One That Got Away
Well, here goes nothing. This is my first Supernatural fic ever. This is terrifying.
Title: One That Got Away
Author: winyumi
Rating: PG-13
Words: 6,000
Characters: Sam, OMC, OFC
Warning: There's some swearing, and descriptions of injuries, nothing too graphic. Also, this is shameless Sam-whumpage. If you're a Dean-girl you probably will be bored. If there's a genre called WWP (Whump Without Plot), this is it.
Summary: An ER doctor meets Sam Winchester. Sam is having a bad day.
Disclaimer: Sam isn't mine, he belongs to Dean.
The kid is clearly in a bad way. In the bright ER light his skin shows up pale and clammy. Tremors run through his body at frequent intervals. Above his shirt collar, dark bruises in the distinct shape of fingers pattern his neck. Jonathan would very much like to determine what other injuries might be silently lurking beneath his filthy layers of shirts and torn jeans, but that’s proving difficult. Pale and shaky he might be, but the kid has already come damn close to breaking Jonathan’s nose.
Eileen has gone for security, and Jonathan’s stuck hanging back, squinting at him out of striking range. He tries desperately to decide if the kid has anything wrong with him that’ll actually kill him if he gets tackled. Judging from the way he fights, his injuries are strictly superficial, but he could be so hopped up on something he doesn’t feel the pain. If he’s already got fractured ribs or something a tackle could break them worse, send them into his lungs. Not to mention his head’s clearly pretty messed up already. Getting it knocked against something could only make it worse.
He’s tried talking since the beginning, it hasn’t seemed to make a difference, but Jonathan doesn’t give up easy. Sometimes a little patience is what’s called for. “Kid, listen, I’m a doctor, you’re safe here. Do you understand? Nobody’s trying to hurt you.”
Jonathan studies his stance: legs shoulder width apart, right foot in front, left planted behind, so he can shift weight between them easily, put power into kicks or hits. His hands are raised in front of his chest, loose but ready to curl into fists. His face is angled downwards, and his eyes, near as Jonathan can make out, are fixed on Jonathan’s feet. Maybe he’s willing them to move so he can escape out the door. It’s hard to tell if he’s really seeing them though. Hard to tell if he’s really seeing anything at all. His dirty bangs block his eyes. Jonathan can make out a dark clumped patch of hair near the hairline, stuck together with what he assumes is blood, and wonders if that’s a clue to the mystery of what the hell the kid thinks he’s doing.
Time’s slipping away, and any minute now Eileen will be back with security. He needs to see this kid’s eyes, if he could just get the kid to look at him, realize where he is, they might actually get somewhere. “Look at me kid, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m trying to help you, understand? Kid? Kid? C’mon kid, I’m not the enemy,” he coaxes. It’s like the kid doesn’t even know he’s there. From the nurse’s station comes a shrill burst of laughter, and the kid flinches slightly without looking up. So he’s not goddam deaf, he’s just ignoring Jonathan.
“Hey, eyes up here!” He’s frustrated, and barks the order out louder and gruffer than he meant to. It kinda comes out more like his father than Jonathan had ever thought he could sound. He winces internally. But hey, it gets a response at least. The kid’s eyes flick up from the floor, startled, and fasten on Jonathan’s face for all of two seconds before scanning the rest of the room. Searching for a way out? Or maybe searching for someone who sounds like that? The guy who put those bruises around his throat, maybe. Jonathan could drive the kid to do something bad here. But still, it’s the closest this kid’s gotten to awareness since Jonathan tried to remove his shirt and the completely pliant, seemingly catatonic kid went ape-shit.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” he orders, trying hard to stay on the right side of the line between authoritative and angry. This time the kid’s eyes dart over to meet his and stick there. He revises his estimate of the kid’s age downwards a few years, from 18 to maybe 16. The height is deceiving. His face is very scared, and very young.
It’s enough to make your heart melt, how terrified this kid it. Lucky Jonathan was raised by a soldier. Lucky the tone still comes easy to him, though he’s been out of his father’s house since he was old enough to get away. “Tell me: do you know where you are?”
The kid’s still in fighting stance, but his back seems straighter than before, and this time when his eyes sweep the room they end back on Jonathan, not the floor. Just then from behind him he hears the rumbling voice of Louie, head of security. Shit. But then there’s Nancy, Nurse Clayton, who’s appeared out of nowhere, and he can hear her pretty clearly saying “Give him a sec. I think he’s getting somewhere.” He takes a brief moment to thank God for Nurse Clayton.
The kid’s eyes don’t leave Jonathan’s, and the moment stretches out and then he nods. Finally, contact. “Where are you?” Important to establish that the kid really is lucid, not just giving the appearance of it. The kid swallows, opens his mouth to speak. His throat works, but no sound comes out, instead he winces and swallows again. Finally he gives up on vocalizing and just mouths the word ‘hospital.’ Jonathan feels just a little of the tension drain out of himself.
“And who am I?”
Doctor.
Awesome. Now they’re actually getting somewhere. He’d like to shower the kid with praise, but that’s not the way his dad would do it, and he’s afraid to deviate from what’s working. He settles for a curt “Good.” It’s the least his conscience will allow him.
“What’s your name?”
Sam.
“Sam?” An emphatic nod, followed quickly by a wince.
“Age?”
Sixteen.
“Okay Sam, listen up. I need to check you out. I want to help you, and I can’t do that unless I know how badly you’re injured. We’ll do some X-Rays, draw blood, and I’ll perform a full physical exam. Whatever’s wrong, we’ll fix you right up. Alright?” Relieved that he’s gotten the kid communicating, Jonathan’s automatically slipping into the softer tone he generally uses on injured kids. He doesn’t notice that he’s lost Sam’s attention until he pauses for a response and doesn’t get one. Sam’s eyes have taken on a glazed look that Jonathan doesn’t like, and he’s staring over Jonathan’s left shoulder instead of at his face. He’s probably caught sight of Louie and Nurse Clayton.
Praying he’s not making a terrible mistake, Jonathan consciously channels his father. “Is. That. Understood?” He barks. Sam’s eyes instantly snap back into focus. He studies Jonathan, startled, and nods like it’s reflex. Then he finally seems to realize he’s in combat position. He shakily lowers his hands and steps his feet together, ending with his back straight, shoulders square. It makes Jonathan realize how stiff his own spine is. He didn’t even notice himself doing that. Just roll with it, he reminds himself. You can freak out later about the accuracy of your Dad impersonation.
“Okay, up on that gurney behind you. I’m calling Nurse Clayton into the room to help. Sam, if you start attacking again, we will have to restrain you. I trust that won’t be necessary?” He crosses his mental fingers. He has to suppress a victory grin when Sam mouths back firmly, Yes sir. It’s a complete 180 from the spaced-out trembling kid who was rolled in here on a gurney twenty minutes ago. This kid is controlled, and there’s intelligence sparking in his eyes.
He makes no secret of watching carefully while the kid hoists himself back up onto the gurney. He’s positive there are some winces being ruthlessly suppressed. That’s worrisome.
“Wait right there, I’m gonna send security away.” The boy darts another glance toward the door and then nods, looking grateful. Jonathan thinks he would too. Louie is a looming presence in the doorway, just waiting for an excuse to thunder in. He’s a fun guy to get a beer with, but Jonathan has often thought he enjoys his job a bit too much.
“Hey, Louie, thanks for coming down here.”
“No problem man. That’s the job.”
“Yeah, still, I appreciate it. Anyway, I think I got this under control-”
“Shit yeah. I didn’t know you could be that badass Harrison.”
“I guess I never mentioned my Dad was in the Army.”
