"Dean are you still there?" Castiel's voice was tilting away from fear into the realm of frustration and irritation again.
There was a long pregnant pause before Dean responded.
"What?"
He recognized the noises in the background of the call now. A tinny intercom with someone repeating a doctor's name in a cool casual tone, distant the ringing of phones, a crying baby...the sounds of a busy emergency room.
"Jack he…" Castiel took a shaky breath trying to center himself, "we… we went back to our hotel after… what happened at the cemetery."
He seemed finally balance himself on the rock that was being annoyed with Dean. Dean was too damn tired to care.
Castiel rambled "Jack said he was tired and had a headache so I gave him some Advil and let him sleep. I thought he was fine, upset…" he jabbed the word at Dean, "still getting over the cold he caught at school but fine…"
"Just please get to the point," Dean groaned, he vaguely remembered the teenager hacking up a lung in the graveyard earlier that day. "So what? Does the kid have the coughing plague or something?"
Castiel went dead silent.
"We… we went out for a late dinner last night and he…" his voice broke, "Jack collapsed… he had a seizure."
Dean's mouth went dry "...Shit." was all he could think to say.
Dean's medical knowledge didn't really go beyond the basic first aid needed for the occasional burns and bruises that came with working around hot engines and moving parts in the auto shop. But years of watching… certain soap opera's told him that was very bad. Unless...
"Is that… normal for him?" Dean asked lamely, he wasn't exactly an expert on Jack's medical history.
By the time Jack came around Dean had already moved out, and he hadn't been exactly been going out of his way to spend time with the kid in the few years Jack lived with John part-time. He'd only really seen Jack when John couldn't find a sitter for work.
"Would I CALL you if it was?" Castiel nearly spat voice shaking clearly regressing back into panic mode.
Dean bit back a spiteful, "Then why the fuck did you call!?"
He wasn't heartless. Even if the two people in question were people he'd pay good money to have not come within the same state as him ever again. A kid in the hospital… it was some rough shit.
When Sam was little he'd broken his arm jumping off the front porch railing of their house trying to be Superman. He remembered his parent's frantic frustrated arguing on the way to the hospital about who was supposed to be keeping an eye on Sam. His mother trying gently to get him to sit still for the x-ray. The sound of Sammy crying.
He settled on the slightly less harsh. "What do you want from me then?"
Castiel gave a long-suffering sigh, the one he inevitable heard whenever he tried to speak to the man, like he was trying to explain physics to an eight-year-old.
"They… they want to run tests, blood, an MRI, I know one thing they're testing for is meningitis, and if it's that's what it is…" He let the sentence hang.
There was another voice in the background of the call. probably a nurse by their soft reassuring tone and Castiel's uneasy thank you's. He came back after a moment.
"Listen they're moving Jack to a room if it's what I said... then the doctor will probably want to see you and your brother or… something. I'll… I'll call you later in the morning when he's settled in, please just… get here alright…?" Castiel sounded as exhausted as Dean felt.
Dean suppressed a yawn, "Yeah… yeah sure just um… how about after the sun comes up this time eh?"
Castiel abruptly hung up and Dean blinked blearily at the phone for a moment before snorting.
"Typical..."
The combination of the liquor, lack of sleep and sheer bizarreness of the conversation were making the whole call feel surreal, like a bang on the roof in the dead of night you weren't sure whether you imagined it or not.
Maybe whatever was going on with the kid would sort itself out by morning and he wouldn't have to deal with this…
Seven-ten the next morning Sam saw the big black muscle car pull up beside his hybrid in the parking lot of Lawrence Memorial. Dean exited the car wearing a pair of dark aviators despite the fact the sun had only just risen.
"Long night?"
Dean pulled off the glasses and shoved them into his jacket pocket shooting Sam a deadly glare, clearly not over what happened the day before.
"Did Saint Castiel tell you anything new?" Dean sighed draining the last of a cup of fast food coffee.
"I still don't know why you insist on calling him that," Sam said with a long-suffering sigh.
