You Know They Won’t Be Home Tonight, for mahoni (gen, PG-13)

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Title: You Know They Won’t Be Home Tonight
Author: se_parsons / Bob Marley
Recipient: mahoni
Rating: PG-13, swearing, violence
Author's Notes: 7,093 words. Disclaimer: Owned by Kripke and large corporations. I am making no profit. Bobby is of the good. And yeah, the title’s the inevitable pretentious Zeppelin reference of not being able to think of something to call it. Thanks to Hossgal for last-minute insta-beta, or I wouldn’t have gotten it in in time.
Summary: For Mahoni’s prompt: “teen!Sam&Dean are dropped off to stay with Bobby, and a case finds them.” It’s not exactly what she asked for, but it was what was in me to write and I hope it’s ok.


It was an incontrovertible truth that things you promised when you were drunk were bound to come back to bite you in the ass.

“Bobby, you there?” the voice on the porch yelled again, and the door rattled in its frame.

“Comin’,” Bobby grumbled, suppressing a yawn.

The pounding at the front door continued and Bobby called the dogs to heel while he juggled the flask of Holy Water and the shotgun while he tried to manipulate the locks with sleep-drugged fingers.

“Stop your damned poundin’, I’m here!” he said, getting the lock open at last and opening the door to level the shotgun at the man on the porch. “What’re you doin’ here? It’s the middle of the damned night! You ain’t bleedin or anythin’?”

John Winchester managed to look slightly sheepish, which wasn’t a natural expression on his usually grim face.

“Sorry about that, Bobby,” John said. “No, I’m not, but…” If it was possible, John looked even more sheepish, and Bobby got a really bad feeling in his gut.

“First, take a drink of this and then tell me the trouble,” Bobby offered the Holy Water flask.

John smiled ruefully, knowing it was mostly a ritual of Bobby’s, seeing demons were his specialty, but he took a slug from the flask without protest.

“I’m in hot pursuit, but… it’s the… the thing, Bobby, the thing that took Mary and tried to kill my boys. I know it is this time, and…” John looked excited in a way that a man preparing to go up against an unknown something with enough power to incinerate his wife before his eyes should never ever look excited. Then he frowned. “But, I just… it’s dangerous…and I… and you said that we could stop…if we needed someplace. But I don’t need someplace…”

Bobby got an even worse feeling now.

“…but they do.” John stepped aside to reveal exactly what Bobby had been afraid of, the boys nobody but Jim Murphy had claimed ever to have seen, but which John constantly talked about whenever he wasn’t talking shop. It was two in the goddamned a.m. and the older one, who couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve, was standing there sober as a judge holding the younger one draped over his shoulder, sound asleep. John’s older son was not the biggest kid in the world, and his brother wasn’t small, but he was just standing there, with arms locked around his brother like a good little soldier, waiting for John’s orders.

Bobby probably let the silence go on too long, because it wasn’t the kid, who was just looking at him levelly, not a hint of emotion, not giving him a damned thing, but John, who shuffled nervously from foot to foot.

“How long, you think?” Bobby asked. Because he’d made the damned promise, drunk and high on the adrenaline of a successful hunt or no, and he wasn’t a man to go back on his word.

“Don’t know,” John said. “I’m hoping just a couple of days. I’m that close, Bobby, or I wouldn’t ask.”

“You goin’ after it alone, John?” Bobby asked, allowing the warning in his voice to show, and that was the first time he caught anything from the kid. Just a flicker across the stoic face that let Bobby knew he and the kid were on exactly the same page, the one that read anybody who went up against an unknown something that could set people on fire by himself was a plain fool.

“I got a call in to Caleb,” John said. “He’s goin’ to meet me if he can get up here before I catch up with it. I’m prepared.”

“Nobody’s ever prepared,” Bobby said, stepping aside and looking straight at John’s oldest. “You better come in. The little one can’t be gettin’ any lighter.”

“Sammy,” the boy said, stepping past his father and Bobby and coming face to face with the dogs.

They growled at him, because that’s what they were trained to do, but the boy clearly knew what to do around strange animals because he just stopped and let them sniff him and the dangling hand of the sleeping boy in his arms, until they both settled down. Caspar even wagged his thick tail as he flung himself into a heap by the foot of the stairs.

