After the End

Chapter Seventeen

Bobby hadn't changed much in ten years, Dean noticed. Most people would be different after surviving an apocalypse, but not Bobby Singer. He was still the same stubborn old man the Dean looked up to as a father figure. He still rolled his eyes when Dean said something absolutely stupid, and he still called Dean an idjit anytime he did something that Bobby disapproved of. The only thing different about the man was his wife, Ellen. Dean never thought Bobby would move on from his first wife, considering the horrible circumstances of her death. Bobby never talked about it and Dean never asked, just like they didn't talk about Mary. But now, Bobby was happy with Ellen. They had too much in common, the way neither of them took shit from anybody. They were both stubborn and they held out as long as possible, even in pointless arguments. It was amusing to watch from Dean's point of view.

Dean had started Bobby on the topic of old cars at some point in the last thirty minutes, but Ellen eventually got tired of the two of them droning on and on about engines and what not. "I swear, you could name every car you've ever changed a tire on, but you can't remember my birthday," Ellen teased, snatching the hat from Bobby's head to plant a kiss on top of his thinning hair. When he glared at her, she chuckled and readjusted the hat back where it was before.

"Birthdays are hard to remember during an apocalypse, dear," Bobby defended himself. He was right, time sort of lost all meaning when there was nothing left to live for. Dean stopped counting the days after a few months of living in the bunker. He had a general idea of how long it had been because of the seasons changing, but he didn't pay much attention to the days of the week.

"Not my point, honey," Ellen retorted, pulling out a seat at the table to join them. "You haven't seen each other in ten years and all you want to talk about is cars?" she wondered, staring at them accusingly as both Bobby and Dean shrank into their chairs. "Bobby, you've spoken about Dean and his brother more than anything else before they showed up here. Hell, I feel like I've known them my whole lives cause of how much you talk about them. Tell me there isn't anything else you boys can talk about?"

"Not much to say," Dean came to Bobby's defense, because he wasn't about to get into that emotional crap with Ellen sitting right there. Not that he didn't trust her, but one person having to hear it was enough. "I mean, the past ten years have been uneventful other than fighting off hordes of flesh eating monsters. The most excitement I've had didn't even come until I ran into Castiel a little over two months ago." Somehow, he always ended up talking about Cas, even when he was trying to avoid it. No matter where the conversation started, it came back around to the angel.

"You never went into much detail about how you boys met," Ellen pushed, clearly desperate to get off the topic of cars.

"Not much detail to get into," Dean answered, almost too quickly. He felt the blush creeping onto his face and tried to cover up his nerves by clearing his throat. There was nothing about how he and Cas met that screamed 'I'm bisexual and I wanna fuck my best friend' but somehow, Dean was still worried he'd give it away by talking about anything related to Cas.

"Oh, come on," Ellen answered with a bit of a smirk. "The two of you are like peas in a pod. Almost like Jo and Charlie. There's gotta be more to it."

Dean knew his face was red now, there was no hiding it. He didn't know how to respond without saying something stupid, so he stuttered out a few words, trying to come up with something, until Bobby swooped in to save his ass. "Ellen, leave the boy alone," he grumbled, which only earned him an eye roll instead of a glare this time. "Can you give us a minute, hon? I wanna talk to Dean about something. More car stuff," he added, which Ellen did not believe for one second. She gave them both a suspicious look, but sighed nonetheless and got up from the table.