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FIC: Stranded in Motion Prologue & Part One
The first thing Jared sees when he blinks open heavy-lidded eyes is a face. It’s a woman’s face. Round, pretty, he thinks. Why is there a pretty woman’s face over him?
His world is hazy, like he’s in an old movie and the film is crackling around the edges. There’s a buzzing in his ears, a constant, low ringing tone that won’t go away. He tries to lift his hands to his head to press down his ears, desperate for the sound to stop so he can just think.
His arms won’t move though, tethered with what feels like weights to the…what is this he’s lying on? A bed? Why is he in a bed?
He blinks again, his eyes feeling crusty from disuse like he just woke up from the world’s longest yet most exhausting nap. He’s narrows them, trying to focus on the round pretty face of the woman, the woman trying to speak to him but the sound.
The sound is.
The ringing is.
There is no sound but the ringing.
He blinks again, the round pretty face forming more precise features. The mouth, moving wordlessly. The eyes kind, so kind, too kind.
Why is there a woman here, where is his unit, where is the captain, Chad, where is Chad, oh god, Rosey, the ringing, the dirt, oh god.
He has to get up. He has to help his friends, he has to.
He cries out as he wrenches himself forward in what is - yes, this is a bed. It’s a bed, and he forces himself forward. The woman is holding on to him now, more than just the round pretty face, now arms moving, pushing him back. Mouth still silent, his ears still ringing.
There are wires everywhere, running along the lengths of his arms like snakes and he scrapes at them, tries to get them off so he can get up. He’s trying, willing his body sideways, trying to climb his way over, but the blankets twist around him and he’s tangled, trapped, torn.
Torn, torn, torn, his hands claw at the blankets, push them aside, his ears ringing louder now, mocking him. He just needs to get the blankets off, then he can get out, he can run away, save them, save them, his friends, he has friends, they are his friends, yes, please god, just let him get free.
There are other hands on him now, two sets, three maybe, holding him back but he’s got the blankets off now, he can go, he can.
White. White. White.
He can’t breathe. His throat constricts. He can’t. Breathe.
He claws at the mattress where his left leg should be. It’s just white. White sheet, white mattress, white.
He can’t breathe. His whole body starts convulsing, muscles seizing. Hands grab at him, hold him down.
One hand smoothes over his face. It’s wet. His face is wet. The hand is wet now, too.
He tries to breathe but no longer knows why.
There’s a tree in the back of the school. It’s not only the biggest tree that Jared’s ever seen, but it has a hole in one part of it that has a space just large enough for him to crawl into.
Jared’s ten, but small for his age, so he can tuck himself right up in the little tree-cave whenever he needs to get away.
Or hide.
He’s been at this school for three months now, but he doesn’t even remember the name of it because they are all the same. Same schools with bad food and teachers who talk over him and boys named Brad-Steve-Jimmy who knock him down into the same grass or concrete or dirt.
One time, a Brad-Steve-Jimmy told him kids like him were called Army brats, and Jared just shrugged his shoulders into the ground as Brad-Steve-Jimmy got one last kick in.
Jared’s hiding in his tree-cave today. It’s a Tuesday, not a special day. Brad-Steve-Jimmy gives him a funny look that morning before home room but Jared ducks into a bathroom until the bell rings.
He slips into class late. No one notices. It’s okay.
But Jared knows that Brad-Steve-Jimmy is looking for him today. He can feel it in his bones, so he takes the brown paper bag holding his peanut butter and banana sandwich and juice box and crawls into the tiny space. He folds his legs up to his chest and balances his sandwich on his knees.
He chews slowly, savoring the slightly soggy bread. It’s dark inside his tree-cave, but he’s safe here. Brad-Steve-Jimmy doesn’t know about it, and here Jared can sit and eat his lunch and pretend that it’s okay that he’s alone.
The gurgling of the last of the juice is the only sound, but it’s peaceful. His belly is full and he’s warm in the sweater his Mama knit him for his last birthday.
In the distance, he hears the bell ringing, warning him that lunch time is over.
Jared takes in a deep breath, and he smells warm earth and peanuts.
Brad-Steve-Jimmy is waiting for him as he crawls out of the only safe space he’s managed to find for himself in three months.
Jared closes his eyes and holds the crumpled paper bag to his chest as he waits for what’s coming.
==
Later, his Mama is holding him close to her chest on the couch. His face is wet. Her dress is wet now, too.
Jared’s Stepdaddy comes into the room and gives them a stern look. His Mama pulls back just enough and Jared doesn’t feel warm anymore, even in his sweater.
“Maybe we should talk to someone at the school, Charles,” Mama tells his Stepdaddy.
Jared’s Stepdaddy shakes him head curtly. His shoulders are back, as precision perfect as his crew cut. “No. Jared needs to learn out to stand up for himself if he’s every going to grow up to be a real man.”
“But he’s just a boy, Charles.” Mama’s voice is soft and it makes Jared ache.
The line of Jared’s Stepdaddy’s mouth is hard and disapproving. “That’s his problem, the way you coddle him. The other kids can probably smell the mama’s boy all over him.”
Mama, Jared thinks, wanting to be her boy. To be anyone’s boy, really.
She gets up from the couch and Jared goes to bed without supper.
“He’s awake, Dr. Morgan.”
