Supernatural: Bone
Title: Bone
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: Wrenlet
Rating: Adult
WARNING: References to incest
Author's Note: Written for maygra's Supernatural Pop Song Fic Challenge. Song title and lyrics below the second cut. Also, follows the AU I established in Don't Follow.
Summary: He didn't mean to pick up. He didn't mean to be here. He can't stay away.
Disclaimer: Supernatural is not mine, the Winchesters are not mine, even Alan Shore isn't mine, but all the mistakes are.
"Shit!"
"Hold still."
"Fuck you, you're not the one--"
"Shut up and hold still, or else maybe you can grow eyes in the back of your head and dig this fucker out yourself."
This isn't where Dean meant to be.
"Family leave?" Mr. Shore's tone was bland, mildly curious even over the phone.
"Yes, sir."
"Funny, I wasn't aware you had family to leave for."
"No sir, we're not exactly close."
Dean moved as quietly as he knew how, shoving clothes and other necessities into a duffle. Five minutes likely wouldn't make a difference one way or the other, but he couldn't bring himself to take the chance and the familiar motions helped keep him calm.
"Close enough, it seems." His boss hummed absently; if they had been in his office, Dean could picture the light tap of his fingers against the edge of his desk. "Indefinite, I assume?"
"I--" Dean hadn't thought that far ahead yet. One crisis at a time.
"Dean, it's after midnight. Nothing easy happens at this ungodly hour."
Alan's quiet fondness was the sort of thing people tended to leave unspoken, especially people with as many paternal issues as Dean. He had come to expect a promotion out of it eventually, but not this... Dean couldn't quite put a name to it. Maybe not all of his issues were paternal.
"Yes, indefinite. I expect--I'll keep in touch."
"Hmm, yes. We'll miss you around the office. I imagine Angela will sulk dramatically and refuse to tell me why...."
There wasn't anything Dean could really say to that, so he didn't try. The sound of the bag's zipper was harsh in his free ear.
"You're the finest assistant I've had in some time, Dean, I do hope you'll be back."
"Thank you, Mr. Shore."
"Alan, please."
"Alan."
"Right, well. See to your family, the rest will keep."
Dean clicked off the phone and took a last look around his apartment. He had no pets, no plants. The newspaper came to the office, bills to his P.O. box.
Alan was more right than he knew. Dean hadn't realized until that moment how easy he had made it on himself, how easy it would be to leave.
Dean lets the tension knot along his jaw but keeps it out of his hands the best he can. Sam doesn't... okay, maybe he does deserve some of Dean's anger, if for nothing else than the sorry state of the medical kit. Low on gauze, even given the knot of bloodied bandages at the bottom of the room's wastebasket, no painkillers left to speak of, one pair of sterile forceps and a half-bottle of peroxide. The stockpiled antibiotics expired over a month ago.
It's bullshit, it spells neglect, and Dean damn well knows it isn't for lack of money. Sam is getting sloppy.
"I see it now. Hang on."
Sam at least remembers to breathe from his belly, keeping his shoulder as still as possible under Dean's fingers.
Dean has been off the hunt for almost five years but there are some things you don't forget, can't afford to forget if you want to stay alive. He had pulled a good third of the favors he was owed on his way out of town, pleading toothaches and sometimes giving no excuse at all, just asking and expecting and hitting up every all night pharmacy in his path. He probably has supplies enough to field-dress a small army, with plenty left over to patch up his idiot brother, but fuck it all, he shouldn't have needed them.
"Bounced a little off the bone, looks like."
"Yeah, I figured."
In a perfect world the light would be better, but Dean thinks it's enough. He lays his left palm flat against Sam's shoulder blade, thumb and forefinger framing the wound, and pauses.
"We could wait."
Dean gave him a Vicodin first thing but it hasn't kicked in yet. Sam's breath whistles slightly through his nose as he thinks, and Dean sees him swallow before he answers.
"Nah, I'm good. Get this bitch out of me."
Dean picks up the forceps, shakes the last inch of protective wrapping off the tips and digs for the bullet.
