Here we go. Bobby is drawn into this mess now. Poor Bobby. As always Thank you so much to everyone who takes the time to review. Especially my regular reviewers/readers. You know who you are. Much love to you all!
"They are not your boys, Bobby!"
Bobby Singer gritted his teeth and took a step closer to John, fists clenched at his sides. They both had the smell of alcohol on their breath, Bobby was acutely aware of it as he stood toe to toe with the patriarch of the Winchester clan.
"Damn right they aren't. 'Cause I wouldn't treat my sons the way you treat yours! I wouldn't treat my dog that way." Bobby gestured at the old Rottweiler chained by the car.
"Watch it," John said dangerously.
"I've been watching you and Sam go at it like a couple of rams in season for two weeks. You are driving Sam away and you haven't got the common sense to see it. He ain't a hunter, John. He ain't cut out for it. He's trying to tell you in every way he knows how but you won't listen, you idjit. ...And Dean...Dean is caught smack dab in the middle between you two stubborn asses."
John was watching him with a strange expression in his eye and Bobby could see the vein pop out on the side of his neck. "They're my boys, Bobby! You are not their father. You aren't even a parent. You have no clue."
Something about that hurt Bobby on a deep level. He didn't show it. "Don't take a parent to see what effect you're having on them, John. Just takes someone who ain't got his head up his ass."
John swung at him. Bobby was ready and he sidestepped the blow, exhaling hard through his nostrils. "So what? You're gonna knock me on my ass now 'cause you don't like what I'm telling you?"
Surprisingly, John backed off a step. Bobby was genuinely angry now. He could feel the heat rising in him. The defensive, righteous anger for the boys. The distinctly paternal protectiveness he felt for them. John Winchester had the best boys Bobby had ever known and he was hurting them. Like he always unknowingly had.
For years, Bobby had cut him some slack knowing that John's sins were not on purpose. -That he had a point about raising them to defend themselves. To be independent. To be strong. But he was breaking his youngest under the strain. Sam was like a rogue stallion waiting to challenge the alpha of the herd and Dean... poor Dean- always the mediator. Always the middleman. Torn loyalties tearing him up inside.
Bobby ran a hand over his unkempt beard, glaring daggers at his friend. Blue eyes awash with pain and anger. "So I'm supposed to raise these boys for weeks at a time since Sam's barely out of kindergarten- feed them, teach them, take them places-and I don't get to have an opinion on what happens to them 'cause I ain't there daddy? Cause I gotta say that deal looks pretty damn unfair from where I'm standin'."
John softened slightly. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess it does." He said quietly. "You gotta trust me that I know what's best for my boys, Bobby. Sam needs to respect me. I need to back you to back me up on this... Please."
Bobby felt his temper start to cool a little. "Yeah, well..." he left the rest unfinished, didn't say what he was thinking: Yeah well they're the only reason I've gotten out of bed some days. The thing I love most in the world. What's given me the most laughs. The people I think about the most. The reason I keep your friggin' ass around. Instead he said, "Sam's a stubborn ass just like his Daddy."
John smiled, his teeth startlingly white against his scruffy salt and pepper growth of beard. It was easy to see where the boys had gotten their looks on the rare occasions that John didn't look like a scowling poster board for PTSD. "That he is."
Bobby turned to the house. "I'm done standing in this friggin' sun." He frowned underneath the brim of his beat up baseball cap. They'd resolved nothing really. There was so much he wanted to say that he knew would be ill-received. So much he had to choke down and shut up about if he wanted to be able to help the kids at all. It would probably come out someday at the worst possible moment. Bobby knew as surely as he knew there would be a point where Sam and John's fights would culminate in some irreparable falling out-which is to say, definitely- that he and John Winchester would have a show down. He knew both of their tempers.
When it happened, it was going to be one hell of a storm and the boys would be caught right in the eye of it. It wasn't fair what they so often found themselves in the center of, burdens too big for grown men thrown right into their laps from the time they were in grade school. John put those burdens on them and it pissed Bobby off to no end.
Sam wasn't going to be okay at this rate and if Sam wasn't okay, Dean wouldn't be okay either. Common friggin' sense. The stubborn old jackass was going to lose both his boys to the memory of a wife who'd been gone so long Sam didn't even have a memory of her. He, himself, knew the pain of losing his wife to a demon. Knew it. Understood the drive in John- but goddamn if Bobby would understand why he'd want to throw his own kids under the bus for revenge. What would that accomplish? Just more wreckage, more pain, more suffering to feed the bastard that had already destroyed the Winchester's lives.
Fucking stubborn, short-sighted John. Why were all his friends that way? Assholes, the lot of them.
