ladyjanelly | Fic: "In From the Cold" J2 AU rated-R

So I played along and posted that "If I was chained in your basement, what would you make me write" meme, and embroiderama had to go and hit me with a rabid bunny. Concept and beta credit's all hers. and I'm grateful for both.

As usual, I"m posting this here for you guys to enjoy and/or pick apart. I'd love to be hit with some concrit if anybody's in the mood, and I always like hearing if y'all like something.

The buzzer for the front door of the clinic sounds and Jared looks up from the medical text he’s been studying in a quiet moment. The glare on the glass hides whoever is on the other side and he walks close and cups his hands around his eyes to make sure it’s somebody who looks legitimate. That’s kind of a hard call to make in this neighborhood--sorting homeless-legitimate from homeless-not. Just three weeks ago some junkies held the place up and wiped them out of painkillers and Jared is gonna be sure that doesn’t happen on his watch. Also, he’d rather not be stabbed tonight.

Luck’s with him, and he knows the guy on the other side--one of them at least. Jeff Morgan. Tall, dark and scruffy in his green military jacket. He’s one of the few down here on the streets who’s not addicted or crazy. Okay, beyond some claustrophobia like Jared’s never seen before. People say he’s a vet, but nobody can agree on what war. Jared sees his battlefield though, putting himself between the poor and the weather and the cops and the gangs and the dealers and the pimps.

Jared hits the button to let him in and sees that Jeff isn’t alone. He’s got some street guy with him, bloody-faced and dazed looking, cradling one arm. Jared thinks one of the sad things about street people is how they all look alike--lanky, unwashed hair, scraggly beards. This guy’s eyes are a bright green though, the whites not yellowed by liver damage and Jared thinks that’s hopeful.

“Presents? For me?” Jared jokes, but he’s helping take the man off of Jeff’s hands and easing him into a waiting-area chair. He pulls on gloves and checks the guy’s pupils with a flashlight as Jeff stands just inside the door, his foot propping it wide open. The wind whips cold through the opening but neither Jared nor the wounded man complains. Jared doesn’t want to be there if Jeff’s ever trapped in a room and feels like he can’t get out.

“Any idea what happened?” Jared asks Jeff as he starts to feel over the greasy head for lumps or bumps. He’s got a few spots that are freshly swollen, and one where a scar parts the hair on the side of his head, old trauma that doesn’t look like it was ever treated. The guy smells, but Jared’s used to B.O. He reeks of alcohol too and Jared’s wondering if he’s drunk on top of beat up.

“Contagion,” the guy answers instead of Jeff, “Crawling like a blemish over the face of the earth smiting the wicked blue bottle flies in swarms to blot out the sun with their brown bottles and wretched deeds.” His voice is oddly dispassionate and Jared looks up at Jeff again.

“Rolled by frat guys,” Jeff explains, “Kicked the shit out of him, doused him in vodka. Think they were plannin’ on a barbeque.”

Jared really hopes those frat guys walked away in better shape than the man in the clinic, but only because he’d hate for Jeff to get in trouble with the law.

“Hey,” Jared says to the patient, “Hey, what’s your name?”

“The lost, the found, a prince among men.”

He glances up at Jeff and catches a quirk of the older man’s lips. “We call him Jensen,” Jeff says, “And yeah, he’s always like that.”

“Smith or Doe?” Jared asks as he folds up a piece of gauze and presses it to the oozing cut over Jensen's eyebrow. Yeah, that’s gonna need stitches or at least a butterfly. Jensen hisses at the painful touch but doesn’t pull too far away for Jared to keep the pressure on.

“Ackles,” Jeff replies and Jared snorts.

“Jensen Ackles? That’s not a name, it’s an intersection.”

Where Jensen Street and Ackles Road cross isn’t even a nice intersection.

Jeff shrugs in that ‘what can you do’ way he has. “It’s his corner.”

Jared watches from the corner of his eye as the banter calms his patient.

“He use?” he asks Jeff.

“Use flues snooze,” Jensen whispers to himself.

“Not that I’ve ever seen,” Jeff says, “He has a hard enough time keeping himself fed, much less getting his hands on booze or drugs.”

“Blues, sues, lose,” Jensen adds.

“Hey Jensen,” Jared says from where he’s kneeling at the other man’s feet, “How about we take you in the back and get you cleaned up some?”

Jensen looks from Jared to Jeff. “Roads going nowhere through fields of green,” he says. He wraps his good arm around himself a little tighter. His jaw works like he’s trying to make better words to express what he wants.

“It’ll be alright,” Jeff soothes from his spot in the doorway. “This is Jared. He’ll take good care of you.”

“Heartless,” Jensen says in his distress, “No song, no beat, no color.”

Jared looks to Jeff for a translation of that, but the man just shrugs.

“I’ll make you better,” Jared promises his patient, “I’ll try my best to not hurt you and it’ll feel better when I’m done.” He means it, and Jensen must see that in his eyes, because he nods. He’s still fearful, but he lets Jared help him out of the chair and he doesn’t look back at Jeff as the door closes.

