Work Text:
Sioux Falls General Hospital, 11:41 PM
They’re sitting side by side on an exam table, legs dangling loose and weary over its thinly padded metal edge. Every so often, restlessness born of surplus adrenaline and a simple desire to go home takes over—spurs one or the other of them to begin swinging their feet in a lazy loop: back and forth…back and forth…right-left, left-right.... It’s been nearly half an hour, and neither are particularly built for stagnation.
Or, for that matter, patience in the face of it.
“This is stupid,” Claire says. “I’m fine.”
Dean glances up from his study of the hospital’s (suspiciously shiny) floor to fix her with the most unimpressed expression he can muster. “You are not,” he says, for what feels like the umpteenth time, “‘fine.’ Have you even looked in a mirror?”
“It’s just a little blood.”
“A little—” They’re shielded from prying eyes by a white privacy curtain, but the flimsy material doesn’t offer much in the way of soundproofing; he forces himself to lower his voice. “Your collar’s soaked, Carrie. And that red coming out of your neck? It ain’t stopping.”
“So? Why can’t you just stitch it up. That’s what you’d do if it were Sam, right?”
And sure, Claire’s not exactly wrong. But the Winchesters’ do-it-yourself brand of medical care is—and has always been—a necessity rather than a preference: Dean has never relished the feel of tugging a needle through his brother’s skin; has never enjoyed watching Sam’s scars pucker and knot because of his imperfect technique; and has never looked forward to sleepless nights spent wondering if he’d washed his hands enough, if he’d disinfected his rudimentary tools enough, if he’d cleaned out a dirt-encrusted gash well enough…
When you’re on the run, or your wounds are too difficult to explain, or you’re legally dead? That’s one thing. Claire, though, has the option of a fancy hospital—one with actual, certified sterile instruments and doctors wandering around in lab coats they’ve paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to obtain.
So he’ll be damned if she’s not getting patched up properly.
“Add seven feet, grow your hair another five inches, and we’ll talk. ‘Til then?” Dean lifts his eyebrows pointedly. “Not happening.”
“But that’s not—”
“Happening,” he says over what is sure to be the ultimate in teenage clichés. “It’s not happening.”
Claire works her jaw for a moment before releasing a disgust-infused scoff. “Whatever.”
Another pulse of blood escapes the jagged wound at the join of her throat and shoulder; it oozes toward her collarbone for a few suspended seconds, and then she’s irritably swiping it away with the bundle of gauze she’d been given in triage. (“Just keep pressure on it, honey,” the nurse had said, “and a doctor will be with you soon.” Yeah, right.)
The bandaging leaves a scarlet smear in its wake.
Sioux Falls General Hospital, 11:52 PM
Dean fishes a two-thirds-full packet of Reese’s out of his breast pocket. Knocks Claire’s knee with his to draw her attention away from her phone. “Peanut butter cup?”
Her eyes flit, sidelong and doubtful, over the orange packet he’s got brandished before her.
“No thanks,” she says. “Don’t really like taste of lint.”
“Oh, c’mon. I got ‘em fresh from the ER vending machines. They’re fine.”
“Hard pass.”
Dean shrugs. “Your loss.”
Sioux Falls General Hospital, 11: 55 PM
“You hear anything from Jody or Alex yet?” Dean asks, examining the thumbnail he’s bitten down to its quick. It’s a new bad habit, another vice to add to his already-teetering pile.
“Nope,” Claire says. Her tone is all carefully crafted nonchalance, but a tinge of concern frays its edges. “Guess they’re still stuck in Radiology.”
“Huh,” he grunts. “Figures.”
Sioux Falls General Hospital, 11:56 PM
“You swear there’s no lint?”
“Shut up and take the candy.”
“Wow. Creeper.”
Sioux Falls General Hospital, 12:01 AM
They’ve lapsed into silence. It’s not entirely awkward.
Dean’s ass starts to go numb, and Claire circles her feet.
Sioux Falls General Hospital, 12:08 AM
At length, she says, “I tried calling him, too, you know.”
It takes Dean a moment to orient himself within the abrupt new topic of conversation. He hazards an educated guess: “Cas, you mean.”
“Yeah.” Claire swallows. Her gaze is fastened to her lap, where she cradles her phone between two palms pressed together in prayer position. “I never heard back, though.”
“Hm.” Dean brushes an invisible speck of dust off his dress pants, and tries not to think about the countless texts he’s sent that’ve been left unread, no reply.
The calls that’ve gone unanswered.
The private entreaties of “Hey Cas, you got your ears on….?” that’ve been met with radio silence and nothing more.
He tries not to think about all that, but the steady pressure against his ribcage—the one that’s been building for almost two weeks—cinches ever tighter.
“I mean it’s not like I care,” Claire insists.
