FIC, Baptism, Gen, R
Written for tvm's hurt/comfort meme. A bit rough, still.
Baptism
Gen, with Sam/Dean overtones. Rated R. 775 words. No spoilers.
Sam carries Dean out of Hell at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning, up through the bone and ash and fire, up through the screams, up through the hot tang of blood and piss and semen and into the honey sunshine, the sweet cool breeze.
He lays Dean down on a stolen motel blanket in the backseat: naked skinny scared big brother, Sam’s never seen him this way before.
Dean’s skin is almost black with filth-with soot, the brownish crust of dried blood; Sam doesn’t know what else (or maybe he does. Maybe he just doesn’t want to know). Dean’s hair is matted and he stinks like sulfur and singed flesh.
When Sam reaches out to touch him, Dean flinches. Shakes. His eyes are huge in his face, thin violent rings of green around his pupils, distrusting.
“Hey, hey, shhh,” says Sam. Reaches in slow and wraps the blanket around Dean’s body, covering. Protecting.
“Gonna get you home, okay?” says Sam. “Okay, Dean?”
Dean just looks at him. There’s no understanding, no comprehension on his face at all.
When they get to the motel parking lot (room off in a corner, away from anyone who’d look at them, who’d care), Dean takes coltish little wobbly steps towards the door with Sam holding firmly onto his bicep, guiding.
Sam worries about the hot rough asphalt and the tender soles of Dean’s feet.
Inside the room Sam sits Dean down on the bed and runs warm water into the old rusty tub, filling it up halfway. He leads Dean into the narrow bathroom; tugs off the blanket, but when he tries to get him into the water Dean balks-whimpers, when Sam holds him in place (so frighteningly easy) and Sam says, “It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m not gonna hurt you, Dean,” his thumbs stroking soothingly at Dean’s wrists until the nervous tension in Dean’s shoulders slackens.
Eventually he persuades Dean into the tub. The water is cool by then, and Dean yelps and grabs at Sam’s shoulders when he first gets in.
Sam takes a towel from the rack and kneels on the cracked tile; wets the cloth in the bathwater and tilts Dean’s face first one way and then the other, wiping away the muck. Sam is steady and careful, using a clean bit of damp towel to rub soft at the backs of Dean’s eyelids, his lips-Sam’s hand spread huge and unmoving at the side of Dean’s face.
As he holds Dean’s ankle in place and slides the grayish towel up along Dean’s calf, Sam is struck, suddenly, by how intimate this is. How strangely intense. How, when Dean is himself again (and he will be, Sam will make sure of it), he’ll be angry; embarrassed to be seen this way, to be treated so delicately. And Sam thinks: so what. So what. This is something Dean needs right now; something Sam can give. He’ll worry about boundaries some other time.
After a few minutes the water is murky and dark, and Sam drains it-fills the tub up again, works the thin cake of motel soap over Dean’s chest, his thighs and shoulders.
Dean’s skin, under Sam’s hands, is smooth and white. No scars, no sign that he’d ever hunted, ever suffered before.
Sam touches the clear blank space on Dean’s pectoral where Dean’s tattoo used to be: gone now, erased along with everything else that used to define him, the things Sam used to know.
Dean’s hair is a little longer than Sam remembers, gritty and knotted. Sam cradles the base of Dean’s skull in his palm; runs shampoo-slick fingers over Dean’s scalp, through the lank bristles heavy with grease and dirt and the fine yellow powder of brimstone.
“I’m gonna rinse your hair now, okay?” says Sam “Alright?”
He lowers Dean further down into the water, one hand at Dean’s nape and the other gently pushing him to lie back, and Dean jerks; grabs imploringly at Sam’s shirtfront, his heartbeat flapping like a trapped bird beneath Sam’s fingertips.
“Shh, you’re okay, I’m not-I’m not gonna hurt you,” says Sam. “Just trust me. I need you to trust me, Dean.”
This time when Sam eases Dean back, Dean lets him; deep breath and he closes his eyes as his head slips under the water, stays still as Sam rubs his hair clean. So exposed now. So infinitely vulnerable, soft and new.
Sam looks at him, at his young, pinched face, and thinks Come back. Come back to me.
He lifts Dean up and Dean gasps, swallows the fresh air in gulps and pants. Warm. Breathing. Alive.
