Roses in December (7/14)
Hey hey! I got another chapter written, and this time stuff actually happens!
Oh, and, erm... *blushes madly* I may have, erm, written mild porn. *cough* Sorry. Uh, I dunno what happened there, but Dean kind of insisted, and we all know I can't say no to him. It's about as mild and non-explicit as the last time I wrote a scene like that, but, y'know, your mileage may vary.
It's in the third section (oh, who am I kidding, it's the entire third section), so if you want to avoid the het and ratherastory's lame attempt at sex, you can just skip it entirely. The gist of the scene is: Dean uses sex to avoid thinking about more important things. The end. With gratuitous Disney references, because I'm apparently twisted like that. *cough*
God.
*headdesk*
Master Post
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
“So you're sure he can come home?”
The word 'home' feels weird on Dean's tongue, even as he says it, just like any other civilian. Sure, he's been living in the same place for a couple of months, not the longest he's ever stayed put, even, but he's never actually called any of those places home. Just a succession of motel rooms, rental apartments, the occasional house or cabin in the woods. The closest he's got to an actual home is the Impala, and he'll never call his baby that because it's way too embarrassingly sappy and he'll end up renting The Notebook and eating ice cream if he's not careful.
Dr. Alvarez nods. She's actually pretty cool, which is more than Dean can say for most of the doctors he's met over the years in various hospital emergency rooms. For one, she doesn't have a God complex, and for two, she talks to Dean as though he's not a mentally retarded child, which is a plus in his books. She also doesn't talk to Sam as though he's a mentally retarded child, and that's her main selling point. She's a neurologist and normally she'd just be in for a consult and that's it, but somewhere along the way she stepped in to be Sammy's primary physician, maybe because most of his problems stem from having his head bashed in by a car. Dean's not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, though. Dr. Alvarez leans her elbows on the desk between them, looking him in the face as she speaks, another point in her favour.
“I think that we can stick to the current schedule without too many problems. I'm going to have Dr. Blaize conduct another evaluation on Thursday, just to be sure, but at this juncture I think that having Sam stay in the hospital any longer is going to end up doing more harm than good for his emotional state. His motor skills are improving steadily, enough that he shouldn't have too much trouble with basic everyday tasks, so there's no reason for him to be cooped up here any more than he has to be. Mainly I'm waiting for Dr. Blaize's okay to release him.”
“You think she won't want him to go?” Dean resists the impulse to get up and pace, which has been growing stronger ever since he stepped foot in the office. He doesn't like the idea of Sam having to see the psychiatrist as often as he does, even if objectively he knows it's important and just as necessary for Sam's recovery. Sammy's been depressed ever since he came out of the coma, although he tries his best to put up a front when people are around now that he's doing better physically. At least now he doesn't go for days without talking the way he did before. Sure, some of that was because he was having trouble forming thoughts, but most of it was because he just couldn't bring himself to talk, and that frightened Dean more than he will ever admit out loud.
“No, I think she and I are on the same page. I just want to cross all my i's and dot all my t's before I sign off on the release forms. I don't have to tell you that treating your brother is a tricky process, and I don't want to focus on his physical problems to the detriment of his mental health. In many ways, it's his emotional well-being that's more important.”
“I know that,” Dean folds his arms across his chest, knowing he sounds defensive and unable to do a single thing about it. Dr. Alvarez awards him a surprisingly patient smile.
“I never said you didn't. I'm just belabouring the point. Also, I would like it if you and Jessica would attend some sessions with Dr. Blaize as well. You're going to be Sam's primary caregivers, and as much as you love Sam, it's going to be a very difficult adjustment for the both of you.”
“We'll be fine,” the words are out of his mouth before he can even think of biting his tongue, and he thinks he sees a small flicker of annoyance on her face.
“You'll be fine for a while, yes. Eventually, though, you're going to need help. Sam isn't the only victim, here, and the sooner you realize that, the better. It's not shameful in any way to not be perfectly fine, with everything that's going on. Your whole life changed practically overnight.”
Dean snorts. It's not exactly the first time his life has changed overnight, and they coped just fine the last time, too. “Right. Okay. I'll talk to Jess, let her know what you said.”
“All right. If you don't want to talk to Dr. Blaize, I can refer you to someone else, as well.”
“Nah, it's fine. If she's good enough for Sammy, she's good enough for me.” Dean twists the ring on the finger of his right hand, doesn't quite know where to let his gaze land that would be safe. She reaches out, lays a hand over his, has to stretch to reach all the way over her desk, and he manages not to flinch away from the uninvited contact. Hey, she's pretty hot, even if she's at least ten years older than he is, maybe more. You don't become a neurologist overnight, after all.
“Dean. I know you're feeling a great deal of pressure to hold it all together. You're not the only one who's been through something like this, and believe me when I tell you, it's too much for one person to shoulder it all. You can't help Sam if you refuse help for yourself.”
God damn these people and their goddamn habit of using Sam against him. Dean resolves to spend more time practising his poker face in the mirror, because it's getting to be really annoying how everyone seems to be able to read him like an open book these days.
