A/N: Vivi here! Crazy week = evening posting. Don't have wifi at my house right now since we just moved (great timing, right?), but I couldn't keep you guys waiting for two whole weeks. I know that would drive me crazy.

Warnings for mentions of rape and language.

Hope you weren't waiting for this all day long... But now, enjoy!

Previously on John's Boys:

John leaned his son further forward and clapped him on the back a few times, trying to move the mucus out of the way so the kid could breathe. Dean didn't wake up, the wheezing didn't stop, no matter how hard John pounded. "Sam, find a clean shirt for him. We're taking Dean to the hospital."

"Why did I lay him on his stomach? I knew he was having trouble breathing." John growled to himself, pounding a hand on his steering wheel as they flew through the afternoon traffic towards Orem City General.

"What are we gonna tell the doctors?" Sam asked, grunting as he held Dean upright in the backseat during a particularly sharp curve. "They're gonna have questions."

"He- he's your brother, my son, seventeen years old." John swallowed the bile rising in his throat. He's not going to believe me when I actually decide to tell him. Not after this. "He, uh, he ran away a few months ago- the second week in May." He'll say I'm making it up, that he isn't the son I want him to be. "I told him he couldn't get his driver's license until he was eighteen and he didn't like that. We- we live in Orem, on Main." He'll think I'm trying to replace him. "I reported him missing but the police said he'd probably come back on his own after a few days of looking. I found him in an alley last night and didn't know how sick he was." I'll just have to prove to them that both of them matter. Both of them are my top priority. "He told us he fell out of a tree a few days ago- that's where the other injuries are from. You got all that?" John glanced at his boys in the rearview mirror, one looking a little terrified, holding back a cough, and one finally starting to get some color back in his cheeks, even through the strangled breaths. Sam nodded, but looked at Dean with the same anxiety he had earlier. We'll be fine. We've gotta be.

John sighed again, finally pulling into the hospital's parking lot. "You can always be the shy kid, Sam. You don't have to talk to anyone if you don't want to."

"Thanks, Dad." Sam said, voice smaller than it had been in a long while. He let the cough out, finally.

He can't think he's being replaced already, can he? He must not feel well today. John thought as he stopped the Impala in front of the emergency room doors. Waited too long to take his meds. He'll be off for at least a day now. And that cough doesn't sound good. What great timing. "C'mon, Sam." John lifted Dean out of the car and carried him into the lobby, straight to the reception desk. A quick glance behind him made sure that Sam was still there. Then he looked to the teenage girl with a volunteer badge that read Marcie who was staring at Dean with her cheeks going pale. "My son can't breathe."

That was all he had to say to get the volunteer at the desk to rush through a set of sliding doors and disappear down a hallway. Within ten seconds a triage nurse was in the lobby, coaxing John and Sam back into an open room. There they met two RNs and a doctor, ready for action. Dean was set on a flat hospital bed and John was crowded out of arm's reach almost immediately. "Hey-" John pushed his way back to the bedside and pushed a button to raise the head of the bed.

"Sir, we need some room to work." One of the RNs said as she sent him a glare and clapped an oxygen mask over Dean's face.

"He can't breathe when he's laying flat. That's why we're here and not at a clinic." John snapped, raising the head until it was at a forty five degree angle. Then he stepped back and let the professionals work.

It only took five minutes for the doctor, Dr. Conwright, to start prescribing things. Only after John told them their story and signed a few forms, of course. Ten minutes later, Dean had an IV in his good arm, covered by the hospital gown he was wrestled into by a few nurses before the doctor left. Good thing he was out for all that. Kid and his needles… John ran a hand down his face and watched the mask on Dean's face fog up every time he breathed out.

The only time he left the room was to park the car, and Sam came with him, suddenly very clingy. Dean looked exactly the same when they returned three minutes later.

'Walking pneumonia. It's bacterial.' The resident had said after putting her stethoscope back around her neck. They'd only waited… well, John wasn't sure. He hadn't noted the time when they arrived, but it didn't seem like very long. 'It's a pretty bad case, but it's definitely treatable. We'll have to get a sputum sample to figure out what bug it is, but for now we'll start him on a broad spectrum antibiotic. We can always narrow down the drug to the most potent one for whatever he's got going on, but it's best to start the process now even if this isn't the best option for his particular case in the end. We'll get him on some fluids, too. He looks a little dried out. And if he stays like this and doesn't get worse, I see no need for a ventilator. A mask should do just fine until we even out his sats. I'll talk this over with my attending and we can get the ball rolling, okay, Mr. Winchester?'