In college biology, Dean learned the shoulder blade is properly called the scapula. When he was little, Sam used to bend his arms up behind his own back, making the triangles of bone move under his skin, and ask Dean if his wings were growing yet.
Dean isn't sure exactly when he stopped believing in angels.
He hadn't planned to pick up, but something in the hitched cadence of Sam's voice made him duck his head into the kitchen. His conscious mind barely had time to register the words "blood" and "shot me" before the rest of him had crossed the room and snatched up the phone.
"How bad?"
"Dean? I... the bleeding's mostly stopped, I just can't reach the damn thing."
He blew out an exasperated breath and asked again. "How many pads, Sam?"
"Two, now it's just oozing. Hurts like a son of a bitch."
"Okay, call me when you get to the hospital, I'll give--"
"I can't go to the hospital, asshole, I've been shot--"
"Which is why you're going--"
"Running from the illegal cockfight that you fucking sent me to!"
Dean's grip tightened on the phone, and he wanted to punch something so badly he could taste it.
"Were they aiming at you?"
"Doubt it. Fuckers didn't like being raided, they were mostly just shooting wild... but there were cops all over. They'll be at every ER for fifty miles looking for runners."
"Right." Dean pinched the bridge of his nose, and thought gruesome death at whoever had picked tonight to get tough on crime.
"Listen, I--I thought, this is sort of your neck of the woods, maybe you know somebody."
Somebody who could patch Sam up on the quiet, no questions asked, no reports filed, and Dean knew of a few but the closest was at least two hours away. Dean could make it in half that.
"Give me the address."
"Uhm." Sam read it from the motel's phone book, sounding confused and maybe tired, like the adrenaline had started to wear off. This was not a good thing.
"Okay, I'm coming to you. I'll call you from my cell in five minutes; save the number. Call me if the bleeding starts up again. Call me if you get dizzy." He heard Sam draw in a breath and cut him off. "I'm going to call you every fifteen minutes, and if you don't pick up I'll meet the ambulance at the hospital."
"What if I need to piss?"
"Take the phone with you, asshole."
Sam muttered something that might have been "I'm not a fucking baby," but when Dean called, he answered. Every time.
Sam gets chatty when the Vicodin finally hits him.
"Cockfight's a stupid damn place for a meet."
"I didn't pick it."
Butterfly closures and gauze squares, triple antibiotic ointment and surgical tape he tears with his teeth; Dean could do this in his sleep if he had to.
"What kind of crazy sumbitch is he, anyway? Said it was bad luck to do business before the third fight."
Sam always drawls when he's drunk, or high. Dean used to but it's been a long time.
"Just a guy who might know something."
"I think it's bad luck to get arrested, s'what I think."
It never made sense to Dean, his brother had shot up like a weed and filled out to match but narcotics still knock him right on his ass. Must be a metabolism thing.
"How fuckin' stupid is this?" Sam's voice is softer, almost muffled against the pillow. "Dean, I got shot in the back."
"I know." He's just about finished, and Sam's going to hate to move but it needs to be done.
"Hope that asshole got pinched."
Dean mostly does too, except for the part where 'that asshole' might have a lead on their dad.
"Come on, let's get you up."
"The fuck?"
"I'm gonna wrap... just get up, dammit, you're too stoned to understand."
Dean stopped answering his home phone after Sam left. It felt petty, it probably felt even worse to Sam and Dean was sorry for that but it couldn't be helped. He could only trust himself so far where Sam was concerned.
Sam had called almost every night for a while, leaving motel names and room numbers, repeating his cell number and asking Dean to pick up, c'mon man, pick up the phone. Dean didn't, but he changed his outgoing message. Angela threw a hissy fit when Dean stopped bringing her to his place, but she got over it eventually.
The second month Sam didn't call every day but he took to just rambling on the line, spilling out years of odd thoughts and things he had wished Dean could see, and his girl's name had been Jessica and sometimes Sam hung up in a big hurry. Dean tracked Sam's progress and looked up weather reports online. Telemarketers might have wondered why anyone in Massachusetts cared that the Leonids were especially lovely in Georgia that year, but Dean didn't give a shit.
