Apr 23, 2025
FBI International 4x19 Flinch Now and It's Over
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FBI International 4x19 Flinch Now and It's Over
Day 16: I've Had The Rug Pulled Beneath My Feet
Tag to Whumpril 2025 Day 11 - Grounding - Dean's unexpected reappearance causes a nightmare for Wes but his dad makes it all better.
Read on Ao3 or below the cut.
He’s in the middle of a math test when the office aide sticks her head in the door.
“I need Wesley Martin, Mrs. Livingston.” She says.
His heart rate accelerates.
The last time he’d been summoned to the office it was because his dad had been shot at work.
He’d survived but the experience had been a rude awakening.
That even though he’d finally found a father figure who wouldn’t toss him out with the trash, he could still end up alone.
He shakes his head.
His dad is fine.
He stands up slowly.
“They said to bring your things.” The aide says and he shakily collects his books, throwing his bag over his shoulder, and walks toward the door.
They reach the office and he freezes outside the door.
That’s not his dad.
Or Grant.
Or Leyla.
Those are the only three people who are supposed to be able to pick him up.
Dean isn’t supposed to be within a hundred meters of him.
“He… he’s not supposed to be here.” He stammers, reaching for his phone.
His dad answers on the third ring.
“Dean is at the school.” He says shakily.
“He’s there to pick you up.” His dad says, sounding pained. “The judge restored custody.”
“W- what?” He stammers.
“I wish I could be there, Wes.” His dad says. “But I can’t. The judge also granted a restraining order. I can’t come near you.”
“Dad.” He says, eyes filling with tears.
“I’m not your dad anymore, kid.” The man says. “I’ll always love you but I can’t… I can’t be that for you.”
The call ends.
The door to the office opens and Dean steps out.
“When I call you, I expect you to come faster than this.” He says coldly. “Or you’ll pay the consequences.”
Wes glances to the office aide.
Is she hearing this?
But she steps past him, returning to her desk inside the office.
Dean grabs his arm, dragging him down the hall.
“Let’s go boy.” He says. “You and I need to have a serious conversation.”
He pulls back but only trips over his own feet, falling hard to the ground.
Hits the carpet with a thud and jerks upright.
The moon is shining through the window, illuminating the green comforter that he’d finally let his dad convince him to pick out.
Just a dream.
He drops back to lie on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.
The door creaks open.
“You okay, kiddo?” His dad asks quietly.
“Did I wake you?” He answers.
“Kind of been lying awake.” His dad admits, dropping to the floor to sit next to him. “Figured after today there’d be a good chance you’d have a nightmare.”
Wes huffs a humorless laugh.
He wonders what had tipped him off.
The fact that he’d spent most of the evening in a dissociative state?
Or the fact that he’d barely managed a few bites of dinner?
“I’m sorry.” He whispers.
“What for?” His dad asks.
“I’m seventeen years old.” He says, tilting his head toward him. “I shouldn’t still be that scared of him.”
“Wes.” His dad says, reaching for his hand. “He broke your jaw when you were seven years old. I think you’re allowed to be scared of him.”
“I’m not a little kid anymore.” Wes protests, not unaware that he sounds like a little kid.
“He’s still twice your size.” His dad reminds him. “And its hard to overcome the effect of childhood trauma.”
“So I’m just going to be afraid of him for the rest of my life?” he whines.
“Probably, yeah.” his dad says bluntly. “But we can help control the way that you react to him.”
“Yeah?” Wes asks.
“Sure.” his dad promises. “We’ll work on some hand to hand stuff specifically targetted toward helping you with someone who’s taller and bulkier than you. I think knowing that you have the tools in your kit to fight him off if you need him will help. And I bet your therapist has some stuff she can work through with you, give you some coping mechanisms to curtail that panic response.”
Wes grimaces.
He’s starting to open up more to the idea of therapy but that doesn’t mean that he enjoys it.
