The Year of Letting Go (2/7)
Aug. 1st, 2008 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runedgirlChapter Two
Master Post
May – When It Happens
(Dean)
Sam’s been back for two years and has died once already, and Dean’s soul has been on lay-away for five months when it happens, the night that changes things forever. Things Dean thought could never be changed.
Two years and Dean’s never really been sure Sam’s back for good, doesn’t believe the words – just words, and he’s heard them before. All his life he’s heard them and they’ve never meant what they were supposed to.
Mom leaning over to kiss him goodnight after putting Sammy in his crib, her blonde hair tickling his cheeks and the smell of baby powder and mother’s milk lingering after she’d tucked him in and gone. “You be here in the morning?” he’d ask her, remembering the time he woke up to find Mrs. Weston from next door making him oatmeal in the kitchen, patiently explaining to the frightened four year old that his mommy and daddy were at the hospital to have the new baby. “Always,” Mom would tell him before she turned off the night light, “I’ll always be here, Dean.”
Dad had promised too, months later when Mom was already gone and Dean had finally been able to cry, Dad awkward in his own grief and fumbling for words a five year old would understand. All Dean had really wanted to hear was “I’ll never leave you,” but looking back, he realizes that’s the one thing Dad managed to do, again and again. A month with Pastor Jim, three months with Uncle Bobby. And later, the gruff ‘I’ll only be gone a week, Dean -- stay inside and keep the doors locked and take care of your brother.’
Sammy. When they were kids, Dean had let himself believe he had someone now who would never go. Sam’s hand always clinging to his own and Sam’s big brown eyes watching him with adoration. “You and me, Sammy,” he’d say when it was just the two of them on the porch of yet another dingy motel, sharing a Dr. Pepper and tossing rocks from the pebbled parking lot to ping against the metal Vacancy sign. “That’s how it’s gonna be, always, just you and me.” When he remembers it now, Dean wonders when Sam’s words of agreement started to ring just as hollow.
Everyone leaves, and Dean’s surprised Sam has stuck around this long, put up with as much as he has. Every time there’s been a girl, Dean has held his breath and waited, reminded himself that he’s the only one walking around fucked up enough to want his own brother and that Sam deserves normal. It’s only a matter of time, so maybe Dean takes a few more chances than he should, especially now that he only has six or seven months left anyway. Won’t matter in the end, what matters is Sam, what’s always mattered. If that means Dean getting between Sammy and the homemade explosives shattering through the window, the last fuckyou of a pissed off demon as Sam’s Latin sends him back to hell, so be it. He doesn’t regret it as the world goes black, Sam’s anguished shout of his name ringing in his ears the last thing he hears as he goes down.
* * *
(Sam)
He hits the ground hard with the force of the explosion, skidding against the far wall and bringing a warehouse-high shelf of boxes down on top of him, so Sam loses consciousness long enough to miss the sirens. When he comes to, three cops are dragging Dean from what’s left of the south side of the building, and Sam’s heart seizes up painfully in his chest, knocking whatever breath he’d regained right out of him again. Dean is covered with blood, shirt and jeans torn and riddled with shards of broken glass and pulverized concrete. One of his shoes must have been blown off in the explosion, and as they haul him out by the arms his bare foot drags against the glass-riddled floor and leaves a smear of fresh red blood on the cement. Dean’s head lolls backwards as they maneuver his limp body onto a gurney. Sam catches a clear view of his face, the blood trickling from his mouth and nose standing out against the striking white of his skin.
The pain in his ears is debilitating, but it’s nothing compared to the agony that shoots through Sam when he starts to be able to hear again.
“Goner,” one of the cops says. “Stupid pyro bastard.”
Only the fact that his panicked attempt to get to Dean causes him to pass out again keeps Sam from being hauled in too.
When he opens his eyes much later, the warehouse is silent, his head is throbbing, and his brother is gone.
“Ohjesus, Dean, you asshole,” he groans as he extracts himself from the mess of cardboard and shattered steel, reminding himself of his training, of the need to go slow and think clearly. Dean’s hurt bad – not dead, Sam tells himself, because he can’t go there, won’t go there. Not unless and until he has to. They’ve still got seven months before Dean’s time is up, plenty of time for Sam to save him, and there’s no way they’re taking him early. “What the fuck were you thinking, doing that?”
But Sam already knows. Not like it’s the first time Dean’s thrown himself between Sam and danger, or sacrificed himself to save his brother. The guilt of that knowledge settles sharp and bitter in Sam’s stomach, more painful than any of his injuries.
He forces himself to clean the cuts on his chest and arms and stitch the worst of them, wash off the blood and dirt and get into the bed, telling himself that he needs to sleep if he’s going to find his brother, but Sam’s shaking as he crawls under the starched motel sheets. Two years since he’s slept alone without Dean in the room, without his brother’s grumbled complaints about the crappy air conditioner or the smoke-stained curtains or where he had to park his baby. Two years since he’s had only the sound of his own breathing, and he misses the rustle of Dean tossing and turning to get comfortable, the soft satisfied sounds he makes when he starts to go under. Even the way he snores into the pillow, quiet and muffled and just enough noise to let Sam know he’s there so Sam can go under too.
“Don’t you fucking leave me,” Sam says to the darkness. He wants it to be a threat, but his voice breaks in the middle and it comes out more a plea, and Sam feels his still-open eyes burn wet at the thought. Stupid to admit it now, to no one, what Sam’s wanted to say for the last five months but doesn’t dare.
Dean will come back if he can, so Sam stays put at the same motel for the next 24 hours, obsessively checking his cell every few minutes just in case he missed a call and forcing himself to lie low in case the cops are looking for him. By midnight the image of Dean’s bare foot dragging limp and bloody through the broken glass won’t get out of Sam’s head long enough for him to even breathe, and he can’t wait any longer, has to do something, has to look for his brother.
He calls all five area hospitals and asks for their usual aliases, and gets the same answer. Nobody by that name. The implications hit Sam so hard he can hardly hold the phone, fingers shaking too much to press the keys as he forces himself to dial the next number, the one he doesn’t want to call. The question comes out so softly the attendant at the county morgue has to ask him to repeat it, and ohgod, he doesn’t want to hear the answer when it comes, wishes he could just stay ignorant.
“One John Doe brought in last night, yes. Male, in his twenties. That’s all I can tell you over the phone, sir. I’m sorry. Very sorry.”
It’s the hardest thing Sam’s ever done, walking into that room and staying on his feet while they pull back the sheet for him. He vomits before he even gets out the door, going to his knees on the floor and retching on a mostly empty stomach. The attendant doesn’t even seem surprised, just helps him to his feet and gets him a glass of water as Sam stammers over and over again, “It’s not him, it’s not him.”
