Joseph Khair Mccarran

she ran a hand through her hair as she waited for him to come out of the bathroom, resting it on her neck as she let out a breath and tried not to think about the time he was taking and worrying about whether she should knock and check on him. though she did suspect if she did that he'd actually breath fire at her and she knew she'd already pressed enough of his buttons tonight.

but she did hope it was a good thing, that he knew they weren't going to let him just suffer in silence on his own, that they were there when he was ready, even if he didn't see them as family. she straightened a little as the door opened and he walked past her without a word. well walked was a stretch as she noticed the limp and she nodded a little to herself. he'd changed and he looked slightly better than he had a few moments ago. she wasn't upset he hadn't reacted to her, she knew it wasn't really personal.

she waited where she was for a few more moments before she moved into the kitchen and saw him getting a glass of water. "do you want help getting to your room?" she asked him softly as she leaned against the counter. "i promise once you're settled i'll leave you in peace." she assured him, letting him know that there would be an end to her hovering, it just wouldn't be until she knew he was alright and safe somewhere comfortable.

it was with a soft sigh she found herself woken from her sleep. she'd been dreaming but she couldn't recall what it had been about. there was just this soft and contended feeling she had and it made her smile into the darkness without thinking too much about it. she took a second to listen for dustin's breathing behind her, the softness as he slept, and she hoped to anything it was a peaceful sleep he was having. things had been so hard the last few months for him. she hated that she couldn't snap her fingers and make it better for him. she knew he loved his family but they were trying at times and even she couldn't deny that. but it was the silent struggles, the moments after the fights that his family missed. the way his shoulders were just carried a little less high. the things they missed because they didn't get to see him like she did. though she was aware that as much as they were together, there was so much he didn't let her see either.

once she was satisfied that he was still there she shifted slightly between the sheets, listening to the monitor they still had in dean's room. it might have seemed like a bit much but there were reasons she insisted on it, because she had an ever present fear that daz would work out what her and dustin were trying to hard to keep secret. she knew that if he figured it out while dean was young he'd be back, he'd do what he could to make them miserable, to never let them forget or worse, he'd do what he'd done to another family and tear the child away from them. it made her sick to her stomach to think about losing her child like that so she made sure she could always hear him at night. she could hear him snoring softly and it made her smile once more, knowing that he, like his real father, was sleeping just like he was in the bed next to her. all was right in her world and it made her sink back against her pillows.

it was then she felt a familiar sensation in her middle, the feeling of her and dustin's child shifting within her and she rested her hand atop it gently. she felt her mind drifting off a little, wondering how this child was going to fit into life in the home, especially with everything going on. it hadn't been planned but she knew it was welcome and she knew it was loved but she couldn't help but be worried it was the wrong timing. as if to disagree with her, she felt something against her palm she hadn't felt yet. she gasped softly as she felt the small thump again. "finally little one." she said softly into the dark as she held her hand there before she turned her head to where dustin lay and she shifted slightly to whisper against his ear "dustin, mon amour, veux-tu te réveiller?." if he was in a deep enough sleep he shouldn't hear her but if he was rousable, she was certain he'd want to feel their child's first kicks, especially at the moment.

Joseph Khair Mccarran

she hadn't meant to push this button but she had accidently and now she needed to deal with it. she fought the urge to rub her wrist where he'd been holding it and she could already feel the bruise that was threatening to come out. she'd have to come up with a reason for why it was there, in case dustin saw but that wasn't something to focus on right now. she wanted to help joe, keep him safe in the moment and hopefully help him back to the couch or up to his room depending on which one he wanted. she'd give him either option and hopefully he'd pick one of them without too much argument. "joe, scarier men than you have threatened and hurt me." she said softly but honestly. she wasn't scared of him and no matter how much he growled about it, she never would be. "you can growl all you want at me but it won't stop me from caring." those were the breaks and she wasn't about to lie to him. she'd respect his wishes and not touch him while she could avoid it, she'd keep her distance when he was okay and she wouldn't push him when he didn't need it. but this was different, he was injured, possibly concussed and vomiting. those were all signs that someone shouldn't be left alone.

she cringed a little as he was sick again and chewed her lip as she watched but couldn't comfort or to anything to help. all she could do was wait till he was finished and make sure he didn't pass out or fall over and cracking his head on the sink because he was dizzy. she nodded a little when he finally agreed to clean the blood off his nose by himself and she held her hands up just slightly in agreement. "alright, i'll get the shirt for you." she said as she turned to open the door to the bathroom and she stepped through. she was about to close the door behind her when she heard him mutter to himself and she paused. she hadn't been supposed to hear that, at least she didn't think she was but it was enough to stop her. "it doesn't matter if you've seen worse joe." she said softly as she looked back at him. "you're stressed, dealing with hard things and probably even a little scared." she said as she lifted her hand from the bathroom door as she stepped through the space fully. "you've been through a lot and your body is trying to deal. it's normal."