Jared blinks a few times, soft fluorescent lights stinging his eyes. When his vision corrects, he sees a smiling woman leaning over him. Here face looks strangely familiar, round and pretty, dimple in her cheek.
“Welcome back, Jared,” the woman says, squeezing his shoulder lightly before taking a few steps back.
“Where am I?” he manages to croak out, throat scratchy like he’s had something stuck down it for too long. His eyes dart around as he tries to orient himself. He takes in the bed he’s lying in, a hospital bed. There is a small group of people in scrubs forming a half-circle around it.
An older man with a salt-and-pepper beard and a white coat steps forward. His face is stoic, confident. The boss then, Jared thinks. He knows that kind of face.
“Hello, Jared. I’m Dr. Jeff Morgan, and I’m the one that performed your last surgery. You’re back in the States now, at Singer Veterans Hospital just outside of Austin.”
Jared swallows a few times, blinks. “Surgery? Why did I have surgery?”
The people in scrubs dart quick glances at each other, like they know a secret that he doesn’t know. Jared swallows again, bile right there in the bottom of his throat.
Dr. Morgan seems to take a moment to steady himself before continuing. “Your unit was hit by a pair of IED devices and you sustained severe injuries to your left leg. The trauma surgeons in the field were able to save your life despite the loss of blood, but the injuries were such that I had to perform a transfemoral, otherwise known as an above-the-knee amputation when you arrived here a few days ago.”
Jared stares at the woman with the pretty round face, her brow twisted. Remembers waking up briefly, the white bed and the hands holding him down and the…
“Amputation.”
It’s not a question. Dr. Morgan seems to understand that and continues on.
“Yes, unfortunately. About six inches below the groin, so that we will eventually be able to fit you with a prosthesis. The surgery went very well, and I don’t anticipate the need for another one, as long as you let my fine staff take care of you and help mitigate some of the issues that arise with any kind of procedure like this.”
Dr. Morgan stops for a moment, cocking his head like he’s assessing Jared’s response. “You are young and healthy, Jared. I know this is not the kind of news you want to wake up to, but believe me when I say that those two things are going to help you greatly in your recovery.” He gestures to another woman with short cropped hair and a white coat. “You have a fantastic team here at Singer led by myself and Dr. Rhodes, and we are going to do everything in our power to help you get through this trauma.”
Jared just stares at him. He thinks he should feel something. Should be hysterical or panicked or terrified or something.
Something besides nothing. Right now he feels nothing and it’s the only comfort he has.
Dr. Morgan coughs a bit, his eyes darting to the other doctor with the short hair, who gives him a quick nod before he gives his excuses and leaves. The woman steps up to replace him.
“Hi Jared, I’m Dr. Rhodes. I’m the attending doctor here on this ward. I don’t want to overwhelm you with information right now because you are probably a bit groggy with that morphine we’re pumping into you, but I just want to make sure you understand the immediate procedures that we need to do to help you get better.”
She looks like she’s waiting for a response from Jared, so he gives her a curt nod.
“Okay then. First off – and I know this is going to be a pain in the ass—we need to get you doing some deep breathing exercises to keep your lungs working right and to prevent infection and atelectasis-which means the collapsing of the lung—in this case, from disuse. We’ll also need to make sure that your leg is wrapped well and elevated to prevent something called edema, which is just a fancy way of saying fluid building up in the tissue.”
“What leg?” Jared blurts out. Dr. Rhodes’ face freezes for second. He knows that she’s trying to be kind, trying to talk to him in a way he can understand, but he doesn’t care. Doesn’t care one bit.
“Jared, I can’t imagine…”
Her face softens, and for a moment, just one single moment she reminds him of his mama and he can’t stop himself from feeling. And it hurts so bad that he just wants it to stop and he wants to go back to that moment before this one when he didn’t feel anything at all.
And then his chest is tight and he can’t breathe and the lights cover his vision like the brightness of the desert sun.
“Danneel, two liters of oxygen, and then 3mg Ativan, stat.”
“Yes, Dr. Rhodes.”
Jared doesn’t know how long it is until he can breathe again, but he’s back to not particularly caring, so it doesn’t really matter.
“That’s it, honey. You’re alright now.” A voice lulls him, the hint of a drawl different than the ones before. A hand strokes his forehead and the runs down his cheek. He opens his eyes to see who it belongs to.
It’s an older lady, deep eyes and dark skin and a curling smile. “Lemme see those pretty eyes – ah, that’s better. I’m Nurse Devine, but you can call me Loretta, and that young one over there is Danneel. Don’t you let those fancy types in the lab coats fool you – we nurses run this floor.”
Jared glances over at the woman with the pretty round face, Danneel. Her hair is pulled up into a messy red ponytail and she’s wearing purple scrubs with teddy bears on them and waves at him like they are old buddies who just haven’t seen each other in a while.
“We’re gonna get you fixed up, son. We’ll do it together.”
He doesn’t know he’s crying until Loretta’s thumb is swiping the tender skin under his eyes.
==
They move him to another room the next day, farther down in the ward. They try to get him to transfer to a wheelchair using a sliding board, but he refuses, just shaking his head and turning it to the side in a dismissive manner. They wheel his entire bed instead, the IV pole creaking as it rolls along the hallway to his new temporary home.
Home. If you can call it that. Not like he has anywhere else to go back to.