He tries to think straight after that, dizzy with the mix of euphoria and confusion and fear. Dean’s probably not dead, but he’s not okay either, or he would have made contact with Sam or used a familiar alias so Sam could find him. The motel room is empty, his cell is silent, and Sam is trying to fight off despair.
“Fuck Dean, where are you?”
(Dean)
At first, Dean thinks he’s gone to hell early when consciousness slowly seeps back into his brain, sluggish like he’s underwater and can’t quite fight his way to the surface. His lungs are burning, and he can’t move, like he’s drugged, or buried. Ohfuck, buried? Alive and buried? He jerks his limbs, nothing above him, claws at the air as he gasps, fights to swallow. It feels like there’s something choking him and instinct kicks in, trying to dislodge it, scream around it, and then suddenly there’s a whoosh of air, cold and ominous against his bare skin, and something’s pushing him down, and Dean panics. Fights, like he’s been taught to, desperately, with all he’s got. He manages to get them off him – hands, he can tell they’re hands, can feel fingers dig painfully into his biceps, his hips, trying to force him backwards. He struggles to get to his feet, throwing punches as he tries to open his eyes, but it’s dark, so dark – and then it hits him, with such force that he goes limp in the grasp of disembodied hands pushing him down, down. He blinks, disbelieving, eyes open so wide the whites are gleaming, but there’s nothing, nothing but black. And it’s completely and utterly silent.
Dean’s not sure, but he thinks he’s screaming ‘Sam’ when they finally push him down and the sting of the needle slides into his arm.
When he wakes again it’s like the first time, except now he knows he’s not imagining it. He can’t see, no matter how many times he blinks into the dark. He can’t hear, no matter how hard he strains to pick up the smallest of sounds. Not his own breathing even, or the frantic whimpers he can’t seem to stop. There’s nothing there to see, and the silence is so complete it pounds against his ears. Cold prickle of panic runs down his body in a shiver, and his wrists jerk against something smooth and tightly fastened. Restrained. Ohgod. He tests his legs, pulls against whatever’s tethering his ankles. No use. He’s deaf and blind and bound and he could be anywhere. Hell or the local jail or County General.
For the first time in his 28 years of life, Dean Winchester is utterly, horribly helpless.
He fights for a long time, muscles straining frantically against the bindings, not even knowing what he’d do, where he’d go, if he managed to free himself. It’s not until there’s a hand on his arm, brief touch at his wrist, that he finally gives up, muscles quivering with exhaustion. Something warm and tingly floods his veins and he’s glad for it, sinks into sleep despite himself.
For the first two weeks, Dean wants to die. He figures out pretty quickly that he’s not in hell – no way they’d have a morphine drip. But he also knows he’s useless now, even if Sam’s alive (and fuck, he hopes Sam’s alive, that Sam’s safe and unharmed and has maybe gone back to that normal life he’s been craving). He can’t hunt, he can’t save anyone, not even himself. He’d be a liability to Sam in this condition. And what else is there? He can’t see blue skies, or the curve of a girl’s ass in tight jeans, or the way Sam’s mouth dimples up at the edges when he smiles. Can’t hear Metallica or the purr of the Impala’s engine. Can’t protect Sammy. Might as well just check out now. Maybe this is hell after all.
Unfortunately for Dean (and fortunately for Sam), there’s no way to attempt suicide when you’re cathetered and intravenoused and strapped to a bed, and eventually he has to find something else to think about.
He thinks about Sam. Wonders where he is, what he’s doing. If he’s grieving Dean’s death. Dean hopes not, hopes that Sam gets on with it, goes out there and lives for the both of them. Dean could be happy, tied to a mattress with a needle in his arm, if he knew Sam was out there living.
Dean’s caught up in a fantasy of Sam doing some hot brunette who looks a little like Jessica Alba (and so what if he’s there watching, it’s his fucking fantasy) when he catches a familiar scent. Funny, he didn’t even know he knew what Henrikson smelled like, but he can tell, without hearing a sound, even in the blackness. Henrikson, here. His fingers fist, muscles tense. Futile, instinctual. He jumps at the unexpected touch of a large hand to his thigh, squeezing roughly, painfully. It’s not the business-like touch of the nurses as they shift and turn and prod him, this is for another purpose. Trying to unnerve him, rattle him, force him. Dean can tell that Henrikson must be speaking, can feel the subtle shifts in his stance and the grip of his fingers that tells Dean he’s talking, probably shouting. Dean fights the urge to make a sound no matter how painful the other man’s grasp gets, until finally the hand on his thigh lets go. Henrikson’s scent, sweat and polyester and old smoke, lingers for a long time, and Dean doesn’t relax until the nurses come to wash him and move the needle to a new plumper vein.
He counts time – imperfectly but it’s the best he can do – by the feel of sunlight against his face. There must be a window in the room, and the shades must be open at least some of the time, because he can feel it when it’s sunny, the slow crawl of warmth up his right side, inching up his bare arm where it’s anchored to the bed, pinking his neck and warming his cheek. One day he counts it out, disciplined and determined, the hours it takes for the sun to make the journey up his body, and after that he’s grateful for the sunny days, for something to feel and anticipate and understand. Some days the sun never comes, and Dean doesn’t know if it’s raining or if nobody bothered to open the shades for a blind man.
Henrikson comes five times, Dean counts that too. Each time he tries to get a reaction, like maybe he thinks Dean’s just faking it and if he just squeezes hard enough, Dean will see him, hear him, curse him. Dean keeps his mouth shut, pretends he doesn’t know. Tries not to think about the look on Henrikson’s face, wonders if there’s pity there.
The hospital tries to let him up two weeks in, but as soon as Dean feels the restraints loosen he’s up and trying to run – somewhere, anywhere – old instincts screaming for him to get to Sam, get to Sam, and he doesn’t even feel the impact of wood and steel as he crashes into something hard, then harder. Bare feet slip on wet linoleum, and he can feel harsh fingers clawing at him, gripping, stopping him. His legs don’t work, shaking like jello after not being used in so long, and he can’t keep himself up, knees scraping rough and desperate as he crawls, stopping only when the familiar sting of the needle makes his muscles give up. He thinks it’s the first time he cries when the straps pull tight around his wrists and ankles again, but he’s not sure.
Dean gives up counting for a little while after that, so he doesn’t know how many more days have passed before he catches the smell of Henrikson again. Briefly, no touches this time, and Dean thinks about begging for a bullet to the brain. Wonders if he and the cop could finally agree about something.