“The boys won’t be any trouble, Bobby, I swear,” John said. “They know what’s expected of them, especially when they’re guests in someone’s home.”

“I’m not as worried about the boys’ behavior as I am about the fact that I live in the middle of five square acres of tetanus waiting to happen,” Bobby grumbled, scratching the back of his head. He felt kind of naked without his ball cap on in front of company.

The older boy’s mouth twitched at that, but he didn’t smile.

“We both got our shots,” he volunteered. Like they were the dogs getting dosed for Distemper or something.

“Dean,” John said sternly, and the boy went back to that odd form of attention he’d been at on the porch.

“You take your brother in the front room there and put him down on the couch,” Bobby said. “I’m talking to your Daddy for a minute.”

Bobby grabbed John’s arm and dragged him into the kitchen.

“You got everythin’ you need, John?” he asked. “You got enough ammo? Holy water? You got your rituals in place? You don’t even know what this thing is!”

“You know I’m prepared as I can be, Bobby,” John smiled grimly.

“I’m just makin’ sure, because those boys need their Daddy.”

“Just a few days, Bobby, I swear,” John said.

Bobby gave him a hard look, but he didn’t see anything there but John’s usual hunting excitement and the kind of grim joy that you’d have expected to see coming at you off a Viking ship gripping an axe once upon a time. He didn’t seem out of control. His eyes didn’t seem shifty. He didn’t look like a man who was running reckless to his death, but you never could tell with hunters. Bobby knew that, himself, from all the funerals he’d attended.

“Anythin’ special I should know?”

“They won’t be any trouble. They know the drill.” John assured him.

Bobby didn’t doubt the boys would try to behave. He knew John’s Marine discipline well enough from hunting with him. “And if it’s longer than a few days?”

“I’ll call you,” John said.

“And if you don’t?” Bobby knew John didn’t need a reminder, but it was a real possibility if he was on the trail of the thing that had killed his wife.

“Jim will be back home in a week and a half,” John said grimly. “You’ve got his number, and if you’ve misplaced it, Dean and Sammy both have got it memorized. Jim will be up here within the day.”

Bobby nodded.

“I got a room in the back with a couplea cots in it,” Bobby said. “The boys’ll be fine.”

“They won’t need any minding, Bobby,” John said. “Dean knows the drill.”

Bobby was dubious about that, because he had enough trouble driving the few neighborhood kids out of the junkyard even with the dogs. The place was like a kiddie death-trap wonderland. Even the best-behaved kids lost their minds in all the piles of shiny destroyed metal, cozy car interiors and busted-up chrome. He’d actually found a couple of boys shooting bolts at one another with bent up struts they’d pulled off one of the wrecks. They’d both gotten serious hidings from their horrified parents, but the very next week he’d found them back in the junkyard again and had called the sheriff.

“Well, I’ll see you in a few days, then,” Bobby said. “Boys need anythin’ now other than bed?”

“We had dinner at about seven, they’ll be fine until morning now,” John said. “Which reminds me,” John dug around in his pocket and pulled out his wallet.

Bobby put up his hands.

“No way, John,” he said holding up his hand to stave him off.

“Boys’ll need things you probably don’t have. Milk, cereal, that sort of stuff. Sammy goes through a lot of milk. I always get it when we’re in one place more’n a few days. I’d be doin’ it if I was staying, too.”

“Keep your money, milk don’t cost much, and you might need it for the hunt,” Bobby said. “If you feel that strong about it later, you give me some then.”

John nodded. Hunters didn’t have much ready cash most times, and it was just common sense.

He just reached out and grabbed Bobby by the shoulder, giving it a squeeze. Then he went back to his boys, Bobby trailing after and with a ball of dread in the pit of his stomach.

The little one was sacked out, dead to the world, on the sofa, with his head in the lap of the older one, Dean.

“Bobby’s gonna put you in his spare room, Deano,” John said, hunkering down on his haunches by the arm of the sofa next to his son. “I don’t want him to have any trouble, and that means you need to keep an eye on Sam, just like normal.”

“Yes, Sir,” Dean said, seriously. “But don’t you need backup? If it’s what killed, Mom?”

“Caleb’s gonna meet me, Dean,” John said. “I’m not going after it alone, ok?”

The boy just nodded.

“Good man,” John said and stood back up. “I’ll be back in a couple of days.”