“Here we are,” says the guy pushing the bed, one of the nurses’ assistants named Osric. He’s compact but muscular, and his attempts to manhandle Jared into a sitting position earlier earned him a scowl that he proceeded to blithely ignore.
“Whatever,” Jared mumbles, burying his head into the pillow, as the bed gets wheeled into a large room and moved into position in one corner of it.
A voice from the other side of the room startles him out of his stupor.
“Fruit cocktail? Jesus, you would think a war hero would get some red meat up in this mother!”
“Chad?” Jared exclaims, ignoring the pain that shoots up his side when he attempts to get into the earlier-rejected sitting position to see if the voice is indeed from his friend.
“Is that you, Pada-diddly-do? I was wondering where these fuckers were hiding you!”
Jared barks out a laugh, the first one that he’s managed since he could still feel the taste of dust in his mouth. “Chad, it’s me. Are you okay?”
It’s then Jared really sees the man. Both eyes are covered in thick white gauze, and there are what seem to be a couple chunks out of the top of his head, marring the buzzed blond hair. But he’s smiling, that stupid, cocksure, fucked up Chad of a smile, and Jared wants to throw himself off this bed and crawl to him just to touch him and make sure it’s not a dream.
“Yeah, you know. Blew my eyes out but I’m alive, right? And if these people would give me something other than fruit cocktail and piss-flavored Jello than maybe I’d be even better.”
Jared can see it. The tremble in Chad’s hands, his tells. But it’s okay.
“How ‘bout you, Jay? Can you see my handsome face? Still jealous of my beauty?”
“You are still as ugly as sin,” Jared replies, as usual. It feels good. Normal. He ignores the first question, doesn’t want to mar this moment with reality. Chad can’t see him, so he can’t see the shell he’s become.
“Don’t be jellie.”
“Friend of yours?” Osric asks, amused, as he fusses with situating a foam block under the stump of Jared’s leg to elevate it. Jared tries not to look at it where it just sits there, trussed up tight like a dead animal and just as useless.
Jared’s just about to respond in the affirmative when the door opens again and another bed is wheeled in, trailed by two women in civilian clothes.
“Whoever you are, please tell me you have a steak with you,” Chad calls out to the newcomer.
“Murray, you sonofabitch. Nothing can kill your cockroach ass, huh?” the person in the bed calls out, and Jared is relieved to recognize it.
“Fucking Hodge,” Chad replies, grinning from ear to ear. “Who is going to torment your pansy ass if I’m not around?”
Osric snickers, as he leaves Jared’s side to help the other nurses’ assistant situate their new roommate’s bed into the last empty space in the room. Once it’s in place, Jared’s able to see the man’s full body, and is surprised to see that his right leg is an elevated stump just like Jared’s own.
The two women, who seem to be guests of Hodge, take either side of his bed and start fussing with the sheets around him. Hodge smiles up at them but shoos them away. It’s then when he sees Jared for the first time.
“Padalecki! You made it, man, thank God.”
Jared can’t help but glance down at his own leg, and then back at Hodge’s own. The man seems to notice their similar injuries at the same time that he does it, and gives a half shrug of commiseration.
“Yeah, Aldis. Guess I did.”
Hodge turns back to the women at his side then, an older lady who looks like she could be his mother, and a tall blonde woman who must be his fiancée, Adrianne, whom Hodge used to talk about constantly during security rounds. The two women hold his hands, one on either side, and there’s suddenly a calmness in his broken body that Jared wouldn’t even know how to begin to achieve.
Jared looks away, not quite understanding why his chest is aching.
==
“Something new for you today,” Danneel says, finishing wrapping the stump of his leg before pulling a stocking-like contraption over it that squeezes it and makes him wince. She sees the movement, and presses her thumbs into a few specific points, massaging until the worst pain decreases and he gives her a small nod.
He stares at her scrubs. Blue today, with yellow birds in flight, wings outstretched.
She waves a hand in front of his face to get his attention. “Did you hear me, Jared? I said you are starting physical therapy today.”
He looks up at her dumbly. “Why?”
“Because you need to get up out of this bed. The stretching exercises we’ve been doing are just the first step. Your lungs are doing well and we’ve kept the swelling down so Dr. Rhodes wants you up and walking.”
He looks at her incredulously at the word “walking”, but she just stands there with her hands on her hips.
“Not today, please. Maybe tomorrow.” Jared doesn’t think he can take any more new people. Why won’t they just let him pull the curtain around his bed and sleep?
She shakes her head firmly. “That puppy dog face might work on some people, but not me, buddy. You are four days post-op and healing well, so it’s time for you to get moving. We happen to have the best therapist in Texas working at this hospital, and you’re going to love him.”
“I heard the words ‘best in Texas’, so you have to be talking about me.”
Jared looks up quickly at the sound of a smooth whisky drawl, and almost chokes on his tongue when he sees the man bearing it.
Danneel tsks. “Ackles, you weren’t supposed to hear that. Your head is big enough as it is.”
“Nurse Harris, I resent you insulting my large cranium. You know I’m sensitive about it.”
Danneel laughs before noticing Jared looking back and forth between them helplessly and getting serious again. “Jared, this is Jensen. He’s going to be your physical therapist and help get you started on a mobility plan.”
“Hello, Jared. It’s very nice to meet you,” the man, Adonis, pagan god, ridiculous creature, whatever he is says kindly, smile tugging the skin around thecorners of his bottle-green eyes out and apart.