Partway through the third month, Sam's messages got downright pornographic and wasn't that a special kind of torture right there. Dean always knew his little brother fought dirty. He'd be proud, if he wasn't already stuck between pissed off and horny and as badly as he wanted to keep them, he made himself erase every single one.
The morning after Dean came kneeling on the floor of his kitchen, listening to his little brother talk about how much he wanted to fuck him, how he'd left his come across five states' worth of motel sheets dreaming about it, Dean changed his outgoing message again. Two days later Sam apologized to his machine and said he was getting close to the end of Dean's list, where was he supposed to go now? Dean sent him another address by text message.
He makes Sam hold his left hand to his chest while he wraps it in place. Sam just blinks at him while he works, swaying slightly as the bed dips, and his eyebrows draw together.
"S'not dislocated."
"No, but it's gonna hurt like a bitch if you forget and reach for something."
"Why'd I forget?"
"Because you're wasted."
"Oh. Yeah."
Dean pins the bandage behind Sam's back so he can't pick it apart in his sleep, stops and runs his thumb across the line of Sam's rib.
"... Dean?"
"Too close, Sammy."
He leans forward, rests his head against his brother's back and his forehead is on a stretch of bandage but his breath ghosts down the bare skin over Sam's spine. Sam trails his other hand back through the rumpled bedcovers, searching, and Dean lets him find his fingers.
"Could've missed the bone right here, hit your lung or worse."
"Didn't." Sam squeezes his hand, just enough to feel.
"Yeah." Dean squeezes back and lets go, slides off the bed and he's got pills for Sam before he can sleep.
The antibiotics and the water are easy, but then Sam frowns over at the pillow, looks down at his trapped arm and says, "Okay, how?"
They manage it, with Sam's free arm looped around Dean's neck and Dean braced partly against the headboard to lower him down as gently as he can.
When Sam's head hits the pillow, a broad smile spreads over his face. "Hey. I didn' think I'd get t'see you. Thought you'd text somethin'."
Dean can't tell whether Sam is trying to pull him down or if it's just the weight of his arm. He reaches back and grips Sam's forearm, tugs it off his shoulder and catches Sam's hand as it slips down his chest. Dean doesn't say anything; he doesn't need to, because Sam's fallen asleep.
It takes Dean about five minutes to set the room to rights, clean up the mess, set out tomorrow's bandages and repack what they won't need until later. Sam hadn't been in the room long enough earlier to really unpack much, but Dad's journal is in the nightstand drawer and Dean thinks that's as good a place to start as any. His own method for errant-father-finding has gotten them here, which is slightly worse than nowhere, so maybe they're due for a change of tactics.
He pulls one of the chairs right up to the bed, so he can see by the bedside lamp and not disturb Sam any more than he has to. Sam's even breathing keeps him company as he settles in to read.
Too fucking close.
------
"Twilight Zone" by Golden Earring
(somewhere in a lonely hotel room,
There's a guy starting to realize
That eternal fate has turned its back on him,
It's two a.m....)
It's two a.m., the fear has gone
I'm sittin' here waitin', the gun still warm
Maybe my connection is tired of takin' chances
Yeah there's a storm on the loose, sirens in my head
I'm wrapped up in silence, all circuits are dead
I cannot decode, my whole life spins into a frenzy
Help I'm steppin' into the twilight zone
The place is a madhouse, feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go, now that I've gone too far
Help I'm steppin' into the twilight zone
The place is a madhouse, feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go, now that I've gone too far
Soon you will come to know,
When the bullet hits the bone
Soon you will come to know, when the bullet hits the bone
I'm falling down a spiral, destination unknown
A double-crossed messenger, all alone
I can't get no connection, can't get through, where are you
Well the night weighs heavy on his guilty mind
This far from the borderline
And when the hit man comes
He knows damn well he has been cheated
Help I'm steppin' into the twilight zone
The place is a madhouse, feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go, now that I've gone too far
Help I'm steppin' into the twilight zone
The place is a madhouse, feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go, now that I've gone too far
Soon you will come to know, when the bullet hits the bone
Soon you will come to know, when the bullet hits the bone
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: Wrenlet
Rating: Adult
WARNING: References to incest
Author's Note: Written for maygra's Supernatural Pop Song Fic Challenge. Song title and lyrics below the second cut. Also, follows the AU I established in Don't Follow.