(Victor)
They call him on the thirteenth day, claiming that it took that long to stabilize their John Doe enough to bother with fingerprints, shocked to see their silent sightless patient come up on the FBI registry as ‘most wanted.’ Henrikson brings ten men with him, clears the entire wing and comes through the doors with pistols unholstered and ready, while six nurses and three doctors watch from behind the nursing station’s high counters incredulous and maybe snickering a little. Because really? All this firepower for one slender young man mostly naked and strapped to a hospital bed who can’t see or hear or speak? Seems a little extreme.
Henrikson insists that this is the Dean Winchester, the one who’s murdered and maimed and stolen and looted graves and defiled dead bodies and who knows what the fuck else, but even he sends five of the men home and holsters his gun.
Victor spends twenty-four hours straight in the hospital room that first day, certain that Dean will slip up, that he’s faking the blindness and deafness even though the charts tell him otherwise and the doctors and nurses can detail all the tests they’ve done so far that corroborate the diagnosis. No, they don’t know why. No, they don’t know if it’s permanent. But right now, Dean Winchester can’t see or hear and nobody knows if he could speak even if he wanted to.
After an hour of just watching, Victor tries his own tests. When he gets close, he can see Dean tense up, his eyes snapping open and darting around the room, breathing rougher. An animal sniffing the air for danger. Henrikson leans in, and it’s unnerving, staring into eyes clear bright brilliant green that seem to look right through him, don’t catch on anything as they flick back and forth restlessly. Dean jumps and strains against the restraints as Victor peels the thin blanket down, pulls it off and lets it fall. He’s surprised to see how slight Winchester is, arms and legs muscled but thin, the bones of his wrists almost delicate beneath the leather straps. Somehow his adversary always seemed bigger, broader, under denim and leather more brute than boy. But this Dean looks just like that, skin pale and sprinkled with freckles, even his bare feet boyish and looking small in the ankle restraints. The hospital gown’s thin cotton clings to his chest and the dip of his stomach, outlines his crotch in a way that’s disturbingly obscene, and exposes the fine blonde hair on his thighs. Henrikson hardly recognizes the man he’s been hunting all this time, the dangerous demented killer. This Dean looks like a boy, young and pretty and helpless.
He squeezes Dean’s thigh to break the spell for himself more than anything, gripping with painful force until the boy arches up on the bed and pants through clenched teeth, but no matter how hard he presses, Dean doesn’t make a sound. Victor curses, threatens, demands, so loud the nurses scramble to get there, pile up in the doorway uncertain of whether to intercede or run away. When he finally gives up and goes back to the chair in the corner of the room, there are deep red gouges in Dean’s thigh, and the day nurse glares at him when Dean startles and twitches as she dabs antiseptic cream over the half-moon cuts there.
The third time he comes, Henrikson tries something else.
“You know,” he tells the first-shift nurse, who’s opening the curtains and chattering to Dean about what a nice day it is and what a shame it is he can’t see it as she fluffs his pillows and changes his tubing and tries to feed him some pudding like he’s a recalcitrant child, “Winchester there is a filthy vicious murderer, not a little boy in need of mothering.”
Diane stops what she’s doing to stare. “How about you let me do my job and you do yours, whatever that might be.”
Henrikson waves her attempt at criticism away. She’s young and cute and a lot nicer to look at than Winchester’s sorry boring ass, which is all Victor’s had to look at so far today. “Just letting you know,” he tells her, then goes on conversationally, coming over to stand near the bed. “He’s dangerous, and so is his brother. We have his brother too, luckily.”
No reaction from Dean, but Diane says, “Who?”
“His brother, Sam Winchester. Also a wanted man, a criminal, undoubtedly also a murderer. And of course he knows all about what Dean here has done, so he’s valuable to us.” Victor waits for Dean’s expression to change.
“Valuable for what?” Diane asks.
“For what he can tell us. Of course, he won’t do that willingly.” He emphasizes the last word, says it more loudly like it carries extra meaning.
“So?” Diane persists, giving up on the pudding.
“So we’re in the process of trying to convince him,” Henrikson says pointedly, raising his voice and watching Dean’s face.
“How?” asks Diane, playing along so well that Victor considers hiring her for undercover work.
“You know, this and that – we have ways of making people very uncomfortable until they tell us what we need to know.”
“Eww,” Diane grimaces, and she’s clearly done playing along. “I don’t really wanna know.”
When she’s gone, Henrikson leans in even closer, stares right into Dean’s blank green eyes. “You know what I mean though, don’t you, Winchester? Ways of making your little brother talk. He bleeds damn easy, Sam does. Surprising for such a big guy. But there are other ways, right? All that talk about outlawing quote unquote torture, funny but it seems like they were right about how easily waterboarding can go wrong.”
Dean’s impassive, unmoving, but Victor presses on, has to be sure. “We almost lost him that one time, but don’t worry Dean, your brother’s still with us. Still gonna talk sooner or later or die trying.”
Henrikson sits back down with a sigh. He doesn’t know the Winchesters all that well, not really, but he knows one thing better than he knows the kickback of his favorite pistol – Dean and Sam might not care much about the rest of the world, but they care about each other. Victor knows with every instinct in him that there’s no way Dean could stop himself from reacting to those images, the thought of Sam hurt and vulnerable.
“You really do those kinds of things?” Diane says from the doorway where she’s apparently been all this time, her voice filled with horror.
Victor rubs at his forehead, suddenly, achingly exhausted. “No, of course not,” he snaps, looking back at Dean again, his eyes closed, long lashes dark where they rest against his cheeks. He looks angelic, peaceful. “We don’t even have his brother,” he says with another sigh.
The fourth time he comes, the chart says Dean’s condition is permanent, that he won’t regain his sight or hearing, that he probably won’t speak again.
“Who charted the change?” Henrikson demands, trying to decipher the rest of the explanation. The pretty blonde nurse who insists Dean’s hair needs to be washed every day answers, patiently pointing out the neurologist’s notes, the specialists’ consults, the attending’s sign-off. Apparently they all agree. She giggles when she gets to the second to last one, and Henrikson raises an eyebrow. “Let me in on the joke,” he demands without a hint of humor.
“Oh, no joke,” she answers, still smiling. “Just that the attending that day was that new guy who covers for Dr. Morgan sometimes recently, the really tall one with the long hair.” She blushes prettily. “He’s kinda hot. You know, for a doctor. And clumsy in a cute kinda way, always bumping into people.” She giggles again as she walks away and Victor rolls his eyes tiredly.
Henrikson’s fifth visit is his last. He takes the security detail with him when he goes, giving up on Dean Winchester just like his doctors.
