I just want to say that you all are awesome. I'm loving writing this story, and would do it just for myself. But the fact that you are all giving me a chance to share it with you makes it so much more worth it. Thanks a ton - both to those who do review and to those who just read. If you get a chance, please drop me a line. Let me know what you think, let me know what you want to see, let me know what you want done better. I'm open to all suggestions! Enjoy...
Shit. He'd said yes. Why the hell had he said yes? Dean was safe in the hospital. Not just safe, but oblivious. And yet, here was Sam, signing his still stewing brother out of the hospital AMA. Except that Dr. Hurley really hadn't seemed to protest all that much, and he almost seemed eager to speed up the process of paperwork to get rid of the angry young man who'd been terrorizing his staff for over a week now.
He'd called Bobby and Missouri in a panic after realizing his mistake and Bobby had driven right over. But Missouri had remained at the hotel, and her lack of presence gave Sam all the confirmation he needed because Missouri had stayed behind to prepare the room for Dean. There was no turning back from this now. He had said yes, and now Dean was leaving the hospital and joining the rest of them at the hotel.
It wasn't that Sam didn't want Dean home, or as "home" as a rinky dink motel in the middle of Toronto, Canada could get. But the timing just wasn't right, and he had absolutely no idea how to explain his and Bobby's absence all day tomorrow when they went back after the thing in the Algonquin woods. And he sure as hell didn't want to subject poor Missouri to Dean's wrath for an entire day and maybe longer. He had no doubt the woman could handle his stubborn mule of a brother, he just wasn't sure it was fair to make her have to. One look at Bobby's face told Sam the older hunter was thinking the exact same thoughts.
But what was done was done. Final. No turning back. Dean was packed, and dressed, and clearly eager to get out of the prison that had held him for going on three weeks, and there was no mistaking the mediocre hint of a smile on the man's face. That alone was enough to ease Sam's confidence enough to finish signing the papers and collect his brother. But smile or no, Sam's doubts still remained.
Lily escorted them to the car, her unshakeable self-assurance making her one of the very few staff members who still willingly tolerated Dean's rage after having multiple objects thrown at them. She pushed the wheelchair while Sam and Bobby juggled Dean's bags and medications, several more weeks worth of bandages, a set of forearm crutches, and a handful of recommendations to rehab facilities in Canada as well as Kansas, where they would be going when they finally left the country.
They exited the double sliding doors of the hospital and pulled up beside the waiting Chevy Impala. Dean swallowed hard, his reunion with his beloved car bittersweet. He wouldn't be driving for a while, not with Sam mother-henning him to death. He could drive if he really wanted to. The car was an automatic, and since you used the right foot to work the pedals, he really hadn't lost anything there. But Sam would say no - he had no doubt - and it was so much easier not to ask then to hear Sam's obnoxiously apologetic tone telling Dean 'no.' So he said a quiet hello to his girl and silently made his own apology for getting hurt and abandoning her, promising to be back soon.
Bobby threw the bags in the trunk while Sam and Lily hovered over Dean as he hopped into the passenger seat, refusing help, but silently grateful for the outstretched hands ready to steady him if he teetered. And teeter he did, as the jump off the curb was misjudged and he stumbled and tipped into the side of the car. Dammit, this sucks. But he recovered quickly and shrugged from their ministrations with an annoyed growl. "I got it. I'm fine."
Sam continued to hover obnoxiously as he slid the rest of the way into the car, one hand gently steering his still tender limb out of the way of potentially painful obstructions as the other hand clung tightly to the door frame. He watched in sullen distaste as Lily folded up the wheelchair and handed it to Bobby to stuff in the backseat. God, how he hated that thing. He'd give anything to get rid of it, to get the damn thing out of his sight. But his therapy efforts had been put on the back burner when he chose to launch a full assault on the entire hospital staff and he still lacked the proper balance to remain solely on the crutches. It was too much of a risk.
"You take care of yourself, Dean." Lily's soft voice pulled him from his thoughts and he looked up to see her mega-watt smile shining down on him. Even now, putting him in the car to leave, she was still trying to win him over. I could give her that, couldn't I? He questioned, trying to determine how much pride would be lost in admitting his faults.
He finally nodded. "I'll do my best. Thanks for all your help. I– I'm sorry. I know I was a bit of a ... pain."
She seemed to relax at that, as she winked back at him. "Can't say I'd do it any differently if the tables were turned," she offered, giving Dean his out. "Just try to remember that with your brother and your friends. They care about you so much."
Lips tight, Dean nodded again. He knew when he was being called out. Lily may have been more subtle than most, but she still got her point across. "I couldn't have asked for better."
