THE FAMILY BUSINESS: Saving People, Hunting Things | Chapter One
Genre: Pre-series, Injury Recovery, Humor
Cast: Dean Winchester, Bobby Singer, Ash, Jo Harvelle, Ellen Harvelle, Rufus Turner, others
Rating: Teen and Up | Warnings: None
Word Count: 2,058 (this chapter) | Chapters: 6 | WIP
Story Art: By author unless noted otherwise.
Also on: AO3
2005
It should have been just an ordinary hunt. A creature is a creature. Right? And I’d been on so many hunts. Too many to count, but it had to be dozens. Lots of dozens. Maybe even a couple hundred. Probably closer to a few hundred. Anyway, a lot.
This should have been just a regular monster of the day kind of hunt.
I wasn’t supposed to end up getting hurt. I definitely wasn’t supposed to end up in the hospital. Christ! Shut up! Okay seriously, Winchester, glaring at the annoying machine making the annoying beeping sound just like it did on Doctor Sexy is not going to make it be quiet. And it’s not like Doctor Sexy is gonna walk through the door anytime soon.
Jeeze my throat’s so dry. Swallowing glass would probably be easier.
And I feel, huh! Wait, I gotta check me out. See what I still got… bandages. A lot of ‘em. Bandages. But two legs, good. Arms, good. Eyes, ooh, one, okay, not so good, but, I’m seeing. Dark room, but can see stuff, so, yeah, it’s good. But, jeeze I’m frikkin’ stiff. That’s a good word for it, but not in the happy place.
He moved his hands and realized he was wearing gloves. Oh, hell, that’s not right. He looked down. Bandages. Thick ones. He tried to remember what was wrong with them. But his head was fuzzy.
Dean squinted as he looked around the darkened room. He heard the squeak of rubber-soled shoes and the soft whir of wheeled carts. I wonder how you get to take a pee around here?
He looked around the room again. His eyes locked on the clock opposite his bed. Eleven-thirty. His eyes slid to the window on his right. Lights. Night. Eleven-thirty at night.
He slid his eyes down to his hands. He tried to remember but his head got that heavy fuzzy feeling. Maybeeylssslee…
Dean’s eyes fluttered open for a second. The noise from outside was louder and then gone again. His eyes slightly opened again. “Eyz too’evy…”
Ellen looked over at an exhausted Bobby Singer. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen him this exhausted since taking care of Karen. She didn’t even try to move him when he slumped into the couch and fell asleep minutes later. Letting out a sigh she realized how tired she was herself. It had been a long few days and tough ones too.
She glanced over at the duffle bag they’d taken from Dean’s car. Bobby had it out in the carport behind the house. She brought in the duffel thinking that somewhere in there was the way to get in touch with Dad of the century, John Winchester. No such luck.
“Damn the man.” Her whisper was swallowed by the empty room. Dean’s duffle held the sum total of the kid’s life except for the car, his ‘Baby’. Letting out another long sigh, she pushed tiredly out of the chair and settled herself in Bobby’s downstairs guest room. It was the same room he nursed Karen in when she could be home.
Bobby felt a vibration somewhere on his body through the haze of sleep that didn’t want to lift. The vibration came a second time and Bobby patted around his chest and hips trying to find locate the annoying whatever it was. He nestled further into the corner of the sofa where he’d spent the night.
The third time he felt the vibrating, he sat up still in the comfortable bluntness of sleep, “Confound it!” He patted down the worn boiled-wool jacket. “Dammit!” He fumbled in the deep pockets and brought out the offending silvery black instrument. “Try to get a little sleep here,” he groused as he opened the phone, “Singer!”
“Oh, good! Mr. Singer,” a slightly breathless voice had Bobby sitting up slightly, “this Charlotte Cutty, I’m a nurse at Sanford Medi…”
“What’s wrong with Dean?” Bobby was instantly awake and sitting at the edge of the sofa. “Tell me!”
“Oh, oh, no,” the nurse took a breath, “Mr. Winchester is awake. He’s resting. But he’s fully conscious, now. I saw on the chart that you were to be informed.”
Bobby closed his eyes and let out a sigh of relief, “Okay. Good. I’ll be there in less than an hour.” He thought for a moment, “Did anyone talk to Dean about his injuries, yet?”
“No, sir, not yet.”
“Okay good,” he sucked in a deep breath, “don’t until I get there, yeah?”
“Can do, sir,” Nurse Cutty assured him, “I’ll tell him you’re on your way.”
