Bobby sighed. "Oh boy.", he grumbled and leaned back in the chair he had pulled up beside Sam's bed as soon as Dean had left. "You're gonna be the death of me.", he added after watching him for a long while. "Would it be so difficult to not let yourself be used as a damn punching ball all the damn time?"
He adjusted the shotgun, which rested in his lap.
Bobby groaned and stretched and toed his boots off, wiggling his toes and feet. He stole a glance at the open door and outside into the corridor, where he could hear heavy footfalls echoing. – Narrowing slowly.
They eventually stopped, then they continued.
Bobby waited patiently.
Eventually John Winchester appeared in the threshold and leaned against it, two glasses in one hand, a bottle in the other one.
He showed them to Bobby. "Peace Offering?", he asked, sounding at least as tired, as the bearded hunter looked.
Bobby straightened up with a wince, his joints popping audibly, muscles protested from yet behind held in another uncomfortable position after the long drive. His hand closed around the shotgun, pointing-finger resting behind the trigger.
"Depends.", he answered gruffly.
John pushed away from the threshold and walked into the room, past the bed, Bobby and straight for the table with the duffel on it.
"You got into a bar-fight?", Bobby asked, gesturing towards the other elder hunter.
John chuckled. "Nah." He answered and poured them some of the booze into the glasses. "Ran into a demon-nest."
Bobby made a sound, keeping a close eye on the other hunter. "Bet your boy filled you in?", he asked, when John handed him one of the glasses.
John nodded. "He did."
"So. – What now?", Bobby watched the Winchester carefully, as he knew exactly how dangerous he could get, despite that he didn't look like it.
John nodded towards the shotgun in Bobby's lap. "There's no necessity for this.", he told him and gulped down the entire glass in one go.
"Says who? YOU?" Bobby adjusted the weapon in his lap for John to see, to show him that he didn't give a shit about what he was saying.
"Look, Bobby. I'm a different man now.", he said. "And I'm sorry."
Bobby looked up at the other man in surprise. "John Eric Winchester is apologizing? To me?" The grizzled hunter couldn't quite believe it. "I'm flattered." There was a beat of silence, John staring at the older man. "That's something I'm gonna believe, when I see it myself."
Usually, the old John would've lashed out on the old man already. Bobby was provoking him on purpose, testing the waters.
John knew that. Bobby knew that John knew.
Bobby sniffed at the glass and tilted an eyebrow at John. He then handed it back to John. "I wanna see the bottle. I wanna see you pouring it in. I wanna see you drink from the same glass."
~*Apple Pie & Bacon*~
They drank then, and talked for a while. Bobby kept a watchful eye on his son and John. John offered Bobby an own room down the corridor, but Bobby turned it down, demanding on staying with Sam for the night.
Castiel stopped by later on and gave the colt back to Bobby.
~*Apple Pie & Bacon*~
Bobby had fallen asleep in the chair, legs propped up on the bed, colt in hand, head fallen back, his mouth open as he snored along.
John had fallen asleep in the chair a couple of feet away from Bobby, legs propped up on the table with Sam's duffel, glass in hand, head fallen back, his mouth open as he snored with the other man in union.
~*Apple Pie & Bacon*~
Neither of them heard the footsteps.
Neither of them woke, when Dean Winchester entered the room with a tray in his hands. Wearing loose sweatpants and a grey shirt.
Dean slowed down, when he spotted the two men sleeping in the chairs. He crossed the distance between the door and Sam's bed and placed the tray with a water-bottle, a syringe, two vials and a bowl of oatmeal on the floor beside it.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, eying the still sleeping man intently for a long time.
"Sam?", he eventually said, keeping his voice low so not to wake the other two.
Sam stirred.
"Sam." Dean laid his hand on the man's bare shoulder and squeezed gently. "Hey."
It took the younger man a few moments until he came around, slowly waking up. Eventually, his eyelids fluttered open and he blinked lazily.
"Bobby?", he croaked out, his look caught on Dean.