"Yeah. Sure." John quietly repeated his words from earlier. He glared down at the stack of paperwork on a chair beside him.

"Why are we using our real names?" Sam whispered to him, finally breaking his silence. He wouldn't talk to the nurse who tried to get a story out of him. John said he was shy and a little shaken up after the whole ordeal, which wasn't exactly a lie. Sam fell into a coughing fit which John didn't think was faked. The nurse just sent him a pitiful smile and wished he and his brother the best before leaving.

"I have a feeling we'll be here for a while; long enough for someone to figure out we're pulling insurance fraud." John answered quietly, glancing at the curtain that separated the room from the hallway. Apparently this ER left all the big, glass doors to their bays open and just sectioned them off with curtains. Probably easier for emergency access, but still annoying. "I'm just using the policy that we get your meds through, son."

"The real one?" Sam asked, eyes narrowing. We never use the real one. I don't even have a copy of the insurance card for that one.

"Yeah. I pay good money for it, so why not use it for something other than meds once in a while?" John shrugged. Sam didn't need to know that his father had himself and both his sons on the policy. The hope of Dean coming home never left John. As if putting him on every new real insurance policy they bought meant he would come back. Leaving him off just felt wrong to John. Like the kid wouldn't need medical care when he came home. Because John always knew he would see his son again. He had to come back. John would find his little boy.

And he had.

And now that policy was coming in mighty handy. Even if the paperwork was a nightmare.

"Oh. Okay."

"We outta get your burn checked out while we're here." John said, eyeing the bandage on his youngest son's hand. "See if it's healing well."

"It's fine."

John rolled his eyes. "Just don't fight the doctor, Sam."

"Whatever."

"They'll probably ask you some questions when they find the rest of his injuries. You can be shy, or deny you knew about them, or tell them anything that fits with our story." John started leafing through the forms, filling in the sections he knew by heart. Dean's social, his full name, birthday, allergies- at least the old ones-, blood type, family history, etc. etc. "You'll be fine any way you want to go. Just fill me in as soon as you can if you tell them something new." John paused at a section of the intake papers that had a big open box for other things that should be considered besides the reason they were here. Not while Sam's around.

"Okay. I can talk." Sam said, watching with something between confusion and concern as his father filled in Dean's forms as if he knew all the right information by heart. Sam figured he was probably just making stuff up, stuff that would sound right. Maybe he didn't think Dean would be in here long enough for the staff to find out about the incorrect information.

Sam's reserved manner had John a little more on edge than he had been when the nurses finally left. This wasn't the Sam he knew. "You doin' okay, kiddo?" John asked, nudging Sam's shoulder with his arm. "I know this isn't how you wanted to spend your afternoon; I know how much you hate hospitals. Just bear with me, at least until they say he's stable. I can run you back to the motel afterwards if you want me to. You get enough for lunch?"

"I'm fine." Sam said, returning to the string he found earlier on his jeans.

Red flag. "What's wrong? Meds got you feelin' off today? Didn't sleep well?"

"I'm… I'm just nervous. What if we can't take care of him?" Sam asked, his voice so soft that John almost didn't hear him over the hustle and bustle outside the curtain divider. Sam almost wished he hadn't. Admitting that he wasn't feeling 100% confident in his father's decision was like admitting that he was a whiny, scared little kid. And the fact that he kept coughing didn't help him feel better about that fact. "I don't want him to hurt anymore. It looks really bad, Dad, like he's dying. How are we supposed to help him?"

"First of all, he'll be my responsibility. You don't have to do anything if you don't want to. You're still a kid; I'm not going to take that from you any sooner than I have to. Second, he'll stay here until he's well enough to come back with us. We can handle it from then on." John hoped that spinning it like he would do most of the work but also let Sam help if he wanted to would ease the kid's obviously troubled mind. "It won't be so different from how we normally do things. He'll need help caring for his wounds, of course. We know all about that, don't we? He'll need to eat healthy food, and a lot of it, so much less pizza from now on." John smirked at his pizza-loving son, who pouted before he could stop himself. "Kid looks about ready to blow away, but he needs good weight, not bad weight. And we can't buy as many M&Ms anymore." John glanced down at Sam, who was starting to look less worried, despite John's unmistakable teasing. "And he probably won't need any medicines other than an antibiotic and painkillers, and that's only temporary. Nothing we can't handle, right, Sam?" John asked, analyzing the nervous thirteen year old beside him.

