Art/Fic: Blind!Sam verse Lebanon Scene (Supernatural)
So I was in the mood for some mindlesss photoshop again last night. I stumbled across this image and I could help but think it would fit in well with my blind!Sam verse. It has not official title yet and I haven't posted it yet because I was working on it for NaNo this year and I kind of picked and chose which scenes I was writing, but I couldn't pass this guy up. So I'm posting it below. As before, it's just some fancy filters and the smudge tool. It's not anything spectacular, but since this blog seems to be all things fandom that I've done, I figure why not. If you don't mind something that's pretty much unedited, stick around at the bottom for an excerpt from this verse that includes this scene.
Here it is! This is from 14x13 "Lebanon." Sam's plaid is going to be the death of me.
So, you need a little background for this one. In this verse, Sam was injured while looking for Dean when the mark turned him into a demon and he ran off with Crowley. Sam woke up in a hospital with next to no vision and a raging headache. He has general light perception, meaning he can kind of tell how bright a room is, but he doesn't see shapes or figures.
---
Sam held out the leather pouch in his hand towards where Dean was standing. His brother set down his beer and took the whole thing in his hand. “So, what do I…?”
“I dunno,” Sam said with a shrug. He’d only ever heard rumors of the thing and the entry in the log had been bare bones to say the least. “I guess you hold the pearl in your hand and concentrate on what your heart desires?”
“Micahel out of my head. Got it.”
Sam nodded.
Across from him, Dean took a deep breath. The entire room felt still as Dean concentrated. Suddenly the abient light in the room dropped nearly to black. Sam took a step back, unsure what had happened. The pulsing of the warning light was eerie and distracting, but not so much that Sam missed the rush of air as something flew towards his head. The split second was enough to dodge so that the object barely clipped him, but he wasn’t fast enough to duck it entirely and before he knew it, he was being tossed to the floor where he slammed up against a hard chair leg. The sound of fighting was short lived as Dean grunted and landed beside him. Sam tried to lift himself up, but was forced to freeze at the cocking of a shotgun as a rough voice said, “Don’t you move.” Sam waivered, unsure who the gun was aimed at or what was going on. The voice had been low and hoarse, but something about it seemed familiar.
The lights came back up, leaving Sam blinking against the sudden brightness. He was braced against the floor, ready to spring into action at Dean’s signal, trusting his brother to know when to move. He knew he presented the weaker looking target and was quite willing to use that to their advantage. If their attacker got close enough, Sam could take him down. He only needed a brief moment of contact.
Instead of a warning or a signal like he was expecting, Dean said, “Dad?” His voice was hoarse, tentative. Sam grew even stiller.
“Dean?” Sam asked. He didn’t know what Dean was seeing. Had the wish somehow backfired? Had it granted him their father back instead? Or had something breached their perimeter?
Sam’s question was echoed by the man standing over them. Sam sucked in a breath. He knew that voice.
“Sam? What in the Hell?”
Sam climbed to his feet next to Dean. He kept his eyes carefully trained on the floor so it wouldn’t be immediately obvious that anything was off about him. If it was their father, he should probably only deal with one monumental discovery at a time.
“Sammy,” John asked as Sam finally stood straight. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Palo Alto?”
Sam frowned. “Palo Alto?” No way. No way this was happening. If John didn’t remember anything from before Sam returned from school, that meant he didn’t remember dying. Did that mean he’d been plucked out of the timeline somewhere along the way?
There was a moment when he knew John was looking them up and down. He stood, tense, waiting for something to give. “What happened to you,” their father asked.
“What year is it,” Dean asked, echoing Sam own thoughts. If John still thought he was supposed to be at Stanford, it was entirely possible he had time traveled thanks to their hail Mary wish.
Their father scoffed. “It’s 2003.”
Sam took a step forward, shaking his head. “It’s 2019.”
“No,” John said, “How?”
“I think…we summoned you,” Sam said, turning towards Dean. It was a reflexive action. He’d spent his entire life looking to Dean when something didn’t quite make sense, sharing entire conversations in a look. The fact that he couldn’t see him anymore didn’t mean that Dean couldn’t still read his thoughts just from his body language.
“You boys better tell me what the hell is going on. Right now.”
Sam snorted.
Dean let out a breath. “I need a drink.” He turned and started making his way into the next room where he kept the liquor. Sam smiled and nodded with his head for John to go ahead. He followed them, using Dean’s puttering and his father’s steps to reorient himself after his fall. John settled at the table. Sam took up a spot across from him, allowing enough room for Dean to sit beside him.
