Full Summary and Warnings in Chapter One…
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Chapter Seven: Shadow work is closin' in…
For the second day in a row Dean wakes up with his right side numbed by someone else's weight.
He opens an eye, peers at his bedside clock and frowns. It's only eight o'clock; why the hell is he awake so early? Dean listens carefully, alert for anything that may have dragged him into full consciousness, but everything is quiet.
Or at least it is until Sammy whispers softly in his ear, "Dean? Are you awake?"
Dean groans.
"Shut up and go back to sleep."
"But I'm hungry."
"Yeah? Well if you don't shut up you can go and be hungry in your own bed."
There's a brief moment of silence and then Sam does one of his loud, long-suffering sighs and Dean doesn't need to be able to see him to picture the look of disappointment on his face.
"I mean it, Sam," he warns.
"Yeah, okay," Sam sighs. He moves slightly and Dean is suddenly much less squashed. Most of his brother's weight has been lifted from him and it's now just his head resting on Dean's shoulder.
Dean echoes his little brother's sigh. The kid really is too old for this. He's going to have to start being tougher on him; make him stand on his own two feet a bit more.
Except if he's honest with himself, Dean knows that he gets as much comfort out of this as his little brother does; because he's only truly at peace when he knows – knows - that his baby brother is safe.
He's been taking care of Sammy for so long now that it's like part of his DNA or something.
A lot of people would resent being forced to carry such a heavy burden of responsibility at such a young age, but truthfully, although he may grumble sometimes, Dean doesn't resent it.
And maybe that's partly because he knows the unspeakable horrors that are out there. Those horrors killed their Mom; their Dad risks his own life nearly every day to destroy those horrors and make the world a little bit safer for everyone, and Dean helps him sometimes.
Life is precious and fleeting and not a given, and Dean knows that better than most kids his age. And while stability, security and safety are now distant memories for him; long gone remnants of a life where Mom sang 'Hey Jude' to him, made him tomato and rice soup when he was sick, and cut the crusts off his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches; he's acutely aware that Sammy has never known a mother's love or the comfort of normality.
And that's another reason why he doesn't resent taking care of his little brother.
"Hey Dean?" Sam says tentatively.
"Thought I told you to shut up?" his big brother replies gruffly, "Do you want me to send you back to your own bed?"
But they both know it's an empty threat; that Dean doesn't have the heart to make Sam leave.
"I'm sorry," Sam says, "It's just….do you ever wish…..never mind."
Dean opens his eyes and sees the sadness in his little brother's expression.
"What?" he asks.
Sam sighs.
"Doesn't matter."
"No. It does matter. What?"
"It's just…Gemma's really nice. And….well….Jax's Dad died and now he's got a new Dad….."
Dean sees immediately where Sam is going with this and the pain that flares in his chest is almost unbearable.
"What happened to Mom," he says gently, "it really messed Dad up. He's not looking for a new wife. And there's no way in hell he'd drag somebody else into this life anyway; it's too dangerous. We're never gonna get a new Mom, Sam."
Sam sighs.
"I know," he says, "It's just…..."
"I know," Dean replies after a pause, and then he throws back the blankets, "C'mon. We're obviously not gonna go back to sleep, so let's get up and make breakfast."
Dean leaves Sam eating pancakes in the kitchen and goes to check on their Dad – still sleeping – before taking a shower and getting himself ready. He's on his way back to the kitchen when a knock at the front door causes him to detour. He finds Jax and Opie standing on the door step and grins broadly.
"What? No school today kids?"
Jax smirks.
"Day off," he drawls lazily.
"Uh huh," Dean leans against the door frame, "And you're carrying school bags because….?"
Jax is still grinning.
"Didn't say it was an official day off. We just figured that since you wouldn't be going to school today, it'd be a perfect opportunity for us to show you 'round town. Maybe create a bit of mayhem."
"Mayhem?"
Dean's remembering the club patches, and Jax rolls his eyes.
"Relax, dude," he says, "we're not gonna kill anyone! What d'you say? You in?"
Dean nods. "Sure," he gestures Jax and Opie into the cabin, "You'll have to give us ten minutes though, coz Sam's still eating breakfast."
"Uh…when I said mayhem….got a little action planned that's rated MA15+. Not sure Sammy should come, dude."
Dean's expression hardens. "Either Sam comes or I don't," he says flatly, "I'm not leaving him here by himself."
A loud snore from the direction of John Winchester's bedroom tells Jax that Sam wouldn't exactly be by himself if Dean went out, but he thinks maybe that's the point. Dean is reluctant to leave Sam to deal with their hung over father alone, and Jax can't say that he blames him for that.
"Fair enough," he concedes, "can we leave our bags in your room?"
Twenty minutes later the four of them are in the park, sitting on the roundabout, and Jax and Opie are lighting up.
