Haptic
Title: Haptic
Author: marlowe78
Rating: T (I guess...)
Genre: gen, hurt/comfort
Characters: Dean, Sam
Word count: ~1.800
Spoilers: none
Warnings: Mentions of entrapment, abandonment and bad smells. Swearing.
Summary: Written for the Dean-focused hurt/comfort comment-fic meme (#2), for the prompt: After being held captive in the dark with no human contact, Dean needs more physical contact
than usual.
Disclaimer: I very much lament that none of the Winchesters and their lifestyle are based on my creativity. I borrowed them for my own, cruel and delightful pleasures, for which, I'm sad to say, I don't get paid.
a/n: There was no beta at work, here. So, in case you find some awful errors, grammar-abuse and bad writing, please tell me, so I can correct it.
Feel also free to mention if there was no error, no bad writing and stuff you liked *nudge*
***************************
It’s not that it was unexpected. After all, no-one could survive what Dean had gone through without some major issues. Still, Sam hadn’t seen it coming and therefore, trying to be the silent, no-touch support Dean usually tolerated, had managed to do things completely, utterly wrong. With nearly disastrous consequences.
They had found him after six weeks. Six weeks in which Sam'd hardly slept, not eaten more than absolutely necessary and hadn't touched a razor. He looked exactly like the Sasquatch Dean always accused him of being. Gaunt, hairy and hollow-eyes. Smelled like one, too. But that was nothing compared to how his brother looked when they’d finally, finally broken the lock on the wooden cover of the well, where the so-called “hunters” had dumped his brother and left him.
To be fair, they probably hadn’t intended to leave him in there that long. They’d have preferred to exchange Dean for Sam, like it had been their intentions. Sam'd been the target, not Dean, who had just been unlucky enough to cross their paths first, and the three burly men had seized the opportunity and snatched him, then sending his ring and his amulet to Bobby to force the old hunter to deliver Sam to them. It had been a rather smart plan. And Bobby’s had been pretty cool, too.
When they'd met at the old bridge, the old friend holding Sam at gunpoint, his hands tied behind his back, they’d expected the other hunters to keep up their end of the bargain and bring Dean too, for some stupid reason. No such luck, which shouldn't have surprised them but sadly, did. They hadn’t realized that the shape in the back of the van, which had looked exactly like an unconscious Dean, had been a crash-dummy until it had been too late. Because Sam had, in his anger and out of self-preservation, killed the three men, before they realized the amount of screw-up. Bobby had taken one out too, but it had still been Sam who had pushed the last one over the bridge, into the dry river-bed and Dean… Dean had been no-where in sight.
Silently, Sam had gone crazy over the fear and guilt and anger. He hadn’t gone full-on kamikaze, but he’d been so scary that Bobby had decided to split up. Not only to cover more ground, but also because he'd worried too much about Dean to keep attention to Sam’s health, and he’d have had to do that if they’d stuck together. He’d called every day, sometimes twice, though, checking for life-signs.
After five and a half weeks, Sam had managed to dug up a paper that revealed the solution. One of the men had been owner of a rather spacious, rocky and overgrown piece of land, had kept sheep there once upon a time. It had taken Bobby and him the rest of the week to find the old well on it, hidden in a small group of gnarly willows.
They’d torn the cover from the well. A horrific stench had met them and Sam had crumbled. Just like that, his knees had given up and he’d fallen down, so sure that the smell was the stink of death and decay that his brain had simply given up. Lucky - if you wanted to call it that, Bobby knew how a person smelled after being stuck in his own filth for too long, from personal experience. He'd shone a light into the gloom and deep down, trying to cover his face against the sudden brightness, a shaking human had huddled against the wall.
It had taken them a while to get Dean out, even though he'd lost so much weight that his clothes had hung loose around his frame. They'd had to cover half the well up again after Sam had climbed down on a rope so Dean could squint and believe there really was someone who’d come to rescue him. Seeing his boy cling to his brother with such force had nearly broken Bobby’s heart. He'd seen his share of misery and heartache, not least of all the deaths of friends and their family, but the Winchesters had always managed to touch him more than anyone else.
