A/N: Vivi here! I present to you the second chapter of John's Boys. I had a pretty good turnout for the first chapter, but I'd love to hear from you if you like this fic. It always makes my day when someone guesses where I'm going with the plot, so let me know what you think! No new tags yet, by the way. Enjoy!


Previously on John's Boys:

"Please!" The man sobbed, gasping loudly only to choke on his words for a few seconds. The sudden sign of life took John by surprise; he let up on the pressure for a split second before bearing down again, yielding another strangled sob.

Well this is going to be interesting.


"You're safe, kid. We're patching you up. What's your name?" John said very clearly as he took a pair of gloves from the kit when Sam froze up, stunned by the man's outburst. "Sam, keep pressure on this. Sam."

Sam tore his eyes from the man and looked to his father, who had moved the cloth down to expose one long, ragged tear. Finally realizing what Dad said, Sam shuffled over and pressed hard on the cloth, trying to keep his own bloody palm from mixing with the blood that saturated the towel. The last thing he needed was for their blood to mix and start coagulating in his veins as it reacted to the foreign blood type.

"No, no, please…" The sob trailed off, followed by a weak attempt at a shove against John's leg and an attempt to roll onto his right side.

"Don't do that." Sam blurted out as he took one hand to gently push the man back to the mat before he rolled onto his dislocated shoulder and tore a tendon. Sam couldn't keep as much pressure on the bleed with only one hand. John tried to speed up his preparations.

"Stop, I don't- wan-" The man clutched his hand around Sam's wrist where he was held down. Sam thought maybe he was trying to pull it off, but it was hard to tell. The guy could barely hold his hand there, much less generate any significant force.

That was the first time the man's eyes opened even a little. It was just for a split second, and they couldn't seem to focus on anything as they rolled around, pupils much too small to be normal. "Dad, I think he might have a concussion." Sam realized.

John, always task oriented, finally had a suture kit ready to go and was in the middle of poking a hole in a bag of saline when he spoke. "Wouldn't be surprised. Either the tree or the ground, or both, but two hits would've probably killed him on the spot."

"Leave me a-alone." The man cried, louder than Sam was expecting. He watched as the man tried once again to open his eyes. Still unfocused, and slow to dilate in reaction to the little electric lamp hung at the top of the tent.

Definitely concussed, but at least the pupils moved. Sam thought with a sympathetic grimace.

"Please…" The man's eyes slid shut again and he tensed in response to some great pain, letting out a sickening squeak. Sam turned in time to see his father squirt some of the saline into the man's wounds. Little bits of dirt and wood came tumbling out, along with globs of coagulated blood and everything that came flowing out was stained a deep red.

Anger flared up in Sam's belly, but he knew this was the right thing to do. Still, it pained him to see the guy like this. In so much pain because of his stupid pride. "Can we- can we give him something for the pain?" Sam asked, glancing between the man's graying face and the bag in his father's hand.

"800 milligrams of ibuprofen. Four of those little red circular pills, in the pop foil packets." John continued his task, knowing that the sooner the cuts were cleaned, the sooner he could start suturing, and the sooner the poor guy could sleep tonight off in relative comfort. "Just leave the towel there. The worst of it should have stopped by now."

Sam nodded and hurried around his father to the med kit. "Got 'em." Sam scrubbed most of the blood off of his palms with a gauze pad nabbed from the med kit and pushed the little circles out of their individual bubbles and onto a clean square of gauze. He returned to his position, gently pushing one of the pills at the man's lips. "Hey, dude, these are pain pills. They'll help."

"NO!" The man actually jerked his head to the side and batted Sam's hand away with more force than he'd managed since they found him. The pill in Sam's hand went flying and pinged harmlessly against one of the heated rocks.

"Dude, c'mon." Sam said in frustration. "Pain pills. They're to take the pain away."

"No pills. Don'… don't do nothin' ta me. Le' me 'lone…" The man seemed to lose some of his steam, tugging his arm to rest over his eyes as he continued panting for breath. "Why… dizzy?"

