Here it is, chapter 36. I hope the wait wasn't too long. Again, thank you guys so much for sticking with this for so long. When I first started, I never dreamed this would go on for as long as it has. But I think (I hope) that it hasn't ended up being too long and drawn out for a story. Thanks a bunch for all your awesome support. I couldn't be doing this without you! Enjoy...
Dean's hand held tight to the gun, finger a hair's width from pulling the trigger. His breath hitched, and he held it in, not wanting his ragged breathing to give away his location. Eyes scanning for the location of the intruder, Dean very slowly turned around, looking up, down, and all around. And came up with nothing.
Behind him, another rustling sound came and he spun quickly, silently, on his one good foot, aiming the shotgun in the direction of the noise. His heart jumped as something finally burst through the bushes and he fired, missing the little brown bunny by mere millimeters as it hopped across the trail and disappeared harmlessly into the foliage on the other side.
Reaching out a hand to settle himself on a tree trunk, Dean sank to his knees. "It was just a freakin' rabbit. Damn it, dude, get a hold of yourself," he reprimanded out loud, desperately sucking in deep breaths in an effort to calm down. His head swam, images of his previous encounter with the spirit filtering in and out between flashes of his mangled leg, locked in the bear trap. The rabbit may have been harmless, but it had certainly brought back a flood of memories he didn't need right now; not if he wanted to be on top of his game.
It hadn't occurred to Dean that he might have monsters to face other than just the haunting spirit when he returned to the woods for the hunt; monsters that would take a lot more than consecrated iron and a salt and burn to get rid of. He hadn't considered the possibility that they might all come flooding back to him at once in a crippling realization of what these hunts were capable of, and what he no longer was able to do. They were right - Sam and Bobby and Missouri - they were right all along. He wasn't ready for this. And the longer he sat there on the ground, frantically seeking a reprieve from this all consuming bout of panic, the more he wondered if he would ever be ready for another hunt.
"God, who am I kidding?" he asked the wood nymphs through deep breaths. And as if to confirm his revelation, his leg began throbbing, reminding him of the three hours worth of torture he'd just put it through in order to discover his uselessness. He sighed, heavy head falling into his upturned palm as the other hand reached out desperately to massage the throbbing limb. On the forefront of his mind lay the inevitable question - get up and head back home, wait for Sam and Bobby to arrive and finish the job? Or risk dying just to prove his own worth, let stubbornness win out? Neither option was ideal. But the longer he remained where he was, agonizing over the lesser of two evils, the more opportunity he lost to the luxury of making his own decision. Until all time was lost, and the decision was made for him.
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With all the stalls and limitations that befell Dean, Bobby and Sam caught up with him sooner than they expected. From several hundred feet away, Sam could finally make out Dean's silhouette through the treeline, hunched down on the ground, back against a large trunk. He looked defeated, exhausted, and Sam's first instinct was to take off after him. Bobby was a step ahead of Sam, and his arm shot out, putting a stop to the young hunter's momentum before he could take two steps forward.
"Sam, stop!" Bobby hissed, pulling the young boy back, and down, camouflaging their position from the potential of Dean's hawk eyes. "Wait!"
Sam turned, glared at Bobby with irritation and belligerently demanded, "Why?"
"Because the last thing Dean needs is for you to go running in, guns ablaze, and save him. He's mad enough at you as it is, Sam. You've found him. You know where he is and you can see him to keep him safe. Now back off and let him do this, got it?"
Cocking his head and raising an eyebrow, Sam considered Bobby's order. The older man was absolutely right. If he was to go running to Dean now, the only thing it would cause was another fight. And they couldn't afford that just then; not with some spirit on the loose, not with lives at stake. And as far as Dean had come, regardless of how stupid those decisions might have been, they couldn't barge in now and make him feel like less of a man. Dean needed this. He needed to feel whole; he needed to feel useful. Sam recognized that, same as Bobby - maybe he didn't want to admit it out loud, but he knew it to be the truth. So he would wait. He'd stand back, three hundred feet from his brother, and follow him, and protect him from afar. He'd wait until Dean needed him - if he needed him - before he charged in to help. And if Dean managed to take care of this thing all on his own, he and Bobby would hightail it back to the trailhead and be there to meet his brother as he emerged, triumphant, and pretend that they were never watching his every last move; pretend that they were never only a few hundred feet from saving his ass the whole time. Everything in him had Sam hoping that Dean got to be that triumphant, but something else told him not to hold his breath. He'd just have to wait and see.