He’d helped them find a place to stay and left them to themselves after Sam'd growled at him one too many times when Bobby'd done something that had apparently been wrong. He'd called as often as he could, sometimes even been called by Sam, though.
***
A few days after the rescue, fed with nourishing but blunt and liquid food, Dean finally agreed that his brother could shave him. Sam had done so himself only hours after the rescue, when Dean had been asleep on the soft, spacious bed, covered in fluffy blankets, marking the rescue as the end of his hobo-style. Dean, who didn't have many injuries apart from some sores and slightly infected scrapes, probably from trying to climb out of his prison and one badly puffed ankle, sprained, not broken, though, succumbed to his brother's steady hands while the disgusting reddish hair fell into the sink. He was thin and pale and his eyes were been huge in his head, giant green saucers which made him look like a child.
Or a POW-prisoner, which was more fitting.
He’d had water from a puddle, and apparently he’d had enough of his instincts left to use the other side of the well as a toilet, because the muddy water had given him the runs. Sam refused to think about what his brother had eaten during his time alone. He had eaten something, though. There'd been some tiny skeletons in the well, and Sam had found some holes, obviously dug with fingers in the ground, probably to find worms or insects. But no, he wasn’t thinking about that. He was so glad his brother was alive and relatively unharmed that he refused to believe anything was wrong, or even different. Feed him, clean him, get him to sleep - and eventually, Dean would be the same he was before. Dean always bounced back, no matter what life doled out at him. Right?
Right.
So after another three days, Sam turned to familiar patterns of Winchester-care and treated his still pale and silent brother like he would usually do. Offering comfort in words, food, jokes and feigned ignorance. Trying to give him space. And he worried, of course, that Dean seemed to get worse instead of better, shifting, trying to keep Sam in his sight, flinching at contact. Had worried and wondered and kept distant even more.
Until, one night, the silent nightmares stopped and made way to screams. Torn from the bottom of the soul, Dean screamed wordlessly and Sam was out of his bed, stubbing his toe on the door, and in his brother’s room even before the first scream was finished. Apparently, his subconscious had known it would come to this.
He grabbed Dean’s shoulder, trying to still him and his heart stopped beating a minute when the older one stilled at once, deflated like a balloon. For a second, he thought his brother was dead. He wasn’t. And finally, finally Sam stopped listening to his brain and believed his guts, climbed into bed with his shaken sibling and whispered stupid reassurances at him, gripping him tight and telling him he wasn’t alone, wouldn’t be alone anymore. That Sam would stay with him as long as necessary.
After that night, it got better. Dean stopped flinching at touches, smiled even a little at times. Not the beam Sam was used to, missed so much, but it was better than the gloom of doom from before. And ten days after the rescue, Dean started speaking again. First humming to music, than laughter, grumbling about the sucky food he still needed. When Sam came home smelling like coffee and fries, Dean glared at him “Sadist. You do this on purpose! How about I feed you with this baby-food and I eat the burgers. How about it?” Sam grinned, happy to hear a full sentence again, even with the scratchy voice.”Keep it up, jerk. I can still drink the shake myself if you don’t want it.” He held up the present he’d brought for his brother. Dean looked so pleased and happy, Sam felt a weight lift from him. They sat together on the bed, watching a stupid movie, one slurping the vanilla-shake with gusto, the other just smiling. Their shoulders touched and Sam felt Dean relax, like he always did now when contact was re-established.
Three days later, they were back on the road. Dean still looked like death warmed-over, but he was going crazy. Sam had promised Bobby to come by and the trip to South Dakota would be the perfect trial-run for them, seeing if Dean was already capable of the outside-world.
Sam said no, Dean “Hell, yeah!”
