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fannishlisstitle: Christmas at Bobby's
author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fannishliss
rating: G
spoilers: current s7
1390 w
forzagzagael who prompted: Sam, Dean, Bobby. John is hunting. Boys are boys.
===
Dean and Sam Winchester had been through a lot. Fighting monsters, losing their friends and loved ones — literally going to hell and being yanked here and there willy nilly — short of being actively cursed (they had no active curses on them right at the moment, at least as far as they knew) they led the very opposite of charmed lives.
So driving through the darkness, no money, no destination, they took simple comforts very seriously. The heater in the old car worked. It wasn't the Impala — they were crammed into their bucket seats and the smell was all wrong — but at least they were warm and dry. No one knew where they were — including the law and the leviathans — so that was a plus. They had supplies enough to eat for a day or two, at least till they could hustle up some cash further on down the line, and Dean had siphoned the tank full just a hundred miles back. So they really couldn't complain.
Just to pass the time and keep things normal, they complained.
"I guess you guys must've really done up Christmas right last year, huh?" Sam said, breaking the cardinal rule of Not Mentioning Lisa.
Dean shot Sam an evil glance. "Seriously?"
"I mean, you know, tree, presents, eggnog, cookies for Santa and whatnot," Sam said, twisting the knife. "Turkey or ham for Christmas dinner, huh? Mincemeat pie?"
"Try latkes and a menorah, dick," Dean grumbled.
"Huh?" Sam said.
"Lisa's Jewish, as is Ben, bitch," Dean said, shifting.
"Oh," Sam said. He had that sinking feeling inside, the one that came from missing a year of Dean's life. If he searched his memory, he could see the hazy outline of Lisa's house, dancing with blue and white lights that December. Had there been a menorah in the window? His soulless self hadn't thought much about it, just checked up on Dean to make sure he was still alive and gone his way.
"It was nice though. Lighting the candles every night. Frying things. It felt a little weird, at first, but no more so than I always felt, like some kind of interloper. Lisa tried, you know, she was good at making me feel like part of things."
"God, Dean. I'm sorry," Sam said. His heart felt like it was actually shrinking. He could see a grinch-like diagram in his head.
"Just one more handful of sand in my face in the big old wrasslin' match of life," Dean said. "'S not your fault. We wouldn't even have had that one year if you hadn't ..." Dean broke off. He still had a problem finishing that sentence.
"Mm," Sam said, frowning guiltily.
The road rumbled on a ways.
"Used to be kind of nice, though, at Bobby's?" Sam hazarded.
Dean coughed. "Shut up, Sam."
Sam couldn't shut up. His foot had wedged his mouth wide open. "Times Dad left us at Bobby's were the best, I thought," Sam said.
"Oh my god, Sam. Now we're comparing our dead Dad to our dead, whatever, Bobby. Please, for the love of... of... Kali just shut the hell up!" Dean shouted. Dean had had a vague recollection of a safe house about another hundred miles from where they now were in western Virginia. He had hoped they'd find it by midnight, but apparently, Sam had a bad case of verbal diarrhea. And they were stuck together in this goddamned car until he found it. Was silence too much to ask?
"Remember how cold it used to be at Bobby's in the wintertime, and how he'd only give us that one electric blanket?" Sam said.
"Rr," Dean grumbled.
"Your feet were like ice," Sam complained.
"Blanket thief," Dean accused, seriously.
"In the summer, that place was like a furnace. Hundred degrees in the shade. Remember running around in the old cars, making forts, ambushing each other?" Sam's voice had a pleading tone to it. Good memories were precious to him now, Dean knew.
"Yeah," Dean relented.
"Remember that box of ornaments Bobby had in the attic?" Sam said.
Bobby didn't do such a thing as put up a tree. Why would he? His dead wife's collection of ornaments stayed up in the attic in their dusty cardboard box. Sam and Dean snooped around up there sometimes, when it wasn't ice cold or too swelteringly hot to breathe, and they'd gone through the box more than once over the years. It was a girl's ornament collection, mostly trinkets probably given to her by her friends mixed in with a few old glass heirlooms brought from her childhood home. Only a handful of the ornaments looked like gifts for Bobby: a miniature wrench, Santa driving the General Lee, a tiny ballcap that said "Red Hot Lover" that made Dean grin and Sam blush, and a beautiful little spray of mistletoe made of glass and sprinkled with glitter that Sam and Dean were almost afraid to touch. They had nothing like that box of ornaments, no special keepsakes beyond a few dogeared photographs of a time Dean cherished and Sam couldn't remember at all, the paradisical time of When Mom Was Alive.
"The clown," Dean grinned.
Bobby had been such a packrat. He never threw anything out. Toys they'd long since grown out of stayed in their room on top of the book shelf. There was Sam's old plastic brain box, the cube he'd pushed plastic shapes into with his pudgy little fingers as a toddler. Next to it, the clown — a ragdoll Sam's second grade teacher had given him that was Dean's Golem for Tormenting Sam, with a bloody little cardboard knife taped to his hand.