Dean tilted his head sardonically and tossing the cup in the bin by the door, "Yes... you do."
"Let me rephrase that." Sam's voice sharpened, "Maybe just don't today okay Dean? Maybe for once act like a functioning adult, because this is neither the time nor the place for your bullshit…"
Dean stared at him eyes narrowed for a long moment before his posture relaxed and he shrugged.
"Okay."
"Okay…" Sam said in mild disbelief.
Dean sighed and scrubbed at his eyes, wincing, "yeah fine, I get it. This shit it's... crazy."
There was a long significant pause.
"Castiel said he'd meet us up by the pediatrics ward…" Sam said after a moment studying the hospital entry's diamond-patterned linoleum.
"Pediatrics?" Dean seemed to wince at the sound of the word.
"Yeah, Dean… Jack's 16," Sam muttered, turning to walk inside without another word. He felt like maybe it was time for Dean to stew on that fact for a while.
Things were quiet for the entire ride to the third floor, each Winchester fuming in their separate corner of the elevator.
The door dinged pleasantly before popping open to reveal a pacing Castiel his suit jacket rumpled like he hadn't taken it off since they met the morning before.
"Thank god finally." he breathed, "I was beginning to think…" he sighed and shook his head, "never mind I just… the doctor's need you to answer some questions about... your family..."
Castiel trailed off seeming to lose interest in explaining turning on his heel and walking determinedly down the corridor to the ward entrance, Sam and Dean looked at each other for a moment before Sam shrugged and followed quickly behind.
"Is he… is Jack alright?" Sam asked awkwardly.
"He's um…" Castiel sighed and paused to punch in a number in the keypad that kept random passersby out of pediatrics ward. "He's been really out of it since we got here, he's sleeping now."
There was an electronic chime and he quickly opened the door, "he's in the third room on the right…" Castiel muttered.
Something about the statement bothered Sam he quickly caught up with Castiel, "they're keeping Jack on a normal ward?"
"Hmm?" Castiel blinked back sheepishly.
"It's just… when you called you said they thought he might have meningitis," Sam said carefully, "and if he did I doubt the medical staff would let us, let alone Jack himself near any of the other patients."
Castiel stopped walking again but didn't look at him, "No they um… he doesn't have a high enough fever and or stiffness… they don't think it's that anymore…"
Sam nodded eyes narrowing slightly in confusion, there was something about that answer that made him uncomfortable.
It seemed Dean didn't have any trouble putting his finger on what it was, "why didn't you say that when you called this morning?"
There was an awkward silence inappropriately punctuated by the sound of children giggling in the distance. Castiel still didn't look at them.
"I mean that was the reason you gave us to come today… right," Dean's words were deceptively casual.
Maybe it was his own vague hurt that kept Sam from telling Dean to shut up.
"What? did you think we wouldn't come if we didn't think It'd affect us?" Dean said cooly mouth twitching.
Castiel finally turned to look at him eyebrows drawn together in a warning.
"Dean maybe you shouldn't…" Sam tried before being cut off by a hand, Dean's eyes didn't waver unphased by Castiel's glare.
"Is that really what you think? That if you needed us we'd just let Jack, a kid, suffer? Do you think we're that petty?"
"I…" Castiel's eyes darted in the direction of Jack's room. Through the window, Sam could just spot his blanket covered feet at the end of the bed.
"Do you really think we're that shitty of people!?" Dean's voice rose.
Castiel's eyes narrowed and he snapped back to Dean, "Think of you? I don't think about you at all Winchester. I don't know you!"
They both stared each other down for a long moment, sizing each other up. For a moment Sam thought they might start a fight right there in front of the wall mural of children of every race and color playing ring around the rosie, complete with a happy Sun.
But the seconds came and went.
"We would have come Castiel…" Sam said quietly.
Castiel finally looked up eyes watering slightly, and Sam could have sworn he saw the man's hands shake.
"I couldn't risk that…" he said softly.
The tenseness was broken a moment later by a sing-songy drawl.
