CHAPTER 3 – Fire and Flares and Fins
DAWN POV
Once I was in the bathroom I regained enough of my mental faculties to be embarrassed again due to my lack of clothing. I had on a large cotton t-shirt in faded black; it hung to mid thigh and covered all of my girly parts. I wasn't so much embarrassed about the t-shirt as how I got into it.
They changed my clothes. These two yummy guys changed my clothes and saw me starkers. Great, now they probably think I'm some masochistic freak.
Sammy guided me to lean against the sink while Dean tested the water and soaked a washcloth. I was still supported mostly by Sammy who avoided my upper back as much as possible – to which I was very grateful.
I have only recently discovered that I have some control over my sight. I can either turn it off or on. There are no degrees or legends with my gift I have to decipher what I see on my own. Willow says it is most likely part of my key-ness or it could be a fluke of the Slayer blood / key-ness cocktail. I have also discovered that I have no control over this ability when my energy stores have weakened beyond a certain point. It must be some kind of safety so that I know who to trust. Too bad I can only get impressions and I have to learn from my errors. This time I think I can trust them.
Sammy's aura or energy seemed dense, sad but controlled and with that control there was peace. There were colors but mostly golds, greens and blues. They were so natural that I wasn't surprised that I hadn't noticed immediately. It is as if he is made up of summer and earth. It was a surprisingly comforting presence at my side, as if I had known something similar in the past.
When Dean turned towards us this energy spiked and drew my attention back to him. He was all brightness and flares. I don't understand his energy – at all. His aura I have seen nothing like it. His energy flares out uncontrolled in tendrils of red and silver. It seems to be always moving. There is no one color only brightness and spots of shadow. It makes me cautious perhaps uneasy but not frightened – like fire.
Dean gently pressed the wet cloth to my back and the water on my skin is warm and the contrast between my cold feet and the warmth of the water and men makes me shiver slightly. I wonder for a moment what is happening until I begin to feel the sting of shifting fabric over my shoulder and know that they are trying to gently remove the shirt that has become attached to my skin with caked blood. I have many times have I preformed the same task for others.
Finally after many passes of hot water the shirt loosened. Dean drops the cloth in the sink and I catch a glimpse of the evidence of my injury staining the cloth and the basin. Red and brown splotches on white.
Dean then takes a pair of scissors from his back pocket and cuts the neck hole wider and the sleeves up to the shoulder and steps away. Just as he does so I realize that I had been overwhelmed by his aura and that I was unable to focus on anything else. He literally engulfed my senses. I had no knowledge of his brother in my presence even though he was literally holding my body upright.
He put the scissors in his back pocket again and assisted Sammy in placing my in the mostly filled tub – still in the t shirt. So there I am sitting in the tub with a soaking t-shirt clinging to me when Sammy smiles and places a towel on the toilet seat next to me in easy reach and exits the bathroom leaving Dean next to me on the side of the tub.
"Well be just out side the door call out when you are done we'll get you bandaged up." With that he stood and made as if to walk out of the bathroom but stopped at the sink and grabbed one of the complementary plastic cups, unwrapped it and placed it on the edge of the tub. "Don't try to lie down or dunk your head." After a moment of hesitation he took out the scissors once more and left them next to the cup as well. Then he left the bathroom closing the door most of the way without shutting it completely.
Alone in the tub I took a moment to catalogue the past few moments deciding to think about everything when I had a clear head. I then gloried in the simple act of bathing.