Dean clinked the glasses down hard onto the table. Sam wasn’t sure if it was for his benefit or because Dean had been rattled more than even he was letting on. Sam wrinkled his nose as the scent of the strong scotch hit his nose. Dean really did need a drink if he was breaking out that foul stuff. It was also laced with holy water. Old habits died hard, Sam supposed. When Dean set the bottle down, Sam reached forward and took his own glass. He had only taken a sip when Dean slammed his back down.
Sam kicked him under the table when he went for a second. “Shut up,” he muttered, but this one, he merely sipped at. Their father had apparently agreed with Dean and was swallowing down his own portion. Dean wordlessly filled him another glass.
“So,” Sam said. He was playing with his glass, unsure what to do with his hands. In that moment, he wished he wasn’t blind. He would give nearly anything to see the man sitting across from him. All those emotions he thought he’d buried after John’s death, all the things he’d wished he could say, all came bubbling back up and Sam would like nothing better than to lay eyes on him and prove to himself that he was real.
Realizing no one had spoken or tried to explain, Sam pressed on. “This is going to sound crazy, but uh, we accidentally summoned you from the past. We were trying to kick the angel out of Dean’s head using a pearl that grants wishes.”
Sam’s words fell into the silence. It took John a long moment to process that sentence, but soon the three of them were talking, Sam and Dean explaining everything that had happened. The good. The not so good. Thankfully Dean skirted around Sam’s vision loss. Why, he had no idea, but Sam was grateful that he’d be able to do that on his own terms. When they were done, John sounded incredulous and just a little proud.
“So, you saved the world,” John asked.
“More than once.”
“And it’s all true. God, the devil. You boys smack in the middle of it. Now you live in a secret bunker with an angel and Lucifer’s kid?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, nodding.
“And you’ve done this whole time travel thing before.”
“A few times,” Dean said with a smile in his voice. “Actually, our grandfather, your dad, he’s the one who helped us find this place. I think he’d be real happy to know you’re finally here.”
“Right,” John said. Sam wasn’t quite sure what that tone was in his voice. He knew their father had blamed Henry for abandoning him, but that history had never accounted for the fact that their grandfather had come to them and helped them save the world. “Men of Letters.”
“We’re legacies,” Sam said, trying to put a positive light on it, “because of you.”
“So, uh,” John paused, wiping his face. “You’ve been busy.”
“A little bit,” Sam said. He was aware that there was just a tinge of sadness in his voice.
“I uh…I just wish I had been there for you.”
“Dad,” Dean jumped in. “None of this would have happened without you.”
“It’s good,” John said. His voice had turned rough. “It’s fine. I died taking out Yellow Eyes. That was the point. Get the thing that killed Mom.”
Sam froze. He knew Dean beside him had shot him a glance. “Yeah, uh. Dad, about Mom-”
Sam had no soon said the word before Mary’s voice was calling for them. “Sam? Dean?”
Across from him, John was breathing heavily. “Mary?” He said, his voice thick with tears. He turned as she walked into the kitchen. He rose and swept over to her.
As the scene in front of them turned decidedly more emotional, Sam tapped Dean on the arm, discretely taking his elbow as he motioned for them to give the two some space. He let Dean guide him around their parents and out into the hall.
They took a moment outside just to let the entirety of the moment catch up to them. As they started to move away, Dean laughed. “I’m freaking out. It’s Dad!”
“Dean,” Sam said, slowing. He had some real reservations about the situation. Time travel never came without some sort of cost and the real ramifications of this could be huge. “I am too but, how is he here?”
“I don’t know,” Dean said. He sounded like a kid at Christmas. “You said the pearl gives you what your heart desires. I’ve wanted this man. I’ve wanted it since I was four years old.”
“It’s great Dean, really. And I love this. I really do, but…“ His grip tightened on Dean’s arm.
“No, no, no, no.”
“Messing with time? We know how this ends. Things change- “
“We’ve got our family back together. I’ll take that change.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Sam said desperately. He wanted so badly for it to be true. Couldn’t Dean see that? But this was serious.
“Stop,” Dean said, yanking his arm out of Sam’s grasp. His voice had gone hard and Sam knew he’d butchered this whole thing already. “Just stop. Can we just have one family dinner together? Just one. That’s all I want. Can you just give me that?”