Sam's heart broke as he watched Dean. He could almost see the gears turning in the older man's head as he made up his mind whether or not to continue on his search. And then his eyes widened and he gasped, seeing what he could only hope Dean would look up and see too. He cocked his gun and braced himself from the privacy of his hiding spot. Beside him, Bobby did the same, and the two hunter's waited with baited breath for Dean to see the huge snake, poised and ready to strike mere inches from where Dean sat against the tree trunk.
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It was the hiss that alerted Dean first, and he froze, breath and heart both stopping in one single instant. His senses switched to high alert, telling him in an instant that the hissing sound was coming from something close by, telling him it was a snake. But it's not just any snake; no, that would be too easy. Without even turning around he knew that the spirit they hunted had sensed his presence in the woods, discovered its very livelihood to be in danger, and came looking for the hunter before the hunter found it.
With a stealth and invisibility that very few hunters possess, Dean lowered his hand down to where his weapon lay at his feet. He moved slowly, so slowly in fact, that it might not even seem like he was moving at all. An eternity passed by before he sensed the feel of his shotgun beneath his fingers and then more time passed as he collected the weapon in his hand, all the while keeping his back and head stiff, revealing nothing to the spirit behind him.
He readied himself, knowing he would only have one chance, figuring the poison in the spirit snakes mouth was of the deadly variety. Dean counted to three in his head, slowly, and then decided he wasn't quite ready and counted out another three. Fear engulfed him; the knowledge that he no longer knew his body and what it was capable of making it difficult to instill trust in his abilities. He questioned if the leg would hold him, wondered if it would respond appropriately or if it would fail him when his life depended on it the most. But when all was said and done, Dean realized that he had no choice but to trust the limb that must become a part of him if he was to survive. There was no option but to go down with a fight, and sitting like a scared little kitten, making no effort to move, was just unacceptable.
The third three count had him on his feet, spinning around, and facing the snake before the spirit could react. It finally lunged, just as Dean's shotgun fired out a round of consecrated iron. He watched in disbelieving horror as the snake continued its decent toward him, teeth attempting to make contact in the tough carbon fiber of the prosthesis, before disappearing in a cloud of smoke.
For the second time in less than an hour Dean sank to the ground, panting heavily as he leaned up against the tree trunk for support. This time he felt justified in the reaction, having just come within an inch of losing his life. He looked down at his leg, at the jeans material that lay heavy and baggy around the two inch diameter of prosthetic leg underneath. Something shiny and ivory in color protruded from a point about mid-calf and he reached down tentatively to retrieve whatever was lodged inside.
Shaky fingers came back with what could only be a fang, and as he studied it longer Dean could see the tiny, pinpoint hole at the tip that still leaked poison despite it's extraction from the spirit's mouth. Dean dropped it hastily, as though it burned to touch it, and pulled the pants up to inspect the damage underneath. He held his breath, fearful that somehow the fang had managed to pierce skin, but his inspection revealed only a thin line of moisture running down the side of the prosthesis where the poison had landed in a benign spray.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Dean patted the carbon contraption that had just saved his life, feeling oddly grateful for it's presence right then. He resolved himself to the realization that he would be in serious trouble if he still possessed a real leg where the snake had just bitten him. At that point in time real skin and real blood would have equaled real dead.