Jared thinks that if he had bothered to eat breakfast that morning, he might have thrown up all over himself at the sight of it.
Jensen’s face tenses a little when he sees Jared’s face, and Jared can only imagine what his expression looks like right now. It’s like he’s frozen in place, every muscle in his body including his tongue paralyzed by the thought that this man was going to be in any kind of proximity to Jared’s broken body.
“Jared, are you okay?” Danneel asks, stepping back into his space. “Are you having any specific pain?”
If Jared could laugh at that without breaking into ridiculously embarrassing sobs, he probably would. Specific pain? How can pain be specific when it’s in every fiber, every day, every moment.
Jensen puts a hand on Danneel’s forearm and nudges her back, stepping closer to the side of Jared’s bed and looking straight at Jared until Jared finally gives in and meets him eyes with his own.
“It’s okay to be scared,” he says, his voice soft, like it’s just for the two of them to hear.
“I’m not scared.”
“Yes, you are. And it’s still okay because I’m scared, too.”
Jared blinks in surprise, ignoring the wetness of his eyelashes. He doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing.
“C’mon,” Jensen says for him. “Let’s get you into a chair and over to the playroom. You can curse me out to Danneel later, okay?”
The first touch of Jensen’s hand curled around Jared’s bicep is like an electrical current running through Jared’s entire body. Scared doesn’t seem to be a big enough word anymore.
With Jensen and Danneel’s help, they use a board to get him transferred to a wheelchair. It’s the first time he’s let them get him out of bed since he woke up after surgery, and it’s a shock to the system when they start pushing him down the hallway towards the PT center.
The ward is buzzing, people chatting, phones ringing, laughter and life and a reminder that the world is still turning as Jared sits in his bed in the corner of a room with green curtains, a TV that only gets seven channels, and two maimed comrades eating piss-lime Jello.
Jared is used to the world turning without him, so it’s almost comforting.
They finally reach the rehab center, and Jensen wheels him into a pristine room with various exercise apparatus, including a set of parallel bars and a padded massage table nearby it. Jensen wheels him directly over to that, and then helps Jared up onto the table, lying face down.
Jared feels his cheeks heating up at the feel of Jensen’s strong arms wrapped around his back. Then one of Jensen’s hands graze what’s left of his leg, and Jared pushes him away without thinking, almost falling off the table in the process.
“Easy, tiger,” Jensen says, voice still pitched low, as he ignores Jared’s twisting and helps get him back fully onto the table instead of flat on his face on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Jared says through gritted teeth, biting the words into the table. He doesn’t know why he’s apologizing exactly, but it’s easier than admitting that the feel of Jensen’s hands are ruining whatever tiny bit of composure he has left.
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Jensen replies, voice calm. “We’re going to keep it simple for the first few days, doing some stretching exercises, and a few other exercises that are going to help keep you from getting contractures. Preventing those is why the nurses have been having you lie face down in intervals the last few days.”
“What’s that?” Jared mumbles, trying to relax into the padding of the table, but his body still a tight ball of nerves.
“That means an irreversible, permanent flexion of the joint caused by the shortening of muscle fibers, and loss of normal elasticity of connective tissue such as ligaments and tendons, in this case from disuse and from the formation of scar tissue over the joint. We don’t want that to happen because that will make wearing your prosthesis a little more difficult, and we want you up and walking again.”
Jared swallows hard, trying to take in way too much information and only understanding half of it. He stares down at the blue plastic covering of the table as he feels Jensen manipulate his limbs gently.
“What if I don’t want a prosthesis? What if I don’t think it’ll work for me?”
Jensen’s hands pause for a second, but then they are back to carefully kneading the area around Jared’s hips. Jared’s skin is tingling through the material of his hospital-issue sweats at every point that Jensen is touching him.
“And why wouldn’t you think that would work for you, Jared? We have one of the best prosthetists in the country affiliated with Singer. He’s a veteran himself, and he’s done genius work with robotics, and I think you will want to meet him.”
“What if I just don’t want to?” Jared says, feeling belligerent, wanting to reach out the only way he can to fight the fact that his entire body is burning under Jensen’s gentle touch.
“You have a few weeks before you even need to consult with him, so right now, we’re going to worry about today. And today, I’m getting you up.”
Jensen helps get him sitting upright before gesturing over at the parallel bars.
“I can’t,” Jared says, bluntly, staring at the bars like they have razor sharp teeth and want to devour him.
Jensen leans in like he’s going to whisper a secret, his face mere inches from Jared’s. “You can.”
Jared can’t think of a response over the thumping of his heart.
Alex is different.
There is nothing Brad-Steve-Jimmy about Alex. He doesn’t push Jared into the dirt or steal his lunch money or knock his head into the sinks in the bathroom.
Alex smiles at him on Jared’s first day at his new school. Offers to show him around campus and invites him to lunch. Alex shares his potato chips with Jared, and even though Jared doesn’t much like sour cream and onion, he takes one and munches happily.
Jared’s just turned fifteen and it’s his sophomore year. The end of his high school years seems impossibly far away, but that doesn’t seem like such a big deal when he knows he has Alex sitting at his side.
Alex is different in other ways, too.
Alex is beautiful.
Looking at Alex isn’t the first time Jared’s had these butterflies in his belly, but they are the first time they haven’t made him feel sick about it.
