Fear Itself

We drove for a little while longer until we pulled into his driveway and into the garage (I knew because I could see the garage door closing from the back window). Dean quickly got out of the car and took me back in his arms. He didn’t even bother to close the trunk when he took me inside through a door nearby. I just stayed in his arms, shivering and wheezing until he set me down in the bathroom, up against a counter while he rummaged through cabinets.

He pulled out a red and white box and set it on the floor just before he turned the water in the bathtub on. He sat down and tugged me over, sitting me between his legs with my back against his chest, balancing me and keeping my head upright, even as he dug through the box. He pulled out a similar device that the doctor had put in my hand earlier, the one that made me feel funny and numb. I wanted to shake my head, but I couldn’t. “No, Muscles,” I protested breathlessly. “Please, no. I don’t want anymore.”

“I have to, Blondie,” he told me softly. “I can’t do anything until you’re breathing on your own again. I’m not gonna hurt you. You have to trust me.” I sputtered out another cry as he lifted my arm and balanced it on his knee. He tied an elastic band just above my elbow to make the vein pop out. He was careful and gentle when he slid the needle in, and he attached the tube. With one arm, he held my arm in place. His other arm held the bag full of fluid higher above us so it would funnel down the tube in and into my veins.

Once it was in, I stopped paying attention, and I just let my eyes wander. I heard the water running, filling the bathtub. I could hear Dean breathing, hear his heart beating through his shirt, so I did my best to stay calm, if even just to keep him calm. The only thing that made it easier was that I couldn’t move. “Can you feel anything?” he asked me quietly. I considered this, and I tried to focus on my body, tried to focus on moving it. My chest was still on auto-pilot, taking what it could get out of the mask. My fingertips were there, so were my toes. I wiggled my fingers in stiff, slow motions and took a deep breath.

“Fingers,” I told him. “Toes, maybe.” I paused and took another breath. “Hands can… feel, but I can’t—“ I wheezed. “—Move them.”

“Okay,” he replied, gently running his thumb over my wrist. A tiny smile tugged at my lips because the sensation was returning, and I could feel his touch again. “That means it’s working,” Dean explained assuringly. “Just a little longer, Blondie.”

Slowly, a tingling sensation crept in, sinking beneath my skin, and my nerve-endings began to spark. My chest expanded fully, and I was taking full breaths again, but the relief didn’t last very long because with the feeling came the after-effects of torture: pain. Incredible pain. Dean pulled the oxygen mask off of my face. “You alright?” he asked me, and I gritted my teeth, shaking my head.

“No,” I agonized, clenching my eyes shut and shaking my head. “No,” I repeated as tears spilled down my face again, not because I was sad or frightened but because every inch of my body was pulsing with pain. The burns on my skin were searing and stinging, and when I looked at them, I could see just how bad they were because now that I was fully awake and alert and in panic mode, everything was registering. Large, deep red splotches decorated my forearms and my shins. They looked wet and shiny, gleaming in the overhead light and spotted with tiny blisters of clear fluid.

Dean held me just a little tighter as he began to undo the catheter from the needle in my elbow, and I tried to curl up out of instinct. All my body wanted to do was curl up in a ball and stop shaking, but it couldn’t. My ankles pulsed and throbbed under the restraint of my shoes, and the skin felt like it had grown in size and was going burst through the cheap leather. “I’m sorry,” Dean told me softly as he gently pulled the needle, and I whimpered and cried at the immediate discomfort. He hushed me and kissed my neck. “It’s all done,” he assured me as he stuck a bandaid over the puncture in my vein. I felt his hand stroke the top of my head. “Can you stand?” he asked me.

“Yeah,” I sniffled, nodding. “Yes,” I repeated, maybe trying to assure myself that I could do. I was hurting, I was in pain, but I could move, so I was going to do it myself. I carefully shifted away from him, and he got up to turn the water off in the tub. I pressed my hands against the floor and mustered up all the strength I had left in my body to shift my weight onto my feet and rise up, but I barely made it a few inches before I yelped in pain and felt myself toppling over. Luckily, Dean caught me and lifted me up. “Sorry,” I murmured. He shook his head.

“None of this is your fault, Blondie,” he told me. “Don’t apologize for anything.” He held me close to him for a moment before he scooped me up and set me down, fully-clothed, in the water. It didn’t stop the shivers, and it didn’t stop the pain, but it was cold enough to numb my burns. I watched bits of cotton fabric float out of the singed skin and up to the surface. Dean sat by the edge of the tub and rolled his sleeves up. He reached into the water and grabbed my right arm. As gently as he could, he began to move and stretch my arm.

“Ow!” I squealed, suddenly flinched and tried to pull away, but he kept hold of me. “Muscles, stop, that hurts,” I begged, tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes. He grimaced a little at my obvious pain, and he sighed.

“I’m sorry,” he told me again. “Blondie, you have to move it, or the skin is going to heal too tightly. I’m sorry.” He kept me there for a little, making sure to do the same thing with my other arm and both of my legs. Carefully, he made sure that none of my clothing was left melted in there. “Okay,” he murmured, and I didn’t know if he was talking to me or to himself, so I just watched wearily as he pulled the knob to open the drain and let the water out. He grabbed a towel off the countertop and set it on the floor. He reached into the tub while the water was still emptying and began to untie boots. He tugged them off, and I gritted my teeth and groaned, tried not to look, tried to ignore the pain, but I heard Dean wince when the first shoe came off. He gingerly grabbed my foot and sighed. “Probably sprained,” he muttered. “We’ll take care of that in a bit,” he assured me.