“Do that. Thanks.” He glanced over at the clock and heaved himself from the sofa with a groan as his back stretched protesting its nightlong cramped position. “Creaky old bastard.” He padded in sock-clad feet to the bathroom and then out to the kitchen. He poured a cup of the cold coffee from last night and stuck it in the microwave.
“Do not drink that swill,” Ellen groused from the doorway followed by a yawn, “I’ll make fresh.”
“Nah,” Bobby shook his head, “Dean’s awake. I wanna get over there. Just need a little jolt.
Ellen straightened up, “Go get dressed, I caught a shower last night and we’ll head out.” She took the cup from his hand with a wrinkled nose, “This,” she lifted the mug, “is gut rot. We’ll stop on the way.” She gently pushed him, “Go!”
Bobby hated the smell of hospitals. They were too clean. Too bright. Too stiff. And he really hated the disinfectant non-smell of too sanitized life. Even the sounds grated on his nerves. The squeak of the nurses shoes, the swish of curtains running on too smooth ball-bearings. That hum of fluorescent lights. It sent shivers down his spine the way a bloodsucking monster couldn’t.
He kept his eyes focused on the numbers as the elevator rose to the fifth floor. Then he kept his eyes peeled for the directions to room 527. He liked the number of that. Good numbers. Good numbers for Dean. He felt Ellen’s presence at his side and was just grateful not to have to be here on his own.
“He’s going to be all right, you know,” Ellen whispered as they turned the corner following the arrow to the room number. “He’s a tough kid.”
“He shouldn’t have to be this tough.” Bobby said it quietly. But Ellen knew how he felt about the boy. Hell, he’s a man. Twenty-six.
“And he ain’t no kid,” Bobby protested gruffly, “hasn’t been since he was a tyke of four.”
Ellen let out a sigh, “I know.” She stopped with Bobby beside her, “Here we are.” She took the chair outside the room, “You go in. I’ll come in later, gonna call Jo and Ash.”
Bobby tried to keep from cringing as he entered Dean’s room. Adjusting his cap he rolled his shoulders and with a nod to himself pushed the slightly ajar door. He stopped for a moment and surveyed Dean, he ran his eyes from the foot of the bed to the military short hair that was half swathed in the pristine bandages.
Dean’s eyes were open and fixed on the ceiling. At least the one without the patch was fixed on it. I’ll bet my last buck the kid is going over what the hell he did to land him flat on his back.
Clearing his throat as a warning, Bobby came over to the bed, “Hey, kid.”
“Hey, Bobby.” Dean’s deep baritone was raspier from tubes and disuse. He turned his head slightly toward him. Bobby could see all the recriminations one person could possibly heap on themselves.
“You seen the doc, yet?”
Dean frowned slightly, “He was just here. Said he wanted to wait for you.” His eye blinked slowly, “Am I gonna be okay? Does Dad know?”
Bobby grit his teeth to keep the string of curses that exploded out of him last night from making a repeat appearance. He shrugged slightly, “I tried. But, his phone says to call you.”
Dean nodded slowly. He looked down as he bandaged hands, “Sam. You didn’t tell Sam, right?”
Bobby shook his head, “’Course not.”
Dean swallowed thickly and nodded as much as he could. “Good. That’s good.” He let out a small breath. Bobby watched the kid’s Adam’s apple working overtime. He grabbed the cup with the straw attached and held it to Dean’s mouth. “Take a sip.”
Dean gave him a small smile and took a deep sip of the cool water, “Thanks,” he dropped his hands back to his lap. “Bobby?”
“Yeah?”
“I think this is bad, huh?” He held up his hands. “Burns, right?”
Bobby nodded, “Not sure how you got ‘em though.” He adjusted his cap and hitched his chair closer, “What the hell were you hunting?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I toldjya.”
“Try me,” Bobby leaned toward him, “you had to have surgery, Dean. You’re pretty tore up and you’ve got more than 200 stitches. Now, what the hell were you after?”
Dean frowned as he thought back. He let out a deep sigh and winced at the pain that lanced through his chest.
“Use the pain thing,” Bobby pointed to the machine on Dean’s right. “Can you press it?” He stood and put it in Dean’s heavily wrapped right hand, but the thumb was separate.
Dean pressed the small plunger. “I got the good stuff, huh?”
“You were half dead when they brought you in!” Bobby plopped down in the chair, “I’m just glad you’re alive, ya idjit!”
Dean gave the man he thought of as a surrogate father a small smile, “I was in Minnesota. Is that where I am now?”
Bobby shook his head, “We had you transferred to Sioux Falls. You’re in Sanford.” He turned as the door swung open expecting to see Ellen, but instead saw the doctor that had taken Dean in three days earlier.