"Did you know that they put arsenic in cigarettes?" Sam says suddenly, "how gross is that? As if the nicotine and the tar wasn't bad enough."
Dean snorts and claps Sam on the back.
"Thanks Geekboy! I'm sure we'll all live happier lives now that we know that riveting piece of information."
Sam scowls.
"Well they could try living healthier lives!" he suggests quietly.
"So," Dean says loudly, flashing the bikers his most impish and disarming smile, "what's this mayhem you've got planned?"
Jax's answering grin is every bit as mischievous and beguiling as Dean's and Sam almost rolls his eyes. If his brother and Jax ever decided to start working cons together they'd be unstoppable.
"Payback," Jax says, his eyes gleaming, "See there's this rival MC called the Mayans-"
"Mayans?" Sam interrupts, "Like the Meso-American classical civilization that spanned Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador?"
Jax frowns. "Well…they are Mexican, but-"
"Cool," Sam grins, "Did you know that the Mayans developed astronomy, hieroglyphic writing and the first calendar in the western hemisphere? And they built the most amazing temple-pyramids and-"
"Kid's a Goddamn walking encyclopedia," Dean interrupts with exasperation, "Dude, nobody cares, okay?"
Sam subsides sullenly and Jax and Opie stare at him with something close to awe.
"Anyway," Jax continues after a moment, "a bunch of their kids used to go to school with us but now they're working full time for Alvarez. Selling. You know?"
Dean nods. And hopes Sam isn't going to start asking awkward questions.
"One of the older kids, Miguel Fernandez – real big fucker - and a couple of his mates, were trying to sell into the school," Opie takes up the story, "so we, you know," he shrugs, "ratted them out to the principal. Coz we're such upstanding citizens."
Dean snorts.
"That explains why they'd be pissed at you," he says, "why are you lookin' for payback?"
Jax and Opie look uncomfortably at each other.
"They did a drive by later that day," Jax mutters, and Dean's eyebrows disappear into his hairline.
"They shot at you?"
Opie clears his throat.
"Uh…no. They…..threw bags of vomit at us as they drove past."
Dean and Sam snigger.
"Did they hit you?" Sam asks.
Jax and Opie suddenly find their feet fascinating and Dean howls with laughter.
"Oh man! That's so dirty," he shudders, "So what revenge've you got planned?"
Jax grins evilly. He jumps down from the roundabout, and rummages through a nearby trash can until he finds a discarded brown paper bag.
"The Mayans deal out of the scrap yard on Jefferson," he says, "Gonna fill this with horse shit from Oswald's paddocks. Then we're gonna put it outside the door of the scrap yard's site office and set it on fire."
"Nice," Dean nods approvingly, "going with the classics."
"And after we take care of the revenge," Jax looks smug, "we're gonna meet up with my girlfriend and I'll show you how to sneak into the movies here without paying."
It's a fair hike to Oswald's property, and they have to negotiate his electrified fences to get into his paddocks, but it's worth the effort because they find enough steaming, stinking horse shit to fill the paper bag near to bursting.
Back in town, they hide around the corner from the scrap metal yard and debate who should deliver the package. In the end, Jax gets the job. He creeps to the office door, silent and stealthy, puts the package down carefully, and takes out his cigarette lighter. He holds it against the bag for a moment and when it's well alight he jogs softly back towards where Opie and the Winchesters are waiting. Behind him he hears a door bang open, a cry of, "Oh shit," a loud stomp, and then a harsher cry in Spanish. Jax risks a look over his shoulder and sees Miguel Fernandez, face twisted in rage, shaking shit from his boot, flaming brown paper flickering at the cuff of his jeans. Jax sniggers and Miguel looks up.
"Fuck you, Motherfucker!" he screams, unholstering his Glock. Oh shit!
Jax begins to run zig zag, barreling towards the corner where his friends are waiting for him. He can see Dean and Opie, shouting and waving frantically and then his upper arm is slammed forwards and he stumbles. For a moment Jax can't work out what happened and then the pain hits. Jesus Christ! Time slows down and sound does strange things; and his blood roars and pumps and leaks and nothing is making any sense. Jax gasps and blinks and suddenly time and sound make sense again. The first thing he hears clearly is Dean's frantic shout, "Jax! Move your ass you God damn sonovabitch!" And then he hears pounding, slamming footsteps hot on his heels and, Jesus fucking Christ!, Miguel shot him! And now he's fucking chasing him! Jax lurches 'round the corner and collapses against Opie.
