SPN FIC - Aid and Comfort
A bit of outsider POV for you, while I continue laying out cookies to lure the Muse back toward BAY: a tiny nursing home out in the sticks. A messy poltergeist. And a couple of FBI agents named Bonham and Plant.
The two men who identified themselves as Agents Plant and Bonham are standing at the other end of the hall, near the nurses' desk, talking softly to each other. Bonham's been here all night; Plant left about an hour ago, in a hurry, and came back maybe ten minutes ago.
They look satisfied. Why, she has no idea.
CHARACTERS: Dean, Sam, OCs
GENRE: Gen (Outsider POV)
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 1334 words
AID AND COMFORT
By Carol Davis
When it's all over, there's beef stew running down the wall outside the dining room. Chocolate pudding lies in big dripping globs on the checkerboard linoleum, and the light fixtures and the cheap framed prints of landscapes and flowers have been liberally sprayed with chicken noodle soup and coffee and curdled skim milk.
A food fight, she thinks.
Something invisible had a food fight here.
The two men who identified themselves as Agents Plant and Bonham are standing at the other end of the hall, near the nurses' desk, talking softly to each other. Bonham's been here all night; Plant left about an hour ago, in a hurry, and came back maybe ten minutes ago.
They look satisfied. Why, she has no idea.
She's thinking, right now, that she'd like them to leave. As much as it's a comfort to have authority figures nearby, she's the authority here, such as that is; when the big sunburst clock behind the desk says it's 9:00 a.m. (and not a moment before) Maggie will show up, and there'll be hell to pay. For the mess, for the stricken condition of the patients. All this happened on Andrea's watch, and she'll be hearing about it from 9:00 a.m. until the end of time.
She tries to look composed. Fails at it pretty badly, she figured, because Plant and Bonham come walking down the hall in their mostly-ruined suits and offer what seems to be genuine sympathy.
"We'll help you," Plant says softly.
"No," she tells him, with no real idea why. The last thing she wants to do right now - or ever - is try to mop beef stew off the walls.
It's not just food that was thrown around. In and near the dining room, yes. But near the supply closet? Near the bathrooms?
Maggie's going to have her ass. She won't care what did this. She won't care that Carlos was unconscious for almost ten minutes, and is now slumped on the couch in the reception area holding a bag of frozen peas to his temple. She won't care about Andrea's left eye, or the cuts and bruises on her arms and legs. And she definitely won't care about anything that comes out of the mouths of Agents Plant and Bonham.
Some of the patients are sobbing, a little less hysterically now, but it's a terrible sound.
Plant and Bonham seem to think so too.
Plant reaches out and rests on her shoulder a hand that's smeared with blood. Or chocolate pudding. Maybe both. "We'll help you," he says again. "At least help you quiet them down, so they can sleep."
She'd like to sleep. Right now. Knows better than to hope she is sleeping, that this is all some sugar-and-caffeine-fueled dream.
"Okay," she murmurs.
Together they move from room to room, and she thinks Thank God, thank GOD this is only a small facility, that there are only a dozen rooms, less than twenty patients. She thanks God too that none of the patients - other than Arthur - tried to dive into the mix, that most of them huddled deeply enough under their covers that they weren't hurt. Gladys has a few scratches, and Edna has a bruise on her forehead from the Kleenex box that flew off her bedside table. The others are all right. Smelly, and scared, but all right.
Arthur thinks he's back in France, during the Big One.
After an hour or so the beds, at least, are clean. The patients all have fresh sheets and blankets and nightclothes, and most of them are asleep - including Emily, who slept through the entire thing. That's good, Andrea thinks, because as little as Emily reacts to the little bit of life that goes on around her, she wouldn't have responded well to seeing what's left of her Christmas bear.
Bonham picks it up off the floor by one foot and dangles it, smirking, though she knows better than to think he's honestly amused.
"They like to have something to hold," she explains. "Something soft. They like to hug something, even if it doesn't hug back."
He lifts the stuffed bear higher then, and stands looking into its face. When he sets it down, finally, his movements are slow and gentle, as if it's a child he's placing on Emily's visitor chair and not a toy.
"We gotta go," he says then.
She expected that. Cleanup's not their job. Not really.
She doesn't see them leave, but she hears it: hears the deep, visceral rumble of the big engine of their old Impala, hears the sound of it diminish bit by bit until it's gone entirely, until all she can hear is the tick of the sunburst clock and Carlos's murmured announcement that his head hurts like a gold-plated bitch and the creamed corn all over his scrubs looks like he puked on himself.
"What the hell was that?" he asks her pointedly, though his tone says he's not sure he wants to know the answer.
