Disclaimer: The only thing I own are the ridiculous situations in which I've placed these boys.

Author's Note: And for our final course…

"How's it feel?" Bobby asks, nodding his chin towards the booted leg Dean has elevated beside him on the ratty sofa of the older hunter's living room.

"Awesome," Dean replies in a tone that implies he's anything but. "How's Sam?"

Bobby hooks his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans, giving the younger hunter a thorough once-over, not liking his pasty coloration and all-too frequent barely-concealed grimaces of pain. "He's fine. Got him tucked into bed upstairs. Had to practically knock him out again to get him to stay up there." Bobby smiles a little at the verbal wrestling match that had ensued, Sam arguing up down and sideways that he was fine, all the while still confused about how his older brother got to the basement in the first place, Dean's arrival and his second blow to the head nowhere on his scrambled radar.

Bobby wonders if he'll get a similar performance from the Winchester in front of him, thinks the chances are pretty good, and mentally calculates if he has enough liquor stockpiled in his house to get him through the rest of the brothers' convalescence.

Not likely.

"Think maybe you ought to take a look under the hood? See how bad it is?" Bobby asks, eyeballing Dean's injured leg.

"Damn Bobby," Dean says with a forced smirk, "didn't know you thought about what I looked like under my hood."

"Shut up you Idjit," Bobby says, plopping himself down next to Dean's boot in a passive-aggressive show of retribution, raising his eyebrow blandly when the younger hunter braces himself and lets out a stilted hiss at the jarring motion.

"Fine, fine," Dean mutters, shifting his position to ward off Bobby's hands as they threaten to help him with the task of revealing the ghouls' handiwork. He makes short work of getting the Velcro straps undone, biting his bottom lip in concentration and distraction as he carefully slides his much-abused ankle out of its protective barrier.

"Shit," he breathes, eyes widening at the sight before him. At least it looks as good as it feels. Which really isn't saying much.

His ankle now more closely resembles the Stay Puft Marshamallow Man (bigger and angrier than ever), although with more of a purplish hue, and he finds it rather disconcerting that he can easily measure his heart rate by the throbbing emanating from his lower leg.

"Shit," Dean reiterates, eyes flicking over to catch Bobby's concerned look. "I think I might have pissed it off."

Bobby snorts and mumbles, "Tell it to join the club."

"Hey!" Dean protests, taking offense at Bobby's mumbled statement. "What kind of thanks is that? Did I or did I not just save your assess?"

Bobby narrows his gaze, trying to figure out if the older Winchester is also suffering from a head injury.

"Oh, shut up," Dean huffs out, well aware of the fact that he himself may also have been in need of some saving. "Well, get it over with," he continues, "I know you're just dying to feel me up."

"Yeah," Bobby says with a bland expression. "Nothing better than examining a sweaty foot attached to a hairy man leg. Really gets my motor running."

Dean just rolls his eyes, grateful for at least that little bit of deflection before Bobby's fingers start their probing. A process he's able to complete while remaining fully conscious through sheer determination and a little help from AC/DC. "Highway to Hell" has never been such an accurate description.

In truth, he knows that he's probably going to need another set of xrays after the additional abuse his ankle has taken, but he's hopeful that maybe if he appeases Bobby tonight, the old man will cut him some slack.

"Oh thank God," he breathes out when Bobby's fingers have finally ended their torture, sucking in a few deep breathes to make up for the shorter panting ones that had accompanied the actual exam. "So?" he asks, reluctantly interested in Bobby's assessment.

Bobby just quirks an eyebrow, gives him a look that screams "dumbass" without his lips actually saying the word. "It ain't good," he says succinctly.

"Gee, thanks for clearing that up for me," says Dean. "Here I thought I'd be able to go audition for the Rockettes in the morning." A lascivious grin creeps across his face as he gets a mental picture of the line of long-limbed scantily-clad women, pasty complexion taking on a greenish tint when he visualizes the beating his ankle would have to endure to actually carry through with his statement.

"All I meant," Bobby says with a lazy eyeroll, "is that I ain't an xray machine." Something Bobby's pretty sure the younger hunter's going to protest.

Sometimes Bobby really wonders how it is he can care so much for these boys and want to strangle them at the same time.

Bobby pushes himself to his feet, heading out to the kitchen where Dean can hear him washing his hands and rummaging around, returning shortly with a couple of beers in one hand and a bag of frozen vegetables in the other.

Dean's quick reflexes keep the bag of peas from hitting him in the face, plucking it neatly out of the air and molding it around his swollen ankle instead, a grimace plastered on his face as he does so.

"Remind me never to eat frozen vegetables at your place," he says, a weak frown doing a poor job of masking his discomfort.

"When was the last time you even ate a vegetable?" Bobby retorts. "Ketchup don't count," he adds quickly.

Dean closes his mouth to contain the answer Bobby just nullified, instead returning his attention to his bum leg and how he got into this whole mess in the first place. Stupid libido.

"Was she worth it?"

"What?" Dean asked, startled and more than a little spooked to think that Bobby might have some kind of freaky psychic powers, first with the ketchup insight and then in regards to the hot blonde who kicked off this whole fiasco.

