A/N: This one is horrible ... It was real hard to write ... nonetheless, here we go :)
Chapter 5 ~ The Bunker
The Impala pulled up inside the garage.
Lights flickered on. Revealing some Oldtimers – or sort of – cars the British Men of Letters had left behind.
Among them a dirty Pickup-Truck, which didn't quite fit the pattern.
The low rumble of the Impala's engine died away and three of the car's doors opened short after.
Cas was the first one to get out.
Dean straightened up, stretched and went straight for the fourth unopened door. He wrenched it open in a way, so that it looked brutal.
"There we go.", Dean murmured, as he leaned into the back-space of the car, hoovering over their passenger. He took him in, assessing him.
Sam was sweaty and pale and his dry lips caused the gash on his split lip to bleed again. The man's eyes were opened to small slits.
Dean tugged the blanket down, while Bobby was still in the backseat, Sam's precious duffel slung over his shoulder, one hand on the kid's lower arm.
The old man gave Dean an insecure look.
Then Castiel came up behind the angelic hunter and lurked over his shoulder inside the car.
"Next time you better humor me.", Dean giving his friend a punishing side-glance.
The sharp stench of bile was still lingering in the car and it'd take more than only one clean-up to get the smell out of his baby.
"He is a big man, Dean,", Castiel reminded him unnecessarily. "I could not know that he will not be able to handle it."
"Bobby told you he's never had morphine before.", Dean gave back, while he pulled the blanket away completely.
Castiel rolled with his eyes. "He probably would have vomited anyway."
"You sure your dad's okay with bringing us along?", Bobby asked as he made his way out of the car and rounded it. He was actually asking if John Winchester was okay to bring Sam along.
"I'll talk to him.", Dean answered casually. – His attention still trained on Sam. "Don't you worry."
"Sam?" Dean's hand found his arm, covering it. "Buddy. – We'll get you comfortable."
Sam blinked his eyes lazily at him and swallowed. "I feel like crap.", he murmured, "Think 'm gonna be sick."
"Don't puke on me.", Dean half-joked, when he hosteled the giant man out of the car.
~*Apple Pie & Bacon*~
Dean and Bobby dragged Sam through half of the bunker, bypassing the library and the map's room on their way to Room 21 on purpose.
Castiel disappeared somewhere along their way with his and Dean's duffel.
Once they reached Room 21, they settled Sam on top of the covers of a single bed.
Bobby dumped the duffel beside it and went straight for the door which high likely would be the bathroom. He left the door open and went through the closets until he found an abandoned dusty cup, cleaned it and filled it with water.
Dean busied himself with pulling the dirty socks from Sam's feet and threw them towards the door.
He then went for the too small button down-shirt and worked it open – button by button. When he was done, Bobby was back at the bed, placing the cup with water on the nightstand.
"We'll find something that fits. – Have some spare clothes in one of the storage rooms of the basement. – I'll show you later.", Dean explained, when he kneeled on the bed with his right knee and snug with his arm under Sam's neck to lift him from the mattress.
Bobby went to tug Sam's shirt up and over his head. He discharged it close to the dirty socks.
Bobby watched the hunter warily, when he lowered his friend back down carefully, and adjusted the pillow, so it looked more comfortable to rest on.
"Blankets.", Dean said, "Two rooms over on the left. There's a dresser on the back of the room. Second drawer." He looked up at Bobby, and adjusted the pillow some more, tugging on its ends, and removing some of the wrinkles in the process.
Bobby hesitated and stared down at Dean, then back at Sam.
"I won't bite him." Dean, who was feeling the man's unease, looked back up over his shoulder and gave him a charming smile. "Not yet anyway."
"Idiot.", Bobby grumbled back at him. Reluctantly, he left the room though.
Dean blew out a sigh and tugged his checkered scarf loose.
His look roamed over the man's body, the stitched-up gash on his flat stomach and his narrow hip-bones which disappeared in a sharp line under his jeans. – Along with two thin scars, which looked like someone had drawn along them.
The man's jeans were dirty.
Stained with blood and bile and dust.
They needed to come off.
With another heavy sigh, Dean shifted and started to work on opening the fly. When he was about to pull the zipper down, Sam stirred.
A soft moan fell from the man's lips under him, and he shifted, his hips moving slightly away from the touch.
"It's fine. I'm gettin' you out of these, Sam." Dean's hand found its way onto the man's chest, sprawling it over his solar-plexus.