“I guess not. You got that little fucker shaking in his boots.” Louie sounds pretty impressed, but Jonathan turns quickly at his words, afraid Sam might really be regressing, afraid he’s come at the kid too hard, misread the whole situation. Honestly though, Sam doesn’t look like he’s cowering, just wary. He’s definitely throwing frequent glances their way, more than smart enough to know they’re talking about him, but he’s also constantly scanning the rest of the room too. The room has only one door, the one they’re blocking. But the kid is on the lookout in all directions. Something’s really spooked him, and Jonathan isn’t taking the credit for that.
“Yeah, well, he was already shaking when he came in here. Something’s got him scared. I thought maybe he was on something when he first came in but... he look like he’s on something to you?” Louie studies the kid in silence for a minute. He deals with violent junkies daily, so he should know.
“Naw man. Not really. Just looks scared, kinda squirrelly. He get mugged or what?”
“I dunno. That’s what I gotta find out.”
“K man. I’ll leave you to it.” Louie swaggers away.
Nancy -Nurse Clayton- has been studying the kid for pretty much the whole conversation. She came into this whole thing late, missed the part where the kid first got violent. Jonathan wonders if the look she’s giving the kid would be quite so maternal if she’d seen him in action.
“Where did he come from anyway?” she asks.
“Police brought him in, found him huddled in a doorway on Ninth. He wouldn’t respond to them, then they found blood on his head, bruises on his neck, figured it might be an actual injury, not just another druggie.”
“Bruises on his neck?” she asks apprehensively.
“Clearly caused by strangulation. Apparently severe enough to inhibit speech completely. I think he’d be talking now if he could.” She nods, makes to enter the room, get to work. He catches her arm, ignoring as he’s learned to the little thrill he gets whenever he touches her. He’s been here six months, and she’s made it clear from his first eager attempt at flirting that her interest in him is confined to the job.
“Look, I think he’ll be fine with you. Kids like you, but I’m gonna keep up with the drill sergeant act. It seems to work on him. Just, you know, if you think it’s doing more harm than good, give me a head’s up?” She nods, all focus. It’s so sexy. “And uh, careful. He’s a little shy of being touched, I think, and he packs a hell of a punch.” She raises her eyebrows, skeptical, and he sincerely hopes she’s taking him seriously.
They head in then, Nurse Clayton a step or two ahead of him. Standing up, the kid is probably taller than her, but she seems unaware that there’s anything to worry about. Jonathan’s certain that in her two years here she must have felt threatened at some point, it’s an ER, frightened angry suffering people arrive here on the worst days of their lives. It’s hard to picture, though. Has he ever seen Nancy Clayton look scared?
“This is Nurse Clayton. She’s going to aid me with the examination-” Sam surprises him by offering her his hand. It shakes slightly, but they do their best to pretend they don’t notice.
Nice to meet you, he mouths.
“Nice to meet you too, Sam, right?” she smiles sweetly. Sam offers Jonathan his hand next, and tips his head a little, like, and what’s your name? Where are my manners, thinks Jonathan, and fights the urge to laugh.
“Jonathan Harrison,” he says, as briskly as he can manage. He wonders if he’s really going to be able to keep up this front. Is it even necessary anymore? But he doesn’t think he’s imagining how Sam’s darting eyes only settle for more than a few seconds when they meet Jonathan’s firm gaze. Even Nancy’s sweet face isn’t enough to hold his attention, and that’s a powerful indicator of the boy’s state of mind if ever there was one.
Sam’s given them both his left hand, and Jonathan flashes back to Sam’s fist rushing toward his face. That was his left too, he’s pretty sure. He looks at Sam’s right, which is tucked close against his thigh. He can’t tell if anything’s wrong with it and he’s curious. He’d also like to take a little better gauge of the kid’s level of calm before getting to the more personal parts of the exam. “Your right hand,” he gruffs. Sam offers it up without hesitation.
He feels a brief flare of satisfaction when the kid responds to him so well. Sometimes the hardest part of this job is just getting people to let you help them. It only lasts until he actually looks at the hand in front of him. Because the boy had his hands up in defensive position before, and before that he was just a blur of motion, and before that Jonathan was focusing more on his face, and trying to see if anyone was really home, Jonathan hadn’t gotten a good look at it until now. The back of it is decorated with five round spots. They’re swollen around the edges and scabbed over in the middle, against the boy’s blanched skin they stand out luridly red. Jonathan has seen these before, knows exactly what they are.
“Cigarette burns,” he says. Sam doesn’t flinch, just nods solemnly. “You got more of these?” Sam nods again. What would Dad do, what would Dad do, runs constantly through Jonathan’s mind, which might explain why the next words out of his mouth are a soft “Jesus, son.” Sam does flinch at that, and Jonathan doesn’t know whether it’s at the profanity, his sudden loss of professionalism, or being called son.
A kid could be strangled in a fight, a mugging, say. Hit his head, get panicked and attack defensively upon waking up in a strange place. It would be a traumatic experience, might give him some nightmares, shake his belief in his fellow man, make him more cautious to walk in the city at night. It would be a shitty thing to have happen, and Jonathan would feel for the kid, and get pissed at the asshole who did it. It would be rough, but it would be so much better than this.
Cigarette burns are not a beating. You have to hold still for them, or someone has to hold you still. The person who inflicts them isn’t lashing out in fear or even rage. They’re purposefully and calculatedly hurting you. They aren’t trying to incapacitate you while someone takes your wallet, they’re only trying to cause you pain. Whatever this kid was a victim of, it went farther than a simple mugging. It was torture.
Only years of experience as a doctor enable him to shuffle the thoughts aside. Help this kid, he commands himself sternly, don’t flake out on him now, he needs you to do your job.
“Do you have any particularly serious injuries? Anything really hurting, bleeding excessively? Anything we should be sure to check first? Do you feel dizzy? Nauseous? Is there anything you think might be broken?” A quick head shake answers each question.
“Okay. I’m gonna have to see the rest. We can cut off your clothes, or try to get them off whole.” He has to resist the urge to survey the kid’s tattered shirts sceptically. He’s seen knock-down drag-out fights erupt when a patient didn’t want their favorite shirt “ruined” by doctors, never mind that it was already covered in blood or ripped to shreds. Sam just shrugs, and Nancy steps forward, scissors already in hand.
Sam’s face is carefully neutral, but his breathing instantly speeds up and Jonathan has to bite his tongue to stop himself from warning her again about how volatile the kid can be. He has to remind himself that she’s been doing this longer than he has, that she has developed a good sense of which patients are dangerous, and that Sam has settled down and in the little while Jonathan’s been with him, shown every indication of being a good kid who's been through something bad.
Her movements are slow but sure. Her fingers are graceful, and Jonathan almost forgets about Sam, caught up as he tends to get in watching her work. She starts with the flannel overshirt, tucking the scissors into her pocket long enough to unbutton it, then retrieving them to begin the cutting. First up the left sleeve to Sam’s collar. Sam visibly tenses when the scissors near his neck, but holds absolutely still.
The clatter of a busy hospital sounds through the open door, and Jonathan suddenly remembers that he left the door open in case Sam got violent again, but that revealing whatever Sam’s got hiding under there to anyone who walks by the door is pretty fucking insensitive. He quickly draws the privacy curtain.
The shirt falls away to reveal one long lanky arm, bruised and cut to hell. Jonathan carefully keeps his face still as he catalogues the damage. There’s a clear band of fingershaped bruises high up, like someone grabbed him hard by the arm, maybe to drag him somewhere. The cuts laddering up it, meanwhile, look sickeningly deliberate. All deep enough to have bled freely, none deep enough to do permanent damage. The oldest can’t be older than a week. The newest has barely had time to scab over, maybe made last night, or early this morning. There are about twenty of them in all, running like a ladder up Sam’s inner forearm.
