rivers_bend

Title: Legend
Words: ~4800
Rating: Adult
Characters: Sam/Dean, Bobby, Ruby
Spoilers: general for season 3. Only very minor specific for latest episodes
A/N: Thank you to sylvanwitch for talking this over and to her and lima_sierra for beta. Any remaining errors mine.

I should probably stop calling this a 'verse and start calling it a work in progress. Previous parts:
1 Kinesis
2 Jade
3 Second Hand
4 Magnify
5 Times Dean got Fucked with his Boots On an adjunct fic

Summary: Bobby finds a legend and Dean makes breakfast.




Town was quiet at half past nine on a Wednesday morning, there not being much in the way of commerce left after the Walmart opened up in Spearfish. A couple of cars in the spaces in front of the diner—including Ned's; Bobby made a mental note to call him later about the socket-wrench he'd borrowed—and Magda's mail van around the side of the post office, and then nothing for the two blocks between there and the church.

It was usually Margaret, the church's seventy-six year old secretary, who made sure the public didn't abuse the photocopier, but when Bobby pushed open the door to the office, a much younger and less fearsome-looking woman was sitting at the desk. "Oh, hey," Bobby said, "Wanted to use—" and then it occurred to him that maybe it was just Margaret who let people use the machine, and it wasn't actually church policy. "Is Margaret here?"

"She had a great-granddaughter born in the night, so she's down at her grandson's. You after the copier?"

She'd seen his eyes flick towards it then. "Yes, ma'am."

"I'm Amanda Tate, the new Pastor. Haven't seen you in church, I don't think?"

"Did Pastor Ansell retire?" It had been a few months since the Church's last bake-off fundraiser, and pie and copies was about all Bobby tended to bother the Methodists for. Roger Ansell looked with a beady eye and a harsh tongue on anything outside his own personal world-view. A view that did not include ghosts, or demons walking around on earth, or anything of the sort.

"All the way down to Florida. Not sure what he was thinking. Have you been to Florida in August? But, to each his or her own, I suppose. Anyway. The copier. You know how to use it?"

"Sure." Bobby noticed the stack of books on the edge of the desk were those novels about a boy wizard. Distracted from his walk to the copier, he said, "Harry Potter?"

"Yep. Can't get out of writing a sermon just because someone's got to answer phones and make copies."

She smiled when she said it, which was the only reason Bobby could think that he asked, "You for or against?"

Her grin widened. "Oh for, of course. There's far more in this world than you or I will ever know, and God can be found in Hogwarts as well as anywhere else."

"Hogwarts?"

"Have you read them, Mr...?"

"Singer, but you can call me Bobby. And no, I don’t have much time for kid's books."

"Witches and Wizards, Mr. Singer. Not just for kids anymore."

"No," and Bobby thought about the 700-year-old witch in Minneapolis who had somehow been keeping human souls in jars, possessing the resultant empty shells. He hoped she had never been for kids. "Suppose not."

"So what do you spend your time on?"

Bobby tamped down his sudden urge to see Amada Tate's face if she ever saw his book collection. "Reference books mostly. Latin, History, Mythology, that sort of thing."

"I think you and I will get along very well, Mr. Singer."

Was she flirting? Bobby got flustered. "I'd better be gettin' on with my copies."

"Sure, don’t let me interrupt you. Sorry. I never could resist a new audience. Mama said she always knew I was going to be standing up on a stage somewhere, though I have to say, seminary took her by surprise a bit."

Bobby waited until Pastor Tate looked back at her books before pulling the disc out of his pocket. He laid it on the glass and shut the lid, trying to remember the sequence of buttons that would make the image bigger. He tried 300% and the image came out clear enough, but he did one at 200% to see if that was better. Crisper edges, and so he went with that size, making a few more copies so they had ones to work with. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the pastor spoke practically right in his ear.

"Is that Jade? I studied Eastern and European History in college."

"You did?" This woman must be a kick in the pants to Pastor Ansell's flock.

"May I see?"

Bobby, remembering Sam's admonition not to lose the disc, suddenly wondered if Amada Tate was what she appeared, or if she was here for the very purpose of making sure Bobby didn't leave here with it.

When Bobby hesitated, she backed off. "One of the copies, then?"

"They're easier to see, anyway," Bobby said, and handed her one.

"Unusual markings. Not Chinese. Don’t look like any of the ancient pictographs…" She took the paper over to the window and held it up to the light. "Do you know where it comes from?"

"Got it from a… friend. Don't know much about it beyond that."

"I've got some books back in my room…" She looked at her watch. "Do you have to be anywhere, or do you want to have a look at them? Celia will be in to clean in a minute, she can answer the phone if it rings. It's been years since I had a good puzzle like this."

