Bless The Broken Road ♥

Ryder couldn’t have rid the crooked, dimpled smile from his boyish face had he wanted to. The look on Simi’s virtuous visage the moment she’d opened her deep blues spoke volumes of what she thought of the house, and that unspoken approval was all the young hunter needed to know he’d done something right for once.
And he meant to keep doing right by the woman and those babies, no matter what it took.

It was all he could do not to let the cat out of the bag when she asked if they were visiting someone, and then added that she would give anything to raise their family in the seemingly ageless Victorian home, but Ryder just beamed at the stunning blonde witch, once again grasping her hand before tugging her up to the door and pushing his way in.
“Come on…you have to see the inside…” He told her, leading Simi into the entryway.

Immediately upon entering the house they were embraced by a warmth that seemingly radiated from the cottage. To the right of the front door a set of dark wooden stairs led up to the upper interiors and just ahead of them, a grand Victorian style parlor.
“When I was doing research on the place I found out it’s been owned by this one family since it was build way back in the 1850’s and rumor has it they were witches…”Ryder smirked a little and arched a tawny brow. “You should hear some of the stuff the town’s people had to say about them…wore stripey socks…pointy hats…and jumped off the roof on brooms on Halloween…” Ryder shook his head and chuckled a bit, tugging her into the furnished living room.
The space was richly endowed with old leather furniture and antique lamps, and painted in garden greens and browns, decorated with a tangle of hand painted vines and birds on the walls.
Hanging from all the windows were sumptuous velvet panels in earthen colors and lined
with embroidered sheer panels as dainty as a summer breeze. There was a piano and a bookshelf full of old tomes, a grand fire place and pictures hanging on the walls.
“All this stuff belonged to them. No one wanted to remove anything when the last owner passed, and the town’s people, as superstitious as they were, wouldn’t touch a thing when it was put up at the estate sale.”

The newly married man kept the radiant grin as he cocked his head, towards the room beyond, and gently guided her into the next space; the dining room.

“This looks like it should be the dining room, but the kitchen is so big they used this as a work space or something…”
Though there -was- a large rectangular dark wooden table in the center, the sideboards were filled with hand made candles and looms of yarn, and dusty little bottles just waiting for some quixotic potion to fill them.

With that he kept them moving, heading into the spacious kitchen the young hunter knew would make Simone smile.
It was huge and full of light and cheerful; painted in delicate creams and linen hangings and punctuated by dark floors and a trussed high ceiling. The cabinets were glass and though tinted with age, showed a whole set of exquisite porcelain dinnerware and old cast irons pots and pans hung from lowered places in the ceiling.
“You can practically smell the banana bread in here, can’t you?” Ryder asked impishly and continued with his tour.

Just off the kitchen was a pantry with floor to ceiling shelves and cabinets lined with hundred of jars and containers filled with ingredents, herbs, tonic, and some other things Ryder didn't want to look too closely upon.
There were bottles, jars, mortars & pestles, and bowls - all in a variety of colors.

The conservatory; just off the kitchen though a set of glass french doors was overgrown with green vines that had overtaken the windows and lined with so many years worth of dust, but the hunter recognized this as the perfect place for Simi to work on her spells and charms. As it was, the shelves, both built into the walls and standing freely, were filled with different colored bottles, vases, and containers that called out MAGICAL LABORATORY…

Ryder whisked her up stairs, opening doors to show off bedrooms and storage spaces and finally coming to the room at the end of the hall, where he paused, his grey-blue eyes brighter than they ever had been.
“This…this one is the best part…” The young man flashed his pearly whites and dimples, opening the door to a room that was spilling with light from large windows that lined the walls and though it was filled with old dolls as if just used for storage, a massive handmade sleigh crib sat against the wall opposite them, white linen panels hung from above to caress it like a night time kiss.

“Well…what do you think?” Ry let go of her hand and turned full to face her; the joy practically spilling out of him through the animated expression he wore.

Ryder couldn’t help but laugh at Simi’s curious, but smiling stare and he brought a hand up to rub the place on his chest where she had poked him with an alabaster finger.
In her wide, jovial sapphire gaze he could see the future; Simi in overalls covered in paint from head to toe and a brush in her hand; her hair pulled up into a messy blonde bun and a smear of color on her cheek.
He could see himself lifting a hand to smudge the smear; a toddler in one arm on his hip and another tawny-headed little dumplin’ scooting across the wooden floor on her little knees. His wife was glowing and her middle was swollen. They were repainting this room for another one on the way.

A sheepish rumor of a smirk appeared across his boyish face and a dimple peeked out from a cheek. Ryder let his face drop a little to hide the secret in his grey-blue eyes, for just the mental image had done a number on his already thundering heart and don’t even get me started on his over eager libido.

Finally lifting his gaze, the young hunter dragged his lower lip through his teeth and reached out to grasp the witch’s hand, pulling her back into the cage of his arms. It did nothing to calm the wild running stallions in his chest but the feel of her against him at least brought his attention back from the musing distraction.
“I think the color orange brings out the color of your eyes, Angel.” Ryder grinned reticently and brought a hand up to cup her cheek. “But no…I’d prefer if the twins where born in this house, not the big house.”

His silvery blue eyes shifted back and forth in her intense, cerulean one, and he brushed a thumb across her cheek.
“This is ours Simi. I bought it...for us…for them.” The middle Winchester grinned wider, and his eyes dropped to her belly; taking in it as if he could see the babies through their bodily home.