Still, if it helps him not completely freeze up the next time he comes face to face with Dean….
And he will.
He knows the man better than anyone.
He’s angry that a judge had taken away his favorite plaything.
He’s going to violate the restraining order again.
It’s only a matter of time.
And it won’t be long because – much to his dad’s annoyance – the officers from today had chosen to only issue a warning for the violation.
He’ll get arrested next time but today he’d walked off scot free.
Thoughts of the restraining order remind him of his nightmare.
“Hey dad?” he says quietly.
“Yeah kiddo?”
“You would never let him get custody back, right?” he says, definitely feeling like a little kid now.
His dad tilts his head, studying him for a moment.
“You know that story you told me about when you were boosting cars and you almost got caught by that violent asshole?” he asks after a moment.
“Yeah…” Wes says, not sure what this has to do with his question.
“You got away by throwing dirt in his eyes.” his dad continues. “Told me that you don’t usually like fighting dirty but that you learned because you were always at a disadvantage and you never regretted doing it that night.”
An inkling of where he’s going with this sparks but Wes just nods.
“If Dean ever got the chance to sue for custody again I would pull out every dirty trick in the book.” his dad tells him. “I would call in favors from every friend I have in the department, in DCFS, in the court systems, every lawyer I know and I would not stop until I got a judge to rule in my favor.”
Wes cracks a small smile.
“And if in some loony tunes universe a judge actually ruled against me after all of that.” his dad says. “I would take you and make a run for Mexico before I let them hand you over to that asshole.”
“You promise?” he whispers.
“Bud, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me.” his dad promises. “There is no way I am letting someone take you away from me. Especially not that piece of shit.”
He finally sits up, leaning against the bed next to his dad who throws an arm around his shoulders.
“That bastard had the chance to be your dad.” his dad adds. “And he wasted it. I’m not doing that. You’re my son and I love you.”
He leans in.
“I love you too, dad.”
They sit there for a long time, just enjoying being together even this late at night, and then his dad pulls his arm free and gently nudges him.
“Alright.” he says quietly. “Time for bed, kiddo. You think you can sleep or do you want me to read to you for a bit?”
He’s pretty tired.
There’s nothing quite so exhausting as a panic attack followed by a lengthy dissociation episode.
And despite the buzz from the nightmare, he’s actually feeling pretty settled after their conversation.
But he really does enjoy it when his dad reads to him.
“Just one chapter?” he asks, ducking his head.
His dad has to work in the morning and he’s already stayed up pretty late.
“You got it.” the man says, pressing a kiss to the top of his head and then helping him up.
Not for the first time, he’s asleep before the end of the chapter.
@whumptober @whumptober-archive @itsdesiree86
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Wes just learned his half-sister existed and now she’s in Budapest, courtesy of Dean Bartlett and his manipulative ways. Now Wes must decide how to handle a complex family situation that interrupts his hunt for a serial killer… and when his two worlds collide, the Fly Team must race to stop a tragedy before it's too late. An alternate version of 4x22, “Gaijin.”
Because @cajun-fangirl and I miss FBI: International and wanted to see the show dive deeper into the situation with Wes's family
An alternate version of the finale episode "Gaijin," which assumes Dean left Budapest after meeting with Wes and telling him about his half-sister and that Ty is still around to help with the ongoing case
Dean Bartlett
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Dean Bartlett
Wes Mitchell cut ties with his biological father, Dean Bartlett, years ago but that still can't seem to stop him from paying the price for the man's mistakes.
Read on Ao3 or below the cut.
Harris steps into the room, pulling the door closed behind him.
“Bartlett wandered off already.” he scoffs, shaking his head. “Should have known.”
“He does that.” Wes says stiffly, shifting his weight.
The ropes around his wrists leave his hands out of the equation for the moment but as the scrawny kid who was often the target of bullies he’d learned early on to use his legs to his advantage.
Though his compromised core strength won’t make that easy right now.
