Little Jayhawk
Title:Little Jayhawk
Rating: PG
Characters: Dean, John, Mary, Sam
Warnings: None, really.
Prompt:Imprisonment
Summary: Written as a double prompt fill. First, for 'Imprisonment' on my HC-Bingo card and for this prompt at hoodie_time. Dean's birthday wasn't supposed to be in January. It was supposed to be in March. When the elder Winchester child makes his appearance a little under two months early, neither his mom or dad are fully prepared for what happened after. For John, this one event would trigger a deep seated fear of ever having to see his boy seriously ill.
John Winchester had no idea what the picture was for February on the calender in the kitchen. He knew January's quite well, a snow swept prairie accented by massive hay bales. The picture had been taken somewhere way the hell out in western Kansas, almost at the Colorado border. The picture for March was another one he knew - he even knew the location well. It'd been taken on the Kansas University campus, over near the basketball arena. But that wasn't why he knew March so well - it was because of the big, red circle around the nineteenth, where, in block letters were three words: Baby's Due Date.
But it wasn't March. It wasn't even close. It wasn't February. It was a cold, snowy, absolutely wretched Thursday morning in January. He kept his head in his hands, willing for all of this to somehow be a very, very bad dream. Mary had woke up screaming late last night and holding her stomach. The noise had woken John up and when he turned on the light, he'd seen the blood. Instincts driven into him as a Marine came and hit him full in the face and he was able to call for an ambulance. Mary had been nothing short of hysterical and had eventually just turned to a sobbing mess as the Winchesters were raced to the Douglas County Hospital. With an oxygen mask and medical technicians busy around his wife, all John could do was hold her hand and silently beg that both she and the baby would be all right.
They'd no sooner gotten to the hospital than Mary was whisked away from John for surgery - an emergency c-section and John, shock and fear rushing into the place abandoned by adrenaline, was led into a waiting room. At least the hospital staff already knew who the Winchesters were. In a city this size with only one hospital, there wasn't a frantic search for records or regular doctors. He let out a shuddering breath as he heard the door of the waiting room open and he looked up.
“John Winchester?” The man had a calm expression, although his face was slightly flushed.
“Yes?” He stood up, his heart already fearing the worst.
“Your wife's going to be fine. She suffered some sort of hemorrhage we've not yet determined the cause of yet. Her going into labor was merely a side affect of it.” He tucked the clipboard he was holding under his arm. “We were able to remove the infant and he is currently in intensive care.”
John blinked, as if not understanding a word. “But... the baby wasn't supposed to be born until March... can.... how...”
“Babies born at this week of gestation have an ninety percent chance of survival, with the right care. I can assure you, we are doing all that we can. Your wife is still in recovery and won't wake up for another few hours.” The doctor gave him a wan smile. “Would you like to go up and see your son?”
John was torn; see the child or see Mary? Maybe if he saw the boy first, he could somehow soften the shock when Mary woke up. “I.. I would.” He rubbed his eyes tiredly as the man led him out of the room and up to the NICU. The hospital was showing signs of preparing for the day. When John had come to this room, janitors were cleaning floors. They'd been replaced by nurses pushing carts and the smell of Lysol was replaced with the smell of coffee.
The NICU was a place John was not prepared for. He'd been in an intensive care unit before, after his mom had a stroke this past summer. But somehow, surrounded by incubators and monitors and tiny infants, it seemed so much worse. They'd put scrubs on over his clothes and a cap over his head, making him look like some misplaced doctor rather than a parent. The nurse guided him over to one of the incubators, were a tiny, wrinkled and very red infant lay, hooked up to a ventilator that somehow seemed far to big for what had to be a very small pair of lungs. For some reason, all John can think of as he looks down at his boy is the eggplant his mother once found buried in the back of a crisper drawer of her fridge: wrinkled and soft.