Around his wrist the skin is abraded severely. Jonathan tries to picture some less sinister way that particular pattern could have occurred, but there’s little question in his mind that the obvious answer is the only answer: rope, left there longterm while the kid struggled and fought to get out of it.
“Somebody restrain you?” he asks. Sees Nancy watching closely from the corner of his eye. Sam nods. “Sam. Were you sexually assaulted?” For the first time since Jonathan figured out the tone to strike with him, Sam’s eyes begin the glaze. Jonathan holds his breath, trying to be subtle as he gauges the distance between Sam, Nancy, and her scissors. The scissors are way too close to Sam for comfort. “Sam!” he barks. Sam jumps, eyes hitting Jonathan’s face fast as a blink.
Apparently it was the right thing to do, because he’s with them again. He finally answers with a shake of his head, no. Hopefully it’s the truth. People lie about this kind of thing. Ashamed for no good reason. He’s seen it time and time again. “Alright. Either way, the police are gonna wanna talk with you. They’ll wanna know who did this to you.” Sam looks scared, shakes his head again quickly. “Sam, whoever did this needs to be stopped. Right?” Sam hesitates, then nods. “The police will need your help to stop him.” Sam drops his eyes, gives a minute shrug. Jonathan sighs. “Okay. Let’s deal with it when we’re through the exam.” Sam nods, but he’s stopped meeting Jonathan’s eyes, and he flinches back when Nancy smoothly reaches for his other arm to finish the cutting process.
She stops, just short of touching him, and looks to Jonathan for guidance. Jonathan’s not sure she’s ever actually done that around him before. The pressure is on. Apparently, he’s the undisputed Sam expert now. “Sam,” he waits until Sam finally looks at him. “She’s not going to hurt you except by accident. Can you hold still for her?” Sam visibly pulls himself together.
Yes, sir.
“Good.”
The right wrist has the same ragged raw circle as the left, and the same cuts ladder up the right arm. In addition, there are more cigarette burns scattered all over both upper and lower arm, maybe ten of them. A yellowish bruise stains his inner elbow, and it looks too much like the bruise from an IV to be be anything but an injection site. Judging by the color it’s at least a few days old. “You were injected with something?” Nod. “Recently?” Head shake. Sam holds up his left hand, five fingers spread. Mouths, Five days ago. Well, whatever it was is probably out of Sam’s system by now, though Jonathan makes a note to get a tox screen stat.
“Something to knock you out?” There’s a brief flicker of hesitation, then a nod. So. Knocked out, tied up, tortured for days. A kid who’s survived that is clearly gonna be messed up, but if the attack came from someone outside the family, there’s at least a better chance of support, a better chance of recovery, right? A better chance he’ll never have to fix Sam up like this again. God, he hopes it wasn’t someone in the kid’s family.
Nancy gives him another questioning look, and he nods the go ahead. She starts on the t-shirt, cutting it straight up the middle, then moving without pause to snip each sleeve at the top. Again Sam tenses when the scissors near his neck, but holds himself still. Thinking about the cuts marking his arms, Jonathan finds his self-control pretty fucking admirable.
His chest is a mess. So many cuts it looks like someone drove a lawnmower over him, plus more burns and some deep bruising around his ribs and abdomen. Jonathan can picture a booted foot slamming into the kid’s skinny body again and again. He also notices, almost instantly, that the knife wounds on the kids chest are different than the ones on his arms. They’re not just a meaningless series of straight lines. These ones almost look like letters, pictures, something. They’re clustered in different areas, some quite shallow, some deeper, and they look like runes or some new-agey shit. Like the ones on his arms, they look to have been applied over a series of days. None look infected, but they all look painful. They run from Sam’s collarbone all down his front, until the bottom ones half disappear under the waistband of Sam’s jeans. The longest is maybe an inch, but there’ve gotta be about a hundred of them.
It’s the calculated violence that gets to Jonathan the worst. It’s the one part of the job he really thinks he’ll never get used to. He’s seen some pretty nasty things done to people, out of anger, out of revenge, out of sheer stupidity. His first week he had a girl, seventeen years old, whose boyfriend got jealous and splashed acid on her face. He hadn’t thought there could be much worse than that. She was blinded and disfigured for life, victim of the sick urges of some psycho who thought it was love. This, he thinks, is worse. No doubt there’s a psycho involved, but the motivation is so far outside his understanding, it’s hard to believe the guy who did this is a human being at all.
In a way, the emotional shock makes it easier to fall back into his Dad persona. He’s not sure how to act like himself right now.
“We’ll have to see your legs too.” Nancy moves forward, scissors ready, but the kid holds up a hand. Jonathan doesn’t realize he’s going to lever himself off the gurney again until he does it, landing stiffly on his feet and swaying slightly before visibly pushing back the pain the movement brings and going at the top button of his jeans. He basically has to undo them one handed, since his right hand, the one with the burns, is trembling and probably to painful to use.
It’s an effort not to try to help him, but the stiff set of his shoulders screams ‘Don’t touch!’ Jonathan exchanges a sympathetic look with Nancy, and thinks it might be almost as painful for them, watching the kid wincingly peel the jeans down his skinny legs. He’s not wearing shoes, just grimy socks. He gingerly leans against the gurney for balance, then extracts his feet from the jeans without bending down. Jonathan sees that the tops of the socks are white and look fairly new. The bottoms are so dirty they look like they started out dark grey and went downhill from there. Jonathan makes a mental note to check the kid’s feet for sure. Who knows where his shoes went, and how long the socks have been the only barrier between his feet and the city streets?
He notices the kid’s apprehensive look. The question in his eyes. “Underwear too,” he says, calm and authoritative. The kid darts a quick glance at Nancy, and Jonathan wonders if he’s embarrassed to be stripping in front of a woman. After whatever this kid has been through, the sudden fit of modesty seems out of place, but people are funny that way. He briefly considers sending Nancy out of the room, but honestly, having her there makes him more confident, and it’s for the kid’s own good anyway. Usually the presence of a woman is comforting in these kinds of situations, less threatening than being alone with a male.
He can practically hear the kid resign himself, give himself a little internal ‘Buck up’ from the way his shoulders straighten again. Or maybe he’s just girding himself against the pain of moving. He pulls down his boxers.
The fronts of his thighs are marked with more of the same, symbols carved into flesh, identical burned circles, a few dark splotches of bruising. He stands tall and quiet as Jonathan takes a minute to examine them for anything that looks particularly painful or life-threatening. His eyes aren’t glazed, and Jonathan doesn’t see the need to force eye-contact, so he lets the kid look off into space over his shoulder.
“And your back?” he asks finally, breaking the tense silence. God he wants to get this kid cleaned up, off his feet, and tucked snugly into bed with enough painkillers to give him rest as long as he needs it. He’s already kind of skipping ahead to how this is going to go down with the parents. He imagines them, their shocked horror-stricken faces as he gently informs them what their sweet kid has gone through. After this, he thinks, he’s going to need a vacation. Just him, his father’s hunting cabin, and a big bottle of Jack. For a week.
For two weeks, he amends, as the boy turns to reveal his back. It looks like somebody whaled on him with a rod. For about an hour. And then did it again the next day, and the next day. There are bruises on top of bruises. Whatever it was wasn’t thin enough to split the skin, but somehow that doesn’t help him much. It runs from his shoulders down to his thighs with hardly a break. Jonathan wonders how exactly the kid is able to move at all without crying.