“Dean…” Sam called after him as he walked away. Sam almost went after him. He almost chased him down and tried to make him understand, but it would only make him angry. It wouldn’t solve anything. They both needed a minute. Sam turned and went the other way, making his way back towards the main room, determined to get some answers.
He stormed in. He had left his phone on the table and for lack of anything better to do, he was going to take photos of the pages and send them to Cas for a reference check until he could dig something up online about the pearl.
He stopped in his tracks as he got to the top of the three short steps and realized he wasn’t alone. It couldn’t be Mary or Dean. Even pissed at him Dean would make sure to let Sam know he was there and Mary didn’t smell like gun oil.
“This place,” John said with a note of awe. “I don’t even know.”
Sam mentally adjusted his attitude. This wasn’t John’s fault. In fact, Sam was excited to get to talk to him again. “Yeah,” he said. “When we first moved in, I think it kind of blew our minds too.” He laughed thinking about Dean finding a sword on the wall and declaring the bunker the Bat-cave.
“Where’s Mom?” Sam asked, when the silence stretched between them.
“Oh, she’s getting Dean a shopping list. She’s going to make that casserole of hers.”
“Ah,” Sam said. This was harder than he though. He was so different now. He’d been so young when Dad had passed and he had all these things he’d wanted to say but now they all seemed irrelevant. Instead, he settled for saying, “You know, I tried to make that once.” He had. It had been an absolute disaster.
“I ah…I remember,” John said. He came to stand right in front of Sam, who was doing his best to keep his head down and the sadness out of his voice. “I screwed up a lot with you didn’t I?”
Sam felt the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Tears he swore he wasn’t going to cry. He didn’t have an answer to that. John hadn’t been perfect. But he’d been there. Sam cleared his throat, trying to at least not sound so choked up. “Nah, that’s okay,” he said.
“No, it’s not. Sammy, tell me the truth.”
Sam shook his head. He was beginning to think he should just make his escape. These were the words he had wanted to hear so long ago. Now they just stung. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“You didn’t have a problem taking about it before you left.” The words were accusatory and Sam knew he deserved every bit of it.
“Dad,” he said. “For me that fight was a lifetime ago. I don’t even remember what I said.” But he’d had real reasons for leaving. He hadn’t gone about it the right way, but the hurt was still there. The thing was, holding onto that pain didn’t solve anything. It didn’t fix anything. He knew from years and years of experience that it only made him miserable.
“You know what, yeah. You did some messed up things. But when I think about you - and I think about you a lot - I don’t think about our fights. I think about you…” Sam had to stop for a moment. This was so fucking hard. But he was going to get his say, the one he never got to have before. “I think about you on the floor of that hospital. I think about how I never got to say goodbye.”
Sam had to turn away. It was all just too much. He turned back when he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder.
“Sam, I am so sorry.”
Sam nodded. “I’m sorry too, but you did your best. You fought for us. You loved us. That’s enough.”
They both took a collective breath. Sam could tell Dad was as wiped from the conversation as he was. “I don’t get it though. If it’s not about how angry you are, why won’t you look at me? You haven’t spared me more than a glance since I got here.”
Sam braced himself for one more bombshell. “I uh…can’t.”
“What?” John’s grip had gone a little tight on his arm.
“I can’t see. It was a hunt a few years back. I’ve been blind since then.”
John’s other hand came up so that he was gripping Sam like he used to when he needed to make sure Sam was okay. It made all the tears he’d just swallowed down threaten to overwhelm him again. John had gone quiet though, the same way Dean had when he first found out. It was the kind of quiet that made Sam feel like he was all alone in a room, despite his father’s grip on his arms.
“How long,” he finally asked.
“About four years now.”
“What happened?”
“It was during the time that Dean was missing after the mark made him a demon. I was searching for him when I got wind of something taking people up in the woods in a nearby town. I had been passing jobs off as I found them because Dean was my first priority but this one couldn’t wait. I took out the wendigo, but I got a pretty nasty knock to the head doing it. Woke up like this. The doctors said it had something to do with swelling in my brain.”
“So you were alone?”
“Yeah, at the time. Cas came while I was in the hospital and helped me get back on my feet.”
“You’ve kept hunting.”
“Of course.”
John was quiet for a long moment. Sam could feel his eyes boring into him and he raised his head for the first time that evening. He found himself enveloped in a hug so suddenly it took him a minute to return the gesture.