“Well, hey! I see our patient is up!” The slightly rotund doctor had a nearly jolly mannerism. Jolly usually made Bobby cranky. Now, he found it oddly comforting. “So, Mr. Winchester,” he grinned at Dean, “I’m Dr. Herron, Neil. And now, I wasn’t the one to patch you up totally, some of that was done in Minnesota. You’ve had surgery. We had to use several pins in your left leg to repair the damage. Your right leg was torn up pretty badly, took a lot of sutures to get you back together.” He looked at Dean skeptically, “not sure what would do such damage. Care to enlighten me?”
Dean let out a small incredulous whine at the back of his throat, “If I told ya, doc, you’d put me in the psyche ward.”
Dr. Herron’s brows shot up to his receding hairline, “Try me.”
Dean shook his head. He looked over at Bobby and then back at the doc, “Will I walk?”
The doc frowned slightly and nodded, “With therapy, you should be fine. You’ll have a slight limp for a bit, but nothing that shouldn’t resolve with work. You’re young and in excellent physical condition. That’s going to help you.”
“Awesome.” Dean nodded, “Work I can do.” His lips went taut again, “My eye?”
“You had debris in it. Scratched the cornea, we just want you to rest it.” He explained, “Your eye will be fine. You had a pretty bad laceration,” he pointed at Dean’s head, “over your temporal lobe. Quite a big,” he smirked, “goose egg of a hematoma there too. No fractures, no bleeding in the brain.” He came to the side of the bed, “Your hands will take some time to heal. They were torn up and burned. Odd burns.”
“Odd? How?” Bobby asked leaning toward the doc, “Burns are burns.”
Herron shook his head, “Not really. These look like chemical burns, but no trace of anything chemical and yet the palm side is burned like fire.”
After the doc finished checking Dean over and once they were alone, Bobby leaned over Dean, “What the hell were you hunting?”
Dean pressed himself back deeper into the pillows. “Bobby…” Bobby glared at him through narrowed eyes, “Dean…”
The young hunter let out a small sigh of capitulation, “A dragon.”
“Oh, fuckit!” Bobby shook his head and looked back at Dean. “Idjit!”
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End, Part One
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Thank you for reading... I would adore hearing what you thought! Comments are a writer's currency!
Photo courtesy of Sanford Medical Center
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Cast: Dean Winchester, Bobby Singer, Ash, Jo Harvelle, Ellen Harvelle, Rufus Turner, others
Rating: Teen and Up | Warnings: None
Word Count: 2,058 (this chapter) | Chapters: 6 | WIP
Story Art: By author unless noted otherwise.
Also on: AO3
2005
It should have been just an ordinary hunt. A creature is a creature. Right? And I’d been on so many hunts. Too many to count, but it had to be dozens. Lots of dozens. Maybe even a couple hundred. Probably closer to a few hundred. Anyway, a lot.
This should have been just a regular monster of the day kind of hunt.
I wasn’t supposed to end up getting hurt. I definitely wasn’t supposed to end up in the hospital. Christ! Shut up! Okay seriously, Winchester, glaring at the annoying machine making the annoying beeping sound just like it did on Doctor Sexy is not going to make it be quiet. And it’s not like Doctor Sexy is gonna walk through the door anytime soon.
Jeeze my throat’s so dry. Swallowing glass would probably be easier.
And I feel, huh! Wait, I gotta check me out. See what I still got… bandages. A lot of ‘em. Bandages. But two legs, good. Arms, good. Eyes, ooh, one, okay, not so good, but, I’m seeing. Dark room, but can see stuff, so, yeah, it’s good. But, jeeze I’m frikkin’ stiff. That’s a good word for it, but not in the happy place.
He moved his hands and realized he was wearing gloves. Oh, hell, that’s not right. He looked down. Bandages. Thick ones. He tried to remember what was wrong with them. But his head was fuzzy.
Dean squinted as he looked around the darkened room. He heard the squeak of rubber-soled shoes and the soft whir of wheeled carts. I wonder how you get to take a pee around here?
He looked around the room again. His eyes locked on the clock opposite his bed. Eleven-thirty. His eyes slid to the window on his right. Lights. Night. Eleven-thirty at night.
He slid his eyes down to his hands. He tried to remember but his head got that heavy fuzzy feeling. Maybeeylssslee…
Dean’s eyes fluttered open for a second. The noise from outside was louder and then gone again. His eyes slightly opened again. “Eyz too’evy…”
Ellen looked over at an exhausted Bobby Singer. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen him this exhausted since taking care of Karen. She didn’t even try to move him when he slumped into the couch and fell asleep minutes later. Letting out a sigh she realized how tired she was herself. It had been a long few days and tough ones too.
