Alright, Let's give this a try. I'm not in town right now and I don't have the computer that this is saved on, so I had to copy and paste it from another sight. I don't know how well it's going to work - but we'll give it the old college try. Sorry about the wait, and thanks H.T. Marie for the insight into how to post. Wish me luck!
Bobby and Missouri were both fast asleep by the time Sam arrived back at the house, and he found himself mildly disappointed that they hadn't stayed up to find out how things had gone that night. He wanted to dish about the events of the evening, wanted to perform his own celebration for having finally gotten through to Dean. But there was no one around to rejoice in his good mood, and he didn't think it fair to wake them up just to tell them something that could wait until morning. So instead, he just made his way into the living room and sat on the couch in blissful silence in the darkened room.
His phone lay within his reach on the coffee table in the center of the room, and it was a good fifteen minutes before Sam realized he was staring at it, waiting for it to ring. He didn't know for sure what he was waiting for, although he knew who he was waiting for. But whether he expected Dean to call with the details of the glorious sex he had just had, or whether he was waiting for Dean to call in tears, begging Sam to come pick him up, Sam just didn't know. He was absolutely thrilled about what had transpired at the second bar, practically on cloud nine. But a part of him still expected Dean to wig out on the poor girl; his brother just wasn't completely stable yet.
But as fifteen minutes turned into an hour with no sign of an SOS call from Dean, Sam finally sighed and gave up the ghost. He had to get some sleep. Grabbing the phone, Sam made his way upstairs slowly, carefully stepping over the creaky step that always gave them away, and climbed into bed. He lay there for another half hour, worrying about his brother, before sleep finally consumed him fully.
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Dean sighed as he awoke, rolling over in bed to see the clock on the nightstand. For a minute, he found himself slightly disoriented when he realized his right arm was tangled underneath some unexpected weight, and he stopped, rolling back before he could take a look at the time. Finally seeing the sleeping figure of Suzanne, her neck resting on his arm, the evening came rushing back to him in a whirl of images and sounds and he couldn't help the smile that found itself playing on his lips as a calmness enveloped his soul. The first rays of the morning sun peeked through the white lace curtain covering her bedroom window, and the golden light settled gently across her naked body, wrapped up in just a sheet. He rolled back over, other arm resting overtop of Suzanne's belly as she snuggled in closer, and he let memories fill his mind.
To say the evening had been flawless and without awkwardness would be a lie, but Suzanne had been great through the whole thing, graciously pretending to ignore Dean's discomfort and helping him work through the unknowns. Initially, Dean had been loathe to remove the prosthetic, afraid that Suzanne might be turned off when she got the full picture. But several soft cries of 'ouch' after the prosthesis took on a life of it's own, the hard shell knocking bruises on Suzanne's lower leg, he had finally sucked it up and taken the damn thing off.
She had watched him remove it, curious as a cat, but to her credit she never asked questions and she never once flinched or turned away at the sight. Instead, she had moved forward, leaning down and kissing the healed scar across the bottom of his leg before making her way up his body to his lips. She stopped at every scar she found along the way, kissing each one gently as her deep, throaty voice made mention of them being hero's wounds. It was as though she could read his insecurities as if they were written in bold twenty point across his body, and every word out of her mouth was designed to calm him, comfort him. Big. Brave. Strong. Heroic. Fearless. Courageous. Every now and then she'd asked a question about the harsher of the injuries, but they were all yes and no questions, and Dean was able to just nod in the affirmative before she moved on.
Sex itself had been awkward at first, Dean's reliance on his own abilities being brought into question. For him, sex was normally wild and carnal, and there was no reason it still couldn't be but he had to get used to not having that left foot to brace against the bed with, and he had to find a different way to keep his knee from sliding across the sheet. But with some complicated maneuvering and positioning, the two of them found a way to make it work and the rest had been nothing short of perfect.
As Dean lay beside Suzanne, taking in the sight of the woman who had unknowingly managed to give him his life back, he wondered why it had taken him so long to feel this comfortable with himself. This had been easy; so easy, in fact, that for a short time he'd even managed to forget all together about his leg. And that hadn't happened since the day he'd woken up and heard from Sam that the leg was gone. Even in his dreams and nightmares he thought about the missing leg, about all he had lost, about all he would never gain. But last night had changed all that. He felt whole. Complete. And short of going back out on the hunt, he had come full circle since the day of the accident.
Suzanne stirred as she began to wake up, moving restlessly in Dean's arms until she had turned herself over onto her back. Blinking, she looked up into Dean's sparkling green eyes and smiled a genuine smile at the man who held her in his arms.
"You're still here," she remarked, surprised, but noticeably pleased.
