Sam was still peering at a manuscript and his laptop as though they had both offended him mightily.
"No more luck?" prompted Bobby, putting the coffee down at the elbow of his practically-son.
"It doesn't make sense," griped Sam, clearly annoyed that the evidence wasn't lining up to point to an answer. "It just doesn't make sense. Unless there's some recent attempt to convene the Anti-Justice League Of Evil Entities Anonymous, coffee and cookies afterwards, nothing fits." He pointed to the screen. "Look, somebody attacked by 'a guy with a whole mouthful of fangs like a piranha, and tried to bite my neck'. Sounds like a vampire."
"Could just be a weirdo out for perverted kicks," Bobby pointed out. "You know, them 'sanguinarians'? The weirdos who insist that sunlight hurts, and they have to drink blood to 'boost their chakras', or somethin'?"
"Doesn't fit," grunted Sam, "The general public are all still convinced that vampires only have two prominent feeding fangs, and this guy was hardly a lifestyler – was wearing a plain tee and jeans, and no make-up. Then, there was this – a woman caught on CCTV breaking into a funeral home, and clearly observed eating a very fresh corpse."
"Ghoul?" mused Bobby.
"An then," Sam went on, "There's this – a woman claims she was robbed by somebody who was her exact replica. She managed to get some footage on her phone, and there's a definite flash of retinal flare."
"Shapeshifter?" Bobby looked perplexed.
"But shapeshifters don't, as a rule, have vertical slit pupils and canine teeth," Sam huffed, "Which is what a homeowner reported seeing on the last night of the full moon, when he was walking his dog after dark. He was attacked, but the dog fought with and drove off his attacker, and the vet treating the animal said the wounds looked like dog bites."
"Home-grown werewolf?" proposed Bobby.
"Or a shapeshifter impersonating a native werewolf," Sam sighed, sitting back and rubbing his eyes. "I don't know if that's even possible. They're both vulnerable to silver."
"Just you don't try to set up any experiments, young Victor," grunted Bobby.
"Then, there was the guy at the supermarket who, and I quote," Sam peered at the screen again, "According to one admittedly kind of traumatised witness, 'Turned into a Cardassian in the fresh food section, punched through the glass front of the butchers' display cabinet and began to eat handfuls of raw meat'."
"So, a vampire, dressed as a ghoul, who's actually a shapeshifter, who's impersonatin' a werewolf, who's havin' some sort of identity crisis and wants to live as a rugaru'," Bobby shook his head. "Could even want us to call him Loretta. That's some cabaret act. Hell, I'd buy a ticket, provided I could sit in the front row, armed to the teeth with everythin' I could carry."
Sam sipped at his coffee thoughtfully. Zeus pushed his head under his Alpha's arm, and whuffed reassuringly. Sam grinned, and scratched the dog's ears. "Yeah, you're probably right," he smiled down into adoring brown eyes, "Maybe I should take a break, let it run in the background for a while."
"You could let Frankie have a look," suggested Bobby. "It'd be good practice for her, and she's gettin' good at figuring things out."
Sam turned a sour look on his practically-father. "I thought she was exercising her reasoning on repairing that damned bike's tank," he said sourly.
"Did a good job, too, from what I could see," Bobby noted, "Although my jars have been seriously depleted." He paused. "Don't let Marcy hear that I said that, she'll be tryin' to rope me into one of her Tuppercrack parties again. There's somethin' unnaturally... intense about some o' them wimmen."
"Next time you see Crowley, you could always ask him whether the whole party plan thing was something he came up with," shrugged Sam.
"I aint summonin' that asshat demon just to satisfy my curiosity," growled Bobby. "It's bad enough that your nephew did, so I gotta set an example."
"What?" Sam did a visible double take. "RJ... did RJ summon Crowley?"
"For Cas's sake, don't tell your brother," muttered Bobby ominously. "They were doin' some project at school about slang, and somehow the topic of British slang came up, and apparently RJ thought that talking to somebody in the know would be quicker than readin' about it."
"Sam's eyes bugged. "Shit! What happened?"
"What d'ya think happened?" humphed Bobby. "His Hellside Majesty cheerfully obliged. Carefully spelled 'em out, so RJ could write 'em all down. Some of 'em, I had to go and look up. Then, I had to censor 'em down to a list suitable for submission by a 12-year-old. Shortened the list considerably, I can tell you. The boy was particularly fond of 'wanker', for a while."
"He could've picked that one up from Ronnie," Sam reminded him, "She uses that a lot. On Dean, mostly."
"Well, I've put a veto on summonin' the King of Hell to help with homework," Bobby stated, "He can suffer for his education like everybody else."
Sam smiled. "A couple of years back, I found Frankie praying to Cas, asking if she could talk to Einstein, so he could explain his theory of relativity to her."
Bobby sighed. "Oh dear, so, what happened?"
"Cas was really good about it," Sam explained, "He told her that Professor Einstein was still working on the details, and didn't have it all figured out just yet, but one day, when she goes to Heaven, she can sit in on as many of his lectures as she likes."
"You gotta give 'em full points for tryin', I suppose," Bobby decided, "Thinkin' outside the box, so to speak."
"Sometimes, I be happy for them to stay the hell in the box," Sam almost whined, "Are they seriously gonna get that bike running?"
"Could do," Bobby opined, "Why don't you do a bit of surveillance? You could take Zeus outside, and under the pretence of playing a game of F-R-I-S-B-E..."
Before Bobby had even finished spelling out the F-word (one of the words that must never be carelessly uttered out loud in a household with dogs, along with the B-word and the W-word and the V-word and the D-word), Zeus leapt to his feet, barked excitedly, and spun around on the spot a couple of times in excitement.
Sam drooped. "Even my dog is too smart for my peace of mind," he moaned, "Would it have helped if I'd named the kid Barbie, and the dog Goofy?"
"I doubt it," laughed Bobby. "Go on, he's worked it out, go before he knocks something over."
"It's ridiculous," Sam griped, "Do we need more damned code words? That's it, from now on, when anybody means the F-word, they will use the word 'Kenneth'." He stood up, sending Zeus into further paroxysms of doggy excitement. "Come on, then," he chuckled, "Let's go spy on the kids. If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if Somebody In Charge Up There hates me."
Whoever solves the cryptic clue first wins some chocolate-coated internets!
Meanwhile, what is this job that Sam's researching? Maybe Crowley is holding a Tupperware party for fuglies – "...And the airtight seal will keep brains, human flesh and even blood as fresh and delicious as when you tore them from their screaming owners!" – or make your own suggestions.
And send reviews to feed the plot bunny, Imogen-Bubba, because Reviews are the Self-Propagating Airtight Containers Breeding In The Kitchen Cupboards Of Life! (They do, you know. Breed, I mean. It's the only explanation. Although I haven't figured out where the lids go.)