Hey there! Thanks for the awesome reviews!
Here comes another chap for you guys!
Ten days later, Dean's knee was all better. Well… Sort of…
It didn't bother him, but it was still just as fucked up as the day Sammy had seen him fall flat on his face.
After long hours of debating the matter, Dean had managed to trick his younger brother into letting him hunt when he felt up to it. At least for the time being…
They had agreed that the next surgery should be taken care of within a year, if nothing happened in the meanwhile…
Sammy had managed to defeat the spirit that haunted the house they had researched, and they had moved on to the next dot on the map.
They were sitting at a local coffee shop in northern Iowa. Dean had a regular coffee, black. Sammy had a 'high-school-science-experiment'.
Dean was busy shuffling through the local paper, looking for gigs. He found an article about ten hikers going missing over the past two months. The last one had gone missing two days ago…
"Whatcha think about this one Sammy?" he asked and handed the paper over to his brother.
Sammy skimmed through it, it caught his interest.
"Ten hikers over two months! That's freakishly many!"
Dean nodded, "Worth checking out…"
Sammy agreed. Ten missing hikers over the span of 61 days were too many to just brush away.
Dean smiled. He had never quite figured out the thing with resting. He needed to move around, get his adrenalin pumping... And two weeks between hunts were more than he was comfortable with…
One thing was for sure, he would never be anyone's favorite patient…
"Great!"
SPNSPNSPN
Sam was nervous for his older brother, as they packed their gear a few days later. He knew Dean, as well as anybody could… He knew that his brother hated being cooped up, and gladly welcomed more pain instead of bedrest. As long as his body was able to find its way out of bed at all…
His brother wasn't limping anymore. Which was a good sign, Sam guessed… Even though he wasn't completely sure whether to trust it. Dean had proved himself an expert of hiding injuries and aches from him…
They suspected the thing in the woods of being a Wendigo. It would be the second Wendigo in a short span of time.
It suddenly dawned over him why his brother had taken a couple of minutes on the floor of the cave, after he had cut him down from the rope. Haley had walked around in there straight away, but Dean had needed rest. Hell, he had basically collapsed against the wall… And he had made a lot more noise too… But when Sam had asked him if he was okay, Dean had put on a brave face and lied to him.
Yeah… And that thing with 'I don't do shorts'… Sam knew for a fact that Dean had nothing fundamentally against wearing shorts… It had been to hide the brace, or the scar, or whatever…
All of the sudden, Sam really didn't like the idea of another Wendigo hunt.
He knew his brother well enough to know that he would hunt as long as his leg wasn't as bad as it had been a few days ago. And that had been BAD!
Through the years, Dean had hunted with injuries that would have kept Sam away from anything hunting-related, at least while he still was on the mend. But no, not his big brother Dean…
He had seen Dean fight with a recently set dislocated shoulder, more than once…
'Sammy, I dislocated my shoulder again… Could you pop it back in?'
The worst part of that was that Sam knew he only got asked when Dean had failed dozens of times himself.
He had seen Dean, 17 years old, ready to hunt three weeks after he got a bullet through his thigh…
'My leg's super, but I'll become weak and slow if I don't get back in the game soon…'
He knew his older sibling had broken lots of things, lots of times… But he had only been in a casts like 15 times. That Sam knew of.
'Nah… It's just a broken finger… I'll be fine…'
He wasn't any better when it came to off-hunt activities.
'What are ya fuzzin' about Sammy! Of course I can jump on a trampoline!'
That had been three days after he'd dislocated his hip… He'd been 15…
Sam regretted the deal he had made with Dean. Dean would hunt as long as he felt like he would survive… Sam just hoped that when the other shoe dropped, and Dean got injured again, it wouldn't be too bad to fix up again…
SPNSPNSPSN
After half an hour of walking in tough terrain, they found the suspected Wendigo's lair. It smelt of decay…
Dean had put on a brave face for the last ten minutes, his knee was starting to get to him… But he wouldn't let Sammy know. No, sir!
