a/n: Tag for episode ten of season seven. Written while it was airing, actually. So, spoilers.

Just a one-shot. God, I don't even know. This episode was such a punch to the gut. D: Why all my favorite characters, writers? Why?

Forgive my incoherency.

Disclaimer: don't own it.

Somewhere between tripping up the steps and through the doors of the hospital and his seventh cup of coffee, Sam realizes that he's never called Bobby "dad."

It's not really an earth-moving revelation, and it sure as hell isn't the worst of his worries right about now. It's something to think about while he's standing around awkwardly, though, people pushing past him until he moves out of the way to contemplate his lukewarm Styrofoam cup.

It should have been simple. Dad was Dad. The end.

Except sometimes Dad was too busy being John to be Dad, so in the middle of it all, Bobby was Bobby, and life was good.

Well, okay, life wasn't good. But it could have been worse, for Sam, at least .

He doesn't know if it could have been worse for Bobby.

(He probably could have asked, though.)

Bobby's been through shit. Sure, they don't know what kind of shit, for the most part, besides the basics; the guy's got a solid brick wall set around every emotion that's not cynical skepticism or somehow connected to being a total hard-ass, but still. He pays more attention to their problems than he does his own, and hell, maybe that was easier for him. Maybe it distracted him. Sam doesn't care, because no matter what the reasons, he's still always been there.

Sam remembers when he was a kid and being there was such a big deal. Dean was there. And Jessica was, too, until she died. But both of them left, at some point. And it wasn't their fault—okay, some of it was Dean's fault, but not all of it, and he came back in the end— but it did shatter their relationship, forced them to re-build it.

Sam's pretty sure he and Dean are still fumbling around in the dark for some of the smaller pieces.

(And there was Cas, who was there for a while, too, but Sam can't even think about that right now.)

It's all in perspective, he supposes.

He doesn't ever recall Bobby not being there, like John was. John wasn't therefor half of Sam's childhood, because he was chasing monsters and ghosts and his broken past, but Bobby and not being there don't even belong in the same sentence.

Sam remembers all of it. He doesn't know if Bobby knows that, but it's all there. He remembers the random trips for seventy-five cent ice cream cones in the middle of summer, between the shooting lessons and the hunting jobs. He remembers the pull-out couch he used to sleep on in what passed for Bobby's living room because Dean always called the spare bed.

He remembers so much, all of the stuff that he forgets every single time Bobby yells at him for screwing up, and apparently it takes someone getting shot for a Winchester to man up and admit to actually having feelings.

Sam knows that Dean doesn't get it. He does, maybe, on some subconscious level, but the fact that Bobby could die isn't really clicking for him. Sam's kind of glad; Dean's got enough shit on his plate.

He's been through so much, and Sam sometimes wonders if it's worth it.

They spend every damn day saving the lives of complete outsiders, but at what cost? Where the hell do they draw the line, anyway? When does it stop becoming their problem?

Never. It's never not their problem, and Sam knows that Bobby knows that.

But the son of a bitch could have at least forgotten for once.

He doesn't think he could put it in words, if he really wanted to try—and he kind of doesn't. He's still a law student at heart, not some kind of writer. He doesn't think Bobby would want to hear it, either.

He feels like he needs to tell him, though. It's like an itch in the back of his mind, and he presses his fingers to his hand because he has to remember that this is reality. Bobby's in a coma and he can't tell him anything.

But dammit, there are things that he should have said. Things like "don't leave" and "you were more of a father to me than he ever was" and "you goddamn son of a bitch, why are you such a damn hero?"

(He thinks that maybe all hunters have a hero-complex. He wonders how many of them died that way.)

He stares at his coffee, but doesn't drink it.

It's cold now, anyway, and Dean's shoving his way through the front doors with blood on his hand.

The doctors pull them into the room because they're taking Bobby to surgery, which is good—Dean hopes it's good, because if it's not he might punch another window—and something inside of him snaps when he sees Bobby lying on the bed.

Bullet to the brain or not, Bobby is a fighter. He's a fighter and he's a winner, and he'll win this. Dean knows he'll win this.

It's all he has left to hold on to. He's lost Lisa, and he's lost Ben and John and Cas, and he's not losing this, too.

Sam's talking to him, to Bobby, and Dean bites down hard on the inside of his mouth until he tastes blood.

Sam's the stronger one. Sam's always been the stronger one, even when they were kids and they maybe didn't really know it yet, and Dean had to beat up the kids that picked on his baby brother. But Sam is the one who managed to drag himself to hell and back—literally—and scrape what was left of his mind into something that resembled sanity again.

All Dean's been able to do is drink beer and kill his brother's not-girlfriends.

He's a fucking paradigm of emotional stability.

Bobby needs to wake the hell up.

His head is killing him.

Bobby drops the pen and looks at them.

Sam is still a psychiatrist's worst nightmare, and Dean is still broken, and they're still his boys.

Just a bunch of stupid heads, and that's all they'll ever be.

What can he say? He raised them well.

And he doesn't need no damn title to prove it.

The reaper's waiting.

"So—stay here or come with me. Choose."

He wonders what Singer will pick.

The fact that he doesn't know doesn't bother him. It never bothers him.

It makes the job more interesting.

"Choose."

And Bobby thinks.

The monitor shrieks like it thinks they all need some kind of reminder.

What are you doing here, standing around? Go save the damn world, boys. God knows it needs it.

It's probably channeling Bobby.

And why not? Maybe it thinks that they're going to need the incentive.

They have no idea how they're going to get through this. But they will.

They always do.

That's why he loves them.

...

Oh, and by the way, Sam? Hunters aren't the ones with the hero-complexes. The heroes are the ones with the Bobby- Singer complexes.

Duh.

Idjits.