"No.", it was barely audible despite the silence.
"I can't have you mess up the covers, dude.", Dean's eyebrows furrowed. "You're dirty and you stink."
There was a weak attempt of a giant hand to push Dean's away from his jeans.
"Sam.", he pulled his hand from Sam's sternum and caught his hand, settling it back down beside him, holding it there – which didn't require force at all.
The man's lips moved. His breath hitched and morphed from even and slow into fast and shallow.
"Sam." Of course Dean Winchester picked up on his confusion. "Sam." He started to draw gentle circles with his thumb into the back of the younger man's hand. "You're okay, buddy."
There were a lot of "go-aways", "leave-me-alones", "pleases" and "don't-do-this's" among a whole lot of indistinctness's.
"Sam.", Dean repeated calmly.
Sam's eyes fluttered open and closed again. "Don't." he breathed. "Please, Don't."
"He's had tough times in the past.", came Bobby's voice from the door, who was standing there, a pile of blankets in hands. "He mostly gets like this, when he's having a rough time after …."
Dean looked up over the body before him, his jaw set, his features mostly unreadable to anyone who didn't know him.
Tears gathered in Sam's eyes, tugging at the hand which was holding his, in an attempt to pull it away.
Dean didn't let him.
"We've all had tough times, Robert.", Dean said in that low tone that let on, that he knew that there had to be more to it.
"Comes with the business.", Bobby added and walked towards the bed and placed the blankets at its foot. He shrugged at Dean, but the man's eyes told him, that Sam must have had more than just rough times.
THis wasn't just because of the business. It was worse than that – so bad, that Bobby had felt utterly sad, even hurt, as if something was ripping his heart out and squeezing it to mush.
Dean let it slip. – For now.
He might would learn about Sam's past if Bobby and he were going to stick around a while longer.
"You can get them off of him. – He won't stop.", Bobby took one of the blankets and shook it out. He then placed it beside Dean for later. "And he won't remember."
Dean gave him a questioning look. "You sure?", he asked. …
"Pretty sure.", Bobby answered.
~*Apple Pie & Bacon*~
Dean was satisfied with how the man looked all tugged into a comfortable bed.
He had passed out again, as soon as Dean had gotten rid of Sam's filthy pair of jeans and had discharged on top of the shirt and socks. He had covered him with two blankets. He had tried to get some water into the man.
Sam had drunk – even if it hadn't been much.
Bobby walked over to the nearby table and placed Sam's bag with their precious freight there.
"You asked me earlier, what Sam is …", Bobby spoke up when he sensed the man approaching him from behind. He looked up, his face covered in tired lines and worry. "He's human. – He may's different, but he's feeling happiness, pain, sorrow and all the shit humans feel.", he explained calmly. "So, I didn't care back then, and I surely won't start to care about it now. – He's saved my ass more than once." He paused.
"To be perfectly clear about this. He's my son, he'll ever be. – So, if your daddy ain't fine with him being here, he ain't fine with me bein' here either." Bobby paused again, making sure Dean Winchester was capable of following up on what he was telling him. Because this was essential. "To make myself clear. – I don't trust any of you. You understand me?"
Dean straightened up and nodded curtly. "I do, Robert." He did, he could relate – even though he didn't have kids, nor did he have any other relatives than his father – he knew that there was more to family than only blood.
The old man was as protective of Sam, as Dean was of the people he was living in the bunker with. He wouldn't let anyone harm them either. They were his family.
To him – neither Bobby nor Sam – seemed to be a real threat at the moment to any of them. Specially not Robert Singer.
Though, he wasn't quite sure what to think about Demon-Boy.
Back at the salvage, Sam have had more than only one chance on killing him. He could've let him run into one of the traps on the yard. He could've locked him into the room in Bobby's basement, let him rot there. And he could've tried to smoke him out (if that was even possible). But he hadn't.
Besides that. He's heard about Robert Singer before. From his father. From Charlie. From other hunters and huntresses. And from what he could tell and from what he had heard, the man was as solid as a rock. A source of wisdom. Someone who would never take deals with any creature, nor giving one shelter, if it wasn't for him KNOWING that it wasn't as dangerous as any human could ever be.
"I get it. – I do." Dean pursed his lips, thinking if some more credit of trust would take the edge off of the old man and smooth the way towards the talk they were going to have with John.