"Well looks like the rest of the pissy party parade has arrived, so how about we take this little shindig out of the hall…"
Sam nearly leap a foot in the air, he hadn't heard the nurse walk up, she stood behind him giving all three of them a smile that radiated the energy of someone who would just as easily disembowel them. With all their racket they probably deserved it.
"I'm sorry…" he glanced down at her name tag, "nurse Masters."
She tapped her nails against her clipboard and gave him the same thin smile, "alright cupcake," she tilted her head towards Jack's room. "Right now there's a very confused medical student sitting in there trying to figure out how exactly he's supposed to get a history from RipVanWinkle, I figure he'd have more luck with you three."
Cas moved first huffing softly quickly hurrying past the nurse seeming to forget the argument the second he was reminded of Jack.
Dean strolled slower behind the man still looking pissed off, leaving Sam alone in the corridor with the nurse who smiled at him expectantly.
"Right, sorry…" Sam unfroze and sheepishly followed.
Sam tried to look anywhere but at Jack when he entered the room, Castiel had automatically taken a seat in a chair on the far side of the boy's bed his coat and a thin blue hospital blanket thrown across the back of it like he'd been camping there all night.
Dean was leaning against the far wall arms crossed, staring down a terrified-looking Asian kid in a lab coat clutching a clipboard to his chest.
By the time Sam took a seat beside the door and the nurse followed behind him the room was far too crowded for comfort.
In a room full of people he didn't want to lock eyes with the unconscious kid in the bed suddenly became the least daunting sight.
There was an abrasion on Jack's brow bone and a long bruise trailing down to his chin, like he'd fallen and hit head something hard on the way down.
Sam wished he felt more.
Jack was a pale stranger of a teenage boy, upsetting but...
Sam wondered if he was walking alone down the hallway and looking into the rooms if he would have even been able to pick Jack out of the other faces in their beds.
Seeing Jack like this made him feel pity and sadness, but seeing the deep-seated fear and worry on Castiel's face
Jack was supposed to be family
Guilt bloomed in Sam's chest. The only memory that he could pull up was at will was that Jack liked goldfish when he was two. He tried to look closer at the boy on the bed, pluck at the strings of his heart.
He focused on how Jack's breathing was a little too fast and shallow, the heart rate on the monitor a little too rapid…
The kid was hooked up to an IV and about six different sensors, some wires trailing down the neck of his hospital gown one clipped onto the middle finger of his left hand. The opposite wrist and hand were strapped in a temporary splint, like his face probably a casualty of the seizure the night before.
The thought made Sam wince.
God this was a joke.
Someone cleared their throat "I uh… hello…" Sam broke out of his self deprecating reverie.
It was the medical student in the lab coat, gripping his clipboard and still nervously eyeing Dean. He yanked his eyes away to focus on Castiel.
"Are these the um… brothers you were talking about?"
Castiel didn't look up from where he was straightening the blankets over Jack's chest.
"They'll be able to give you the information on his father's side that I couldn't," he muttered distractedly.
"Half-brothers," Dean said cooly from his position by the wall, "and I'm right over here."
The nurse whistled strolling over to the side of Jack's bed and picking up his chart.
"If nothing else…" she read, "Jack… will get a healthy dose of machismo today." She frowned at something on the chart before clipping it back over the end of the bed and stepping closer to the monitor.
"Try not to make the med student piss himself okay? Bringing the janitor in here would put the room capacity over code," the nurse said squinting at it.
"Is something wrong?" Cas asked her a little alarmed.
She gave him a smile no more sincere than her previous ones, but with worry and attempted comfort in the place of irritation.
"Don't worry about it daddy dearest, nothing's... changed."
The way she said it didn't seem all that positive when she immediately followed it up by leaving the room at a brisk pace.
They all stared after her awkwardly for a few seconds.
"A-about that history," the med student said the tone of someone being forced to tell a joke at gunpoint.
Dean was still staring at guy though he looked more puzzled than threatening now. Dean had probably just been hungover in the first place and got the lab coat confused with the white wall when staring into empty space.