“Yes.” Harris agrees. “The man is certainly a coward. How his son ended up as an FBI agent, we’ll never know.”
So they’ve figured out who he is.
“DNA was about the extent of his contribution to anything about me.” Wes says.
“And yet for his little girl, he stole over a million dollars from one of the most dangerous men on the west coast.” Harris taunts.
There’s no time to entertain his inner hurt little boy.
“More concern for sure.” he agrees. “But not exactly more helpful. How about we just agree the man’s a waste of space and none of us like him much?”
Harris smirks.
“An easy agreement.” he says. “But unfortunately, Patrick won’t be satisfied with that. He wants his money back.”
“Not sure Dean will ever be able to pay back the auto loan he managed to get approved when I was five, much less a million dollars.” Wes says.
“Perhaps not.” Harris says, stepping toward the bed. “Fortunately, a pretty girl like her can make a man a lot of money.”
“Not while she’s recovering from surgery.” Wes cautions. “And taking care of her for the next two months seems a little out of your wheelhouse. Why not take a step back, let her mom nurse her back to health and then you can swing back around when she’s back on her feet?”
When Wes is back on his feet to protect her.
“And give you a chance to move her into protective custody, I’m sure.” Harris scoffs. “I may be muscle rather than brains but I’m not an idiot.”
Wes takes a deep breath.
Here goes nothing.
“Really?” he says. “Cause all the reports say you’re an inbred moron. Isn’t your mom also your sister?”
It works.
Harris turns away from the bed, stepping toward him with a snarl.
“You’re no use to Patrick.” he says. “Any money your connections could make us is outweighed by the risk of trusting a snake such as yourself. But I will enjoy leaving your eviscerated corpse on the floor for your father to see when he returns.”
“Yeah.” Wes chuckles. “I bet you will.”
He subtly tenses the muscles in his left leg, getting ready to throw something while hopefully not telegraphing his plans too much.
A fist flies toward his face and he rams his knee up, catching Harris’s wrist and redirecting it.
The fist slams into the wall instead, shattering drywall just above the eyebolt his wrists are secured to.
Well that worked better than he’d even hoped for.
A hard yank and it comes free, swinging out to rake across the left side of Harris’s face.
He follows it up with a headbutt that knocks him on his ass.
And then he scrambles to his feet.
He can feel the adrenaline pumping, knows that he’ll regret this later, but right now later doesn’t mater.
All that matters is right now.
That this piece of shit doesn’t get the chance to hurt Delila.
Harris stumbles to his feet, one hand pressed against the side of his face where blood is running freely from a gash left by the eyebolt.
“A tough guy, huh?” he growls. “That just makes this more fun.”
Wes has to play this smart.
Harris has at least three inches and potentially as much as a hundred pounds on him.
Even at his best, he would be at a significant disadvantage in this fight.
He’s not at his best.
Adrenaline is keeping the pain at bay, erasing most of his fatigue but even it can only do so much.
He needs a weapon.
Mentally apologizing to his sister, he reaches out to grab her IV stand.
A quick flick dislodges the IV bag and then he’s swinging it around, catching Harris across the throat as the man charges him.
Harris drops to his knees, gasping for breath with his hands coming up to clutch his throat and Wes drives the advantage, ramming an elbow into the side of his temple.
The blow stuns Harris but Wes pays for it as he crashes to the ground himself, twisting to land on his left side.
He springs up, using the ropes still binding his wrists to his advantage as he presses them across his opponent’s throat.
Hooks his left leg around Harris’s waist, pressing their bodies together to block the man from throwing any cheap shots at his vulnerable abdomen.
Braces his hands against the back of Harris’s head to pull the rope into a tight chokehold.
Harris struggles angrily against him, arms flailing wildly as he tries to punch at any part of Wes that he can reach to force him to release his hold but Wes ignores it, focusing on getting his slower moving right leg into place to help pin the man’s legs.
