Fic - A New Bee Story
This fic is for sinnerforhire inspired by a prompt over at the spn_hurtcomfort meme. The prompt was - Jensen, Misha (slash or gen): Jensen and Misha are running lines together when Misha collapses. Worried!Jensen ensues.
Now with Part Two!
Jensen wasn’t sure where the scouts came up with random locations, but this particular local was on the back end of nowhere. Wasn’t one isolated stretch of forest pretty much like any other? Couldn’t they have done this about two hours closer to home? Whatever, at least it wasn’t raining.
In spite of the wide open surroundings, Jensen was feeling hemmed in by the production equipment. He ambled over to approach Misha, his partner in crime for the day; Jared and Jim were shooting with the secondary crew back at the studio. Misha looked up from his script expectantly. “They ready for us?”
Jensen shook his head in the negative. “It’s still gonna be about twenty minutes.” Jensen tipped his head to see what Misha was reading. “You still going over this? You were pretty solid in the car.”
Misha shrugged then made what Jared referred to as ‘a Castiel look of piety’ as he gazed up toward the sky. “Orders from on high…pretty important stuff. I want to make sure I get it.”
Jensen nodded. It was one thing he really appreciated about Misha. He did not take this job lightly. Not to say that he didn’t joke around or keep things fun, but Misha really understood that he walked into a show that was very well established, and he put a lot of pressure on himself not to be the guy to mess things up. After Season Four wrapped and Misha started attending conventions, he realized even more deeply how invested the fans were and he took that seriously too. With filming for the fifth and final season underway the pressure was really on.
Taking the script out of Misha’s hands, Jensen gestured for him to get up. “C’mon. Walk and talk. I need to work off some energy. We can run lines and be back by the time they’re ready for us.”
Misha was already in motion before Jensen finished talking. It didn’t surprise Jensen at all that instead of immediately jumping into the lines, Misha started bouncing ideas off of him - what was Castiel thinking?; what was Dean thinking?; how would the “orders from on high” impact them both in the long run? That was the piece Misha just couldn’t wrap his mind around; no matter how many times Jensen tried to explain that trying to outthink Eric was a fool’s game, Misha couldn’t let it go.
They’d been walking for about ten minutes when Jensen realized they were so deep in discussion that he hadn’t been paying any attention to where they were going. His head snapped up as he looked around. He threw out a hand to stop Misha’s forward motion. “Do you have any idea where we are?”
Misha gave him a patented Castiel look of perplexity. Then he sort of snapped out of it and looked around. “In the forest?”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Jensen rolled his eyes, but Misha simply grinned. His goofy glee was just as infectious as Jared’s, and just as impossible to resist. Jensen tried and failed to maintain a disgruntled demeanor. He turned to face the direction they’d come from and started walking. “Well I guess they’ll send out a rescue party if we don’t get back in time.”
He and Misha both tapped their wrists indicating watches they weren’t wearing and said in singsong unison, “We have a schedule to maintain!”
Once they started walking back the way they came, Jensen was glad to realize that they’d been walking in a relatively straight line. There was a path of sorts to follow; Jensen was noticing much more of their surroundings on the return trip. This late in the summer, the forest was thick with life. The shade of the trees did nothing to alleviate the humidity. Jensen was suddenly grateful to be wearing a t-shirt and not a three-piece suit and trench coat like Misha.
Glancing to his left, Jensen was surprised to realize that Misha was no longer by his side. Turning further Jensen could see Misha hung up on a branch tangled in some deadfall. With a yank of his left hand, Misha pulled his coat free. “Son of a BITCH!”
It was almost funny how much Misha sounded like Dean, until Jensen realized there was far too much fear in his tone; his reaction to being snagged by the tree was completely out of place. Jensen picked up the pace and walked back. Misha was standing, frozen, by the fallen tree; his blue eyes were filled with panic and pain. Then his legs gave out and he collapsed to the ground.
“Jesus CHRIST!” Jensen fell to his knees beside Misha, completely at a loss. Jensen’s brain could not make the connection between “coat stuck on a branch” and “total collapse”. Misha was making horrible, strangling sounds as he struggled to breathe and he seemed to have lost control of his motor functions. Jensen had never felt so utterly, devastatingly useless as he did right then. His hands hovered above Misha’s chest, desperate to touch him and make it better, but terrified that anything he did would make it worse.
Then Jensen noticed that the spastic, jerking movements Misha was making had more purpose and direction than he realized. With his right hand, Misha was trying, unsuccessfully to get something from a right hand pocket. No longer afraid of making contact, Jensen started frantically patting Misha’s pockets, cursing the layers of coat and jacket that got in his way.