Bobby wasn’t entirely sure whether he was trying to reassure the boy or him with the decisiveness of that statement, but it was going to be what it was going to be any way you sliced it. Nothing got between John Winchester and a hunt. Apparently not even his kids.

“Thanks Bobby,” John said. “I’m going to go get this son of a bitch.”

“I sure hope so,” Bobby said, and then John Winchester practically ran out the door.

Bobby turned around to see John’s oldest eyeballing him.

“Stay here with your brother, I’ll go put sheets on the beds, all right?” Bobby said.

“Yes, Sir,” the boy said, still being John’s good little soldier. Bobby wondered how that would be tomorrow. But there was no use borrowing trouble, so he just went up and made up the cots for the boys, snagging their duffels from the hall where John had left them.

When he got back, the older one was still holding vigil, but he was clearly struggling, practically drooping over his brother. Bobby had a moment of panic, not being able to remember the kid’s name. He could remember the little one’s, though.

“Do you want me to take Sammy?” he asked. “The stairs are kinda steep.”

“No,” the older one said, immediately back on duty. “I’ve got him. Just show me where to take him.”

The boy got up and sat the little one up, making him shift fitfully in his sleep, but not wake. He put his arms under the little one’s bottom and lifted him like a sack of potatoes, leaning back a bit to keep from toppling over. Not a real big kid, but strong as hell, Bobby thought. No doubt John had him training already, and more than sleeping brother dead-lifts, he was sure.

“This way,” Bobby said and led him up the stairs, not too fast so the kid wouldn’t have to kill himself.

“Bathroom’s first door on the right. You’re across the hall. I’m in the back if you need somethin’,” he explained.

“We won’t,” the kid said decisively. “Thanks.”

He went into the room and put the little one down on the cot nearest the door and pulled off his shoes, like he’d done it a million times before. Then he pulled down the sheets on the other bed, and carried his brother over to it and pulled the covers up over him, tucking them in neatly around his shoulders. Kid already thought like a hunter, putting himself between his brother and the only entrance to the room.

Bobby tried to think of himself at that age and he was damn sure he hadn’t been that responsible. Once he’d seen to the other boy, the older one turned around to see Bobby still standing in the doorway. He just looked at him steadily and so Bobby nodded and went back to his own room, checking the alarm to see that it was now past three.

000

The alarm went off like it usually did at six-thirty, despite the fact that he’d lost a couple of hours of sleep to John and worry. Bobby desperately needed a cup of coffee. He usually took his shower after his coffee, but the boys were there and he’d better get moving and get breakfast.

He was in and out in under fifteen minutes and downstairs to find both boys already in the kitchen, the little one sitting at the table, looking at a book and drinking a glass of water while the older one stood next to the counter blinking tiredly because he’d gotten all of two and a half hours of sleep the night before. Both were in the clothes they’d slept in.

“You boys want some breakfast?” he asked, voice more of a growl than usual because he hadn’t talked to anybody yet.

“Yes, Sir,” the little one said, while the older one shut his eyes, looking like he was about to fall down where he stood.

“You both sit down there and I’ll get you some grub,” Bobby said.

Bobby got eggs and bacon out of the fridge while the older one, whose name he still couldn’t remember, dragged a chair out from the table and dropped into it like he was eighty instead of eleven.

“How you boys like your eggs?” he asked, while he got the bacon cooking. As an afterthought, he got out some bread and crammed it into his ancient toaster, also loading up the old Mr. Coffee for himself. He’d feel a lot better able to face a couple of little kids with a few belts of coffee in him.

Bobby realized the boys hadn’t answered and turned around to see the little one watching him closely, and the older one lying with his head on his arm on the table.

“He ok?” Bobby whispered to the little one.

“Dean’s asleep,” the little one said, taking another sip of water, providing Bobby with the name he’d been missing.

“He had a pretty long night,” Bobby said. “How do you like your eggs?”

“I like ‘em all kinds of ways,” the little one, Sam, said seriously, holding his glass of water in both hands. “Whatever you want to make.”

“No favorite?” Bobby asked. “I liked basted best when I was your age. I could soak ‘em up with my toast.”