Nothing about Alex could make him feel sick, because Alex is his best friend. His only friend, if Jared is being honest with himself. Jared thinks that should bother him, but it doesn’t, not anymore. Because Alex is here and Alex is beautiful and Alex is everything that Jared wants to be and everything that Jared wants to have.
Alex is brave.
He saves Sally Jones’ cat from a tree and doesn’t even care when he falls and breaks his arm. He just uses his cast as a blank canvas to draw on, colors bursting forth with characters from the comic books he loves so much. Alex is just like the pictures on his cast, a superhero. Jared’s superhero.
Jared’s not beautiful like Alex, but he thinks he can be just as brave.
It’s late spring, the air is warm with the first brush of humidity. He’s been at this school for seven months, almost a record. Sometimes Jared thinks that it’s because he was meant to meet Alex, that all of this traveling around, all the hard times and kicks in the ribs and name calling and hiding in tree stumps was just to lead him up to this very moment. The moment when the loneliest boy stops being so alone.
Jared doesn’t know why he knows that that moment in particular is the right time. He just knows that Alex is brave and Jared will be brave and hopefully after this moment, they will be brave together.
It’s Jared’s first kiss.
He’s fifteen years old, with too-long limbs and shortly shorn hair that still manages to stick up. His nose is too pointy and he has moles on his face and bruises on the inside that are just starting to fade.
The moment lasts forever, frozen in time as his dry chapped lips touch Alex’s lips. Jared will remember this moment, the moment he was brave for a beautiful boy for the very first time.
Alex breaks Jared’s nose.
The shattering of bone is nothing compared to the shattering of Jared’s heart.
“What did you do now?” Jared’s Stepdaddy demands over dinner that night, staring at the splint the school nurse used to put Jared’s face back together again.
Jared blinks up at him, then over at his Mama. She looks away, takes a bite of her mashed potatoes.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jared replies. “It won’t happen again.”
“You boys better get decent because you have a visitor,” Loretta announces early one morning a few days after Jared’s first PT session.
“You say that like we’re not sitting here waiting to have people come wash our balls for us,” Chad replies helpfully around a spoonful of the chocolate pudding he managed to sweet talk Alona the CNA into getting him for breakfast.
Their guest clears their throat to bring them to attention, and Jared tenses and pulls himself into an automatic salute at the sight of Captain Huffman. He sees Hodge to the same thing, but Chad remains oblivious.
“What? Please tell me it’s Nurse Double Dee’s turn for the ball washing.”
“Officer Murray. Good to see you haven’t changed much,” Captain Huffman deadpans, as Chad lifts his hand to salute so fast that he gets chocolate pudding all over his forehead.
She turns to gaze at all of them, nods slightly. Her auburn bun is precision tight and there isn’t a hair out of place. “At ease, soldiers.”
Jared deflates back into the bed. There’s something tickling at the back of his mind as he watches the other two do it as well.
Captain Huffman’s spine is ramrod-straight, but her face softens just a tiny bit as she takes in their appearances. “I just wanted to come visit to see how you are, and give you the deepest gratitude and condolences from the United States Army.”
“Can you tell us about the others? Did they make it?” Hodge asks, bluntly. His face looks hopeful yet wary at the same time.
Captain Huffman looks like she’s considering what information she wants to give out, and hesitates.
“It’s our squad, our brothers. Just tell us,” Chad spits out, his countenance more tense than Jared’s seen it since he’s arrived in the room. As if he remembers himself, he throws in a, “Captain.”
Captain Huffman seems to relent, and nods her head. “Officers Abel, Cohen, Whitfield, and Kelly are all fine. Their fireteam was ahead enough from your own that they missed the blast radius.”
“And Rosey?” Hodge digs, asking about the Team Leader for their fireteam.
“Sergeant Rosenbaum is here in the hospital. He’s still unconscious, but he’s alive.”
“How did he make it? He was right near the front of the tactical.”
Captain Huffman’s mask slips a bit and Jared can see how uncomfortable the questioning is making her. “It appears Staff Sargeant Welling used himself as a shield, and Sargeant Rosenbaum has his bravery to thank for his life. He will be receiving the highest accommodation for the service he provided both his squad and his country before his unfortunate passing.”
“Tommy’s dead,” Jared croaks out, the first words he’s said since the Captain entered the room. She turns to him in surprise, almost like she’s forgotten that he was even there.
“Your squad leader was a hero, as are all of you. Your country will not let your service be in vain,” she says with practiced fervor. But her eyes betray the hollowness of the lie.
There’s a loaded silence in the room as no one knows exactly what to say. Finally, Chad speaks, but it’s with none of his normal joviality.
“Loretta, I’m tired.”
Nurse Devine is there immediately, like she had been waiting to come on in and take charge. “I bet you are, sugar. All that loud-mouthing can wear a young’un out.”
Captain Huffman stands in the middle of the room, slightly stunned. Finally, realizing that there’s nothing more she can say or do, she heads back towards the door. Right before she is about to leave, she turns back and looks at them all briefly, one by one.
“I know this doesn’t make things better, but I just want you to know that I’m sorry for your loss.”
She doesn’t wait for a response, just turns on her heels and departs.
==
“I can’t.”
Jared’s arms shake like a newborn calf, fingers turning white from their grip on the parallel bars.
