Chapter Text
Jack starts talking before he really wakes up. “I'm fine. I'm fine, I'm okay.” He slurs his words together, trying to roll onto his side and sit up.
“Hey, hey, just-- just stay down, alright?” Dean keeps a hand firmly on his chest.
Jack shakes his head, trying to stifle more coughs. “I--I…”
“Just breathe, kid. You're okay.” Dean bundles up a flannel shirt draped over the kitchen chair. “Lift your head up for a second.”
Jack does. He squints, both against the pounding headache building behind his eyes, and at the gentle tone coming from Dean. He's never heard it before. Something must be really wrong.
Dean pushes his head back down. “Jeez, you're really burning up…”
Jack blinks slowly. He cringes at the feeling of blood dribbling down his throat.
“You feel dizzy?”
“What's dizzy?” Jack asks weakly.
“Like the rooms spinning?”
Jack closes his eyes, and nods.
Dean nods and nods, nervously, trying not to give into the panic gripping his gut. “Okay. No problem, we can chill out here for a bit.”
Jack starts to curl up on his side, guarding his stomach, and still trying to stifle the flow of blood from his nose. He makes a distressed noise and coughs again.
Dean puts an uncertain hand on his shoulder. Does the kid even want his comfort? All the things he's said to him before… in a moment of pain and fear, he'd want Cas, or Sam. Someone he trusts.
Jack instinctively reaches for Dean's sleeve, gripping anxiously to the cuffed flannel. His face screws up painfully, tears slipping over his nose.
“Hey, hey, easy…” Dean rubs a gentle pattern into the kids back. “It's alright, Jack. I'm not going anywhere, okay?”
Jack nods. He looks at the floor, and tentatively says: “I wanna lie down.”
“You're, uh… you're already kinda lying down, kiddo.”
Jack shakes his head. “In my room.” He croaks out over a raw throat. “With my bed. I just want--”
Familiarity. Safety. Not a concrete mattress and a shirt pillow.
“Okay. Okay, yeah, okay.” Dean mutters to himself. “Let’s sit you up.”
Jack grips onto Deans shirt with sweaty, shaky hands, while Dean hauls him up into a sitting position. The poor kids till sagging against Dean’s chest, trying desperately to prop himself up with his own arms.
Dean holds him securely at his side. “I gotcha, kid.”
Jack hangs his head like it’s too heavy for his neck. “I don’t feel so good…”
“Yeah, no shit.” Dean grunts, hoisting the kid up, and leading him out of the kitchen. “We’ll get you taken of… I promise.”
That was last night.
Probably. Dean hasn’t had a great grasp on time since Jack hit the floor.
Since then, the bunker’s been a blur of panic. Sam and Cas bursting through the door after Deans frantic voice mails. Almost hospital visits, and Jack just barely waking up. Dean feels like a kid again, looking after a sick Sam in a shitty motel room, with the radiator barely pumping out enough heat to ward off the chilly November air. (He doesn’t think about the trials, because it’s too damn similar, and he won’t let it happen to another kid he’s responsible for.)
But then Jack starts packing his bags. Hastily shoving in wrinkled T-shirt’s, candy bars, and a burner phone, he’s almost out the damn door before Dean even sees him.
“Going somewhere?” Dean
“Uh, Vegas…?” Jack says, like it’s a question. “Before my life is over, I wanna… live it.”
And Dean tries to tell the kid no. He really does.
(He can’t.)
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Sam's voice echoes around the vaulted walls of the bunkers entrance room. Cas stands behind him, looking just as frazzled.
“Yeah.” Dean says with finality. He’s made up his mind, and so has Jack.
Jack doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes. He keeps fidgeting with the zipper on his jacket and the tightening strap on his backpack.
“Dean—“
“Cas.” Dean warns. “It’s fine. I got him.” (Maybe. Maybe he’s got him. As much as anyone can, he does.)
Castiel closes his eyes and sighs. “Okay.”
Dean lingers for a moment. There’s nothing he can say to ease anyone’s worry that’s true. Jack might not be fine. But there's no stopping him. And Dean won’t let him die alone. “Alright. Let’s go, kiddo.”
“Wait.” Jack grips the insides of his pockets. He looks up at Cas and Sam earnestly. “I love you.”
They both smile awkwardly. Dean gets the little crinkles around his eyes when he’s just barely smiling (when it’s a real smile). Jack is so open, and honest, and vulnerable, and it freaks them the hell out. But Sam shoves his hands in his pockets and gives him a little nod. “We love you too, Jack. Be safe, okay? Stay with Dean.”
Jack nods, holding both of his backpack straps. Like a little kid on his first day of school. “I will, I promise.”
Dean gives him a light clap on the shoulder. “Me and the kid aren’t splitting up, Sammy. It’s a bonding sesh, he’s stuck with me.”
Sam laughs, and folds his arms, and tries not to feel like a parent. He watches Jack climb the steep metal staircase, (gripping the handrail too tight, stumbling just a little, and Sam wants to wrap him back up and tuck him into bed, but he can’t), Dean close in tow.
(Sam can't help the flinch that comes when the door slams.)