“‘Course not,” Dean says agreeably. He doesn’t care either, just hates being ignored. It’s not like he’s some pining fifteen-year-old girl, regardless of what random octogenarians seem to think. (Or sexy brunettes at the local watering hole who say, with a smile about one hundred percent too pitying, “You’re cute, but I’m no one’s rebound.”)
Claire goes on, “I just…you know.” She turns her phone over in her hands, once, twice, until she bounces one shoulder, as if Cas isn’t even worth the effort of moving both, and says: “I thought he’d come.”
Dean huffs an empty laugh. Despite everything he’s just told himself, his expression twists, helplessly, into a bitter smile. Because God, does he know.
“Yeah, well,” he says. “If it makes you feel any better, he’s been flaking on me lately, too.” Adds after a beat, “On us, I mean. Me and Sam.”
“Yeah, I figured.” Claire meets his blinking, baffled eyes head on. “You’ve been checking your phone like, every fifteen minutes since you guys got into town,” she informs him. “It’s kind of pathetic.”
“You’re pathetic,” Dean says mulishly. The immature rejoinder is automatic, and far easier than acknowledging that maybe she’s on to something.
Outside their little, fluorescent-lit curtain prison, footsteps approach. A shadow moves toward them, and as one they straighten their spines, anticipating an end to their interminable wait. But the shadow slides past and away, the footfalls fade, and they remain alone.
Dean wonders vaguely if they’ve been forgotten.
“Listen,” he says. “I’m not going lie to you, Claire: there’s some bad stuff going down—and it’s big. Bigger than maybe anything we’ve ever dealt with before, which believe me, is sayin’ something. And Cas…he’s just busy doing everything he can to fight the good fight, you know? So don’t—” The next part is unaccountably difficult to shove through his throat; it comes out gruff and a bit raw. “Don’t think that just because he’s flapped off again he doesn’t care. It sucks but, that’s the dude’s MO.”
Claire’s face registers disbelief. “You are so full of crap.”
“Excuse me?”
“That doof followed me around like a stray puppy who can’t tell when he’s not wanted for months—”
“Hey.”
“—stuck with you when you were basically a walking, talking, psychopathic nightmare—no offense—and you’re telling me,” she continues, without any acknowledgement of Dean’s bristling, “that Castiel, what: regularly drops off the face of the planet whenever he feels like it? Doesn’t usually come running the second someone he ‘cares about’ asks for help?”
Her sarcastic use of air quotes is not appreciated, but Dean gets her need to throw them in. It’s Emotional Self Defense 101, and he’s the Grand Master, after all. But still: “Don’t”—he raises his hands in the air and flexes his index and ring fingers up and down a couple times—“me. That angel is stupid about you.”
“He’s seems pretty stupid about you too,” Claire counters. “So what’s the deal?”
Heat rises to the tips of Dean’s ears even as his ribs squeeze the breath from his lungs. So what’s the deal? The deal is something’s off, he and Sam have agreed, and apparently Claire sees it too.
The chocolate-peanut buttery aftertaste of Reese’s turns bitter on his tongue.
“I know I’m new to the program,” Claire says, in evident realization that no response is forthcoming, “and those Carver Edlund books I found online are like, probably mostly trash, but when’s the last time he’s disappeared like this and something wasn’t wrong?”
(If there’s a prize for dredging up issues Dean doesn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole, she’s won it.)
Sioux Falls General Hospital, 12:11 AM
Itchy and stifled, he loosens his tie and pops the top button of his dress shirt. He begins to reach for his phone, but freezes upon catching the satisfied curl of Claire’s mouth in his peripheral vision.
“I was going to see if Sam’s done with the bodies, smart ass.”
“Sure you were.”
Her ponytail is mussed, the stray hairs falling around her right ear pink-tinged. She scoots a little bit closer, and Dean’s no longer sure who’s keeping whom company.
Sioux Falls General Hospital, 12:15 AM
They’re sitting side-by-side on an exam table, legs dangling loose and weary over its thinly padded metal edge. Now Dean’s shoes are swaying, the hygienic paper beneath him crackling with every hinge of his knees, each minute shift of weight. Left goes right, right goes left…right-left, left-right…left-right, right-left…
Claire nudges him with her elbow. “Hey. You okay, old man?”
You’re the one bleeding, he wants to say, and you’re asking if I’m okay?
I’m always okay.
I have to be okay…
(Fuck, I’m tired of being okay.)
“I don’t know,” he says, and finds the honesty more refreshing than he thought it’d be.
To her credit, Claire doesn’t ask him to expand; he never really expected her to. She just nods once, then teases instead, “You need us to pick up pint of ice cream on the way home? I’m pretty sure Alex owns The Notebook. Or maybe Sleepless in Seattle’s more your speed?”
This dance is easy. Dean knows all the steps.
“Really,” he deadpans, relaxing into it. “You never heard of Caddyshack, but that movie you know.”
Claire smirks. “Tom Hanks always gets a pass.”