Our Sweet Rapture

16

"Doesn't make it my fault," Dean insisted stubbornly.

"But it makes it your problem ," Bobby retorted sharply. Dean glared at him, throat working furiously to come up with something to say to that, but without success. Instead, he turned away, sending his glare into the tree line surrounding the property. He looked as if he was trying to will the entire area into splinters.

Fix it , he thought sourly. Why the hell was he the one who had to fix anything? Didn't Cas owe him some sort of apology too? Sure, Dean had not handled the situation at the gas station as well as he probably could have, but for Cas to close the bond like that was just immature and childish! Dean would never have done such a thing! And how come Bobby fawned over Cas so much all of a sudden anyway? What the hell had Castiel told that old geezer while Dean was out? Was he trying to pin this on Dean? Turn Sam and Bobby against him in some sort of retaliation? What the hell?

He gritted his teeth, the anger inside him rising the more he thought about it. When his knuckles gave off an ominously loud crack as his hands balled into fists by his sides, Bobby sighed, the soft creak of his chair breaking the tense silence on the porch.

"You know..." the older man said slowly, "When Karen was alive – when she was still herself, I mean – we had a few fallouts of our own."

Dean didn't look up, even if he found his mind instantly snapping back into the present when he heard Bobby mention his late wife. He still kept his eyes intently fixed in the distance, still too pissed to even look in the direction of the actual house.

"I've always been a grouchy old bastard, I'm not ashamed to admit that," Bobby confessed, "but Karen... I swear; that woman could make a hellhound downright piss itself when she was angry."

Dean dared a quick glance at the old man at that, taken aback by the crude choice of words. Bobby leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees while looking at the floorboards in front of his feet, seemingly talking more to himself than to Dean.

"She never cursed when we fought," he mumbled. "Never used harsh language or raised her voice at me. It was the tone that hurt, you know... The way she could say the simplest thing and still make it feel like a slap to the face."

Something sharp panged inside Dean's chest; the memory of Castiel's chilly voice snarling at him still all too clear. His eyes darted back to the woods once more when Bobby carried on talking.

"Every word was like getting a bucket of cold water dumped over your head, and she had this thing she did with her shoulders that always made her look so cold and distant." Bobby shook his head and sighed again, a slow exhale of air that spoke of both loss and adoration beyond the use of words.

"Once, it lasted for over three days," he recalled. "I slept on the couch the entire time. Tried to make it seem as if it was my own idea, but we both knew it was because I was too darn scared to suggest anything else."

Dean listened with his lips pressed together into a thin line as he waited for the story to continue, but nothing came, and instead, the same loaded silence lowered itself over the porch once more. The seconds ticked by, and the amount of time passed had grown threateningly close to minutes when Dean finally decided to take the bait.

"So how did you fix it?" he murmured tightly. Bobby shrugged.

"Turned out once we started talking again, neither of us could remember what the fight had been about," he admitted. Dean's eyebrows shot up as he sent the old man a look over his shoulder.

"Really?" he asked.

"Really," Bobby nodded. "However, from that moment on, we agreed never to let an argument get that out of hand again. To never go to sleep angry, even if it meant not going to sleep at all." He glanced up, the sharp look in his eyes fixing Dean to the spot. "Do you understand what I'm telling you, boy?" he said sternly.