Then he breathes deep and pushes his horror aside. He has a job to do, to make this kid’s life better as quickly as possible. There’ll be time later to be shocked and appalled.
He eyes the kid’s buttocks and inner thighs closely, but there are no traces of blood, so, thank God, the kid was probably telling the truth about that.
“I’m going to check for some things, listen to your breathing sounds, that stuff. I’ll need to touch you to do it. Would you rather I have Nurse Clayton do it?” Quick head shake. “Would you rather be sitting?” Head shake. “Okay. Stay still and it’ll be quick.”
He starts out with listening to each lung for fluid, since that mostly means touching the kid’s skin with his stethoscope, and it’s still one step removed from his fingers. Sam breathes in deep when instructed to, and other than that is quiet and composed. Despite the bruising on his ribs, his breath sounds are good, thank God. Well, except the rasp in his throat, which is next up. Jonathan has seen how sensitive the kid is about his neck, but he’s gotta check for a cracked voicebox, just in case, and that means feeling for crackling. “Hold still,” he orders as he reaches out, and is sure to maintain eye contact with the kid until he’s finished his exam.
Then he has to palpate the kid’s abdomen for swelling, which, thanks to the unavoidable sprawl of damaged skin, is extremely unpleasant for both of them. The kid holds up like a trooper, emitting not a whimper.
Finally he’s wrapped up his exam. Nancy has a gown ready for the kid. She steps forward with it, smoothly but not particularly suddenly, holding it up for Sam to put his arms through, but the kid shrinks back. It’s just a stuttered half-step and then he seems to catch himself because he immediately stills and straightens out of the defensive, hunched up posture he’d sunk into.
As though nothing happened he hurriedly thrusts his arms out, ready for the gown, but Jonathan can see his chest heaving, and his eyes rove the curtained area again, returning to Nancy constantly but seemingly unable to stop seeking out threats from every angle. Nancy shoots a glance at Jonathan, and when she has his attention, directs his gaze to Sam’s hands, which are both trembling now.
It occurs to Jonathan that he may have made a fundamental error of assumption. 90% of the time, the victims of assault he gets in here were attacked by a male. It’s easy to forget that sometimes women can be the aggressors.
Cautiously, he holds out his hand for the gown, and Nancy hands it over unquestioningly. Whether she’s on the same page as him or not, she’s clearly all for letting him have a try. “It’s okay, Sam” she murmurs. “Dr. Harrison can help you with the gown, okay?” He nods and Jonathan doesn’t think he’s imagining the relief on the kid’s face. She steps back, makes way for Jonathan to come and block her out of Sam’s view. That seems to work. Sam’s breathing slows, and his left hand stops trembling completely, though his right is still going a bit. “Take one step forward.” Jonathan commands, and Sam responds immediately, giving him room to walk around behind and tie up the gown in back.
“Sam,” says Nancy softly. “It’s okay. I’m not offended. Was it a woman, who did this to you?” Sam nods, jerkily. “Was it your mother, Sam?” He quickly shakes his head. “In that case, would you like me to call home for you? You still have some tests to go through, but your parents should be here. And the police will want to talk to you, but your parents need to be here for that. They’re not supposed to talk to you without your parents.”
Jonathan finishes the tying, and comes back around to the front in time to see Sam biting his lower lip and making clear writing motions. Nancy hands Jonathan a notepad, and he hands it off to Sam along with a pen. The poor kid tries automatically to write with his right hand, but he can barely close his fingers around the pen, and he quickly has to switch to his left. He produces a kind of scrawled cursive that Jonathan has to admit rivals his own in terms of illegibility. It’s lucky Nancy is a champion of deciphering doctor handwriting. She scans the note briefly, then smiles sweetly at Sam. “I’ll go call them right now.”
Jonathan draws blood, applies ointment to all Sam’s open wounds, and checks out his feet, which are filthy but otherwise okay. Then he accompanies Sam through his tests. Normally he’d just leave him with a nurse and check back in to interpret the results, but he’d very much like to avoid Sam ending up in restraints, so he’s wary of leaving him alone. The tests are uneventful. Sam winces quietly every time he has to get in or out of the wheelchair, lie down on or get up from a flat surface, and greets every new technician, orderly, and nurse he sees with the same rigidly controlled fear. At first it makes Jonathan jumpy on the kid's behalf. Then it just makes him exhausted.
Jonathan is watching the progress of the CAT scan when Nancy joins him in the observation room. Neither Sam’s father nor brother had picked up their phones, she reports with a sigh, so she’d left messages for both saying that the kid was in stable condition at Clark County Hospital. They watch the kid in silence for a few minutes before Nancy says softly, “He apologized.”
“Huh?” Jonathan asks, his mind for that one moment more on the beautiful woman next to him than the patient, to be honest.
“He apologized. While you were doing up the back of his gown, right after we figured out he was afraid of me. He said sorry. Like he was afraid he’d hurt my feelings by being terrified.”
“It’s not just you he’s afraid of. I’ve been watching him, and he’s been tense around everybody. Even Lucy.” Lucy the x-ray technician is tiny, 5 feet at the most. Nobody’s afraid of Lucy. They take a minute to let that sink in.
Then Jonathan says "I can't believe he apologized" cause he has to say something to break the heavy silence. His fond tone surprises him. He’s only known the kid for about an hour now, and already he sounds like a doting uncle or something. Nancy shocks him by smiling at him. It might be the first genuine smile she’s ever given him.
“He’s an amazing kid,” she says. Then turns back to watch Sam, face instantly reverting to its accustomed graveness. The first reason Jonathan noticed Nancy was because of how serious she was about each case, how she seemed to hold herself to an impossible standard. Jonathan has heard the other nurses talking, saying with an attitude like that Nancy will burn out fast. He guesses it makes sense, but looking at her, he can’t believe it. Certainly she hasn’t seemed to move any closer to burning out in the 6 months he’s known her. She seems to be exactly the same quietly confident woman he’d kill to get a date with.
She keeps her distance while Sam is being helped off the machine. Next stop for him is a bed, and Jonathan’s glad. The kid looks exhausted, too tired to give Nancy more than a cursory sweep of his eyes before letting Jonathan help him into the chair. Jonathan’s feeling pretty tired himself, and figures on putting the kid to bed and then getting some real sleep of his own.
Together they get him settled, Jonathan doing all the work that requires him to touch the kid, and Nancy directing him from the sidelines on the best use of pillows to prop Sam up on his left side, the side they all agree will be the most comfortable. Sam’s the ultimate stoic. Jonathan’s not used to doing this part, feels clumsy compared to the deft way he’s seen Nancy do this job, but even when he’s sure he’s hurting Sam, the kid’s face is a mask.
When he’s done Sam even gives him a drowsy nod of thanks, and manages from somewhere to muster up a smile for him. It twists Jonathan’s heart up, that sweet little smile. It’s barely there before it’s gone, but it was there. Whatever this kid went through, it didn’t break him. That’s something Jonathan can hold onto when images of cigarette burns hang in front of his eyes.
*****
The kid’s not there when Jonathan gets into work the next morning. Apparently his father and brother got the messages Nancy left, because they came in and spirited him away. Somehow they got past the nurse’s station without signing in. Somehow they listened to Nancy’s detailed explanation of the kid’s numerous injuries, and decided the best thing to do would be to ignore all reason and common human decency and take him away from the people trying to help him. Once she was gone they commandeered a wheelchair and rolled him out before anybody realized what they were doing. They timed their escape perfectly, left nothing behind but grainy images on surveillance tape. Almost like they’d done that kind of thing before.
After all the effort Jonathan put into helping the kid, and it’s not that he regrets it. No, he’d do it again in a heartbeat, but Jesus, it makes him tired sometimes, trying so hard, and in the end making no difference at all.