Jensen’s brain started to get back in on the action feeding him sound bites of information like “allergy” and “epi-pen”. His left hand landed on something solid in Misha’s pocket and he fought down the hysterical impulse to blurt out, “Is that a pen in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
Fumbling the tube out of the pocket, Jensen noticed that Misha’s flailing had decreased dramatically. He couldn’t tell if it was a deliberate decision to help make Jensen’s search for the epi-pen easier or if it was because Misha was too far gone to keep moving. Misha’s eyes were locked on Jensen, pleading and desperate; it was clear Misha knew he was beyond being able to help himself. Jensen felt the weight of the world in that gaze.
Jensen nodded to Misha and repeated over and over, “I got it. I got it.” trying to put more confidence in his voice than he felt. Jensen popped the top of the epi-pen and pushed the devise hard against Misha’s thigh. Suddenly, Jensen was overwhelmingly grateful for Jared’s obsessive insistence that everyone learn how to administer the epi-pen. Misha had always played down the attention; but between Jared growing up with a doctor for a brother and a hyper-sensitivity to allergies because of his nieces and nephews, Jared’s stubborn insistence won the day.
Jensen counted to ten and then released the pressure on the pen. Misha’s breathing seemed a little easier, but that could have been wishful thinking. When Misha’s eyes slid shut, Jensen’s panic came roaring back full blown.
They were in the middle of the fucking forest, only God knew where, because he had the dumb-ass idea of taking a walk instead of staying in a production-controlled, self-contained area with medical personnel.
“Misha?” Jensen laid his right hand flat against Misha’s chest. He was reassured to feel the rise and fall of Misha’s chest, though the heartbeat beneath his palm was unnaturally quick. Jensen had no idea if he was supposed to rouse Misha and try to keep him awake and talking or if that was just for concussions.
Jensen looked around frantically, praying that by some miracle someone had come after them. But no PA magically appeared; and that’s what Jensen really needed, someone with a fucking walkie-talkie…
Jensen gasped when he realized that he was an idiot and Misha might die because he was fucking useless in a crisis. Keeping his right hand on Misha, Jensen dug out his cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans and instinctively hit the first number on speed dial.
Jensen was so relieved to hear Jared’s voice when he answered the phone that he didn’t register any of what Jared was saying. He just closed his eyes and let the voice on the other end of the call ground him. With sudden access to a lifeline, Jensen sucked in a deep breath and then just started babbling urgently.
“Jared we’re in the middle of the fucking forest and Misha had an episode or something but I jabbed him with the epi-pen and I think his breathing is better but no one knows where we are - I don’t even know where we are ….Oh my God! JESUS! Look at his HAND!”
While he was talking, Jensen was monitoring Misha’s breathing, his free hand nervously touching and patting the other man just to keep some sort of physical contact. Up to that point Jensen had been so focused on Misha’s breathing that he hadn’t seen the source of the whole problem. Now it was evident to him what had happened - when Misha grabbed the branch to free his coat, he must have clasped a bee that was resting there. As a result of the sting, his palm was an angry red and shockingly swollen.
“Jensen! JENSEN!” Jared’s voice was insistent and drew Jensen’s attention back to him.
“Listen to me, Jen. Jim’s already on the phone and contacted the production staff on your set. Help is on the way. Do you hear me?”
Jensen could only respond with a shaky noise of agreement. The knowledge that someone knew they needed help and was on the way was so overwhelming to Jensen that he felt ready to pass out. The only reason he didn’t give in to the inclination was that Misha was still in very bad shape and Jensen had to be on point.
“Jensen!” Jared’s voice in his ear pulled Jensen’s thoughts back to the present again. “What’s wrong with Misha’s hand, Jen? What does it look like?”
Being asked a direction question gave something for Jensen to focus on. “It’s totally swollen. The skin across his palm is stretched and shiny. It’s so dark red it’s almost purple.”
“Can you see the stinger in his hand?”
Another direct question, that was good. Jensen switched the phone to his left ear and pulled Misha’s hand closer to him with his right. “I can see it. It’s right in the heel of his hand.”
“Can you pull the stinger out without squeezing the area around it? Can you just slide it or scrape it out of his palm?”
“Hang on.” Jensen was reluctant to put down the phone and lose the only contact he had with Jared’s calming, steadying influence, but being able to actively help Misha had a stronger lure. Holding Misha’s hand cradled in his left hand, Jensen tried to pluck the stinger out of his palm. It actually crossed his mind that if he squeezed Misha’s hand too tightly it would explode like an overripe plum. Jensen swallowed hard against the nausea that that particular image provoked.
