SPN FIC - The Laying On of Hands
I have the most easily distracted Muse on the planet, I swear. All it took was my bed and a sunbeam for her to start insisting that y'all would like some hurt/comfort, teen!chesters style.
The bed shifts a little, and he cringes. It’s Sam, sitting cross-legged near his right shoulder. Then it shifts again, a bigger jolt, Dad sitting next to his left hip, towels both wet and dry and the first aid kit in hand. Before Dean can figure out what’s likely to happen next, Dad flexes a pair of scissors and slits Dean’s t-shirt down the middle, a fast zzzzzzip that makes Dean want to grab at something for fear the scissors will collide with…well, with him.
Characters: Dean (16), Sam (12), John
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG for language
Spoilers: none
Length: 1725 words
THE LAYING ON OF HANDS
By Carol Davis
The summer sun lays a spotlight on the center of the bed, and that’s certainly right, because he’s the star of this particular show whether he wants to be or not. He has to inch into place, one deliberate movement after another, each one so slight he feels like a snail. It takes him hours, days maybe, to lie down.
He won’t take anything for granted any more, he thinks. Not when something as simple as lying down is so hard.
He couldn’t get his shirt off. What’s left of it. He couldn’t, even with Sam’s help.
The bed shifts a little, and he cringes. It’s Sam, sitting cross-legged near his right shoulder. Then it shifts again, a bigger jolt, Dad sitting next to his left hip, towels both wet and dry and the first aid kit in hand. Before Dean can figure out what’s likely to happen next, Dad flexes a pair of scissors and slits Dean’s t-shirt down the middle, a fast zzzzzzip that makes Dean want to grab at something for fear the scissors will collide with…well, with him.
“You did good, son,” Dad says quietly as he sets the scissors aside. The shirt smells of ooze and decay, of something that was dead and should have stayed that way. Dean wants to say, Get it off me, please get it off me, but all he can get out in a small meep. There’s more welled up in his throat behind that little noise, and it takes some doing to keep it there, but it has to stay there because he’s sixteen now and he said he was going to do the job.
He did do the job, he did everything right, every last bit of it. It totally wasn’t his fault that that freaking not-dead thing decided he was the featured item on today’s menu.
He can feel himself start to tense up and shiver. Knows what it means. So does Dad, because Dad shrugs out of his jacket and lays it over Dean’s legs. It’s warm from Dad’s body. The heat and the weight of it are a comfort.
“You with me?” Dad asks. “Dean?”
Did he close his eyes? Start to drift off? He’s not sure. “Uh,” he whispers.
Something warm touches his hand. He doesn’t want to move his head to look. It’s Sam, wrapping his long fingers around Dean’s. “It’s okay,” Sam says. “It doesn’t look that bad. You got worse than that, that time you fell off the porch.”
He doesn’t remember ever falling off a porch. Maybe he was drunk at the time.
The sunlight is warm on his chest as Dad swabs the wounds. Dad’s trying to be gentle, that’s evident from the way his movements are small and slow, but his hands are too big. He’s just too big to be gentle.
His hands are so much bigger than hers.
He can hear her voice if he tries really hard. What he’s hearing is wind and traffic noise from outside, he knows that, but if he tries really hard he can hear her crooning to him. The thumb that’s rubbing lightly against his palm isn’t Sam’s, it’s hers, and if he peers through his lashes just a little he can see her there beside him, smiling at him and telling him he’s going to be all right, that she’s proud of him and in the morning he’ll feel fine.
Dad says something else, a couple of somethings, but Dean blocks most of it out, listens to the tone of it rather than the words.
A long time ago, Dad used to sing him that “Inchworm” song when he didn’t feel good.
It always made him laugh.
A hand rests on his head. He leans into it, wants it to be hers. Lets it be hers.
There’s cold, and hard, and wet, at the parts of him he doesn’t want to think about. He’s not hurt that bad - he searched Dad’s face until he could believe that - but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like a gold-plated runaway sonofabitch. It can’t be that bad; if it was bad, Dad would have taken him to the hospital. To a clinic, at least. Or something. He would have found help from somebody who knew what they were doing.
They can’t get too used to pain meds, Dad says. They’re hard to come by. Have to be saved for when they’re really needed.
Like now, Dean thinks. Now is a good time, because this hurts, goddamn, it HURTS.
“Stay with me,” Dad tells him.
That’s what caused this. He stayed with Dad.
He’s not a baby. He can do this, because Dad does it all the time. Dad’s been messed up a lot worse than this.