Title: One That Got Away
Author: winyumi
Rating: PG-13
Words: 6,000
Characters: Sam, OMC, OFC
Warning: There's some swearing, and descriptions of injuries, nothing too graphic. Also, this is shameless Sam-whumpage. If you're a Dean-girl you probably will be bored. If there's a genre called WWP (Whump Without Plot), this is it.
Summary: An ER doctor meets Sam Winchester. Sam is having a bad day.
Disclaimer: Sam isn't mine, he belongs to Dean.
The kid is clearly in a bad way. In the bright ER light his skin shows up pale and clammy. Tremors run through his body at frequent intervals. Above his shirt collar, dark bruises in the distinct shape of fingers pattern his neck. Jonathan would very much like to determine what other injuries might be silently lurking beneath his filthy layers of shirts and torn jeans, but that’s proving difficult. Pale and shaky he might be, but the kid has already come damn close to breaking Jonathan’s nose.
Eileen has gone for security, and Jonathan’s stuck hanging back, squinting at him out of striking range. He tries desperately to decide if the kid has anything wrong with him that’ll actually kill him if he gets tackled. Judging from the way he fights, his injuries are strictly superficial, but he could be so hopped up on something he doesn’t feel the pain. If he’s already got fractured ribs or something a tackle could break them worse, send them into his lungs. Not to mention his head’s clearly pretty messed up already. Getting it knocked against something could only make it worse.
He’s tried talking since the beginning, it hasn’t seemed to make a difference, but Jonathan doesn’t give up easy. Sometimes a little patience is what’s called for. “Kid, listen, I’m a doctor, you’re safe here. Do you understand? Nobody’s trying to hurt you.”
Jonathan studies his stance: legs shoulder width apart, right foot in front, left planted behind, so he can shift weight between them easily, put power into kicks or hits. His hands are raised in front of his chest, loose but ready to curl into fists. His face is angled downwards, and his eyes, near as Jonathan can make out, are fixed on Jonathan’s feet. Maybe he’s willing them to move so he can escape out the door. It’s hard to tell if he’s really seeing them though. Hard to tell if he’s really seeing anything at all. His dirty bangs block his eyes. Jonathan can make out a dark clumped patch of hair near the hairline, stuck together with what he assumes is blood, and wonders if that’s a clue to the mystery of what the hell the kid thinks he’s doing.
Time’s slipping away, and any minute now Eileen will be back with security. He needs to see this kid’s eyes, if he could just get the kid to look at him, realize where he is, they might actually get somewhere. “Look at me kid, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m trying to help you, understand? Kid? Kid? C’mon kid, I’m not the enemy,” he coaxes. It’s like the kid doesn’t even know he’s there. From the nurse’s station comes a shrill burst of laughter, and the kid flinches slightly without looking up. So he’s not goddam deaf, he’s just ignoring Jonathan.
“Hey, eyes up here!” He’s frustrated, and barks the order out louder and gruffer than he meant to. It kinda comes out more like his father than Jonathan had ever thought he could sound. He winces internally. But hey, it gets a response at least. The kid’s eyes flick up from the floor, startled, and fasten on Jonathan’s face for all of two seconds before scanning the rest of the room. Searching for a way out? Or maybe searching for someone who sounds like that? The guy who put those bruises around his throat, maybe. Jonathan could drive the kid to do something bad here. But still, it’s the closest this kid’s gotten to awareness since Jonathan tried to remove his shirt and the completely pliant, seemingly catatonic kid went ape-shit.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” he orders, trying hard to stay on the right side of the line between authoritative and angry. This time the kid’s eyes dart over to meet his and stick there. He revises his estimate of the kid’s age downwards a few years, from 18 to maybe 16. The height is deceiving. His face is very scared, and very young.
It’s enough to make your heart melt, how terrified this kid it. Lucky Jonathan was raised by a soldier. Lucky the tone still comes easy to him, though he’s been out of his father’s house since he was old enough to get away. “Tell me: do you know where you are?”
The kid’s still in fighting stance, but his back seems straighter than before, and this time when his eyes sweep the room they end back on Jonathan, not the floor. Just then from behind him he hears the rumbling voice of Louie, head of security. Shit. But then there’s Nancy, Nurse Clayton, who’s appeared out of nowhere, and he can hear her pretty clearly saying “Give him a sec. I think he’s getting somewhere.” He takes a brief moment to thank God for Nurse Clayton.
The kid’s eyes don’t leave Jonathan’s, and the moment stretches out and then he nods. Finally, contact. “Where are you?” Important to establish that the kid really is lucid, not just giving the appearance of it. The kid swallows, opens his mouth to speak. His throat works, but no sound comes out, instead he winces and swallows again. Finally he gives up on vocalizing and just mouths the word ‘hospital.’ Jonathan feels just a little of the tension drain out of himself.
“And who am I?”
Doctor.
Awesome. Now they’re actually getting somewhere. He’d like to shower the kid with praise, but that’s not the way his dad would do it, and he’s afraid to deviate from what’s working. He settles for a curt “Good.” It’s the least his conscience will allow him.
“What’s your name?”
Sam.
“Sam?” An emphatic nod, followed quickly by a wince.
“Age?”
Sixteen.
“Okay Sam, listen up. I need to check you out. I want to help you, and I can’t do that unless I know how badly you’re injured. We’ll do some X-Rays, draw blood, and I’ll perform a full physical exam. Whatever’s wrong, we’ll fix you right up. Alright?” Relieved that he’s gotten the kid communicating, Jonathan’s automatically slipping into the softer tone he generally uses on injured kids. He doesn’t notice that he’s lost Sam’s attention until he pauses for a response and doesn’t get one. Sam’s eyes have taken on a glazed look that Jonathan doesn’t like, and he’s staring over Jonathan’s left shoulder instead of at his face. He’s probably caught sight of Louie and Nurse Clayton.
Praying he’s not making a terrible mistake, Jonathan consciously channels his father. “Is. That. Understood?” He barks. Sam’s eyes instantly snap back into focus. He studies Jonathan, startled, and nods like it’s reflex. Then he finally seems to realize he’s in combat position. He shakily lowers his hands and steps his feet together, ending with his back straight, shoulders square. It makes Jonathan realize how stiff his own spine is. He didn’t even notice himself doing that. Just roll with it, he reminds himself. You can freak out later about the accuracy of your Dad impersonation.
“Okay, up on that gurney behind you. I’m calling Nurse Clayton into the room to help. Sam, if you start attacking again, we will have to restrain you. I trust that won’t be necessary?” He crosses his mental fingers. He has to suppress a victory grin when Sam mouths back firmly, Yes sir. It’s a complete 180 from the spaced-out trembling kid who was rolled in here on a gurney twenty minutes ago. This kid is controlled, and there’s intelligence sparking in his eyes.
He makes no secret of watching carefully while the kid hoists himself back up onto the gurney. He’s positive there are some winces being ruthlessly suppressed. That’s worrisome.
“Wait right there, I’m gonna send security away.” The boy darts another glance toward the door and then nods, looking grateful. Jonathan thinks he would too. Louie is a looming presence in the doorway, just waiting for an excuse to thunder in. He’s a fun guy to get a beer with, but Jonathan has often thought he enjoys his job a bit too much.
“Hey, Louie, thanks for coming down here.”
“No problem man. That’s the job.”
“Yeah, still, I appreciate it. Anyway, I think I got this under control-”
“Shit yeah. I didn’t know you could be that badass Harrison.”
“I guess I never mentioned my Dad was in the Army.”