(Jennifer)
She usually works the 3 to 11 shift, the one that starts before the rest of the world is awake. Too late to be early but too early to be anything other than night, and that gives Jennifer two hours of near-quiet before the hospital comes creaking to life with the rustle of changing bedsheets and the clatter of phlebotomy trays, the half-yawned good mornings and the bittersweet aroma of Starbucks coffee. John Doe – now known as Dean Winchester – has been her patient since the first day he arrived, second degree burns and jagged lacerations decorating his naked body like a Pollack canvas. They got most of the bits of cement and gravel and broken glass out of him in the ER, but for the first week stray shards work their way up when she washes his tattered skin, pushing the healing edges apart to raw and bleeding once more. She calibrates the drugs carefully, but still sometimes he comes out of it when she pulls the foreign bodies free, eyes half open and muscles twitching. Once he rouses enough to get his hand around her wrist, his grip shockingly tight even as he struggles for consciousness. It leaves a dull purple bruise, and after that they keep the restraints fastened even when he’s sleeping.
Before she knows that he’s a serial killer and a wanted man, Jennifer wonders what kind of woman is lucky enough to touch John Doe when he’s not half-dead and torn apart. Because John – Dean – is beautiful. She’s always been a sucker for pretty boys, chooses her television shows sometimes just to look, though she always tells Ben he should watch with her because it’s so well written. John Doe is prettier than all of them, she thinks as she watches him sleep. If she wasn’t the one to wash his face every morning, Jennifer would swear there was mascara on those lashes, thick and dark where they curl against his freckled cheeks. Swear he’d glossed that mouth too, maybe plumped those lips the way the moviestars do, injection here and there so they always look just-kissed. She finds it hard to believe, but nothing comes off on the washcloth. She rubs over his full lower lip a few times, just to make sure.
So some guys have pretty faces – hell, Ben made her breath catch when she first met him, blue eyes twinkling with mischief and his hair long back then, curling over high cheekbones. But then you get them in your bed and, well, no guarantee the rest of him is gonna match up. John Doe comes up to the floor naked under the crisp white hospital sheet, so Jennifer never has to wonder whether or not the body stacks up to the face. Even under the burns and cuts and bruises, there’s no missing the curve of muscle in biceps and thighs, the sleek taper of broad shoulders to slim hips. She follows the subtle indentation of his midline to navel and below, can feel the firm ripple of his abs as his body tries to cringe away from the cool wetness. She’s a professional, can place the catheter so fast and easy he would hardly have felt it even if he was awake, but she’s human too, and she’d be blind not to notice that Dean Winchester’s cock doesn’t come up short in this little competition either. So to speak. She wonders idly what he’d look like hard, admonishes herself just a little for it and covers him carefully when she’s done.
Neither Henrikson nor anyone else ever gets him to speak, and nobody ever asks Jennifer for her input when they’re deciding that perhaps he can’t. She knows, though. When she first finds out who – what – he is, Jennifer can’t reconcile the sickness of it with what he looks like, as naïve as that sounds. As though all psychopaths and criminals are ugly, as though someone who looks like John – Dean – couldn’t possibly be dangerous. She’s a little rougher with him that night as she cleans the wounds, changes the bandages, and he whimpers as the adhesive catches, drags against the stitches beneath. First sound she’s heard him make, and it shocks her back to herself, makes her flush hot with shame that she let her objectivity slide, forgot his humanity. She gentles her touch determinedly, and his eyes come open for the first time, soft and wet and brilliant green. He licks his lips and gasps in a breath, and she stops what she’s doing and just lays her hand on his chest, trying to reassure him.
“Ssss” he hisses, swallows hard, and she presses an ice chip to his parched lips. He tries again, only managing the “S”, and his eyes dart around the room wildly. It’s clear he can’t see, and the monitor speeds up as his heart races, thudding against Jennifer’s hand as she pats him softly.
“It’s okay,” she tells him, though it’s been pretty clear from the start that he can’t hear either. “I’m sorry, Mr. Winchester,” she says, “Sorry if I hurt you. I’ll be more careful from now on.”
There’s no response – she didn’t expect one. But the monitor’s beeps slow, and the lashes that are too long and lush to be real sweep back down and obscure the brilliant green, and Jennifer’s gentle after that. She doesn’t know what Dean Winchester has done, whether the horrible stories Victor Henrikson shares with them are true or whether she should remind him that the justice system is built on innocent until proven guilty. Jennifer does, however, know that Dean can talk. At 3 am when the hospital’s still and quiet, and Dean’s body has given into the need for dream-sleep, he talks in hushed whispers and soft moans, and Jennifer gets the answer to her question about who gets this kind of lucky.
“Sam,” he says, and she can hear the love and longing beneath the pain. “Sammy, please, please.”
Chapter Three
Master Post
May – When It Happens
(Dean)
Sam’s been back for two years and has died once already, and Dean’s soul has been on lay-away for five months when it happens, the night that changes things forever. Things Dean thought could never be changed.
Two years and Dean’s never really been sure Sam’s back for good, doesn’t believe the words – just words, and he’s heard them before. All his life he’s heard them and they’ve never meant what they were supposed to.
Mom leaning over to kiss him goodnight after putting Sammy in his crib, her blonde hair tickling his cheeks and the smell of baby powder and mother’s milk lingering after she’d tucked him in and gone. “You be here in the morning?” he’d ask her, remembering the time he woke up to find Mrs. Weston from next door making him oatmeal in the kitchen, patiently explaining to the frightened four year old that his mommy and daddy were at the hospital to have the new baby. “Always,” Mom would tell him before she turned off the night light, “I’ll always be here, Dean.”
Dad had promised too, months later when Mom was already gone and Dean had finally been able to cry, Dad awkward in his own grief and fumbling for words a five year old would understand. All Dean had really wanted to hear was “I’ll never leave you,” but looking back, he realizes that’s the one thing Dad managed to do, again and again. A month with Pastor Jim, three months with Uncle Bobby. And later, the gruff ‘I’ll only be gone a week, Dean -- stay inside and keep the doors locked and take care of your brother.’
Sammy. When they were kids, Dean had let himself believe he had someone now who would never go. Sam’s hand always clinging to his own and Sam’s big brown eyes watching him with adoration. “You and me, Sammy,” he’d say when it was just the two of them on the porch of yet another dingy motel, sharing a Dr. Pepper and tossing rocks from the pebbled parking lot to ping against the metal Vacancy sign. “That’s how it’s gonna be, always, just you and me.” When he remembers it now, Dean wonders when Sam’s words of agreement started to ring just as hollow.