“That’s good,” the boy nodded. “Dean likes scrambled best. He likes ‘em dry with the bacon all mixed in. Sometimes…. Sometimes he just puts it all on a piece of toast and folds it up like a sandwich. He does that sometimes when we’re late for school and in a hurry. It works real good and then he says I get a hot breakfast when a lot of other kids get cereal.”

“He does, does he?” Bobby asked.

“Yes, Sir,” the little one said.

“I never was in the Marines,” Bobby said. “You can just call me Bobby instead of Sir. I’m just not used to that.”

“Yes, S… Bobby,” the little boy smiled at him, revealing some of the cutest dimples Bobby had ever seen on any kid anywhere. It was kind of shocking, the little kid was mostly so serious, like his brother. You didn’t think you were going to see something like that out of him.

“Dean takes real good care of me,” the little boy went on. “Daddy says it’s his job because Daddy’s job is hunting and he can’t always do everything.”

“That so?” Bobby said, serving hot bacon and eggs onto plates. He felt pretty bad about having to wake him up, but the older one needed food, too. And he could go back to bed after he ate. No way was Bobby going to keep him running when he was passing out at the kitchen table, even if watching the little one was his job.

Bobby set the plates on the table, getting little Sammy some more water seeing the only other beverage in the fridge at the moment was beer.

“Dean!” the little one said in a sharp voice, startling the other boy straight awake, and making him clutch the butter knife Bobby had put in front of him like a weapon. The kid was obviously scared, but he wasn’t at all disoriented. Hunter reflexes already.

“Breakfast’s on,” Bobby said. “You probably don’t feel real hungry, but you should eat, anyway. Keep up your strength.”

The kid looked at him, and in the morning light Bobby saw his eyes were green like a cat’s. Or, more, green like the ones on the woman in the old and seamed picture he’d glimpsed inside John’s wallet.

“Thanks,” the boy said, blinking and then clearing his throat a little in order to get it out.

“No trouble,” Bobby said, and set the food in front of him.

Both boys set to with a will, but they had good manners. John’s wife couldn’t have faulted them, in Bobby’s opinion. And they weren’t chatty, either, which was a blessing that early in the morning.

The older boy was eating some bacon when he began to cough, and didn’t stop until his eyes were watering like crazy. And it took Bobby that long to realize that he hadn’t gotten the kid a drink. Forgetting him, because the other one had a drink already.

Bobby got up and brought the boy a glass of water, and gave him a good whack on the back while he was at it. It seemed to help.

“If I do somethin’ like that again, you be sure to remind me,” Bobby said. “I’m not used to havin’ anybody around here at all. I forget my manners.”

“I think you have good manners,” Sammy, piped up. “This is a good breakfast.”

“Well, thank you, Sammy,” Bobby said. He was way over his head, he could already tell.

He was just going to have to deal with it and maybe pray.

000

He got through breakfast somehow, and stopped the older one, whose name he’d forgotten again, Dave or maybe Dan or something, from helping with the dishes. Not that he didn’t appreciate it, but the kid was practically asleep on his feet. Instead, Bobby pretended he usually left the dishes until later and got the kid to go upstairs for a nap, keeping the little one with him.

Once he was completely sure the older boy was asleep, Bobby wrote a note and taped it to the front door. Then he took the little one on the long ride with him to the big grocery a few towns over seeing he’d be buying a lot more groceries than usual and it was cheaper to do it at a larger store. The little one, Sammy, was no trouble at all, looking happily at scenery and remarking at things the whole way there and behaving himself once they reached the store. He was a cute kid.

Now, Bobby had seen a lot of parents at the store with their kids and those kids were screaming and begging for things and generally being awful. Little Sammy was nothing like that. He was cheerful and friendly and stayed calmly near Bobby, and asked to help push the cart, which Bobby let him do.

He never asked for things, he just helped. And Bobby couldn’t have appreciated it more. They were in and out in under an hour, and then back in the truck and to the house in something under three ‘round trip.

When Bobby got the door opened he practically ran into the other one, who was clearly so mad the glare from those green eyes should have split paint. The kid was standing in the hallway with his fists clenched at his sides as if to prevent himself from taking a swing at Bobby.

“You took my brother!” the kid spat. “You took my brother!”

“To the store!” Bobby protested good-naturedly. “I left you a note.”

“We got milk, Dean!” Sammy chirped happily, holding up the grocery bag he held. “And apples!”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Dean growled about as much as a kid his age could.

