Chapter Text
"Dean?" Bobby asked, walking into the living room with a worried frown. "Why is Sam looking at me like I killed a puppy? He's more skittish than a newborn colt in a gun range. All of a sudden I can't have a whole conversation with the kid without him,” Bobby raised his hands in mocking finger quotes, “ ‘not wanting to bother me’ and deciding he'll go do something else.”
Dean swallowed, and looked down, unable to hold Bobby’s gaze as he told him about the mess he had made.
“I....” Dean swallowed again, pausing as he tried to find words to explain. "I messed up, Bobby."
Dean didn't look up, but he could feel Bobby's face softening. "I didn't mean to, I was just joking around about who was going to call you and ask for help on the Scryalird case, and I told him I should because l was the favorite."
Dean finally pulled his head up to meet Bobby's gaze, his eyes wide and desperate. "I didn't mean to, but then he wanted to know why I thought that, and I didn't want him trying to remember so he could figure it out, so I told him.”
Bobby didn’t say anything, and Dean swallowed hard, trying not to let his allergies get the best of him.
“And I tried to tell him that wasn't true,” Dean told him, a note of desperation creeping into his tone, “I told him that wasn't true, and you don't play favorites, but he doesn't believe me!”
Dean’s eyes flicked to the staircase, knowing his brother was upstairs, hurt and upset, and Dean had no idea how to fix it.
“He -, he said,” Dean didn’t know how to explain the magnitude of the problem. What are the words he could use to explain that he had crushed his brother’s self esteem into smithereens? The same brother that was also dealing with the wall of doom in his head that could fall at any moment, because that was the reward for saving the world, apparently.
He knew he was rambling, but he just couldn't make himself stop. “He told me, before I called you for help, he said 'I guess I can see that, can't say I blame him’ and when I tried to bring it up later, he pulled out his calm, sincere, non-jealous voice and told that it was fine, and I deserved to hear someone tell me that, and that I could stop trying to make him feel better about it."
Dean shook his head, dropping his eyes to the well worn rug on the floor of Bobby’s living room.
"He said -, he told me that you were allowed to have favorites, that's your right, and that's fine, and he went 'besides, of course it was you, aren't you the one who's always telling me you're awesome?' and shut me down on it the rest of the trip. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to tell him, it just popped out. And I know he isn't actually fine with it because he cried in the bathroom for almost an hour, but he won't believe me -"
Bobby put his hands on Dean's shoulders, cutting off the rambling words, and Dean reluctantly looked up at him.
"Hey, Dean, it's ok, son. It's not your fault, I'm the one who said it first." One hand came off Dean's shoulder to pat his cheek. "I'll go fix it, you're in charge of making dinner tonight, ok?"
‘Damn it, I must be allergic to Bobby's house too,’ Dean thought as he blinked hard.
“Ok," he nodded, getting his allergies under control.
Bobby gave him a smile and one last squeeze on the shoulder, then headed towards the stairs.
/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/
Sam was sitting on the small couch in the boys’ room, reading by the window.
Sam’s head jerked up when Bobby walked in, eyes wider than when he was three and Bobby had caught him with his hand in the cookie jar.
“Oh, sorry, Bobby," he apologized for absolutely no reason. Bobby barely resisted rolling his eyes. “Am I bothering you up here?"
"No, Sam, you being up here doesn't bother me, but it does bother me when one of my idjit kids starts avoiding me like the plague."
Sam went still, slight panic creeping into his expression.
Bobby let the silence hang in the air as he walked around the two queen beds and sat heavily on the opposite end of the couch.
Sam dropped his gaze to the book in his lap, his hair falling to cover most of his face.
"Now," Bobby said, pulling one leg up on the couch and turning so he faced Sam completely, "you want to tell me what this is about?"
Sam snuck a furtive look at Bobby from under his hair and chewed his bottom lip. He opened his mouth, but then shut it again when he couldn't seem to find words.
After another few seconds of waiting, Bobby took pity on him. "This wouldn't happen to be about a stupid comment your brother made, would it?”
Sam's shoulders tensed and his breathing hitched, but he still didn't respond.
"A comment about favoritism?" Bobby asked shrewdly, watching Sam's reaction.
Sam's gaze darted to him, surprised, and Bobby saw the hurt in his eyes before Sam looked back at the floor, a curtain of hair between him and Bobby again.