Everyone leaves, and Dean’s surprised Sam has stuck around this long, put up with as much as he has. Every time there’s been a girl, Dean has held his breath and waited, reminded himself that he’s the only one walking around fucked up enough to want his own brother and that Sam deserves normal. It’s only a matter of time, so maybe Dean takes a few more chances than he should, especially now that he only has six or seven months left anyway. Won’t matter in the end, what matters is Sam, what’s always mattered. If that means Dean getting between Sammy and the homemade explosives shattering through the window, the last fuckyou of a pissed off demon as Sam’s Latin sends him back to hell, so be it. He doesn’t regret it as the world goes black, Sam’s anguished shout of his name ringing in his ears the last thing he hears as he goes down.
* * *
(Sam)
He hits the ground hard with the force of the explosion, skidding against the far wall and bringing a warehouse-high shelf of boxes down on top of him, so Sam loses consciousness long enough to miss the sirens. When he comes to, three cops are dragging Dean from what’s left of the south side of the building, and Sam’s heart seizes up painfully in his chest, knocking whatever breath he’d regained right out of him again. Dean is covered with blood, shirt and jeans torn and riddled with shards of broken glass and pulverized concrete. One of his shoes must have been blown off in the explosion, and as they haul him out by the arms his bare foot drags against the glass-riddled floor and leaves a smear of fresh red blood on the cement. Dean’s head lolls backwards as they maneuver his limp body onto a gurney. Sam catches a clear view of his face, the blood trickling from his mouth and nose standing out against the striking white of his skin.
The pain in his ears is debilitating, but it’s nothing compared to the agony that shoots through Sam when he starts to be able to hear again.
“Goner,” one of the cops says. “Stupid pyro bastard.”
Only the fact that his panicked attempt to get to Dean causes him to pass out again keeps Sam from being hauled in too.
When he opens his eyes much later, the warehouse is silent, his head is throbbing, and his brother is gone.
“Ohjesus, Dean, you asshole,” he groans as he extracts himself from the mess of cardboard and shattered steel, reminding himself of his training, of the need to go slow and think clearly. Dean’s hurt bad – not dead, Sam tells himself, because he can’t go there, won’t go there. Not unless and until he has to. They’ve still got seven months before Dean’s time is up, plenty of time for Sam to save him, and there’s no way they’re taking him early. “What the fuck were you thinking, doing that?”
But Sam already knows. Not like it’s the first time Dean’s thrown himself between Sam and danger, or sacrificed himself to save his brother. The guilt of that knowledge settles sharp and bitter in Sam’s stomach, more painful than any of his injuries.
He forces himself to clean the cuts on his chest and arms and stitch the worst of them, wash off the blood and dirt and get into the bed, telling himself that he needs to sleep if he’s going to find his brother, but Sam’s shaking as he crawls under the starched motel sheets. Two years since he’s slept alone without Dean in the room, without his brother’s grumbled complaints about the crappy air conditioner or the smoke-stained curtains or where he had to park his baby. Two years since he’s had only the sound of his own breathing, and he misses the rustle of Dean tossing and turning to get comfortable, the soft satisfied sounds he makes when he starts to go under. Even the way he snores into the pillow, quiet and muffled and just enough noise to let Sam know he’s there so Sam can go under too.
“Don’t you fucking leave me,” Sam says to the darkness. He wants it to be a threat, but his voice breaks in the middle and it comes out more a plea, and Sam feels his still-open eyes burn wet at the thought. Stupid to admit it now, to no one, what Sam’s wanted to say for the last five months but doesn’t dare.
Dean will come back if he can, so Sam stays put at the same motel for the next 24 hours, obsessively checking his cell every few minutes just in case he missed a call and forcing himself to lie low in case the cops are looking for him. By midnight the image of Dean’s bare foot dragging limp and bloody through the broken glass won’t get out of Sam’s head long enough for him to even breathe, and he can’t wait any longer, has to do something, has to look for his brother.
He calls all five area hospitals and asks for their usual aliases, and gets the same answer. Nobody by that name. The implications hit Sam so hard he can hardly hold the phone, fingers shaking too much to press the keys as he forces himself to dial the next number, the one he doesn’t want to call. The question comes out so softly the attendant at the county morgue has to ask him to repeat it, and ohgod, he doesn’t want to hear the answer when it comes, wishes he could just stay ignorant.
“One John Doe brought in last night, yes. Male, in his twenties. That’s all I can tell you over the phone, sir. I’m sorry. Very sorry.”
It’s the hardest thing Sam’s ever done, walking into that room and staying on his feet while they pull back the sheet for him. He vomits before he even gets out the door, going to his knees on the floor and retching on a mostly empty stomach. The attendant doesn’t even seem surprised, just helps him to his feet and gets him a glass of water as Sam stammers over and over again, “It’s not him, it’s not him.”
He tries to think straight after that, dizzy with the mix of euphoria and confusion and fear. Dean’s probably not dead, but he’s not okay either, or he would have made contact with Sam or used a familiar alias so Sam could find him. The motel room is empty, his cell is silent, and Sam is trying to fight off despair.
“Fuck Dean, where are you?”
(Dean)
At first, Dean thinks he’s gone to hell early when consciousness slowly seeps back into his brain, sluggish like he’s underwater and can’t quite fight his way to the surface. His lungs are burning, and he can’t move, like he’s drugged, or buried. Ohfuck, buried? Alive and buried? He jerks his limbs, nothing above him, claws at the air as he gasps, fights to swallow. It feels like there’s something choking him and instinct kicks in, trying to dislodge it, scream around it, and then suddenly there’s a whoosh of air, cold and ominous against his bare skin, and something’s pushing him down, and Dean panics. Fights, like he’s been taught to, desperately, with all he’s got. He manages to get them off him – hands, he can tell they’re hands, can feel fingers dig painfully into his biceps, his hips, trying to force him backwards. He struggles to get to his feet, throwing punches as he tries to open his eyes, but it’s dark, so dark – and then it hits him, with such force that he goes limp in the grasp of disembodied hands pushing him down, down. He blinks, disbelieving, eyes open so wide the whites are gleaming, but there’s nothing, nothing but black. And it’s completely and utterly silent.
Dean’s not sure, but he thinks he’s screaming ‘Sam’ when they finally push him down and the sting of the needle slides into his arm.
When he wakes again it’s like the first time, except now he knows he’s not imagining it. He can’t see, no matter how many times he blinks into the dark. He can’t hear, no matter how hard he strains to pick up the smallest of sounds. Not his own breathing even, or the frantic whimpers he can’t seem to stop. There’s nothing there to see, and the silence is so complete it pounds against his ears. Cold prickle of panic runs down his body in a shiver, and his wrists jerk against something smooth and tightly fastened. Restrained. Ohgod. He tests his legs, pulls against whatever’s tethering his ankles. No use. He’s deaf and blind and bound and he could be anywhere. Hell or the local jail or County General.