She glanced over at the duffle bag they’d taken from Dean’s car. Bobby had it out in the carport behind the house. She brought in the duffel thinking that somewhere in there was the way to get in touch with Dad of the century, John Winchester. No such luck.
“Damn the man.” Her whisper was swallowed by the empty room. Dean’s duffle held the sum total of the kid’s life except for the car, his ‘Baby’. Letting out another long sigh, she pushed tiredly out of the chair and settled herself in Bobby’s downstairs guest room. It was the same room he nursed Karen in when she could be home.
Bobby felt a vibration somewhere on his body through the haze of sleep that didn’t want to lift. The vibration came a second time and Bobby patted around his chest and hips trying to find locate the annoying whatever it was. He nestled further into the corner of the sofa where he’d spent the night.
The third time he felt the vibrating, he sat up still in the comfortable bluntness of sleep, “Confound it!” He patted down the worn boiled-wool jacket. “Dammit!” He fumbled in the deep pockets and brought out the offending silvery black instrument. “Try to get a little sleep here,” he groused as he opened the phone, “Singer!”
“Oh, good! Mr. Singer,” a slightly breathless voice had Bobby sitting up slightly, “this Charlotte Cutty, I’m a nurse at Sanford Medi…”
“What’s wrong with Dean?” Bobby was instantly awake and sitting at the edge of the sofa. “Tell me!”
“Oh, oh, no,” the nurse took a breath, “Mr. Winchester is awake. He’s resting. But he’s fully conscious, now. I saw on the chart that you were to be informed.”
Bobby closed his eyes and let out a sigh of relief, “Okay. Good. I’ll be there in less than an hour.” He thought for a moment, “Did anyone talk to Dean about his injuries, yet?”
“No, sir, not yet.”
“Okay good,” he sucked in a deep breath, “don’t until I get there, yeah?”
“Can do, sir,” Nurse Cutty assured him, “I’ll tell him you’re on your way.”
“Do that. Thanks.” He glanced over at the clock and heaved himself from the sofa with a groan as his back stretched protesting its nightlong cramped position. “Creaky old bastard.” He padded in sock-clad feet to the bathroom and then out to the kitchen. He poured a cup of the cold coffee from last night and stuck it in the microwave.
“Do not drink that swill,” Ellen groused from the doorway followed by a yawn, “I’ll make fresh.”
“Nah,” Bobby shook his head, “Dean’s awake. I wanna get over there. Just need a little jolt.
Ellen straightened up, “Go get dressed, I caught a shower last night and we’ll head out.” She took the cup from his hand with a wrinkled nose, “This,” she lifted the mug, “is gut rot. We’ll stop on the way.” She gently pushed him, “Go!”
Bobby hated the smell of hospitals. They were too clean. Too bright. Too stiff. And he really hated the disinfectant non-smell of too sanitized life. Even the sounds grated on his nerves. The squeak of the nurses shoes, the swish of curtains running on too smooth ball-bearings. That hum of fluorescent lights. It sent shivers down his spine the way a bloodsucking monster couldn’t.
He kept his eyes focused on the numbers as the elevator rose to the fifth floor. Then he kept his eyes peeled for the directions to room 527. He liked the number of that. Good numbers. Good numbers for Dean. He felt Ellen’s presence at his side and was just grateful not to have to be here on his own.
“He’s going to be all right, you know,” Ellen whispered as they turned the corner following the arrow to the room number. “He’s a tough kid.”
“He shouldn’t have to be this tough.” Bobby said it quietly. But Ellen knew how he felt about the boy. Hell, he’s a man. Twenty-six.
“And he ain’t no kid,” Bobby protested gruffly, “hasn’t been since he was a tyke of four.”
Ellen let out a sigh, “I know.” She stopped with Bobby beside her, “Here we are.” She took the chair outside the room, “You go in. I’ll come in later, gonna call Jo and Ash.”
Bobby tried to keep from cringing as he entered Dean’s room. Adjusting his cap he rolled his shoulders and with a nod to himself pushed the slightly ajar door. He stopped for a moment and surveyed Dean, he ran his eyes from the foot of the bed to the military short hair that was half swathed in the pristine bandages.
Dean’s eyes were open and fixed on the ceiling. At least the one without the patch was fixed on it. I’ll bet my last buck the kid is going over what the hell he did to land him flat on his back.
