TITLE: Stop the World
CHAPTER/TITLE: Chapter Fifty Three/ I Wanna Be Well
RATING: T (violence/language)
A/N: thanks for all the wonderful reviews and follows! title for this chapter is from a Ramones song.
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Chapter Three: I Wanna Be Well
"Jack, what the hell are you doin?"
Bobby had just been climbing the stairs for yet another pop in check up of his baby brother when he had heard the thump. Thinking Jack had managed to fall out of bed or stumbled trying to get to the bathroom, the eldest Mercer vaulted the last three steps and hurried to the room in four quick strides. Instead, what Bobby found was almost amusing, had it not also been annoying.
Jack was sitting up in the bed, well, attempting to. At some point, he had reached for purchase on the bedside table and had succeeded in knocking over his lamp. The blankets were tangled around his body like restraints and if that sight wasn't comical enough the electrocuted hairstyle nearly did Bobby in.
"Getting up," Jack grunted as if it was the dumbest question his brother had ever asked.
"Like hell you are." Bobby crossed the threshold. "What is with you? You cry to stay in bed and now you wanna get up."
"Shut up." Jack tugged and twisted at the sheets.
"Damn, your mood swings sure kick in when you're sick, don't they?"
"I've got practice with the band after school. I need to go –"
Jack was finally free from his blanketed bindings and lifted himself off the bed. He had barely straightened himself out when the wave of dizziness swept over him violently. His knees buckled and he found himself heading for the floor. Arms caught underneath him and he glanced up to find Bobby dragging him back to bed without missing a beat.
"I'm fine." Jack's grumble was more of a whine.
"'I'm fine', says the idiot falling on his fucking face. Damn, you need to start eating more, Cracker Jack. It's like carrying a damn doll."
"Whatever," Jack mumbled, not having the strength to make a connection with Bobby and dolls in a joke as he had grown accustomed to the household banter and even had dared to throw in a few jabs.
Instead, Jack merely slipped into bed and swiftly covered his frame with blankets, pulling them up to his chin in an almost juvenile fashion.
"There somethin' you wanna tell me Jack?" Bobby crossed his arms and sat down by the teenager's curled up legs.
"Not really." Jack's voice was muffled against the fabric of his pillow.
"Bullshit," Bobby shook his head. "This fucking fever. The fact that you're always tired when you sleep all damn day. You're 'bout as skinny as a ten year old girl –"
"Leave it alone, man." Jack pushed his sheets away in frustration. "I'm just sick. Can I sleep now?"
"Sleep, band practice, sleep. Make up your damn mind Jackie. Jack?"
Bobby looked down to find his surrogate baby brother already taken away by slumber. The attempt to stand must have quickly drained him. Bobby shook his head and drew the covers up to Jack's neck before standing and silently backing out of the room.
What he had said to Jack had been true, even if he had laced his concern with teasing. Jack was sick, a lot. Runny nose, scratchy throat, headaches, flu; anything that was going around seemed to find him and latch on tight. When Jack wasn't at school, the boy would sleep until one of his new family members would come and drag him downstairs, in Bobby or Angel's case, the act was quite literal. And no matter how much the kid packed away, which was about the equivalent of three teenage boys combined, he still failed to put on any pounds. He hid a lot of the illness from Evelyn, but Bobby noticed, which definitely meant Evelyn did too. She had checked into his medical records and was seriously considering taking Jack to see a doctor.
Of course she would have to enlist one of her other sons to help her with that, or maybe even all three. None of the Mercer boys were particularly fond of doctors or hospitals, but even Bobby throwing a bedpan at a nurse when he was thirteen was preferable to what happened when "Jack" and "doctor" were mentioned in the same sentence around him. It was the kid became a different person. Jack, for the most part, was quiet. Sometimes unsettling so. He would recoil if touched and scream out from nightmares, but he never became violent. He was hardly even disobedient, loud, or anything similar to the older Mercers. He seemed to be a shell of a normal teenage boy. But, then again, there was nothing normal about what Jack had endured before becoming a teenager. Evelyn was just happy he had survived his childhood at all.
Despite the usual quiet and withdrawn nature, there was one thing that could draw a completely different personality out of the boy. Over the years while in various foster homes, Jack had managed to bite one of his doctors to the point where the man required stitches in his thumb, kick an attending in the shin, scratch a nurse's arm enough to draw blood, jump out of a moving vehicle on the way to the hospital, punch one foster mother in the nose when she tried to drag him to a clinic, and more that the Mercers admitted they probably didn't know about. Jack wasn't mean. In fact, Jack was one of the kindest kids Evelyn had taken in. After witnessing this reaction first hand, the woman could only describe it like one would describe a terrified animal. Jack would become feral; shrieking, kicking, thrashing, running, clawing, clinging to door frames, whatever he could do. The boy was reduced oftentimes to hysterics and sometimes didn't even remember hurting anyone. Other times he did, and well, that was far worse.
Bobby was surprised the kid hadn't reacted when Evelyn had mentioned a doctor in his presence earlier. The inaction on the boy's part was just another reminder of how sick his baby brother truly was. Just another reason to worry him that much more.