"You know what I am?", Dean asked then, because, finding common ground, may would help the whole thing.
"Tell Tales.", Bobby answered and glanced over at the sleeping form on the bed, one hand resting on the duffel on the table. "You're some kind of Angel, John Winchester's son and you're fighting on humanity's side."
That about summed it up.
"I'm a Grigori. – Re-born into a human body." Dean took a step back, a spark of white light washed through his green irises. "I'm juicing up on human life-force if necessary. Mostly some scum-bag who doesn't deserve better." It was his turn to give Bobby time to process what he was telling him. "So, I think, dad will be able to relate at some point. – Because I don't see a whole lot of differences between me and Sam." He motioned towards the bed.
"I'll give you my word, that no one in here will try anything to hurt your son." He looked and sounded utterly sincere and honest about his words.
"Are we done with our little heart to heart, princess?", Bobby asked, a small smile tugging on his lips.
"Sure." Dean turned around to leave the room.
"And tell Feathers I want my colt back.", the grizzled hunter ordered.
~*Apple Pie & Bacon*~
Dean rounded the corner into the kitchen.
He was exhausted. Tired. Starving.
Castiel sat in the kitchen at the table, two glasses with water standing in front of him. The smell of weed, which had been following him around and being omnipresent fading.
John was sitting slightly hunched over on the opposite side of him with a glass of self-made booze. (Because nowadays was mostly everything self-made or traded in.) Salt & pepper-hair ruffled, a week's scruff in his face, dark circles under his eyes. A package of frozen something pressed against the left side of his face.
Dean slumped down on the bench beside Castiel and reached for one of the glasses filled with water.
"Cas already filled me in.", John's gravely, rough voice broke the silence. "You took them with."
The days, where he would talk like the ex-con he was, long gone. After Azazel was dead, his wife revenged, he had changed. So, it didn't sound so much of an accusation as it high likely had years before.
It had more of: Spill. What do you think, boy? What do we know? Give me a follow-up.
Dean gulped down half of the glass and rubbed over his face. "The kid seems pretty much human, except for that-" He gestured towards his own eyes, "Eye-thing he has going on. – Robert seems to trust him with his life. And for what I've heard he doesn't do such a thing recklessly." Dean emptied his glass with water and exchanged it with the other one.
Castiel grabbed the emptied one and went to refill it.
"We went back inside to get something important. – The kid expelled a demon – smoked it out." Dean emptied the second glass and rolled with his left shoulder, in an attempt to ease some of the tension there. And the lingering ache from being thrown into a wall.
"Whatever it is we went back inside to get it. The demons have the hots for it too." Dean took the refilled glass Castiel placed before him. "He's been on a hunt a couple of days ago. – Run into a trap like some other hunters." Dean paused, recalling if he's forgotten something. "I've placed him Room 21 for now."
He straightened up in his sitting position and stretched. "Robert's with him. – Guess he won't let him out of his sight until the both of you have a talk."
"Do we know what the important thing is?", John asked, his eyes practically glued to his son's face.
"A Tablet?", Dean questioned, "Whatever it is, or what it's capable of, it's in the bunker now." The pretty much safest place on this good forsaken earth to keep something demons are after, Dean added in his thoughts.
John gave an approving sound. "What about Bobby? He said something?"
Dean chuckled. "Yeah. – As much as, if we – I think he referred to you in the first place – lay hands on his boy, we're dead." His lips tugged into a sympathetic smile.
"Sounds like him.", John murmured and took a sip from his booze. "Can't blame him. I've been no one to get around easy." John's look was soft, slightly amused too.
Dean gestured towards his father, pointing at the package with frozen whatever-Cas-had-quick-frozen. "What happened to you?"
"There was no werewolf-pack. Ran into a group of demons instead.", John grumbled – a bit embarrassed, "Me and Ellen barely made it out of the woods." He groaned when he pulled the icy bag back, only to push it against his jaw again.
"So, you don't think Bobby'll join us any time soon?", John asked after a while.
Dean shook his head. "If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain."
The younger Winchester got to his feet and went towards the kitchen cabinets. He opened one of the cupboards, where their emergency-stock of booze was, took one of the bottles and placed it in front of his father on the table.
They locked eyes. "The man looks like he could need one." … or the entire bottle.
Dean cast his look at Castiel and nudged him in the shoulder. "Robert wants his gun back, by the way."
~*Apple Pie & Bacon*~