"Do you remember that time you came out of the shower, and the clown was on the toilet?" Dean laughed.
"I nearly had a concussion, Dean," Sam complained. He'd screamed so loud and slipped in the tub, cutting his forehead on the faucet, but he'd been all right, so Dean had never repented.
"That thing scared you so bad!" Dean said, grinning.
"Rr," Sam replied. The clown had died in the fire.
"You ever play chess at Stanford?"
Dean had been good at Connect Four. Bobby bought it for them one rainy June; they had a running tally of victories marked inside the lid, with Sam trailing Dean 557 to 603. That Christmas, Bobby had produced a bag of chessmen and some books, and he showed Sam a few gambits, starting a long-running, good-natured feud between Bobby and Sam. Dean was too aggressive for chess and lost brilliantly, but Sam had a fiendish long game.
"Nah, I wasn't that good. Times I won, Bobby was just humoring me. He just wanted to show me how the gambits played out." One game had taken Sam two days on and off and left both of them beaming.
Dean nodded. "He sure could cook," he said, smiling.
Bobby liked to cook a big breakfast — lots of meat and scrambled eggs, sometimes even biscuits — and Sam and Dean ate till they felt distended. It made Bobby smile when they tore into his food.
"Remember the socks?" Sam said softly.
Christmas at Bobby's wasn't warm, and there wasn't a tree, and breakfast there was always awesome — but Christmas was when Bobby outfitted the boys in thriftstore flannel and brand new socks. They'd both get several pairs of thick, expensive wool socks, the kind you just don't find second hand.
Dean wiggled his toes. He still had a pair or two of Bobby's good socks in his duffel and he was wearing a pair now. "Yup," he said.
"Me too," Sam said.
It hurt, Bobby gone. Sam and Dean had taken so many hits, but somehow they managed to keep on going.
Christmas at Bobby's had never been about a tree, or presents, or anything much out of the ordinary, except celebrating the fact that they were all alive, together. Now he was gone, along with Dad, and Mom, and the rest. They drove on, lost in thought, Dean thinking about steaks under the broiler, baked potatoes, and broccoli Bobby had always insisted he finish, Sam thinking about movies they'd watched together countless times, while Bobby sat at his desk with some book or other, slowly turning pages.
Darkness lay thick around them, but somehow Christmas was a little bit brighter with the love of a dead old man still warming their hearts.
author:
fannishlissrating: G
spoilers: current s7
1390 w
for
zagzagael who prompted: Sam, Dean, Bobby. John is hunting. Boys are boys.===
Dean and Sam Winchester had been through a lot. Fighting monsters, losing their friends and loved ones — literally going to hell and being yanked here and there willy nilly — short of being actively cursed (they had no active curses on them right at the moment, at least as far as they knew) they led the very opposite of charmed lives.
So driving through the darkness, no money, no destination, they took simple comforts very seriously. The heater in the old car worked. It wasn't the Impala — they were crammed into their bucket seats and the smell was all wrong — but at least they were warm and dry. No one knew where they were — including the law and the leviathans — so that was a plus. They had supplies enough to eat for a day or two, at least till they could hustle up some cash further on down the line, and Dean had siphoned the tank full just a hundred miles back. So they really couldn't complain.
Just to pass the time and keep things normal, they complained.
"I guess you guys must've really done up Christmas right last year, huh?" Sam said, breaking the cardinal rule of Not Mentioning Lisa.
Dean shot Sam an evil glance. "Seriously?"
"I mean, you know, tree, presents, eggnog, cookies for Santa and whatnot," Sam said, twisting the knife. "Turkey or ham for Christmas dinner, huh? Mincemeat pie?"
"Try latkes and a menorah, dick," Dean grumbled.
"Huh?" Sam said.
"Lisa's Jewish, as is Ben, bitch," Dean said, shifting.
"Oh," Sam said. He had that sinking feeling inside, the one that came from missing a year of Dean's life. If he searched his memory, he could see the hazy outline of Lisa's house, dancing with blue and white lights that December. Had there been a menorah in the window? His soulless self hadn't thought much about it, just checked up on Dean to make sure he was still alive and gone his way.
"It was nice though. Lighting the candles every night. Frying things. It felt a little weird, at first, but no more so than I always felt, like some kind of interloper. Lisa tried, you know, she was good at making me feel like part of things."
"God, Dean. I'm sorry," Sam said. His heart felt like it was actually shrinking. He could see a grinch-like diagram in his head.
"Just one more handful of sand in my face in the big old wrasslin' match of life," Dean said. "'S not your fault. We wouldn't even have had that one year if you hadn't ..." Dean broke off. He still had a problem finishing that sentence.
"Mm," Sam said, frowning guiltily.
The road rumbled on a ways.