A moment later the offending stinger slid out under the pull of Jensen’s nail and Jensen wiped it angrily against his shirt. Fucking stinger.
He gently laid Misha’s hand back on the ground and retrieved the phone. “I got the stinger out, Jay.” Jared didn’t respond immediately, but Jensen could hear him talking to someone else on his end. Then Jared was back on the line.
“Awesome, that’ll help slow the spread of the venom.” For once, Jensen was grateful for Jared’s weirdly eclectic base of knowledge. Because Jared didn’t just sound like he knew what he was talking about, he legitimately knew his shit.
“Do you hear anyone heading your way, Jen? They’ve had enough time; you should hear movement or noise heading in your direction.”
It took Jensen a moment to reorient himself. He’d been so focused on the immediacy of the situation in the three square feet where Misha lay on the ground and his touchstone of Jared on the phone that the sound of help approaching hadn’t caught his attention. Sure enough he could pick up the sound of a small motor rapidly approaching. Jensen surged to his feet making himself more visible. “Hey…here! We’re over HERE!”
It seemed to Jensen like time somehow compressed and suddenly he was surrounded by a swarm of people where just moments before he had been alone. Somewhere in there was a great deal of movement and activity and an unspecified time later they were in the hospital. Jensen couldn’t understand why every last person was concerned about how cold he was feeling when Misha was the one who really needed all of their attention. Then Jared manhandled him into the sweatshirt he peeled off his own back and told him shut the fuck up and stop acting like a girl.
But even Jared couldn’t bully him into leaving before he got a chance to see Misha for himself. Jensen approached the bed with some trepidation. He’d never been up close and personal for a full blown allergic reaction like the one Misha had had, and he was anxious with the anticipation that it might happen again, like an aftershock. He was even more worried about the blame Misha was sure to lay on him, and he surely deserved.
Misha heard him approaching and opened his eyes as Jensen got closer to the bed. All of the things Jensen was expecting to see - anger, accusation - were missing; it was just Misha looking worn out but happy to see him. Before Jensen could speak, blurt out an apology, express his regret, Misha grinned at him. “Hey Jensen…” he said, “I guess now you have a new bee story.”
An involuntary laugh escaped from Jensen. And that was it - Misha would allow no self-recriminations and had already turned the situation into new set lore. Jensen gave a genuine laugh and reached out to take the hand Misha offered to him. “Fucking bees.”
Now with Part Two!
Jensen wasn’t sure where the scouts came up with random locations, but this particular local was on the back end of nowhere. Wasn’t one isolated stretch of forest pretty much like any other? Couldn’t they have done this about two hours closer to home? Whatever, at least it wasn’t raining.
In spite of the wide open surroundings, Jensen was feeling hemmed in by the production equipment. He ambled over to approach Misha, his partner in crime for the day; Jared and Jim were shooting with the secondary crew back at the studio. Misha looked up from his script expectantly. “They ready for us?”
Jensen shook his head in the negative. “It’s still gonna be about twenty minutes.” Jensen tipped his head to see what Misha was reading. “You still going over this? You were pretty solid in the car.”
Misha shrugged then made what Jared referred to as ‘a Castiel look of piety’ as he gazed up toward the sky. “Orders from on high…pretty important stuff. I want to make sure I get it.”
Jensen nodded. It was one thing he really appreciated about Misha. He did not take this job lightly. Not to say that he didn’t joke around or keep things fun, but Misha really understood that he walked into a show that was very well established, and he put a lot of pressure on himself not to be the guy to mess things up. After Season Four wrapped and Misha started attending conventions, he realized even more deeply how invested the fans were and he took that seriously too. With filming for the fifth and final season underway the pressure was really on.
Taking the script out of Misha’s hands, Jensen gestured for him to get up. “C’mon. Walk and talk. I need to work off some energy. We can run lines and be back by the time they’re ready for us.”
Misha was already in motion before Jensen finished talking. It didn’t surprise Jensen at all that instead of immediately jumping into the lines, Misha started bouncing ideas off of him - what was Castiel thinking?; what was Dean thinking?; how would the “orders from on high” impact them both in the long run? That was the piece Misha just couldn’t wrap his mind around; no matter how many times Jensen tried to explain that trying to outthink Eric was a fool’s game, Misha couldn’t let it go.
They’d been walking for about ten minutes when Jensen realized they were so deep in discussion that he hadn’t been paying any attention to where they were going. His head snapped up as he looked around. He threw out a hand to stop Misha’s forward motion. “Do you have any idea where we are?”