Her enthusiasm, and her grin, were infectious. "I reckon I could," Bobby said.

She led him through the narthex and down a hall to a large office filled with books and prints and with a gorgeous silk panel against the far wall. There was a cluster of family photos on a dressing table in one corner, next to a rack with vestments hanging on it. If this woman was a demon, she was playing a very elaborate game.

From over by the bookcases, Amanda said, "There's a book here somewhere—" She grunted and Bobby turned to see her kneeling down and bending to examine titles on the lowest shelf. "Some time in the middle ages, two brothers from Ireland travelled to China. Hang on…"

Bobby kept one eye on the pastor as she hunted for the book she wanted, but when she said, "Make yourself at home," he also used the time to look around. "Found it!" she finally said, and stood, beckoning him over to the pair of armchairs by the window. As she flipped through the book, she summarized the story.

"Two brothers, rumored to be from Ireland, though their story begins in Spain, set out on the Great Silk Road on a quest that they were undertaking at the behest of their father." She paused on a page that had a medieval style painting of two European-looking men standing next to an Asian temple of some kind, before moving on, past dense text. "Depending on the translation, they were looking for a dragon, a dragon's stone, or a dragon's egg. This book, and I agree with it, likes the dragon's stone version. Ooh, look at this." Amanda held the page so Bobby could see the elaborate painting of a bearded dragon curling above a cliff.

"Nice," Bobby said, though what he noticed was that she'd rested her hand on his wrist as she leaned over to show him the picture.

"What they came back with was a collection of stone coins. Jade and marble and soapstone, quartz, obsidian, malachite—stones from all over the world. Stones never seen before in Europe. On each coin, according to the story, was carved a message in the language of gods so ancient that no one remembered who once worshiped them.

"The brothers had promised to take the coins back to their father, but they stopped along the way, showing the coins for money to anyone who would pay. They sent messages back with traders to their father, each time saying that they would be home soon, and yet there was always one more person who wanted to see their treasure. After more than a year, the brothers received word that their father had died. They went home on the swiftest ship." Amanda was lost in the story now, no longer paying attention to the book in her lap, just watching Bobby's face as she told her tale.

"When they arrived, they discovered that their mother and their sister had been enslaved by the local nobleman, their father's land had been seized, his crops burned, his animals slaughtered. They stayed for the night in one of the ruined fields, intending to go and trade their treasure for their sister and mother in the morning. But, in the night, they were attacked by a pack of beasts unlike any they had seen before, and all they had, even the clothes on their backs, were lost to them."

"Sounds like a parable," he said, thinking that this story was only going to do Sam and Dean any good if it were actually true. But he couldn't help smiling as he said it. Amanda was a natural story-teller. Bobby could see how she could give a sermon about witches and sell it even to this flock, and he'd enjoyed listening to her, even if it turned out to have nothing to do with this whole business.

"It does, you're right. However, one of the men they showed the coins to made sketches of them. A priest in Vienna. The sketches were preserved in the Bishop's papers and eventually made their way into this book." She opened it again to where her finger was marking a page, and concentrating on what she was doing, rifled through until she found what she was looking for. Holding the book out so they both could see it, she pointed to the page of circular sketches and said, "They look similar, don't they?"

Bobby folded one of his photocopies until the pattern was right at the edge and then held it up to the first drawing in the book. The patterns weren't the same, but Amanda was right, they were similar. He wanted to get out the coin and look at it, but he was still suspicious of his too good to be true fortune in finding Amanda and her books and stories, so he left it where it was.

After a quick glance at her watch, Amanda said, "Do you want to borrow my book, Bobby?"

"It's mighty generous of you to loan a book to a man you've just met."

"I guess I can come on out to your salvage yard if you neglect to return it."

Bobby stared at her in surprise.

"I have a '72 Volvo 1800. Margaret said you'd be the man to see about keeping her in parts."

"Don't see those very often." Bobby'd seen one out in California some time in the early '80s, but that was the last time.

"Bet a man like you knows where to look if I were needing something, though."

He did have good connections, she was right about that. "Maybe so."

"I don’t think I've had my hands on this book in more than a decade, if you don't count unpacking the boxes when I moved in here, so go ahead and take it. Bring it by when you have a chance."

"Thank you."

"Now, I'd better get back out front."

They went back the way they came, and the pastor shook his hand as she left him at the front door.

"Hope to see you again soon, Bobby."

The sun was brilliant after the dim church, and Bobby was getting his hat (removed in deference to Amanda's office) settled back on his head as he walked to the car, so he didn't notice he had company until she spoke.