Sam was speechless. In all the years he’d spent with the man, his father had very rarely shown much physical affection. He would ruffle their hair or pat them on the back sometimes, but rarely hug them. Sam had grown much more tactile over the years, especially since going blind, but he’d been holding back because he knew his father didn’t usually approve of such displays.
Here it is! This is from 14x13 "Lebanon." Sam's plaid is going to be the death of me.
So, you need a little background for this one. In this verse, Sam was injured while looking for Dean when the mark turned him into a demon and he ran off with Crowley. Sam woke up in a hospital with next to no vision and a raging headache. He has general light perception, meaning he can kind of tell how bright a room is, but he doesn't see shapes or figures.
---
Sam held out the leather pouch in his hand towards where Dean was standing. His brother set down his beer and took the whole thing in his hand. “So, what do I…?”
“I dunno,” Sam said with a shrug. He’d only ever heard rumors of the thing and the entry in the log had been bare bones to say the least. “I guess you hold the pearl in your hand and concentrate on what your heart desires?”
“Micahel out of my head. Got it.”
Sam nodded.
Across from him, Dean took a deep breath. The entire room felt still as Dean concentrated. Suddenly the abient light in the room dropped nearly to black. Sam took a step back, unsure what had happened. The pulsing of the warning light was eerie and distracting, but not so much that Sam missed the rush of air as something flew towards his head. The split second was enough to dodge so that the object barely clipped him, but he wasn’t fast enough to duck it entirely and before he knew it, he was being tossed to the floor where he slammed up against a hard chair leg. The sound of fighting was short lived as Dean grunted and landed beside him. Sam tried to lift himself up, but was forced to freeze at the cocking of a shotgun as a rough voice said, “Don’t you move.” Sam waivered, unsure who the gun was aimed at or what was going on. The voice had been low and hoarse, but something about it seemed familiar.
The lights came back up, leaving Sam blinking against the sudden brightness. He was braced against the floor, ready to spring into action at Dean’s signal, trusting his brother to know when to move. He knew he presented the weaker looking target and was quite willing to use that to their advantage. If their attacker got close enough, Sam could take him down. He only needed a brief moment of contact.
Instead of a warning or a signal like he was expecting, Dean said, “Dad?” His voice was hoarse, tentative. Sam grew even stiller.
“Dean?” Sam asked. He didn’t know what Dean was seeing. Had the wish somehow backfired? Had it granted him their father back instead? Or had something breached their perimeter?
Sam’s question was echoed by the man standing over them. Sam sucked in a breath. He knew that voice.
“Sam? What in the Hell?”
Sam climbed to his feet next to Dean. He kept his eyes carefully trained on the floor so it wouldn’t be immediately obvious that anything was off about him. If it was their father, he should probably only deal with one monumental discovery at a time.
“Sammy,” John asked as Sam finally stood straight. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Palo Alto?”
Sam frowned. “Palo Alto?” No way. No way this was happening. If John didn’t remember anything from before Sam returned from school, that meant he didn’t remember dying. Did that mean he’d been plucked out of the timeline somewhere along the way?
There was a moment when he knew John was looking them up and down. He stood, tense, waiting for something to give. “What happened to you,” their father asked.
“What year is it,” Dean asked, echoing Sam own thoughts. If John still thought he was supposed to be at Stanford, it was entirely possible he had time traveled thanks to their hail Mary wish.
Their father scoffed. “It’s 2003.”
Sam took a step forward, shaking his head. “It’s 2019.”
“No,” John said, “How?”
“I think…we summoned you,” Sam said, turning towards Dean. It was a reflexive action. He’d spent his entire life looking to Dean when something didn’t quite make sense, sharing entire conversations in a look. The fact that he couldn’t see him anymore didn’t mean that Dean couldn’t still read his thoughts just from his body language.
“You boys better tell me what the hell is going on. Right now.”
Sam snorted.
Dean let out a breath. “I need a drink.” He turned and started making his way into the next room where he kept the liquor. Sam smiled and nodded with his head for John to go ahead. He followed them, using Dean’s puttering and his father’s steps to reorient himself after his fall. John settled at the table. Sam took up a spot across from him, allowing enough room for Dean to sit beside him.