“You can.”
“I said I can’t.”
“And I said you most certainly can.”
Jensen’s voice is calm, stoic. As stern yet patient as always, and it infuriates Jared. He pitches forward, forearms leaning on the bars as he yells at Jensen.
“Maybe I don’t want to. Maybe I don’t fucking want to do any of this!”
Jared gasps, stumbling back in shock at his own insolence and falling backwards, the gait belt catching him from falling to the ground. Jensen’s there immediately, but Jared feels like he’s trapped and is struggling against him.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
Jared doesn’t do this. Jared doesn’t speak out of turn. Jared doesn’t make noise because Jared is a good boy.
Jared doesn’t.
His entire body is shaking now, every nerve vibrating as he struggles with Jensen, until Jensen relents and unhooks him from the belt and lowers him to the ground. Jared pulls away immediately and crawls sideways to the nearest mat, dragging the stump of his leg behind him.
That hurts now too, not just from the staples the doctor recently took out or the raw red wound left behind. No, there’s other pain there, pain all the way down, invisible pain in an invisible limb that shouldn’t exist because it no longer exists, because Jared no longer exists.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, biting out the words around the tight breaths he manages to suck in. His head dips to the mat, forehead touching the cool plastic. His body twists and it aches and it’s too big to hide, but he tries. He tries so hard.
Jensen’s hands are on him then, one palm on Jared’s shoulder blade, the other on one hip. He doesn’t move or try to turn Jared, just rests his hands upon Jared’s body and lets Jared press his teeth into the floor, to bite back the sobs behind the enamel.
After a long moment, Jared steadies himself enough to sit back up. He’s too ashamed to look back at Jensen, who still hasn’t taken his hands away. Jared doesn’t know how Jensen can bear to look at him. Jared’s a soldier. He should be better than a boy crying into the ground like a child.
“Have you been having any new pains, Jared?”
Jared looks up at that, blinking a few times and ignoring the wetness of his eyelashes. “In my…in the…” He swallows hard, not knowing what to call it. It’s not his leg anymore, just an empty spot on the hanger where his uniform once hung.
“In the area where you are missing the limb?” Jensen finishes for him, dipping his head down to meet Jared’s eye-line and keeping it.
Jared slowly nods his head. “I know it’s crazy. I mean, it’s not there anymore, so how can it hurt?”
“It’s not crazy at all, Jared. In fact, it’s a very common condition in situations like this called Phantom Limb Syndrome,” Jensen explains, and he does that twisty little smile thing that he does when he’s trying to make Jared feel better. Jared’s ashamed how much he aches for it when it doesn’t appear.
“Did you tell Dr. Rhodes about it?”
“No.”
“You should. It’s important for us to treat it now so that it won’t get worse.” Jensen stops, squeezing Jared’s forearm. “Hold on a sec, let me grab something.”
Jensen jumps up, jogging over to the row of cabinets at one end of the room. Jared tries not to be jealous of the movement, the elegant stride or the line of muscle behind the material of Jensen’s pants.
He comes back a moment later with what look like a simple yellow toothbrush. He drops back down to his knees next to Jared on the mat, and gives that twisty grin again.
“Trust me?”
“Yes.”
Jared answers quickly, faster than his brain can process what he just said. He doesn’t know why he trusts this man that he’s only known for a few weeks, but he does, and right in this very moment, it’s enough.
Jensen doesn’t say anything else, just placing the toothbrush on the ground and reaching over to gently lift the stump of Jared’s leg until it’s balancing on his knees. He unpins the sweats that have been folded neatly in half and pulls the material up until it’s just the stark remnants of limb there on display, squeezed tight in its simple beige compressor stocking.
Jensen must feel the tremor in Jared’s body beginning again, because he takes one hand and puts it on Jared’s chest, right over his heart. Jensen doesn’t move, just sits there with the wreckage of Jared’s broken body braced against the solid warmth of his own perfect one, and waits for Jared’s heartbeat to calm underneath the tips of his fingertips.
When it does, Jensen picks takes the same hand and picks up the toothbrush, bringing it over and starting to brush it against the surface of Jared’s stump over the bandage.
Jared hisses, but Jensen continues, and finally the rhythmic motion sets in and he is able to try and think of other things to distract him.
He lets his eyes wander over Jensen as he leans over him, brushing calmly with one hand and massaging the side of the stump at the same time with the other. Jensen’s looking down, and it gives Jared the opportunity to really take him, from the shadow of his lashes to the sprinkling of freckles across his cheeks that at just the right angle make him look more like a boy than Jared.
Jared’s eyes catch on Jensen’s forearm then, at the place where his long-sleeve uniform shirt had ridden up and the tendrils of some sort of tattoo are peaking out.
“You have a tattoo,” Jared blurts out, and Jensen looks surprised for a moment before grinning with a nod.
“I have quite a few of them, actually. My mama yells at me every time I get a new one, but I like to think of them as the scrapbook of my life.”
Jared rolls the words around in his head. Tries not to think of the permanent reminder that he himself will have the rest of his life.
“What’s the one on your arm for?”
“This one?” Jensen stops massaging with the one hand and pushes up the sleeve all the way up the other arm to reveal a majestic sea creature, squid-ink black, tentacles curling and twisting themselves down the length of Jensen’s arm.
Jared stares at it for a moment, before nodding for Jensen to continue.
