This little one-shot is written for my darling Alex, who I hope this helps to cheer up a little. As a side note for anyone reading my multi-chapters, I have not abandoned them, I've just been extremely busy. Things are a little slower now though and you should start seeing updates in the next few weeks to all of my multi-chaps. Okay, shutting up now, enjoy!

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There must have been a flap of skin or some old spit inside that damned old flask of his, because instead of flaming out after Sam and Dean salted and burned his bones he found himself tagging behind Dean like a dog on a leash. Of course, Dean just had to take the stupid thing along with him, which meant that he was there in the car with them as Dean took hits out of it while driving back to the cabin, stayed and watched them sit in misery for weeks afterwards, heard them squabble like an old married couple, and went out with Dean whenever he decided to go out on one of his self-destructive jags. In short, he was seeing the Sam and Dean channel 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and it wasn't long until he felt, for the first time, like he'd spent enough time with them that he needed a long vacation away from his boys.

His boys. That was what he'd unfailingly answer with if anyone asked him who Sam and Dean were; "They're my boys." And they were; he'd met them when Dean was young enough to need help blowing his nose and Sam still needed someone to give him a bath. Through the years, those responsibilities had fallen to him many more times than he'd ever suspected they would when a few fellow hunters had first hurriedly introduced him to John Winchester at Harvelle's Roadhouse. The man had mumbled a "Hello," followed by a curt apology of having to get home to his sons and then quickly headed out the door. Bobby hadn't thought much of him at first other than that he got an "F" in social skills, but the talk around the table said he was a highly respected hunter, almost some kind of legend amongst hunting circles. Still, he didn't take much interest until the conversation turned to the man's background and the death of his wife.

"Whenever he talks about her," one of them, a young man with a thick southern drawl had said, "you'd think she walked on air or something. I think she was the love of his life."

At learning that John had lost someone who he'd loved as much as his Karen, Bobby felt an instant bond with the curt stranger and when they'd met again a few months later, it was because Bobby had arranged it. Their friendship formed quickly and deeply and it wasn't long afterwards that John first dropped off Sam and Dean with about forty-five minutes notice to his house full of poisonous spellwork ingredients, weapons, and other kid unfriendly stuff. Dean, clad in a baggy flannel shirt, pants that were too long for him, and shoes that looked about a size too big, was about as tall as his thigh, and Sam had just learned how to walk. He'd nervously let them in, not sure how he was going find enough high places to stash everything, but was surprised when Dean looked at the weapons without touching them, turned away from the hemlock with a knowing and wary eye, and steered clear of the mess of papers scattered around his desk. Little Sammy still zoomed around the house on his chubby legs trying to grab everything in sight, but Dean carefully and gently kept his little hands and mouth away from what Dean had called, "grown-up stuff." As he watched Dean sit on the floor and play "peek-a-boo" with a laughing and clapping Sammy, for the first time Bobby felt his chest swell with admiration and pride.

Whenever John was off hot on the trail of that damned yellow-eyed demon, he'd drop the kids off and Bobby would sometimes spend weeks with them cooking their dinners, playing catch, watching movies with them, teaching them how to shoot, and giving Sam good books to read while Dean was off messing around with the cars in the junkyard. He often didn't appreciate how John usually dropped them off dirty, tired, and on very little notice, but always looked forward to their visits. When he was with those boys, he wasn't a grizzled, old, worn-down drunk but a master chef, Joe DiMaggio, a teacher, a mentor, and a fun uncle. Around the time when the boys turned six and ten and Dean started asking him questions about girls while Sam asked him for help on his homework, he started to feel like they were his boys. He never thought he would get to know the unconditional love a parent could feel for a child, but here it was in front of him in the form of two bright, loving, handsome boys. Biologically or not, they were his and no matter what they did, he felt that they always would be.

Of course, he was often reminded by the boys' almost complete reliance on one another that most of the time the two of them had to fend for themselves. Whenever baby Sammy cried and Bobby tried to go to him, Dean would sometimes nearly trip him in his rush to get to his little brother. When it was time for his nightly feedings, it was so often that Bobby walked into the kitchen to already find Dean mixing the baby formula that he finally just stopped and let the kid handle it. Later, when Sammy was ready to learn how to ride a bike, it was Dean who taught him and whenever the little guy skinned his knee, he always cried out for Dean, who rushed towards him like an overprotective mother and hauled him into the bathroom to put Bactine on his wounds. Whenever Bobby would hear Sam scream in the middle of the night and go to check on him, he'd find him in Dean's bed, cuddled up into his brother's chest, who held him tight. They still argued, roughhoused, and fought like kids but in many ways, Dean was like a little adult who was raising a child. It was a terrible demand to put on a kid, but Dean never complained; he clearly adored his little brother so much that he didn't even seem to mind. Bobby grumbled about it to himself, but never raised an objection. The boys' relationship was so muddy and intertwined with so many labels other than just "big brother" and "little brother" that, honestly, he felt like he was intruding on something very private when he even thought to bring it up to John and demand that he change it by stepping up as a parent.