“Yeah, okay, fine.”
Her smile turns ever-so-subtly triumphant. “Good. I'll schedule an appointment for you. Mondays are your day off, right?”
*
Sam is coming home in two days, and Jess thinks she might go crazy in the intervening forty-eight hours. She's been obsessively cleaning since Monday morning, and even she has to admit that she probably doesn't need to re-scrub the grout in the bathroom, but she doesn't know what else to do with herself while she's at home. So she escapes to work, and when she's not at work she sits with Sam in his hospital room, except that she's found that she's increasingly nervous around him as the date of his release approaches. It's ridiculous, and she kind of hates herself for it, because it's really not Sam's fault that the safe, ordinary routine of her life has become all screwed up. In the past, though, Sam is the one she would have turned to for support, to cry on his shoulder and rant at him about how unfair it all is. Only now she can't, because he's in worse shape than she is, and he's holding it together so much better than she is, at least when they're together, so the least she can do is paste on a smile and try to act encouraging.
“You want to go outside for a while?” she offers. She got off work early, and it's a beautiful August afternoon, not a cloud in the sky.
The corners of Sam's mouth quirk up into the uncertain smile that's become usual for him these days. It's not the bright, open, unabashedly happy smile that used to light up rooms, the one that used to greet her every day, but at least it's a smile, and she'll take what she can get.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “It's pretty nice out. Uh... is it okay? I mean, do you have time?”
Her chest feels tight, because the Sam from four months ago would automatically have known that she always has time for him. “Of course I do. I wouldn't have offered otherwise. You up for it, then?”
He nods, reaches carefully for the button that will raise the bed. She busies herself bringing the wheelchair around so that she won't have to watch the painstaking way in which Sam has to do everything these days, the way he bites his lip and screws up his nose in concentration to perform the simple act of pushing a couple of buttons, hands shaking and jerking in spite of himself. By the time she's got the chair pushed back toward the bed he's managed to sit up, legs hanging over the side of the bed, a little awkward still because of the external fixator still attached to his right leg, hands gripping the side of the mattress.
Jess keeps her eyes trained on his face, even though the lacerations and the surgical cuts have healed into pink scars, bright against the pale skin of his leg. Every time she lets herself look, all she sees is Sam lying crumpled on the asphalt, his calf ripped open from the inside out, bone and blood glistening under the glare of the streetlight, and it makes her a little sick to her stomach.
“You ready?” she asks brightly, trying hard to mask the nausea that's making her stomach churn.
“Born ready,” he answers, glancing up at her quickly through his bangs, exactly the way he used to, and for the hundredth time that day she has to remind herself that it's not what she thinks.
She stands in front of him and lets him wrap his arms around her neck the way the nurses and the physical therapists showed her. Then it's up, pivot, ease Sam into the chair, lock the leg support in place to keep his leg almost completely straight, and they're good to go. It's all deceptively easy, here, and it doesn't help her anxiety about bringing him home in the slightest. She eases the wheelchair down the hallway and into the elevator, careful not to jar his leg or any other part of him, for that matter.
There's a tiny outdoor park on the hospital grounds. It's more like a couple of benches, a few trees, and some lawn that's mostly been taken over by weeds, but at least it's a green space with shade. She stops by a bench under a tree.
“This good?”
“If it wasn't, would you consent to changing spots?”
“Uh...” she stiffens, unsure what to make of his tone, and he has the grace to look abashed.
“Sorry. I was kidding, mostly. Not that I think you wouldn't... God, I'm sorry.”
She sighs, tucks her feet up under her on the bench. “Don't be sorry. I get it: you can't move anywhere without someone pushing or pulling at you, and I'd be going crazy too. So how about you don't apologize for what you can't control and I won't apologize for it either?”
He rubs at his temple awkwardly with one hand. “Yeah, okay.”
“Headache?”
That gets her a grimace. “What else is new? It's okay for now.” He shifts his weight in the chair -nothing in this hospital has been made to accommodate someone of his height, and that includes the wheelchairs- then looks at her, squinting a bit in the afternoon light. “Uh, I don't know how to ask this without it sounding weird and probably really insulting...”
“Okay,” Jess folds her hands in her lap, and tries not to look as apprehensive as she feels. “Go ahead and ask, and I'll try very hard not to get my feelings hurt.”
He rubs the back of his neck in a way that reminds her of Dean. “So, we were... before, I mean... I guess we probably slept together?”
She snorts with amusement at that. “Uh, yes. Definitely.”
He can't meet her eyes. “It's... when, uh... I mean, on Friday, when I'm supposed to... shit, this is hard. God.”
“Eloquent as always when it comes to matters of the heart,” she rolls her eyes, swallows the lump in her throat. “Sam, it's okay. You can't be in a regular bed right now, anyway, so we've got a hospital bed for you at home. One that's long enough to accommodate you, for that matter. We'll be sharing a room, 'cause we can't afford an extra bedroom, and someone needs to be close by anyway, but we won't be, uh, sharing a bed. Not for the foreseeable future, anyway.”