“I guess not. You got that little fucker shaking in his boots.” Louie sounds pretty impressed, but Jonathan turns quickly at his words, afraid Sam might really be regressing, afraid he’s come at the kid too hard, misread the whole situation. Honestly though, Sam doesn’t look like he’s cowering, just wary. He’s definitely throwing frequent glances their way, more than smart enough to know they’re talking about him, but he’s also constantly scanning the rest of the room too. The room has only one door, the one they’re blocking. But the kid is on the lookout in all directions. Something’s really spooked him, and Jonathan isn’t taking the credit for that.
“Yeah, well, he was already shaking when he came in here. Something’s got him scared. I thought maybe he was on something when he first came in but... he look like he’s on something to you?” Louie studies the kid in silence for a minute. He deals with violent junkies daily, so he should know.
“Naw man. Not really. Just looks scared, kinda squirrelly. He get mugged or what?”
“I dunno. That’s what I gotta find out.”
“K man. I’ll leave you to it.” Louie swaggers away.
Nancy -Nurse Clayton- has been studying the kid for pretty much the whole conversation. She came into this whole thing late, missed the part where the kid first got violent. Jonathan wonders if the look she’s giving the kid would be quite so maternal if she’d seen him in action.
“Where did he come from anyway?” she asks.
“Police brought him in, found him huddled in a doorway on Ninth. He wouldn’t respond to them, then they found blood on his head, bruises on his neck, figured it might be an actual injury, not just another druggie.”
“Bruises on his neck?” she asks apprehensively.
“Clearly caused by strangulation. Apparently severe enough to inhibit speech completely. I think he’d be talking now if he could.” She nods, makes to enter the room, get to work. He catches her arm, ignoring as he’s learned to the little thrill he gets whenever he touches her. He’s been here six months, and she’s made it clear from his first eager attempt at flirting that her interest in him is confined to the job.
“Look, I think he’ll be fine with you. Kids like you, but I’m gonna keep up with the drill sergeant act. It seems to work on him. Just, you know, if you think it’s doing more harm than good, give me a head’s up?” She nods, all focus. It’s so sexy. “And uh, careful. He’s a little shy of being touched, I think, and he packs a hell of a punch.” She raises her eyebrows, skeptical, and he sincerely hopes she’s taking him seriously.
They head in then, Nurse Clayton a step or two ahead of him. Standing up, the kid is probably taller than her, but she seems unaware that there’s anything to worry about. Jonathan’s certain that in her two years here she must have felt threatened at some point, it’s an ER, frightened angry suffering people arrive here on the worst days of their lives. It’s hard to picture, though. Has he ever seen Nancy Clayton look scared?
“This is Nurse Clayton. She’s going to aid me with the examination-” Sam surprises him by offering her his hand. It shakes slightly, but they do their best to pretend they don’t notice.
Nice to meet you, he mouths.
“Nice to meet you too, Sam, right?” she smiles sweetly. Sam offers Jonathan his hand next, and tips his head a little, like, and what’s your name? Where are my manners, thinks Jonathan, and fights the urge to laugh.
“Jonathan Harrison,” he says, as briskly as he can manage. He wonders if he’s really going to be able to keep up this front. Is it even necessary anymore? But he doesn’t think he’s imagining how Sam’s darting eyes only settle for more than a few seconds when they meet Jonathan’s firm gaze. Even Nancy’s sweet face isn’t enough to hold his attention, and that’s a powerful indicator of the boy’s state of mind if ever there was one.
Sam’s given them both his left hand, and Jonathan flashes back to Sam’s fist rushing toward his face. That was his left too, he’s pretty sure. He looks at Sam’s right, which is tucked close against his thigh. He can’t tell if anything’s wrong with it and he’s curious. He’d also like to take a little better gauge of the kid’s level of calm before getting to the more personal parts of the exam. “Your right hand,” he gruffs. Sam offers it up without hesitation.
He feels a brief flare of satisfaction when the kid responds to him so well. Sometimes the hardest part of this job is just getting people to let you help them. It only lasts until he actually looks at the hand in front of him. Because the boy had his hands up in defensive position before, and before that he was just a blur of motion, and before that Jonathan was focusing more on his face, and trying to see if anyone was really home, Jonathan hadn’t gotten a good look at it until now. The back of it is decorated with five round spots. They’re swollen around the edges and scabbed over in the middle, against the boy’s blanched skin they stand out luridly red. Jonathan has seen these before, knows exactly what they are.
“Cigarette burns,” he says. Sam doesn’t flinch, just nods solemnly. “You got more of these?” Sam nods again. What would Dad do, what would Dad do, runs constantly through Jonathan’s mind, which might explain why the next words out of his mouth are a soft “Jesus, son.” Sam does flinch at that, and Jonathan doesn’t know whether it’s at the profanity, his sudden loss of professionalism, or being called son.
A kid could be strangled in a fight, a mugging, say. Hit his head, get panicked and attack defensively upon waking up in a strange place. It would be a traumatic experience, might give him some nightmares, shake his belief in his fellow man, make him more cautious to walk in the city at night. It would be a shitty thing to have happen, and Jonathan would feel for the kid, and get pissed at the asshole who did it. It would be rough, but it would be so much better than this.
Cigarette burns are not a beating. You have to hold still for them, or someone has to hold you still. The person who inflicts them isn’t lashing out in fear or even rage. They’re purposefully and calculatedly hurting you. They aren’t trying to incapacitate you while someone takes your wallet, they’re only trying to cause you pain. Whatever this kid was a victim of, it went farther than a simple mugging. It was torture.
Only years of experience as a doctor enable him to shuffle the thoughts aside. Help this kid, he commands himself sternly, don’t flake out on him now, he needs you to do your job.
“Do you have any particularly serious injuries? Anything really hurting, bleeding excessively? Anything we should be sure to check first? Do you feel dizzy? Nauseous? Is there anything you think might be broken?” A quick head shake answers each question.
“Okay. I’m gonna have to see the rest. We can cut off your clothes, or try to get them off whole.” He has to resist the urge to survey the kid’s tattered shirts sceptically. He’s seen knock-down drag-out fights erupt when a patient didn’t want their favorite shirt “ruined” by doctors, never mind that it was already covered in blood or ripped to shreds. Sam just shrugs, and Nancy steps forward, scissors already in hand.
Sam’s face is carefully neutral, but his breathing instantly speeds up and Jonathan has to bite his tongue to stop himself from warning her again about how volatile the kid can be. He has to remind himself that she’s been doing this longer than he has, that she has developed a good sense of which patients are dangerous, and that Sam has settled down and in the little while Jonathan’s been with him, shown every indication of being a good kid who's been through something bad.
Her movements are slow but sure. Her fingers are graceful, and Jonathan almost forgets about Sam, caught up as he tends to get in watching her work. She starts with the flannel overshirt, tucking the scissors into her pocket long enough to unbutton it, then retrieving them to begin the cutting. First up the left sleeve to Sam’s collar. Sam visibly tenses when the scissors near his neck, but holds absolutely still.
The clatter of a busy hospital sounds through the open door, and Jonathan suddenly remembers that he left the door open in case Sam got violent again, but that revealing whatever Sam’s got hiding under there to anyone who walks by the door is pretty fucking insensitive. He quickly draws the privacy curtain.
The shirt falls away to reveal one long lanky arm, bruised and cut to hell. Jonathan carefully keeps his face still as he catalogues the damage. There’s a clear band of fingershaped bruises high up, like someone grabbed him hard by the arm, maybe to drag him somewhere. The cuts laddering up it, meanwhile, look sickeningly deliberate. All deep enough to have bled freely, none deep enough to do permanent damage. The oldest can’t be older than a week. The newest has barely had time to scab over, maybe made last night, or early this morning. There are about twenty of them in all, running like a ladder up Sam’s inner forearm.