“Because you didn’t get any sleep last night,” Bobby said calmly. He didn’t know this kid at all, but this was the first time he could really see he was John’s boy seeing he looked nothing like him. They sure had the same kind of seething temper, though. “And you needed to rest. I figured you were old enough to stay here by your lonesome to watch the dogs. I know your Daddy leaves you in charge, so I didn’t feel too bad about doin’ it myself.”

The kid eyed him critically, trying to see how full of shit he was.

Bobby just looked at him levelly. He knew John often left him alone with the little one, and so it really hadn’t bothered him to leave him alone, even if some hippies might say that ten or eleven was too young to be home by himself even for a minute.

Kid’s bullshit detector must have been working, because he calmed down pretty quick and unclenched his fists.

“More bags out in the truck if you want to help,” Bobby said.

Kid didn’t need to be told twice. He just went out and got a couple of bags and hauled them in. They had it all unpacked in under ten minutes and then Bobby was left staring at the rest of several days with two kids and no idea what to do with them.

And the fact was, he had a job pending. Two days back he’d hauled the third 1985 Buick Century into the yard. All three had been in different types of accidents and he was sure that he had enough parts now to put a good one together and sell it.

A lot of hunters did what Bobby knew John Winchester did, made money from hustling and petty crime to finance their operation. But Bobby was lucky enough to have a business that paid the bills and let him set his own hours. Being a specialty operator in demons, he had to have a lot of books, and books like that required somewhere to keep them, so he had to have a house. But he still had to work from time to time to make his mortgage, and money was pretty tight right now. A good running Buick, even a few years old, would go a long way toward making the bills for a while.

“Bobby?” the little boy, Sammy, asked. “Could I have one of the apples now?”

Bobby checked the clock, it was nearly one.

“How ‘bout you have it with your lunch,” Bobby said, and got busy making the boys some sandwiches and opening up a can of soup. Time seemed to be going pretty fast. Maybe John would get there like he said and he’d be able to get to work on that Buick.

Of course, once lunch was done and he and the older boy had done up the dishes, Bobby was at a loss.

“Got a car out there to fix,” Bobby said, thinking that maybe he could get a few simple things done and keep an eye on them at the same time, but he was worried about them playing around in the scrap yard.

“Our Daddy was a mechanic, did you know?” Sammy said. “He owned a garage!”

“Half a garage,” the older one corrected.

“Really?” that wasn’t something that had ever come up with John, but he wasn’t at all surprised. It went a long way toward explaining why the two of them had always gotten along so well. “Your daddy teach you boys anything about cars?”

“Yeah,” the older one said, eyes lighting up. “He lets me help him with the car. Give it oil changes and change belts and stuff. I’ve been doing it three years already. Dad says I can get my hands in a lot of places it’s hard for him to reach, and I know all the parts of cars and everything!”

“Really, that’s great,” Bobby said. He was getting over being surprised when this kid told him he was doing things that only adults usually did. “Well, I got a Buick that needs workin’ on and I probably should be getting to it.”

“You want some help?” the kid was clearly incredibly excited by the prospect, but was trying to stay cool.

“I’d really appreciate that,” Bobby said, knowing he could find the kid enough easy jobs to keep him occupied for the next week, let alone two days. But that left the little one.

“Could I read some of your books?” Sammy asked, eyes lighting up in mirror image of his brother. “I don’t know how to do anything with cars.”

“I don’t know if those books are good for you, Sammy,” Bobby said.

“I like books about monsters,” Sam said. “I might read something that will help Daddy and Dean.”

“Sammy already knows the whole exorcism ritual in Latin, don’t you, Sammy?” his brother said proudly, giving his brother a playful shove.

“Well, then, let me see what I can find,” and Bobby got Sam a book, which with a game of fetch with the dogs kept the kid happy all day. Dean worked diligently right along with Bobby, dismantling the cars. Stripping all the busted up quarter panels off the one with the good frame in preparation for replacing them with the clean ones from the other one that had gotten rear-ended.

Then it was dinner, some TV for the boys and a beer for Bobby and then bed. Smooth sailing and John coming for them maybe the next day.

000

Of course, it couldn’t be that simple.

Bobby was awakened at six the next morning by a phone call. He picked up the bedside phone only to be struck with horror at the tone of the woman’s voice on the other end.

