Wound Ballistics
Title: Wound Ballistics
Author: missyjack
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sam/Madison
Words: 1,024
Spoilers: for 2x18 Heart
Summary: Madison didn’t die right away.
A/N: I tried to write healing Wincest but apparently my muse decided I needed to face the eye of the storm so to speak. This story had a coda that did involve hugging, but it just didn’t fit. If you are looking for something soothing to read, this ain’t it. The title comes from an area of study which looks at the effects on the body produced by penetrating projectiles.
Madison didn’t die right away.
Sam shot her with an M1911Colt .45, which is a single-action, semi-automatic handgun chambered for a 0.45 ACP cartridge. This particular gun had a pearl handle, an engraved barrel and contained silver bullets. It had been won in a poker game, by John Winchester during his time in the Marines and he gave it to Dean on his twenty-first birthday. Although there were weapons such as the Glock which were lighter than the hefty two pounds of the Colt, as a weapon it remained popular with military and law-enforcement due to its reliability and stopping power.
Sam had taken Madison by the hand and led her to the couch. The same couch she and Sam had sat on and watched All My Children, and later where she had taken Sam inside her for the first time. Madison had straddled him and his hands had encircled her waist as she lowered herself along his thick length. She had gasped as the head of his cock had stretched her wide and when he started to thrust deep inside, her breath had come in short pants which Sam had sucked from her mouth to his.
Sam knew that a 0.45 caliber bullet fired at point blank range would penetrate her body and exit through her back. They sat on the couch so that its frame would stop the bullet from ricocheting around the room, or worse penetrating a wall or window and possibly causing someone else harm.
They didn’t speak; there was nothing left to say. Sam undid the first three buttons of her shirt and placed a hand over her heart. He wanted to feel it beating, to feel her life before he took it from her. He also needed to make sure he positioned the muzzle so the bullet would pass between her ribs and directly into the upper portion of her heart. Skin contact was necessary as cloth could wrap around the nose of the bullet and cause it to slow or deflect.
Madison didn’t close her eyes. She thought she would, but looking at Sam seemed preferable to looking at nothing as she died. Reaching up, she lightly traced the angry red claw scratches on his cheek that were wet with his tears. When they’d fucked he’d devoured her with his mouth and those huge sensitive hands, but also with his eyes. He’d wanted the lights on, had wanted to see her body respond to his touch. Sam had only closed his eyes when he came, almost, she thought, as if there was a point at which he’d shared too much of himself.
A problem for some shooters with this model gun was that they had trouble deactivating the grip safety. This primarily affects shooters who have small hands, so it was not an issue for Sam. He slipped the safety off and squeezed gently but firmly on the trigger. It had been Dean who’d given Sam his first lessons in shooting, taught him that it wasn’t like the movies, all fast action and brute force. Dean had stood close behind him and wrapped his hands around Sam’s, steadying him, preparing him for the kick back of the gun. Dean taught him to breathe out as he drew the trigger back, to be slow and deliberate with his movements.
Chest wounds from smaller caliber bullets, say a 0.32, are not always fatal. They may only nick a vessel, and even if they hit the heart they can result in a perforation small enough that the heart muscle can constrict to slow the bleeding. Sam knew that a 0.45 would completely sever any major blood vessels and cause sufficient damage to the heart that blood loss would be maximized. It would, in effect, rip her heart to shreds.
Madison’s last breath hit Sam’s lips moments after the gun recoiled in his hand. He was holding her close and she only slumped slightly as her lifeblood spread from her chest onto his. He felt her warm wetness spreading over him, seeping into the fabric of his shirt, staining him.
Her blood type was A positive and she used to be slightly anemic, which her mother blamed on her hectic lifestyle in nagging but affectionate phone calls. Madison had not much more than a gallon of it in her system. Death occurs when a person loses 20% of their blood volume and in a woman of her size, the experience of a devastating close range gunshot and the increased blood pressure caused by fear will result in a fatal blood loss within five seconds.
Madison felt so small in Sam’s arms; smaller than she had when they’d made love. Then her lust and life had made her a match for Sam. They’d responded to each other with equal ardour and for the first time since Jess, Sam had given himself over to his passion. He’d embraced her then as a symbol of life and hope amongst the death and evil he dealt with every day. He embraced her now as if he could hang on to that for a moment more.
Oxygen contained in the blood already perfusing the brain, will keep the brain functioning for some time after coronary function has ceased. So although Madison’s heart stopped beating, and she stopped breathing, she knew she was dying for another 12 seconds.
Sam’s gaze did not waver. He remembered when he’d killed that hunter, that he’d known the instant the man died, when whatever defined him as alive - call it his soul or his spirit - was gone. But maybe that had been because of the demon inside of him, because now as he looked into Madison’s eyes he couldn’t tell when she stopped being her.
After a while, Sam placed the gun carefully on the table beside the couch, and laid her back against the cushions, and wondered where she was now. He thought to say a prayer but the Our Father caught in his throat. He moved a hand to gently close Madison’s eyes, and to brush the strands of hair stuck to the drying tears on her face.
Sam sat there holding her hands in his for a long time.