As Sam and Dean grew into teenagers though, Bobby started to wonder if he should have said something to John along the way. Once Dean hit puberty, the pressure put on him to be an adult while also being a child had begun to put a strain on his and Sam's relationship. Sam still looked up to him and Dean was still fiercely protective of him, but he'd become more interested in going to the movies with dates than staying in and watching a movie with his little brother. Sam, who wasn't quite old enough for dates, stayed at home reading books and sulking about his big brother not having time for him anymore. He complained that when they were left alone by their dad, Dean had started dropping him off at some little kiddie place during the day so he could spend time with girls then and didn't pick him back up until after they closed, smelling all flowery and with red smears on his face and bruises on his neck. At first, Bobby listened to Sam's gripes and thought it was just normal kid stuff, part of growing up and growing apart like siblings often do.

It wasn't until after Sam turned thirteen that Bobby first noticed things were terribly different and more complicated than he'd previously thought. Early one afternoon, the boys were both outside in the junkyard. Dean had gone out to work on an old junker and Sam had taken a book with him and followed. Bobby had stayed inside getting their lunches ready and then went out into the yard to look for them. He must have been quieter than he first thought because it looked like they hadn't heard him approach. Dean had his head ducked under the hood of an old '71 Plymouth Barracuda and cursing as he used a wrench to try and get something loose. It was a hot day and Dean had the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his shoulders. His muscles bulged and sweat stained with brown rolled down his tanned skin. Sam had his book open on his lap but appeared to have totally forgotten it as he stared at his brother with a an intense, hungry look that reminded Bobby a lot of how he used to look at his wife. Bobby stepped back out of view and kicked the side of a car nearby, then cursed and shouted about banging his knee and by the time he got back to the boys, Dean was leaning against the car wiping the sweat from his brow and Sam had his head back down in his book.

He watched Sam a little more closely after that and what he saw was telling. Besides the secret glances he caught Sam giving to his brother whenever he thought no one would see him, there was the way he acted whenever Dean was out on a date. While Dean was out, Sam got real quiet and he'd watch TV with his eyes glazed over as if he couldn't actually see it. When Dean got back from his date with tousled hair and a goofy grin on his face, Sam's narrowed-eyed, pursed-lipped expression made Bobby remember the way he felt when he'd see Karen out on dates with other guys before he'd gotten up the nerve to ask her out. Whenever John picked them up, he'd pat Dean on the back and joke that little Sammy was jealous because he couldn't wait to become a lady killer like his big brother. Bobby nodded his head and kept his mouth shut. He didn't love the idea that Sam was having incestuous feelings towards his brother but when two kids grew up as close as those two, was it so surprising that one of them would become confused about his feelings once he hit adolescence? Sam was just growing up and coming to terms with himself. Dean didn't look at his brother in the same way, so there was no need to bring Sam's secret out into the open and leave John to rage against him and possibly scar the poor kid. If John had even bothered to be a half-attentive parent, he'd have seen it all himself anyway.

But a couple of years later, once Sam hit a series of growth spurts and started filling out, Bobby wondered once again if he should have brought something up to John. Dean, appearing to not have developed the art of subtlety and tact that his brother possessed, ogled Sam in plain sight and although he looked much more ashamed of himself than Sam when he did it, it still happened with increasing regularity. Judging by Sam's long-suffering stares, he hadn't yet noticed how his brother felt about him and from John's stories about them, he was oblivious to everything. Bobby sat with his longtime friend drinking beer, swapping stories, and wondering how a father could be completely blinded to the fact that his own sons were madly in love with each other.