“Ssssshhhh,” she whispers, and he can feel the brush of her lips against his cheek.
It’s not the wind. It’s not.
“Sleep,” she whispers, and he does, because it’s warm there, and he can let go of the pain.
When he wakes, the sun is entirely gone, and the lamp beside the bed is on. Somebody took his jeans off, replaced them with his favorite sweats, the ones that’ve been washed so many times they’re as soft as baby clothes. His torso is wrapped, mummy-like, from his armpits to the bottom of his ribs, and the cuts and scrapes on his arm and shoulder have been cleaned and painted with antiseptic; some of those are bandaged as well.
At least, he thinks, he can cover it all with clothing. He won’t need to endure funny looks from anyone whose path he crosses.
He tries to lie still and quiet, so sleep will come and claim him again, but after a minute or two his bladder announces that it’s full. Can’t, he thinks, but it’s not interested in what he can or cannot do and it cranks up its news flash to an all-points bulletin. Slowly, every bit as slowly as he made his way into the bedroom when the sun was high, he inches off the bed, clenching his jaw at the pain that grips his ribs and his shoulder and makes him curse that thing that grabbed him, even though it’s more than likely already in Hell.
He could be climbing Everest for all the effort it takes him to get halfway across the room. He’s still a long way from the bathroom, and he’d like very much to give up. He’d do that, just drop himself to the floor like an armful of laundry, except that hitting the floor would probably hurt as much as impaling himself on a sword.
It’s one of those times - can’t go forward, can’t go back, and he thinks of that odd saying, Don’t know whether to shit or go blind.
Thank God, he doesn’t need to do either one.
Sam is there, all of a sudden, in the doorway, looking at him with dismay. As he starts to droop, Sam is there, wrapping arms around him like it’s a party and they’re gonna slow dance. His head sags down onto Sam’s shoulder, and somehow Sam knows just how to hold him, like she would have, hugging him in that way that says I’m here, I’m right here.
They shuffle down the hallway together, Dean’s arm strung over Sam’s shoulder, Sam’s arm wrapped carefully around Dean’s waist. Dean has to sit to use the toilet, which is bad enough; having an audience is worse, because it’s not an “I’m gonna brush my teeth while you pee” situation, it’s Sam making sure he doesn’t tilt too far and fall right off the crapper. The way Sam gets him back on his feet would seem like an engineering marvel if he could make his head stop swimming long enough to give it some serious thought.
Getting back to bed is endless. That hallway is eleven miles long.
Then there’s another awful maneuver, the same shift from vertical to horizontal that he did when the sun was high and warm. Sam helps him lower himself down slowly, so he’s not pulling on anything that isn’t in a mood to be pulled. He’s on top of the covers, but that’s all right. He doesn’t need covers, doesn’t want the weight.
“Dad says it’s not that bad,” Sam offers.
Sam and Dad have been going at each other like two old ladies lately, over the soccer thing, over what’s on TV, over everything and nothing. It’s a wonder Dad’s not using Sam’s head for a paperweight, and Dean’s been getting a lot of the fallout from that. But right now, Sam doesn’t seem in a mood to argue with anybody.
He looks…sad, almost.
“It’ll feel better in the morning,” Sam says, and grins in that dipshit way 12-year-olds seem to think is loveable.
“Umm,” Dean mumbles.
Sam gets the hint when Dean glances at the lamp. He twirls the little knob between his fingers and the room drops into darkness.
“Maybe you need a suit,” Sam says mildly. “Kevlar? Like Batman.”
Kevlar would be freaking awesome.
Dean lets his eyes slide shut and tries to slow his breathing; tries to release bone and muscle and sinew enough that they’ll stop sending him singing telegrams. From outside, he can hear the wind, and traffic noise; from the living room, he can hear the TV. Dad’s out there, he supposes, making notes in his journal.
“Dad said you did great,” Sam murmurs.
That doesn’t seem right. Because, this? Doesn’t feel like success. If this is success, failure’s one nasty bitch.
His hands are trembling, from the pain. But if he can sleep, he’ll get through it.
The bed shifts a little. It’s Sam, stretching out alongside him on top of the covers and resting a hand on his shoulder, the one that’s not all shredded up.
Sam generates a lot of heat for a kid. Like he’s really that guy from Fantastic Four who says, “Flame on.”
Human Torch. That’s the one.
They’re superheroes, him and Sam.
And Dad.
Sam’s head tilts toward him and he can feel the warmth of Sam’s breath on his shoulder, tickling the skin near where Sam’s hand is lying. “If you need me,” Sam mumbles.