"Used to be kind of nice, though, at Bobby's?" Sam hazarded.
Dean coughed. "Shut up, Sam."
Sam couldn't shut up. His foot had wedged his mouth wide open. "Times Dad left us at Bobby's were the best, I thought," Sam said.
"Oh my god, Sam. Now we're comparing our dead Dad to our dead, whatever, Bobby. Please, for the love of... of... Kali just shut the hell up!" Dean shouted. Dean had had a vague recollection of a safe house about another hundred miles from where they now were in western Virginia. He had hoped they'd find it by midnight, but apparently, Sam had a bad case of verbal diarrhea. And they were stuck together in this goddamned car until he found it. Was silence too much to ask?
"Remember how cold it used to be at Bobby's in the wintertime, and how he'd only give us that one electric blanket?" Sam said.
"Rr," Dean grumbled.
"Your feet were like ice," Sam complained.
"Blanket thief," Dean accused, seriously.
"In the summer, that place was like a furnace. Hundred degrees in the shade. Remember running around in the old cars, making forts, ambushing each other?" Sam's voice had a pleading tone to it. Good memories were precious to him now, Dean knew.
"Yeah," Dean relented.
"Remember that box of ornaments Bobby had in the attic?" Sam said.
Bobby didn't do such a thing as put up a tree. Why would he? His dead wife's collection of ornaments stayed up in the attic in their dusty cardboard box. Sam and Dean snooped around up there sometimes, when it wasn't ice cold or too swelteringly hot to breathe, and they'd gone through the box more than once over the years. It was a girl's ornament collection, mostly trinkets probably given to her by her friends mixed in with a few old glass heirlooms brought from her childhood home. Only a handful of the ornaments looked like gifts for Bobby: a miniature wrench, Santa driving the General Lee, a tiny ballcap that said "Red Hot Lover" that made Dean grin and Sam blush, and a beautiful little spray of mistletoe made of glass and sprinkled with glitter that Sam and Dean were almost afraid to touch. They had nothing like that box of ornaments, no special keepsakes beyond a few dogeared photographs of a time Dean cherished and Sam couldn't remember at all, the paradisical time of When Mom Was Alive.
"The clown," Dean grinned.
Bobby had been such a packrat. He never threw anything out. Toys they'd long since grown out of stayed in their room on top of the book shelf. There was Sam's old plastic brain box, the cube he'd pushed plastic shapes into with his pudgy little fingers as a toddler. Next to it, the clown — a ragdoll Sam's second grade teacher had given him that was Dean's Golem for Tormenting Sam, with a bloody little cardboard knife taped to his hand.
"Do you remember that time you came out of the shower, and the clown was on the toilet?" Dean laughed.
"I nearly had a concussion, Dean," Sam complained. He'd screamed so loud and slipped in the tub, cutting his forehead on the faucet, but he'd been all right, so Dean had never repented.
"That thing scared you so bad!" Dean said, grinning.
"Rr," Sam replied. The clown had died in the fire.
"You ever play chess at Stanford?"
Dean had been good at Connect Four. Bobby bought it for them one rainy June; they had a running tally of victories marked inside the lid, with Sam trailing Dean 557 to 603. That Christmas, Bobby had produced a bag of chessmen and some books, and he showed Sam a few gambits, starting a long-running, good-natured feud between Bobby and Sam. Dean was too aggressive for chess and lost brilliantly, but Sam had a fiendish long game.
"Nah, I wasn't that good. Times I won, Bobby was just humoring me. He just wanted to show me how the gambits played out." One game had taken Sam two days on and off and left both of them beaming.
Dean nodded. "He sure could cook," he said, smiling.
Bobby liked to cook a big breakfast — lots of meat and scrambled eggs, sometimes even biscuits — and Sam and Dean ate till they felt distended. It made Bobby smile when they tore into his food.
"Remember the socks?" Sam said softly.
Christmas at Bobby's wasn't warm, and there wasn't a tree, and breakfast there was always awesome — but Christmas was when Bobby outfitted the boys in thriftstore flannel and brand new socks. They'd both get several pairs of thick, expensive wool socks, the kind you just don't find second hand.
Dean wiggled his toes. He still had a pair or two of Bobby's good socks in his duffel and he was wearing a pair now. "Yup," he said.
"Me too," Sam said.
It hurt, Bobby gone. Sam and Dean had taken so many hits, but somehow they managed to keep on going.
Christmas at Bobby's had never been about a tree, or presents, or anything much out of the ordinary, except celebrating the fact that they were all alive, together. Now he was gone, along with Dad, and Mom, and the rest. They drove on, lost in thought, Dean thinking about steaks under the broiler, baked potatoes, and broccoli Bobby had always insisted he finish, Sam thinking about movies they'd watched together countless times, while Bobby sat at his desk with some book or other, slowly turning pages.
Darkness lay thick around them, but somehow Christmas was a little bit brighter with the love of a dead old man still warming their hearts.
