Someday Never Comes 1

[roxy]

One summer, John brought the boys to Robert Singer's house--Bobby, John called him, when he wasn't calling him a cantankerous, too-nosy-for-his-own-good, bastard. They got along well enough, mostly because Bobby took no real notice of John's bitter, sarcastic attitude, having plenty of his own, and was in no way cowed by the man. John reluctantly respected that and that made Bobby a man he trusted—insomuch as he trusted anyone.

It was on a muggy July evening that John dragged himself out of the car that he'd driven for the last hundred miles under the muzzy, heavy weight of pain-killers and whisky, and as dangerous as it had been to drive like that, it was the only way his back and legs would let him. Black dog hunt gone bad, a partner who couldn't follow through but John was the one who'd paid the price. The thing had shredded his knee, flipped him to the ground and tried to take his heart out through his back. A few hours in the ER had gotten his back sewed up and his knee put together. And somewhere in Montana was a report on a Mark Farner having survived a bear attack….

Dean and his brother hung back behind John, caution had been driven right into their bones. John didn't have many safe places, but the boys would learn that this was one of them. Pastor Jim's, they knew well--were fairly frequent visitors out to Blue Earth. He's even left them in a bar, though leaving them with Ellen was about the same as leaving them with a lioness—Bill was a damn lucky man that Ellen decided to keep him. And now, he was about to leave them, more or less, in the hands of a stranger, this man, stocky and bearded and smelling vaguely of gasoline and mayonnaise.

Singer gave John a sour look and leaned around and fixed the boys with a gaze neither angry nor happy and Dean moved to stand in front of his brother, like he'd been taught. John reached back and laid his hand on the boy's head.
"So, what'll it be Singer? You gonna let my boys stay here for a while or…do I have to let them live in a car?"

"That's dirty pool and you know it, you jackass," Singer said and stepped aside to let them in. John grit his teeth until his jaw ached doing his best not to limp in front of the bastard. He heard said bastard mutter, "Asshole," as he hitched past him. He kept his eyes straight and clamped his lips tighter to keep a grin inside.



The boys were in bed, supposedly asleep before Dean sneaked out into the hallway and listened to his dad and the stranger talk. He wanted to have some kind of idea just who this bearded old man was his dad proposed to leave them with. Not eavesdropping, he would never sneak around on his dad—he was just gathering intel.

Their voices carried up the stairs like smoke up a chimney. His dad's had that low, slow burr in it that he got when he drank a lot of that turkey stuff and the other man's looped between loud and high, and deep and lowered. He heard Mr. Singer say, "You did what--?" and he didn't sound happy.

"I left the boys alone. Dean knew what he was supposed to do—and he fucked up." Dean bit his lip when he heard his dad—his eyes stung but he nodded. Dad was right.

"Dean did—wha—are you pissed because he was trying to be a kid for a god damn hour or so, or pissed because he was too god damn little to handle the shotgun you fuckin' ass!"

Dean slumped back against the wall, squeezed his hands into fists to stop them shaking. He knew it. He knew he'd screwed it up bad, he knew his dad didn't trust him any more…and he knew why they were here, now.

He trudged back to the room, feeling like he was walking through taffy. Sammy made a noise when Dean rolled into bed, sniffed and pushed away from Dean before his breathing went slow and whistle-ly like it did when he was sleeping hard. Dean stared up at the ceiling, lost in replaying his failure in his mind until he fell into sleep.



Sam was afraid of Bobby Singer. He tried to keep Dean between himself and the man as much as possible, even though Bobby tried to shrink himself a bit, and spoke to Sam in a low, smooth voice all the time. He tried to tempt Sam with cookies and odd little toys from who knows where but Sam wasn't having it. If he wasn't clinging to Dean than he was clinging to John, dogging his steps like a little scared puppy. Sam knew something was wrong, he just didn't know what. Dean sympathized--the grownups' world was sure a mystery to both of them.

Dean followed Sam around the house, drifting after him like a ghost. He didn't speak. Hadn't really spoken since the night he'd screwed up. Not like before, though…Dad thought Dean didn't have any memories of those long, long weeks where nothing came out of his mouth, but he did. He remembered that he couldn't make anything come out of his mouth, that he wanted to tell Dad how bad it hurt, how afraid he was and how lonely, and that he missed his mom so much, and oh, he missed hugs and pb&j with the crusts cut off and the glass of chocolate milk she poured him every day after he got back from daycare. He remembered those things. And he remembered Dad and Mom screaming at each other and Mom crying and…Dad leaving. He remembered Mom saying, you have to change or don't come back.