Go get in your own bed, dork, Dean thinks.
But he doesn’t say it.
A minute later, they’re both asleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The bed shifts a little, and he cringes. It’s Sam, sitting cross-legged near his right shoulder. Then it shifts again, a bigger jolt, Dad sitting next to his left hip, towels both wet and dry and the first aid kit in hand. Before Dean can figure out what’s likely to happen next, Dad flexes a pair of scissors and slits Dean’s t-shirt down the middle, a fast zzzzzzip that makes Dean want to grab at something for fear the scissors will collide with…well, with him.
Characters: Dean (16), Sam (12), John
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG for language
Spoilers: none
Length: 1725 words
THE LAYING ON OF HANDS
By Carol Davis
The summer sun lays a spotlight on the center of the bed, and that’s certainly right, because he’s the star of this particular show whether he wants to be or not. He has to inch into place, one deliberate movement after another, each one so slight he feels like a snail. It takes him hours, days maybe, to lie down.
He won’t take anything for granted any more, he thinks. Not when something as simple as lying down is so hard.
He couldn’t get his shirt off. What’s left of it. He couldn’t, even with Sam’s help.
The bed shifts a little, and he cringes. It’s Sam, sitting cross-legged near his right shoulder. Then it shifts again, a bigger jolt, Dad sitting next to his left hip, towels both wet and dry and the first aid kit in hand. Before Dean can figure out what’s likely to happen next, Dad flexes a pair of scissors and slits Dean’s t-shirt down the middle, a fast zzzzzzip that makes Dean want to grab at something for fear the scissors will collide with…well, with him.
“You did good, son,” Dad says quietly as he sets the scissors aside. The shirt smells of ooze and decay, of something that was dead and should have stayed that way. Dean wants to say, Get it off me, please get it off me, but all he can get out in a small meep. There’s more welled up in his throat behind that little noise, and it takes some doing to keep it there, but it has to stay there because he’s sixteen now and he said he was going to do the job.
He did do the job, he did everything right, every last bit of it. It totally wasn’t his fault that that freaking not-dead thing decided he was the featured item on today’s menu.
He can feel himself start to tense up and shiver. Knows what it means. So does Dad, because Dad shrugs out of his jacket and lays it over Dean’s legs. It’s warm from Dad’s body. The heat and the weight of it are a comfort.
“You with me?” Dad asks. “Dean?”
Did he close his eyes? Start to drift off? He’s not sure. “Uh,” he whispers.
Something warm touches his hand. He doesn’t want to move his head to look. It’s Sam, wrapping his long fingers around Dean’s. “It’s okay,” Sam says. “It doesn’t look that bad. You got worse than that, that time you fell off the porch.”
He doesn’t remember ever falling off a porch. Maybe he was drunk at the time.
The sunlight is warm on his chest as Dad swabs the wounds. Dad’s trying to be gentle, that’s evident from the way his movements are small and slow, but his hands are too big. He’s just too big to be gentle.
His hands are so much bigger than hers.
He can hear her voice if he tries really hard. What he’s hearing is wind and traffic noise from outside, he knows that, but if he tries really hard he can hear her crooning to him. The thumb that’s rubbing lightly against his palm isn’t Sam’s, it’s hers, and if he peers through his lashes just a little he can see her there beside him, smiling at him and telling him he’s going to be all right, that she’s proud of him and in the morning he’ll feel fine.
Dad says something else, a couple of somethings, but Dean blocks most of it out, listens to the tone of it rather than the words.
A long time ago, Dad used to sing him that “Inchworm” song when he didn’t feel good.
It always made him laugh.
A hand rests on his head. He leans into it, wants it to be hers. Lets it be hers.
There’s cold, and hard, and wet, at the parts of him he doesn’t want to think about. He’s not hurt that bad - he searched Dad’s face until he could believe that - but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like a gold-plated runaway sonofabitch. It can’t be that bad; if it was bad, Dad would have taken him to the hospital. To a clinic, at least. Or something. He would have found help from somebody who knew what they were doing.
They can’t get too used to pain meds, Dad says. They’re hard to come by. Have to be saved for when they’re really needed.
Like now, Dean thinks. Now is a good time, because this hurts, goddamn, it HURTS.
“Stay with me,” Dad tells him.
That’s what caused this. He stayed with Dad.
He’s not a baby. He can do this, because Dad does it all the time. Dad’s been messed up a lot worse than this.
“Ssssshhhh,” she whispers, and he can feel the brush of her lips against his cheek.
It’s not the wind. It’s not.