"Because," Bobby continued when it was clear Sam wasn't going to respond, "just so you know, Dean's not my favorite."
Sam gave a small shake of his head, his shoulders slumping slightly.
“It's ok, Bobby, really. You don't have to lie to me," Sam said wearily. "I know you were under a truth spell."
“Yep,” Bobby agreed, “and that was the truth then.”
Sam flinched as if he was in physical pain, but still didn't look up.
"But it's not true anymore," Bobby said, resisting the urge to grab Sam by the shoulders and turn the kid to face him.
Sam shook his head, his shoulders slumping even further. "Just because I'm pouting and whining about it, doesn't mean Dean should be less fa-" Sam's voice caught, and he cleared his throat. "I know nothing's really changed since then, so it's ok, Bobby, I'm alright.”
Bobby rolled his eyes. Honestly, what the hell was wrong with his kids? Couldn’t either of them talk about their problems like a grown up instead of either sweeping them under the rug until they spewed out the sides, or pretending anything were upset about was actually perfectly fine and no big deal? These boys were gonna kill him.
"No, it ain’t ok," Bobby said, some of his exasperation slipping into his tone, "and you sure as hell ain't alright, and something has changed. You're zero for three, Sam, which ain’t your usual standard. What happened to that brain of yours?" Bobby asked as he brought a hand up to lightly flick the side of Sam's head.
"You want to know what changed?" Bobby asked.
Sam peeked through his hair, puppy eyes in full force, and gave a small nod.
Bobby couldn't have stopped his fond smile even if he had wanted to. Moments like this, when Sam was all big eyes and floppy hair, made it difficult to believe the kid was in his thirties. When he pulled out the puppy eyes, it was like he was six again, looking at Bobby like he knew everything in the universe.
"The thing that changed is that we got your soul back,” Bobby said seriously, holding the kid's gaze to make sure he understood. "We got you back. Robo-Sam was a dick, and a douche bag, and he was not my kid, so Dean took the favorite title because he was the only kid I had left. But then -, but then we got you back, and suddenly I had my two kids again, and no favorites, just like it should be."
Sam finally, finally, stopped hiding behind his hair and looked up completely, his face full of hope and disbelief.
Bobby bumped his shoulder with another fond smile.
Sam continued to stare at him, and Bobby huffed in amusement before bringing a hand up to rest on the back of Sam's neck, forcing Sam to look at him for the rest of what he had to say.
"Sam, listen to me, you and Dean? You two are my boys, and I don't have favorites, except that you two are my two favorite boys, ya hear me?"
Sam gave a watery nod.
"Good." Bobby smiled and gave Sam's neck one last squeeze before he got up. "I gotta go rescue my kitchen from that idjit brother of yours," Bobby told him, leaving Sam to his thoughts.
As Bobby walked out the door, he worried that he hadn’t said enough, that his hatred of gooey emotional moments had kept him from saying what his boy needed to hear.
Wracking his brain, he couldn’t think of what else he could have said, but as the minutes ticked by and Sam still hadn’t emerged from the room, he wondered if he would need to try again after dinner.
It didn’t come to that, thankfully. Bobby knew they were going to be ok when Sam came downstairs ten minutes later asking what he could do to help, and he and Dean immediately started bickering about whether or not Sam was capable of doing even the slightest bit of cooking.
Bobby alternated between which brother he sided with and which he teased, sometimes opting to poke at both of them simultaneously.
They laughed and bantered and bickered and eventually got the food cooked and the table set.
He smiled as he grabbed three beers from the fridge, listening to the small wrestling match going on at the table that he knew would stop the instant he turned back around.
The fact that they thought he didn't notice was so funny that he pretended to continue digging around in the fridge for another beer even after he found the third, enjoying the entertainment they unintentionally provided.
When he felt a laugh bubbling up, he turned back to the table rather than blow his cover and almost lost it when both of their arms flew back to their sides as they blinked innocently at him. Idjit boys.
Shaking his head, Bobby chuckled as the boys found yet another topic to bicker about, this one seemed to be whether or not Chuck Norris could beat the terminator.
He handed them each their beer and sat down at the table, relishing the chance to have dinner with his two favorite kids. He loved those idjits even if they only had half a brain between them.
Times like these were his favorites, just like these damn boys. Times like these made him think that maybe he was a lucky old man after all.