And he remembered the fire. He remembered all of it.

For a long time, for the entire time they slowly got used to being on their own, he'd kept his fear bottled up and pressed tight under his tongue, he'd thought maybe the fire happened because Mom was so unhappy and maybe she was unhappy because Dean wasn't making her happy so it was all his fault. He had tried though. He tried so hard.

Dean blinked hot tears back, so hot they burned his eyes, and swallowed hard. Right this moment, he wanted not to speak ever again. He wanted to roll up in a ball and lay under the bed until he grew as grey and dusty as the dust bunnies, until he rolled and blew in the wind and blew far, far way…but he couldn't. He wanted to do it, but he couldn't because Sammy needed him to be there. He was just a little kid and he needed someone to take care of him. Dean cracked his jaw, and licked his desert-dry lips. He forced words past his stiff tongue. "Hey, Sammy, you want some juice?"



Two little boys drifted in tandem in and out of his rooms, and if he hadn't actually seen them, he'd never know they were there. They were quiet, like, really damn quiet—scary quiet. Bobby didn't know much about kids but he knew this wasn't normal. He'd seen his sister's kids and his brother's kids, the little hairless apes, and he knew damn well that John's boys' bein' silent like that was an unnatural state. In his experience, kids were loud; they ran all the time, they screamed and laughed and broke shit and puked on and peed on themselves…as far as he could tell, little kids were almost always covered with slime and screaming to be fed.

John's boys…there was a different kettle of fish. He never heard them ask for a damn thing. He was sure there was a time or two when Sam was about to ask for something but Dean silenced him. On an occasion, Dean would hesitantly and hugely reluctantly ask for something--for Sam. Always for Sam. And really truly for Sam, because Bobby had spied to see if the tiny half glasses of juice or pieces of jelly bread were actually going to Sam, and not eaten in secret by Dean, and every single time Sam got it. Mostly eyed whatever it was sort of disappointedly but would thank Dean for whatever poor thing it was.

John fed them that way. Small portions of cheap, not especially appetizing food. Noodles, soup, peanut butter sandwiches, packaged stuff that was inexpensive and filling, if not interesting. They ate silently, cleaned up after themselves and Bobby felt like he might as well be living alone. John rebuffed his attempts at family dinners again and again until one evening he'd taken Bobby to the side and said "I don’t want the boys to get used to food they can't have on the road. I can't spoil them. They can't afford to want what they can't have." He was gruff, no-nonsense about it and waited for Bobby's agreement.

Bobby rocked back like John had punched him. Hell no way. That wasn't the way the Singer household worked. Screw Winchester and his crazy ass. "Tell you what, this is my house, and they get what I give them. If you don't like it, highway's a couple of miles out that way, buddy."

John was furious, sure, but what could he do? He couldn't drive worth a shit; he was stuck there until he healed so Bobby took great advantage of it. Once he got a foot in, it was all over.



"There's a way you can save money and eat real food too, right? So here Dean, put this cereal in the cart." He handed Dean a box of Cheerio's but Sam's eyes were glued to a box of Lucky Charms—or its knock-off anyway. He said not a word; stood silently leaning on Dean but steady staring at the box…Dean was staring up at Bobby, the Cheerio's still in his hands. Bobby sighed, took back the box and handed Dean the Lucky Charms…before they left the store, they had a bunch of bananas and a bag of oatmeal cookies in the cart as well.

Bobby enjoyed watching them eat meatloaf and potatoes like it was food of the gods. When he made macaroni and cheese, Sam actually looked him in the eye with a pale reflection of the hero-worship he gave his dad and Dean. And Dean…Dean gave him a narrow-eyed look that gave Bobby pause—he'd never seen a kid give a look quite like that, and damn if it didn't make him want to duck. The next day, Dean quietly, stubbornly, insisted that Bobby teach him how to make macaroni and cheese, too.

While John slept on the porch, tugged into dreams by vicoden and jack, Dean stood on a step stool next to Bobby, one of his late wife Karen's aprons tied double around his thin waist and nodded solemnly as Bobby showed him how to boil the noodles, and add the milk and butter and powdered cheese sauce. He taught him that when you had the opportunity add garlic and pepper, and chunks of block cheese and extra butter. Taught him how to use the timer, and how to measure and compared it to measuring out portions of salt and iron. From that, Dean came to see the practical applications of measuring, of fractions and math in general. Dean listened hard while he diced cheese with a butcher knife because Bobby believed that if you were old enough to hold a knife, you were old enough to learn how to use it properly. Dean appreciated that.

