The subject is mine, but sadly, the boys are not. Maybe someday...?
Hey guys. Again, thanks so much for all your reviews. For those of you who want more action in this fic, stay tuned, it's on the way. I'm trying my best to cover all bases. I think (hope) you'll really like where this is going. For those of you who like this the way it is, let me know, maybe I'll write another fic with less action. I aim to please! You guys are awesome!
Dean stared at the screen of his cell phone for the fifth time, his entire being wishing this time it would read differently. He couldn't believe the message. How dare he? What right does he have? Although he'd ignored the initial 4am vibrations of the phone, Dean couldn't keep his curiosity to himself much longer. As the sun rose outside the hotel Dean had picked up the offending object and scrolled up the list, annoyance his first emotion as he saw it was from their father. Dean braced himself, ready for an apology or an inquiry about Sam. But rage consumed him as he read the message. You boys have wasted enough time in that town. You took care of the hunt, and now it's time you move on. This is where you are to go next. Dean didn't even bother to look at the coordinates his father had included. They didn't matter. Dean Winchester would not be racing off on some piece of crap hunt. Not without Sam. And Sam was in no shape to be fighting monsters.
Resisting the urge to hurl the phone across the room, Dean stormed out of the room without considering what his volume was doing to the three sleeping figures still inside. He barely waited until he was safely out of voice range before he pressed the auto dial. Not surprisingly, the cell rang straight to voicemail and Dean had to listen to the all too familiar message on his father's phone. The delay just made him angrier, and when the beep finally sounded on the other end Dean tore into his father. "You fucking asshole! Do you have even one tiny fucking idea what Sam has been going through these last two weeks? We're not just sitting on our ass's wasting time, as you so delicately put it. Your son has been trying desperately to get his life back together. He's trying to relearn how to walk dammit! Not that you would even care, seeing as how you couldn't even be bothered to come visit him in the hospital. We're not going anywhere until Sam's able to fight, so if you need something taken care of you can just get off that damn pedestal of yours and take care of it your self! Damn you!" Dean finished his rampage with a jab of his thumb violently into the END button on the phone. And then he stabbed the button several more times for good measure, wishing he could have done a whole lot more than just give their father a good tongue lashing.
He spun around, stomping back to the hotel for his keys. He needed to get out of there; go for a drive. But Dean stopped short in his tracks at the sight of Sam, Laura and Junie all staring at him, bleary eyed, from the door of the room. While the girls had looks of utter confusion on their faces, Sam just looked curious. Dean would only react that way to one man: their father. "Ladies," Dean said, plastering his best apologetic smile across his face, charming them thoroughly. He was mildly successful at hiding the utter frustration and disgust that had consumed him just seconds before. "I'm so sorry to have to do this to you, but I'm afraid we're gonna have to cut this morning short. Sam and I have some things we need to discuss, and you girls would just be bored listening to us."
Junie shrugged, indifferent. This had just been a one night stand; she knew that and so did Sam. But she'd still had fun. She leaned her lithe little body over Sam, brushing her lips tenderly against his cheek. "Thanks for a wild night, Sam. Look me up if you ever need another opportunity to celebrate." Her swift movements and acceptance of the situation signaled the fact that she was used to slipping out unnoticed.
Laura wasn't nearly as willing to leave without further explanation. "If you guys are in some kind of trouble I want to help," Laura insisted, crossing her arms defiantly. She had been privileged enough to be let in on their deepest darkest secret. In her mind there was no reason to keep anything else a secret.
Dean rolled his eyes, shoving his way through the barricade Laura and Sam still maintained in front of the door. "Fine. You want to stay? Stay. I'm taking a shower."
It was Sam's turn to roll his eyes as he reentered the room and crossed to his brother. Typical. If he can't have what he wants, he just clams up. "What did he say?" Sam whispered, hoping his hushed voice would be enough to convince Dean they could still have a conversation with Laura in the room.
The tactic didn't work. "Don't worry about it Sam. I already took care of it."
"Took care of what?" Sam demanded louder, grabbing Dean's wrist as he passed. "What did Dad want?"
Dean laughed off Sam's question, playing down the situation as he shrugged out of his brother's loose grasp. "What makes you think that was Dad? I never once gave you the impression that jerk had bothered to contact us."
"I'm in a wheelchair, Dean, not a coma," Sam groaned sarcastically. "And I know you better than you know yourself. If you weren't just calling Dad then I'm John Wayne."
