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The silence is the worst part.
Watching his boys follow the demon into the obvious trap wasn’t enough. Sure. They were capable. Damn deadly even.
They were still just kids.
And one of 'em's got a hellhound on his tail. He winced. There’s nothing you can do for it but trust them.
Sam and Dean would kill Lillith.
They had too.
And you’re a fool and an optimist.
He shook his head. Not hours ago Dean was shaking and pale on the side of the road over a dead officer; confusion and horror warring at the knowledge of what he’d seen.
Of what it meant.
He knew too.
There’s no helping him. And they were fooling themselves, hoping.
Mr. Post Delivery stormed forward, recovered from the initial blitz, black eyes flickering.
Bobby huffed, wrapping his old rosary round his wrist and stepping back into the spray of holy water.
“Can’t help coming back for more, can ya?”
He had a job to do, no point in being maudlin about it.
The fight doesn’t last long.
He’s just finished exorcising the postman when the barking starts; dark, thunderous sounds that send a shiver down his spine, no matter how many times he’s heard it.
Today, his heart freezes, the steady beat muffled in horror.
For him- a non-damned, to be hearing them now; means Dean-
No.
No.
Not today, dammit-
He abandons his post- not like the accessory demons give a damn, scattering to the wind in the chaos as he storms up to the doors.
But they won't open.
Nothing he does works, and making a battering ram of his shoulder only serves to offer him a sprain and a bruised ego.
He’s locked out.
He’s still trying when Dean screams.
There’s not much of the aftermath that isn’t a haze.
He’s gotten used to this part of the hunt. The pain, the hurt of failure.
The sting of loss.
He’d wrapped hunter after hunter in white sheets and secured them with twine.
But it never got easier.
(He has, however, learned to keep an ax and shroud in his hunter’s kit.
He’s lost too many not too.)
And he’s lost plenty of friends over the years. Family. Karen, Bill. Jim Murphy. Each one a piece of his heart that didn’t have much left to give.
This was nothing like that.
This…this was so much worse.
Walking into that room, into Sam, cradling Dean to his chest and sobbing like he hadn’t seen the boy do since he was waist high–
He didn’t need to ask what had happened.
Sulfur stink cloyed the air, coating his tongue in ash and copper.
Claw marks gauged across the floor, the walls, the table.
Goofer dust scattered across the floor.
Blood pooling below Sam’s feet, going tacky dark at the edges.
The ribbons of skin replacing Dean’s chest.
No.
There were answers enough, if he looked.
He just didn’t want to.
“We gotta deal with the body.”
Sam doesn’t say anything, but he wasn’t really expecting an answer.
He wants to cry, to grab the boy by the shoulders and shake him till he looks at him just once, but he knows better.
Knows Winchester grief is nothing but a serrated knife, rusted over and jagged.
Knows the bite of that blade like an old friend.
He thinks about John, drowning his sorrow in whiskey and denial, pushing a .22 into a six-year-olds hands. Sacrificing other hunters if it got him results.
Thinks about a kid who knew the feel of a shotgun’s kickback better than a baseball glove.
Of a boy watching a girl burn on the ceiling when he thought he was finally out.
He tries to remember the feel of Dean’s face under his hands, warm and alive and creased in grief, but alive. Despite all his foolishness.
“I’m not even supposed to be here. At least this way, something good could come out of it, you know? I–I–It’s like my life could mean something.”
“What? And it didn’t before?!”
His boys.
Caught in a storm he couldn’t save 'em from.
Both so desperate to keep each other safe, they’d burn themselves to the bone to do it .
Sam had gone quiet after leaving New Harmony behind, carrying Dean out and putting him in the Impala’s backseat without a word.
Now, a state away in the backwoods of Pontiac, with the sun crawling up the horizon, the grief trapped in his chest threatened to burst over.
But curling over in his truck and sobbing for a week wasn’t an option. Not right now.
Not with Lillith on their tail and Dean still-
No.