Dean gave a bitter laugh as he pulled himself to his feet, no longer seeing the prosthetic limb as the enemy, but rather as a potential ally, quickly proving its worth to the haggard hunter. Not that he was eager to send every baddie he might cross in the future right for the fake leg, but it didn't hurt to have some sort of superpower. That could be his - something for their prey to go after that wouldn't end up in pain or bleeding all over the place. He supposed he could live with the daily insecurities if it meant saving his life on a hunt. The thing had already proven its usefulness twice now in one day - first at the stream, and now with the spirit - and Dean was beginning to feel more and more amenable to its presence as the day wore on.
Now if the remaining part of his real leg would only hold up long enough for him to finish the search and get rid of the spirit once and for all, things would be a-okay. Dean tested the leg, taking a hesitant step and finding the residual limb to be sore but still capable of bearing weight, and gathered the rest of his gear to continue on with the search. The spirit making itself known had made Dean all the more determined to find the final pouch and burn the thing before any more people died in its wake.
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Sam and Bobby had watched with baited breath, fingers resting tensely on the trigger's of their rifles, as Dean discovered his new companion behind him. Multiple times, Sam had been certain that the thing was about to spring and he admired Dean's fortitude and calm resolve in not knowing exactly where the snake was. He could barely make out the movement, but knew Dean was ever so slowly reaching down for the weapon at his feet because that was the way they had been trained. Move so your enemy doesn't see you move, breath so your enemy doesn't hear you breath. It was the way of the Winchester men, and in that minute Sam was grateful for their father's stern and demanding training.
He'd come close to screaming when Dean spun, watching in slow motion as Dean fired and the snake lunged at the same time, and only Bobby's quick motions to clamp his hand firmly over Sam's mouth had succeeded in retaining their hidden position. For a long, breath stealing minute Sam had been certain that the snake had bitten Dean as he watched his brother sink bonelessly to the ground, back scraping against the rough bark of a tree. Bobby had maintained his fierce grip around Sam's mouth, wrapping another arm around Sam's own arms and chest to keep the boy still.
"Wait!" the gruff hunter hissed in Sam's ear as he turned the boy's head around to face Dean once again. They watched nervously, ready to spring to the rescue if need be, and both released relieved breaths when Dean pulled the fang from his jeans and revealed the location on the prosthesis where it hadn't been able to penetrate. Sam allowed himself a minute to feel silly at his anxiety, and another to be grateful for Dean's good fortune, and then brought himself back around to the matter at hand. He watched Dean test his leg, and knew it wasn't to turn around and head back home. His brother had made up his mind to continue seeking out the spirit and within seconds they were on the move again.
It had been easy to come upon Dean when he had been so entangled in his own despair. But now the older Winchester was on high alert, his sharply honed hearing tipping him off to every rustle of leaves and every snap of twigs. That, coupled with the fact that Sam and Bobby also needed to be on the lookout for a visit from the spirit, made following Dean through the forest that much harder.
It seemed to play out like a game. They would follow for a few feet, confident in their stealth movements and distance that Dean didn't know they were there. And then Dean would turn suddenly, totally unannounced, and the two men were forced to run for tree cover, cowering in the shadows and beneath the bushes in fear that they might not have moved fast enough. Dean seemed satisfied that he was safe each time he returned back to his forward momentum, but the deepening hunch to his shoulders and the uneasy limping gait told Sam that Dean was becoming more and more suspicious the more distance they covered.
Their little game went on for another hour before Dean came to edge of the square marked on the map, the area where Sam believed to contain the pouch. The two followers saw Dean slow down, watched him sit to study the map and rest his leg, and then began to follow his calculated movements over the ground as he began his search for the pouch. Sam and Bobby spread out, taking on their own search on the outskirts of where Dean walked. If either one of the two found the pouch first there would be hell to pay in explaining their presence, but it was too reckless of them not to be carrying out their own search. Dean's feelings were important, but they meant nothing if he ended up dead first.
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There hadn't been as much time as Dean had hoped to have to consider his game plan. Once he'd taken the spill, he'd found his eyes to be more attentive to the ground in search of additional road hazards, and when the spirit had shown itself, Dean realized he needed to keep his ears open as well. Honing those senses to their maximum acuity left very little room in his mind to be using up on thoughts of where to look or how. But he still had a reasonable idea of what to start with, had a vague understanding of the location of the perfect square and the line he needed to follow to complete it.