Sam nods, keeps his gaze trained to the side, and she can see tears starting to form in his eyes. “I'm sorry.”
“It's not your fault.”
His voice breaks, and she can barely make out the quiet words, spoken to the armrest of his wheelchair rather than to her. “Then why does it feel as though it is?”
*
It's three o'clock in the morning. Sam is coming home in less than nine hours, and Dean can't face up to going back to the apartment where Jessica is either sleeping or maybe attacking the bookcases with another bottle of Pledge. So he's spent the past hour obsessively wiping down the tables, polishing the bar until he can see his face in the surface, wiping and sorting the bottles of alcohol behind the bar, and rubbing the mirror with a soft cloth until there's not a single smudge or fingerprint left on the entire surface.
When he runs out of things to clean and organize he finds Lauren waiting for him in the tiny hallway leading to the restrooms and shoves her up against the wall, letting one hand travel up the rather flattering green top she's been displaying all evening. Well, not so much the top as what it's barely been covering up, but he's not exactly picky about that. It's a nice top, he thinks distractedly, all soft and stretchy in just the right places, and he gets a kick out of the way she's squirming ever so slightly as his fingers come into contact with the scratchy lace of her bra. She's digging both hands into his biceps, clinging as though she might fall on her ass if she lets go, returning his kiss just as eagerly as he's giving it, tongue flickering wildly over his, pushing and yielding in equal measure. She breaks the kiss with a quiet moan, throwing back her head as his hand moves back down, finds its way under her frilly black skirt, and the top of her head hits the wall with a hollow thud.
“Uh, God,” she breathes. “Where the fuck'd you learn that?”
He sucks on her neck, pauses long enough to answer. “You don't wanna know.”
She whimpers, tries to thrust against his fingers, but the angle is all wrong, and the sounds coming from her throat are getting increasingly frustrated. Which, if you ask him, turn-on, but Dean thinks of himself as a gentleman of sorts: he's not the type to start something he can't finish. “Fuck, I don't care, just... oh God, like that. There. Oh God, like that, yes, God!” she grips his shoulders tighter, rocking on the balls of her feet, straining to keep up while he keeps sucking and biting at her neck, her collarbone, leaving a trail of purpling bruises with lips and teeth. She's all but fucking herself on his fingers, getting louder aswant and need begin to supersede her initial desire for discretion. “Oh, fuck,” she's leaning against the wall, letting him pin her, and he grins and twists his fingers until she's keening and whining and coming apart at the seams, shuddering against him as if it's the middle of January.
When her eyes open again, pupils still blown so wide it's a miracle she can see, she licks her lips, chest still heaving, sweat cooling on her skin. “My turn,” she says, a bit breathlessly. “Or, you know, your turn, depending on how you look at it.”
The next thing he knows she on her knees and yanking at his zipper, and, well, he's not exactly about to say no to that, even if he's supposed to be locking up, and maybe making sure there's no one left in the restroom stalls. And then there's the fact he should be heading home and to bed, because Sammy's coming home tomorrow and he should be getting ready for that and oh, fuck, her tongue is doing really awesome things and now is no longer the time to be thinking about his brother.
He reaches out blindly with one hand to brace himself against the wall, ends up with his back leaning against it, and this is quite possibly the most awesome role-reversal he's had in a very long while. Lauren isn't spectacularly talented at this, but she's making up for the lack of experience with a whole lot of enthusiasm, and she doesn't make a single sound of protest when he grabs the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair. She just hums happily, kind like the dwarves in Snow White on their way to work, and damn does he not need to be thinking of that right now, even if Snow White was kind of hot in an abstract, Disney way, and he'll bet that she could do some fucking awesome things with those blood-red lips... He gasps and jerks as Lauren adds a hand to whatever she's doing, and goddamn but it's really hard not to just push down on her head -he's at exactly the right angle- and do whatever he wants to her. Instead he pulls both hands away and braces himself against the wall, his right hand finding and gripping the door frame to one of the restrooms, knuckles turning white even as his fingers brush up against a hinge. Maybe he should take the doors in the apartment off their hinges, like that website suggested, to make it easier for Sam's wheelchair to go through, he thinks, until he's brought crashing back to the present by Lauren's teeth scraping over him and God how is he even thinking about wheelchair access right now? He nearly bites his tongue in half a moment later, his vision flashing white, and it's all he can do not to sink bonelessly to the floor and let his eyes roll back into his head.
Lauren giggles at him, running her tongue over lips that are red and swollen and glistening even in the dim light. “You back with me? I thought I lost you there for a minute.”
He manages a sheepish grin as he sorts himself out, clumsily zipping up his fly again. “You almost did.”
“Maybe I ought to handcuff you to my bed, make sure you don't stray too far.”
There's no mistaking the invitation there, and there's nothing he wants more than to take her back to her place and stretch her out over her bed until she screams his name like it's a synonym for 'God.' He hesitates, a thousand thoughts flickering through his mind, most of them along the lines of but-Sam-is-coming-home-tomorrow, and she mistakes the pause for something else.
“Or, you know, there doesn't have to be handcuffs.”