For the first time in his 28 years of life, Dean Winchester is utterly, horribly helpless.
He fights for a long time, muscles straining frantically against the bindings, not even knowing what he’d do, where he’d go, if he managed to free himself. It’s not until there’s a hand on his arm, brief touch at his wrist, that he finally gives up, muscles quivering with exhaustion. Something warm and tingly floods his veins and he’s glad for it, sinks into sleep despite himself.
For the first two weeks, Dean wants to die. He figures out pretty quickly that he’s not in hell – no way they’d have a morphine drip. But he also knows he’s useless now, even if Sam’s alive (and fuck, he hopes Sam’s alive, that Sam’s safe and unharmed and has maybe gone back to that normal life he’s been craving). He can’t hunt, he can’t save anyone, not even himself. He’d be a liability to Sam in this condition. And what else is there? He can’t see blue skies, or the curve of a girl’s ass in tight jeans, or the way Sam’s mouth dimples up at the edges when he smiles. Can’t hear Metallica or the purr of the Impala’s engine. Can’t protect Sammy. Might as well just check out now. Maybe this is hell after all.
Unfortunately for Dean (and fortunately for Sam), there’s no way to attempt suicide when you’re cathetered and intravenoused and strapped to a bed, and eventually he has to find something else to think about.
He thinks about Sam. Wonders where he is, what he’s doing. If he’s grieving Dean’s death. Dean hopes not, hopes that Sam gets on with it, goes out there and lives for the both of them. Dean could be happy, tied to a mattress with a needle in his arm, if he knew Sam was out there living.
Dean’s caught up in a fantasy of Sam doing some hot brunette who looks a little like Jessica Alba (and so what if he’s there watching, it’s his fucking fantasy) when he catches a familiar scent. Funny, he didn’t even know he knew what Henrikson smelled like, but he can tell, without hearing a sound, even in the blackness. Henrikson, here. His fingers fist, muscles tense. Futile, instinctual. He jumps at the unexpected touch of a large hand to his thigh, squeezing roughly, painfully. It’s not the business-like touch of the nurses as they shift and turn and prod him, this is for another purpose. Trying to unnerve him, rattle him, force him. Dean can tell that Henrikson must be speaking, can feel the subtle shifts in his stance and the grip of his fingers that tells Dean he’s talking, probably shouting. Dean fights the urge to make a sound no matter how painful the other man’s grasp gets, until finally the hand on his thigh lets go. Henrikson’s scent, sweat and polyester and old smoke, lingers for a long time, and Dean doesn’t relax until the nurses come to wash him and move the needle to a new plumper vein.
He counts time – imperfectly but it’s the best he can do – by the feel of sunlight against his face. There must be a window in the room, and the shades must be open at least some of the time, because he can feel it when it’s sunny, the slow crawl of warmth up his right side, inching up his bare arm where it’s anchored to the bed, pinking his neck and warming his cheek. One day he counts it out, disciplined and determined, the hours it takes for the sun to make the journey up his body, and after that he’s grateful for the sunny days, for something to feel and anticipate and understand. Some days the sun never comes, and Dean doesn’t know if it’s raining or if nobody bothered to open the shades for a blind man.
Henrikson comes five times, Dean counts that too. Each time he tries to get a reaction, like maybe he thinks Dean’s just faking it and if he just squeezes hard enough, Dean will see him, hear him, curse him. Dean keeps his mouth shut, pretends he doesn’t know. Tries not to think about the look on Henrikson’s face, wonders if there’s pity there.
The hospital tries to let him up two weeks in, but as soon as Dean feels the restraints loosen he’s up and trying to run – somewhere, anywhere – old instincts screaming for him to get to Sam, get to Sam, and he doesn’t even feel the impact of wood and steel as he crashes into something hard, then harder. Bare feet slip on wet linoleum, and he can feel harsh fingers clawing at him, gripping, stopping him. His legs don’t work, shaking like jello after not being used in so long, and he can’t keep himself up, knees scraping rough and desperate as he crawls, stopping only when the familiar sting of the needle makes his muscles give up. He thinks it’s the first time he cries when the straps pull tight around his wrists and ankles again, but he’s not sure.
Dean gives up counting for a little while after that, so he doesn’t know how many more days have passed before he catches the smell of Henrikson again. Briefly, no touches this time, and Dean thinks about begging for a bullet to the brain. Wonders if he and the cop could finally agree about something.
(Victor)
They call him on the thirteenth day, claiming that it took that long to stabilize their John Doe enough to bother with fingerprints, shocked to see their silent sightless patient come up on the FBI registry as ‘most wanted.’ Henrikson brings ten men with him, clears the entire wing and comes through the doors with pistols unholstered and ready, while six nurses and three doctors watch from behind the nursing station’s high counters incredulous and maybe snickering a little. Because really? All this firepower for one slender young man mostly naked and strapped to a hospital bed who can’t see or hear or speak? Seems a little extreme.
Henrikson insists that this is the Dean Winchester, the one who’s murdered and maimed and stolen and looted graves and defiled dead bodies and who knows what the fuck else, but even he sends five of the men home and holsters his gun.
Victor spends twenty-four hours straight in the hospital room that first day, certain that Dean will slip up, that he’s faking the blindness and deafness even though the charts tell him otherwise and the doctors and nurses can detail all the tests they’ve done so far that corroborate the diagnosis. No, they don’t know why. No, they don’t know if it’s permanent. But right now, Dean Winchester can’t see or hear and nobody knows if he could speak even if he wanted to.
After an hour of just watching, Victor tries his own tests. When he gets close, he can see Dean tense up, his eyes snapping open and darting around the room, breathing rougher. An animal sniffing the air for danger. Henrikson leans in, and it’s unnerving, staring into eyes clear bright brilliant green that seem to look right through him, don’t catch on anything as they flick back and forth restlessly. Dean jumps and strains against the restraints as Victor peels the thin blanket down, pulls it off and lets it fall. He’s surprised to see how slight Winchester is, arms and legs muscled but thin, the bones of his wrists almost delicate beneath the leather straps. Somehow his adversary always seemed bigger, broader, under denim and leather more brute than boy. But this Dean looks just like that, skin pale and sprinkled with freckles, even his bare feet boyish and looking small in the ankle restraints. The hospital gown’s thin cotton clings to his chest and the dip of his stomach, outlines his crotch in a way that’s disturbingly obscene, and exposes the fine blonde hair on his thighs. Henrikson hardly recognizes the man he’s been hunting all this time, the dangerous demented killer. This Dean looks like a boy, young and pretty and helpless.