When the water was out, he grabbed a pair of scissors from his box, and began to snip through the fabric of my my clothes. I don’t know that there was much left, anyway, besides my shirt. Both sleeves were burned off up to the elbow. My yoga pants were burned up to my knees. “Why?” I asked him quietly.

“Because they’re wet,” Dean explained. “They’re wet, and we can’t risk them flaking off and getting into your burns while I clean them,” he told me. I nodded with understanding as he stripped them off, leaving me in my underwear, shivering and cold. He took the towel and patted me down, trying to get all the unaffected skin, then carefully dabbed it around the burns, drying off the surrounded flesh but trying not to hurt me in the process. When he finished, he slipped the towel under my back and wrapped me up in it. He scooped me up in his arms, then leaned down to grab the box in one hand and carried me out of the bathroom.

“Muscles, I’m cold,” I murmured, nestling my face in the crook of his neck where I felt safe.

“Anything else?” he asked. “Do you feel dizzy?” I shook my head a little. “That’s good,” he told me, and he set the box down in front of the fireplace. We both sank down to the floor. He sat with his back upright, still using his chest to keep me sitting against him. He reached back and turned the fireplace on, and while I still shivered a bit, I soon felt the warmth radiating, and the tremors seemed to subside. “Better?” Dean asked, leaning forward to kiss the top of my head when I nodded.

He reached back into the box and pulled out a roll of something thin and white, looked like woven cotton. He took my left arm just before the start of the burn and began to wrap the white fabric around it. He kept wrapping, even doubling the layers up. He finally tore the fabric and gently pressed the end in, and the end clung securely to the rest. Once he was sure it would stay, he moved on. He wrapped my other arm and both my shins, careful not to hurt me. Just as he was finishing, I sighed and dropped my head back against him. “Muscles,” I murmured.

“Yeah, Blondie?” he asked, glancing over to me.

“I’m tired,” I wearied. “Can I go to bed now?”

I saw a frown briefly flash across his face. “Soon,” he told me. “I’ll dress these, and then you can lay down while we ice your ankles. You can sleep then if you want.” He kissed my cheek, and I nodded. Once he pressed the gauze in, he lifted me up and took me to his bedroom, where he dressed me in one of his t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants that were so long they covered my feet. He was gentle when he set me down on the bed. He kissed me softly, quickly, just a peck, and mustered a smile. “I’ll be right back,” he promised. “Go to sleep if you like. It’s okay, now.”

Maybe I did. For a little. The next thing I remembered was him sitting at the edge of the bed, bandaging my feet, and they didn’t hurt very much anymore. The were cold, a little wet, but they were wrapped tight in a tan, flexible bandage. His blue eyes glanced up at me, looking surprised for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he told me with sincere apology in his voice. “Did I wake you? That didn’t hurt, did it?”

I didn’t lift my head, just shook it. “No.” I glanced away when I saw his lips turn downward. He shifted and slid beside me, gently draping his arm over my center.

“Go back to sleep, babe,” he whispered, pressing his lips to the side of my head. I just looked away and blinked, shaking my head gently. “Why not?”

“Can’t,” I murmured, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I’m scared.”

“Don’t be,” he told me quietly, shaking his head. “C’mere,” he said as he laid on his side and tugged me closer. He held me tight and curled around me a little, enveloping me in his warmth. “I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re safe.”

I squeaked out a tiny, “Okay.” But it was all quiet after that. I could feel Dean’s breath brush over the back of my neck, could feel his heart against my spine. His fingers gently brushed over my tummy, comfortingly, trying to make it all better, even though neither of us knew what quite to say to turn this around. There wasn’t anything to say. In this instance, like a few others I had encountered, silence was better. I didn’t feel nervous right now, which was a nice change. I kept my breathing calm and slow, just like Dean’s, just like he told me before. I was glad he was here. He was all I had wanted all along. It was quiet for a long time, until Dean’s breathing broke in rhythm.

“I’m sorry,” Dean sputtered, holding me tightly. I thought he was crying, but I couldn’t look back at him to see. Everything hurt, and when I moved, I shook. My trembling hands reached to rest upon his forearms.

“It’s okay,” I told him quietly.

“Blondie, it’s not—“

“It is,” I sighed quietly. “Muscles, don’t ever put my life in front of the movement. We have a chance to save people. We can give them a future.”

“Blondie, I don’t even want a future if you’re not in it,” he said.

“Dean, don’t—“

“It’s true,” he interjected. “We’re doing this together, or not at all, Blondie.”

Despite my tremors, I shifted against him, turned to lie on my back, and looked at him. I craned my neck to kiss him softly, and I reached to lace our fingers together. When we parted, I looked him dead in the eye. “Together, then,” I told him and nodded a little. He pulled me closer, still mindful of my wounds. He held me like he never wanted to let me go, like if he let up then the wind might brush through and carry me away. Though he refused to show me, I sensed his fear, so I gently snaked an arm around him too.

I didn’t fall asleep that night, didn’t know if I would sleep during the day either, but I saw the morning light spill across his face and light up his blue eyes. So I kissed him, and life went on, even if the hurt was so bad I didn’t think I wanted it to. But I was with Dean, and I was safe, and I loved him. That was all that mattered.