she crossed the hall to the table she'd left the clothes she'd gotten from upstairs for him and she took them into her hands, turning back to step back to the bathroom door. she knew there was no way he'd agree to let her help him at least change his shirt so she held them out to him. "here." she glanced down at the clothes. "i got you some of dustin's pants and one of your shirts." she waited for him to take them as she looked back at his face. "i'll be just out here if you need help, okay?" she knew that would probably earn her a sharp word but she wasn't leaving until she knew he was safe laying down somewhere.

Joseph Khair Mccarran

the second her fingers made contact with his back, she'd felt it. she felt the way his body tensed as if her touch was painful but it wasn't that that sent alarm bells through her head. she could feel the scars that lay under the fabric, feel the ridges and gouges that had been taken from his back at some point and if she hadn't been aware of herself she'd have let out a gasp. as it was she'd only just caught the noise that threatened to roll off her tongue and out of her mouth. she wasn't about to fawn and gasp over them because she knew enough to know that it was probably the last thing he wanted. if he hadn't told them about the scars then he didn't want them to know and that in itself broke her heart because she couldn't figure out why she wouldn't want them to know. she knew that herself, holly and jasper were almost strangers to joe so she knew why they hadn't been told but she doubted that his siblings knew too. she wished in that moment that he'd let her hug him, to let him know that it wasn't important, that it didn't matter that he was broken and they'd love him regardless but it wasn't something he seemed ready to hear.

it also seemed like something he didn't want them to know. she'd felt the tension in his boy and had almost braced for a fist that might come swinging but she hadn't been expecting the grab to her wrist. his grip was rough and entirely too tight for her to have a hope in working out of and she could feel her muscles starting to protest about it. she tensed her arm slightly and she couldn't help but frown just slightly as she heard him hiss out a demand to her. "alright." she said softly as she lifted her hand from his back and she dropped it back to her side. she bit back the wince as she felt the pain in her wrist growing from how tight he was holding it but she leveled him with as calm a gaze as she could. was she scared he was about to hit her? yes, she couldn't deny it. would she hold it against him if he did? no. it was an awful situation and it was hardly his fault. however what she couldn't deny was the flash of fear about the fact that there was a chance her unborn child could suffer somehow, it was hard to clamp down on that fear but she was doing her best in the moment.

"now let go of my wrist joe." she said, hoping her voice showed the calmness she was desperate to exude because she didn't want the situation to escalate any. she just wanted to help him clean up and get him back to bed. she wasn't going to let this moment stop her from trying to do that either. she would just need to get him to agree to pass her the cloths she'd been trying to reach for when she'd touched his back a moment before. it took everything for her not to try and pull her wrist out of his grip, to fight back and to not use her knees as a weapon against him in the cramped bathroom. it wasn't what the situation needed and she was sure he'd let her go in a moment when he realized she'd taken her hand away from him.

Joseph Khair Mccarran

she heard him scoff and she lifted her gaze to his eyes, wondering what must be going through his head if he couldn't bring himself to believe that she could love dustin's family too. "you don't need to buy it joe." she said honestly as she rested her elbows on her knees, her hands folded in her lap. "because i know what it's like to have no family. i joined this family and i was welcomed with open arms and gained one. i love them and i love you. nothing you do will change that, sorry." she said, not really leaving much room for argument because she wouldn't listen to anything he might say to argue the point that she shouldn't. she wasn't about to change her mind because he didn't think he deserved it. she almost added that he was her children's uncle, the one safe within her and the one who was sleeping safe upstairs. but she didn't think that would help right now, he hadn't come around to the kids yet and she wasn't going to hold it against him, he just needed time and understanding so he could adjust in his own time. it was his world and his home as much as it was the childrens so he needed to be able to find his place in it.

she watched as he started to rock himself off the step, grabbing onto the wall and he was on his feet before she was. the bump made it a little hard so it took her a moment to get herself to her feet and it wasn't graceful by any means. once she was up she looked at him and saw the change in his face and she stepped towards him. she'd seen that look on dean's face more than a few times and she was pretty certain he was about to see his dinner. "do you need a bowl joe?" she asked him, more than willing to go get him one if he was going to vomit. a lot of people couldn't deal with blood, she hadn't been given a choice.