"Old grumpy's out cold.", Dean explained with a warm smile. "Got you breakfast. Something to drink. And meds."
Sam made a sound. "Yeah?"
"Yeah.", Dean answered. "How're you feeling today?"
Sam blinked again, and tried to take a deep inhale. He failed though, as it caused a very uncomfortable ache in his back at stomach.
"Like shit."; he murmured and smacked his dry lips. His head still felt fuzzy, his intestines liquified and his arms heavy as if someone had bound weights to them.
"You've been runnin' a fever.", Dean pointed out and extended his hand to feel the younger man's forehead.
Sam pulled away from the imminent touch, telling the other man with one look to not touch him.
"You're looking better." Dean sighed and withdrew his hand. "How's your belly?"
"Hurts.", Sam answered prying his eyes open again.
"I've got you some more of the good stuff.", he said with a smirk, "Kinda blew you away yesterday." Dean grinned amused. Because THAT had been fun. – Except for, well, the puking of course. It would take WEEKS to get that reek out of his baby.
How Sam wished he would be strong enough to smack that grin out of the angel's face.
Sam nodded, then shook his head gingerly. "No.", he murmured and closed his eyes for a moment. He tried to prop up on his elbows, but his body failed him. "No more drugs."
"Okay." The hunter seemed kind of disappointed at his response. Like stealing a puppy-dogs favorite chew-toy. "How about food then? It's still warm."
Sam shook his head again, slow, so not to cause any more pain to any part of his body. "Water?", he asked.
"Can you sit up?", he asked back with a nod.
Samman tried to scoot back, but failed at that task too. With a grunt, he let himself sink back into the soft mattress, heavily breathing.
Dean gave him time to try it again. Only when Sam had proofed to himself, what the Winchester already had figured out, he offered him his help.
Sam cast his look aside – away from the man on whose mercy he thought he was.
"Don't be a bitch.", Dean murmured, obviously becoming a little impatient.
Sam still wouldn't look at him. "Where are we anyway?", he asked, spotting his duffel on the table by the stranger's man's feet.
"Lebanon, Kansas.", Dean answered, "Men of Letters bunker. – Our Lair."
Sam trained his gaze at the bag. Dean followed his look.
"Don't worry. No one touched your stuff, dude.", he huffed out a breath and shook his head.
Sam turned his head slowly and eyed him carefully. Obviously weighing something, as his eyes narrowed.
"Would you mind and get it for me?", he asked, a hint of suspiciousness to his voice.
"Yeah sure." But Dean didn't move an inch. "First you drink. Then I'll get you the duffel."
Sam's gave him a real bitchy face. "Give me my bag, please."; Sam said more demanding.
The younger Winchester shook his head – again he had that amused expression all over his face.
"Give me my bag.", Sam's voice rose, though it was hoarse and that he sounded roughed up, and was anything else but threatening.
"No." Dean reached for the bottle and held it so Sam could see it.
"Give me my damn bag!", Sam growled as loud as he possibly could, his eyes flashing black.
That definitely woke the other two men.
John nearly toppled sideways along with his chair, all flying arms and legs. Glass slipping from his hand and falling to the ground, bouncing off the floor without breaking.
Bobby had the colt in his hand, waving it at something before him with wild gestures, feet slipping to the ground with a thud.
Dean stayed unimpressed. "We both know you won't hurt anyone, right?", he said calmly.
John's look darted to the bed. A pair of black eyes was all it took to let him reach for the hilt of his knife at his back.
"Don't." Bobby was on his feet and pointing the colt at the other man.
Dean rose his hand, sharing a brief look with his father. "It's fine, dad.", he said.
Sam looked over at Bobby, then the bag. The expression on his face desperate. No anger. No fury.
"I've hidden it, son. Don't you worry." Bobby uncocked his gun, when John's hand came out to the front again without the knife. "Wouldn't leave it out in the open like that."
Sam panted, the blackness draining away slowly and his eyes cleared completely.