Dean clinked the glasses down hard onto the table. Sam wasn’t sure if it was for his benefit or because Dean had been rattled more than even he was letting on. Sam wrinkled his nose as the scent of the strong scotch hit his nose. Dean really did need a drink if he was breaking out that foul stuff. It was also laced with holy water. Old habits died hard, Sam supposed. When Dean set the bottle down, Sam reached forward and took his own glass. He had only taken a sip when Dean slammed his back down.
Sam kicked him under the table when he went for a second. “Shut up,” he muttered, but this one, he merely sipped at. Their father had apparently agreed with Dean and was swallowing down his own portion. Dean wordlessly filled him another glass.
“So,” Sam said. He was playing with his glass, unsure what to do with his hands. In that moment, he wished he wasn’t blind. He would give nearly anything to see the man sitting across from him. All those emotions he thought he’d buried after John’s death, all the things he’d wished he could say, all came bubbling back up and Sam would like nothing better than to lay eyes on him and prove to himself that he was real.
Realizing no one had spoken or tried to explain, Sam pressed on. “This is going to sound crazy, but uh, we accidentally summoned you from the past. We were trying to kick the angel out of Dean’s head using a pearl that grants wishes.”
Sam’s words fell into the silence. It took John a long moment to process that sentence, but soon the three of them were talking, Sam and Dean explaining everything that had happened. The good. The not so good. Thankfully Dean skirted around Sam’s vision loss. Why, he had no idea, but Sam was grateful that he’d be able to do that on his own terms. When they were done, John sounded incredulous and just a little proud.
“So, you saved the world,” John asked.
“More than once.”
“And it’s all true. God, the devil. You boys smack in the middle of it. Now you live in a secret bunker with an angel and Lucifer’s kid?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, nodding.
“And you’ve done this whole time travel thing before.”
“A few times,” Dean said with a smile in his voice. “Actually, our grandfather, your dad, he’s the one who helped us find this place. I think he’d be real happy to know you’re finally here.”
“Right,” John said. Sam wasn’t quite sure what that tone was in his voice. He knew their father had blamed Henry for abandoning him, but that history had never accounted for the fact that their grandfather had come to them and helped them save the world. “Men of Letters.”
“We’re legacies,” Sam said, trying to put a positive light on it, “because of you.”
“So, uh,” John paused, wiping his face. “You’ve been busy.”
“A little bit,” Sam said. He was aware that there was just a tinge of sadness in his voice.
“I uh…I just wish I had been there for you.”
“Dad,” Dean jumped in. “None of this would have happened without you.”
“It’s good,” John said. His voice had turned rough. “It’s fine. I died taking out Yellow Eyes. That was the point. Get the thing that killed Mom.”
Sam froze. He knew Dean beside him had shot him a glance. “Yeah, uh. Dad, about Mom-”
Sam had no soon said the word before Mary’s voice was calling for them. “Sam? Dean?”
Across from him, John was breathing heavily. “Mary?” He said, his voice thick with tears. He turned as she walked into the kitchen. He rose and swept over to her.
As the scene in front of them turned decidedly more emotional, Sam tapped Dean on the arm, discretely taking his elbow as he motioned for them to give the two some space. He let Dean guide him around their parents and out into the hall.
They took a moment outside just to let the entirety of the moment catch up to them. As they started to move away, Dean laughed. “I’m freaking out. It’s Dad!”
“Dean,” Sam said, slowing. He had some real reservations about the situation. Time travel never came without some sort of cost and the real ramifications of this could be huge. “I am too but, how is he here?”
“I don’t know,” Dean said. He sounded like a kid at Christmas. “You said the pearl gives you what your heart desires. I’ve wanted this man. I’ve wanted it since I was four years old.”
“It’s great Dean, really. And I love this. I really do, but…“ His grip tightened on Dean’s arm.
“No, no, no, no.”
“Messing with time? We know how this ends. Things change- “
“We’ve got our family back together. I’ll take that change.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Sam said desperately. He wanted so badly for it to be true. Couldn’t Dean see that? But this was serious.
“Stop,” Dean said, yanking his arm out of Sam’s grasp. His voice had gone hard and Sam knew he’d butchered this whole thing already. “Just stop. Can we just have one family dinner together? Just one. That’s all I want. Can you just give me that?”
“Dean…” Sam called after him as he walked away. Sam almost went after him. He almost chased him down and tried to make him understand, but it would only make him angry. It wouldn’t solve anything. They both needed a minute. Sam turned and went the other way, making his way back towards the main room, determined to get some answers.