Sam's body fell heavily into the driver's side of the car, causing her to dip before regaining her equilibrium, and Dean knew it was time to go. Thank God. He pulled his door shut and waved to Lily out the window as Sam started the car and gently eased it onto the road.
"You're sure you want to do this?" Sam asked one more time as he put his blinker on to gain access to the four lane. In his mirror he could see Bobby's old clunker of a truck pull in behind them. "There's still time, Dean."
The plea in his brother's tone didn't go unnoticed, but Dean ignored it. "I've been cooped up in there for far too long, Sammy-boy," he sneered. "It's time for me to get on with my cripple-assed life."
Sam sighed, but said nothing more. He hated the labels his brother had been putting on himself; hated the references to being a crip and a gimp, and he especially hated hearing Dean call himself a loser. But asking Dean to stop using those words was like talking to a brick wall, and Sam had finally given up. If Dean wanted to label himself there was nothing he could do about it. He could only hope that Dean would grow tired of the terms if no one acknowledged them.
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A week ago Sam and Missouri and Bobby had discussed whether or not to switch one of their rooms to a handicap accessible room for when Dean did come home. It had been a long discussion, the argument of whether Dean's needs should come before his desires. He needed things to be easier on him physically, needed the additional bars to help him stand in the bathroom and the extra space for the wheelchair or crutches. But was that added accessibility really worth the fight that would undoubtedly ensue when he realized what they had done for him?
Because, on the other hand, Dean also needed to feel as normal as possible. He needed things to be as close to the usual as possible so he might stop feeling so sorry for himself. Would he feel more vulnerable if he fell because there was no additional assistance, or would he feel more useless if there was.
In the end, Sam decided it would be more detrimental to Dean's ego if they assumed he needed help. And it stood to reason that his stubborn older brother would demand they move back to a normal room anyway. They kept the rooms they were already in, and Missouri was standing just outside the boys' room as Sam pulled the Classic car into the lot.
"Dean, honey, welcome home!" Missouri greeted, crossing the short distance to Dean's side of the car and yanking the door open in her excitement.
Dean looked up in surprise, surveying the sparsely populated motel parking lot and the run-down building in front of him and smirked. "Home..."
Missouri ignored his sarcastic tone as she continued to hang on the door. "Did you have a good drive? Any trouble checking out?"
A shrug was the only response she got, but the psychic wasn't about to give up. She had been pushing aside the fact that Dean didn't talk to them, didn't express his feelings to anyone, but it needed to end now. With him out of the safety of the hospital, far away from immediate medical attention, there was no way she would let his emotions go unexpressed. If she couldn't get answers the conventional way, psychic means could be attempted. She knew how much the young man would feel violated if she read his mind, but if that's what it took to get through to him...well, she would try just about anything. Just a little peek.
But seconds after she opened up her mind to Dean's thoughts she closed it again, tears brimming mere millimeters from her eyes. The despair the young man felt was just too much for her to withstand. Thoughts of suicide were prevalent, intermingled with harsh adjectives. Loser. Failure. Worthless. She couldn't imagine what it felt like to be him, and it just wasn't right. All the lives he'd saved. All the evil he'd destroyed. And for what?
Turning away for just a second, the psychic gulped. Can't let him know that I've seen... God, it was just too terrible to even think about. She bit her lip, blanked her face, and turned back to her young friend. "What do you say we get you into the room?"
Dean nodded his agreement and waited for Sam to circle the car and open the back door. If he had any idea that Missouri had been swimming in his subconscious for a few seconds he gave no indication. From the corner of his eye he saw the wheelchair being pulled from the back seat and he uttered a low groan of disapproval. "No wheelchair, Sam. Get the crutches."
"Dean..." Sam sighed, and hesitated.
"I'm not using that thing if I can help it," Dean warned.
"But you heard the doctor. If you fall; if you injure your leg again it's that much longer before you can try a prosthesis. The risk isn't worth it."
Dean swung himself around as fast as his weakened body would allow and glared at his baby brother. "So I just won't fall."
"Let him try it," Bobby interrupted, planting a hand on Sam's shoulder, the silence in the move filling in the blanks. He's already feeling desperate and worthless, Sam. Don't demean him anymore than you absolutely have to."
Sam sighed again, and shoved the chair roughly back into the seat, grabbing for the crutches in the same motion. "Fine. Whatever."
The win was bittersweet, and Dean saw no reason to smirk or be smug as he grabbed for the crutches and prepared to pull himself up. It was astounding, the lack of balance he had on the one foot. It wasn't as though he'd never been on crutches before; two broken ankles, a gunshot wound to the calf and countless slashes deep into muscle tissue had him hobbling around for a good nine months worth of his life, at least. But this was different, and as he struggled to drag himself to a stand with a muscled pull on the metal crutches he couldn't help but let out a strangled cry of anguish. His balance was off and he swayed wildly, too afraid to hop on his single foot for fear that he might not land properly. There was something about knowing the other leg was no longer there to drop down for balance, no matter how much pain it might cause if it was there, that just made the task so much more difficult.