Around his wrist the skin is abraded severely. Jonathan tries to picture some less sinister way that particular pattern could have occurred, but there’s little question in his mind that the obvious answer is the only answer: rope, left there longterm while the kid struggled and fought to get out of it.
“Somebody restrain you?” he asks. Sees Nancy watching closely from the corner of his eye. Sam nods. “Sam. Were you sexually assaulted?” For the first time since Jonathan figured out the tone to strike with him, Sam’s eyes begin the glaze. Jonathan holds his breath, trying to be subtle as he gauges the distance between Sam, Nancy, and her scissors. The scissors are way too close to Sam for comfort. “Sam!” he barks. Sam jumps, eyes hitting Jonathan’s face fast as a blink.
Apparently it was the right thing to do, because he’s with them again. He finally answers with a shake of his head, no. Hopefully it’s the truth. People lie about this kind of thing. Ashamed for no good reason. He’s seen it time and time again. “Alright. Either way, the police are gonna wanna talk with you. They’ll wanna know who did this to you.” Sam looks scared, shakes his head again quickly. “Sam, whoever did this needs to be stopped. Right?” Sam hesitates, then nods. “The police will need your help to stop him.” Sam drops his eyes, gives a minute shrug. Jonathan sighs. “Okay. Let’s deal with it when we’re through the exam.” Sam nods, but he’s stopped meeting Jonathan’s eyes, and he flinches back when Nancy smoothly reaches for his other arm to finish the cutting process.
She stops, just short of touching him, and looks to Jonathan for guidance. Jonathan’s not sure she’s ever actually done that around him before. The pressure is on. Apparently, he’s the undisputed Sam expert now. “Sam,” he waits until Sam finally looks at him. “She’s not going to hurt you except by accident. Can you hold still for her?” Sam visibly pulls himself together.
Yes, sir.
“Good.”
The right wrist has the same ragged raw circle as the left, and the same cuts ladder up the right arm. In addition, there are more cigarette burns scattered all over both upper and lower arm, maybe ten of them. A yellowish bruise stains his inner elbow, and it looks too much like the bruise from an IV to be be anything but an injection site. Judging by the color it’s at least a few days old. “You were injected with something?” Nod. “Recently?” Head shake. Sam holds up his left hand, five fingers spread. Mouths, Five days ago. Well, whatever it was is probably out of Sam’s system by now, though Jonathan makes a note to get a tox screen stat.
“Something to knock you out?” There’s a brief flicker of hesitation, then a nod. So. Knocked out, tied up, tortured for days. A kid who’s survived that is clearly gonna be messed up, but if the attack came from someone outside the family, there’s at least a better chance of support, a better chance of recovery, right? A better chance he’ll never have to fix Sam up like this again. God, he hopes it wasn’t someone in the kid’s family.
Nancy gives him another questioning look, and he nods the go ahead. She starts on the t-shirt, cutting it straight up the middle, then moving without pause to snip each sleeve at the top. Again Sam tenses when the scissors near his neck, but holds himself still. Thinking about the cuts marking his arms, Jonathan finds his self-control pretty fucking admirable.
His chest is a mess. So many cuts it looks like someone drove a lawnmower over him, plus more burns and some deep bruising around his ribs and abdomen. Jonathan can picture a booted foot slamming into the kid’s skinny body again and again. He also notices, almost instantly, that the knife wounds on the kids chest are different than the ones on his arms. They’re not just a meaningless series of straight lines. These ones almost look like letters, pictures, something. They’re clustered in different areas, some quite shallow, some deeper, and they look like runes or some new-agey shit. Like the ones on his arms, they look to have been applied over a series of days. None look infected, but they all look painful. They run from Sam’s collarbone all down his front, until the bottom ones half disappear under the waistband of Sam’s jeans. The longest is maybe an inch, but there’ve gotta be about a hundred of them.
It’s the calculated violence that gets to Jonathan the worst. It’s the one part of the job he really thinks he’ll never get used to. He’s seen some pretty nasty things done to people, out of anger, out of revenge, out of sheer stupidity. His first week he had a girl, seventeen years old, whose boyfriend got jealous and splashed acid on her face. He hadn’t thought there could be much worse than that. She was blinded and disfigured for life, victim of the sick urges of some psycho who thought it was love. This, he thinks, is worse. No doubt there’s a psycho involved, but the motivation is so far outside his understanding, it’s hard to believe the guy who did this is a human being at all.
In a way, the emotional shock makes it easier to fall back into his Dad persona. He’s not sure how to act like himself right now.
“We’ll have to see your legs too.” Nancy moves forward, scissors ready, but the kid holds up a hand. Jonathan doesn’t realize he’s going to lever himself off the gurney again until he does it, landing stiffly on his feet and swaying slightly before visibly pushing back the pain the movement brings and going at the top button of his jeans. He basically has to undo them one handed, since his right hand, the one with the burns, is trembling and probably to painful to use.
It’s an effort not to try to help him, but the stiff set of his shoulders screams ‘Don’t touch!’ Jonathan exchanges a sympathetic look with Nancy, and thinks it might be almost as painful for them, watching the kid wincingly peel the jeans down his skinny legs. He’s not wearing shoes, just grimy socks. He gingerly leans against the gurney for balance, then extracts his feet from the jeans without bending down. Jonathan sees that the tops of the socks are white and look fairly new. The bottoms are so dirty they look like they started out dark grey and went downhill from there. Jonathan makes a mental note to check the kid’s feet for sure. Who knows where his shoes went, and how long the socks have been the only barrier between his feet and the city streets?
He notices the kid’s apprehensive look. The question in his eyes. “Underwear too,” he says, calm and authoritative. The kid darts a quick glance at Nancy, and Jonathan wonders if he’s embarrassed to be stripping in front of a woman. After whatever this kid has been through, the sudden fit of modesty seems out of place, but people are funny that way. He briefly considers sending Nancy out of the room, but honestly, having her there makes him more confident, and it’s for the kid’s own good anyway. Usually the presence of a woman is comforting in these kinds of situations, less threatening than being alone with a male.
He can practically hear the kid resign himself, give himself a little internal ‘Buck up’ from the way his shoulders straighten again. Or maybe he’s just girding himself against the pain of moving. He pulls down his boxers.
The fronts of his thighs are marked with more of the same, symbols carved into flesh, identical burned circles, a few dark splotches of bruising. He stands tall and quiet as Jonathan takes a minute to examine them for anything that looks particularly painful or life-threatening. His eyes aren’t glazed, and Jonathan doesn’t see the need to force eye-contact, so he lets the kid look off into space over his shoulder.
“And your back?” he asks finally, breaking the tense silence. God he wants to get this kid cleaned up, off his feet, and tucked snugly into bed with enough painkillers to give him rest as long as he needs it. He’s already kind of skipping ahead to how this is going to go down with the parents. He imagines them, their shocked horror-stricken faces as he gently informs them what their sweet kid has gone through. After this, he thinks, he’s going to need a vacation. Just him, his father’s hunting cabin, and a big bottle of Jack. For a week.
For two weeks, he amends, as the boy turns to reveal his back. It looks like somebody whaled on him with a rod. For about an hour. And then did it again the next day, and the next day. There are bruises on top of bruises. Whatever it was wasn’t thin enough to split the skin, but somehow that doesn’t help him much. It runs from his shoulders down to his thighs with hardly a break. Jonathan wonders how exactly the kid is able to move at all without crying.
Then he breathes deep and pushes his horror aside. He has a job to do, to make this kid’s life better as quickly as possible. There’ll be time later to be shocked and appalled.