He remembered how his leg had felt after the last Wendigo hunt, back in Black Ridge, Colorado… It had been all right until the creature had snatched him and Haley, and strung them up for keeping. He remembered being pleased with the fact that he was banged up pretty badly. That way, Sammy wouldn't know that he'd been hiding his injured knee from him a while. After all, it got better quickly that time.
They heard somebody calling for help, just over the moor. They shared a look, then they decided to run after the sound, just to check…
Against all odds, they found a human being. A young lady with blonde curls and outdoorsy clothing. She was sitting on top of a fallen tree trunk, she had her left leg propped up on the log.
"You alright?" Sammy asked when he reached her, Dean was a few steps behind.
"Yeah… No… I twisted my ankle an hour ago. I don't think I'm able to walk back out by myself…"
Sammy nodded, and threw a glance at Dean. Dean figured that he was checking what kind of state his leg was in.
"Just relax, we'll get you outta here!" Dean smirked at her.
"Yeah, but Dean… We have to…" Sammy just gestured in the direction of the cave.
"Yeah… Right…" Dean nodded.
Dean scratched the back of his neck, thinking. He knew that he would be toast if he had to make an extra trip to the car. His knee had already started to act up. Just a little though…
"What were you doing out here anyway?" he asked in lack of a better question.
"Uhm… I was investigating the disappearances…" she cleared her throat, "I'm with the wildlife service…"
Dean's eyebrows shot sky-high.
They had brought their wildlife credentials, and they always carried some kind of federal credentials. FBI worked like a charm, and in this case; perfect backup.
His eyes found a scar on the left side of her neck. If any professionals had stitched that one up, there might have been a lawsuit of some sorts. He relaxed a bit, but he was not ready to jump for it.
"What did you say your name were?" Sammy asked after a few seconds of silence."
"Oh, I'm so sorry… I'm Charity Raymonds..."
"Well, my name is Sam Krueger. This is my co-worker Dean Adams…"
"Co-worker?"
"Yeah, we're with the FBI, miss." Dean said as he flipped open his fake FBI credentials.
"Are you out here alone?" Sammy asked.
"No, my brother is here too. But I couldn't find him anywhere…"
Her voice trembled a bit, but not as much as one would expect. This fueled Dean's notion even more…
Dean contemplated what way would be the best to ask her if she was a hunter, he had to be smart about it. In a way that he could just brush it off as a simple question. Damn, hunters should have a secret code-word or something…
He felt ridiculous as he acted like he suddenly saw her scar, worst case scenario; she was embarrassed about it…
"Ouch, that must've been painful." He pointed to the same place, but on his own neck.
Her hand reached up to touch the scar.
"No, not really…" she said with a shy smile.
"May I ask how you got it?"
Charity tilted her head, eyes searching his face carefully. She bit her lip a little nervously.
"Hunting accident, I was eighteen…"
First now did Sammy catch on to his brother's trail of thoughts.
"Like deer or elk? Or more dangerous game?" Dean's lip curved upward in the corners.
"I'd like to see the elk that would have managed this…" she said and rolled her eyes.
"So, you're a hunter?"
She nodded.
"A hunter?" Dean emphasized the word heavily.
"Are you hunters too?"
"Yeah…" Sammy nodded.
She smiled
"Well… Then I'm not with the wildlife service then…" a smile spread across her face.
"Do you think it's a Wendigo too?" she asked after a few minutes of silence.
Dean nodded.
"Are you alright with being here until we get this mess cleaned up?" he asked.
"Yeah, my leg's not bothering me… Just thought I had to act it up when I heard you two wandering about up there… Safer for regular people to be in the city I guess…"
Sammy smiled and nodded.
"Yeah, I guess so..." he paused and looked at her, "Can you hunt?"
" 'course I can!"
SPNSPNSPN
The three of them sneaked into the smelly cave. Dean could not fathom how anything could live with that smell, not even fugly creatures like Wendigoes…
All his thoughts about how the cave smelled was cut short when he was forcefully jerked away from the group. He let out a cry. Part shock, part pain…
"Dean!" was the last thing he heard before he got knocked out…
I know it might be a cheap-shot to make Charity a hunter. And not hurt at all... I know...
Do any of you see what's coming in the next chapter.
Hint; There will probably be a lot of it!
Once again thanks for the amazing reviews!