And then Sam was there, pulling him the rest of the way into the stand and shouldering his weight until the older hunter could grab onto the protruding rubber foam covered handles and slip his biceps into the forearm cuffs. The bend in the metal angled perfectly along his arms, but Dean couldn't help but feel as though the crutches themselves warned of permanence. He'd always used the standard wooden, straight, triangular shaped crutches. But when he protested the special style that seemed synonymous with musculo-skeletal diseases and degenerative, long-term illnesses, the doctor had failed to appear comforting.
"This is long term, Dean," Dr. Hurley had replied apologetically. "Normal crutches cause too much nerve damage in the armpits; you could lose feeling in your arms, lose movement. These are better."
And Dean had demanded to know what nerve damage had to do with long term, not really wanting to know the answer, but unable to shut off his belligerence long enough to let the line of demanded questions go.
"It takes several weeks just for your injury to heal long enough to be fitted for a prosthesis," the doctor had explained. "And weeks to months after that to be able to go all day with the prosthesis on comfortably. Not to mention the fact that you will never comfortably sleep with the prosthesis on. And there's the chance of future swelling, future injuries, damage to the prosthesis. There are a multitude of difficulties you risk facing. To some extent, you will always be dependent on these crutches."
Dean wanted to scream. He wanted to hurl the crutches across the parking lot and into
theforest that lined the edge of the asphalt. He wanted to prove that the dreaded metal contraptions that screamed headlines of 'gimp' and 'cripple'and 'damaged goods' weren't needed. But dammit, there was no way he could do that, because there was no way he could simply 'walk-off' the pain as he'd grown so accustomed to while on the hunt with his drill sergeant of a father.
And so there was only one way to go about this. Reluctant resolve covered Dean's face as he clutched tighter to the handles. One hop at a time. Hysteria had him contemplating the fact that he'd just about encouraged himself by prompting 'one foot in front of the other.' Damn, cliches could be so cruel.
He pushed off, not failing to notice Sam hovering unpleasantly close to him as he teetered and swayed, dangerously close to falling at any minute and hating himself for fearing that Sam still might not catch him, close as he may be.
"Geez Sammy, at least my dates are considerate enough to pop a breath mint if they're gonna hang on me like this," Dean sniped, although the attempt lacked ammunition when the older man's voice cracked and wavered though the comment.
Sam attempted to laugh, digging deep to pull out a worthy reply and coming up short. "Breath mints are a novelty you don't afford me, big brother. My breath mint fund goes to pay for your M&M and coffee fetish. You're just gonna have to suck it up."
"Yeah, well, just keep your mouth shut then, little brother. Try not to breathe on me."
They had come to the room and Missouri swooped in to open the door as Dean took advantage of the pause to catch his breath. It surprised him just how much energy he was expending just getting the ten feet from the car to the motel room, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the foot of the bed was just a couple feet further away. Dean collapsed bonelessly into the firm mattress of the checker-pattern covered bed and sighed.
"You alright there?" Sam arched an eyebrow, concern radiating from his boyish features. "Can I get you anything? Something to drink? Aspirin? Some ice for your leg?"
"Sam, just stop worrying," Dean snapped, eyes remaining closed in his exhaustion. "I just want to sleep."
An awkward look passed between Sam, Missouri and Bobby. "Dean, baby, should we leave you alone to get some rest? Bobby and I have adjoining rooms one on either side of yours, we can let you rest and be just next door; maybe leave the door open a crack in case you need something?"
Throwing an arm dramatically across his forehead, Dean nodded in agreement. "That's fine," he grit out, desperate to get rid of them. The phantom pain had returned in full force, as it seemed to do at least once every day, just as he'd crossed the threshold into the room, and he wanted nothing more than to just be left alone in his agony.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Sam pushed, noticing Dean's sudden rigidity. "I can get you–"
"Sam please. Just leave. I'm fine."
Sam bit his lip, reluctantly allowing Bobby to lead him from the room as they followed Missouri into her single room. Two word sentences. Four in a row. That's never a good thing.
What Sam didn't know was the repetitive consistency of the phantom pains Dean had been experiencing. He didn't know there had been any other episodes after that first night, because Dean hadn't told him. It was embarrassing, how weak and vulnerable the pains made Dean feel. He hated the way they messed with his mind, trying to trick him into believing the leg was there. How the hell was he supposed to move on with his life and accept the fact that his leg was gone when the fucking phantom pains kept toying with him and making him feel otherwise. He could feel the leg; searing pain covering every last inch of missing limp. He could feel his toes wiggle, feel his ankle rotate in its socket, hell, he could even tense the calf muscle. How do you explain those sensations without seeing the leg attached?
