[For Clinic Visitors] Dated 15 July 2011

[broken_brushes]

Feeling physically bad was not something I was used to. As a teenager, I'd had my wisdom teeth out, and once when I was about twelve, I'd gotten a really nasty case of the flu. There had been a few times when I'd had a cough or the sniffles, but for the most part I was lucky enough to have lived both of my lives healthy. I wasn't used to my body

Comments

[weary_head]

"Stop it." It's meant to be stern, but it just comes out as tired as the rest of him, even if Dean makes it to her bedside as quickly as he might have if she'd been coding.

"You should take advantage of the resident nurse," he adds, pulling the brush from her fingers before she can argue. "I hear he's a soft touch, bet he'd do this for you if you asked nice."

[broken_brushes]

I didn't struggle. I just stared mutely up at him, bottom lip pulled in against my teeth. That Dean was angry with me I could handle well enough; everything fueling it, not so much.

For a long time we'd had an agreement, he and I. And I'd nearly broken it in the worst way possible.

[weary_head]

With his concentration on separating one clumped, wet lock from the rest, Dean misses the look on her face for a long moment, his focus on detangling the loose knots at the ends of her hair.

"What is it?" he asks when he looks back, a line between his eyebrows that's all concern before it shifts to an anger that's not directed towards her at all. "You getting enough meds? How's your pain level?"

[broken_brushes]

"I'm sorry," I replied with a trembling chin, and then wiped hastily at my cheek when a tear overspilled. "I'm so sorry, Dean."

I felt compelled to say more, but had no words. There were no excuses, no pretty platitudes to give. Just plain, old sorrow and regret.

[curiously_cora]

"Stop it," Coraline said scowling at Shari. Wandering over to her bed, Coraline held out her hand for the brush and didn't stop scowling the entire time. Coraline wasn't upset at Shari for going off to the place she desperately wanted to explore, she was upset at her for getting to explore it and getting hurt. If Coraline could ground her, she so would. "You'll hurt yourself even more and then I'll be really, really unhappy. Let me do it."

[broken_brushes]

"I'm not going to hurt myself," I protested, but I handed the brush over anyway. That Coraline cared was sweet and I wasn't really in a position to refuse the offer.

"Thank you," I remembered to tell her as I shifted to give her room beside me on the bed.

[curiously_cora]

"Really?" Coraline asked curiously, looking at Shari before she took the brush and smiled just a little at her. Coraline bounced onto the bed, turning the brush in her hand before she began to gently and carefully brush Shari's head. "I've decided I'm not going to ground you but you're going to have to look very sorry for at least... two weeks. And you're not allowed to go back down there or I will be very cross."

[broken_brushes]

"I definitely won't be going back down there, and I think I'll be looking sorry for a very long time," I replied as I looked away. This was maybe the hardest part, when I found out that I'd worried or upset people I hadn't immediately considered. I'd known Dean and Sam would be angry, that Ishiah would scold me and Jess would play it off while being secretly concerned. But I hadn't thought about people who depended on me like Coraline, which made me feel all the worse for what I'd done.

[broken_brushes]

He was angry. I could read it all over him, regardless of whatever measures he was using to seem otherwise. We might not have known each other all that long, but I don't think I'd met a person worse at hiding their feelings. Ishiah was like the proverbial open book.

That he was trying to seem otherwise said a lot, though. I looked from where I'd settled the brush in my lap to Ishiah standing in the doorway and faltered as I swallowed back a swell of emotion.

"Probably," I admitted. "I'm kind of bad at asking for it."

[broken_brushes]

By the time the brush hit my hair, I was crying, a hand pressed across my eyes. Since I'd landed myself in the clinic, there were so many people who had been kind to me, had tried to help me without my even needing to offer. I felt so suddenly vulnerable and stupid, and didn't have the energy to keep any of it in.

"Thank you," I said, my voice unsteady. "I know you're mad at me."

[dickgout]

"Shit, Shari," Jason said from the doorway, where he was leaning, shirtless and sweaty as was his natural state. "I heard you were stuck in here. You look beat to hell." Inviting himself in, he walked over to the bed, and held out his hand.

"Here. Gimme that brush. You won't believe how awesome I am at this."

[broken_brushes]

Jason Stackhouse never failed to surprise me. His reputation had preceded him, but hadn't given the entire picture: He wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, that was true, but he'd always been unfailingly kind to me. It seemed like every time I saw him anymore, he wanted to do something nice for me.

"Thank you," I quietly replied as I sniffed and hastily brushed a tear from my cheek.

[dickgout]

"Don't you worry about it." While brushing a pretty girl's hair should have had a tiny spark of sexy in it, Jason never really felt that way. There had been a couple times when Gran's hands had been too stiff, or after he put gum in Sookie's hair.

So really, he was pretty good. Gentle, and firm. "Now, you wanna tell me how you got beat all to hell?" He nudged the nape of her neck, so she'd tilt her head down. "Or, fuck, you don't gotta. I bet they made you tell it twenty fuckin' times already."

[broken_brushes]

"You know something?" I began, and turned so that I could look Jason in the eye, my own still shining with unshed tears. "You're a really incredible guy, Jason Stackhouse." I felt pretty stupid for not having fully understood that before that moment.