Bound and Determined
K Hanna Korossy

He was getting better at this. Wasn't planning to be around until he reached Beetlejuice level, but at least he didn't pop in like a danged whack-a-mole this time.

Sam, packing his clothes in a duffel, still jumped. "Bobby!"

As if they hadn't been talking just a few minutes ago. At least...Bobby hoped it was a few minutes. Time was kinda screwy on the other plane. "Sam." He glanced around for Dean.

Sam followed his gaze. "Dean's picking up a car."

Right. Picking up probably meant hot-wiring some nondescript Toyota in a parking garage, because the Impala was in mothballs. Shame, that. But Bobby nodded, glad they had the room to themselves. "Sam. You know I'm right about getting into Roman Enterprises. If you don't send me in, you two have got about a virgin's chance on spring break."

Sam sighed, shoving in a rolled-up pair of jeans. "Yeah, maybe. We'll see, okay?"

"Boy—" Bobby cut himself off with effort. He didn't like it, but he had to calm down, his temper starting to rise. He said he wasn't gonna go vengeful spirit on them and he meant it, no matter how much that Dick deserved it. Bobby blew out a breath and distracted himself with taking a good look at his kid now that he could see more than just translucent shadows of the living. He licked his eternally dry lips. "You know...I'm real sorry for what you went through with your busted-up melon before Cas fixed you."

Sam's motion stuttered to a halt. He half-turned to Bobby. "You, uh, saw that?"

"Just bits and pieces," Bobby admitted. "Enough to know it got pretty bad at the end."

Sam sank onto the edge of the bed like he didn't even realize he was sitting. He shook his head with a huff. "You know, I think that's when I missed you the most. Not for me, I mean—I was pretty out of it that last week—but Dean..." He stared down at his hands. "Dean was..."

"Not sure I could've helped much with that, kid," Bobby said softly.

"It's just..." Sam looked up, mouth twisting and eyes a little bright. "I guess we got so used to being able to call you when we didn't have any place else to turn..."

He did help Dean with the lead that eventually led him to Castiel, but Bobby didn't mention that. He knew that wasn't what Sam was really talking about. He shifted awkwardly in place; talking about things like this weren't any easier when you didn't have a heartbeat. "I heard you when you tried the talking board, you know. Just wasn't strong enough to make the lights dance yet."

Sam nodded.

"'Sides, you seemed to do okay without me. The way you fooled Chronos and pulled Dean back from the past—that was a real fine piece of spell work, Sam."

Sam shrugged one-shouldered. "Yeah, I guess." He shook his head, mouth pulling up. "And did you see Garth...?"

Bobby rolled his eyes. "Wish I hadn't."

They shared an actual laugh over that, then lapsed into silence. Bobby was pretty sure he wavered for a moment, but it took less effort to focus now. Funny, he'd have thought trying to give them the scoop on Dick would've been the easier talk.

But this: in some ways it was more important. Bobby sighed. "Dean's been drinking more."

"I know," Sam said quietly to his hands again.

"Not like I've got room to talk—even dead, I could use a drink or ten—or that you've had it exactly easy, either. But losing his car, the angel, his freak kid—" He saw Sam's wince at that but didn't pause. "—facing losin' you, too—"

"—and you," Sam added.

It gave him no pleasure, even though he knew Sam was right. "He's really strugglin' when he thinks no one's lookin'." There were some things he'd seen when Dean had thought he'd been alone that Bobby wouldn't even tell Sam. "So just...just be there for him, all right? Don't let him pull that James Dean 'everything's fine' crap."

Sam had a half-smile on his face. "You sure we're not your unfinished business, Bobby?"

Bobby scowled back at him. "I don't know why I bother stickin' around." Except, they all knew. They always had, so this whole conversation was probably pointless.

"Actually," Sam stood, his expression exactly the same as when he'd been about to ask for ice cream as a kid. "If you have a few more minutes, I have some questions about your library and contacts. Oh, and do you know anything else about Amazons, or demons who train their vessels to kill, or...?"

Sam was still scribbling notes when Bobby allowed himself to take a breath and fade, and a minute later Dean was back and rushing them out the door.

00000

He hadn't sat in a back seat all that often when he was alive. When he'd met up with the Winchesters—one, two, or all three of them—he tended to drive his own car. But he was just happy to be here with these two.

Bobby himself wasn't sure if he was visible or not, but he knew it when Dean saw him in the frosted rear view, the slightest dip in the car's acceleration, an almost indiscernible swerve. Sam slept on in the passenger seat, undisturbed.

"This is gonna take some gettin' used to," Dean grumbled quietly.

Bobby snorted. "You think that's hard? Try bein' the one on this side of the veil."