He eyes the kid’s buttocks and inner thighs closely, but there are no traces of blood, so, thank God, the kid was probably telling the truth about that.
“I’m going to check for some things, listen to your breathing sounds, that stuff. I’ll need to touch you to do it. Would you rather I have Nurse Clayton do it?” Quick head shake. “Would you rather be sitting?” Head shake. “Okay. Stay still and it’ll be quick.”
He starts out with listening to each lung for fluid, since that mostly means touching the kid’s skin with his stethoscope, and it’s still one step removed from his fingers. Sam breathes in deep when instructed to, and other than that is quiet and composed. Despite the bruising on his ribs, his breath sounds are good, thank God. Well, except the rasp in his throat, which is next up. Jonathan has seen how sensitive the kid is about his neck, but he’s gotta check for a cracked voicebox, just in case, and that means feeling for crackling. “Hold still,” he orders as he reaches out, and is sure to maintain eye contact with the kid until he’s finished his exam.
Then he has to palpate the kid’s abdomen for swelling, which, thanks to the unavoidable sprawl of damaged skin, is extremely unpleasant for both of them. The kid holds up like a trooper, emitting not a whimper.
Finally he’s wrapped up his exam. Nancy has a gown ready for the kid. She steps forward with it, smoothly but not particularly suddenly, holding it up for Sam to put his arms through, but the kid shrinks back. It’s just a stuttered half-step and then he seems to catch himself because he immediately stills and straightens out of the defensive, hunched up posture he’d sunk into.
As though nothing happened he hurriedly thrusts his arms out, ready for the gown, but Jonathan can see his chest heaving, and his eyes rove the curtained area again, returning to Nancy constantly but seemingly unable to stop seeking out threats from every angle. Nancy shoots a glance at Jonathan, and when she has his attention, directs his gaze to Sam’s hands, which are both trembling now.
It occurs to Jonathan that he may have made a fundamental error of assumption. 90% of the time, the victims of assault he gets in here were attacked by a male. It’s easy to forget that sometimes women can be the aggressors.
Cautiously, he holds out his hand for the gown, and Nancy hands it over unquestioningly. Whether she’s on the same page as him or not, she’s clearly all for letting him have a try. “It’s okay, Sam” she murmurs. “Dr. Harrison can help you with the gown, okay?” He nods and Jonathan doesn’t think he’s imagining the relief on the kid’s face. She steps back, makes way for Jonathan to come and block her out of Sam’s view. That seems to work. Sam’s breathing slows, and his left hand stops trembling completely, though his right is still going a bit. “Take one step forward.” Jonathan commands, and Sam responds immediately, giving him room to walk around behind and tie up the gown in back.
“Sam,” says Nancy softly. “It’s okay. I’m not offended. Was it a woman, who did this to you?” Sam nods, jerkily. “Was it your mother, Sam?” He quickly shakes his head. “In that case, would you like me to call home for you? You still have some tests to go through, but your parents should be here. And the police will want to talk to you, but your parents need to be here for that. They’re not supposed to talk to you without your parents.”
Jonathan finishes the tying, and comes back around to the front in time to see Sam biting his lower lip and making clear writing motions. Nancy hands Jonathan a notepad, and he hands it off to Sam along with a pen. The poor kid tries automatically to write with his right hand, but he can barely close his fingers around the pen, and he quickly has to switch to his left. He produces a kind of scrawled cursive that Jonathan has to admit rivals his own in terms of illegibility. It’s lucky Nancy is a champion of deciphering doctor handwriting. She scans the note briefly, then smiles sweetly at Sam. “I’ll go call them right now.”
Jonathan draws blood, applies ointment to all Sam’s open wounds, and checks out his feet, which are filthy but otherwise okay. Then he accompanies Sam through his tests. Normally he’d just leave him with a nurse and check back in to interpret the results, but he’d very much like to avoid Sam ending up in restraints, so he’s wary of leaving him alone. The tests are uneventful. Sam winces quietly every time he has to get in or out of the wheelchair, lie down on or get up from a flat surface, and greets every new technician, orderly, and nurse he sees with the same rigidly controlled fear. At first it makes Jonathan jumpy on the kid's behalf. Then it just makes him exhausted.
Jonathan is watching the progress of the CAT scan when Nancy joins him in the observation room. Neither Sam’s father nor brother had picked up their phones, she reports with a sigh, so she’d left messages for both saying that the kid was in stable condition at Clark County Hospital. They watch the kid in silence for a few minutes before Nancy says softly, “He apologized.”
“Huh?” Jonathan asks, his mind for that one moment more on the beautiful woman next to him than the patient, to be honest.
“He apologized. While you were doing up the back of his gown, right after we figured out he was afraid of me. He said sorry. Like he was afraid he’d hurt my feelings by being terrified.”
“It’s not just you he’s afraid of. I’ve been watching him, and he’s been tense around everybody. Even Lucy.” Lucy the x-ray technician is tiny, 5 feet at the most. Nobody’s afraid of Lucy. They take a minute to let that sink in.
Then Jonathan says "I can't believe he apologized" cause he has to say something to break the heavy silence. His fond tone surprises him. He’s only known the kid for about an hour now, and already he sounds like a doting uncle or something. Nancy shocks him by smiling at him. It might be the first genuine smile she’s ever given him.
“He’s an amazing kid,” she says. Then turns back to watch Sam, face instantly reverting to its accustomed graveness. The first reason Jonathan noticed Nancy was because of how serious she was about each case, how she seemed to hold herself to an impossible standard. Jonathan has heard the other nurses talking, saying with an attitude like that Nancy will burn out fast. He guesses it makes sense, but looking at her, he can’t believe it. Certainly she hasn’t seemed to move any closer to burning out in the 6 months he’s known her. She seems to be exactly the same quietly confident woman he’d kill to get a date with.
She keeps her distance while Sam is being helped off the machine. Next stop for him is a bed, and Jonathan’s glad. The kid looks exhausted, too tired to give Nancy more than a cursory sweep of his eyes before letting Jonathan help him into the chair. Jonathan’s feeling pretty tired himself, and figures on putting the kid to bed and then getting some real sleep of his own.
Together they get him settled, Jonathan doing all the work that requires him to touch the kid, and Nancy directing him from the sidelines on the best use of pillows to prop Sam up on his left side, the side they all agree will be the most comfortable. Sam’s the ultimate stoic. Jonathan’s not used to doing this part, feels clumsy compared to the deft way he’s seen Nancy do this job, but even when he’s sure he’s hurting Sam, the kid’s face is a mask.
When he’s done Sam even gives him a drowsy nod of thanks, and manages from somewhere to muster up a smile for him. It twists Jonathan’s heart up, that sweet little smile. It’s barely there before it’s gone, but it was there. Whatever this kid went through, it didn’t break him. That’s something Jonathan can hold onto when images of cigarette burns hang in front of his eyes.
*****
The kid’s not there when Jonathan gets into work the next morning. Apparently his father and brother got the messages Nancy left, because they came in and spirited him away. Somehow they got past the nurse’s station without signing in. Somehow they listened to Nancy’s detailed explanation of the kid’s numerous injuries, and decided the best thing to do would be to ignore all reason and common human decency and take him away from the people trying to help him. Once she was gone they commandeered a wheelchair and rolled him out before anybody realized what they were doing. They timed their escape perfectly, left nothing behind but grainy images on surveillance tape. Almost like they’d done that kind of thing before.
After all the effort Jonathan put into helping the kid, and it’s not that he regrets it. No, he’d do it again in a heartbeat, but Jesus, it makes him tired sometimes, trying so hard, and in the end making no difference at all.