When his finger made contact with the little one's hand, he could see the involuntarily flex of the boy's hand, trying to grasp, but somehow either too tired or too weak to do so. His eyes flicked to the card at the head of the incubator - frowning at the 'weight' line. Three pounds, seven ounces. How was this even possible? Just last week, Mary had been laughing, telling him that the baby was quite the kicker. John had been absolutely floored the first time she'd grabbed his hand, pressed it against her swollen belly and he'd felt the flutter under his hand. A good, strong, steady kick - 'a troublemaker already' Mary had said. John had chuckled and stated they had a soccer player on their hands. Mary pegged him of more of a swimmer, as the baby liked to kick and punch at the same time; stretching out, letting his parents, mainly his mother, know that 'I'm here, I'm here, look at what I can do!'
Now here he was.
John gently brushed the boy's head with his fingers, stunned that his whole hand could almost engulf the infant. “You're a strong little fighter, aren't you Dean?” He smiled. Dean. “Just wish you didn't have to face this hard of fight right off the bat.” He smiled - ninety percent chance of survival - whatever you do, don't think about that other ten percent. In the corner of the room, John could hear a woman faintly humming to her own child, but the song was unfamiliar. Right now, there's only one song he can think of to sit and hum at his own little boy. He does his best to fight back tears as he softly sings 'Happy Birthday' to Dean, telling himself that come this time next year, he and Mary are going to watch this boy make a mess of himself with his first birthday cake. That five years from now there will be a gang of kids in their house for a party, and sixteen years from today, he and Dean are going to take the Impala down to the DMV and he's going to wait for his boy to come back from his driver's test, all eager and excited about passing it with flying colors.
*
Mary sat slumped in the wheelchair, looking rather despondently into the incubator her child was lying in. “He looks so... small.” She felt John's hand squeeze her shoulder. “I never had dolls that were as small as he is..” She swallowed hard.
“He's a tough little guy, Mary.” John gave her arm another squeeze. “He'll be ready to come home before we know it.”
“I...” She swallowed. “It seems hard to believe right now, that's all.” She sat forward with some effort and placed her hand on her son's back. “I was counting on you to be a Pisces, young man. Now you just get your strength up so daddy and I can bring you home.”
John set his hand next to Mary's. Together, the two hands almost completely covered the boy. “All you've got to do, Dean, is gain a few pounds in a few weeks.”
Mary let out a soft giggle. “If you can gain weight out here as well as I did when we were waiting for you, it should be no problem.” She bit her lip as she felt the tears start to run down her cheeks. “I'm... I don't know...”
John sat down in an offered chair and wrapped his arms around his wife. “He's going to be just fine, Mary. You both are.” He reached out and set a finger against Dean's hand. “Week of good meals and a little bit of hair on that bald head of his, he'll be ready to come home.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “When did you get so optimistic, John?”
“When you weren't looking, darling.” He kissed the side of her head. “So if he's not a Pisces, what is he?”
“An Aquarius.” Mary let out a weak chuckle. “You two are in so much trouble.”
“Why is that?” John was just glad his wife had something to think about other than their tiny son fighting for his life.
“You're a Capricorn John. Aquariuses are known to get along with everyone but Capricorns. You're too serious for them.”
John shook his head. “Long as he keeps his room clean and stays out of detention at school, I'm sure we'll be fine.”
“Start doing your own laundry before you talk about him keeping his room clean.” Mary clasped John's free hand in hers. “It's going to be fine, right John?”
John kissed her forehead again. “Everything is going to be wonderful, Mary. By this time next year, people are going to be asking if he's two instead of one.”
*
John absolutely hated going home alone from the hospital. It would take Mary a full week to recover from her surgery and the doctors put Dean's tentative release date as Valentine's Day. He went home, cleaned up the mess in the master bedroom, doing his best not to think about the blood stains he was bleaching out of the sheets. He was glad, however, that Mary had already gotten Dean's room ready. The crib was made, the walls were painted, everything was done - it only needed it's occupant to come and take up residence. He leaned against the door-frame, frowning at the ceramic angel who seemed to be regarding him with a very enigmatic look. Almost as if the darn thing had been expecting him to notice him. He'd called the angel corny; Mary had called it sweet. If his wife wasn't so damn attached to the damn thing, John probably would have hurled the curio across the room and let it shatter against the wall.