Dean's mouth curled "Been there, done that, got the t-shirt."

"Oh? You played caboose to a pair of clowns, too?" Bobby growled.

"Whoa, easy there, Grizzly Adams. You keep talking about clowns and you're gonna give Sam nightmares."

He glared at Dean in the mirror. One thing about being dead: the negative emotions—fear, anger, envy, frustration—were a whole lot stronger than the good stuff. Speaking of which, "You got a plan yet for when you get to Dick's hideout?" Even just saying his name raised Bobby's boiling point a few degrees, and he forced it down. He wouldn't convince the boys he could do this if he kept blowing his top.

"Still working on that," Dean answered evenly.

Bobby knew the kid too well, though, not to see it for the dodge it was. "I'm telling you, sending me in is the only way you're gonna—"

"Hey." Dean turned in his seat to pin Bobby with his most earnest look. "Nothing's off the table, okay? This isn't some simple wendigo hunt—we gotta do this one smart, Bobby."

He drew in a breath—weird how you still did that when you were a doornail—and focused on Dean's face to ground himself. "Yeah," he grudgingly agreed, leaning back with crossed arms. "I hear ya."

Dean's mouth quirked, but he quickly got serious again as he drove on. He cleared his throat. "So, you, uh. You hear any of the things I said to you when I thought you were..."

"...playing hide-and-seek? Probably not all of it, but yeah, sometimes." Bobby tilted his head, admitting, "I tried my damnedest to answer you, but..."

Dean was shaking his head. "Hey, you helped me find Cas and fix Sam—far as I'm concerned, man, you were there when it counted."

"Had to fill you two in on Roman," Bobby said gruffly.

"Yeah, we pieced some of that together, too—you know about Frank, right?"

Bobby sighed. "I had a feelin'. His paranoia finally turned out to be right, huh?"

"He shot himself right before they got to him."

"Poor bastard. Hope he's with his family now."

Dean eyed him pointedly in the mirror.

"Don't say it," Bobby muttered. "I've got more to do here before I put my feet up for good. Besides," he stared Dean in the eye. "Seemed like you were hoping I was there listenin' when you were talkin'."

Dean was suddenly focused on the road, his hands absently twisting on the wheel.

"I'm sorry about the kid," Bobby said quietly.

The startled gaze was back on him. "Sam's okay. He's still a little spacey, but he's always been—"

"I wasn't talking about Sam."

Dean actually flinched. "I don't wanna talk about her," he said, low and raw.

"Okay." He'd heard plenty as it was, Dean trying to talk through his grief and confusion far more easily with a Bobby he thought was absent than he ever could've with Bobby for real. "But you said it yourself—you've already got a kid. He's okay now, drooling all over the seat next to you. And John would be mighty proud to see the way you took care of your family."

Dean's face twisted. After a moment, he wiped a hand quickly over his eyes, so they were only brimming with emotion when they met Bobby's again. "Death turn you soft, Bobby?" He tried a grin and didn't quite make it.

Bobby scowled at him. "Just wait until I get stronger—I'll show you how 'soft' I am."

The grin cracked open.

Bobby made a good effort to kill him with a look. "Not like that, you moron," he snapped.

Sam stirred. "Wha'? 'ean?"

"Go back to sleep, Sam." Dean reached over and patted blindly whatever his hand reached. Turned out to be Sam's jaw, and Sam settled back into slumber as Dean made a face and rubbed his hand dry on Sam's jeans. Bobby hadn't been kidding about the drool.

Bobby's smile felt as transparent as he was.

Dean cleared his throat after a moment. "So you saw what happened to Cas?"

"Yeah."

"You seen anything like that before? I mean, I don't even know what he did. You think it's permanent...?"

It was maybe another ten minutes before Bobby got too drained to stay, but they talked over Cas, the bottle of Johnny Walker Blue they'd drunk in Bobby's name, and a few good memories before he had to go.

At least Dean's jaw wasn't so tight and his eyes were a little less hollow when Bobby finally winked out.

Anger was the easiest. It would take over when he faced Roman the next evening, and made some even more rash decisions soon after. He could see, in his saner moments, why spirits eventually went crazy with it.

But Bobby was pretty sure that wasn't what bound him to a stupid flask he hadn't even used all that often. It wasn't what let him break through after he had his fill of seeing the private tears and struggles, hearing the outbreaks of anger, being the sole witness to the secret love and desperation and fear the two Winchesters carried. The flask was the one personal object of his that the boys had chosen to keep purely out of sentiment, and that probably meant more than the flask itself.

Because as much as he hated Dick Roman, he loved those two boys of his more.

The End

Okay, taking a break next Sunday but I'll be back in two weeks. Which will be exactly a month before the show returns!