Summary: He didn't mean to pick up. He didn't mean to be here. He can't stay away.
Disclaimer: Supernatural is not mine, the Winchesters are not mine, even Alan Shore isn't mine, but all the mistakes are.
"Shit!"
"Hold still."
"Fuck you, you're not the one--"
"Shut up and hold still, or else maybe you can grow eyes in the back of your head and dig this fucker out yourself."
This isn't where Dean meant to be.
"Family leave?" Mr. Shore's tone was bland, mildly curious even over the phone.
"Yes, sir."
"Funny, I wasn't aware you had family to leave for."
"No sir, we're not exactly close."
Dean moved as quietly as he knew how, shoving clothes and other necessities into a duffle. Five minutes likely wouldn't make a difference one way or the other, but he couldn't bring himself to take the chance and the familiar motions helped keep him calm.
"Close enough, it seems." His boss hummed absently; if they had been in his office, Dean could picture the light tap of his fingers against the edge of his desk. "Indefinite, I assume?"
"I--" Dean hadn't thought that far ahead yet. One crisis at a time.
"Dean, it's after midnight. Nothing easy happens at this ungodly hour."
Alan's quiet fondness was the sort of thing people tended to leave unspoken, especially people with as many paternal issues as Dean. He had come to expect a promotion out of it eventually, but not this... Dean couldn't quite put a name to it. Maybe not all of his issues were paternal.
"Yes, indefinite. I expect--I'll keep in touch."
"Hmm, yes. We'll miss you around the office. I imagine Angela will sulk dramatically and refuse to tell me why...."
There wasn't anything Dean could really say to that, so he didn't try. The sound of the bag's zipper was harsh in his free ear.
"You're the finest assistant I've had in some time, Dean, I do hope you'll be back."
"Thank you, Mr. Shore."
"Alan, please."
"Alan."
"Right, well. See to your family, the rest will keep."
Dean clicked off the phone and took a last look around his apartment. He had no pets, no plants. The newspaper came to the office, bills to his P.O. box.
Alan was more right than he knew. Dean hadn't realized until that moment how easy he had made it on himself, how easy it would be to leave.
Dean lets the tension knot along his jaw but keeps it out of his hands the best he can. Sam doesn't... okay, maybe he does deserve some of Dean's anger, if for nothing else than the sorry state of the medical kit. Low on gauze, even given the knot of bloodied bandages at the bottom of the room's wastebasket, no painkillers left to speak of, one pair of sterile forceps and a half-bottle of peroxide. The stockpiled antibiotics expired over a month ago.
It's bullshit, it spells neglect, and Dean damn well knows it isn't for lack of money. Sam is getting sloppy.
"I see it now. Hang on."
Sam at least remembers to breathe from his belly, keeping his shoulder as still as possible under Dean's fingers.
Dean has been off the hunt for almost five years but there are some things you don't forget, can't afford to forget if you want to stay alive. He had pulled a good third of the favors he was owed on his way out of town, pleading toothaches and sometimes giving no excuse at all, just asking and expecting and hitting up every all night pharmacy in his path. He probably has supplies enough to field-dress a small army, with plenty left over to patch up his idiot brother, but fuck it all, he shouldn't have needed them.
"Bounced a little off the bone, looks like."
"Yeah, I figured."
In a perfect world the light would be better, but Dean thinks it's enough. He lays his left palm flat against Sam's shoulder blade, thumb and forefinger framing the wound, and pauses.
"We could wait."
Dean gave him a Vicodin first thing but it hasn't kicked in yet. Sam's breath whistles slightly through his nose as he thinks, and Dean sees him swallow before he answers.
"Nah, I'm good. Get this bitch out of me."
Dean picks up the forceps, shakes the last inch of protective wrapping off the tips and digs for the bullet.