“Sleep,” she whispers, and he does, because it’s warm there, and he can let go of the pain.
When he wakes, the sun is entirely gone, and the lamp beside the bed is on. Somebody took his jeans off, replaced them with his favorite sweats, the ones that’ve been washed so many times they’re as soft as baby clothes. His torso is wrapped, mummy-like, from his armpits to the bottom of his ribs, and the cuts and scrapes on his arm and shoulder have been cleaned and painted with antiseptic; some of those are bandaged as well.
At least, he thinks, he can cover it all with clothing. He won’t need to endure funny looks from anyone whose path he crosses.
He tries to lie still and quiet, so sleep will come and claim him again, but after a minute or two his bladder announces that it’s full. Can’t, he thinks, but it’s not interested in what he can or cannot do and it cranks up its news flash to an all-points bulletin. Slowly, every bit as slowly as he made his way into the bedroom when the sun was high, he inches off the bed, clenching his jaw at the pain that grips his ribs and his shoulder and makes him curse that thing that grabbed him, even though it’s more than likely already in Hell.
He could be climbing Everest for all the effort it takes him to get halfway across the room. He’s still a long way from the bathroom, and he’d like very much to give up. He’d do that, just drop himself to the floor like an armful of laundry, except that hitting the floor would probably hurt as much as impaling himself on a sword.
It’s one of those times - can’t go forward, can’t go back, and he thinks of that odd saying, Don’t know whether to shit or go blind.
Thank God, he doesn’t need to do either one.
Sam is there, all of a sudden, in the doorway, looking at him with dismay. As he starts to droop, Sam is there, wrapping arms around him like it’s a party and they’re gonna slow dance. His head sags down onto Sam’s shoulder, and somehow Sam knows just how to hold him, like she would have, hugging him in that way that says I’m here, I’m right here.
They shuffle down the hallway together, Dean’s arm strung over Sam’s shoulder, Sam’s arm wrapped carefully around Dean’s waist. Dean has to sit to use the toilet, which is bad enough; having an audience is worse, because it’s not an “I’m gonna brush my teeth while you pee” situation, it’s Sam making sure he doesn’t tilt too far and fall right off the crapper. The way Sam gets him back on his feet would seem like an engineering marvel if he could make his head stop swimming long enough to give it some serious thought.
Getting back to bed is endless. That hallway is eleven miles long.
Then there’s another awful maneuver, the same shift from vertical to horizontal that he did when the sun was high and warm. Sam helps him lower himself down slowly, so he’s not pulling on anything that isn’t in a mood to be pulled. He’s on top of the covers, but that’s all right. He doesn’t need covers, doesn’t want the weight.
“Dad says it’s not that bad,” Sam offers.
Sam and Dad have been going at each other like two old ladies lately, over the soccer thing, over what’s on TV, over everything and nothing. It’s a wonder Dad’s not using Sam’s head for a paperweight, and Dean’s been getting a lot of the fallout from that. But right now, Sam doesn’t seem in a mood to argue with anybody.
He looks…sad, almost.
“It’ll feel better in the morning,” Sam says, and grins in that dipshit way 12-year-olds seem to think is loveable.
“Umm,” Dean mumbles.
Sam gets the hint when Dean glances at the lamp. He twirls the little knob between his fingers and the room drops into darkness.
“Maybe you need a suit,” Sam says mildly. “Kevlar? Like Batman.”
Kevlar would be freaking awesome.
Dean lets his eyes slide shut and tries to slow his breathing; tries to release bone and muscle and sinew enough that they’ll stop sending him singing telegrams. From outside, he can hear the wind, and traffic noise; from the living room, he can hear the TV. Dad’s out there, he supposes, making notes in his journal.
“Dad said you did great,” Sam murmurs.
That doesn’t seem right. Because, this? Doesn’t feel like success. If this is success, failure’s one nasty bitch.
His hands are trembling, from the pain. But if he can sleep, he’ll get through it.
The bed shifts a little. It’s Sam, stretching out alongside him on top of the covers and resting a hand on his shoulder, the one that’s not all shredded up.
Sam generates a lot of heat for a kid. Like he’s really that guy from Fantastic Four who says, “Flame on.”
Human Torch. That’s the one.
They’re superheroes, him and Sam.
And Dad.
Sam’s head tilts toward him and he can feel the warmth of Sam’s breath on his shoulder, tickling the skin near where Sam’s hand is lying. “If you need me,” Sam mumbles.
Go get in your own bed, dork, Dean thinks.
But he doesn’t say it.
A minute later, they’re both asleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~