On the morning after Sam's sixteenth birthday, Bobby had walked past their room to head to the bathroom when he saw Dean stumble out of his and Sam's bedroom door with a bleary-eyed expression and clad in nothing but boxers. He reeked of alcohol, his face was shiny from a layer of dried, salty sweat, and he was sporting a hickey Bobby hadn't noticed before on the side of his neck. The two of them had been out all the night before for Sam's birthday. Bobby hadn't asked them what they were doing and, taking one look at Dean he, knew he was never going to, either. At first, the kid stared blankly and unfocusedly in front of him like a newborn seeing the world for the first time but when Dean finally saw him and his open-mouthed, disgusted expression, the boy ducked his head down to the floor and ashamedly hunched his shoulders.

"I –"

Bobby shut his eyes and held up his hands in a 'stop' motion. "Don't – just – just don't. Don't tell me. Not a word."

Bobby turned heel and rushed to the bathroom, hearing the bedroom close behind him. An hour later, he called them down for breakfast and the three of them ate their bacon and eggs in red-faced, heavy silence. After that morning, he never checked in on them in their room again and began washing the sheets after every time they left. It was too late to tell about it John now; the most likely thing he'd do was send Sam away to live in perpetual shame with Pastor Jim and beat Dean for taking out his dreams of child molestation on his little brother. Bobby didn't fully understand this thing between his boys, but he did know that Dean wasn't into children and he wasn't a sick-minded kid. Their relationship, always muddled, had just acquired a new title.

A couple of years later when Sam went off to Stanford, Bobby asked John if Dean could stay with him for a week. John looked more than happy to unload himself of Dean, who he said was taking Sam's leaving pretty hard. As it turned out, "taking it hard" was an understatement; Dean was an absolute wreck. He drank too much, drove recklessly, and went through money and prostitutes like they were going out of style. In short, he was trying very earnestly to die without pulling an actual trigger. As Bobby sat and stared at the kid who already looked dead, he realized he had nothing to say. This wasn't just a break-up with some girl he'd met two weeks ago; it was the end of a messy, incestuous, wrong, loving, deep, powerful relationship. Exactly the kind that Bobby felt was none of his business and he should stay out of. As Dean sat quietly at his kitchen table, Bobby handed him a beer, patted him on the back, and sat quietly beside him.

After Sam's girlfriend died at college and his boys were back together again, Dean looked at once the happiest and most miserable that Bobby had seen him in years. Sam just looked plain miserable; he'd lost his girlfriend and with her his shot at one of those normal lives the kid imagined that real people got, while being back to spending 24 hours a day with the brother he was clearly still in love with but had tried to get away from. Bobby didn't ask them about their relationship and they never said anything to him about it and he was quite happy with that arrangement. Over the years, he eventually saw some of the same looks they used to give each other when they were kids returning; the jealousy, rejection, lust, and deepening love. He suspected things would never be as they were before Sam left for Stanford, but whatever they were doing with their relationship, it was still messy and strange but definitely working. Whether they were having sex with each other or not, it had always been that way and so in the long-run, he decided that he didn't honestly care where it was they put their bits and pieces, even if it was inside each other.

Maybe it was the shock of being newly dead or the annoyance of being tethered to Dean like a poodle on a leash, but at first the thought hadn't occurred to him that once inside the boys' private lives, where no one ought to be watching them, he might witness things none of them ever wanted him to see. For the first few months though, he didn't; most of it was either painfully irritating or just plain sad. Despite his earlier suspicions, the two of them weren't together romantically, or at least, not in that moment. They slept in separate beds. Sometimes Dean would turn to Sam from where he lay in his own bed, then get up and pace around the rooms in the cabin and Sam often grabbed a pillow to snuggle and still tossed and turned through the night, but not once did either of them climb into bed with the other. They were still fighting about that Amy girl, the friend of Sam's who Dean had killed, and, while Sam had been the one who'd ended it between them, it was plain as day that he was still madly in love with his brother. For his part, Dean still was too; he checked out girls and talked about hooking up, but for no other purpose that he could see other than to hurt his brother, and it was plain by Sam's hurt and angry looks that he was achieving his goal.

About two months after his death, Dean had taken the flask with him to a bar, where he met a chick with a brand on her wrist that just screamed, "Hi, I'm a monster," but no amount of screaming at Dean and trying to smack him upside the head worked; the kid couldn't hear or see him. Sam's blatant joy over Dean's pain and Dean's anger over Sam's feelings made him just want to smack both of their heads together and leave the room, but unfortunately that damn flask was still in the room and he couldn't even do so much as kick it under the bathroom door to get away from their squabbling. It occurred to him that there was a good reason why he'd stayed out of their relationship for so long and he was starting to wish that he'd sanitized that flask a little better.