Sam seemed in about the same merry mood, hunched on the hood of the Impala and glaring holes in the soil.
Getting out of the car had never seemed like such a struggle.
Opening his kit to pull out the shroud…
“Sam.”
“What Bobby.” Sam whispered.
Bobby sighed, wiping a hand over his face.
He didn’t look in the Impala.
“It’s time we… set up a pyre, Sam.”
The seconds ticked by, and Sam didn’t move. Didn’t twitch.
Bobby frowned.
“Sam?”
“I heard you, Bobby.”
“Then? Boy… I know-”
“What do you know, Bobby.” Sam snapped, meeting his eyes for the first time since he pulled Sam to his feet in Indiana.
But this… this was different.
Sam’s sorrow had fled, replaced with cold ire and steel.
Bobby felt himself fracture again.
“Don’t go thinking you own all the sorrow in the world, boy.” He hissed, grabbing Sam by the arm and pulling him off the car hood, stabbing pain in his back be damned. “You think I ain’t hurtin’ too? Y’think this is easy for me?! You boys-” He chokes.
He can’t tell if Sam’s the one shaking or if he is.
“How much family do you think I got left? You think watching you get shanked last year was any easier on me?”
Sam pulls back, slipping out of his grasp- and he lets him.
“I don’t understand. You’re a good man. You’d be a good dad.”
Oh Karen. He wants to roll over, wrap himself in the shroud meant for a boy that he can’t call his. He wants a drink. He wants-
I told you I break everything I touch.
Sam is an unreadable wall, staring at the small pile of supplies he’d carried over like they were a personal offense.
He doesn’t know what to do.
“You Winchesters. Always with your heads up your asses about how much you’re hurting you forget the rest of us are here too.” He says, pulling his cap down lower to get away from the blank, awful look on Sam’s face.
If it helps hides the tears rolling down his cheeks, well, all the better.
“So? Are you gonna help me make the pyre or not?”
Sam, in fact, does not want to help make a pyre.
His counterproposal is also ridiculous. So stupid it doesn’t even consider debating.
It does merit getting out the bottle of rotgut in the boot of his car and taking a hearty swig, grimacing at the taste and swallowing the curses coating his tongue.
He remembers a grieving, stupid older brother and crossroads deals. He also remembers a dumbass father hellbent on revenge and ready to burn himself out to get it.
He feels like he’s watching a reel on a loop, a tragedy repeating itself in blood and tears; and he can’t do anything to stop it.
It’s 5pm somewhere, but right now it's 10am, and his pseudo son is dead and laid out in the back of his car.
There’s not much left to stay sober for.
He thinks Rufus would smack him upside the head right about now, but, well, Rufus ain’t here.
“Alright. From the top. Like I’m a particularly stupid toddler.” He says, putting the bottle in Sam’s hands before plopping down on the ground, his knees creaking in protest.
Well, they can shut it.
Sam clenches his jaw, glaring at the bottle before taking a rough swallow and joining him on the ground, their knees brushing.
“We’re not burning Dean.” Sam starts, almost calm. “We’re burying him.”
“Like hell we are!!” He shouts, pushing at Sam’s shoulder before dragging him in close by the collar.
The boy barely looks fazed. Damn him.
A flicker catches his eyes, and he glances down.
Sam's got Dean’s amulet on, and it glints in the light, bronze face stained in dried blood.
Dean's blood.
Bobby can almost see a much younger Dean grinning up at him, talking about how 'his little brother Sammy' got him something so cool.
A younger Sam, thanking him for helping.
When had they grown up so much?
“You know the drill, Sam. We get salted and burned, and we stay dead. We don’t turn into ghosts. We don’t get eaten and ‘imitated’ by ghouls– no. Dean’s a hunter. He deserves to at least die like one.” He says, words careful and measured. "He deserves that respect."