"John Wayne, huh?" Dean winked, and looked over at Laura who still stood in the doorway with her arms crossed. "I got me a real life celebrity in the family. Who could've guessed."
"Just tell me what he said!" Sam finally yelled, exasperation at Dean's stubbornness rivaled only by his gut feeling that the conversation had been about him.
Dean sat on the corner of the bed, finally relenting. He slowly pulled the phone from his pocket, highlighting the text and handing the information over to Sam. Unwilling to be left out, Laura crossed to Sam and peered over his shoulder. Her heart sank as she read the message, and then fell completely when she watched Sam's shoulders slump. "So he just wants me to suck it up, huh?" Sam asked quietly. "As though this whole thing is all in my head?"
"Sam, I'm sorry," Dean replied, gently retrieving the phone from Sam's hand and deleting the message. "The guy's a total ass. Don't even let what he said get to you."
"But those people...they need our help...well, your help, anyway."
There he goes again. Just like Sam; always putting other people before himself. Idiot. "Sam, we don't even know what the deal is with those coordinates. For all we know it could be a ghost town. People may not even be involved."
"But there might be," Sam insisted, shoving off towards his laptop, left on the room table. "We should look it up. See what the deal is."
Dean sprinted after his brother, determined to talk him out of the hunt. Reaching around Sam, Dean slammed the laptop shut as Sam spun angrily. What the hell is with this kid? Two day's ago he was screaming at me for dragging him back into thishunting gig, and now I'm the one ordering him to back off a case? "Look, bro, it's just one job. It'll keep. Besides," Dean looked sadly at his brother, upset that it would come to this. "You're not going to be of any use to me on the hunt. And I'm not going without you."
Daggers shot from Sam's eyes into his brother's heart. "I can fight, Dean. It's the only thing in my life that's been ingrained in me from the day I could talk. You know it'll all come back to me just as soon as I need it too. It's like riding a bicycle. Once you learn it you don't lose it."
"That's funny," Dean scoffed, walking away from Sam. "Because I would have thought that walking might have fallen into the same category, but your body sure as hell forgot how to do that."
It was a low blow. Dean knew it the minute he'd opened his mouth to say it, but he couldn't let Sam continue with this fierce determination to go gallivanting across the country in search of demons. There would be a time and a place for that, but the time wasn't now. Dean watched, upset, as Sam pursed his lips, slumping dejected in the chair. He resisted the urge to say he was sorry, his only relief being that Sam was giving up the fight. At least it worked. But he couldn't let it go completely at that. He had to make things right with his brother. They were still on shaky ground from their earlier fight.
"I'll make you a deal, Sam. You work extra hard on therapy; get yourself out of that chair and back on your own two feet, and we'll look into this place. If they still need our help we'll go."
Nodding his agreement, Sam relaxed a little, letting Dean release a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "I guess it's good incentive to work hard on my therapy."
"You should want to work hard for you," Dean insisted. "But if this is what will do it, then use it. I'll take whatever I can get."
"Speaking of that," Sam added, a sly smile spreading across his face, "I have to show you something." Dean and Laura both looked in anticipation as Sam motioned to his socked foot. The movement in his toe from the night before had migrated, and Sam now eagerly demonstrated motion in his entire foot. It still took effort, and Dean didn't miss the strain and tension in his little brother's entire body as he focused all his efforts on bending the foot, but the result was unmistakable.
A burst of energy filled the room, John Winchester and his demands all but forgotten. "Sam, that's incredible! Your foot! Look at it! I knew you could do this. I knew you would get better!"
Sam beamed. "It happened last night while Junie and I were...I mean, it happened while you were gone. I wanted to tell you then, but you weren't here."
"This is awesome. We have to call Harry!"
Holding up a hand, Sam was quick to stop Dean. The early hour of the morning might have escaped his brother's notice, but Sam had gotten an eyeful of the neon clock when Dean had torn out of the room not that long ago. "Let the poor man sleep!" he laughed. "He'll be over in a few hours. My foot will still be moving then. Who knows, maybe more will have joined it by then."
"So what do we do in the meantime?" Dean tried to hide his disappointment as best he could, but it wasn't easy. He'd put every ounce of his thoughts and actions into Sam's recovery. It was exhausting. How can Sam be so blase about the whole thing?
Sam's stomach answered for him, rumbling loudly, and lightening the mood again. "Let's eat."