"Consulting with priests, now?" said an all too familiar voice from right in front of him.

Ruby was sitting smack dab in the middle of his hood like it was some kind of demon's picnic blanket.

"Get off my car." Bobby wasn't sure why he bothered. She couldn't weigh more than a sack of groceries, and now she knew she could get under his skin.

"If you're going to spend 45 minutes on a single errand, a girl's got to wait somewhere." Ignoring his demand, as expected, she just leaned back on her hands.

"You waiting for anything in particular?"

"Just wondering what you've found out about the little present I gave our Sammy."

Bobby bridled at her overly-familiar drawl of Sam's nickname and wondered if Dean had heard her and what he had to say about it. "You reckon I'm likely to tell you first, before I've even talked to Sam?"

"You just don't care at all about hurting my feelings, do you?" Ruby's exaggerated pout made Bobby want to slap her, a sure sign she was a devil, because that wasn't how he treated women. "After I helped you with your weapon troubles and everything. What do I have to do to convince you we're on the same side?"

"Ain't nothing so simple as sides going on here, and we both know it. So how about a little tit for tat?"

"My tit, or yours?" Ruby raised an eyebrow.

"None'o that now, girl. I'm no twenty-five-year-old buck to wiggle your assets at."

"I know, I know. It's not my assets you're interested in anyway, is it?" Ruby leaned her whole body forward and looked significantly at the church.

"What—"

"You don't need to worry by the way. She's not a demon. 100% human."

"What makes you think I'm worried?"

"Bobby, Bobby, you treat me like I'm stupid. Is it because of the hair? Should I have picked a nice brunette?"

Bobby clenched his teeth so hard a shooting pain went through his jaw, and that still didn't erase the image of soft dark curls and all that blood from his mind, but no way was he letting this conniving little demon know her barb hit home, so Bobby pulled it together and said, "Were you telling Sam the truth? Did that piece of jade belong to the demon Dean made his deal with?"

"Let's just say she had it in her possession."

"What else do you know about it?"

"Nuh uh. This isn't tit and more tit. Gimme some tat. What did the church-lady tell you?"

"A pretty story about two brothers on a quest."

"So what's in the book?"

"If you're just going to turn up in my yard later, pestering me, pestering the boys, you might as well get in the car now. Get it over with."

"You're a gentleman after all." Ruby slid off the hood, lucky she was wearing khakis and not jeans; if she'd scratched his paint with a rivet, Bobby might'a had to shoot her.

"Just figure the sooner we go, the sooner you'll go away," he said.

When Bobby got behind the wheel, Ruby was sitting in the passenger seat with her hand outstretched. "The book?"

"I don’t think so. I got my one question, you got yours. If Sam wants to show it to you, that's his decision." Bobby slid the book between his seat and the door where Ruby would have to climb over him to get it.

"Let's stop for French fries on the way home," Ruby said.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam's mouth was good, hell, it was fucking fantastic, but the angle was all kinds of wrong, and Dean ended up pulling out and jerking off on Sam's chest instead. It was worth giving up the blow job, too, because watching Sam rub his hand through it and use the wetness to get himself off was even hotter than being between those lips. Almost. Dean wanted to roll Sam over right there and fuck him slow and deep, the way he only could when he'd already come once, because otherwise, Winchester stamina or not, Sam's ass was too good for it to last nearly long enough. Just for a second, Dean thought about asking, but he was pretty sure it'd sound like begging, and besides, who knew when Bobby would be home, so he grabbed Sam by the back of the neck, hauled him up and kissed him, then took off for a shower.

Even after he'd washed his hair, Dean was still totally unable to get the sight of Sam jerking off, hand slick with Dean's load, out of his mind. He gave up on wilting and was about to take care of his little man the old-fashioned way when Sam came bumbling into the bathroom and climbed right into the shower. "Heh," he said. "Thought so."

"Oh, whatever." It was just a hard on, it wasn't like Dean was embarrassed, he only went to shove Sam away on principle. The shove turned into more of a grope though, and they ended up making out under the shower's spray and humping each other's stomachs until they both came again.

After that, Dean was feeling generous, so he dried off in the bathroom so Sammy had someone to bitch to about having to wash his hair in cold water. It wasn't until he heard a car door slam out in the yard that Dean even remembered Bobby might come back.

"Shut up, Sam," he said, and went to peer out the window. Some guy in a white pick-up, heading towards the shed and calling for Bobby.

Sam went quiet and turned off the water. "Singer!" the guy called again. "Got that fuel pump you wanted."