“This was the first tattoo I ever got, actually,” Jensen says, smiling down at the creature like it’s an old friend. “When I was eight years old, my family went on vacation to Hawaii. It was a huge deal at the time, something my dad had promised to my mama when they were courting, but then got too expensive to make happen for a while. But one year, we all went for a couple of weeks.”
“And it’s a tribute to that trip?” Jared asks.
“Well, yes and no,” Jensen replies. “My big brother and I were learning how to surf, nothing major, of course, just basic stuff from the guys who hung out at Waikiki Beach. After about a week of being there, I thought I was a total hot shot, and tried to catch a wave all by myself. Of course, I promptly fell straight into the water.”
“Did your brother laugh at you?”
“I’m sure he did, at first, but I didn’t know it because something wrapped around my ankle under the water and was holding me down. I was so sure that it was a giant octopus monster and it was going to take me down to his octopus kingdom and feed me to his young. I mean, I was eight.”
“How did you get out?”
“My brother got me, actually. I don’t remember much except for him diving down and tugging at whatever it was that was holding on to my ankle and pulling me out of the water. I was so scared that I crawled up on the board and refused to put my arms and legs into the water, so Josh had to swim us both back to shore as I cried hysterically.”
“And so was it an octopus? Did your brother tell you what it looked like?”
Jensen grins, shaking his head. “No, it was a piece of seaweed. I know, I know. But instead of making fun of me, Josh just told me that I was brave for getting out there and trying in the first place. Told me I should be proud of catching that wave, even if it knocked me down.”
“He sounds like a pretty great guy, your brother,” Jared says, and he wonders if it was the wrong thing to say when Jensen’s smile falters.
“The best,” Jensen replies, nodding slightly. “He went with me to get the tattoo a week before he enlisted. Wanted me to remember to be brave even when he wasn’t with me.”
“Guess a seaweed tattoo was probably not as cool, huh?”
Jensen barks out a laugh, and Jared flushes at happiness at being the one to make Jensen cheer up this time. “Yeah, not quite. But back to you, how does your leg feel now? Pain still as strong?”
Jared blinks a few times, bringing himself back to the situation and realizing that the invisible pain was indeed lessened. “Huh, how about that? It worked.”
“Told you to trust me,” Jensen says with a smirk, putting the brush down on the ground and slipping Jared’s pant leg back down. “Now how about those bars? You give me two laps back and forth and I’ll bribe Danneel to steal us some gummi bears from the commissary.”
“One lap,” Jared replies, but he’s already letting Jensen help him back over to the bars.
“Two laps, and I’ll let you eat all the red ones.”
Jared’s fingers grip the bars. They are still white, but at least for the time being, they aren’t shaking.
Jensen smiles at him and Jared smiles back.
==
“So, you’re a shrink?” Jared asks. He sits in the wheelchair, shoulders slumped and uncomfortable. The room is warmly-lit and richly-colored, but he feels cold.
The woman sits across from him, legs pulled into the large chair she’s sitting on and tucked cross-legged under her. She’s slight, pretty, wide slash of mouth and dark hair pulled up into a bun. She’s wearing a sweater that looks soft to the touch and pants that show a glimpse of bare ankle. There’s a notebook balanced on her lap and a No. 2 pencil in one hand that she’s twirling between her fingers.
“My exact title is psychiatric nurse practitioner, but that’s a mouthful even for me, so I prefer you just call me Gen.”
Jared picks at a piece of lint on his pants, right over where they are pinned above what used to be his knee. He doesn’t respond, just stares down at where his leg should curve over the edge of the wheelchair seat but doesn’t. Won’t ever.
“Looks like your injuries are healing nicely. Dr. Rhodes and Dr. Morgan seem happy with your progress,” she says after a few long minutes of silence.
Jared shrugs.
“Nurse Devine reports that you haven’t been sleeping much without help this past week.”
Jared shrugs again, picking at his pants harder until he can feel the sting under the material.
“And Jensen says you’ve been having phantom pain. We should talk about how often that has recurred lately so we can work on a treatment plan.”
Jared looks up sharply at Jensen’s name. His face is flushed and there is something hot and bitter in his chest at what feels like a betrayal. “Jensen’s been talking to you about me?”
Gen puts her hands up, palms facing out in a placating gesture. The pencil remains laced between her fingers, across the knuckles. “This is a process, Jared. A scary, heavy, long process, but it’s one that we are all sharing together as we try to help you adjust to your new life.”
Jared pulls his hands up to his face, pressing the meat of his palms against his eyelids like he can keep the building pressure inside his head from spilling out across his lap and onto the soft beige carpeting.
He still doesn’t speak, doesn’t trust his tongue and vocal cords and soft palate to produce anything worth putting out into the world.
Ten more minutes of silence get a call to Osric to come get the patient.
“I’ll be here, Jared. When you’re ready,” is the last thing Gen tells him before he’s rolled out the door.
==
“I’m a pirate, bitch!” Chad announces to the room.
“Captain Chadwick of the S.S. Pencil Dick,” Aldis deadpans, pulling himself up easily from his bed onto a pair of crutches.
“Ride the wave, baby,” Chad crows, kneeling up on his bed and doing what Jared thinks might be an attempt at pelvis thrusting.