“Mr. Singer? Mr. Singer is that you?” she said, in perhaps the most desperate whisper Bobby had ever heard.

“Yes, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“Oh, please, Mr. Singer. You’ve got to help us!” the woman was already blubbering. It made her hard to understand. “A friend gave me your name. I’ve tried everything, but she’s… she’s got the devil in her and I can’t do anything to drive it out!”

“Who does? Who’s got the devil?” Bobby asked.

“My….my little girl, my Barbra!” the woman wailed. “Please! The priest, everyone has tried, but they just can’t drive it out. Somebody told me you could help.”

“Um, sometimes,” Bobby said. “Sometimes I can do something.”

“Oh please, Mr. Singer, I’ll do anything! I’ll pay anything!” the woman went on.

“Do you know how to get to me?” he asked. “And bring your little girl?”

“Will you tell me?” the woman wept.

“I surely will,” Bobby said, and then he did.

000

“And I want the two of you to stay up in your room. This is going to be dangerous if it’s for real and the kid just isn’t coming out with schizophrenia or something. I’ve had quite a few of those over the years,” Bobby said. “There’s only a couple of cases of genuine demon possession in the whole country in a year.

“But if it is dangerous, you need backup,” Dean said. And Bobby was glad to see he was wary, not eager. “There’s got to be something we can help with. Laying salt lines. Writing sigils. Something.”

“What you can do for me is stay in here with the room warded so I don’t have to worry about you,” Bobby assured him. “Your Daddy would skin me alive if you got so much as a hangnail.”

There was a knock on the front door. Not banging this time, but more timid. Like someone who wasn’t sure they wanted to be there. At all.

“Now you boys stay here, no matter what you hear. Some demons do a lot of screamin’. Some schizophrenics, too,” Bobby said and left the room in a hurry.

He got to the front door just as the woman was backing away off the porch.

“Are you Cathy?” Bobby asked.

“Mr. Singer?” she asked, looking surprised. Bobby was pretty clearly not the mystic or the preacher she was expecting. He hoped it was a pleasant surprise.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Bobby said. “Why don’t you and your daughter come inside?”

The woman had a little girl with her, cowering behind her body, her hair wild and clearly uncombed for weeks, her clothes filthy and with suspicious spots that Bobby didn’t think was from food.

“Is this Barbra?” he asked, trying to stay calm like he would with a spooked puppy.

“Yes,” the woman, Cathy, said. “She’s calm now. I’ve given her a tranquilizer with her breakfast. But it won’t last long. It never does.”

“Well, then we’d best get to work,” Bobby said, pretty sure it was schizophrenia and not possession, now, even though the girl was young for it. “Please bring her inside.”

The woman came inside, allowing the little girl to keep her mother’s body between herself and Bobby.

Bobby had placed a chair in the middle of his front room. He’d done this before. But it always spooked him. Oddly he felt calmer once a demon revealed itself, because then he knew what he was fighting. Right now, it only looked like a neglected, and possibly insane little child.

But, according to her mother, she’d been manifesting real powers for nearly six months. Breaking things, moving objects with her mind, which had made Bobby immediately suspect poltergeist in the house. But she’d also prophesized things before they’d happened and finally, tortured her little brother and sister with boils and sores, made them choke, and made them vomit until it came up blood. Her eyes went black and her voice went odd, and she cursed everyone in a language none of them could recognize. Sounded like a genuine possession.

He knew the family had tried three exorcisms before. The woman had first gone to her Baptist minister, then a Pentecostal preacher who claimed healing power and then, at last, to the priest that had referred her to Bobby. Nobody had been able to even find, let alone drive, the demon out of the little girl.

“Put her in the chair there and secure her with the ropes,” Bobby said. And he watched while her mother put the perfectly calm little girl into the chair and bound her to it. The child did no more than sigh quietly and look at Bobby from out of her rat’s nest of hair. She knew the drill by now, it seemed.

That made Bobby even more nervous. It took a pretty powerful demon not to bat an eyelash at exorcism.

“Now, Ma’am, please step back out of the circle so I can close it and trap the demon inside,” Bobby said.

“Wait!” Dean said from the kitchen doorway, and Bobby turned around with a curse.