If he can just maintain pressure a little longer, Harris will black out.
Maybe Dean will come back or maybe Delila can move well enough to grab the gun Wes can feel stuffed into the back of his waistband.
Maybe the size of him combined with the lack of funds to take Delila to another hospital will be enough to convince Dean to let the FBI help him keep his family safe.
Just as Harris finally falls still, the door swings open behind him and Wes twists to look back.
Tries to decide what to say depending on if it’s Dean or one of the nurses.
Hopes it isn’t another member of the Brotherhood.
It’s Cam and Andre, weapons drawn and he sags in relief.
“You okay?” Andre says, stepping toward them. “Let’s get him off of you. That looks painful.”
“Yeah.” he breathes. “S’gotta be his gun. Don’t think he’s very happy to see me.”
Then he promptly blacks out.
@itsdesiree86
Wes Mitchell cut ties with his biological father, Dean Bartlett, years ago but that still can't seem to stop him from paying the price for the man's mistakes.
Chapter 11 is now up!
Read on Ao3 or below the cut.
Whoever is stabbing a hot poker into his stomach can go ahead and stop doing so any time now.
He has finally stopped blacking out from the pain which has the unfortunate side effect of his being awake to feel the pain.
To say nothing of the nausea and chills.
His face and stomach feel warm, heat radiating off of them, but the rest of him is freezing.
Which leaves no room for doubt that he’s developing an infection at the surgical site, complete with a mounting fever, but he can’t speak to tell anyone even if he thought there was someone who might listen.
A doctor comes in every hour or so to check on Delila, who has slept off and on since they arrived here.
Her vitals are holding steady and he can’t see any indications from his spot on the floor that she’s at risk of an infection.
Wonders if there are antibiotics in her IV line to thank for that or if it’s just that nobody has made her walk around while carrying a hundred and twenty pounds since her surgery.
Tries not to feel jealous.
Dean has never given a single shit about him.
Why does seeing him prove that he’s capable of being a caring parent, of showing concern and tenderness to his offspring- that he’d simply chosen to never offer that to his firstborn, make Wes feel even worse about it?
He has a dad.
A great dad who he loves very much.
Who earned a title that Wes never used to refer to Dean Bartlett.
He doesn’t need the asshole who can only lay claim to being the man who donated the sperm for Wes’s conception to care about him.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to change the fact that it hurts.
Hurts to watch Dean sit next to Delila’s bed, holding the water cup so she can drink during the rare periods that she’s awake and brushing her hair tenderly away from her face, when he can hardly be bothered to even look at Wes.
When it doesn’t seem to bother him that his son is suffering complications from the surgery that he’d forced him to have.
Or more accurately from the actions that he’d forced Wes to take afterward despite his body not being ready for any of it.
That Wes is still bleeding from stitches that had popped while he was carrying Delila out to the car.
What he’d at first taken as a sign that the bleeding had stopped wasn’t that at all.
It turns out that after Dean had dropped his lifeless body on the floor, tying his hands as if it was necessary to ensure that he didn’t run away, someone had at least taken a few moment to tape several gauze pads over his re-opened incision.
Which had been enough to keep the blood from soaking any further into the hospital gown for the first few hours that he’d lain here.
Had made for a rather rude awakening when those gauze pads had been saturated and fresh blood had started to appear through the thin fabric.
He’s not dealing with a gushing bleed by any nature but whatever damage he’d caused by carrying Delila, likely a failure of the cauterization of one of the vessels that had been disconnected from the kidney, it’s not something that’s going to stop on it’s own.
He needs to have that redone, the stitches in the layers of skin and muscle that had been cut through to get to it replaced and then a course of heavy duty antibiotics.
All of that followed by a lengthy period of absolute bed rest to allow his body to recover. Preferably while his dad dotes on him and tells him how worried he was.
Instead he gets this hard patch of floor, IV fluids that nobody had bothered to replace after the bag ran empty, no blanket and a wad of gauze taped to his skin.