"I guess. When you say it like that, it doesn't sound so bad." Sam shrugged, but looked a little more confident. John loved that he could have that effect on his kid.

"Exactly."

"It'll be kinda like having a brother, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, like having a big brother." John said as evenly as he could, returning with desperate concentration to the forms on his lap. Don't ruin it. Don't tell him, he can't know until we're sure Dean's going to pull through. And then… maybe not for a while afterward. Not until we're sure Dean's going to stay.

"I always wanted a big brother."

Sam, please. Just stop talking. John begged in his head. You're not ready to hear this yet. I'm… I'm not ready for you to hear it yet.

"Room 209?" John asked, just to confirm what the nurse told him. "Why can't we just go with him?"

"The patient elevators aren't very big as it is, Mr. Winchester. You'll be there before he is, anyway. Room 209." The nurse, whose name tag read Trevor, seemed to think that was the end of the conversation. He walked away, leaving John and Sam in the hall outside Dean's room while the staff got ready to transport him to a regular room.

"C'mon, Dad. Let's just go." Sam said, looking down the hall towards the elevators and stairwell. "He'll be okay with all the staff people helping him." When John didn't budge, Sam stepped closer and leaned in so he wouldn't have to speak as loud. "We gotta check the room first, remember?"

"I know." John said, crossing his arms nervously. It would be just his luck to have Dean pop back to life without him around and spout off some story that didn't match theirs. Or try to fight the nurses when he couldn't ground to someone familiar.

"Then why aren't we going? They're almost done in there." Sam tugged lightly at John's elbow with his newly bandaged hand. A nurse stopped by to check on Dean and John convinced her to do a quick eval on Sam's burn. She seemed to think it was healing well. Sam still winced when anything brushed his palm. "All of them are cleared, we made sure. Dad, what if there's something pretending to be a nurse or a doctor up there? It could hurt Dean even worse. It could get us."

"Just stay close, Sam. You'll be okay." John said quietly, nodding as the transport staff started to move the hospital bed. "Time to go."

"Finally."

They beat Dean to the second floor and did a preliminary sweep of the area, coughing 'Christo' every so often to see if anyone flinched. All seemed perfectly normal. Dean's room, room 209, was spotless and free of any weird stuff. No hex bags, no sigils, no spellwork. "Cleared." John declared. He and Sam leaned against the wall outside the room, monitoring it for any intruders while also keeping an eye out for Dean. They didn't have to wait long.

It was only a few minutes before he was settled in, snoring like a bear, probably high off his ass with pain meds. This room was smaller than the bay down in the ER, but it had a window and an actual door that was actually being put to good use.

Sam claimed his chair for their stay; it was somewhat padded, but still stiff and rigidly straight. John sat himself on the window bench, which was not padded, but had a pretty nice view. He could see the street, the parking lot, some of the surrounding buildings, and even a tiny corner of the city park. Maybe he could take Sam there at some point to stretch their legs. He knew the kid would go stir crazy eventually, because John had no intention of going any further than the park… or maybe the parking lot. He'd have to think about it.

The knock at the door had John returning from his thoughts in an instant. Doctors didn't wait for permission before barging into a room, but they did have the decency to knock a split second before they did so. "Mr…" The doctor looked down at her file for a moment. "Winchester? Dean Winchester?"

"That's him." John said, nodding to his son on the bed. He stood and put himself between Dean and the door.

"I'm Dr. Conwright, Internist with a concentration in Peds. I don't believe we've properly met. You probably saw my resident, Emily." Dr. Conwright closed the door behind her and went to shake John's hand, then Sam's so he wouldn't feel marginalized. Maureen Conwright knew enough about pediatric medicine to understand that even though a family member is the one admitted to the hospital, the child or sibling would be hurting too. They usually felt better when they thought they were being included in their loved one's healing.

Sam smiled a little before shyly looking away and moving to stand beside Dean, near the head of the bed.

"John Winchester. This is my youngest, Sam, and Dean is my oldest." John said, standing with the woman at the foot of Dean's bed.

"Nice to meet you. Mind if I do a couple tests and check a couple boxes?"

It took her twenty minutes to 'check her boxes'; she would do something and then literally check a box on some random sheet of paperwork from her file. "Looks like he's stable for the time being. I'll be back in a few hours, but the nurses will be stopping in more often to monitor things. Just press that big red button there if you need them." She pointed to a little remote-looking thing that was attached to the wall and set on a nightstand beside the hospital bed. It, in fact, had a large red button on it. "Any questions?"

"Yeah." John frowned. It certainly wasn't a kid friendly question. "Uh, Sam? Just stay here for a minute. We'll be right in the hall."