"You disappointed?" Dean asked, his heart jumping a bit inside his chest as he wondered if he had misjudged her.
"Of course not," she cooed. "Just surprised."
"I, uh...I don't have a ride home?" Dean offered in mock defiance to her comment, making sure the amusement was clear in his voice. Although, he did actually need a ride home, but that wasn't the point.
She punched him playfully on the arm and Dean grinned. "Besides," he added. "I had fun last night. I didn't want the night to end." Mentally, he kicked himself for sounding like such a sentimental sap. But Suzanne just brushed it off as she had done with everything else. If it wasn't for his nomadic and all too secretive lifestyle, he could see himself trying to get to know this girl better. But he knew that couldn't happen, and he also knew what 'psychologist' Sam would say. You're just latching on to her because she showed you compassion, and you're scared you won't find other women like her. Move on, dude, there are plenty more out there who won't care. Sure, the night was fun, but he had to end this.
"So...breakfast?" Suzanne offered hopefully, sitting herself up a little higher, wrapping herself in the sheet.
Break it off, man, Dean reminded himself. He shook his head apologetically, all too aware that he still had to get back to Missouri's. "Wish I could, but my brother's gonna be waiting for me back home. I kinda promised him I'd get up early to help him with something."
She nodded, disappointed, but understanding and pulled herself from the bed. "But you need a ride home?" She bent down to collect the clothes that littered the floor, tossing Dean his jeans.
"Yes, please?" he asked hopefully, reaching over the side of the bed for his underwear before he could pull the jeans on. A small sense of foreboding still managed to envelop him as he saw the prosthesis laying on the ground, realizing that he had yet to extract himself from the covers. With the daylight shining through the window, it would shed a whole new light on what was left of his leg, and he wasn't sure he wanted that to be the last thing Suzanne saw before he left her. And then he stopped, smacking himself in the head as he berated himself. Get a hold of yourself, man. You got this far. Just chill out.
With a deep breath, Dean convinced himself to grab the leg and swing free of the tangle of covers he was hidden beneath. He worked quickly, not unaware that Suzanne was watching him through the mirror as she pulled up her hair and did her makeup. Yet again, he found himself amazed and relieved that the only emotion seeming to cross her face was a piqued curiosity that only appeared to turn her on more. If anything, it actually weirded him out just a bit. The fact that she was so accepting of his disability when he had been so certain that no girl would ever find it anything other than repulsive was a little unnerving. But he managed to push through it, tried to conceitedly remind himself that he was such a sexy beast the ladies just couldn't see any imperfections. And it was enough. It got him through the rest of the morning, and stayed with him during the drive back to Missouri's house, settling within his subconscious as score one for the ladies man.
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Sunlight shined brightly through the half-opened curtains when Sam finally woke up again, and he rolled over in the bed, eyes blinking several times before he focused on Dean's empty bed, the comforter still smoothed out and perfectly spread across the bed in pointed indication that it had never been slept in. Sam smiled as he looked at the alarm clock. 8:03. He wondered what Dean was doing right then. His mind worked overtime as his curiosity worked its way to the forefront of his thoughts, desperate to know how Dean had fared.
Climbing from the bed, Sam grabbed a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, pulling them on quickly before making his way downstairs for some breakfast. From the kitchen, he could smell Missouri cooking bacon on the stove and he eagerly padded his way through the hallway, following the meaty aroma.
"Morning," he chirped, making a beeline to the coffee bot and pouring himself a mugfull. "Good Morning yourself, Sam. Did you boys have fun last night?" Missouri turned form
the stove for a minute to greet Sam, eyeing him with a mischievous twinkle.
Sam nodded, padding to the refrigerator for the creamer. He poured some in and added sugar before retreating to the kitchen table. "Dean hasn't even made it back yet. I left him at the bar with his newest conquest, and I'm guessing they're still together."
If the robust black woman was surprised, she didn't show it, instead turning back to the stove to flip her bacon. "I'm sure he's fine, Sam," she assured him, alleviating the fears she knew were circling his mind. "He'll be home soon."
Sam shrugged, staring down at his coffee in thought. "I know he's fine," he replied, more for his own sake than Missouri's. "I just worry about him, ya know?"
"We all do, Sam. But you've just got to accept that he'll come around on his own time. If he stayed out with that young lady last night, I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that he's starting to adjust. He'll be the old Dean in no time."
"I hope you're right, Missouri. Cause I'm not sure how much more of moody Dean I can take."
Giving a sympathetic smile of understanding, Missouri collected the cooked bacon from the frying pan and blotted the excess grease off it before setting it on a plate in front of Sam. Sam grabbed a slice and took a big bite out of the hot meat as Missouri returned to the stove to start a second batch.