"I won't let you blackmail me.", Sam ground out through gritted teeth, staring Dean square in the face.
"It's not exactly blackmailing." Dean countered.
"It is." Sam stared daggers at the man. "And you know it."
"I don't, kiddo.", Dean disagreed. Well yeah, he did, but he didn't care. Besides, teasing the living shit out of the man amused him more than anything else had been capable during the past couple of months.
"I'm not a kid.", Sam insisted, bitch-facing the angel again.
"You're behaving like one. – So, stop it, Sammy."
"I'm not a chubby eight-year-old either, you angel-douche.", he countered.
"Would you PLEASE shut up?", Bobby yelled, gripping his forehead with his free hand. "The two of you are givin' me a dam headache."
All eyes were on the old man, who tugged the colt into the front of his jeans and rubbed over his beard, before he faced the two of them on the bed.
"And you.", he was addressing Sam. "Don't be an idiot and drink the damn water." Then he looked at John, asking him to say something too.
John stood there for a moment. Baffled. "Dean, stop messing around.", he ordered his son.
"So – what about that room you suggested?", Bobby asked John and gestured towards the door, grumbling something unintelligible.
~*Apple Pie & Bacon*~
After that was settled, and Sam had drunk the water and knew that the tablet was safe and for no-one but him or Bobby to be reached, he drifted off into a light sleep again, despite the angel still sitting with him.
~*Apple Pie & Bacon*~
When Dean returned to the kitchen, there were his father and Robert Singer. John had a dishtowel thrown over his shoulder as he stood by the stove, stirring in a pan.
It smelled like scrambled eggs.
Robert was sitting on the bench, a mug in hand and his other one braced against his forehead, as if to easy a hangover's headache.
Dean went to the sink, where he placed the tray. He then restored the vials in the fridge and took the bowl with untouched oatmeal and the spoon and walked over to the table where he sat down with a sigh.
"It's a tablet.", Bobby spoke up, when Dean was half through the bowl with sticky food. "And it's got somethin' to do with Purgatory, to be precise."
John kept on stirring in the pan, as if he hasn't heard anything.
Dean let the spoon sink into the bowl and looked up.
"We're sure – if we figure out how to read it – we'll be able to throw them all back to where they came from." Bobby paused. "Angels, Demons, Leviathans."
John froze mid-stir. He pulled the pan from the stove and turned around to face the old hunter. "What?"
"You're kiddin' right?", Dean asked, obviously assuming that the old man must've gotten crazy over the years.
Bobby gave the young Winchester a dead-serious glare.
"Never heard about something like that.", Dean stated and leaned back a bit, all ears now.
"Long story short, we suppose there're three tablets. One for each world. Hell, Heaven and Purgatory.", he explained calmly and drank something from the black liquid, which smelled a lot like coffee, but didn't taste like it. "Back in the day, Sam witnessed some things, which make us think, that that's our holy grail."
"And you have one of them? You're sure?", John pushed away from the stove and sauntered towards the table. "How come? Someone must've heard about tablets at some point, if it's like you say."
Bobby shrugged. "Sam tracked it down about a year and half ago. It's been hidden in a crypt. – Since back then we're trying to figure out how to read it."
"And you haven't told anyone so far, because?", John asked further, sounding a bit offended about being left out.
"Because it's too important. – Because, IF the leviathans get a whiff of it, it won't be easy to hide anymore."
Bobby had a point. He didn't need to say out loud, that he didn't trust anyone with it. – At least not until now.
"Now, that the demons seem to know that we have it, and they're hellbent to bogart it from us, it won't take long until angels and leviathans will be comin' after us too." Bobby leaned back, sniffing at the black liquid once again.
"The bunker's a fortress. – Nothing supernatural's comin' in or out." John sat down too and pursed his lips. "You and the tablet're gonna be perfectly safe here."
Bobby eyed Dean's father for a long time. Assessing him. "And Sam?", he asked curiously, "He'll be safe too? – Or are you gonna decide that he won't be worth it anymore, as soon as you've got what you want?"
