17. Blood

Excerpted from Be Careful What You Wish For

Sam winced as Danny dotted the blood along the side of her body. Her. God, it was still so hard to wrap her mind around the whole situation. Somehow it seemed so unreal that it was real. She closed her eyes against the pain and tried to forget the fight, the pain, the way the blade had cut into her. And then Danny dabbed at a particularly deep spot and tears pricked her eyes as she struggled not to cry out.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "But I have to make sure it's clean."

"I know," she replied as she bit her lip against the alcohol soaked gauze that probed deeper. "Is this what it's like for you?"

Lavender eyes glanced up, darker with worry than she had expected. "Every day," he replied as he dropped the blood soaked gauze in her wastebasket and picked up another, soaking it with more alcohol before moving to the shallow end of the wound.

Sam winced back against it, hating the way this body reacted to the feather light touch of her own fingers. Out of control, and the pain was the only thing that saved it from being truly embarrassing. She whimpered before ducking her face into a pillow and giving in to the need to cry. How did he do this? Day after day, and how many times had she patched him up from injuries just like this, and some even worse.

And he never made a sound as she did it.

And her… She was crying into the pillow and trying not to scream as the first prick of the needle threaded through the already sensitive skin, then dragged heavy thread through in an agony that had her nearly unconscious. More blood, she could feel it soaking down her side and making the waistband of her jeans sticky and stiff as it began to dry.

Another prick, another silent scream into the pillow. Another, another, and somehow she sat still until it was done and over with and Danny was laying the needle and remaining thread down as he took up yet another alcohol covered swatch of gauze to dab yet again. Fire raced down her side, and her vision dulled, silence roaring in her ears so that she could barely hear his soft, pained, "I'm sorry's," as he covered the wound with fresh gauze and wrapped it around her waist.

He was done, the pain was fading, and for a moment all Sam could see was the blood on slender hands.

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I hadn't originally intended to add a note to this, but I figured I might as well add to so that this would make more sense to readers. Go back and read it again VERY, VERY carefully, and pay attention to the semantics.

Done? Okay. Now, if you figured out that Sam is in Danny's body, and Danny is in Sam's body, you are a good reader and get a cookie. Chocolate chunk or peanut butter. Your choice. :D It's from a longer fic I've yet to write, so no worries. It'll happen.