"I've got scrambled eggs keeping warm in the microwave," she offered, motioning with her spatula across the room where the white appliance sat.
Eager for more food, Sam was out of his chair and halfway across the room when his phone rang. Thinking it might be Dean, Sam hurriedly pulled the cell from his pocket, surprised to see an unknown number displayed across the screen.
"Dean?" he answered quickly, figuring his brother must have been calling from the girls house or from a payphone somewhere. He was surprised to hear the thick southern drawl of their father's old hunting ally, Joshua, on the other end instead of the expected Dean.
"Joshua? What can I do for you, man?"
It didn't take the man long to get down to business, having never been one for small talk, and Sam quickly found that he was excusing himself from Missouri's kitchen to take the call in the privacy of the living room. Sam sank down heavily into the soft couch cushions, threading his fingers through his tangle of long hair as he listened to what Joshua had to tell him.
As Dean and Sam had distanced themselves from all things supernatural while waiting for Dean to heal, Bobby had called upon some hunter buddies of his to return to the Algonquin woods to finish what the brother's had started, thus helping Sam to keep his promise that he not return there without Dean. But Joshua had only just received word that the mauled bodies of those two men had been found less than a week ago, the corpses likely at least two weeks old. And seven bodies of campers had been found in the last month as well.
Knowing that Dean was out of commission, Joshua had started making his way up to Canada to do his own inspection of the woods when he received word of another, more pressing hunt just an hour away from where he was at the time. Something about multitudes of children being kidnapped and sacrificed once every ten years and there only being a three day time period for which to do anything about it - Sam was hazy on the details because he hadn't really paid much attention to that part of the story. But what it all boiled down to was the fact that there was nobody available to go back up to Algonquin and deal with the spirit, and Joshua was afraid Sam might hear about the hunter's deaths and decide to make his way back up there after all.
He assured Sam that he would be on his way up to deal with the spirit just as soon as he took care of the issue with all the child sacrifices.
"How long is that going to be?" Sam demanded, his mind already working overtime to figure out how he might be able to sneak away to take care of this himself. He knew where he needed to be looking, and he now knew how stupid it would be to stay out there anywhere past dark. He knew the tricks. The secrets. He could take care of this before Joshua would even be able to make it into the northern part of the country, saving God only knew how many lives in the process.
Guilt had already begun to eat away at him hearing from Joshua just how many people had perished as he obediently followed Dean to Kansas, diving full force into his brother's recovery. There was no question that he would have done everything to be with Dean throughout the whole thing; no way he had ever even considered traipsing across the country going after new hunts. But they had left the job unfinished; the spirit in Algonquin was still alive and more vengeful than ever, and people were dying because Dean had been too insecure and too stubborn to let Sam go out without him.
Upon hearing Joshua's response, that it could be another week or more before he could make it up to Canada, Sam let out an agitated sigh. "It's too long," he complained. "It shouldn't have even taken this long. I should have been paying closer attention to what was going on."
"And what would you have done, Sam? You needed to be worrying about Dean. He's the priority right now." Joshua rationalized on the other end.
""The priority was just to keep him safe," Sam insisted, running his hands through his hair once again in frustration. "I could have taken care of the spirit myself –"
"And you know how well that would have gone over," Joshua interrupted sternly. And Sam did know. He knew just how likely it would have been for Dean to find out what he was up to, and the next thing he knew Dean would have been dragging himself in after Sam. Even if he'd had to crawl on his hands and knees, Dean would have found some way to chase after his little brother, and that would have spelled out disaster in more languages than Sam could even list.
But instead of admitting to Joshua's accurate reading of the situation, Sam just groaned and ended the conversation. "Thanks, Joshua, for letting me know what's up. I'll figure something out."
"Sam, I didn't call you to get you out there," Joshua warned.
"I know. Thanks for calling. Keep me updated on your sacrifice thing."
Sam hung up the phone, letting out a large breath as he worried about the facts he had just heard about. And within seconds, he discovered he had something else to be worried about as he finally heard the noise he should have honed in on several minutes sooner; the soft click of Dean's cane tapping against the wood floor. Shit.
It wasn't very long before Dean peeked his head around the entryway, a cautious smile on his impassive face. For a minute, Sam entertained the possibility that Dean had literally just walked into the house, hopefully missing the entire conversation he had just had with Joshua. He went for that option first, letting his curiosity shine through in genuine emotion.
"How was your night?"
Dean scowled, not willing to let Sam get away with changing a topic he knew full well needed to be attended to. "It's eight thirty the next morning. How do you think things went?"
Sam smiled tentatively, still grabbing at straws to keep the conversation trained on Dean.
"Dean, that's great. I'm so–"
"Sam, if you say you're happy for me, I swear to god I'll kick your ass. Now what was that phone call about?"