"Dude, I'm not going to eat you…"
The med student looked throughly unconvinced.
"Fine, you want history right?" Dean pulled one of the plastic chairs across the floor and leaned back against the wall, "ask away Kevin."
The kid opened his mouth looking confused before glancing down at his name tag and turning red, "Right, um… your father?"
Dean turned to address his answer at Castiel. Castiel didn't bother looking back.
"Died of a heart attack age 45, don't know about his dad, grandma lives in Florida looking like she's live to an ornery 105, anything else? I'm not here to hide anything" Dean shot the last sentence at Castiel before turning back to face Kevin.
The kid jumped.
"Y-yeah… your father's heart attack, was it related to any pre-existing cardiac or pulmonary disease?"
Dean glanced up at Sam tilting his head befuddled.
"Heart and lung problems…" Sam huffed, "he didn't have any I know of."
"Yeah…" Dean looked down twirling his aviators in his hands, "he had high cholesterol, shitty bachelor's diet and all that you know."
Sam rolled his eyes and muttered, "yeah because that wasn't his own choice or anything."
"Bite me, Sam." Dean grinned at him leaning back in his chair again.
"If you're not going to be helpful then leave," Castiel barked suddenly shooting both brothers a steely look.
The door slid open again and nurse Masters re-entered with her hands full.
"I leave for two minutes and you' start the orgy without me," she dropped her armload of supplies down on the rolling table at the end of the bed and got to work.
"Listen I can and will use the skills I've gained changing the sheets of three hundred pound men solo to kick your asses out of here so behave…" she warned.
Castiel was quickly distracted hovering over her every movement around Jack.
Sam and Dean's faces mirrored mild shock.
"Did she just threaten us?" Dean said nonplussed plunking his chair back on four legs.
"I think so," Sam blinked.
"Can she do that? Like legally?" Dean asked.
Sam rolled his eyes, "I don't think she cares…"
Nurse Masters finished fitting a nasal cannula around Jack's face, marked down something on his chart, and left again flashing one last patent murder grin.
"Thanks…" the med student squeaked after her, quickly looking back to his clipboard when he realized everyone was staring.
"So um… is there anyone with a history of epilepsy in your family…" Kevin said not daring to look up again.
"Nope," Dean sighed, distantly pissed again.
"Autoimmune disease?"
"Sam?" Dean said looked at him expectantly.
"No…" Sam sighed going to look through his emails on his phone, feeling more out of place by the second. He cleaned out his inbox to the tune of Dean's repeated "no's"
"Diabetes?"
"Nope," Dean yawned
Kevin tapped his clipboard with his pen, "Cancer?"
"Actually we did have a second cousin who's died of cancer,"
"Oh?" Kevin's head tilted up almost seeming relieved.
"Lung cancer, she smoked like three packs a day and worked in an asbestos factory," Dean blinked and giving him a weird look.
"Oh…" Kevin trailed off.
"Cas?" a feeble voice broke the monotony.
Sam fumbled and almost dropped his phone, looking up.
Jack was waking up. The blanket shuffled slightly and he coughed hoarsely.
Castiel jumped and went almost immediately to hover over him.
The kid's eyes were half open glancing lazily around at the ceiling and Castiel like they weren't quite taking everything in.
"Jack?" Castiel asked voice quivered, "Jack I'm right here…"
The boy blinked dazedly reaching an exploratory hand up to feel the tube on his face tugging a little on the iv in his arm in the process. He blinked blearily at it for a moment and then his eyes snapped open breathing speeding up fearfully.
"Jack are you okay? hey hey, Jack… look at me…" Castiel said carefully laying a hand on his shoulder, "you're in the hospital."
Jack went stiff in his bed arms held awkwardly in front of him hovering over his chest like he was scared to move and accidentally yank on something important.
"No… no I…" he breathed looking around panicked, wincing, his eyes caught sight on the splint on his arm.
"I'm sorry…" he mumbled giving another hacking cough and tearing up, "did I… did I get in a fight? I'm sorry, please don't ground me…"
He didn't even seem to notice Sam or Dean in the room.