“No, no, that's not it,” he says, decision made. “Just give me ten minutes to finish locking up?”
Lauren smooths her skirt over her thighs. “Ten minutes,” she agrees. “But only ten, or I'm starting without you. I'll be waiting by the car,” she says over her shoulder, heading toward the exit with an exaggerated swing of her hips.
He makes it outside in seven.
*
“So just how hungover are you?” Sam nudges Dean's elbow as they wait for Jess to finish up whatever it is she's talking about with Dr. Alvarez.
All the paperwork is signed and sealed, Sam is dressed in a pair of loose black cotton pants and a grey t-shirt that probably fit him before but now looks as though it's about two sizes too large. He's still pale, and the dark circles under his eyes haven't receded at all, but Dean figures that they might go away with a bit more sleep and a bit more sunshine, now that he won't be trapped in the hospital for most hours of the day.
“'M not hungover,” he says carefully. “Just tired. Thursdays are a bitch at work. All those people eager to blow their paycheques.”
“Dean, I'm an amnesiac, not an idiot. If you're not hungover, then you were at least up all night. You look like you went a round with a truck, and coming from me, that's saying something.”
Dean flinches. “I swear, if you weren't already suffering from brain trauma, I'd kick your scrawny ass.”
“Hit a nerve, did I?” Sam grins, but he's twisting his hands in his lap, and it only takes Dean a moment to realize that Sam is anxious, that he's probably a giant bundle of nerves and that this is his way of coping, of trying to hold it together long enough to just get out of here.
“Yeah, okay, maybe. But I'm not hungover. I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night, okay?”
“Find someone special?”
“Oh, she was special, all right,” Dean leers at Sam, and is gratified when his little brother blushes a bit. “Did all sorts of special things with that mouth of hers.”
“This special girl have a name?”
“Sammy, you should know a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell.”
Sam snorts. “Are you telling me you're a gentleman?”
“Okay, Lauren.”
Sam's face scrunches up. “That the plump girl who came by?”
“That'd be the one. And she's not so much plump as... lavishly endowed.”
“Dean!”
“What?” he pastes on his best innocent expression, and is rewarded with a laugh from Sam.
“You're unbelievable.”
“You're the one who asked.”
“And I'm seriously starting to regret that.”
Jess rescues Sam from what is turning into quite possibly the most awkward conversation since the last time they talked about Dad. She's got a manila folder under one arm, her hair pulled back into a pony tail, her face flushed attractively from the heat.
“Ready to blow this joint?”
“God, yes.”
Sam returns the smile: it's genuine, bright and sunny, and Jess just about glows under the attention. Dean resolutely doesn't feel jealous in the slightest, gets to his feet and grabs the handles of the wheelchair. He cracks a joke about racing to the car, keeps up the same steady pace anyway, and after a couple of false starts, between the three of them they manage to get Sam settled in the back seat, broken leg stretched out while he leans against the door on the passenger side. The drive back to the apartment is silent, none of them knowing exactly what to say, and when Dean pulls up in front of the small building, he hears Sam's breath catch in his throat. He turns around in his seat.
“Okay, so there are a couple of stairs to negotiate first, but once we're clear of those the rest of the place is fine for the wheelchair. You up to the stairs if I help you?”
Sam bites his lower lip and gives the two concrete steps leading up to the front door the same dubious look he might give to someone suggesting he scale Mount Everest in his bare feet.
“Yeah, sure. No problem.”
Jess' expression mirrors Sam's, though probably not for the same reasons, Dean thinks. She doesn't say a word, though, just grabs the folded wheelchair from the trunk of the Impala (and thank God for false bottoms, is all Dean can say), and carries it up the stairs, staggering a bit under its weight, leaving him to ease Sam out of the car.
“Ready Sammy? On three.” This time, Dean reminds himself, it actually has to be on three, and not on a 'surprise' number. This isn't a dislocated shoulder being put back into place. “One, two, three,” he pulls Sam to his feet, his brother's hands hooked around his neck.
He can feel Sam's ribs beneath his hands, fragile as a bird's, pushes the thought out of his mind and reaches for the forearm crutches propped against the side of the car. It takes a moment of awkward fumbling, but eventually Sam gets the cuffs around his arms, leans his weight tentatively on the crutches, as thought the ground might be less solid outside the hospital. He gives Dean a nod, takes one shuffling step, then another, finds a slow rhythm, and makes it across the pavement to the foot of the stairs, where he hesitates, chewing on his lip. Dean has been trying not to hover, but he drops his hand to the small of Sam's back, reassuring.
“You're doing great, dude. Don't worry, I got your back.”
Sam glances at him, nods once as though confirming something to himself, braces the crutches as best he can, takes the first step, then the second. Sweat is beading along his hairline by the time he gets to the front door, as much from the stress as from the exertion, and when Dean catches him under the arms to help him back into the wheelchair that's just inside the door, he sags gratefully against him, clutching at Dean's arms for balance. Dean grins reassuringly at him, ruffles his hair, ignoring the yelp of protest, then turns the wheelchair around in the entrance so that Sam is facing the apartment.