John made a frustrated sound at the back of his throat. "I already told you. – I trust you. You say he's one of ours. Fine. He's one of ours. You say he's to be trusted. Okay. I'll roll with it." He ran a hand through his short-spiked hair and down his beard. "BUT. – If I get the feeling, that he's a threat to the people here, to the hunters outside these doors, you'll have to know, that I won't hesitate to take him out within a blink."
John was honest with him.
Bobby could see that, but he's had also learned his lessons when it came to that man. May he be a different man now, but it wouldn't make forgotten what had happened so many years ago.
If it had been for John – Sam'd be dead now. And John not recognizing Sam right away, took a buttload of worries off the older man's shoulders.
"And what was your plan?", Dean asked, and shoved another gooped spoon with oatmeal into his mouth.
"We'll figure out how to decipher the tablet, and if we're lucky, there'll be some useful information on it on how to get rid of them." Another pause, another cautious sip from the dark liquid from his mug. "So far no luck though. – There's to be something out there to make them readable."
The sound of shuffling cut through the corridor and soft footfalls were heard.
Bobby perked up from the mug and turned towards the open door. "Someone else in the bunker but us, Charlie and Feathers?" He cocked an eyebrow.
His question was answered right away by a petite girl, messed up red hair with headphones on, wearing an oversized Pac-man pajama, come dancing around the corner. The muffled tunes of Walking on Sunshine were heard.
Bobby's eyebrows rose.
The girl kept on dancing, shaking off like no-one was watching (probably because she thought no one was watching because she figured she was on her own).
"That's Charlie?" Bobby's voice high-pitched, as he stared wide-eyed at the girl. "Thought she's a guy."
Dean rolled the heap of oatmeal around the insides of his mouth, trying to force it down, before breaking out into a laughter and spitting his mouth's ingredients all over the table.
Torn out of her dance, Charlie froze as she realized that she was so NOT alone.
Her shoulders pulled up, she made a face and rose her hand at the men. "Good morning, bitches." Her eyes held a mischievous spark of joy. She tugged the headphones down and hurried over to Bobby, extending her hand.
"Bobby, right?", she asked, "Cas told me about you and your friend and I'm so happy to finally meet you in person." The words spilled out of her like a waterfall. "I actually thought you're a girl. Castiel actually thinks I shouldn't tell you that, but I figure you're so cool, so you won't mind."
Bobby took her delicate hand and squeezed it gently as if he was afraid of breaking it if he'd grip her too hard.
She opened her mouth to continue, but Dean was the first one to speak up and stop the supposedly never-ending flood of talk. "Charlie's our very own in-house-geek."
"I'm a genius, dude." Her shoulders slumped. "We've to have a talk about the spell book, about what I wrote to you. I've let it run through my CBDIOA and-"
"CBDIOA?" Bobby made a face and quirked his right eyebrow at her.
"Charlie Bradbury's Decoding Interface Of Awesomeness.", she explained in one long go.
A silent "o" formed on the hunter's lips. "It's way too early for that", he grumbled into his beard.
"I'm in Room 33 … so … if you wanna stop by?", she asked with hope-filled eyes.
Bobby gave her a nod.
"You can't miss it.", she wiggled her eyebrows at the old man and tugged her headphones back on.
John chuckled. "Guess she's the daughter I've never had.", he shook his head, his face slightly flushed.
"Yeah, just follow the path of awesomeness down the hall of girly-ness." Dean joked. "She's leaving glitter and sprinkles wherever our queen may moves."
John gave his son a look.
Dean rose both hands in defeat. "Just warning Robert, so he doesn't miss the way markers she put up last week."
"I'm Bobby by the way.", Robert Singer looked over at Dean.
~*Apple Pie & Bacon*~
A/N: SOOOO? What do you think so far?
Oh, and I may will pause this story, so I can finish "Darkness Surrounds You".
Other than that: What about stuffing my hungry muse's cakehole? Huh?