It was about a month after Dean had had a monster baby and Sam shot his monster niece that they started to seriously talk about getting back together. Watching the tension building in the air between them get so thick that he was beginning to wonder if it was something that he could physically grab onto, Bobby saw something coming. With both of their sometimes explosive tempers, he expected something along the lines of a dramatic confrontation or a fist fight, but as it turned out, the resolution all happened very simply.

One afternoon as Sam was sitting at his laptop and Dean was sitting on his bed reading an issue of Hot Rod magazine that he'd picked up at the corner Gas n' Go, Sam sighed, shut his laptop, and looked wearily at his brother. "I miss you."

Dean looked up and then set his magazine down beside him on the bed. "Yeah. Me too."

Sam nodded. "I wanna try and make his work, me and you, together again. Do you?"

Dean's head jerked up and down in one firm nod. "Yeah. You know I do. I always do."

"Don't lie to me again and don't keep shit like that from me anymore."

"I won't, believe me. I don't like lying to you."

Sam scrubbed a hand down his face, then stood up from the desk. "I'm gonna go pick us up some lunch."

Dean picked back up his magazine. "Don't forget my pie. And no, cake is not the same thing."

Sam sniggered, shrugged on his jacket, and walked out the door. And it seemed, surprisingly, that was that; they'd gotten past some major primetime drama between them in a few simple sentences. Then again, with a relationship like theirs that had, in some form or another, gone through and survived more tests he was sure than any other relationship had throughout the history of time, lying about killing monster friends and shooting monster children probably wasn't the weirdest turn their relationship had had.

About half an hour later, Sam came back with sandwiches, fries, and an entire cherry pie he'd picked up from the corner grocery store just for Dean. They ate in silence, but the air between them had markedly changed from awkward tension to anticipatory excitement. For the first time in months, Sam cleared his laptop off of the desk and they sat at the same little table in the room to eat. Dean picked the onions off of his burger. They shared a single basket of fries and every time their hands touched, they both smiled. The pair of them looked about as lovey-dovey as a couple of teenagers on their first date. Bobby rolled his eyes, went to the open magazine on Dean's bed, and tried to read the page it was open to. He'd gotten about halfway down the page when he heard a wet popping sound from behind him and turned around to see Sam and Dean each leaned over the desk in a slow, open-mouthed kiss.

Oh dear God, he thought.

Sam broke the kiss and began laying affectionate little pecks on Dean's cheek and chin. "Missed you so much."

Dean tilted his head back and closed his eyes as Sam's mouth reached his neck. "Me too, Sammy." Sam stood up and leaned in far enough to kiss an area of skin behind Dean's ear Dean made a noise that sounded like a half-moan, half-chuckle. "Ha-ungh – you still remember that spot I like."

"'Course I do, Dean. I remember everything you like."

Dean stood up and then reached out and ran his hands over Sam's shoulders. "I swear, you've gotten even bigger since the last time I touched you. You gotta lay off the spinach there, Popeye."

Sam leaned back, his face looking a little insecure. "You saying you don't like it?"

"Are you kidding?" He ran his hands up and down Sam's clothed chest and stomach. "Of course I like it."

Sam smiled and then grabbed the back of Dean's head and smashed their mouths together in a hard kiss. As they kissed, Dean must have done something with his mouth that Sam liked because he inhaled sharply, moved out from behind the little desk, and pulled Dean flush up against him. Oh no. No, no, no, no ,no, no. Bobby did not like where this looked like it was going. Their kiss was starting to get hot and heavy; Dean had his hands tangled up in Sam's hair and Sam had his arms firmly wrapped around Dean's torso. They were both bucking their hips against each other. Sam grabbed Dean's hands and guided them down his shoulders and torso.

"So I feel a little bigger, huh?"

"Definitely."

"You wanna see?"

"Balls!" Bobby screamed. "Ya idjits! Hey! I'm right here!"

Despite the passion in their make-out session thus far, Dean raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth a little in a look of surprise. "You sure, Sam? I mean, I know I screwed up royally –"

Sam smiled wide, showing his teeth. "We both did things we shouldn't of. And I want you."

Dean's hands flew to Sam's shirt buttons. "God, I've waited so long to hear you say that."

In his hurry to get Sam's shirt off, he was pulling the fabric and nearly ripping the buttons. Sam put a hand over Dean's. "Whoa there, cowboy, easy; this is my favorite shirt."