"I don't know," she says, gnawing her lower lip.
"Is it gone?"
They told her it was. Plant and Bonham.
By the time the sun begins to inch up past the horizon, she and Carlos have things cleaned up to a reasonable level. The stew's off the wall - mostly - and the floors have been mopped. There are still a few stray noodles and bits of chicken up in the light fixtures, but there's no point in worrying about them now. Maggie will know something happened. She'll know that before she even walks in the door.
It is what it is, Andrea thinks.
Some of it's over. And some of it won't ever end.
The rising sun lays a ribbon of gold through the double glass doors and she walks toward it, needing to look at something that seems like a fresh start. She's been standing there for a minute, hand bladed against the glare, when she notices something out in the parking lot. Her car…
There's something in her car.
Frowning, she presses her code into the gadget that releases the door (locked that way so the patients can't let themselves out) and walks out, wrapping her arms around herself against the lingering nighttime chill. She looks around, still frowning, sees no one, hears nothing except birdsong and the muffled traffic noise from the main road on the far side of a screen of trees.
When she left her car out here hours ago, it was empty.
It's not empty now.
It's full of stuffed bears. Jammed full of them, each of them the size of a small child, all of them soft and sweet-faced. She doesn't need to ask where they came from, because she's seen them in the Walmart down the road - the one that's open all night.
Nor does she need to ask who they came from.
She hears the crunch of a footstep on gravel. Carlos, behind her, muttering, "The hell -?" When she turns, his face is furrowed with confusion. And he's right: the creamed corn stains on his scrubs look like vomit.
"You'd better change," she says on a sigh. "Maggie -"
Carlos squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, then stares hard down the driveway. He seems to want to say something, or ask something, but in the end he simply turns around and walks back inside.
She stands there for a couple of minutes, hugging herself against the cold. From inside her car, dozens of smiling faces watch her - including the one with a bow around its neck, a blue ribbon that matches her scrubs.
Food fight!!! she thinks, and it makes her want to laugh.
As she moves toward the car, wincing at the catch in her hip and the throbbing behind her swollen left eye, she remembers college.
Remembers an old boyfriend who loved classic rock.
Remembers who Plant and Bonham are.
She's smiling as she opens the car door and gathers the first of the bears into her arms.
* * * * *
A/N: A friend who does volunteer work at a local nursing home told me about the bears: the old folks do indeed love to cuddle and hug them. So every Christmas, I donate a couple of big, snuggly Walmart bears.
The two men who identified themselves as Agents Plant and Bonham are standing at the other end of the hall, near the nurses' desk, talking softly to each other. Bonham's been here all night; Plant left about an hour ago, in a hurry, and came back maybe ten minutes ago.
They look satisfied. Why, she has no idea.
CHARACTERS: Dean, Sam, OCs
GENRE: Gen (Outsider POV)
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 1334 words
AID AND COMFORT
By Carol Davis
When it's all over, there's beef stew running down the wall outside the dining room. Chocolate pudding lies in big dripping globs on the checkerboard linoleum, and the light fixtures and the cheap framed prints of landscapes and flowers have been liberally sprayed with chicken noodle soup and coffee and curdled skim milk.
A food fight, she thinks.
Something invisible had a food fight here.
The two men who identified themselves as Agents Plant and Bonham are standing at the other end of the hall, near the nurses' desk, talking softly to each other. Bonham's been here all night; Plant left about an hour ago, in a hurry, and came back maybe ten minutes ago.
They look satisfied. Why, she has no idea.
She's thinking, right now, that she'd like them to leave. As much as it's a comfort to have authority figures nearby, she's the authority here, such as that is; when the big sunburst clock behind the desk says it's 9:00 a.m. (and not a moment before) Maggie will show up, and there'll be hell to pay. For the mess, for the stricken condition of the patients. All this happened on Andrea's watch, and she'll be hearing about it from 9:00 a.m. until the end of time.
She tries to look composed. Fails at it pretty badly, she figured, because Plant and Bonham come walking down the hall in their mostly-ruined suits and offer what seems to be genuine sympathy.
"We'll help you," Plant says softly.
"No," she tells him, with no real idea why. The last thing she wants to do right now - or ever - is try to mop beef stew off the walls.
It's not just food that was thrown around. In and near the dining room, yes. But near the supply closet? Near the bathrooms?
Maggie's going to have her ass. She won't care what did this. She won't care that Carlos was unconscious for almost ten minutes, and is now slumped on the couch in the reception area holding a bag of frozen peas to his temple. She won't care about Andrea's left eye, or the cuts and bruises on her arms and legs. And she definitely won't care about anything that comes out of the mouths of Agents Plant and Bonham.