Neither of them moved as the man looked around again, came up to the porch, left something with a thump and then walked back to his truck. When he'd turned it around and was making his way back up the driveway, Dean hissed at Sam, "What the fuck were you thinking? That coulda' been Bobby. Then where would we be?"

"You were the one pointing a boner at me, I just wanted to wash the jizz off my chest before he got home." Pulling his best bitch-face, Sam grabbed a towel and started drying himself roughly.

"You're gonna take your skin off like that."

"Well it's freezing in here, and I had to take a cold shower."

"That's the trouble with houses, limited hot water. C'mon then, let's get you dressed. Then you can make some coffee."

Sam wasn't amused, and he pushed past Dean, towel wrapped tightly around his waist.

Neither of them spoke while they got dressed, Sam probably thinking Dean should apologize for something, not that Dean would, even if he knew what it was. Despite Sam's complaints about being cold, Dean finished first. Sam was occupied throwing clothes out of his duffle onto the bed and muttering about doing laundry. The last time Dean had tried to use Bobby's washer, it gave him an electric shock, so he wasn't getting involved.

Even though Sam did not look in the mood for advice, Dean couldn't resist saying, "Get dressed before you catch your death of cold," on his way down to make his own coffee.

As he lifted the percolator full of water to the stove, his shoulder protested a little, and Dean remembered that Sam had used his powers in his sleep. Which might go part of the way to explaining his sudden mood. Though Dean was the one who'd had his arm pinned to the bed all night, so he figured he was the one with sulking rights.

Fuck! His little brother had sleep-powers.

Dean had played it cool, like it was no big deal, but it felt completely out of control. Like when Sam had slid his acceptance letter from Stanford across the table, no preamble, just let Dean read it. Expected him to make sense of it.

"What's this?" he'd asked, seeing what it said, but not seeing.

"I don't know how to tell Dad." Sam sounded small, like a six-year-old who's thrown a baseball through a window.

"Tell him what?" Because Dean was waiting, even then, for Sam to say it was just a joke. Or that he just wanted to see if he could. For Sam to say anything but what he'd said next.

"I'm going, Dean."

That was the first time Dean understood that his brother had powers Dean did not. It wasn't when Sam's dreams started coming true, or when he shoved furniture out of the way to save Dean's life, it was right then in the cracked-walled kitchen of a long-stay no-tell motel outside St. Louis, three months before Sam turned eighteen. That was the day Dean found out that when what you fear wears the face of what you love, there's nothing scarier in the world. It was a lesson life had been pretty determined he shouldn't forget, ever since.

The coffee started dripping, and the smell made Dean crave bacon and eggs. Sam was the better cook when it came to breakfast, he could make the food all ready at the same time, bacon crispy but not burned, yolks runny and the white all the way done, but he had a bug up his ass about something, and damned if Dean was going to try to sweet talk him just to get a meal out of him.

When Sam came downstairs, he didn't come to the kitchen, just went straight into the library. A chair screeched across the floor, something that sounded like a dictionary dropped from a height, and Sam swore.

"Want some coffee?" Dean said.

Nothing but the sound of rifling papers. Dean was about to tell his brother to stop moping and get a grip when Sam said, "Yeah. Thanks."

"There's some breakfast too, if you want."

"Did you make it?"

"Yes, I fucking made it, and it looks good. So get your ass in here and eat up."

Sam came up behind him and hooked his chin over Dean's shoulder. "Huh. It does look good. You never could fry eggs for shit."

"Well, guess all those cordon bleu classes Dad sent me to finally paid off. Sit."

Sam sat. He'd gone from sulking to brooding. A subtle change that Dean wouldn't be able to describe, but that he could pick up from 100 yards. Their dad had never learned to tell the difference, which might be one of the reasons he and Sam were always fighting. You could cajole Sam out of a sulk, but brooding was best left alone until he decided to snap out of it. Dean dug into his food.

When he'd cleaned his plate, Sam pushed it away and looked hard at Dean. "Do you think this is what Dad meant?"

Dean was pretty sure Sam wasn't referring to shower sex, because John Winchester would never have meant his sons to be fucking each other, and the man hadn't had real strong opinions one way or another on bacon… "Nope. Sorry, Sam. Not following you."

"When he said you might have to kill me." Sam wouldn't look at him then, started picking dried yolk off the handle of his fork.

"Sammy, what? I'm not—what?"

"If I can't control this. If I'm dangerous, you have to do what he said."

Oh, for fuck… "Sam, we're not having this conversation again." Dean tried to catch Sam's eye but he was even more intent on his fork. "Look at me. You know you're not evil. And you know I'm not going to kill you. So stop talking like that. Just stop it."