Sam finished undoing the buttons himself, much more slowly, looking at Dean with a mischievous glint in his eye.

Dean groaned. "You're torturing me."

From behind them, Bobby stamped his feet several times on the carpeted floor and waved his arms around. "No! You're torturing me! Stop! Dammit, why can't you morons hear me?"

Sam pushed the shirt from his shoulders and stood before Dean bare-chested, opening loving the way his brother ogled him. "What do you think?"

"I think you're the only one who can get me from zero to hard in three point five seconds."

Sam stepped out of his boots and took off his socks and then his hand slowly went to his belt. Bobby turned away and faced the wall leading to the bathroom. He just really wished a gust of wind or a bird of prey would swoop down through the window and take the flask from the room.

"No," he said to himself, "this aint happening, this aint happening."

Several seconds later, he heard Sam moan wantonly and Dean gasp. "Shit, Sammy, all ready for me, aren't ya?"

"God, it's been so long, Dean."

The sound of clothes rustling was heard behind him and then a few more wet, popping noises. "Feel that?"

"Mm, god!"

The wet popping noises stopped, were followed by a few more rustling sounds, and then a series of long, wet, filthy sounding slurps. Sam began to moan. Oh dear Jesus, please tell me he's not doing what I think he's doing. Just listening to it was almost worse than watching.

"Like that?" Dean's voice was lower and rougher than he'd ever heard it before.

"Oh god, keep going, please don't stop!"

"Now who knows exactly what you like?"

"I'm gonna – I'm gonna – oh God – oh God – oh God –"

There was a loud thump, the sound of two bodies crashing to the floor followed by more of the wet kissing noises. "Been wanting this Sam, so fucking bad."

"God, me too – missed you so much – no, don't get up, I want you here, right now, on the floor."

Bobby walked to the back of the room and tried to muscle his way through the wall and into the bathroom, if for no other reason than to drown out the sounds about to be coming. The resistance was almost as bad as if he was still a corporeal person trying to walk through the wall, but not quite and, with the kissing noises at his back and a muffled voice from Dean that sounded like he was asking for lube, he could see the gray toilet tank and pink linoleum on the floor before he was bungeed back into the room, once again standing outside the door. Bobby put his hands over his ears and began to hum the first song that came to mind.

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, his mind supplied.

"How's that?"

…and the first thing I heard…

"Mm, it's good, don't stop!"

…Was a song outside my window, and the traffic wrote the words…

"It's been so long, I'm not gonna last."

…It came a-reeling up like Christmas bells…

"Yes, that's it Dean, come for me – god, please – come for me."

…and rapping up like pipes and drums…

"A-ah – yes – yes – yes – Fuck, Sammy I love you so fucking much!"

"Yes – Dean – I love you too – yes!"

After a couple more shouts, Bobby found that he was humming the following chorus uninterrupted: Oh, won't you stay, We'll put on the day, And we'll wear it 'till the night comes. And it was official; those boys had ruined Joni Mitchell for him forever.

After a long silence, Sam mumbled, "I'm cold."

"Alright, come on Sasquatch, let's get into bed."

Bobby continued to stare at the bathroom door even long after the sounds of their naked, sluggish bodies getting off the floor and climbing into bed had finally stopped. Once he'd found all the imperfections in the paint job, memorized the patterns of the grain in the wood, and connected the dots between a series of paint bubbles, he began to hear the sound of two people breathing slowly and deeply. Dean sometimes made a little sound every few breaths that almost sounded like it was going to be a snore that never fully materialized. He'd been making that sound since he was a little boy. Bobby finally dared to turn around and once again look at the room. Everything was as it was before except for the pile of clothes beside the small table that still had two half-eaten sandwiches and a small basket of fries between them and the queen-sized bed that used to have a magazine on top of it but now contained a pair of naked grown men sleeping underneath the covers. Dean was laying behind Sam with an arm wrapped around him and Sam's back firmly pressed against his chest. Dean's face was resting in the crook of Sam's neck, his nose pressed up against his skin as if he'd fallen asleep in the middle of smelling him. Sam's facial features were smooth and untroubled and his lips were turned up at the corners in a little smile. They both looked more peaceful and happy than Bobby could remember seeing them in ages. He watched their sleeping faces and sighed. He still felt pure love when he looked at them, the kind of unconditional love that a parent feels for a child. Biologically his or not, they were his and no matter what they did, they still always would be. He just hoped that, dear God, Dean would start leaving that damn flask in the car more often.