Sam couldn't know; not now, not ever. It wasn't just the fact that Dean had cried like a baby into his little brother's arms the first time he experienced the pains, although that was something to consider. And it wasn't the fact that he feared Sam's pity and his guilt, although that did bother him, too. No, Sam could never know because he couldn't explain it, and he couldn't fix it. He'd seen Sam's eyes that first night, thought the same thing his brother had as the doctor explained the medical normalcy to such an eerily unnatural symptom. Sam had wanted to 'kill' it, had wanted to find something about the symptoms that he could hunt and salt and burn. Dean couldn't take the disappointment in his brother's eyes every time the younger Winchester would have to watch him writhing in pain, knowing there was nothing he could do about it.
No sooner had the other three left than Dean allowed his face to contort into its own reflection of the pain he felt searing up and down his missing limb, curling himself into a ball and kneading desperately at his stump.
"Stop. Please, God, stop," he groaned, chancing an anxious glance at the cracked door to make sure no one was listening. Reassured, he squeezed his eyes tight and bit down hard on his bottom lip, hoping the move would drag the pain out of his leg and up into his lip. That pain he could deal with; it was real, at least. Explainable.
For several minutes Dean lay in bed, quietly massaging the throbbing stump to no avail as he sent a silent plea to whomever might be listening up there to just make the pain stop. God dammit, isn't losing the damn thing enough for you? You've gotta hammer it home? Christ, I get it already. Let me be! And then he couldn't take it any longer as stubborn determination set in.
Pain killers. I need pain killers. Where the hell did Sam put that bag? Dean's eyes roamed the room, scanning desperately for the plastic zip lock he knew Sam or Bobby or someone had toted into the room. He finally saw it, taunting him from across the room on top of the TV, and for a minute Dean contemplated calling out for someone to get the blessed salvation for him. But that would require admitting he needed help, and maybe would lead to admitting he was experiencing those damn pains, and that just wasn't going to happen.
You can do this. Dean encouraged himself stubbornly as he reached for the crutches, dragging them onto the bed and inching them and himself to the edge nearest the TV. He judged the distance to be a little over five feet away, just far enough away to be out of arms reach if he stretched. He would have to get up, there was no way around it.
Dean took a deep breath and held it for several seconds before letting it out in a slow, controlled stream. He looked back to the door again, always worried that Sam would come in to check on him, squelching his plan. His hands shook uncontrollably, and Dean spent another precious moment with them stuffed beneath his thighs in an attempt the settle the quivering. It didn't work, but there was just no more time to waste. Dean's leg was absolutely killing him, the sharp stinging pains beginning to migrate up and into his gut. It was now or never.
With a final sigh, he planted the metal poles on the floor and hoisted himself up, once again swaying just a bit before he felt steady. Dean stood still seconds longer, ensuring he wouldn't go down the minute he started out, and then inched the crutches forward hesitantly, fearfully. You can do this, Dean. Don't be such a God damn wimp. You're a Winchester, dammit. There's nothing you can't do. His hands kneaded the foam on the handles in nervous agitation as he prepared himself to swing forward the few inches required to be flush with the poles again, knowing that he only had one chance to get it right. Otherwise, he would be on the floor, and Sam would be in there anyway, and he would be in so much trouble.
Inch by inch, shuffle by shuffle, Dean made his way across the room in choppy motion, a far cry from the fluid, confident hunter he had once been. But awkward as the movement may be, there was no mistaking one simple fact. There was success. Dean was successfully managing to get himself across the room without Sam's help.
He didn't dare celebrate until he was back, safely flopped on the bed, but a small hint of a smile encroached on Dean's determined scowl as he clutched the plastic of the bag against the handle and began the tedious task of returning to his safety net.
Finally sitting again on the edge of the bed, relief flooded Dean's every fiber, and for a second he forgot the whole reason for the tedious trek across the room as he relished in his victory. He hadn't fallen. Hadn't run into anything. He had done it.
Dean dry swallowed two of the pain pills Dr. Hurley had prescribed and pulled himself back onto the bed, not exactly beaming, but certainly not wallowing in the deep ocean of self-pity he'd been submerged in for weeks. Maybe just a large lake. Now that the trek was over he kind of wished Sam had been there to witness it. It would have been nice to have the cheering section. And Dean had to admit he would have enjoyed proving to his well meaning, but over-bearing brother that he wasn't entirely incompetent. This would never be okay, not entirely, but at least he had proven that he wouldn't always be dependent on little brother for everything. One small step for Dean...