"This is about me and Sam." He peered at Dean through slightly narrowed eyes, not sure he was hearing him right through the slight buzzing filling his ears. Dean confirmed his suspicion when he added, "This isn't your fight."

Bobby Singer could only stand there in the middle of his salvage yard and listen to Dean tell him how this fight wasn't his and that he didn't need to get involved. Fury reached up to choke him and kept him from saying or doing anything for several minutes.

You stupid son of a... he thought as his fingers twitched at his sides. How the hell could Dean say that to him? After everything, they had gone through after their daddy's death? All the fights they had gotten into? The jobs they worked? The whiskey they guzzled down? Before he could think better of it, he stormed up to Dean and got right in his face.

"The hell it isn't!"

Surprise raced across Dean's face. Bobby knew he was not used to having anyone outside of his daddy and Sam get into his face and call him out on his crap. However, Bobby had reached the end of his patience with the oldest Winchester and decided it was time to tell him a thing or two before they went off to meet their makers.

"Family don't end with blood, boy."

They didn't begin with blood, either. Not that he added that part. He didn't feel like he needed to tell Sam and Dean that. No more than he felt a need to explain why he ended up raisin' them for a time. They didn't need any reminders about how their daddy had been too busy searching for the son of a bitch who murdered their mother to focus on raisin' them. And they may act like a pair of prancing princesses at times, but they were still great in his — admittedly jaded — opinion. They were more than great, actually. They were his.

And they weren't going off to fight for Dean's twisted soul without him.

"Bobby…" Dean began but Bobby cut off whatever line he was about to feed him before he could even get it off the grill.

"You two jackasses need me."

"Bobby..."

"You're playing wounded, Dean."

"So?" Outwardly, Dean's face showed nothing. However, you couldn't con a con artist. Bobby knew he had rattled the boy by revealing he wasn't all there. "What's that—"

"Tell me." Bobby knew he was badgering the hell outta Dean. And steppin' all over his insecurities. However, it was the only way to get things through Dean's thick skull. It was the only way to get things through John's thick skull, too. Just like your damn daddy, there.

"How many hallucinations have you had so far?"

Dean visibly swallowed as Sam turned to look at him, confusion and a good deal of fear stamped upon his face. He then looked over at Dean who avoided his gaze.

"How'd you know?"

The words were barely a mumble.

"Because that's what happens when you've got hellhounds on your butt." When Dean frowned at him, he added, his tone like flint, "And because I'm smart."

Dean stared down at the ground, clearly unsettled at having his secret outed. Bobby couldn't help that. It needed sayin' and he figured he was the only one capable of sayin' it. He handed him the distributor cap he had swiped while he and Sam had bickered in the basement.

"I'll follow," he said before he turned to walk to his car. "And don't be stopping to pee every ten minutes, either."

A/N: Hello, all! Hope this finds you well!

This is tagged to episode 3x16