“What- so he can burn in hell while I’m alive? While I know he’s suffering because of me?! No.” Sam snarls, grabbing his wrist and squeezing till he could feel his bones grinding against each other. “No, Bobby I can’t-”
“You can’t what? Move on? Well, tough cookies, kid. People die! How many times will you boys pull each other from the fire before you learn!”
“He’s gonna need a body when I get him home, Bobby.” Sam pushes, ignoring him fully. “I’m going to get him back. Somehow.”
“You know no demon’ll deal.” He says, “They gave him one year Sam, they won’t give you anything.”
“Then I’ll find another way.” Sam’s eyes are flint and iron, resolve building his hopes and rage burning the flames higher. “I’ll bring him home, Bobby. No matter what.”
It sounds like a threat, as much as it’s a promise.
And what else can he say?
They both know there’s only one outcome here.
Either Bobby helps, or Sam takes Dean off on his own to make a pine box.
He’s not letting him do that alone.
Can't let him say goodbye alone.
He can’t.
“Alright.” He nods, and Sam falters, breath catching before he slumps against him, nose buried in his neck and tears flowing anew. The fight gone from him, at least for a moment. “Alright, boy. I got ya.”
The alcohol burns and the soil is too muddy to get a good grip on the shovel, but he keeps going anyway.
Each push down is a sob.
Every toss of dirt a cry.
Illinois in spring has the woods around them full of life, and he can hear Sam bring down the ax in the background, a steady beat under the chatter of squirrels and the cries of morning birds.
Splinters dig under his skin, and he keeps digging.
Storm clouds gather on the horizon.
He takes another drink.
It’s a stupid idea, but Sam isn’t being stupid about it.
He’s carved warding sigils into every inch of the thing, inside and out. There’s a second wooden plank under the main casket, likely a barrier to keep anything from crawling in.
Dean’s body is as safe as it’ll ever be, six feet under.
He lines the inside with the shroud, covering the sigils and making a makeshift cushion.
For a delirious moment, he wants to be able to give Dean a proper sendoff. A goodbye worth something more than an old drunk, a broken younger brother, and a pine box in a shallow grave.
But that’s all they’ve got.
Sam’s quiet as they pull Dean out of the Impala, shoulders stiff and hands shaking.
Bobby can’t stop from staring.
It’s been well over twelve hours, and he knows if they don’t get a move on, the body’ll rot–if it hasn’t already started, rigor mortis already wearing off and blood settling in livid blue pools–
But it’s Dean, staring up at him with dull, glassy green eyes.
He’s holding on too tight, fingers leaving imprints in Dean’s shoulder- but he can’t be bothered to worry about it.
He can’t—he won’t drop him now.
Sam isn’t doing much better, and by the time they set Dean down in his coffin, the boy’s gone misty eyed and vacant.
He looks away.
“Well boy,” he whispers, cradling Dean’s head gently, “I’ll keep an eye on Sam, so you… you rest.”
They both know there’s no peace where Dean is.
Sam lets him pretend anyway.
His hair’s soft.
He lets himself pretend, for a moment, running his fingers through Dean’s hair like the boy hadn’t let him in over a decade.
Lets himself grieve a son he can’t keep.
It takes everything in him to pull away, to set Dean’s head down against the white cloth and shut his eyes for him. To pull away and let Sam say his piece in private.
To shut the lid and put him in the earth.
The skies open up as they finish replacing the soil over Dean, a thunderclap announcing itself as Sam jammed a small wooden cross into the ground.
He watches the water fall, Sam’s face tilted up into the sky and lets himself wonder at their future for a moment.
It’s all too frightening for one old man to think of.
“Sam?”
Sam shrugs in response.
He pauses, but pushes on. “For all it’s worth… Happy birthday, kid.”
Sam snorts, an acrid, bitter thing. “Thanks Bobby.”
Sam walks away, his footsteps barely audible under the downpour.
When the impala starts, he isn’t surprised.
He doubts he’ll be hearing from Sam anytime soon.
When her engine fades away into the night, he pulls away, patting the cross twice.
The rain feels like goodbye.