So they went to Bobby’s. Three hundred miles. Dean’s sitting on the passenger-side, having very reluctantly agreed to let Sam take the first half of the drive, his palms flat on the leather-seat of his girl. About ten minutes after leaving the town, Sam noticed the hand twitching, the fingers moving and creating friction on the seat. Without thinking he reached over and covered it with his own paw, felt his brother tense and deflate, an audible exhale punctuating the relief. Sam didn’t look at him, only peeking over from the corner of his eyes. Dean had turned away, maybe embarrassed - ah, who was he kidding, certainly embarrassed - but still needing skin on skin.
When they switched places outside a diner in… somewhere, it didn’t take long for Sam to feel a hand against the side of his thigh. Not much, just a slight pressure. Six miles later, he pretended to fall asleep, head “accidentally” sliding against his brother’s shoulder. Dean didn’t move away, leaned even into the contact a little, and soon after, the fake became real and Sam snored away.
***
It’s not much, nearly impossible to see. Dean’s much more haptic than he ever used to be before. Not that he’s cuddling, or anything. Not since Bobby one day came to wake them and found Sam curled around his brother, Dean snuggled under his chin. They’d come from a hunt, months after the well-incident, just passing through. Taking the advantage of a great library and a real kitchen and their friend’s eyes had nearly fallen out of his skull, but even after realizing his mistake and apologizing to a deeply embarrassed Dean, the Winchesters had stopped sharing a bed from then on. Sam missed it, sometimes.
Still, there are the touches. Slight, unobtrusive, seeking contact wherever and whenever possible. Shoulder-to-shoulder on a bed with a movie, leg against leg in a diner or a bar, hand against thigh in the car. Much more thorough checks of health after being thrown against walls, being choked, drowned…whatever. Both do, grabbing tight and not letting go for a while, stroking hair from foreheads, checking pulse. Sam stopped noticing it, Dean stopped being embarrassed. It’s the way it is, needs to be. These days, it’s getting less, moved from gentle strokes and fleeting skin-contact to affectionate punches and shoulder-bumps. More hands-on-hands sparring with the occasional kick and leg-sweep in between instead of wrestling. It’s getting less. All part of the healing-process.
Still more than ever, though.
Author: marlowe78
Rating: T (I guess...)
Genre: gen, hurt/comfort
Characters: Dean, Sam
Word count: ~1.800
Spoilers: none
Warnings: Mentions of entrapment, abandonment and bad smells. Swearing.
Summary: Written for the Dean-focused hurt/comfort comment-fic meme (#2), for the prompt: After being held captive in the dark with no human contact, Dean needs more physical contact
than usual.
Disclaimer: I very much lament that none of the Winchesters and their lifestyle are based on my creativity. I borrowed them for my own, cruel and delightful pleasures, for which, I'm sad to say, I don't get paid.
a/n: There was no beta at work, here. So, in case you find some awful errors, grammar-abuse and bad writing, please tell me, so I can correct it.
Feel also free to mention if there was no error, no bad writing and stuff you liked *nudge*
***************************
It’s not that it was unexpected. After all, no-one could survive what Dean had gone through without some major issues. Still, Sam hadn’t seen it coming and therefore, trying to be the silent, no-touch support Dean usually tolerated, had managed to do things completely, utterly wrong. With nearly disastrous consequences.
They had found him after six weeks. Six weeks in which Sam'd hardly slept, not eaten more than absolutely necessary and hadn't touched a razor. He looked exactly like the Sasquatch Dean always accused him of being. Gaunt, hairy and hollow-eyes. Smelled like one, too. But that was nothing compared to how his brother looked when they’d finally, finally broken the lock on the wooden cover of the well, where the so-called “hunters” had dumped his brother and left him.
To be fair, they probably hadn’t intended to leave him in there that long. They’d have preferred to exchange Dean for Sam, like it had been their intentions. Sam'd been the target, not Dean, who had just been unlucky enough to cross their paths first, and the three burly men had seized the opportunity and snatched him, then sending his ring and his amulet to Bobby to force the old hunter to deliver Sam to them. It had been a rather smart plan. And Bobby’s had been pretty cool, too.