“Welcome home, Sammy.”
*
Chapter 8
Oh, and, erm... *blushes madly* I may have, erm, written mild porn. *cough* Sorry. Uh, I dunno what happened there, but Dean kind of insisted, and we all know I can't say no to him. It's about as mild and non-explicit as the last time I wrote a scene like that, but, y'know, your mileage may vary.
It's in the third section (oh, who am I kidding, it's the entire third section), so if you want to avoid the het and ratherastory's lame attempt at sex, you can just skip it entirely. The gist of the scene is: Dean uses sex to avoid thinking about more important things. The end. With gratuitous Disney references, because I'm apparently twisted like that. *cough*
God.
*headdesk*
Master Post
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
“So you're sure he can come home?”
The word 'home' feels weird on Dean's tongue, even as he says it, just like any other civilian. Sure, he's been living in the same place for a couple of months, not the longest he's ever stayed put, even, but he's never actually called any of those places home. Just a succession of motel rooms, rental apartments, the occasional house or cabin in the woods. The closest he's got to an actual home is the Impala, and he'll never call his baby that because it's way too embarrassingly sappy and he'll end up renting The Notebook and eating ice cream if he's not careful.
Dr. Alvarez nods. She's actually pretty cool, which is more than Dean can say for most of the doctors he's met over the years in various hospital emergency rooms. For one, she doesn't have a God complex, and for two, she talks to Dean as though he's not a mentally retarded child, which is a plus in his books. She also doesn't talk to Sam as though he's a mentally retarded child, and that's her main selling point. She's a neurologist and normally she'd just be in for a consult and that's it, but somewhere along the way she stepped in to be Sammy's primary physician, maybe because most of his problems stem from having his head bashed in by a car. Dean's not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, though. Dr. Alvarez leans her elbows on the desk between them, looking him in the face as she speaks, another point in her favour.
“I think that we can stick to the current schedule without too many problems. I'm going to have Dr. Blaize conduct another evaluation on Thursday, just to be sure, but at this juncture I think that having Sam stay in the hospital any longer is going to end up doing more harm than good for his emotional state. His motor skills are improving steadily, enough that he shouldn't have too much trouble with basic everyday tasks, so there's no reason for him to be cooped up here any more than he has to be. Mainly I'm waiting for Dr. Blaize's okay to release him.”
“You think she won't want him to go?” Dean resists the impulse to get up and pace, which has been growing stronger ever since he stepped foot in the office. He doesn't like the idea of Sam having to see the psychiatrist as often as he does, even if objectively he knows it's important and just as necessary for Sam's recovery. Sammy's been depressed ever since he came out of the coma, although he tries his best to put up a front when people are around now that he's doing better physically. At least now he doesn't go for days without talking the way he did before. Sure, some of that was because he was having trouble forming thoughts, but most of it was because he just couldn't bring himself to talk, and that frightened Dean more than he will ever admit out loud.
“No, I think she and I are on the same page. I just want to cross all my i's and dot all my t's before I sign off on the release forms. I don't have to tell you that treating your brother is a tricky process, and I don't want to focus on his physical problems to the detriment of his mental health. In many ways, it's his emotional well-being that's more important.”
“I know that,” Dean folds his arms across his chest, knowing he sounds defensive and unable to do a single thing about it. Dr. Alvarez awards him a surprisingly patient smile.
“I never said you didn't. I'm just belabouring the point. Also, I would like it if you and Jessica would attend some sessions with Dr. Blaize as well. You're going to be Sam's primary caregivers, and as much as you love Sam, it's going to be a very difficult adjustment for the both of you.”
“We'll be fine,” the words are out of his mouth before he can even think of biting his tongue, and he thinks he sees a small flicker of annoyance on her face.
“You'll be fine for a while, yes. Eventually, though, you're going to need help. Sam isn't the only victim, here, and the sooner you realize that, the better. It's not shameful in any way to not be perfectly fine, with everything that's going on. Your whole life changed practically overnight.”
Dean snorts. It's not exactly the first time his life has changed overnight, and they coped just fine the last time, too. “Right. Okay. I'll talk to Jess, let her know what you said.”
“All right. If you don't want to talk to Dr. Blaize, I can refer you to someone else, as well.”
“Nah, it's fine. If she's good enough for Sammy, she's good enough for me.” Dean twists the ring on the finger of his right hand, doesn't quite know where to let his gaze land that would be safe. She reaches out, lays a hand over his, has to stretch to reach all the way over her desk, and he manages not to flinch away from the uninvited contact. Hey, she's pretty hot, even if she's at least ten years older than he is, maybe more. You don't become a neurologist overnight, after all.
“Dean. I know you're feeling a great deal of pressure to hold it all together. You're not the only one who's been through something like this, and believe me when I tell you, it's too much for one person to shoulder it all. You can't help Sam if you refuse help for yourself.”
God damn these people and their goddamn habit of using Sam against him. Dean resolves to spend more time practising his poker face in the mirror, because it's getting to be really annoying how everyone seems to be able to read him like an open book these days.
“Yeah, okay, fine.”