Completely ignored by his asshole sperm donor.
And as much as he’s relieved that nobody is asking him to get up and walk around at the moment, he desperately needs to pee.
Which at least means that his remaining kidney is functioning in some capacity.
As encouraging as that is, it doesn’t do much for the burning ache in his bladder.
He kicks the wall.
It’s not very loud with his socked feet but after a few thuds, Dean finally looks over.
“What’s your problem, brat?” he growls.
No surprises there. Wes needing to pee has been a major inconvenience to the man since he was potty trained and could no longer be expected to just do his business any place, at any time and have his mom change him later.
He glares back at him, nodding to his body.
“I’ll have the doc get you some more gauze the next time he comes in.” Dean says dismissively.
Wes shakes his head, shouting into the gag.
Dean rolls his eyes but stalks over, ripping the tape away from his mouth.
“Keep your voice down.” he snarls. “What?”
“Need to pee.” Wes growls back. “Coulda avoided this if you’d left the catheter.”
“Oh shut it.” Dean says. “I’ll get the doc. Suggest you hold it til he gets here.”
He doesn’t replace the tape and Wes lets his head drop back, deciding to take the win.
To no surprise, the doctor elects to place a new catheter line rather than bringing a bed pan or trying to get Wes off the floor.
He glances over at Dean as he finishes.
“He’s got an infection.” he says flatly. “Suggest antibiotics plus a repair of the damage you caused making him carry the girl. Sooner rather than later.”
“I don’t have any more money for you.” Dean dismisses.
“I’m sure you don’t.” the man says, rolling his eyes. “Still, I’d rather not have him die on the floor of my clinic. I’ll give you a two for one special.”
“Fine by me.” Dean says.
“I’ll return with a kit.” the doctor says, standing up.
When he returns, it only takes a few minutes to numb up his side and repair the broken stitches.
Another bag of fluids is connected to his IV and a second bag, likely containing the antibiotics, is connected.
“I’d suggest you find another way to keep him quiet.” the doctor tells Dean. “S’already green about the gills. The antibiotics won’t help.”
Dean sighs but nods and the doctor disappears through the door.
“You keep your trap shut.” Dean growls. “Try anything and I’ll gag you again anyway, leave you to choke on your own vomit.”
Wes nods slowly, resting his head back on the floor.
Somehow he doubts repairing the stitches and a basic antibiotic will be enough to keep him alive but the doctor has at least bought him some time.
He just has to use it to make sure that his team gets here before the Aryans.
Wes Mitchell cut ties with his biological father, Dean Bartlett, years ago but that still can't seem to stop him from paying the price for the man's mistakes.
Chapter 6 is up!
Read on Ao3 here or below the cut.
He’s trying to sleep when the door swings open.
Footsteps that he still recognizes, even after all these years tracking their way into the room.
“Did he try it?” Dean asks, his tone filled with amusement.
“Yeah.” Delila scoffs. “Said you weren’t going to do this right, that a real hospital would be better for me.”
“That’s Wes.” Dean scoffs. “Always assuming the worst of his old man. You’re my girl, Del, you know I hate having to do things this way. I don’t love not having a real hospital for this but I promise you, this is going to be done completely sterile and nothing is going to happen to you or your brother.”
“I know.” Delila says. “You always take care of me. I trust you, dad.”
“Appreciate that, Del.” Dean says, kissing her forehead.
Wes mentally rolls his eyes.
He hasn’t opened them yet but that never stopped Dean from knowing that he was still awake.
Apparently that was the only parental instinct the man had ever developed.
This is an act, being put on for his benefit as much as Delila’s.
Rubbing in that she trusts Dean, that it will take more time than he has to try to earn her trust.
Even if he gets another chance to try to talk to her.
They’re running out of time for that anyway.