Some of the patients are sobbing, a little less hysterically now, but it's a terrible sound.
Plant and Bonham seem to think so too.
Plant reaches out and rests on her shoulder a hand that's smeared with blood. Or chocolate pudding. Maybe both. "We'll help you," he says again. "At least help you quiet them down, so they can sleep."
She'd like to sleep. Right now. Knows better than to hope she is sleeping, that this is all some sugar-and-caffeine-fueled dream.
"Okay," she murmurs.
Together they move from room to room, and she thinks Thank God, thank GOD this is only a small facility, that there are only a dozen rooms, less than twenty patients. She thanks God too that none of the patients - other than Arthur - tried to dive into the mix, that most of them huddled deeply enough under their covers that they weren't hurt. Gladys has a few scratches, and Edna has a bruise on her forehead from the Kleenex box that flew off her bedside table. The others are all right. Smelly, and scared, but all right.
Arthur thinks he's back in France, during the Big One.
After an hour or so the beds, at least, are clean. The patients all have fresh sheets and blankets and nightclothes, and most of them are asleep - including Emily, who slept through the entire thing. That's good, Andrea thinks, because as little as Emily reacts to the little bit of life that goes on around her, she wouldn't have responded well to seeing what's left of her Christmas bear.
Bonham picks it up off the floor by one foot and dangles it, smirking, though she knows better than to think he's honestly amused.
"They like to have something to hold," she explains. "Something soft. They like to hug something, even if it doesn't hug back."
He lifts the stuffed bear higher then, and stands looking into its face. When he sets it down, finally, his movements are slow and gentle, as if it's a child he's placing on Emily's visitor chair and not a toy.
"We gotta go," he says then.
She expected that. Cleanup's not their job. Not really.
She doesn't see them leave, but she hears it: hears the deep, visceral rumble of the big engine of their old Impala, hears the sound of it diminish bit by bit until it's gone entirely, until all she can hear is the tick of the sunburst clock and Carlos's murmured announcement that his head hurts like a gold-plated bitch and the creamed corn all over his scrubs looks like he puked on himself.
"What the hell was that?" he asks her pointedly, though his tone says he's not sure he wants to know the answer.
"I don't know," she says, gnawing her lower lip.
"Is it gone?"
They told her it was. Plant and Bonham.
By the time the sun begins to inch up past the horizon, she and Carlos have things cleaned up to a reasonable level. The stew's off the wall - mostly - and the floors have been mopped. There are still a few stray noodles and bits of chicken up in the light fixtures, but there's no point in worrying about them now. Maggie will know something happened. She'll know that before she even walks in the door.
It is what it is, Andrea thinks.
Some of it's over. And some of it won't ever end.
The rising sun lays a ribbon of gold through the double glass doors and she walks toward it, needing to look at something that seems like a fresh start. She's been standing there for a minute, hand bladed against the glare, when she notices something out in the parking lot. Her car…
There's something in her car.
Frowning, she presses her code into the gadget that releases the door (locked that way so the patients can't let themselves out) and walks out, wrapping her arms around herself against the lingering nighttime chill. She looks around, still frowning, sees no one, hears nothing except birdsong and the muffled traffic noise from the main road on the far side of a screen of trees.
When she left her car out here hours ago, it was empty.
It's not empty now.
It's full of stuffed bears. Jammed full of them, each of them the size of a small child, all of them soft and sweet-faced. She doesn't need to ask where they came from, because she's seen them in the Walmart down the road - the one that's open all night.
Nor does she need to ask who they came from.
She hears the crunch of a footstep on gravel. Carlos, behind her, muttering, "The hell -?" When she turns, his face is furrowed with confusion. And he's right: the creamed corn stains on his scrubs look like vomit.
"You'd better change," she says on a sigh. "Maggie -"
Carlos squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, then stares hard down the driveway. He seems to want to say something, or ask something, but in the end he simply turns around and walks back inside.
She stands there for a couple of minutes, hugging herself against the cold. From inside her car, dozens of smiling faces watch her - including the one with a bow around its neck, a blue ribbon that matches her scrubs.
Food fight!!! she thinks, and it makes her want to laugh.
As she moves toward the car, wincing at the catch in her hip and the throbbing behind her swollen left eye, she remembers college.
Remembers an old boyfriend who loved classic rock.
Remembers who Plant and Bonham are.
She's smiling as she opens the car door and gathers the first of the bears into her arms.
* * * * *
A/N: A friend who does volunteer work at a local nursing home told me about the bears: the old folks do indeed love to cuddle and hug them. So every Christmas, I donate a couple of big, snuggly Walmart bears.