In college biology, Dean learned the shoulder blade is properly called the scapula. When he was little, Sam used to bend his arms up behind his own back, making the triangles of bone move under his skin, and ask Dean if his wings were growing yet.
Dean isn't sure exactly when he stopped believing in angels.
He hadn't planned to pick up, but something in the hitched cadence of Sam's voice made him duck his head into the kitchen. His conscious mind barely had time to register the words "blood" and "shot me" before the rest of him had crossed the room and snatched up the phone.
"How bad?"
"Dean? I... the bleeding's mostly stopped, I just can't reach the damn thing."
He blew out an exasperated breath and asked again. "How many pads, Sam?"
"Two, now it's just oozing. Hurts like a son of a bitch."
"Okay, call me when you get to the hospital, I'll give--"
"I can't go to the hospital, asshole, I've been shot--"
"Which is why you're going--"
"Running from the illegal cockfight that you fucking sent me to!"
Dean's grip tightened on the phone, and he wanted to punch something so badly he could taste it.
"Were they aiming at you?"
"Doubt it. Fuckers didn't like being raided, they were mostly just shooting wild... but there were cops all over. They'll be at every ER for fifty miles looking for runners."
"Right." Dean pinched the bridge of his nose, and thought gruesome death at whoever had picked tonight to get tough on crime.
"Listen, I--I thought, this is sort of your neck of the woods, maybe you know somebody."
Somebody who could patch Sam up on the quiet, no questions asked, no reports filed, and Dean knew of a few but the closest was at least two hours away. Dean could make it in half that.
"Give me the address."
"Uhm." Sam read it from the motel's phone book, sounding confused and maybe tired, like the adrenaline had started to wear off. This was not a good thing.
"Okay, I'm coming to you. I'll call you from my cell in five minutes; save the number. Call me if the bleeding starts up again. Call me if you get dizzy." He heard Sam draw in a breath and cut him off. "I'm going to call you every fifteen minutes, and if you don't pick up I'll meet the ambulance at the hospital."
"What if I need to piss?"
"Take the phone with you, asshole."
Sam muttered something that might have been "I'm not a fucking baby," but when Dean called, he answered. Every time.
Sam gets chatty when the Vicodin finally hits him.
"Cockfight's a stupid damn place for a meet."
"I didn't pick it."
Butterfly closures and gauze squares, triple antibiotic ointment and surgical tape he tears with his teeth; Dean could do this in his sleep if he had to.
"What kind of crazy sumbitch is he, anyway? Said it was bad luck to do business before the third fight."
Sam always drawls when he's drunk, or high. Dean used to but it's been a long time.
"Just a guy who might know something."
"I think it's bad luck to get arrested, s'what I think."
It never made sense to Dean, his brother had shot up like a weed and filled out to match but narcotics still knock him right on his ass. Must be a metabolism thing.
"How fuckin' stupid is this?" Sam's voice is softer, almost muffled against the pillow. "Dean, I got shot in the back."
"I know." He's just about finished, and Sam's going to hate to move but it needs to be done.
"Hope that asshole got pinched."
Dean mostly does too, except for the part where 'that asshole' might have a lead on their dad.
"Come on, let's get you up."
"The fuck?"
"I'm gonna wrap... just get up, dammit, you're too stoned to understand."
Dean stopped answering his home phone after Sam left. It felt petty, it probably felt even worse to Sam and Dean was sorry for that but it couldn't be helped. He could only trust himself so far where Sam was concerned.
Sam had called almost every night for a while, leaving motel names and room numbers, repeating his cell number and asking Dean to pick up, c'mon man, pick up the phone. Dean didn't, but he changed his outgoing message. Angela threw a hissy fit when Dean stopped bringing her to his place, but she got over it eventually.
The second month Sam didn't call every day but he took to just rambling on the line, spilling out years of odd thoughts and things he had wished Dean could see, and his girl's name had been Jessica and sometimes Sam hung up in a big hurry. Dean tracked Sam's progress and looked up weather reports online. Telemarketers might have wondered why anyone in Massachusetts cared that the Leonids were especially lovely in Georgia that year, but Dean didn't give a shit.