Her smile turns ever-so-subtly triumphant. “Good. I'll schedule an appointment for you. Mondays are your day off, right?”
*
Sam is coming home in two days, and Jess thinks she might go crazy in the intervening forty-eight hours. She's been obsessively cleaning since Monday morning, and even she has to admit that she probably doesn't need to re-scrub the grout in the bathroom, but she doesn't know what else to do with herself while she's at home. So she escapes to work, and when she's not at work she sits with Sam in his hospital room, except that she's found that she's increasingly nervous around him as the date of his release approaches. It's ridiculous, and she kind of hates herself for it, because it's really not Sam's fault that the safe, ordinary routine of her life has become all screwed up. In the past, though, Sam is the one she would have turned to for support, to cry on his shoulder and rant at him about how unfair it all is. Only now she can't, because he's in worse shape than she is, and he's holding it together so much better than she is, at least when they're together, so the least she can do is paste on a smile and try to act encouraging.
“You want to go outside for a while?” she offers. She got off work early, and it's a beautiful August afternoon, not a cloud in the sky.
The corners of Sam's mouth quirk up into the uncertain smile that's become usual for him these days. It's not the bright, open, unabashedly happy smile that used to light up rooms, the one that used to greet her every day, but at least it's a smile, and she'll take what she can get.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “It's pretty nice out. Uh... is it okay? I mean, do you have time?”
Her chest feels tight, because the Sam from four months ago would automatically have known that she always has time for him. “Of course I do. I wouldn't have offered otherwise. You up for it, then?”
He nods, reaches carefully for the button that will raise the bed. She busies herself bringing the wheelchair around so that she won't have to watch the painstaking way in which Sam has to do everything these days, the way he bites his lip and screws up his nose in concentration to perform the simple act of pushing a couple of buttons, hands shaking and jerking in spite of himself. By the time she's got the chair pushed back toward the bed he's managed to sit up, legs hanging over the side of the bed, a little awkward still because of the external fixator still attached to his right leg, hands gripping the side of the mattress.
Jess keeps her eyes trained on his face, even though the lacerations and the surgical cuts have healed into pink scars, bright against the pale skin of his leg. Every time she lets herself look, all she sees is Sam lying crumpled on the asphalt, his calf ripped open from the inside out, bone and blood glistening under the glare of the streetlight, and it makes her a little sick to her stomach.
“You ready?” she asks brightly, trying hard to mask the nausea that's making her stomach churn.
“Born ready,” he answers, glancing up at her quickly through his bangs, exactly the way he used to, and for the hundredth time that day she has to remind herself that it's not what she thinks.
She stands in front of him and lets him wrap his arms around her neck the way the nurses and the physical therapists showed her. Then it's up, pivot, ease Sam into the chair, lock the leg support in place to keep his leg almost completely straight, and they're good to go. It's all deceptively easy, here, and it doesn't help her anxiety about bringing him home in the slightest. She eases the wheelchair down the hallway and into the elevator, careful not to jar his leg or any other part of him, for that matter.
There's a tiny outdoor park on the hospital grounds. It's more like a couple of benches, a few trees, and some lawn that's mostly been taken over by weeds, but at least it's a green space with shade. She stops by a bench under a tree.
“This good?”
“If it wasn't, would you consent to changing spots?”
“Uh...” she stiffens, unsure what to make of his tone, and he has the grace to look abashed.
“Sorry. I was kidding, mostly. Not that I think you wouldn't... God, I'm sorry.”
She sighs, tucks her feet up under her on the bench. “Don't be sorry. I get it: you can't move anywhere without someone pushing or pulling at you, and I'd be going crazy too. So how about you don't apologize for what you can't control and I won't apologize for it either?”
He rubs at his temple awkwardly with one hand. “Yeah, okay.”
“Headache?”
That gets her a grimace. “What else is new? It's okay for now.” He shifts his weight in the chair -nothing in this hospital has been made to accommodate someone of his height, and that includes the wheelchairs- then looks at her, squinting a bit in the afternoon light. “Uh, I don't know how to ask this without it sounding weird and probably really insulting...”
“Okay,” Jess folds her hands in her lap, and tries not to look as apprehensive as she feels. “Go ahead and ask, and I'll try very hard not to get my feelings hurt.”
He rubs the back of his neck in a way that reminds her of Dean. “So, we were... before, I mean... I guess we probably slept together?”
She snorts with amusement at that. “Uh, yes. Definitely.”
He can't meet her eyes. “It's... when, uh... I mean, on Friday, when I'm supposed to... shit, this is hard. God.”
“Eloquent as always when it comes to matters of the heart,” she rolls her eyes, swallows the lump in her throat. “Sam, it's okay. You can't be in a regular bed right now, anyway, so we've got a hospital bed for you at home. One that's long enough to accommodate you, for that matter. We'll be sharing a room, 'cause we can't afford an extra bedroom, and someone needs to be close by anyway, but we won't be, uh, sharing a bed. Not for the foreseeable future, anyway.”
Sam nods, keeps his gaze trained to the side, and she can see tears starting to form in his eyes. “I'm sorry.”