“What did I tell you about coming down here now, boy!” Bobby hissed. “Your Daddy’ll have my guts for garters.”

“Exorcisms take a long time, and they’re hard on folks,” Dean said quietly. “Maybe you should give the little girl a glass of water first. We probably should all have some.”

John’s son was holding out two glasses of water, and Bobby cursed himself for a fool.

“You’re right, of course,” Bobby said, realizing what he’d forgotten in being so nervous about all the kids around.

“Ma’am, I know you’ve been through this before, and the point here is to drive it out of your daughter and save her life,” he continued. “But you know that demons can make folks bleed, can cut them, can do all sorts of bad things to their bodies. And we want her to be hydrated and strong so she can help us fight.”

“And you’ll be needin’ to pray and you want to keep your voice up,” Bobby explained.

“Of course, Mr. Singer,” the woman said with a tremulous smile. “I’ll pray as hard as I can.”

“I’m sure you will, Ma’am,” Bobby handed her the glass. “Do you want to help Barbra drink, or should I?”

“Oh, no, I’ll help her,” the woman said sadly. She took the glass over to the girl and practically poured it right down her throat, making her sputter. “Now drink it all up like a good girl, Barbra.”

The little girl floundered under the onslaught of water, but that was all. She coughed a bit when her mother was done. Bobby looked over at Dean, who gave him a nod.

Bobby picked up his book. He had the ritual memorized, but sometimes things just spooked you and it was always smart to have the reference handy.

“Are you ready to pray now, Ma’am?” he asked. “You should wet your own throat first.”

“Of course, Mr. Singer,” the woman smiled, and then took a big gulp from the water glass.

To say that she instantly began to smoke and clutch her throat would be overstating how long it took. But within that split second Dean was already in motion, flinging himself at the little girl like an arrow and dragging her backward out of the salt circle chair and all and then smoothing it closed again.

Bobby wasn’t quite as fast, but he flung the demon inside and got the circle closed and started chanting before the demon recovered.

“Not my Mommy, not my Mommy,” the little girl wailed as the thing in the salt circle sputtered and smoked, hissing its rage, eyes now black as the pits of hell.

With a roar, the demon flailed and the little girl, with Dean still clinging to her chair, was flung backward into the kitchen. Bobby heard Dean impact the counter with a thud and the little girl begin to wail, but he didn’t dare spare them so much as a glance.

While he chanted, the demon began flinging things around the room, even trapped in the circle like she was. Bobby was being buffeted by his own furniture and books, but it wasn’t the first time. He dodged a chunk of firewood, but just kept chanting. It wouldn’t be long now, the demon was convulsing in pain from the ritual. Pretty soon he’d have a messed up human being and a loose demon. And he’d just have to hope the thing went straight to hell without passing “go” or collecting $200.

Bobby saw the chunk of wood, but what he didn’t see was the shutter the demon tore loose off the window, not until it had hit him in the head and knocked him for a loop, sending his hand across the salt line and into the demon’s reach. He was so stunned that he didn’t pull back fast enough and the damned thing grabbed him, ice cold fingers locking across his wrist and dragging him forward with its inhuman strength.

Which was exactly when Dean started chanting from the doorway, swaying on his feet after being clobbered against the cabinets. And he was joined by a piping voice coming down the stairs, picking up the ritual perfectly where Bobby had left off, Sammy, chanting like a little medieval angel from above.

They were close to the end, Bobby just had to hang on and not smudge the salt line. If he did, they were all lost. So he dug in and let the possessed bitch pull on his arm while the boys kept chanting.

And finally with a convulsion that rocked her entire body and left five huge bloody indentations in Bobby’s arm where the demon dug its claws in, the demon left the woman’s body in a cloud of black smoke, rebounding off the salt line and dissipating on its way straight downstairs. Bobby pulled himself up onto his knees and removed the woman’s hand from his arm.

“Ma’am?” he said. “Do you know where you are?”

“Barbra? Where is Barbra? Did that thing? Did it hurt her? Has it kept hurting her?” the woman was shaking all over.

“She’s here, Ma’am,” Dean said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

And it was. The little girl was traumatized, sure, and a little afraid of her mother at first. But she cleaned up nice and Bobby was able to send them on their way and get the house cleaned up before John got back mean as a snake from coming to a dead end on his hunt.