When Dean pushed a perfect bowl of golden mac&cheese across the table to Sam and mentioned off-handedly that he'd made it, Bobby watched Sam's eyes fix on Dean in awe and Dean glow under the regard. Dean leaned in towards Sam like a sunflower to the sun. Bobby watched those boys, hmm-ed to himself and cast a glance at John, passed out on the sitting room couch. He shook his head.

That man was making a world of trouble for all of them.



As soon as John could drive, they were gone again.

Bobby took Dean to one side, gave him a square of heavy card stock and told him to "hang onto this boy, it's my address. If you hunker down in one spot for a spell, you send me a note. And if you ever need anything—anything—you call me and let me know, hear?"
Dean took the card, pulled it through his fingers and watched Sam stagger to the car under the weight of a brand new blanket Bobby had bought him. "Yes, sir," he said, and his tone of voice was too knowing for a boy his age.


A winter went by and a spring, a summer, and then on a crisp autumn day, from the back of the yard, Bobby heard the low throaty growl of the Impala. He sighed, put down the knife he was dicing potatoes with and swept what he'd managed to chop into the pot of stew. He wiped his hands clean and walked around to the back where the yard entrance was.

"Bobby…" John said, both him and the boys standing stiffly in front of the car as if they were entirely uncertain of any kind of welcome.

"Well, come on in," Bobby huffed. "I just put some stew on to cook, double batch," he said. "Had a feeling it'd come in handy." The boys didn't move, or say a word, stood like little soldiers with their dad's hands on their shoulders. Bobby caught the slight squeeze John gave them both and watched their eyes brighten and little smiles break out when the man said, "Go on boys, go inside and wash up."

"Yes sir," they called out together and walked past Bobby. "Thank you sir," they both said and Sam whispered, "Hi, Uncle Bobby," as he passed.

Bobby blushed something fierce and just stopped himself from gawking—saw that Dean was blushing too, and that he kept his eyes averted. Bobby was pretty sure Dean had a lot to do with the 'Uncle Bobby'. Well, that was just fine. He thought he could get to like that.

The boys wandered over as much of the yard as they could when they weren't doing chores Bobby or John had assigned them. Bobby told them they were to do the washing up after dinner, and help with the cooking. At that rule, they'd cut eyes at each other and smiled faintly. Nodded with enthusiasm. John, a little less so, agreed with Bobby's rules. John had them training—every day, they ran, they trained in whatever form of self-defense their young bodies were ready for, and every night, they trooped off to their corner under the eaves, where they unrolled their sleeping bags on top of the mats on the floor, and treated it all like a great adventure. Still, he felt guilty that he had no real place for them….

Bobby watched them sometimes from the kitchen window when they trained and all he could see was this thing escalating, John's hunt growing bigger and bigger in their lives until there'd be nothing left but this—thing-- and he regretted it for them. He didn't even bother talking to John. Hell, he'd seen that look before on the faces of his boys back in Nam. Bobby swore, as long as those kids were with him, he'd make sure they had some kind of childhood. Every kid needed to run around screaming just for the hell of it, get dirty and splash through mud, find tadpoles and climb trees and hell—just fucking be, for no other reason except to be.



"I'm meeting up with Dell French and Caleb Branch, out in Colorado. There's a were out there—maybe a mated pair. You know what kind of bad news that is."

"Damn, that's rare as hell. And yeah, that's bad news, all right. Means they'll be playing games. Be all excitable….."

John nodded. "It's a few weeks work, that's for sure. I wanted to know if I could leave my boys with you—if not, Jim'll take 'em."

"Don’t be stupid," Bobby growled. "You know I'd take your boys anytime."

John held the thick glass up to the light. The thickness distorted the color of the scotch inside; the pale yellow looked like a wash of gold. He let the liquid tip one way and then the other—fixed Bobby with a mild look that fooled him not at all—it raised the hairs on the back of the man's neck. "Yeah. I know you would." John stood, and gulped what was left in the tumbler. 'Thanks. I'll be back, say three weeks—tops."

"Wait, you're leaving this minute? Damn it John, you just can't walk away in the middle of the night without a word. Those boys—they'll be—" Bobby searched for a word that would be adequate to describe how the boys would feel about being left in the middle of the night with no word from their dad. All he could come up with was, "upset. Those boys'll be so damn upset."

"They're past that," John said. "They know how to take care of themselves—besides, they got you, don't they?"