"Sonovabitch," he hears Dean mutter, "Sammy…." Jax glances over at Dean and sees him make a complicated hand signal. Sam nods. A moment later Miguel bursts around the corner and Sam throws himself at Miguel's feet. The big Mexican goes flying, landing with a satisfying 'oof' as the wind is knocked out of him. He loses his grip on the gun and before Jax can blink Sam has dived for the gun, picked it up and spun out of Miguel's reach. He checks the clip, flicks on the safety and then stows the Glock in the back of his jeans with an eerily calm detachment. Dean, meanwhile has kicked Miguel hard in the head once, twice, three times, and the Mexican is not moving.
"Let's haul ass," Dean suggests breathlessly, "C'mon," he shoulders Jax's uninjured arm and he and Opie brace him like a pair of crutches and drag him away from the scrap metal yard as fast as they can.
"Where?" Dean asks urgently.
"Cemetery," Ope replies, "Gotta get a look at his arm. He's bleeding bad."
The stop behind a grey mausoleum and Opie removes his hand from Jax's upper arm, where he's been keeping pressure on to stem the blood flow. Jax's arm oozes, but thankfully doesn't spurt. Dean prods at it, triggering a string of hissed obscenities from Jax.
"Give me your bandana," Dean says to Opie, who hands it over without argument.
Dean ties it tightly around Jax's wound.
"Bullet went straight through," he says, "Took a chunk outta you as it blew past, but there's no bone damage. You're bleeding bad though. Gotta get you stitched up, buddy," he turns to Opie, "How far's the hospital?"
"No hospital," Jax gasps.
"Dude, you're gonna bleed out," Dean says patiently.
Jax grasps at his arm.
"Clay'll kill me," he says, "We had a direct order; no retaliation. Disobeyed a direct order," Jax's face is deathly pale and shiny with sweat, "Clay's gonna fucking kill me if he finds out. No hospital."
"You need stitches, Jax," Opie says desperately, "Or you're gonna die of blood loss anyway."
"You do it," Jax mumbles and Opie blanches, "Don't make me go to hospital," Jax mutters weakly, "Please…"
Dean sighs.
"Stupid, stubborn, sonovabitch," he grumbles, "Alright, let's get him to the cabin."
"Dean?" Sam says quietly, "It's too far. He's not gonna make it. Not on foot. Not with us carrying him."
Dean nods.
"Then let's hotwire us a car."
"Tara," Jax mumbles.
"What?"
"Tara….she's ditching school….meeting us…at…movies…"
"Uh, huh," Dean says, not caring about Jax's rambling.
Jax grasps his arm weakly.
"Her place….closer," he gasps, "go there…"
X
Tara Knowles is touching up her lip gloss when someone pounds urgently at her front door. Her hand stills and her eyes widen in fear. Is it cops? Debt collectors? Social workers? Or did her old man forget his keys again when he went out to the race track? Tara glances at her watch. It's only midday, far too early for her Dad to be back.
The pounding on the door sounds again and she hears Opie Winston shout, "Tara? Are you there? Need some help; it's Jax; he's hurt!"
Opie sounds freaked and Tara runs for the front door, heart pounding, wondering just exactly what shit Jackson Teller has managed to land himself in this time.
She wrenches the door open, almost pulls it off its hinges, and Jax, Opie and two other boys she doesn't know stumble in.
"He's been shot," the other guy who's helping to hold Jax up tells her without preamble, "You home alone?"
She nods and asks, "Who are you?"
"Dean," he's craning his neck, looking into the kitchen, "got a plastic cloth for that kitchen table?" he asks.
Tara frowns. What a stupid thing to ask at a time like this.
"I'm calling 911," she says, reaching for the phone.
"No!" Jax finally lifts his head, "no hospital. Clay….please…"
He's close to collapse and Tara doesn't know what to do. He needs immediate medical help, that much is obvious, but it's hard to ignore the terrified, pleading look in his eyes.
"Tara," Dean says softly, "Here's what I need: A plastic cloth for the kitchen table, a sewing needle, some dental floss and a bottle of whiskey. Okay, sweetheart?"
Is he serious? Tara lifts her eyes to look at him and sees that he is, deadly so.
"C'mon, Tara," he urges, "our boy here's bleeding out."
Tara takes a deep breath and when she meets Dean's eyes again, she's all business. She grabs a clear plastic table cloth from a dresser drawer, covers the Formica kitchen table with it and wipes it quickly with disinfectant, before spinning around and putting the kettle on.
"Get him up on the table," she says, then disappears out of the room. She's back quickly carrying a First Aid kit, a sewing needle and the dental floss. Dean, Opie and the younger boy have managed to manhandle Jax up onto the table, and he's sitting upright, leaning against Ope, while Dean struggles to get his tee-shirt off. Tara grabs a pair of kitchen scissors and cuts it off him.
"That works," Dean says with a grin, "Although now he's gonna need another top before he goes home."
"Got a couple of his in my room," Tara responds without thinking, and she doesn't like the knowing grin that flashes onto Dean's face. She expects a lewd comment, but all he says is, "Where's the whiskey?"