Stammering and wringing his hands nervously at the question, Sam stood to give himself the height advantage before innocently asking, "What phone call?"
It was weak; a weak response to a question that was anything but, even if he hadn't been caught with the stupid phone in his hand as he hung it up. The words had barely left Sam's mouth before he knew with absolute certainty that Dean wasn't buying the act.
"Cut the crap, Sam," Dean ordered, limping across the room and flopping heavily into an easy chair across from the couch Sam had just vacated. He looked tired, but in a good way, yet irritation was fast taking control of his emotions. "You and I both know you were on the phone with someone, talking about a hunt." As an afterthought, he added, "Which really wouldn't be such a bad thing if it didn't sound like you're trying to keep me out of the loop. So what's going on? Spill."
Flinching as he noted the inflection of hurt in Dean's voice, Sam dropped his head and shoulders, and sagged back onto the couch in defeat. "The thing we were hunting before you...in Algonquin..." He didn't have to say anything more as the color drained from Dean's face and it went all ashen, and Sam knew Dean had figured it out.
"You don't have to be involved," Sam added hastily, and immediately slapped himself mentally. He hadn't said we don't have to be involved, he'd said you don't have to be involved, which clearly meant that he, Sam, had every intention of going out there without Dean. Yet that made it a direct challenge to his stubborn brother.
"No, Sam. You're not going up there alone. We already discussed this."
"Dean, I know we talked about it. But more people are dying while I sit around doing nothing. More hunter's died trying to stop it. I'm the only one who knows exactly what's going on. I'm the only one who knows how to stop it."
"Sam, it's too dangerous. You're not going out there by yourself. If you're going out there, so am I."
Shit. Shit. Shit. Where the hell did that come from? If he was honest with himself, Sam could pinpoint exactly where that had come from. It was the very reason he hadn't wanted Dean to overhear the conversation with Joshua in the first place. It was the very reason he had cursed the fact that Dean managed to sneak up on him. He shook his head wildly, averting his eyes from his brother before hastily and firmly announcing, "No, Dean. You most definitely are not going."
A knot formed thick and hard in Dean's throat, and he wasn't sure if it was more in reaction to his anger at Sam suddenly thinking he was the boss over Dean, or if it was more because of the immense hurt his brother's words had created in his chest and mind. What happened to faith? What happened to confidence? Had it only been yesterday that Sam watched Dean discard his crutches to words of praise and hope, assuring the older man that he would be back to his old self in no time at the rate he was going. That he would be back to hunting in no time. "And why is it exactly that you don't think I should get to come with you, Benedict?" Dean spat out angrily, forcing himself to hide the emotional pain. He had to get over these emotional outbursts that he'd become all too comfortable with lately.
Sam winced at the hurtful nickname, but held his ground. "You're not ready," he replied pointblank. It pained him to say so, tore him apart knowing what the words must be doing to his already fragile brother, but he figured it was better than watching Dean get physically hurt again if the spirit decided to come after them.
"I'm fine, Sam. I'm ready," Dean insisted plaintively.
"No, Dean. You're not. You just got rid of the crutches, Dean. And that's a big step," he added quickly, "but you're far from ready to hike at least four hours into the woods and four back. This has to be quick, Dean. Efficient. I can't risk–"
Dean stomped to his feet, visibly shaking as he pointed a finger menacingly at Sam. "Don't say it, Sam. Don't you dare fucking say it."
Holding up his hands in defeat, Sam backed off. "Fine, Dean. I won't say it. But it doesn't mean I'm changing my mind."
"And it doesn't mean I have to listen to you!" Dean snarled, inching closer to his brother as his hand clenched in a death grip around the cane.
"Will you listen to yourself?" Sam demanded, finally jumping back up from the couch and meeting the seething hunter in the eyes. "You sound like a spoiled child. You might as well put your fingers in your ears and start singing the la la song to drown me out. You're not ready, Dean. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but I'd rather that than see you get killed."
Taking another step forward, Dean found himself just centimeters away from his little brother. Their gazes locked, held in steely determination for several long seconds as both heaved bodily, trying to regain their equilibrium. But a middle ground was not to be met that day, and Dean knew it. He was so pissed off, although whether at the words Sam spoke or the truth of those words he would never admit to himself, or anyone else for that matter. But as it stood, he found it so much easier to be mad at Sam. Finally, his eyes narrowed, breaking the gaze they held together as he raised the cane over his head. Sam held steady, unsure if Dean intended to hit him with it or not, but prepared to take the blow if necessary.
"Fuck you, Sam," Dean spat. "Just fuck you." Drawing back, he wound his arm up, and the cane flew.