“It's not your fault.”
His voice breaks, and she can barely make out the quiet words, spoken to the armrest of his wheelchair rather than to her. “Then why does it feel as though it is?”
*
It's three o'clock in the morning. Sam is coming home in less than nine hours, and Dean can't face up to going back to the apartment where Jessica is either sleeping or maybe attacking the bookcases with another bottle of Pledge. So he's spent the past hour obsessively wiping down the tables, polishing the bar until he can see his face in the surface, wiping and sorting the bottles of alcohol behind the bar, and rubbing the mirror with a soft cloth until there's not a single smudge or fingerprint left on the entire surface.
When he runs out of things to clean and organize he finds Lauren waiting for him in the tiny hallway leading to the restrooms and shoves her up against the wall, letting one hand travel up the rather flattering green top she's been displaying all evening. Well, not so much the top as what it's barely been covering up, but he's not exactly picky about that. It's a nice top, he thinks distractedly, all soft and stretchy in just the right places, and he gets a kick out of the way she's squirming ever so slightly as his fingers come into contact with the scratchy lace of her bra. She's digging both hands into his biceps, clinging as though she might fall on her ass if she lets go, returning his kiss just as eagerly as he's giving it, tongue flickering wildly over his, pushing and yielding in equal measure. She breaks the kiss with a quiet moan, throwing back her head as his hand moves back down, finds its way under her frilly black skirt, and the top of her head hits the wall with a hollow thud.
“Uh, God,” she breathes. “Where the fuck'd you learn that?”
He sucks on her neck, pauses long enough to answer. “You don't wanna know.”
She whimpers, tries to thrust against his fingers, but the angle is all wrong, and the sounds coming from her throat are getting increasingly frustrated. Which, if you ask him, turn-on, but Dean thinks of himself as a gentleman of sorts: he's not the type to start something he can't finish. “Fuck, I don't care, just... oh God, like that. There. Oh God, like that, yes, God!” she grips his shoulders tighter, rocking on the balls of her feet, straining to keep up while he keeps sucking and biting at her neck, her collarbone, leaving a trail of purpling bruises with lips and teeth. She's all but fucking herself on his fingers, getting louder aswant and need begin to supersede her initial desire for discretion. “Oh, fuck,” she's leaning against the wall, letting him pin her, and he grins and twists his fingers until she's keening and whining and coming apart at the seams, shuddering against him as if it's the middle of January.
When her eyes open again, pupils still blown so wide it's a miracle she can see, she licks her lips, chest still heaving, sweat cooling on her skin. “My turn,” she says, a bit breathlessly. “Or, you know, your turn, depending on how you look at it.”
The next thing he knows she on her knees and yanking at his zipper, and, well, he's not exactly about to say no to that, even if he's supposed to be locking up, and maybe making sure there's no one left in the restroom stalls. And then there's the fact he should be heading home and to bed, because Sammy's coming home tomorrow and he should be getting ready for that and oh, fuck, her tongue is doing really awesome things and now is no longer the time to be thinking about his brother.
He reaches out blindly with one hand to brace himself against the wall, ends up with his back leaning against it, and this is quite possibly the most awesome role-reversal he's had in a very long while. Lauren isn't spectacularly talented at this, but she's making up for the lack of experience with a whole lot of enthusiasm, and she doesn't make a single sound of protest when he grabs the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair. She just hums happily, kind like the dwarves in Snow White on their way to work, and damn does he not need to be thinking of that right now, even if Snow White was kind of hot in an abstract, Disney way, and he'll bet that she could do some fucking awesome things with those blood-red lips... He gasps and jerks as Lauren adds a hand to whatever she's doing, and goddamn but it's really hard not to just push down on her head -he's at exactly the right angle- and do whatever he wants to her. Instead he pulls both hands away and braces himself against the wall, his right hand finding and gripping the door frame to one of the restrooms, knuckles turning white even as his fingers brush up against a hinge. Maybe he should take the doors in the apartment off their hinges, like that website suggested, to make it easier for Sam's wheelchair to go through, he thinks, until he's brought crashing back to the present by Lauren's teeth scraping over him and God how is he even thinking about wheelchair access right now? He nearly bites his tongue in half a moment later, his vision flashing white, and it's all he can do not to sink bonelessly to the floor and let his eyes roll back into his head.
Lauren giggles at him, running her tongue over lips that are red and swollen and glistening even in the dim light. “You back with me? I thought I lost you there for a minute.”
He manages a sheepish grin as he sorts himself out, clumsily zipping up his fly again. “You almost did.”
“Maybe I ought to handcuff you to my bed, make sure you don't stray too far.”
There's no mistaking the invitation there, and there's nothing he wants more than to take her back to her place and stretch her out over her bed until she screams his name like it's a synonym for 'God.' He hesitates, a thousand thoughts flickering through his mind, most of them along the lines of but-Sam-is-coming-home-tomorrow, and she mistakes the pause for something else.
“Or, you know, there doesn't have to be handcuffs.”
“No, no, that's not it,” he says, decision made. “Just give me ten minutes to finish locking up?”