The boys required no bribing at all to keep their mouths shut about what had almost happened with the exorcism and Bobby vowed never again to let anybody into his house without first making them take a drink of holy water.

000

And that was pretty much how it went, then, every time John dropped the boys off, Dean working with Bobby on the bread and butter business while Sam poured over esoterica in Bobby’s library and them all getting along fine until John came back and put a big dose of ornery into the mix. Bobby and John had always been able to get along like gangbusters for a couple of days, and then John’s natural contrariness would just start to rub Bobby the wrong way. That’s really all that had resulted in the famous shotgun incident, when you boiled it all back to basics. Just a personality conflict, John Winchester vs. everyone else in the known universe.

The Winchesters didn’t come by often, but Bobby always liked it when they did. But after Dean turned sixteen, John didn’t feel it was necessary to leave them with anyone, no matter how long he planned on being gone. Dean had a legal driver’s license in addition to the one that said he was twenty-one and a dozen fake insurance cards. He’d picked up enough skill from his Dad and working with Bobby that he could hold a job at a mechanics or an oil change place. Whatever happened to John, the boys would be able to stay together, so they no longer required watching.

Bobby had kind of missed that after they’d grown up. But he’d seen a lot of them in the past year since the Yellow-Eyed Demon had been defeated. Who better to consult to try to get Dean out of his deal then their resident demon expert?

But in all the books in Bobby’s library, and they’d read them all more than once in the past year, there had been nothing. And now it was too late.

The duffels were packed and in the trunk of the Impala. No one was sure if going to the crossroads where the deal had been made would stave off hellhounds or not, but Dean had decided it was worth a try. He didn’t want any innocent bystanders suffering consequences for his actions.

They were all just sort of standing awkwardly in the yard, looking at the sign reading Singer Salvage curving over the driveway and not at each other, not really knowing what to say. Because they all knew that this was really goodbye. It had always been “see you later,” before.

Dean cleared his throat, “Well, thanks Bobby, for everythin’.”

“Hell of a lot of good I did ya,” Bobby replied.

“You did everything you could, and more,” Sam shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket and shrugged. “You can’t help it if the book we needed hasn’t ever been written.”

“I never did hear of anybody getting’ out of a deal,” Bobby said for what felt like the eleven millionth time.

“Well, maybe I can just challenge him to Twister, like in “Bill and Ted”,” Dean grinned, and it didn’t even seem half-hearted.

“Of course you’d go with that and not “The Seventh Seal” which I know you’ve seen because I watched it with you,” Sam rolled his eyes.

“I liked “Bill and Ted” more,” Dean shrugged. “Sue me.”

He looked at his watch. “We gotta get on the road.”

“Right,” said Sam, squaring his shoulders and facing Bobby.

Bobby couldn’t look him in the eye. He couldn’t look either of them in the eye.

“You know you can always come back here,” Bobby said.

“I know I can,” Sam put his hands on Bobby’s shoulders and gave them a squeeze while Bobby tried to get used to Sam in the singular. “Thanks, man.”

“You can quit thankin’ me,” Bobby looked at the Impala’s hubcaps instead of at either of the Winchesters. “It’s the least I can do for you boys.”

“Make Sammy bring my baby back here if somethin’ goes wrong with her,” Dean told him. “I don’t trust anybody else.”

“Right,” Bobby said, but his throat was closed up and he couldn’t manage much more. He couldn’t look at Dean. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to know what he looked like walking away. He just wanted to remember him coming in.

Dean gave his shoulder a hard push, and Bobby reached up and grabbed his hand, for just a second.

“Your Daddy was always real proud of you,” Bobby said. “He’d be proud of you now.”

“He’d be thinkin’ I was a dumbass now,” Dean replied. “But thanks.”

They stood like that for a few more seconds and then Dean let go and so did Bobby.

“Time to hit the Highway to Hell,” Dean said in his getting down to business voice. “Come on, Sammy.”

He rounded the driver’s side and climbed in, and sure enough, as the Impala pulled out of the drive and headed toward the main road, Bobby heard AC/DC blasting out the speakers, as loud as Dean could turn them up.

It wasn’t until the dust cloud tossed up by the Chevy had dissipated into the impending twilight that Bobby realized that both the first and last word he’d ever heard Dean Winchester say had been his brother’s name.

-30-