glorious_spoon | Five Scars

Title: Five Scars
Pairings: Gen
Warnings: None
Rating: PG
Summary: Sam knows the scars on Dean's body as well as he knows his own. A five-things fic, since I just realized I haven't actually done one in this fandom. Short.

1.

The twisted ridge of scar tissue that runs from one side of Dean's kneecap across the top of his thigh to the ball of his hip would be ugly as hell under any circumstances, and the fact that it was Sam's first attempt at sutures probably didn't help.

It was a werewolf, a few months after Dean dropped out of highschool. Sam can remember the sheets on the motel bed so soaked with blood that it looked like somebody had been butchered in there, Dad slumped forward in a chair with a broken nose and three fingers splinted to a chunk of wood.

In retrospect, he thinks it probably wasn't as bad as he remembers. Dad was a bastard in a lot of ways, but he would have taken Dean to a hospital. Sam's sure of it.

Actually, no, he's not, but the fact that his hamhanded stitchwork didn't cripple Dean for life seems to lend credence to the idea. It sure as hell seemed bad at the time, twelve years old with the needle slippery in his fingers and Dean spewing out a filthy litany of curses in between swallows of Wild Turkey.

He tousled Sam's hair when he was done, though, passed him the whiskey bottle, said he'd make a good nurse someday. It felt good, at the time. Like he did something right, for a change.

2.

Dean, the freak, actually likes the scar that skims across the left side of his rib cage where he twisted out of the way of Caleb's bullet in the confused dark of a graveyard shootout. Two inches away from a punctured lung, and the freak actually bragged about it. Like Sam was supposed to be jealous because he'd never got himself shot, or something.

After a while, it fades into a white line, barely visible, and Sam gets a couple of bullet holes of his own.

3.

Rock salt doesn't do all that much damage, but it'll still scar if somebody--your little brother, for example--shoots you in the chest with it at point-blank range.

Normally, Sam would have been the one to pick the flecks of salt out of the wound and bandage it, but Dean took care of that one himself. It's mostly faded by now, but there's one deep pock-mark in the middle of his sternum that Dean will bear until the day he dies.

4.

There's a perfect ring of tooth-marks at the base of Dean's skull, almost high up enough to be hidden under his short hair. Human tooth-marks. They must have been really deep to scar like that--stretched out and puckered white against Dean's perpetual farmer's tan--but Sam has no idea where they came from. Dean rubs at them sometimes, when he's nervous or tired.

Sometimes, Sam looks at them and sees the phantom image of a younger Dean--much younger, high-school if that--twisted in front of a sink at some anonymous motel bandaging himself by feel, blood running down to stain the collar of his shirt, the smell of latex and antiseptic in the air. It's just a flicker, a flash of somthing he isn't even sure is really memory, and he never asks.

5.

The first time, after Hell, that Dean stumbles out of the shower in nothing but a towel Sam does a double-take, then actually stares long enough that Dean looks up from pulling his jeans on and catches him at it.

He's beginning to tan, freckles along his shoulders and the reddish tint of a mild sunburn; the skin below is as smooth and undamaged as if Dean had spent his life pushing papers behind a desk. No messy patchwork of old damage spelling out the violent story of their life. No puckered bullet wounds under his left shoulder; no marks left by claws or teeth or fire.

Sam knew it intellectually; Dean walks without the hint of a limp now, doesn't bitch about his bad knee on cold mornings, can actually grip a pen correctly because his right thumb has regained its full range of motion. It's still strange to see this, though. The only marks on his brother's skin are the tattoo on his chest and the thick brand of scar tissue left by the hand of an angel.

Dean shifts his weight, t-shirt held in front of him, vaguely defensive. "I know I'm hot, dude, but the ogling is starting to make me uncomfortable."

That's Sam's cue to snort and say something snide, but he can't quite manage it. He looks away instead, shrugs, and Dean yanks the t-shirt on without another word.

The next time he takes a shower, he brings a change of clothes into the bathroom with him.

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From:

kalliel

Why I felt that reading fan fiction would expedite my paper-writing, I'm not entirely sure. Because all I want to know now is read more.

I love the brief flashes this gives--in my experience the 5 Things format can be pretty hit or miss, but this is definitely a hit. And at the risk of becoming some kind of awful pun, my favorite flash is probably 2, with Caleb. I'm not sure whether I'm most in love with the scenario as a whole, with the phrasing of "the confused dark of a graveyard shootout", or the breadth of later experiences summarized by the finale line.

Lovely lovely lovely. Thank you for sharing this. <3

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Five Scars

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