When they'd met at the old bridge, the old friend holding Sam at gunpoint, his hands tied behind his back, they’d expected the other hunters to keep up their end of the bargain and bring Dean too, for some stupid reason. No such luck, which shouldn't have surprised them but sadly, did. They hadn’t realized that the shape in the back of the van, which had looked exactly like an unconscious Dean, had been a crash-dummy until it had been too late. Because Sam had, in his anger and out of self-preservation, killed the three men, before they realized the amount of screw-up. Bobby had taken one out too, but it had still been Sam who had pushed the last one over the bridge, into the dry river-bed and Dean… Dean had been no-where in sight.
Silently, Sam had gone crazy over the fear and guilt and anger. He hadn’t gone full-on kamikaze, but he’d been so scary that Bobby had decided to split up. Not only to cover more ground, but also because he'd worried too much about Dean to keep attention to Sam’s health, and he’d have had to do that if they’d stuck together. He’d called every day, sometimes twice, though, checking for life-signs.
After five and a half weeks, Sam had managed to dug up a paper that revealed the solution. One of the men had been owner of a rather spacious, rocky and overgrown piece of land, had kept sheep there once upon a time. It had taken Bobby and him the rest of the week to find the old well on it, hidden in a small group of gnarly willows.
They’d torn the cover from the well. A horrific stench had met them and Sam had crumbled. Just like that, his knees had given up and he’d fallen down, so sure that the smell was the stink of death and decay that his brain had simply given up. Lucky - if you wanted to call it that, Bobby knew how a person smelled after being stuck in his own filth for too long, from personal experience. He'd shone a light into the gloom and deep down, trying to cover his face against the sudden brightness, a shaking human had huddled against the wall.
It had taken them a while to get Dean out, even though he'd lost so much weight that his clothes had hung loose around his frame. They'd had to cover half the well up again after Sam had climbed down on a rope so Dean could squint and believe there really was someone who’d come to rescue him. Seeing his boy cling to his brother with such force had nearly broken Bobby’s heart. He'd seen his share of misery and heartache, not least of all the deaths of friends and their family, but the Winchesters had always managed to touch him more than anyone else.
He’d helped them find a place to stay and left them to themselves after Sam'd growled at him one too many times when Bobby'd done something that had apparently been wrong. He'd called as often as he could, sometimes even been called by Sam, though.
***
A few days after the rescue, fed with nourishing but blunt and liquid food, Dean finally agreed that his brother could shave him. Sam had done so himself only hours after the rescue, when Dean had been asleep on the soft, spacious bed, covered in fluffy blankets, marking the rescue as the end of his hobo-style. Dean, who didn't have many injuries apart from some sores and slightly infected scrapes, probably from trying to climb out of his prison and one badly puffed ankle, sprained, not broken, though, succumbed to his brother's steady hands while the disgusting reddish hair fell into the sink. He was thin and pale and his eyes were been huge in his head, giant green saucers which made him look like a child.
Or a POW-prisoner, which was more fitting.
He’d had water from a puddle, and apparently he’d had enough of his instincts left to use the other side of the well as a toilet, because the muddy water had given him the runs. Sam refused to think about what his brother had eaten during his time alone. He had eaten something, though. There'd been some tiny skeletons in the well, and Sam had found some holes, obviously dug with fingers in the ground, probably to find worms or insects. But no, he wasn’t thinking about that. He was so glad his brother was alive and relatively unharmed that he refused to believe anything was wrong, or even different. Feed him, clean him, get him to sleep - and eventually, Dean would be the same he was before. Dean always bounced back, no matter what life doled out at him. Right?
Right.
So after another three days, Sam turned to familiar patterns of Winchester-care and treated his still pale and silent brother like he would usually do. Offering comfort in words, food, jokes and feigned ignorance. Trying to give him space. And he worried, of course, that Dean seemed to get worse instead of better, shifting, trying to keep Sam in his sight, flinching at contact. Had worried and wondered and kept distant even more.