Misha gave him a patented Castiel look of perplexity. Then he sort of snapped out of it and looked around. “In the forest?”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Jensen rolled his eyes, but Misha simply grinned. His goofy glee was just as infectious as Jared’s, and just as impossible to resist. Jensen tried and failed to maintain a disgruntled demeanor. He turned to face the direction they’d come from and started walking. “Well I guess they’ll send out a rescue party if we don’t get back in time.”
He and Misha both tapped their wrists indicating watches they weren’t wearing and said in singsong unison, “We have a schedule to maintain!”
Once they started walking back the way they came, Jensen was glad to realize that they’d been walking in a relatively straight line. There was a path of sorts to follow; Jensen was noticing much more of their surroundings on the return trip. This late in the summer, the forest was thick with life. The shade of the trees did nothing to alleviate the humidity. Jensen was suddenly grateful to be wearing a t-shirt and not a three-piece suit and trench coat like Misha.
Glancing to his left, Jensen was surprised to realize that Misha was no longer by his side. Turning further Jensen could see Misha hung up on a branch tangled in some deadfall. With a yank of his left hand, Misha pulled his coat free. “Son of a BITCH!”
It was almost funny how much Misha sounded like Dean, until Jensen realized there was far too much fear in his tone; his reaction to being snagged by the tree was completely out of place. Jensen picked up the pace and walked back. Misha was standing, frozen, by the fallen tree; his blue eyes were filled with panic and pain. Then his legs gave out and he collapsed to the ground.
“Jesus CHRIST!” Jensen fell to his knees beside Misha, completely at a loss. Jensen’s brain could not make the connection between “coat stuck on a branch” and “total collapse”. Misha was making horrible, strangling sounds as he struggled to breathe and he seemed to have lost control of his motor functions. Jensen had never felt so utterly, devastatingly useless as he did right then. His hands hovered above Misha’s chest, desperate to touch him and make it better, but terrified that anything he did would make it worse.
Then Jensen noticed that the spastic, jerking movements Misha was making had more purpose and direction than he realized. With his right hand, Misha was trying, unsuccessfully to get something from a right hand pocket. No longer afraid of making contact, Jensen started frantically patting Misha’s pockets, cursing the layers of coat and jacket that got in his way.
Jensen’s brain started to get back in on the action feeding him sound bites of information like “allergy” and “epi-pen”. His left hand landed on something solid in Misha’s pocket and he fought down the hysterical impulse to blurt out, “Is that a pen in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
Fumbling the tube out of the pocket, Jensen noticed that Misha’s flailing had decreased dramatically. He couldn’t tell if it was a deliberate decision to help make Jensen’s search for the epi-pen easier or if it was because Misha was too far gone to keep moving. Misha’s eyes were locked on Jensen, pleading and desperate; it was clear Misha knew he was beyond being able to help himself. Jensen felt the weight of the world in that gaze.
Jensen nodded to Misha and repeated over and over, “I got it. I got it.” trying to put more confidence in his voice than he felt. Jensen popped the top of the epi-pen and pushed the devise hard against Misha’s thigh. Suddenly, Jensen was overwhelmingly grateful for Jared’s obsessive insistence that everyone learn how to administer the epi-pen. Misha had always played down the attention; but between Jared growing up with a doctor for a brother and a hyper-sensitivity to allergies because of his nieces and nephews, Jared’s stubborn insistence won the day.
Jensen counted to ten and then released the pressure on the pen. Misha’s breathing seemed a little easier, but that could have been wishful thinking. When Misha’s eyes slid shut, Jensen’s panic came roaring back full blown.
They were in the middle of the fucking forest, only God knew where, because he had the dumb-ass idea of taking a walk instead of staying in a production-controlled, self-contained area with medical personnel.
“Misha?” Jensen laid his right hand flat against Misha’s chest. He was reassured to feel the rise and fall of Misha’s chest, though the heartbeat beneath his palm was unnaturally quick. Jensen had no idea if he was supposed to rouse Misha and try to keep him awake and talking or if that was just for concussions.
Jensen looked around frantically, praying that by some miracle someone had come after them. But no PA magically appeared; and that’s what Jensen really needed, someone with a fucking walkie-talkie…
Jensen gasped when he realized that he was an idiot and Misha might die because he was fucking useless in a crisis. Keeping his right hand on Misha, Jensen dug out his cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans and instinctively hit the first number on speed dial.
Jensen was so relieved to hear Jared’s voice when he answered the phone that he didn’t register any of what Jared was saying. He just closed his eyes and let the voice on the other end of the call ground him. With sudden access to a lifeline, Jensen sucked in a deep breath and then just started babbling urgently.