"Dad…?" Sam frowned. He hated not knowing what to do. He hated that his father usually knew exactly what to do and had to tell him how to handle a situation like this. But he knew the guy needed help that he couldn't provide on his own, regardless of whether or not his pride remained intact.

"Crush 'em up. Put the pieces- and make 'em tiny- into one gulp of water. And get his legs elevated." John said as he finished cleaning the second gash, which promptly started bleeding again, like the first. That was fine; well, at least there was less of a risk of infection with no foreign material in the wound, and the blood served to remove any addition pathogens that John had missed. However, the blood loss was getting to be a bit much for his level of training and John was well aware of that, thank you very much.

Sam did as he was told, putting four pills between two blank sheets of paper in his father's journal and using his metal coffee cup to bash them into little chunks. The chunks were brushed into the cup that demolished them and washed with just a swig of water from Sam's water bottle. He swirled the concoction around for a second before presenting it to Dad for approval.

"Good." John set aside the bag of saline, careful to prop it up so I wouldn't spill, and took the cup. "Check if the water's boiling."

Sam glared at his father. "You could just ask. You don't have to boss me around all the time."

"Just do it, Sam. We don't have time for this." John snapped. He pulled the man up some, supporting him with one arm. Then he tilted the man's head back, slowly pouring a few drops into his gasping mouth. As the guy tried to open his eyes again, he swallowed; John saw his chance. He dumped the rest into the guy's mouth and dropped the cup, pinning mystery man's jaw shut while pinching the man's nose to prevent any medicine from leaving him. "Swallow." John said loudly and firmly into the man's ear. He sputtered for a few seconds, trying fruitlessly to twist out of John's grasp, but eventually complied and was immediately released to resume his gasping.

Well, gasping and sobbing.

"Please don' hurt me. 'm sick." The man was full out crying now, cringing away from John as he started back with the saline. The snot was flowing freely now. "I- I don't- won't do that any-any more. I… I…"

The sudden lack of tone in the man's body and his equally as instant change in breathing from deep and panting to shallow and rapid alerted John to the fact that the man was now well into shock.

"You- you just had him in a choke hold. What the hell, Dad?" Sam exclaimed. John hadn't even noticed that Sam didn't leave immediately to go check the water. He'd seen the whole rather violent exchange.

"Water, Sam. And put the packs under his legs to elevate them. Push some more blood to his head." No sense in apologizing for getting the job done.

"No." Sam snapped, anger in the pit of his stomach burning hotter than his hand. "You can't just bark orders at me and expect me to jump at your every call. You could've suffocated the guy. You-"

"You are actively killing this man, Sam." John yelled, stopping the kid in his tracks. "Now is not the time."

Sam left the tent in a cloud of angst as John finished washing out the last cut. It was much easier to do when the patient wasn't moving around much. Then again, John wished he were moving. This fragile stillness was so much worse than the sobbing fit.

"Water was boiling. I took it off." Sam said, defeated, as he returned. The teen shoved both hiking backpacks under the man's legs, lifting them a good eighteen inches off the ground. Inside the tent, the air was now balmy, thanks to the rocks in the corner, and yet the man's skin was still cool and clammy as Sam moved him around.

John started in with the sutures, hunched over and concentrating hard in the dim light. Sam watched, a bundle of teenage hormone-driven emotions, as the lacerations slowly closed up and stopped bleeding. By the time John was done, Sam already had one of their clean washcloths, a clean cup, and the pot of sterilized water ready at his side. Without a word, John took the washcloth and started cleaning the coagulated blood off of the man's skin, using the cup to add water to the cloth so the pot wouldn't be contaminated and the sticky blood wouldn't pull at the sutures. When the sutures and the surrounding areas were clean, he took the liberty to wipe off the guy's face too, with another cloth. Those tear tracks and rivers of snot were bothering the old hunter; this guy was still a kid. Where were his friends? His family? What the hell was he doing up here alone?

Unless he wasn't alone. John thought as his heart dropped into his stomach. Nothing to do about it tonight. No sense in wandering around in the dark.