He squeezes Dean’s thigh to break the spell for himself more than anything, gripping with painful force until the boy arches up on the bed and pants through clenched teeth, but no matter how hard he presses, Dean doesn’t make a sound. Victor curses, threatens, demands, so loud the nurses scramble to get there, pile up in the doorway uncertain of whether to intercede or run away. When he finally gives up and goes back to the chair in the corner of the room, there are deep red gouges in Dean’s thigh, and the day nurse glares at him when Dean startles and twitches as she dabs antiseptic cream over the half-moon cuts there.
The third time he comes, Henrikson tries something else.
“You know,” he tells the first-shift nurse, who’s opening the curtains and chattering to Dean about what a nice day it is and what a shame it is he can’t see it as she fluffs his pillows and changes his tubing and tries to feed him some pudding like he’s a recalcitrant child, “Winchester there is a filthy vicious murderer, not a little boy in need of mothering.”
Diane stops what she’s doing to stare. “How about you let me do my job and you do yours, whatever that might be.”
Henrikson waves her attempt at criticism away. She’s young and cute and a lot nicer to look at than Winchester’s sorry boring ass, which is all Victor’s had to look at so far today. “Just letting you know,” he tells her, then goes on conversationally, coming over to stand near the bed. “He’s dangerous, and so is his brother. We have his brother too, luckily.”
No reaction from Dean, but Diane says, “Who?”
“His brother, Sam Winchester. Also a wanted man, a criminal, undoubtedly also a murderer. And of course he knows all about what Dean here has done, so he’s valuable to us.” Victor waits for Dean’s expression to change.
“Valuable for what?” Diane asks.
“For what he can tell us. Of course, he won’t do that willingly.” He emphasizes the last word, says it more loudly like it carries extra meaning.
“So?” Diane persists, giving up on the pudding.
“So we’re in the process of trying to convince him,” Henrikson says pointedly, raising his voice and watching Dean’s face.
“How?” asks Diane, playing along so well that Victor considers hiring her for undercover work.
“You know, this and that – we have ways of making people very uncomfortable until they tell us what we need to know.”
“Eww,” Diane grimaces, and she’s clearly done playing along. “I don’t really wanna know.”
When she’s gone, Henrikson leans in even closer, stares right into Dean’s blank green eyes. “You know what I mean though, don’t you, Winchester? Ways of making your little brother talk. He bleeds damn easy, Sam does. Surprising for such a big guy. But there are other ways, right? All that talk about outlawing quote unquote torture, funny but it seems like they were right about how easily waterboarding can go wrong.”
Dean’s impassive, unmoving, but Victor presses on, has to be sure. “We almost lost him that one time, but don’t worry Dean, your brother’s still with us. Still gonna talk sooner or later or die trying.”
Henrikson sits back down with a sigh. He doesn’t know the Winchesters all that well, not really, but he knows one thing better than he knows the kickback of his favorite pistol – Dean and Sam might not care much about the rest of the world, but they care about each other. Victor knows with every instinct in him that there’s no way Dean could stop himself from reacting to those images, the thought of Sam hurt and vulnerable.
“You really do those kinds of things?” Diane says from the doorway where she’s apparently been all this time, her voice filled with horror.
Victor rubs at his forehead, suddenly, achingly exhausted. “No, of course not,” he snaps, looking back at Dean again, his eyes closed, long lashes dark where they rest against his cheeks. He looks angelic, peaceful. “We don’t even have his brother,” he says with another sigh.
The fourth time he comes, the chart says Dean’s condition is permanent, that he won’t regain his sight or hearing, that he probably won’t speak again.
“Who charted the change?” Henrikson demands, trying to decipher the rest of the explanation. The pretty blonde nurse who insists Dean’s hair needs to be washed every day answers, patiently pointing out the neurologist’s notes, the specialists’ consults, the attending’s sign-off. Apparently they all agree. She giggles when she gets to the second to last one, and Henrikson raises an eyebrow. “Let me in on the joke,” he demands without a hint of humor.
“Oh, no joke,” she answers, still smiling. “Just that the attending that day was that new guy who covers for Dr. Morgan sometimes recently, the really tall one with the long hair.” She blushes prettily. “He’s kinda hot. You know, for a doctor. And clumsy in a cute kinda way, always bumping into people.” She giggles again as she walks away and Victor rolls his eyes tiredly.
Henrikson’s fifth visit is his last. He takes the security detail with him when he goes, giving up on Dean Winchester just like his doctors.
(Jennifer)
She usually works the 3 to 11 shift, the one that starts before the rest of the world is awake. Too late to be early but too early to be anything other than night, and that gives Jennifer two hours of near-quiet before the hospital comes creaking to life with the rustle of changing bedsheets and the clatter of phlebotomy trays, the half-yawned good mornings and the bittersweet aroma of Starbucks coffee. John Doe – now known as Dean Winchester – has been her patient since the first day he arrived, second degree burns and jagged lacerations decorating his naked body like a Pollack canvas. They got most of the bits of cement and gravel and broken glass out of him in the ER, but for the first week stray shards work their way up when she washes his tattered skin, pushing the healing edges apart to raw and bleeding once more. She calibrates the drugs carefully, but still sometimes he comes out of it when she pulls the foreign bodies free, eyes half open and muscles twitching. Once he rouses enough to get his hand around her wrist, his grip shockingly tight even as he struggles for consciousness. It leaves a dull purple bruise, and after that they keep the restraints fastened even when he’s sleeping.
Before she knows that he’s a serial killer and a wanted man, Jennifer wonders what kind of woman is lucky enough to touch John Doe when he’s not half-dead and torn apart. Because John – Dean – is beautiful. She’s always been a sucker for pretty boys, chooses her television shows sometimes just to look, though she always tells Ben he should watch with her because it’s so well written. John Doe is prettier than all of them, she thinks as she watches him sleep. If she wasn’t the one to wash his face every morning, Jennifer would swear there was mascara on those lashes, thick and dark where they curl against his freckled cheeks. Swear he’d glossed that mouth too, maybe plumped those lips the way the moviestars do, injection here and there so they always look just-kissed. She finds it hard to believe, but nothing comes off on the washcloth. She rubs over his full lower lip a few times, just to make sure.