He moved forward, a step at a time, using his good leg to brace himself while moving the prosthesis back and forth in an arc to scan beneath the underbrush. He tried to follow the footpath, assuming it to be approximately the same as it had been hundreds of years before. Many of the trees that lined the trail were old enough to have been saplings when the pouch was originally planted and, as such, encouraged the likelihood of the trail being in a similar placement.
There was no sound logic to explain his reasons for believing the pouch to be just to one side of the other of the trail. Dean only had a feeling about it; but he had learned long ago to trust his gut. It was almost as trustworthy as Dam's freaky visions and the dull ache he'd started to notice in his leg just before it rained. And besides, it was the only thing he had to go on. In this vast forest with no possible way to go back in time and see where the pouch was buried, he had to believe it would be somewhere close; somewhere logical.
Dean stopped and turned every few feet, unable to shake the nagging sensation that he was being followed. His hand remained tense on the barrel of the shotgun, ready to aim and fire at a seconds notice. He was unwilling to be caught unawares yet again. But each time he spun he found nothing; only the trees swaying gently in the soft breeze, small birds chirping out a song, little wood nymphs scurrying through the underbrush. There was nothing there to be nervous about. So why were the hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention, alerting him to the presence of someone or something else?
He finally chalked it up to nerves, realizing the presence of the snake spirit had come close to unraveling his steely resolve in light of his already shot nerves. Normally, Dean wouldn't have been so jumpy, and he couldn't help feeling like a scared little girl at the moment. But he couldn't help himself; the leg still made him feel nervous despite the two recent revelations, and that nervousness had been steadily forcing him to question his sanity. That had to be it. It had to explain his jumpy nerves.
He half expected to find Sam or Bobby behind him every time he turned around, and he supposed that had something to do with his jumpy nerves as well. Dean knew he was in trouble, and he cringed to think of the barrage of accusations and insults that awaited him when he finally did meet up with the threesome that had most certainly followed him out here. He figured he'd better make this hunt mean something, because Sam would almost certainly be keeping him under lock and key from now on.
The farther he went without sign of Sam and Bobby the more he began to wonder what exactly they had up their sleeves. Dean knew they'd had a long ways to go to catch up to him, but he knew the power Sam had when he put his mind to things. There was no possible way his baby brother hadn't managed to cover the distance to the park by now, and he was honestly surprised that he hadn't heard the ominous 'Dean Winchester, you've got so much explaining to do,' by now. Something was up; he just didn't know what.
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Sam and Bobby were truly getting a workout, both mental and physical, in their constant frenzy to disappear behind trees and bushes each and every time Dean spun around. The fact that the older Winchester hadn't yet caught onto their little game completely mystified Sam to the point that he was now waiting for Dean to finally spin and shout 'Enough already! Quit following me."
But their strange version of hide and seek continued early into the afternoon, broken up only by the search for the final pouch. Sam held his breath when, just after noon, he saw Dean's shoulders rise stiffly, the way they always did when he'd discovered something big. And then he crouched down quickly, knees hitting the ground harshly as he pawed at the underbrush in a frantic, desperate motion. Sam didn't have to be close to know Dean had finally found what they sought, and a smile grew into a beaming grin and he found himself silently clapping his hands together in encouragement.
So wrapped up were the three men in the victory, despite their inability to celebrate together, that none of them noticed the shadow that fell across Dean's face as he finally unearthed the aged leather pouch, bringing it into the sunlight to inspect it before performing the final necessary salt and burn. There was a loud squawk mere seconds before the hawk swooped down on Dean, tearing into his left shoulder with its long, sharp talons before hooking the same claws into the leather and flying off with the ancient pouch.
"Dean!" Sam screamed, no longer able to maintain his hidden position as he saw his brother grab his shoulder and fall to the ground in agony, blood splurting through his fingers from the three deep slashes left behind from the talons. He took off running, feet stumbling over fallen branches and upturned stones as he raced toward his brother.