Bobby snorted and changed the subject, for his own peace of mind. "Who'd you get this intel about the weres from? There's been nothin' about it on the grapevine." Not much escaped his notice—Bobby was the check-in-point for dozens of hunters in the northwest.

"Steve Ward, you know. That guy out by Moscow, Idaho."

"That guy's an idiot."

John shrugged. "Dell vouches for him."

"Well, Dell's a god damn idiot."

"Yeah, well, four people have been torn to bits out there. We're close—we can't just stand by." John set the tumbler down, careful, final. He stood and neatly shoved his chair back under the table. Bobby leaned back and peered up at him.

"Watch your back, John. I'm not kidding; Dell's a grand-standin' idiot. Caleb's good. He's young and a bit excitable but he's a good kid. Still, he's awful young," Bobby repeated and shook his head.

"Yeah, but he's motivated. Like Dean. He's got reason to be out there."

Bobby watched John's back. The door to the spare room clicked shut and he sighed, like he seemed to do so often when Winchester was around, and topped up his glass. Caleb was too damn young and he had no idea why John was willing to ride with him and Dell. Sixteen years old…the guns the boy was expected to use were almost as big as him. And that thought led to an image of Dean aiming and firing nearly perfect shot after shot in a paper target, the Beretta John had bought for him early in the summer settled in his hands like it'd grown there…Bobby frowned. He'd have to stop trying to make a division between hunters and hunters' children in his mind—heck, maybe there was no such thing.

God damn, he wished for anything else but this life for Dean and Sammy. Hell, Caleb lost his whole family not three years ago—sure, that kid had a reason to be what he was. But Dean—Dean had been four when he lost his mother, and Sam a baby. Neither one of those kids really knew who she was anymore…and here came John Winchester ready to sacrifice their lives and call it protecting them, for a chance at revenge. Fucker.



In the morning Bobby had a stack of waffles and a pile of bacon waiting for the boys, with warm apple pie filling to pour over the top and chocolate milk in their glasses.

Sam took one look at the piles of food and only three plates and his face crumbled up. "Where's Dad's plate?"

Dean's eyes jerked towards Sam and then towards Bobby. He looked suspicious, bordering on angry. "What Sammy said."

"Well…" Bobby started, and Dean's shoulders dropped, his face fell. Sam reached out for Dean's hand and his little face went blank.

"He's gone. Okay," Dean said and pulled Sam closer to him. "Can we eat now?"

"Sure. Sure. Listen, yer dad said he'd be home in three weeks, maybe less. And hey, we can get pumpkins, and—and make pie, this is the time for apple pie makin'. Karen used to make—Karen was my wife, she used to make good pies and I taught myself to do the same, not as good as her, mind, but--" Bobby kept talking until the boys unfroze and seemed to forget that their father dropped them off at with a person who, despite calling him Uncle Bobby, they really didn't know. Well, fuck that, Bobby figured it was time they got to know him pretty damn well. "Tomorrow, first thing, we're gonna get started on our pie lessons, right boys? We'll have our own school."

"Right, Uncle Bobby," Sam piped up and Dean just smiled at him.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and put the two glasses of chocolate milk on the table. On impulse, he set another mug, a little less than half full of coffee next to Dean, tossed in a couple of tablespoons of sugar, and topped it off with milk, until it was almost white. He winked at Dean and Dean flat out grinned and Bobby thought it was a good thing to see.



Bobby felt curious eyes on him as he went up and down the aisles of the supermarket, trailed by a pair of silent boys, so close under his heel he was almost stepping on one or the other constantly. Every few feet he stopped, and explained to someone new, "Yeah, they're my nephews, yeah, my ah—sister's kids. Not Marge, Sheryl. You remember, the wild one." He smiled, and hoped to cryin' out loud no one ever found out Sheryl was happily ensconced in a commune in the assback of nowhere, busy knitting plant holders or what the hell ever you called that stuff and probably growing pot. He wished her happiness. The boys just stared up solemn-faced and mute. After a while, he started getting that look, that 'poor damaged little dears' look. He caught Dean's eyes and rolled his. Dean grinned.

"People are idiots," Bobby muttered and Dean nodded.
Part two

Comments

[tabaqui]

Finally, i'm here.
*twirls you*

Ooh, these boys. Poor Dean! What a thing to say, where he could hear.
I love Sam slowly unbending, i love cooking - pie! - being the thing that melts Dean.

I'm glad they have Bobby.
*sniffle*

:)