So some guys have pretty faces – hell, Ben made her breath catch when she first met him, blue eyes twinkling with mischief and his hair long back then, curling over high cheekbones. But then you get them in your bed and, well, no guarantee the rest of him is gonna match up. John Doe comes up to the floor naked under the crisp white hospital sheet, so Jennifer never has to wonder whether or not the body stacks up to the face. Even under the burns and cuts and bruises, there’s no missing the curve of muscle in biceps and thighs, the sleek taper of broad shoulders to slim hips. She follows the subtle indentation of his midline to navel and below, can feel the firm ripple of his abs as his body tries to cringe away from the cool wetness. She’s a professional, can place the catheter so fast and easy he would hardly have felt it even if he was awake, but she’s human too, and she’d be blind not to notice that Dean Winchester’s cock doesn’t come up short in this little competition either. So to speak. She wonders idly what he’d look like hard, admonishes herself just a little for it and covers him carefully when she’s done.
Neither Henrikson nor anyone else ever gets him to speak, and nobody ever asks Jennifer for her input when they’re deciding that perhaps he can’t. She knows, though. When she first finds out who – what – he is, Jennifer can’t reconcile the sickness of it with what he looks like, as naïve as that sounds. As though all psychopaths and criminals are ugly, as though someone who looks like John – Dean – couldn’t possibly be dangerous. She’s a little rougher with him that night as she cleans the wounds, changes the bandages, and he whimpers as the adhesive catches, drags against the stitches beneath. First sound she’s heard him make, and it shocks her back to herself, makes her flush hot with shame that she let her objectivity slide, forgot his humanity. She gentles her touch determinedly, and his eyes come open for the first time, soft and wet and brilliant green. He licks his lips and gasps in a breath, and she stops what she’s doing and just lays her hand on his chest, trying to reassure him.
“Ssss” he hisses, swallows hard, and she presses an ice chip to his parched lips. He tries again, only managing the “S”, and his eyes dart around the room wildly. It’s clear he can’t see, and the monitor speeds up as his heart races, thudding against Jennifer’s hand as she pats him softly.
“It’s okay,” she tells him, though it’s been pretty clear from the start that he can’t hear either. “I’m sorry, Mr. Winchester,” she says, “Sorry if I hurt you. I’ll be more careful from now on.”
There’s no response – she didn’t expect one. But the monitor’s beeps slow, and the lashes that are too long and lush to be real sweep back down and obscure the brilliant green, and Jennifer’s gentle after that. She doesn’t know what Dean Winchester has done, whether the horrible stories Victor Henrikson shares with them are true or whether she should remind him that the justice system is built on innocent until proven guilty. Jennifer does, however, know that Dean can talk. At 3 am when the hospital’s still and quiet, and Dean’s body has given into the need for dream-sleep, he talks in hushed whispers and soft moans, and Jennifer gets the answer to her question about who gets this kind of lucky.
“Sam,” he says, and she can hear the love and longing beneath the pain. “Sammy, please, please.”
Chapter Three
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-08-02 05:51 pm (UTC)Henrickson is great, so determined to get his man but eventually having to give it up. His view of Dean as smaller and almost delicate without the bravado and machismo that is so much a part of the Dean we know. He was brilliant when he told the hospital staff that they had Sam and would torture him. Victor wasn't sure he could do anything to Dean to make him react, but he knew threatening Sam like that would get a reaction.
Jennifer is great; through her we see a unique view of the blind, deaf, helpless Dean.
Dean, helpless -- almost impossible to imagine. But here he is. And as much as his personality depends on *doing things* and being the protector, somehow you manage to keep him in character, even helpless and strapped down like this. Kudos.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 08:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-01 09:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-01 07:20 pm (UTC)Happy New Year!
Lynsey
no subject
Date: 2009-03-18 07:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-19 02:54 am (UTC)Thanks again,
Lynsey
no subject
Date: 2009-03-19 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-01 03:14 am (UTC)*kisses back*
Lynsey
no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 11:03 pm (UTC)Henrikson was smart and terrifying. Pretty solid test there, talking about tortuting Sam to see if Dean could hear him.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-08 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-08 04:57 am (UTC)"“That’s how it’s gonna be, always, just you and me.” When he remembers it now, Dean wonders when Sam’s words of agreement started to ring just as hollow." D: So sad! I loved this. Looking back at his memories that should be happy now ring false to Dean because of what has happened to him in his life.
"It’s the hardest thing Sam’s ever done...He vomits before he even gets out the door...Sam stammers over and over again, “It’s not him, it’s not him.”" I could feel Sam's sick relief here. Poor him, scared, not knowing where Dean is or what's wrong with him. This most have been extremely hard for him to do, especially since he's so sure in his mind that he's going to save Dean and that Dean can't leave him.
"He can’t see, no matter how many times he blinks into the dark. He can’t hear, no matter how hard he strains to pick up the smallest of sounds." Woah. Don't know what I was expecting but it certainly wasn't that. This reminds me of the novel Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, where the main character is in almost the same state as Dean (he however is missing all of his limbs and most of his face... yeah, not a happy story). Poor Dean! I am, however, very optimistic for Dean!
"Dean’s caught up in a fantasy of Sam doing some hot brunette who looks a little like Jessica Alba (and so what if he’s there watching, it’s his fucking fantasy) when he catches a familiar scent." Ahahaha first, I love this and I love Dean and second, love that Dean can smell Henrikson, that he has a distinct scent. And it shows how Dean is going to adapt to his situation, using his remaining senses, and how he's already getting stronger. Dean, you trooper!
"Jennifer gets the answer to her question about who gets this kind of lucky. “Sam,” he says, and she can hear the love and longing beneath the pain. “Sammy, please, please.”" I really enjoyed the outsider POVs, it worked well and it didn't distract from the story or the relationship between the boys, it added to it. And I especially liked the part with Jennifer remembering her humanity and being gentle with Dean.
Loving this story so far!
no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 04:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-23 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-24 03:33 am (UTC)Hugs,
Lynsey
no subject
Date: 2010-09-12 04:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-12 01:09 pm (UTC)*hugs*
Lynsey
no subject
Date: 2011-10-08 04:34 pm (UTC)Goddamnit if this isn't heartwrenching! And he said Sam's name! Yay!
There are so many wonderful explanations, visuals and descriptions of the boys' relationship it's fantastic.
Wonderful story so far. I went to bed after reading chp 1 last night and the first thing I did when I arouse this morning was grabbed my coffee, turned on some string symphony music to accompany the angst and pain I knew would ensue when when I grabbed my putter and started reading again.
I'm thoroughly enjoying this and I'm not a huge injured Winchester fan, but this is just too good♥
no subject
Date: 2011-10-11 05:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-16 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-16 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-03-25 11:41 am (UTC)You nailed all characters excellent, my dear.
I wish I could find more words but ... there are non. This Story is breathing me in...
So I will re-read this part again, I have to think about it ... and then I'll go straight to the next part.
Thanks so much, this was one of the best lunch breaks I ever had!
no subject
Date: 2017-03-26 02:48 am (UTC)