“It’s okay,” Jared says as he leads Jensen towards the examination areas in the back. Five AM is a dead time in the clinic, and Jared’s glad there’s not some louder patient back there to upset Jensen. He seems so fragile, the way his eyes dart around the room, never focusing on any one thing for long and showing too much white around the edges.

“Go ahead and sit up on the table and take off your jacket for me?” Jared makes everything a question. He knows his height makes him intimidating enough without being bossy on top of it. He turns so he’s not looking directly at Jensen while he starts to gather the things he’ll need to clean and treat the wounds, but he keeps him in his peripheral vision.

Jensen starts to pull his jacket off his shoulder, and Jared can see the instant it hurts, hear the hiss of pain. “Here, whoa,” he says, low and soothing, “I’ll help you with that, okay?”

Jensen doesn’t give him any outward sign yes or no, so Jared walks up to him slow, reaches out a hand and rests it on his good arm. “If you let me, I’ll help you,” he says, as gentle as he knows how, and then he waits until finally, finally, Jensen nods.

Jared eases the outer layer of Jensen's clothing off, careful not to move his arm too much. The jacket smells bad, sweat and garbage and alcohol mixing in a particularly unappealing way. He folds it with respect and sets it aside where Jensen can still see it. It may smell bad, but it’s all that’ll keep Jensen warm in the spring chill that’s lingering well into March, and Jared’s learned not to mistreat a man’s lifeline.

Under the jacket Jensen has a few button-up shirts and under those a t-shirt. Everything else he’s been able to get off without scissors, but the last is going to be a problem. There’s a mass of swelling at the homeless man’s collar bone, and Jared really doesn’t want to move his arm if it’s broken.

“Wait right here,” he says and steps over to a storage cabinet. He grabs a sweater and a clean t-shirt that a local thrift store donated and brings them back to Jensen.

“I know your shirt is yours,” he says, “And I don’t want to cut it, but I have to. So I’ll trade you this sweater and this shirt, for your shirt. Would that be okay?”

“Into the dark, a light shone,” Jensen replies, his attention on a random spot over Jared’s shoulder, “A black horse and upon him a white knight.”

And Jared--kinda thinks that means okay, so he puts the new clothes on top of Jensen's old ones and starts working on getting that final layer of dirty cloth off of him. Six months of this job has prepared him for what’s underneath. Pale skin and not enough meat to keep the bones from looking like they want to poke through it. Dirt gathered in little dots at the pores of his skin until he looks dusted with grey. Scars and bruises and a rash from being unwashed for so long.

“Can you lay back for me?” Jared asks. Jensen doesn’t reply but he starts to lean, and Jared helps him ease down to the table’s padded surface.

“I’m just going to touch your ribs with my hands,” Jared says. “I want you to tell me if I hurt you. Okay?”

“It rains,” Jensen says, or maybe he means “Reins.”

Slow and gentle, Jared runs his hands over all the bruised spots, feeling for swelling or softness or anything out of the ordinary. When Jensen winces he murmurs “I’m sorry,” and it’s the truth every time. When he’s done he’s still worried about the collarbone and one area of ribs. The clinic doesn’t have an X-ray, and the chances of talking the homeless into walking to the real hospital are pretty slim. They’ve got a low-tech alternative though.

Jared pulls the tuning fork from its drawer and shows it to Jensen. “This is going to help me find out if your bones are broken,” he says. He takes Jensen's good hand. He strikes the fork on the metal edge of the table and then touches the base of it to Jensen's palm. The man twitches and looks confused as the vibration tickles through his skin, but not afraid. Jared works his way towards the bones he suspects may be broken, watching Jensen's reactions with each touch. He squirms and grimaces, but never makes the reaction Jared knows he’d see if the vibrations were going through broken bone, making the ends tremble against each other.

“That’s good,” Jared says, “That’s real good.” He pulls a thin blanket over Jensen and turns back to his tray for the hypodermic of pain killer. He keeps it out of Jensen's line of sight, hidden in his palm. He smoothes a lock of hair away with his left hand. “I’m going to take care of this cut now. It might hurt a little, but I’ll try to be gentle.”

“Force the walls and break the chains,” Jensen whispers. He jerks a little at the touch of the needle, but the anesthetic comes with the prick and he settles again. Jared’s good with a suture; his knots are tidy and quick.

When he’s done, Jensen's half-asleep on the exam table. There’s nobody else in need of it at the moment--although technically Jared’s not supposed to be alone in the clinic, there’s too many shifts spread too thin, and George usually heads home for a few hours nap during the quiet period. Jared brings Jensen a few ice packs, putting them on the worst of the bruises.

“It burns,” Jensen whispers, and Jared thinks it’s the most coherent thing he’s said yet.

------------------

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guard-the-cards.livejournal.com

Oh god. I love it
I love the poetry of what Jensen says, and the way taht it just seems normal. And guah. Love it.

Working with the homelss first thing you get used to is the smell. then its all easy.

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Fic: "In From the Cold" J2 AU rated-R

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