“One eye patch makes you a pirate. Two eye patches make you a skinny ass blind motherfucker,” Aldis replies with a grin, waving off Osric’s help with a nod as he crutches out of the room towards his own physical therapy session.
“I’m not skinny. Loretta, am I skinny?”
“You are a slender wisp of a human, honey,” Loretta replies from next to Chad’s bed, and demonstrates it as she knocks him back to the bed and leans in to readjust the new protective patches covering his eyes.
“Well, if I got some goddamn red meat, maybe I would fill out a bit,” Chad replies with a pout, leaning his face into Loretta’s hands as she tends to him.
“If you promise to stop ‘accidentally’ grabbing Alona by her chest as a means of saying hello, then maybe she might talk to someone about getting you a hamburger,” Loretta points out dryly, bopping Chad on the nose for good measure before backing away before he can smack at her hands.
“Misha told me I had to learn to adjust to my surroundings,” Chad says, referring to the occupational therapist that Jared has managed to avoid so far but who has been working with Chad daily.
“Yes, Misha did. And by that he meant learn how to make yourself a sandwich without getting peanut butter on the floor, not how to communicate via boob-grab.”
“You say tomato, I say give me a goddamn steak.”
“Incorrigible,” Loretta mutters, but she’s smiling fondly enough as she makes her way across the room to Jared’s bed. “And what about you, sweetness? How are we feeling this morning?”
Jared shrugs, but speaks when she gives him her usual take-no-shit look in response. “Didn’t sleep too well but it’s okay, I guess.”
“You feel well enough to get up and do a little bit of strolling down the hallway before your PT? Get all warmed up for Jensen?”
Jared’s feels his face turn bright red at that, and Loretta gives him a knowing look before leaning over and swiping a piece of hair out of his face.
“Mmmm, okay then. How about a haircut, honey? A little trim maybe. I bet you boys are used to that short hair of yours.”
“No!” he blurts out, and the violence of his response shocks the both of them.
“All of it off.”
“But, Charles, maybe leave a little…just the bangs...”
“He’ll just use to hide. Men don’t hide.”
Men don’t hide. Jared’s not a man anymore. Jared’s not –
Loretta’s tucking his hair behind his ears then, breaking him out of his reverie.
That hasn’t been possible in a long, long time.
“I think I like it longer.”
“Psst.”
Jared’s zoning out, staring straight ahead at the line of teenagers in gray regulation Army sweatshirts in front of him. The guy in front of him as a heat rash on the back of his neck, skin alarmingly pink.
“Dude.”
Jared edges forward defensively as a pair of knuckles nudges in between his shoulder blade. He steadies his shoulders and grits his teeth.
“No habla ingles, muchacho?”
The voice behind him chuckles and Jared’s curiosity wins out as he looks over his shoulder.
“Can I help you?” Jared asks, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
The guy – a string bean of a kid who can’t weigh more than a buck fifty soaking wet with a shit-eating grin, squinty eyes, and a shockingly tall blond pompadour – looks delighted that he actually managed to get Jared to respond.
“It speaks! I was beginning to think you were a deaf-mute and I was going to have to bust out some hand signals or shit.”
Jared’s eyebrows knit together in confusion and he feels his cheeks heating up. “We’re going to get in trouble.”
The guy makes what can only be described as a rude noise, and it’s just loud enough that Private Heat Rash looks back to check out the commotion.
Jared flails at that and makes a frantic face at the guy. “Seriously, cut it out, will you?”
“Chad.”
“What?”
The guy smirks. “The name’s Chad. I figure if we’re going to get in trouble together, we should know each other’s names.”
Jared’s mouth opens and closes like a guppy.
“This is the part where you say ‘nice to meet you, Chad. My name is –‘” Chad prompts. Jared’s not used to people teasing him in a way that doesn’t hold any particular malice, but he thinks this might be what’s happening.
“Jar—Padalecki.” Jared swallows, remembers his place. Tugs the bottom of his sweatshirt down over his belly. “My name is Private Padalecki.”
Chad rolls his eyes so hard that his pompadour shakes. “Dude, why so formal? We’re gonna be defending our country and dragging our asses through mud together or whatever the fuck, right? If that ain’t some bonding shit, then nothing is, so tell me your name so I can stop calling you Sasquatch in my head.”
“Jared,” he blurts out, against his better judgment.
Chad grins, leaning over to smack Jared lightly on the face and even has the decency to ignore when Jared’s flinches. “Jayman. Jaybird. Jaypocalypto. I dig it, bro.”
As ridiculous as it all is, Jared finds he can’t help himself from grinning back in return.
“Next! Private Padalecki.” The drill sergeant barks from the front of the line and Jared scrambles forward and throws himself down into the barber’s chair.
The buzz of the electric razor is familiar, comforting almost. Shaving Jared’s head to military precision was one of the only real activities he could count on spending with his Stepdad growing up.
He sinks into now, the expectation of it, the monotony. The razor drags across his head, taking away bits of him that Jared doesn’t even know to miss.
“Next! Private Murray.”
Jared’s shooed away as Chad struts forward to take his place. He winks in Jared’s direction, and Jared ducks his head to hide the smile it inspires.
“Thank god I have such an immaculate skull,” is the last thing Jared hears Chad proclaiming before the buzz of the razor drowns him out again.
ON TO PART TWO
no subject
You are so talented *hugs you*
I think I will have to take a walk before going to part two.
guh
xxx