Baptism
Gen, with Sam/Dean overtones. Rated R. 775 words. No spoilers.
Sam carries Dean out of Hell at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning, up through the bone and ash and fire, up through the screams, up through the hot tang of blood and piss and semen and into the honey sunshine, the sweet cool breeze.
He lays Dean down on a stolen motel blanket in the backseat: naked skinny scared big brother, Sam’s never seen him this way before.
Dean’s skin is almost black with filth-with soot, the brownish crust of dried blood; Sam doesn’t know what else (or maybe he does. Maybe he just doesn’t want to know). Dean’s hair is matted and he stinks like sulfur and singed flesh.
When Sam reaches out to touch him, Dean flinches. Shakes. His eyes are huge in his face, thin violent rings of green around his pupils, distrusting.
“Hey, hey, shhh,” says Sam. Reaches in slow and wraps the blanket around Dean’s body, covering. Protecting.
“Gonna get you home, okay?” says Sam. “Okay, Dean?”
Dean just looks at him. There’s no understanding, no comprehension on his face at all.
When they get to the motel parking lot (room off in a corner, away from anyone who’d look at them, who’d care), Dean takes coltish little wobbly steps towards the door with Sam holding firmly onto his bicep, guiding.
Sam worries about the hot rough asphalt and the tender soles of Dean’s feet.
Inside the room Sam sits Dean down on the bed and runs warm water into the old rusty tub, filling it up halfway. He leads Dean into the narrow bathroom; tugs off the blanket, but when he tries to get him into the water Dean balks-whimpers, when Sam holds him in place (so frighteningly easy) and Sam says, “It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m not gonna hurt you, Dean,” his thumbs stroking soothingly at Dean’s wrists until the nervous tension in Dean’s shoulders slackens.
Eventually he persuades Dean into the tub. The water is cool by then, and Dean yelps and grabs at Sam’s shoulders when he first gets in.
Sam takes a towel from the rack and kneels on the cracked tile; wets the cloth in the bathwater and tilts Dean’s face first one way and then the other, wiping away the muck. Sam is steady and careful, using a clean bit of damp towel to rub soft at the backs of Dean’s eyelids, his lips-Sam’s hand spread huge and unmoving at the side of Dean’s face.
As he holds Dean’s ankle in place and slides the grayish towel up along Dean’s calf, Sam is struck, suddenly, by how intimate this is. How strangely intense. How, when Dean is himself again (and he will be, Sam will make sure of it), he’ll be angry; embarrassed to be seen this way, to be treated so delicately. And Sam thinks: so what. So what. This is something Dean needs right now; something Sam can give. He’ll worry about boundaries some other time.
After a few minutes the water is murky and dark, and Sam drains it-fills the tub up again, works the thin cake of motel soap over Dean’s chest, his thighs and shoulders.
Dean’s skin, under Sam’s hands, is smooth and white. No scars, no sign that he’d ever hunted, ever suffered before.
Sam touches the clear blank space on Dean’s pectoral where Dean’s tattoo used to be: gone now, erased along with everything else that used to define him, the things Sam used to know.
Dean’s hair is a little longer than Sam remembers, gritty and knotted. Sam cradles the base of Dean’s skull in his palm; runs shampoo-slick fingers over Dean’s scalp, through the lank bristles heavy with grease and dirt and the fine yellow powder of brimstone.
“I’m gonna rinse your hair now, okay?” says Sam “Alright?”
He lowers Dean further down into the water, one hand at Dean’s nape and the other gently pushing him to lie back, and Dean jerks; grabs imploringly at Sam’s shirtfront, his heartbeat flapping like a trapped bird beneath Sam’s fingertips.
“Shh, you’re okay, I’m not-I’m not gonna hurt you,” says Sam. “Just trust me. I need you to trust me, Dean.”
This time when Sam eases Dean back, Dean lets him; deep breath and he closes his eyes as his head slips under the water, stays still as Sam rubs his hair clean. So exposed now. So infinitely vulnerable, soft and new.
Sam looks at him, at his young, pinched face, and thinks Come back. Come back to me.
He lifts Dean up and Dean gasps, swallows the fresh air in gulps and pants. Warm. Breathing. Alive.