He stormed in. He had left his phone on the table and for lack of anything better to do, he was going to take photos of the pages and send them to Cas for a reference check until he could dig something up online about the pearl.
He stopped in his tracks as he got to the top of the three short steps and realized he wasn’t alone. It couldn’t be Mary or Dean. Even pissed at him Dean would make sure to let Sam know he was there and Mary didn’t smell like gun oil.
“This place,” John said with a note of awe. “I don’t even know.”
Sam mentally adjusted his attitude. This wasn’t John’s fault. In fact, Sam was excited to get to talk to him again. “Yeah,” he said. “When we first moved in, I think it kind of blew our minds too.” He laughed thinking about Dean finding a sword on the wall and declaring the bunker the Bat-cave.
“Where’s Mom?” Sam asked, when the silence stretched between them.
“Oh, she’s getting Dean a shopping list. She’s going to make that casserole of hers.”
“Ah,” Sam said. This was harder than he though. He was so different now. He’d been so young when Dad had passed and he had all these things he’d wanted to say but now they all seemed irrelevant. Instead, he settled for saying, “You know, I tried to make that once.” He had. It had been an absolute disaster.
“I ah…I remember,” John said. He came to stand right in front of Sam, who was doing his best to keep his head down and the sadness out of his voice. “I screwed up a lot with you didn’t I?”
Sam felt the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Tears he swore he wasn’t going to cry. He didn’t have an answer to that. John hadn’t been perfect. But he’d been there. Sam cleared his throat, trying to at least not sound so choked up. “Nah, that’s okay,” he said.
“No, it’s not. Sammy, tell me the truth.”
Sam shook his head. He was beginning to think he should just make his escape. These were the words he had wanted to hear so long ago. Now they just stung. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“You didn’t have a problem taking about it before you left.” The words were accusatory and Sam knew he deserved every bit of it.
“Dad,” he said. “For me that fight was a lifetime ago. I don’t even remember what I said.” But he’d had real reasons for leaving. He hadn’t gone about it the right way, but the hurt was still there. The thing was, holding onto that pain didn’t solve anything. It didn’t fix anything. He knew from years and years of experience that it only made him miserable.
“You know what, yeah. You did some messed up things. But when I think about you - and I think about you a lot - I don’t think about our fights. I think about you…” Sam had to stop for a moment. This was so fucking hard. But he was going to get his say, the one he never got to have before. “I think about you on the floor of that hospital. I think about how I never got to say goodbye.”
Sam had to turn away. It was all just too much. He turned back when he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder.
“Sam, I am so sorry.”
Sam nodded. “I’m sorry too, but you did your best. You fought for us. You loved us. That’s enough.”
They both took a collective breath. Sam could tell Dad was as wiped from the conversation as he was. “I don’t get it though. If it’s not about how angry you are, why won’t you look at me? You haven’t spared me more than a glance since I got here.”
Sam braced himself for one more bombshell. “I uh…can’t.”
“What?” John’s grip had gone a little tight on his arm.
“I can’t see. It was a hunt a few years back. I’ve been blind since then.”
John’s other hand came up so that he was gripping Sam like he used to when he needed to make sure Sam was okay. It made all the tears he’d just swallowed down threaten to overwhelm him again. John had gone quiet though, the same way Dean had when he first found out. It was the kind of quiet that made Sam feel like he was all alone in a room, despite his father’s grip on his arms.
“How long,” he finally asked.
“About four years now.”
“What happened?”
“It was during the time that Dean was missing after the mark made him a demon. I was searching for him when I got wind of something taking people up in the woods in a nearby town. I had been passing jobs off as I found them because Dean was my first priority but this one couldn’t wait. I took out the wendigo, but I got a pretty nasty knock to the head doing it. Woke up like this. The doctors said it had something to do with swelling in my brain.”
“So you were alone?”
“Yeah, at the time. Cas came while I was in the hospital and helped me get back on my feet.”
“You’ve kept hunting.”
“Of course.”
John was quiet for a long moment. Sam could feel his eyes boring into him and he raised his head for the first time that evening. He found himself enveloped in a hug so suddenly it took him a minute to return the gesture.
Sam was speechless. In all the years he’d spent with the man, his father had very rarely shown much physical affection. He would ruffle their hair or pat them on the back sometimes, but rarely hug them. Sam had grown much more tactile over the years, especially since going blind, but he’d been holding back because he knew his father didn’t usually approve of such displays.