Chapter Two-Hundred and Eleven

Claire rested next to John on her parents' bed, combing her fingers through his singed hair. She could see that his body had forced him into a small coma for the time being, just to avoid the pain he was in for a short time. She kissed his head, smiling as his fingers flexed around her hand. "I love you, Sugar." She whispered, keeping an eye on the open wounds that her mother had left uncovered so that they could air out and prevent any fungal infections from the moisture.

"You don't love him." Jessica scoffed, stepping toward them until she caught sight of the seeping wounds on John's body. "What the-" She gagged, the sight of the raw burned flesh making her nauseous as blood and clear fluid seeped from the injuries.

Claire smirked, picking up a tissue and wiping a puddle of seepage up as it started to drip down his chest. "Suck it up buttercup." She stated, squeezing some hand sanitizer onto her palm before she started to clean the burns as best she could without getting him into the tub and scrubbing the scabs off. "He's hurting right now, and it's my job to take care of my fiancé." She pressed an antibacterial wipe to his side, forcing herself to now wince as he groaned in his sleep.

Jessica pressed a hand over her mouth as Claire brought the wipe away from his body, the sight of blood making her sick. "Gross…" She rushed to the bathroom, shoving the door open and pushing Jim away as she emptied her stomach into the toilet. "Ugh…" She moaned, happy that she hadn't eaten much before she'd come here.

Jim glared at her, zipping his fly closed and gripping her arms in his hands as he escorted her out of the house. "Go home Alien." He gripped her uncle's uniform in his fist marching them both from his home and shoving them outside. "If you ever come here again. We'll can you." He slammed the door in their faces, picking up Amelia as she reached her arms up to him. "Come on kid, let's bring Chancie inside."

Vernon gently lifted John's body into the tub, easing him into the water as Ryan poured some rubbing alcohol into it to fight the infection that had started to take over. "There you go, Kid." He whispered, picking up a washcloth to scrub the scabs off of his body. "I'm glad you're asleep for this one." He knew that this would be the worst of the treatments, the infection having made his body even more prone to pain as his immune system warred with the invasion.

"It's not good that he's still asleep." Ryan stated, taking John's head in his hands to keep his nose and mouth from slipping below the surface of the water. "He should have woken up a few hours ago." He helped Vernon scrub John down, showing him the spots to avoid and the ones that needed extra attention. "This infection could keep him under until he needs to be in a hospital… and if that happens, they'll drug him up."

Vernon nodded, working on a burn just above John's hips. "He'd have to start over."

"Exactly." Ryan worked some shampoo into John's hair, gently washing oil and dirt from his brown locks. "Morphine's the only thing that would stop this pain, and that would only put him in rehab again." He rinsed the soap from John's hair, slowly easing him from the tub as Thomas prepared a towel to dry him off with. He instructed Thomas on the pressure he was applying to the burns. "Careful, don't rip the skin." He wrapped John's hips in a towel and rested his body on Thomas and Clarissa's bed, picking up a tube of burn ointment and gently rubbing it into the burned flesh.

"How long do you think he'll be like this?" Thomas asked, adjusting the towel so that Ryan could treat his wounds without being humiliated. He tucked the towel between John's legs, covering his manhood and hiding his total nakedness from view.

Ryan shook his head, fanning his hand over the top of John's wounds to help them feel as if they were cooling off. "Hard to tell." He sighed, letting Vernon start to dress the boy. "Could be a week, could be a month. But the mental trauma's going to affect him worse than the burns."

Chris stumbled to catch Amelia as she shoved Thomas and Clarissa's door open, cursing as the child launched onto the bed next to John. "Damnit."

"John?" She asked, touching his head only to pull away when she felt his temperature. "Why is he warm?" She looked at the men around her, fear gripping her chest as they passed a look between them that she'd learned meant something wasn't right. "Is he dying?"

Paul shook his head, sitting on the bed and pulling his youngest close to him. "He isn't dying, Baby. He's got an infection… germs got inside of his owies and made him a little sick." He kissed her head, smiling as John shifted slightly in his slumber. "He's warm to touch because his body is trying to get rid of the germs."

She nodded, climbing out of her father's grip to lay beside John. "I wanna stay until he gets better." She pressed a little kiss to his nose, rushing from the room and appearing a moment later with her favorite blanket and her teddy bear. "I wanna help take care of him."

Ryan smiled, picking up a pair of cast sheers to cut the cast away from John's leg so that they could clean some of the smallest burns on his leg. "Alright, let's get a new cast on his leg so that this old one doesn't get stinky."

She crawled down toward John's fractured leg, placing her hands on either side of his thigh as Ryan started to cut it away with a crunch. "Don't hurt him." She ordered, watching as Ryan broke the cast off and tossed it in the trash.

"We'll let these breathe for a few hours." He scooped some ointment onto his fingers, rubbing it into John's skin before he backed off to let his irritated skin rest and recover. "Let us know if he wakes up." He whispered, leading the other men from the room as Amelia watched over her knight.