From somewhere off to his right, Sam saw a flash of blue jean material as Bobby set his sights on the high flying spirit, hoping to come even close to spying where the pouch might end up. Their only hope was the knowledge that it couldn't leave the general vicinity or it would begin to lose its power by default. That didn't mean the hawk didn't have a plethora of possibilities to discard the pouch, and all three hunters were determined to end this thing today.
Sam landed on his knees, sliding in the mud as he came to a stop beside Dean, his hand immediately going to his brother's shoulder in a panicked attempt to staunch the fast flow of blood.
"Hey, Sammy," Dean grit out through clenched teeth. He flashed his little brother his most innocent smile, hoping to at least postpone the lecture for after they finished this spirit once and for all. "I was wondering when you'd show."
Sure, Sam was angry, but he was far from stupid. Not like his brother, anyway. He took Dean's greeting in stride, not wanting to get into anything right now anymore than his brother did. Instead, he focused on the wound, dropping his pack to the ground and rooting through it with one hand while the other continued to put pressure on Dean's shoulder, pushing the older man to the ground in the process.
Pulling out the first aid kit victoriously, Sam pried open the box and grabbed the flask of holy water and bleach solution they carried in place of antiseptic. In their line of work, demonic 'bacteria' was far more of a concern than actual bacteria. Besides, peroxide was one of the worst possible things you could put on a wound anyway, what with the whole eating away at live tissue as it cleansed the dirt thing. He splashed the contents of the flask across Dean's shoulder, catching the drips with a gauze cloth and wiping away the majority of the blood.
Dean hissed against the pain, but remained still as he let Sam do his work. Another square of gauze replaced the initial blood-soaked one and Sam held it tight to keep the blood flow from starting again as he grabbed a roll of surgical wrap and began wrapping it super tight around Dean's shoulder and chest, ensuring it wasn't going anywhere before sitting back on his haunches and eyeing Dean sternly.
"It'll need stitches, but that should hold for now. Just don't do too much with that arm or you'll start bleeding again."
Dean nodded solemnly, already cursing himself for letting the spirit get the drop on him. "I guess it's a good thing you two showed up when you did," he sighed with a half smile, levering himself back up off the ground. Sam jumped forward, dropping the supplies he'd been in the process of repacking into the first aid kit, and offering Dean additional support to stand. To his surprise, Dean didn't shrug him off until after he was standing steadily on his feet. As a reward, Sam let go of his own volition and returned to their supplies as though he had never stopped to help Dean in the first place.
"I guess it is," Sam agreed, figuring he would take his good fortune as it came. If Dean couldn't figure out on his own that they'd been following him for well over three hours, he never needed to know. "You okay now?"
The older Winchester nodded again, a little less certainly, but with enough conviction to keep Sam off his back. "Just a little embarrassed is all," he admitted. "I should have seen that coming. He's already been around once."
Sam feigned surprise. "He has?"
"Yeah. As a snake. Little bastard tried to take a bite out of me, but all he got was the prosthetic."
"So you're okay then?" Sam demanded.
"Just a little shook up is all. No big deal."
A quick once over confirmed for Sam what Dean had told him, and then the brothers found themselves both looking toward where Bobby was panting his way back to their location.
"So you boys want to good news or the bad news first?" the older hunter asked through gasps of air. He nodded hello to Dean as though it were perfectly normal to be meeting up for the first time in the middle of the Canadian Wilderness and then hunched over, hands on knees to quell his unsteady breathing.
Dean cocked an eyebrow as Sam crossed his arms against his chest, shifting his weight to the other foot. "Give us the good first," Dean requested, although he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to hear either right now. He had a feeling even the good wouldn't be good.
There was a fallen tree about five feet from where the brother's stood, and Bobby crossed the distance to where it lay, dropping heavily onto the large log before he looked back to make his announcement. "Well, the good news is that I know where that damn hawk took the pouch. The bad news, is that it's about a hundred feet up a big maple tree. Looks like we're gonna have to climb, boys."