Lauren smooths her skirt over her thighs. “Ten minutes,” she agrees. “But only ten, or I'm starting without you. I'll be waiting by the car,” she says over her shoulder, heading toward the exit with an exaggerated swing of her hips.
He makes it outside in seven.
*
“So just how hungover are you?” Sam nudges Dean's elbow as they wait for Jess to finish up whatever it is she's talking about with Dr. Alvarez.
All the paperwork is signed and sealed, Sam is dressed in a pair of loose black cotton pants and a grey t-shirt that probably fit him before but now looks as though it's about two sizes too large. He's still pale, and the dark circles under his eyes haven't receded at all, but Dean figures that they might go away with a bit more sleep and a bit more sunshine, now that he won't be trapped in the hospital for most hours of the day.
“'M not hungover,” he says carefully. “Just tired. Thursdays are a bitch at work. All those people eager to blow their paycheques.”
“Dean, I'm an amnesiac, not an idiot. If you're not hungover, then you were at least up all night. You look like you went a round with a truck, and coming from me, that's saying something.”
Dean flinches. “I swear, if you weren't already suffering from brain trauma, I'd kick your scrawny ass.”
“Hit a nerve, did I?” Sam grins, but he's twisting his hands in his lap, and it only takes Dean a moment to realize that Sam is anxious, that he's probably a giant bundle of nerves and that this is his way of coping, of trying to hold it together long enough to just get out of here.
“Yeah, okay, maybe. But I'm not hungover. I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night, okay?”
“Find someone special?”
“Oh, she was special, all right,” Dean leers at Sam, and is gratified when his little brother blushes a bit. “Did all sorts of special things with that mouth of hers.”
“This special girl have a name?”
“Sammy, you should know a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell.”
Sam snorts. “Are you telling me you're a gentleman?”
“Okay, Lauren.”
Sam's face scrunches up. “That the plump girl who came by?”
“That'd be the one. And she's not so much plump as... lavishly endowed.”
“Dean!”
“What?” he pastes on his best innocent expression, and is rewarded with a laugh from Sam.
“You're unbelievable.”
“You're the one who asked.”
“And I'm seriously starting to regret that.”
Jess rescues Sam from what is turning into quite possibly the most awkward conversation since the last time they talked about Dad. She's got a manila folder under one arm, her hair pulled back into a pony tail, her face flushed attractively from the heat.
“Ready to blow this joint?”
“God, yes.”
Sam returns the smile: it's genuine, bright and sunny, and Jess just about glows under the attention. Dean resolutely doesn't feel jealous in the slightest, gets to his feet and grabs the handles of the wheelchair. He cracks a joke about racing to the car, keeps up the same steady pace anyway, and after a couple of false starts, between the three of them they manage to get Sam settled in the back seat, broken leg stretched out while he leans against the door on the passenger side. The drive back to the apartment is silent, none of them knowing exactly what to say, and when Dean pulls up in front of the small building, he hears Sam's breath catch in his throat. He turns around in his seat.
“Okay, so there are a couple of stairs to negotiate first, but once we're clear of those the rest of the place is fine for the wheelchair. You up to the stairs if I help you?”
Sam bites his lower lip and gives the two concrete steps leading up to the front door the same dubious look he might give to someone suggesting he scale Mount Everest in his bare feet.
“Yeah, sure. No problem.”
Jess' expression mirrors Sam's, though probably not for the same reasons, Dean thinks. She doesn't say a word, though, just grabs the folded wheelchair from the trunk of the Impala (and thank God for false bottoms, is all Dean can say), and carries it up the stairs, staggering a bit under its weight, leaving him to ease Sam out of the car.
“Ready Sammy? On three.” This time, Dean reminds himself, it actually has to be on three, and not on a 'surprise' number. This isn't a dislocated shoulder being put back into place. “One, two, three,” he pulls Sam to his feet, his brother's hands hooked around his neck.
He can feel Sam's ribs beneath his hands, fragile as a bird's, pushes the thought out of his mind and reaches for the forearm crutches propped against the side of the car. It takes a moment of awkward fumbling, but eventually Sam gets the cuffs around his arms, leans his weight tentatively on the crutches, as thought the ground might be less solid outside the hospital. He gives Dean a nod, takes one shuffling step, then another, finds a slow rhythm, and makes it across the pavement to the foot of the stairs, where he hesitates, chewing on his lip. Dean has been trying not to hover, but he drops his hand to the small of Sam's back, reassuring.
“You're doing great, dude. Don't worry, I got your back.”
Sam glances at him, nods once as though confirming something to himself, braces the crutches as best he can, takes the first step, then the second. Sweat is beading along his hairline by the time he gets to the front door, as much from the stress as from the exertion, and when Dean catches him under the arms to help him back into the wheelchair that's just inside the door, he sags gratefully against him, clutching at Dean's arms for balance. Dean grins reassuringly at him, ruffles his hair, ignoring the yelp of protest, then turns the wheelchair around in the entrance so that Sam is facing the apartment.
“Welcome home, Sammy.”
*
Chapter 8