Father and son then set about methodically wrapping their charge's torso in a thick layer of gauze, followed by an ACE bandage loosely layered on top to protect the delicate fibers beneath. Some pink was returning to the man's skin, which was no longer frigid. Upon taking his pulse, John found it to be much more regular than before, although still somewhat weak.

John then turned to the next most pressing matter: Sam's hand. "How's the hand?" He asked, anticipating but not looking forward to the bitter reaction he would receive for his concern.

"It hurts." Sam said softly, looking away. "But I can deal with it."

That was not what John was expecting. 'Why the hell would you care, Sarge?' 'I fix it myself.' 'It's fine.' All responses John was ready for and could counter easily. But this? No attitude, no defiance, no Sam in his words? "You feelin' okay, son?" John asked, concern heavy in his voice.

"You were right. I almost killed him. Twice." Sam replied with sorrow lacing his tone.

John sighed. Of course Sam would find a way to pin this on himself. John would've kept the guy alive even if Sam went off to sulk in the corner of the tent for the night. Then again, maybe this will teach him to listen the first time when I tell him to do something. "He'll live. Now let's fix that hand before we put his shoulder back in."

"It's not even that bad. It can wait." Sam said, finally looking up at his dad as he hid his hand in his lap. Because that made perfect sense. That wasn't suspicious at all.

John walked around the man to sit at Sam's side. The oldest Winchester took his son's hand and turned it palm up in the light. The kid wouldn't even look at it. Several angry red and yellowish bubbles had popped up on Sam's palm in a diagonal exactly where the smoldering chunk of wood made contact. The skin around the area was bright red and black in places where the embers had fused with his hand. Most of the bleeding from his palm had stopped already, but his fingers were coated in the blood of two people regardless.

"Second degree. You've already got blisters. This, Sam," he paused, holding the hand up a little more. "This is something you should always mention so it can be addressed. Any injury could become a huge problem on a case, especially one that's twenty miles from the car and forty from any chance of emergency care." John said evenly as he pulled out a pad of gauze and dunked it in the sterilized water. "Don't pop these; they'll get infected real easy out here." He set to work carefully removing the blood and blackened ash, and when all that was gone, he wiped the area down with an alcohol pad. Some burn cream was smeared on every red surface and Sam only gasped or cringed a few times during the whole process. Maybe John put more layers of gauze around his son's hand than necessary, but there was something about him having caused the injury that made him sure that it would get infected, sure it would permanently damage his little boy's hand.

"Thanks." Sam mumbled, absently inspecting the work as he settled the appendage back in his lap.

John sighed. He liked when Sam complied; it made everything so much easier. But when he got like this, it made John feel like the bad guy. As if he was entirely to blame for his son's resigned tone, the slumped shoulders, the watery eyes.

It reminded John that, in fact, he was to blame.

For everything.

Not now. John took a deep breath and counted to ten before he was able to look at his hazel eyed, chestnut haired, scrawny little miracle.

"Now we can fix mystery man's shoulder. You feelin' up to helping an old man out?" John asked, trying to put a little humor in his voice.

It worked. Sam sniffed his nose and looked up, nodding slowly.

"Good. I need you to support him when we sit him up so I can put the shoulder back in joint." John quickly and efficiently lowered the man's legs off the packs and got him into a sitting position. Sam wriggled in behind the guy and used his left shoulder and right hand to keep the man from slipping back to the bed mat. It wasn't too hard; the man wasn't heavy and he was still out cold. And still cold. Sam could feel occasional shivers rack the man's body, but they were few and far between. The tent was warmer than it had been their entire trip.

"Hold him steady, and lean him forward a little." John said as he took hold of the man's hand and elbow. Sam did as instructed. "Maintain position." Carefully, John bent the man's elbow- no damage there, good- and swung the limp hand out in front of the guy while keeping the elbow pressed securely to the man's side. Then he slowly pulled the man's hand to the side until he could feel a tortured muscle start to spasm. Backing off just a little to stop the contractions, John held the hand in that position as he started to push gently but firmly on the back of the man's arm, moving the top half forward and guiding the ball of the man's humerus back towards the cup it should sit in. When it would move no further under the gentle pressure he applied, John very slowly moved the hand back to the front position.