"No Jack you're not in trouble you didn't do anything," Castiel quickly reassured him with a soft smile, "you… fell Jack…" his voice cracked.
Something in Sam's stomach squirmed like he was invading something incredibly personal and private.
Castiel took a steadying breath that came out almost as shakily as Jack's."Y-you had a seizure, Jack…"
The teenager's eyes widened.
"Do you… do you remember anything about what happened?" Cas reached out to gently relax Jack's arms back on top of his blanket.
"M-my head hurt… I…" Jack's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, "I felt… weird, I went to the bathroom…" he trailed off.
Cas smiled sadly, "you did, and you locked the door…" he gently held the boy's non-splinted hand, "I really wish you hadn't done that."
Dean must have felt as out of place as Sam did because at that point with barely a sound he got up face unreadable and left the room.
Jack finally noticed his older siblings then roaming glazed eyes landing bewildered on Dean's retreating back before shifting to Sam.
Sam's chest jumped and he opened his mouth searching for something to say but Jack looked quickly away as if burned before he could get anything out.
It hard for Sam to resist following Dean right out the door after that. Instead, Sam tried to busy himself on his phone drafting an email to his work that he'd be a day late flying back.
"No no, I…" Jack face screwed up and he coughed again much harsher than before into his free hand, "I can't," his breath came out in a wheezy huff between coughs.
The medical student Kevin came to the side of his bed and picked up the control pushing a button causing the back to come to a half seated position.
It seemed to help because the coughing eased after a few moments and Jack was finally able to finish his sentence.
He cleared his throat, his pale face stained pink from the stress of the attack, "I… I can't be in the hospital… we need to go home… I need to feed F-felix."
"Felix? Did Jack have a dog or something?" Sam thought.
Castiel comforted him gently, "Jack you fed him before we left, it'll be at least another week before you feed him again."
"Ah so… definitely not a dog then…"
"M-maybe you could bring him here?" Jack looked up at him hopefully.
Castiel blinked it was his turn to look confused, "Jack I don't think they let pets in the hospital."
"I… I've got school tomorrow…" Jack muttered conversation changing mid-stride looking unfocused past Castiel, "we… we have to go back."
"Jack, you're in the hospital I think they'll understand," Castiel shot the medical student a worried look.
"He's um… they have him on morphine for the arm, he might be a little… confused?" Kevin explained looking a little unsure himself.
"Mr. Edlund hates me…" Jack muttered trying to push himself weakly up in bed, "he'll fail me."
Castiel sighed, placing a hand on his chest, "well then it's good that I work at your school, I'll just have to talk Chuck out of that okay?"
Jack seemed appeased by that and relaxed back against his pillows.
"I actually needed to ask Jack a few questions for the form," Kevin said after a moment awkwardly clicking his pen.
Sam's eyebrow rose, Castiel shot Kevin a look.
Kevin cleared his throat suddenly studying his clipboard like it held the secrets of the universe, "Um have you recently taken any drugs, Jack?"
Jack hunched up defensively giving Kevin a suspicious look, "Yes… but you gave them to me…"
"Okay," Castiel broke in aggravated, "maybe now… isn't the best time for that?"
"P-please don't," Jack cleared his throat, "call the c-cops…" he took a shaky breath and launched into another fit of coughing.
Castiel gently patted the boy's back as he curled in on himself coughing into his hands Castiel's expression quickly turning to one of alarm as the coughing was broken up by almost choking gasps.
"Sh-should we call someone?" Sam asked nervousness sinking into his stomach. Kevin opened his mouth unsure.
It took a minute for the coughing to gradually ease, Jack's face red and eyes watering as he shakily regained his breath…
"Are you alright?" Castiel asked, the hand not on Jack's back gripping the bed rail like a lifeline.
Jack was squinting befuddled into his hand, "I… I think I coughed up a lung…" he mumbled before raising his hand for all to see, "look…"
The medical student turned dead white fumbling around for the call button.
Jack's palm was coated in blood.