Until, one night, the silent nightmares stopped and made way to screams. Torn from the bottom of the soul, Dean screamed wordlessly and Sam was out of his bed, stubbing his toe on the door, and in his brother’s room even before the first scream was finished. Apparently, his subconscious had known it would come to this.
He grabbed Dean’s shoulder, trying to still him and his heart stopped beating a minute when the older one stilled at once, deflated like a balloon. For a second, he thought his brother was dead. He wasn’t. And finally, finally Sam stopped listening to his brain and believed his guts, climbed into bed with his shaken sibling and whispered stupid reassurances at him, gripping him tight and telling him he wasn’t alone, wouldn’t be alone anymore. That Sam would stay with him as long as necessary.
After that night, it got better. Dean stopped flinching at touches, smiled even a little at times. Not the beam Sam was used to, missed so much, but it was better than the gloom of doom from before. And ten days after the rescue, Dean started speaking again. First humming to music, than laughter, grumbling about the sucky food he still needed. When Sam came home smelling like coffee and fries, Dean glared at him “Sadist. You do this on purpose! How about I feed you with this baby-food and I eat the burgers. How about it?” Sam grinned, happy to hear a full sentence again, even with the scratchy voice.”Keep it up, jerk. I can still drink the shake myself if you don’t want it.” He held up the present he’d brought for his brother. Dean looked so pleased and happy, Sam felt a weight lift from him. They sat together on the bed, watching a stupid movie, one slurping the vanilla-shake with gusto, the other just smiling. Their shoulders touched and Sam felt Dean relax, like he always did now when contact was re-established.
Three days later, they were back on the road. Dean still looked like death warmed-over, but he was going crazy. Sam had promised Bobby to come by and the trip to South Dakota would be the perfect trial-run for them, seeing if Dean was already capable of the outside-world.
Sam said no, Dean “Hell, yeah!”
So they went to Bobby’s. Three hundred miles. Dean’s sitting on the passenger-side, having very reluctantly agreed to let Sam take the first half of the drive, his palms flat on the leather-seat of his girl. About ten minutes after leaving the town, Sam noticed the hand twitching, the fingers moving and creating friction on the seat. Without thinking he reached over and covered it with his own paw, felt his brother tense and deflate, an audible exhale punctuating the relief. Sam didn’t look at him, only peeking over from the corner of his eyes. Dean had turned away, maybe embarrassed - ah, who was he kidding, certainly embarrassed - but still needing skin on skin.
When they switched places outside a diner in… somewhere, it didn’t take long for Sam to feel a hand against the side of his thigh. Not much, just a slight pressure. Six miles later, he pretended to fall asleep, head “accidentally” sliding against his brother’s shoulder. Dean didn’t move away, leaned even into the contact a little, and soon after, the fake became real and Sam snored away.
***
It’s not much, nearly impossible to see. Dean’s much more haptic than he ever used to be before. Not that he’s cuddling, or anything. Not since Bobby one day came to wake them and found Sam curled around his brother, Dean snuggled under his chin. They’d come from a hunt, months after the well-incident, just passing through. Taking the advantage of a great library and a real kitchen and their friend’s eyes had nearly fallen out of his skull, but even after realizing his mistake and apologizing to a deeply embarrassed Dean, the Winchesters had stopped sharing a bed from then on. Sam missed it, sometimes.
Still, there are the touches. Slight, unobtrusive, seeking contact wherever and whenever possible. Shoulder-to-shoulder on a bed with a movie, leg against leg in a diner or a bar, hand against thigh in the car. Much more thorough checks of health after being thrown against walls, being choked, drowned…whatever. Both do, grabbing tight and not letting go for a while, stroking hair from foreheads, checking pulse. Sam stopped noticing it, Dean stopped being embarrassed. It’s the way it is, needs to be. These days, it’s getting less, moved from gentle strokes and fleeting skin-contact to affectionate punches and shoulder-bumps. More hands-on-hands sparring with the occasional kick and leg-sweep in between instead of wrestling. It’s getting less. All part of the healing-process.
Still more than ever, though.