Partway through the third month, Sam's messages got downright pornographic and wasn't that a special kind of torture right there. Dean always knew his little brother fought dirty. He'd be proud, if he wasn't already stuck between pissed off and horny and as badly as he wanted to keep them, he made himself erase every single one.
The morning after Dean came kneeling on the floor of his kitchen, listening to his little brother talk about how much he wanted to fuck him, how he'd left his come across five states' worth of motel sheets dreaming about it, Dean changed his outgoing message again. Two days later Sam apologized to his machine and said he was getting close to the end of Dean's list, where was he supposed to go now? Dean sent him another address by text message.
He makes Sam hold his left hand to his chest while he wraps it in place. Sam just blinks at him while he works, swaying slightly as the bed dips, and his eyebrows draw together.
"S'not dislocated."
"No, but it's gonna hurt like a bitch if you forget and reach for something."
"Why'd I forget?"
"Because you're wasted."
"Oh. Yeah."
Dean pins the bandage behind Sam's back so he can't pick it apart in his sleep, stops and runs his thumb across the line of Sam's rib.
"... Dean?"
"Too close, Sammy."
He leans forward, rests his head against his brother's back and his forehead is on a stretch of bandage but his breath ghosts down the bare skin over Sam's spine. Sam trails his other hand back through the rumpled bedcovers, searching, and Dean lets him find his fingers.
"Could've missed the bone right here, hit your lung or worse."
"Didn't." Sam squeezes his hand, just enough to feel.
"Yeah." Dean squeezes back and lets go, slides off the bed and he's got pills for Sam before he can sleep.
The antibiotics and the water are easy, but then Sam frowns over at the pillow, looks down at his trapped arm and says, "Okay, how?"
They manage it, with Sam's free arm looped around Dean's neck and Dean braced partly against the headboard to lower him down as gently as he can.
When Sam's head hits the pillow, a broad smile spreads over his face. "Hey. I didn' think I'd get t'see you. Thought you'd text somethin'."
Dean can't tell whether Sam is trying to pull him down or if it's just the weight of his arm. He reaches back and grips Sam's forearm, tugs it off his shoulder and catches Sam's hand as it slips down his chest. Dean doesn't say anything; he doesn't need to, because Sam's fallen asleep.
It takes Dean about five minutes to set the room to rights, clean up the mess, set out tomorrow's bandages and repack what they won't need until later. Sam hadn't been in the room long enough earlier to really unpack much, but Dad's journal is in the nightstand drawer and Dean thinks that's as good a place to start as any. His own method for errant-father-finding has gotten them here, which is slightly worse than nowhere, so maybe they're due for a change of tactics.
He pulls one of the chairs right up to the bed, so he can see by the bedside lamp and not disturb Sam any more than he has to. Sam's even breathing keeps him company as he settles in to read.
Too fucking close.
------
"Twilight Zone" by Golden Earring
(somewhere in a lonely hotel room,
There's a guy starting to realize
That eternal fate has turned its back on him,
It's two a.m....)
It's two a.m., the fear has gone
I'm sittin' here waitin', the gun still warm
Maybe my connection is tired of takin' chances
Yeah there's a storm on the loose, sirens in my head
I'm wrapped up in silence, all circuits are dead
I cannot decode, my whole life spins into a frenzy
Help I'm steppin' into the twilight zone
The place is a madhouse, feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go, now that I've gone too far
Help I'm steppin' into the twilight zone
The place is a madhouse, feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go, now that I've gone too far
Soon you will come to know,
When the bullet hits the bone
Soon you will come to know, when the bullet hits the bone
I'm falling down a spiral, destination unknown
A double-crossed messenger, all alone
I can't get no connection, can't get through, where are you
Well the night weighs heavy on his guilty mind
This far from the borderline
And when the hit man comes
He knows damn well he has been cheated
Help I'm steppin' into the twilight zone
The place is a madhouse, feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go, now that I've gone too far
Help I'm steppin' into the twilight zone
The place is a madhouse, feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go, now that I've gone too far
Soon you will come to know, when the bullet hits the bone
Soon you will come to know, when the bullet hits the bone