Sam threw his fork down on his plate. "I can't, Dean, I can't hurt you. Not now. Not after—"

The sound of tires on gravel interrupted him and they looked out the window to see Bobby's car coming up the driveway. He had someone with him. Someone who looked disturbingly like—

"What the hell is Ruby doing in Bobby's car?"

Not just Dean then.

"If he gave her back that jade thing I'm going to kill him." Sam was half way to the front door and moving fast.

"He didn't give it to her. Jeeze, Sam, it's Bobby."

"I knew I shouldn't have let him take it. That bitch. She's up to something." He yanked the door open. "Bobby!" he called, and then there was a horrible crash.

"Sam? What the hell happened?" Dean ran to the doorway in time to see Sam sit up and kick a box with a fuel pump in it out from between his legs.

"Sam? You okay?" Bobby sounded like he was trying not to laugh.

"Bastard left the thing right outside the front door," Sam said to Dean.

"He's okay," Dean called to Bobby, and hauled Sam up by the arm. Which he then dropped like it was on fire, remembering that he must not touch Sam in front of Bobby. Or Ruby.

"Way to look subtle, Dean," Sam whispered.

Bobby had given up on trying not to laugh, and had just turned his back so it wasn't so obvious. Ruby was leaning on the car door smirking at all of them. After making sure Sam was steady on his feet, Dean picked up the pump and took it down to Bobby.

"Guy in a white pick-up brought this. Hope Mr. Klutz there didn't break it." He peered into the box, and it seemed okay. "Doesn't look like it."

"Ray?" Bobby said.

"Didn't catch his name. I was getting out of the shower, just saw his truck out the window."

"Ray. His daughter bought him a computer for Christmas last year, and now he's addicted to ebay. Can't stop buying and selling stuff. Sometimes I ask him to get me something, he has so much fun with it."

"Guess he figured, coming in, you'd see it there in front of the door."

While they were talking, Ruby went over and said something to Sam that Dean didn't catch.

"Doesn't mean I believe everything you tell me," Sam replied.

Dean leaned in and said to Bobby, "I thought it was easier to make people think you trusted them if you didn't mention that you don't trust them."

"Ruby's not a person. She's a demon."

"What was she doing in your car, speaking of that?"

"Figured I gave her a ride, I could keep an eye. She wouldn't come sneaking in when we weren’t expecting her."

"Good point."

"Bobby, you got a book?" Sam called from the porch. Ruby shot a little triumphant look back in their direction.

"You did?" Dean said.

Bobby reached in the car's window, pulled out a wide flat book like you'd put on your coffee table, if you had one, and held it out towards Dean.

"No way. Show it to research-boy over there. I do anything to try to get out of this…" Dean jerked his head towards his brother. "Remember?" Gesturing with the box, Dean said, "This pump have somewhere it wants to be, or you just ordering in spares?"

Sam came over, stopping behind Dean, not too close, but close enough that his forearm brushed Dean's shoulder when he reached for the book. 'We're good,' the touch said, and Dean resented that he'd needed to hear it.

"The pump's for Miz Nelson's Honda; she's gonna put it in herself. But I got a pile of new scrap needs picking through, you wantin' a job."

"We looking at that book sometime today?" said Ruby, sitting on the porch steps, giving bored teenaged girls the world over a look to aspire to.

"Go," Dean said, and pushed Sam gently in the direction of the house. "Read. Find answers. I'm going treasure hunting."

The way Bobby and Sam looked at him, Dean hadn't pulled off nonchalant with his 'find answers' plea.

"It's good stuff, Dean." Bobby clapped him on the arm.

"Yeah. Well. Whatever. Anything in particular you're looking for? In, you know…" Dean gestured towards the pile of cars and scrap.

"Leanna James is still real keen on license plates for that art project of hers. And anything else that looks usable."

"Maybe one of you'll run me out some coffee in a while," Dean said, looking at Sam.

"Sure thing, Dean."

From his vantage point in the yard, Dean watched Ruby argue with Bobby on the porch while Sam played peacemaker. After a few minutes, Bobby went in and dragged two kitchen chairs out to join the rocker that had lived on the porch for as long as Dean could remember. Ruby was a lot of things, most of which Dean had no respect for, but she wasn't stupid. Dean wouldn't go in Bobby's house either if he were her. And the less he thought about that, the better.

It turned out he couldn't watch the three of them, heads huddled over the book, discussing his fate like he wasn't standing fifty yards away. Like he was some kind of interesting puzzle. He made his way to the far side of the pile, pulled on a pair of work gloves, and started picking through the scrap.






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