The bloodwork, biopsies, scans and everything have been completed and they’re just waiting for the results to come back so that some quack fake surgeon can decide if his kidneys are good enough to save Delila.
Normally, they would be deciding about both of his kidneys, making sure that both are healthy enough that the one they’ll be leaving him with will keep him going but he kind of thinks they don’t much care about that.
At least not enough that it will affect the decision if the answer is no.
Honestly, the only reason they’ve run tests beyond compatibility is because they don’t want to waste time getting Delila prepped for surgery – possibly making incisions depending on the process – only to find out that his kidneys aren’t any better than Dean’s.
Capable of keeping him functioning while working together but not healthy enough for only one of them to sustain a sixteen year old girl, much less after the shock of a transplant.
Though, if Delila’s kidneys are shot enough to be taking down her heart then it’s possible that even one of Dean’s kidneys would at least be enough to buy her some time.
And Wes doesn’t drink enough for it to cause the kinds of problems that have surfaced with Dean’s kidneys.
The doctor is going to sign off on going forward with the transplant.
And he has hours, if he’s lucky.
Dean steps into the hallway, answering his phone.
“What’s the word, Doc?” he asks.
“Your donor is in impeccable health.” Dr. Evans tells him. “I was already optimistic from the medical history that you provided but from the biopsies and the scans that were sent over show incredibly healthy kidneys. If Delila follows post transplant monitoring and medication regiments carefully afterwards, I think these will easily give her on the upper range of what we see from living transplants.”
“That’s what… twenty years?” Dean asks.
“That’s typically the longest that we see, yes.” the doctor confirms. “But that’s twenty years in which technology may be discovered that extends the life of the transplant, allows for less exact matches to work out, or even artificial organ replacements.”
He’s not about to count on that but it will at least buy him twenty more years – plus whatever else they can buy with dialysis when her body starts rejecting Wes’s kidney – to figure something else out.
Maybe he can find a doctor who will sign off on taking his son’s other kidney when the time comes.
“Okay.” he agrees. “Twenty years sounds like a good start to me. So you’re, you’re green lighting the procedure then?”
“I am.” Evans agrees. “I’ll send the alert to my teams. I’ll send you the location of the operating theaters and you can start arranging transport.”
“I’ll send the alert to the ambulance company.” he says, letting out a breath. “Will me drugging the donor prior to transport mess things up?”
“We’ll have to wait for it to fully clear his system.” Evans says. “Do something fast acting. We’ll get all of the rest of the prep work done while we wait it out.”
“I might have to drug him again to transfer him from the stretcher.” he cautions.
“Just bring the stretcher in.” Evans counters. “We’ll prep him there and then put him under and re-sterilize before we start the procedure.”
“Okay.” Dean agrees. “Okay, that works.”
“Make your calls.” Evans says. “I’ll get you a location by the time he’s loaded.”
He ends the call, selecting a different contact and stepping back into the room.
The ambulance company takes less than thirty seconds to arrange a pickup and then he’s crossing over to his daughter’s bedside.
“Hey sweetheart.” he tells her. “We’re good to go, alright? Our rides on the way.”
“It’s happening?” she asks, eyes bright.
“Yeah, sweet girl.” he promises. “It’s happening. I only have the one ambulance, can’t be separated from him in case he tries something. Can you sit in the jump seat?”
“I’ll be okay.” she says, eyes filling with tears. “I’ll be okay.”
“Good.” he says. “I’ll grab your O2. You okay without your fluids for a little while?”
She nods shakily and he stops the flow of her IV before disconnecting the line.”
The paramedics from the private company arrive and he injects the sedative into Wes’s line, watching his eyes flicker for a moment before stepping back as they get him transferred.
Carries the oxygen tank on his back as he helps Delila down the stairs.
Watches as the stretcher is loaded into the ambulance and then helps his girl up and into her seat, sitting down next to her.
None of them notice the grey sedan idling on the street while the driver watches them.
@itsdesiree86