"The girl," Bobby says again, slower, holding Dean's gaze while he sips his beer, a smirk teasing the corners of his mouth as he sees the younger hunter's brain working furiously. "Did she have CURB appeal?" he says, placing emphasis on the words he's betting will get the best reaction.

"Dammit Sam!" Dean cries in exasperation, the implication that Sam's spilled his secret to Bobby now plain as day.

Dean lets out a huff of resignation, steeling himself for the ribbing that he fully expects to commence any minute and not let up until either he or Bobby are dead.

"Please at least tell me it was the head injury that turned him into chatty Cathy," Dean says, ready to consider giving his brother just a tad less grief over spilling the beans if his confession was injury-induced.

"Nope!" Bobby chirps cheerfully. "Kid sang like a canary on the truck ride to the hunt. Don't know how he even managed to keep it from me that long," he adds with a snort. "He was practically bursting at the seams."

Dean pouts at the picture Bobby's painted: Sam Winchester. The swiss cheese of secrets.

()o()o()o()o()

"How's your head?" Dean asks, eyes raking over his younger brother as he makes his first appearance of the day.

"Okay I think," Sam says, squinting at the bright late-morning sunshine streaming through the slightly grimy windows of Bobby's kitchen. "I'll live." Although right now, he's not quite sure that statement is all it's cracked up to be, what with the jackhammering and general commotion taking place in his aching brain.

"How's the ankle?" he asks, nodding to Dean's propped up leg, trying to deflect any further inquiries away from himself while genuinely trying to figure out just how bad off his brother is. Although what with Dean's general denial, big brother status, and overall hero complex, he's more likely to figure out the final digits of Pi than to get an honest answer about his brother's health.

"Fantastic," Dean says, the sarcasm in his voice evident. "I was just about to go audition for the Rockettes."

Sam catches Bobby's eyeroll and huff of annoyance, figuring he missed something but unable to put enough nonpainful thoughts together to inquire further.

In truth, Dean's ankle feels pretty much like it did yesterday – angry, obnoxious, and generally making his life hell.

Bobby had dragged him to the nearest medical facility at the butt-crack of dawn while Sam was still dead to the world, threatening to beat him even more senseless than he already was if he didn't get that "damned infernal ankle of yours looked at".

The consternation by the staff in the ER about how exactly it was that he needed to be seen again for a previous injury was explained away by Bobby's "My nephew is an idiot." The fact that he was a male idiot "with too much testosterone and not enough brains" appeased the entirety of Dean's caregivers, with the added bonus of allowing Bobby to express himself freely on the subject of Dean's level of idiocy to any and all available ears.

And while the xrays were again negative for any fractures, the additional insults to his ankle added another several weeks of crutches and booted immobilization to the initial estimate of three. With the added possibility of surgery looming over his head if his ligaments don't play nicely and heal like they're supposed to.

So yeah, he's fantastic.

"Hey. You found your crutches," Sam says, pointing out the obvious aluminum objects propped up next to his older brother while trying to make a mental note to ask Bobby more about Dean later.

"Yeah genius. You were there."

Apparently, in addition to being incapable of keeping a secret, Sam's brain is also still swiss cheese in the memory department as well.

The three hunters had made their way out of the house after the hunt the previous night, coming across Dean's crutches where they had fallen during the take-down by the ghoul, not too far from the Impala. A brief argument had ensued about who was fit to drive (Bobby being the only one of the three who would've actually passed both the mental and physical portions of a driving test), and after much huffing and exasperated name-calling, they began their drive home, Bobby reassuring Sam that they'll return for his truck once Sam's head in no longer in danger of imploding.

"Thanks by the way," Dean says, cocking an eyebrow towards his younger brother.

Sam gets the feeling that his brother's phrase has quite the opposite meaning, and he tries to clear the cobwebs in his brain enough to figure out the meaning behind his words.

"Secrets, Sam," Dean clarifies when Sam just continues to sit there with a blank look on his face. "Blackmail. Any of this ringing a bell?"

Sam briefly considers playing the concussion card, telling his brother that he has no clue what he's referring to, but can't quite bite back the smile that brings the dimples out for a few fleeting seconds.

"Dammit, Sam. We had a deal."

"Yeah," Sam says, putting as much force into his argument as his abused brain will allow, "well I guess we both suck at keeping our ends of the bargain, don't we?"

This time it's Dean's turn to stare blankly at his brother, Sam unleashing an eyeroll which he cuts short due to the lingering dizziness it causes before clarifying, "As in no walking for three weeks. Staying off your ankle. Not coming on the hunt. That ringing any bells?" he asks, throwing his brother's phrasing back at him.

"Yeah, well what did you expect me to do?" Dean answers, eyebrows furrowed in exasperation. "Just sit on my ass while you guys are missing?"

"Alright, alright," Bobby interjects, the thought that he's definitely going to need more liquor now firmly cemented in his head. "Let's just agree that you're an idiot," he says pointing to Dean, "and you're a blabber mouth," he says, swinging his finger over to Sam.

"Yeah?" says Dean, eyes narrowed in challenge at the grizzled hunter. "Then what does that make you?"

"Not nearly drunk enough to put up with you two for another few weeks, that's for damn sure."

A/N 2: Thanks so much for sticking with this adventure in pain in snark! (Ooh, that sounds like a good title for a future story…) I appreciate all of your comments, feedback, and general encouragement to keep on keeping on.