Work Text:
He watched the Impala disappear around the corner, two tiny hands waving him goodbye from the back seat, leaving nothing but silence behind.
At first it was heaven. Bobby loved having Dean and Sammy over, hell he loved them like they were his own, but after five weeks of the small boys tearing around the house and junkyard with an excitedly barking dog chasing them, it was nice to have a little peace and quiet. So for two weeks, he enjoyed the solitude.
And then he got bored.
Without the boys around to look after or to entertain, and most of his customers away on holidays, there wasn’t much to do. He got called in for a few tows, but that kept him busy for about an hour before he was back home, staring at the walls, unsuccessfully trying to keep the mosquitoes from biting.
It was stifling, to say the least. He tried cleaning the house, but the vacuum was broken and he didn’t have any soap to wash the dishes with. He started clearing out his old books, and got caught up in old lore for hours instead. He cleaned his guns and sharpened his knives until everything was gleaming so hard he could use them as mirrors.
It filled a day.
A late night spent in front of the television, drinking cheap whiskey and watching old zombie movies, gave him an idea. A big part of his basement was going unused, nothing more than a storage place for old scraps and junk. It may have been the combination of the zombies, the drink and a possible heat stroke, but Bobby figured it would be a good idea to clear out the basement space and build a panic room.
He spent a week reading up on the specifications for what he would need--and that sounded easier than it was, you try finding the information to build a panic room specifically against supernatural monsters--and then set out to build it the following weekend.
“A panic room? For what exactly?”
Bobby sighed down the phone. “Monsters, Rufus. Of all kinds. Vampires, incubi, shapeshifters. Remember those?”
Rufus huffed. “Of course I remember, it’s a little hard to forget a monster wearing your face and then having to kill yourself--or it. Whatever. But what do you need a panic room for? You got a shotgun. Afraid they might charge in hoards? When did you know monsters to be organised?”
Rufus sounded amused, as if the notion was completely ridiculous, but Bobby wasn’t convinced. There were things they didn’t know much about yet, things they hadn’t encountered yet. Up until a few years ago, he didn’t think vampires were real, so who’s to say there weren’t other, bigger things out there? Like changelings or demons. Or zombies. He was doing this.
“Whatever, Turner. Just wait and see who has the last laugh when they do come.”
Rufus chuckled down the line. “You always were a paranoid idiot, Singer.”
Bobby heard the fond tone in his friend’s voice and couldn’t help an amused huff. “I’ll save you a spot for during the apocalypse. You bring the whiskey. The good stuff.”
Rufus laughed again. “Will do. Talk to you later.”
And that was his last excuse of procrastination gone. Bobby eyed the pile of metal and wood in the middle of the junkyard that was slowly heating up under the blazing sun, and he knew he needed to get it inside and downstairs soon, before it got too scolding to handle.
By the time he got everything downstairs and haphazardly organised into piles, he didn’t have any skin on his fingers left and he was officially sweating his balls off. Rivulets of sweat slid down his forehead, his neck, his chest and back, his everything, in the stuffy dust and oppressive heat of his basement. Building an indoor panic room in the middle of summer might not have been his best idea.
“Oh, stop bitching Singer, and get to it. This thing ain’t gonna build itself.”
But then his eye fell on a brightly colored piece of plastic at the top of the pile of things he cleared out to make room for the shelter. A blow-up pool. Not the original one he bought for Sam and Dean a few years back, Rumsfeld had torn that one apart in a game of “let’s see what I can bring my master from the basement today” when it hadn’t come away so easily.
This one was brand new, bought specifically for this summer. It was bigger than the first one, and it was supposed to look like an alligator, with the green scales, but it missed the mark by quite a bit. It hadn’t lessened the fun though, both boys spending just about every minute in the pool, and Bobby even made a few splashes when the day got extremely hot.
Which, really--It was extremely hot today, isn't it? Especially after hauling all that metal and wood through his house and down the stairs. He could feel the sweat drying on his body, which would really be helped by dipping into a nice, cool bath in say, a small kid’s pool.
It’s not like anyone was around to see it.
He already had a hand stretched out towards the plastic, when his good--bad?--sense kicked and stopped him. He shook his head at his own foolishness and instead of pulling out the pool and setting it up for a nice, cool dip, he turned back to the piles of materials for his panic room.
“You’re a grown man, for crying out loud, you’re not setting up a kid’s pool just for yourself.”
Twenty minutes and twice his weight in expelled sweat later, Bobby was standing at the foot of the stairs with the pool in hand, ready to say the hell to it all and strip to his underwear for a refreshing splash. He didn’t get farther than his foot on the first step.
“You’re a fool. Put down the pool and get back to work, Singer.”
This time, it took him less than ten minutes to grab the plastic pool, march upstairs, resolutely blow up the sides of the pool and drop the hose in it. He didn’t get to turn on the water though, before his mind stopped him again.
“Get back in the house and finish your damn panic room, you old git.”
But then he couldn’t stop thinking about the pool and the hose and the sweat now not just dripping, but pouring off his body. And the cans of beer cooling in the fridge.
Screw it.
He was upstairs and in the pool in under five minutes. The blessedly cool water was rising steadily around his legs and stomach and the cold beer in his hand did wonders to make him forget the horror of the basement hideout. He could feel the grime and sweat being washed away by cool, heavenly cool water and he couldn’t stop a relieved sigh from slipping out.
He was allowed a little dramatic moment, okay? He’d been working hard, he missed John’s boys like crazy and he could do what he liked. So there.
He turned off the water when it hit the edge of the pool and sunk back with his eyes closed to just bask in the relief from the sweltering heat. Of course, that’s when he heard footsteps approaching through the junk yard.
He struggled to get out of the pool, and hopefully inside and covered with a robe, before whoever it was saw him, but he kept slipping on the bottom of the pool and splashing back on his ass. His beer dropped from his hand at the third try and when he went under after his fifth attempt, he was too late.
“Bobby? Where the hell are you, you grumpy old--”
Sheriff Mills stopped dead in her tracks when her eyes landed on Bobby. They widened slightly when she took in the scene, before she doubled over in a fit of laughter. Bobby merely huffed and sank down further into the cool water. She could laugh all she wanted, but he was finally, blessedly cool.