“Jared we’re in the middle of the fucking forest and Misha had an episode or something but I jabbed him with the epi-pen and I think his breathing is better but no one knows where we are - I don’t even know where we are ….Oh my God! JESUS! Look at his HAND!”
While he was talking, Jensen was monitoring Misha’s breathing, his free hand nervously touching and patting the other man just to keep some sort of physical contact. Up to that point Jensen had been so focused on Misha’s breathing that he hadn’t seen the source of the whole problem. Now it was evident to him what had happened - when Misha grabbed the branch to free his coat, he must have clasped a bee that was resting there. As a result of the sting, his palm was an angry red and shockingly swollen.
“Jensen! JENSEN!” Jared’s voice was insistent and drew Jensen’s attention back to him.
“Listen to me, Jen. Jim’s already on the phone and contacted the production staff on your set. Help is on the way. Do you hear me?”
Jensen could only respond with a shaky noise of agreement. The knowledge that someone knew they needed help and was on the way was so overwhelming to Jensen that he felt ready to pass out. The only reason he didn’t give in to the inclination was that Misha was still in very bad shape and Jensen had to be on point.
“Jensen!” Jared’s voice in his ear pulled Jensen’s thoughts back to the present again. “What’s wrong with Misha’s hand, Jen? What does it look like?”
Being asked a direction question gave something for Jensen to focus on. “It’s totally swollen. The skin across his palm is stretched and shiny. It’s so dark red it’s almost purple.”
“Can you see the stinger in his hand?”
Another direct question, that was good. Jensen switched the phone to his left ear and pulled Misha’s hand closer to him with his right. “I can see it. It’s right in the heel of his hand.”
“Can you pull the stinger out without squeezing the area around it? Can you just slide it or scrape it out of his palm?”
“Hang on.” Jensen was reluctant to put down the phone and lose the only contact he had with Jared’s calming, steadying influence, but being able to actively help Misha had a stronger lure. Holding Misha’s hand cradled in his left hand, Jensen tried to pluck the stinger out of his palm. It actually crossed his mind that if he squeezed Misha’s hand too tightly it would explode like an overripe plum. Jensen swallowed hard against the nausea that that particular image provoked.
A moment later the offending stinger slid out under the pull of Jensen’s nail and Jensen wiped it angrily against his shirt. Fucking stinger.
He gently laid Misha’s hand back on the ground and retrieved the phone. “I got the stinger out, Jay.” Jared didn’t respond immediately, but Jensen could hear him talking to someone else on his end. Then Jared was back on the line.
“Awesome, that’ll help slow the spread of the venom.” For once, Jensen was grateful for Jared’s weirdly eclectic base of knowledge. Because Jared didn’t just sound like he knew what he was talking about, he legitimately knew his shit.
“Do you hear anyone heading your way, Jen? They’ve had enough time; you should hear movement or noise heading in your direction.”
It took Jensen a moment to reorient himself. He’d been so focused on the immediacy of the situation in the three square feet where Misha lay on the ground and his touchstone of Jared on the phone that the sound of help approaching hadn’t caught his attention. Sure enough he could pick up the sound of a small motor rapidly approaching. Jensen surged to his feet making himself more visible. “Hey…here! We’re over HERE!”
It seemed to Jensen like time somehow compressed and suddenly he was surrounded by a swarm of people where just moments before he had been alone. Somewhere in there was a great deal of movement and activity and an unspecified time later they were in the hospital. Jensen couldn’t understand why every last person was concerned about how cold he was feeling when Misha was the one who really needed all of their attention. Then Jared manhandled him into the sweatshirt he peeled off his own back and told him shut the fuck up and stop acting like a girl.
But even Jared couldn’t bully him into leaving before he got a chance to see Misha for himself. Jensen approached the bed with some trepidation. He’d never been up close and personal for a full blown allergic reaction like the one Misha had had, and he was anxious with the anticipation that it might happen again, like an aftershock. He was even more worried about the blame Misha was sure to lay on him, and he surely deserved.
Misha heard him approaching and opened his eyes as Jensen got closer to the bed. All of the things Jensen was expecting to see - anger, accusation - were missing; it was just Misha looking worn out but happy to see him. Before Jensen could speak, blurt out an apology, express his regret, Misha grinned at him. “Hey Jensen…” he said, “I guess now you have a new bee story.”
An involuntary laugh escaped from Jensen. And that was it - Misha would allow no self-recriminations and had already turned the situation into new set lore. Jensen gave a genuine laugh and reached out to take the hand Misha offered to him. “Fucking bees.”