"Got something better," Tara replies, diving into the First Aid kit. She brings out a spray bottle of Dermoplast, a hospital strength analgesic, and hands it to Dean.
"Not all the whiskey was for outside of him," Dean says.
Tara nods.
"Again, got something better."
She pulls a small bottle and a sealed plastic packet with a new syringe in it out of a kitchen drawer. She tears into the syringe packet and then begins to draw liquid into it from the small bottle. Dean peers over her shoulder.
"Morphine?" he asks incredulously.
"My Dad's," she says, "he's got a back injury," she turns to Opie, "Lie him down."
Opie and Dean slide Jax down onto the table, which isn't really hard because he's nine tenths unconscious now anyway.
"Do you know what you're doing?" Dean demands when she approaches Jax with the syringe.
"Yes," Tara nods and her confidence is enough for Dean.
He watches her shoot Jax full of pain killer with a practiced hand, and then she turns back to the kitchen drawer and pulls on a pair of latex gloves.
"That your bandana?" she asks Opie.
He nods.
"You want to take it off for me? Then," she hands him a rolled up bandage, "keep pressure on the wound for me with this, until I tell you to take it away."
Opie nods and Tara can see that he's shaking slightly. He removes his reaper bandana from around Jax's arm and Tara sprays the bullet wound with Dermoplast before nodding at Opie to reapply pressure.
"Someone sterilize the needle," she says, and it's the young kid who moves to do it, finding a glass bowl in one of the kitchen cupboards and placing the needle into it carefully before re-boiling the kettle and filling the bowl with boiling water.
"What's your name?" she asks him.
"Sam."
"Hey Sam, I'm Tara. You doin' okay?"
Sam snorts.
"Nothing here I haven't seen before. I'm surprised you're holding up so well."
"Surprised," Dean adds, "and impressed as hell that you haven't fainted like a girl yet!" he's smiling at her in a way that's entirely too suggestive for Tara's liking, although she can see genuine admiration in his hazel green eyes. She raises one eyebrow coolly and turns back to Sam.
"Nothing here I haven't seen before either," she says softly, "bikers and their friends tend to get themselves messed up a lot."
Dean reaches into the kitchen drawer and he's donned a pair of latex gloves and threaded the sterilized needle with dental floss before Tara's had time to work out what he has in mind.
"What are you doing?" she demands.
"Gonna sew up your boyfriend."
"I can do it!"
He looks at her appraisingly.
"Have you sewn someone up before?" he asks.
She shakes her head.
"Well I have; plenty of times. So watch and learn, okay? Maybe you could take over keeping the pressure on while I do this?"
Tara takes the rolled up bandage from a white faced Opie, who immediately excuses himself and races for the bathroom.
Tara watches intently as Dean makes twelve small, neat stitches in Jax's upper arm, moving the rolled up bandage bit by bit as the sewing progresses. When Dean's finished, Tara cleans off the excess blood and then bandages Jax's arm carefully while Dean peels off his gloves and lobs them into the trash can.
"You're quite some chick," Dean says admiringly, "Can't believe you haven't barfed, fainted or cried yet."
Tara snorts and rolls her eyes. She peels off her own gloves, balls them up and manages a nice three point shot into the trash can.
"Yeah, well, I want to go into medicine when I finish school," she admits.
Dean's grin somehow manages to be both cheeky and seductive.
"Yeah?" he says, "I can just picture you in a nurse's uniform. In fact, any time you wanna play doctors and nurses-"
"You'll bend over so I can shove something sharp in your ass?" Tara completes brightly. Sam sniggers.
Dean's grin becomes even more impish.
"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of you bending over and me shoving something-"
"You do not want to finish that sentence," Tara says icily, and the look on her face reminds him so much of Gemma that it stops him cold, "I'm with Jax, Dean," she continues frostily, "how can you hit on me, with him lying right there, barely conscious?"
"Coz I'm a dick?" Dean offers weakly, "Sorry. You're right," he holds his hands out in supplication, "Backing off now. I just, you know, can't seem to help myself when I'm around amazingly cool chicks. Sorry."
Tara inclines her head. "Apology accepted."
"I bet you'll be a great nurse," Dean adds.
Tara frowns at him.
"Actually, I'm planning on being a pediatric surgeon," she says, some of the frost back in her voice again.
"Yeah?" Dean's treading carefully now. For a biker's chick, this girl is brainiac smart and independent - and perfectly capable of tearing him a new one if he pisses her off, "Pediatrics…that's kids right?"
Tara nods, her expression surprised.
"Hey," Dean says with a grin, "I may be an idiot, but I'm not stupid. So…what d'you reckon, Doc? Should we move our patient to a bed?"