Once more he saw the identical toe-heads in his mind, and his smile widened when it lifted to grasp his wife’s. “That is if you want it…I mean…it’s not as close to your parents house as you probably would have liked, but close enough that you could get there easy or vice versa if I am out too long on a hunt.” He loosed a quiet sheepish snort from his nose and shook his head, stepping back and replacing the hand that was at her face to rub the back of his neck. “I should have brought you to look at it first. I mean…you might not want to fix it up…”

He lost all train of thought then with all the doubts that had suddenly sprung up inside of him.

No…she was far from stupid. Simone James Winchester was perhaps the smartest woman he’d ever known. But besides her wit, and the sense of humor that never failed to have his sides hurting from laughing so hard when it was just the two of them being silly, it was her heart that had captured him from the start. Maybe even all those years ago when she was in braids and bare feet and he was a little hellion climbing trees; there had always been something miraculous about the girl. Something that kept him from throwing the water balloon at her from the second floor window, something that had always made him want to wipe away her little girl tears. Whether he knew it or not, before the butterflies in his stomach were about physical gratification, they were about a young boy’s enthrallment with a toe-headed imp.

Ryder was chuckling happy when she narrowed her sapphire eyes on him and tried to force a vexed warning about removing her from the house, but the chortle was cut off by the press of her mouth against his when Simi thanked her new husband without inadequate words. The young hunter wound his arms around the witch and held her tight; returning the lippy embrace with an ardent one of his own.
The feel of her velvet lips and her tongue seeking out his never failed to shoot straight to his libido. Ry growled low in his throat and let his hands drop to her hips; clutching with gentle, but deliberate pressure.

No sooner had she kissed him crazy did Simi twirl out of his arms and spin in an animated circle around the room. Ryder had to beam at her; his smile side-ways and satisfied as he crossed the room to open the window so the breeze off the sea could drift in. He perched on the window seat beneath the large glass, crossing his arms over his chest as he regarded her latter words.
“You told me about fifteen minutes ago but it’d been too long. A man needs reaffirmation; especially when a woman is having pregnancy sickness and he knows every minute of it she’s inwardly cursing him.”

The middle Winchester grinned and waved her over, opening his arms so that she would sit in his lap and he could wrap his arms around her again. Ryder’s grey-blue eyes were still lit with contentment but his expression was firm. “Okay baby…one thing we have to talk about since we are really doing this…” He told her, brushing a long strand of her hair off her shoulder so he could press a kiss to the plane of skin there. “I’m gonna’ be around as much as I can…don’t want to leave you here alone what with…” Ryder gestured to her belly, and an absent smile turned up his lips again. “But you know I just can’t quit…not when I’ve still gotta’ find a way out of this contract…not when there are things out there gunning for my family. You have to promise me you’ll take it easy when I’m gone. I don’t want you getting into a bind here while you’re by yourself or worse, get hurt. We got time to do all this…we’re gonna’ be here for the rest of our lives…hopefully.”

Ryder couldn’t help but hold her a little bit tighter. He could feel the slight tremor that ran through her body, just before the magnificent blonde witch made steely her back because she was trying to be brave and not cry. The pregnancy hadn’t been easy on Simi, not with so much stress on her shoulders, and there had been nights since the time in Hawaii that seemed like forever ago when the woman just had to let it out and cry against his chest. The young Winchester held her then and steeled his own will, acting brave despite the fact he felt like a little boy against an army of monsters, and wanted to hide away under the covers with his female forever.

Oh yes, the hunter was scared. He didn’t want to see the glowing red eyes of the hounds. He didn’t want to hear them when no one else could; alone in his fear and in his death. Dean Winchester had never spoken to his children of what he experienced in the pit but Ryder had heard whispers and rumors. God how the middle Winchester had wanted to go to his father and confess this fear and demand to know what happens down there if he can’t break the contract. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t because he was so fucking ashamed of making his father have to go through this again; hell, in some ways his own again even if it was his son headed there. Ryder couldn’t admit that he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to find a way out because he wasn’t as good of a hunter as his father, nor half the -father- Dean was because if he failed he was going to make his new wife a widow leave her to raise those babies alone. Or…not alone. Because she would find someone else, eventually, wouldn’t she?

Ryder didn’t want to even imagine someone else with his arms around her slender body like his were now, or tasting those feverish kisses he woke up to so many times in the dead of night. He couldn’t fathom his children; born of a never-ending love between a hunter and a witch, calling another man papa. Or another man teaching them to dance, or to shoot.

Ryder forced a side-ways smile and found her palm; his stormy grey-blue eyes following the long path of her life lines before lifting to swim in the cerulean depths of her gaze. He threaded his fingers into hers and lifted it to his sheepish grin, kissing it once, twice, three times while he blinked away the grief from his eyes.

“I didn’t even show you the bedroom, did I?” He asked her roguishly; flashing her a dimple that made him appear all of sixteen and awkward. The change of subject was just Ryder’s style. He couldn’t bear the thought of tears on the porcelain cheek of his angel, and so he pushed the disquiet deep down and buried it under all the other emotions that plagued him; instead focusing on the ones that made his chest ache in another way; so replete with adoration it throbbed.
Ryder chuckled guiltily and brought her hand to his lips for a whispery mouthy embrace again, and let his gaze drift out the window. “It’ll be perfect here, you know. You wont believe how close to the Hunter’s Academy we are.”

Yes, the young man had taken many, many things into account before diving headfirst into this adventure, but he knew as soon as he saw it that this was theirs.