"O-okay." Sam stammered, somewhat nervous about being left alone in a strange place. He was nervous about Dean too; no matter how much he wanted to believe that Dean wouldn't hurt him, Sam really wasn't sure. As long as he'd known Dean, the guy had been violent when he didn't know where he was. And Sam had a feeling that he wouldn't know where he was when he woke up again. Please be quick, Dad.

John and Dr. Conwright stepped into the hall and closed the door behind them. "Not kid appropriate?" She asked. This wasn't the first time a parent had done something like this and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

"Uh, no. Not for a kid Sam's age, at least." John said quietly, scanning the area. There were four nurses on duty, one of which was behind a big desk. The other three were buzzing around the ward, working away.

"What can I help you with, Mr. Winchester?"

John swallowed hard against the lump in this throat before turning toward the doc. As much as he never wanted to face something like this, as much as he hoped and prayed it would never happen to his little boy, he knew it already had. From the way his son acted while not fully conscious. From the things he said during those brief intervals. The way he tried to run from them in the motel room, only to fall and hurt himself. The way he tried to 'save' Sam during that same event. How he had a meltdown when he realized someone had removed his clothes and was holding him still. His reactions to seemingly benign things John said like 'lift your shirt' or 'come here'. The split seconds of terror when Dean looked up at John or when anyone touched him.

John knew his son wasn't okay, but in the worst way imaginable. "M-my son… he was gone for a long time. You got what we told the resident, right?"

"Yes, sir. I understand he ran away some months ago over a family argument."

"Yeah." Not even close. "I don't exactly know what happened while he wasn't with us, but I've already got a pretty good picture."

"Okay."

John paused, searching for words that wouldn't come. "I- He maybe have gotten himself into trouble. Or it may have been the other way around. He didn't have any means to support himself when he left; I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think he did something dangerous to get the money to live on his own. Either that or he was…" John couldn't help but close his eyes against the terrible image. "Taken."

Dr. Conwright did nothing more than wait for John to continue.

"I know he has pneumonia. I don't know how he got it, but he does. I know he fell out of a tree and got pretty messed up from that. But he's jumpy and violent when he's waking up and for a while afterwards. He's nervous and uneasy all the time. That kind of behavior doesn't come from any sickness or isolated physical trauma that I know of." John paused, hoping the doctor would connect the dots so he didn't have to say it outright. She just kept listening patiently.

John ran his hand through his hair and looked away, taking a deep breath.

"I know this is hard for you, John." Dr. Conwright said quietly. "But you need to say it. I can't assume things in my profession."

"I think he was sexually assaulted." John blurted out, crossing his arms uncomfortably. "If not raped. That, or he sold himself to survive."

"Have you talked to him about this at all?"

"No. Kid barely says two words anymore without flinching. He doesn't trust us again quite yet." John looked to the doctor like she had all the answers.

Unfortunately, she did not. "It's very possible, Mr. Winchester, that something happened to your son. I can't say anything for sure at this time, but I'll put your suspicions into his chart, for medical staff use only."

John nodded, stuffing his emotion back into the abyss he kept it in. "Is there any way I could get you- or someone- to test him? For STDs, or trauma?" His needs come first. You can't break down until he's safe and healthy again. They need you.

"Of course." Dr. Conwright nodded, jotting something down on the file in her arm. "I'll come by in an hour or so to draw blood, swab his mouth, and do a quick exam. I'd send the resident, but Emily is a bit of a bleeding heart. She was sobbing after a case of psychological child abuse the other day. I'm trying to go easy on her for a while. Anything else, John?"

"Don't mention it to Sammy. Please. He'd be devastated." John said quietly.

"I understand. I'll get these orders in and we can move forward, okay?"

"Okay." If only…

An hour and twenty minutes later, Dr. Conwright came back and hustled Sam and John out of the room. A nurse went with her, holding a small red bin with a biohazard label on it. They didn't take more than five minutes.

"Please get those to the lab as quickly as possible, Rhonda." Dr. Conwright said as the nurse power walked down the hall. "You can come back in." She smiled at Sam and motioned for John to stay back a little. "No major trauma, no visible STD."

John nodded, but couldn't bring himself to smile.

This was his fault. It was all his fault.

A/N: Poor Dean-o. Sorry if this chapter was discombobulated. I had to add it in really quick so it was written quick. I meant to put it in when I wrote the bulk of this chapter, but I totally forgot. Kind of a big point to forget, right? Leave me some words. See you next week!