she nodded a little, wishing with all her heart that they were correct. that dean never had to dream of anything scarier than what was in his imagination. that was scary enough without facing the horrors that the world could throw at a person. she'd never seen war, she'd never seen death on a large scale but she'd seen bodies, she'd seen darkness and she'd felt hunger like nothing she could describe. there were different horrors in the world but if they did their jobs, dean and his cousins wouldn't have anything to fear. "i'd give my life to make sure of it."

she bent down to lift up the ice pack from the stairs, not to give it to him if he didn't want it but so it wasn't left there for someone to trip on in the morning when the house woke up. she sat it on the table beside the stairs and she watched him lean forward to try and stem the blood flow. "you can ask me, i'll get you one in a minute." she said with a nod and she wiped her hands on her shirt slightly. "but first i think we should get you to the bathroom. your face and neck has blood on it and you should clean it off. i can help if you'd like or i can set you up in the bathroom so you can do it yourself. you choose." she said as she stepped back and motioned to the bathroom that was just a few steps to the left, luckily tucked into the area just past the stairs so he wouldn't need to walk very further.

Joseph Khair Mccarran

she had to bite back something of a smile as she heard him growl a question at her from the darkness of the stairs. there were so many family similarities between joe and his siblings that there was no denying he was their brother no matter how had any of them might argue the point. to his credit, even though he didn't seem to happy with her being there he did sit back down on the stairs when she'd asked him to, even though sit was something of a stretch to what he had actually done but she wasn't going to berate him for it even though it could have hurt him more, she was just happy he hadn't tried to walk away from her.

"because i care about you joe." she said simply as he took, snatched, the cloth from her fingers as she held it out to him. it was this attitude he had that made her feel all that much for him. it wasn't sympathy though it was more she felt bad he felt he had to deal with the world this way. that so many things had happened to him that he felt he needed to lash out at the world because it was easier. "dean had a nightmare so i sat with him until he fell back to sleep." she told him, not wanting to say something like it was lucky she was or something along those lines because she didn't think it would be received very well.

she didn't try to hand him the icepack that she also had but she did lean forward carefully to set it down gently on the stairs, not next to him but a little ways away so he hopefully didn't think she was forcing it onto him. it would help though, either on the back of his neck if it was a nose bleed or on the nose itself if he'd smacked it into the stairs like she was guessing he had. but she was also well aware that helping a mccarran man came at the risk of getting your hand bitten off, not so much from dustin, but avery had certainly been as testy as joe had been when he'd came home injured too. it wasn't their fault and she didn't scare easy, her past made sure of that.

Joseph Khair Mccarran

sleepless nights didn't happen very often for hayden but tonight it seemed like she'd get very little. dean was a great sleeper, he had been since the time they'd brought him home from the hospital and she knew she was so lucky for that but occasionally, like all children, he had the odd nightmare and he'd come in tonight to wake her up because of it. it was easy to forget that he was only six sometimes, there was something about her boy that made her think he was one of those old souls. sure he had the energy only a six year old could match but he was also considerate and he thought more than other six year old's she knew and sometimes she thought he was braver than she was most days. but then there was moments that reminded her that he was still a kid and this was one of those moments.

she'd spent the last half an hour sitting in his room with him, stroking his head while he fell back to sleep and she found herself staying there longer than she needed to. he was her first baby but that was going to change in a few months. her and dustin would be bringing home another baby and there was no telling if they were going to take after their brother or whether they were going to be total terrors. but she found herself wishing she had just a little more time with just dean. another child would just expand their love but she would soon need to share herself and that was going to be the hardest part. she finally managed to drag herself away from him, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead before she backed out of him room and closed the door softly.

she was about to go back to bed when she started to feel that all too familiar burning in her throat. she sighed a little as she rested a hand on her bump and she glanced down. "couldn't let me have one night could you." she said softly with a smile as she headed down the stairs towards the kitchen, grabbing a glass from one of the cabinets as she crossed to the fridge to pull out a bottle of ginger ale from the fridge. she stood there in the kitchen, staring out into the darkness through one of the windows, watching the lightly illuminated garden as she sipped her drink. it was then she heard a clatter and she frowned a little, still gripping the glass in her hand. she knew dustin was still in bed, the kids were all asleep because she'd heard them as she'd passed their rooms and she didn't think holly and avery would come down and as far as she was aware heather was fast asleep too. that left one person to check. she held onto the glass as she walked through the lower floor of their home, looking carefully through the dark, though she did flip lights on as she walked through rooms. "joe?" she said softly. "joe is that you?"