A satisfying pop and sudden jerk of the limb upward and into the socket had John smiling. "Alright, son. Lay him down."

The packs were put back under his legs, and John pulled out a couple chemical cold packs to cushion the joint into blissful numbness while the man slept. Sam brought in a few more hot rocks, unprompted, while John did a quick check of the man's legs through his jeans. Nothing more seemed amiss.

Except the fact that there was a half-naked man shivering on a blood soaked bed roll in the middle of the Winchester Family tent.

Looks about Sammy's size. "Sam? You got a jacket or a hoodie or something that he can borrow until we get back to town?"

"Yeah." Sam perked up, diving to dig through his pack carefully without jostling the man's legs too much. He produced a navy blue hoodie and presented it to Dad.

"This one?" John asked, skeptical. "This is the one you bought new last fall. With the money you won from Uncle Bobby and me in a poker game that I'm pretty sure was rigged. It's the warmest thing you've got besides your coat."

"Exactly." Sam smiled, thinking that this was a good way to start to make up for almost killing the guy more than once.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. He can have it, if he needs it." Sam said with a shrug.

John smiled and chuckled softly, reaching up and ruffling Sam's hair before the kid had a chance to duck. "You're a good kid, Sam." Sam scoffed and immediately tried to fix his hair, letting it fall into his face to hide his proud little smirk.

"Let's work that bum arm into the sleeve first and then pull the rest over. Oh, wait-" John reached into his own pack and tugged out the only clean white shirt he had left.

It took a few minutes, but eventually the man was wrestled carefully into the layers and tucked in John's sleeping bag with his legs all wrapped up, resting securely on the backpacks. "Alright, Sammy. Bedtime. For real this time. Did you take your etho yet?"

"I'm not a kid anymore, Dad. You don't have to tell me when to go to bed or when to take my medicine." Sam whined quietly even as he pulled his sleeping bag over himself.

"I know. But I'll always be your father and habits die hard. So are we good?" John asked, looking over the kid shaped lump in the far corner.

"Yeah, I took it before all that happened." Sam said, waving a hand out of his sleeping bag to motion at the man beside him.

"Good. Now get to sleep." John said. "I'll take the night watch."

Sam's eyes, which had been inching further shut with each blink, were suddenly alert. "Night watch?"

"We've got a stranger in our tent and possibly others wandering the forest looking for him. Even if he was alone, I'm not leaving him to rip us off while we're sleeping."

"Dad, he's not even conscious. He's recovering from shock and it can't be easy to move with those tears in his side. And it's not like he's going to wake up any time soon." Sam yawned. He tried, but couldn't stop it from slipping out. "And even if he did, he won't be able to get far before we find him again."

John watched the boy's eyes begin to droop again and he had to smirk. Even trying to be tough and bull-headed like his Daddy, his kid was adorable. Still so innocent, full of light and joy, yet overflowing with spunk and motivation; just the kind of son any father would be proud to have. John wondered every now and then how different he would have turned out if the first year and a half of his life had happened differently, but he only entertained those thoughts for a few seconds at a time while the kid was actually nearby. The nights when he was alone on a case, or Sam was out working on group projects with his classmates or something, those were the only times John let his mind wander back to that dark time in their lives. "I'll see you in the morning, squirt."

"Whatever." Sam rolled over in his sleeping bag, putting his back to his father and the man. He wouldn't admit it, but he was more exhausted than he had been in a long time, and it kind of scared him. Hunting revolved around being alert and observant at all times, and when he got too tired, bad things happened. Dad was usually there to save him, but Sam had more than a few scars to keep it 'usually' and not 'always'. He hated that he couldn't even take care of himself when he was that tired.

But tonight, he didn't need to take care of himself. Tonight, Dad was watching over him and the stranger between them. And Sam felt safer than he had in a long time.


A/N: Hope you enjoyed it! But I won't know unless you tell me. So leave me a review. See you next week!