Clearing his throat as a warning, Bobby came over to the bed, “Hey, kid.”
“Hey, Bobby.” Dean’s deep baritone was raspier from tubes and disuse. He turned his head slightly toward him. Bobby could see all the recriminations one person could possibly heap on themselves.
“You seen the doc, yet?”
Dean frowned slightly, “He was just here. Said he wanted to wait for you.” His eye blinked slowly, “Am I gonna be okay? Does Dad know?”
Bobby grit his teeth to keep the string of curses that exploded out of him last night from making a repeat appearance. He shrugged slightly, “I tried. But, his phone says to call you.”
Dean nodded slowly. He looked down as he bandaged hands, “Sam. You didn’t tell Sam, right?”
Bobby shook his head, “’Course not.”
Dean swallowed thickly and nodded as much as he could. “Good. That’s good.” He let out a small breath. Bobby watched the kid’s Adam’s apple working overtime. He grabbed the cup with the straw attached and held it to Dean’s mouth. “Take a sip.”
Dean gave him a small smile and took a deep sip of the cool water, “Thanks,” he dropped his hands back to his lap. “Bobby?”
“Yeah?”
“I think this is bad, huh?” He held up his hands. “Burns, right?”
Bobby nodded, “Not sure how you got ‘em though.” He adjusted his cap and hitched his chair closer, “What the hell were you hunting?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I toldjya.”
“Try me,” Bobby leaned toward him, “you had to have surgery, Dean. You’re pretty tore up and you’ve got more than 200 stitches. Now, what the hell were you after?”
Dean frowned as he thought back. He let out a deep sigh and winced at the pain that lanced through his chest.
“Use the pain thing,” Bobby pointed to the machine on Dean’s right. “Can you press it?” He stood and put it in Dean’s heavily wrapped right hand, but the thumb was separate.
Dean pressed the small plunger. “I got the good stuff, huh?”
“You were half dead when they brought you in!” Bobby plopped down in the chair, “I’m just glad you’re alive, ya idjit!”
Dean gave the man he thought of as a surrogate father a small smile, “I was in Minnesota. Is that where I am now?”
Bobby shook his head, “We had you transferred to Sioux Falls. You’re in Sanford.” He turned as the door swung open expecting to see Ellen, but instead saw the doctor that had taken Dean in three days earlier.
“Well, hey! I see our patient is up!” The slightly rotund doctor had a nearly jolly mannerism. Jolly usually made Bobby cranky. Now, he found it oddly comforting. “So, Mr. Winchester,” he grinned at Dean, “I’m Dr. Herron, Neil. And now, I wasn’t the one to patch you up totally, some of that was done in Minnesota. You’ve had surgery. We had to use several pins in your left leg to repair the damage. Your right leg was torn up pretty badly, took a lot of sutures to get you back together.” He looked at Dean skeptically, “not sure what would do such damage. Care to enlighten me?”
Dean let out a small incredulous whine at the back of his throat, “If I told ya, doc, you’d put me in the psyche ward.”
Dr. Herron’s brows shot up to his receding hairline, “Try me.”
Dean shook his head. He looked over at Bobby and then back at the doc, “Will I walk?”
The doc frowned slightly and nodded, “With therapy, you should be fine. You’ll have a slight limp for a bit, but nothing that shouldn’t resolve with work. You’re young and in excellent physical condition. That’s going to help you.”
“Awesome.” Dean nodded, “Work I can do.” His lips went taut again, “My eye?”
“You had debris in it. Scratched the cornea, we just want you to rest it.” He explained, “Your eye will be fine. You had a pretty bad laceration,” he pointed at Dean’s head, “over your temporal lobe. Quite a big,” he smirked, “goose egg of a hematoma there too. No fractures, no bleeding in the brain.” He came to the side of the bed, “Your hands will take some time to heal. They were torn up and burned. Odd burns.”
“Odd? How?” Bobby asked leaning toward the doc, “Burns are burns.”
Herron shook his head, “Not really. These look like chemical burns, but no trace of anything chemical and yet the palm side is burned like fire.”
After the doc finished checking Dean over and once they were alone, Bobby leaned over Dean, “What the hell were you hunting?”
Dean pressed himself back deeper into the pillows. “Bobby…” Bobby glared at him through narrowed eyes, “Dean…”
The young hunter let out a small sigh of capitulation, “A dragon.”
“Oh, fuckit!” Bobby shook his head and looked back at Dean. “Idjit!”
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End, Part One
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Thank you for reading... I would adore hearing what you thought! Comments are a writer's currency!
Photo courtesy of Sanford Medical Center
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