He stepped into the room and went over to the dresser, opening the top drawer to look at the clothing within. Everything in the top drawer was for newborn to three months old in size - and everything was currently too big for their owner. John shut the drawer and absently straightened things in the room. The blanket over the railing of the crib. The crib he'd gotten from his aunt's house up in Atchison back in August and spent almost every Saturday in September refinishing. Turning from the bed he stopped at the piggy bank that his cousin had sent over Christmas. A white porcelain pig with a KU Jayhawk painted on it - and underneath were the words 'Future Jayhawk Fund.' John didn't know if his cousin had been serious or was being silly. He dug into his pocket and pulled out the change in his pocket from the vending machines at the hospital. He didn't even pause as he dropped the sixty-five cents in dimes and nickels into the pig and left the nursery.
*
Mary was afraid that Dean would break in her arms. He was so small, so fragile. Yet one thing was very clear: the boy could eat. She shifted her shoulders a little to get a better look at him as he drank greedily from the bottle she was holding. The doctors said he wasn't strong enough yet for her to breast feed him. The boy was so light, she had to keep watching him to make sure he was still there. Dean was now one week old and was one pound heavier. The best news she and John had since last Thursday was that their boy wouldn't have to stay in the incubator much longer if he kept up his progress through the week. The bad news was the fact that Mary was cleared to go home and that they would have to leave Dean in the hospital. What the hell she was going to do when she got home? Mary had no idea.
John was already back at work, unable to take much more time off. Mary was supposed to be at work herself today, not sitting here in the hospital with her first born in her arms. Thankfully, her boss was far more understand than John's would ever be. John would come by the hospital this afternoon and drive Mary home. She might have been released from the doctor's care, but there was nothing against her being here for the nine hours John was at work as a visitor. She still wasn't cleared for things like driving, lifting anything heavier than ten pounds and a bunch of other things that fell under the category of 'heavy work.'
The bottle was now empty and Dean didn't look to perturbed when his mother took it away, he only made a small smacking motion with his lips and then settled. “That tasted good, huh?” She straightened up and set the boy against her shoulder, slowly rubbing his back. “Any burps in there, baby?” Mary willed herself not to cry as she heard an almost inaudible sound from her boy. She moved him back down into her arms and kissed his forehead. “It's okay baby.” She brushed her finger against Dean's cheek. “Mommy's here. I'm always going to be here.”
***
Sam didn't understand a lot of things. At eleven, he didn't quite get the whole hunting monsters thing. Dean had told him time and time again it was important, but for him? It just seemed unreasonable. Couldn't someone else do it? Someone who didn't have kids or something? People like Uncle Bobby - he was a hunter and he had no family. That sort of hunter made sense to Sam. Not people like dad. Dad was so obsessive about the whole thing and Dean blindly followed him. Sam didn't understand why dad thought it was okay to leave his two kids alone in motel rooms across the country while he went off and hunted those monsters. Didn't understand why dad didn't show much interest anything his kids were doing that wasn't hunting related. But if there was one thing that confused the hell out of Sam more than anything were the times when dad would return from the hunt to find his youngest in his pajamas watching TV, recovering from a cold, the flu or some other bug - and going into full on dad mode when he told his father that Dean was sick.
Maybe dad had done the same for him at times when Dean told him that he was sick. If he had, Sam couldn't remember. He just knows that he feels something akin to jealousy when he watches dad take care of his eldest like he's still a baby. Then there's dad's weird habit of always giving his older brother a new pair of boots on the nineteenth of March every year. It was always on the nineteenth and no other day. It wouldn't be until Dean's bout with meningitis at seventeen that Sam finally learned the reason behind the shoes and the reason dad always freaked when Dean was serious, bed ridden sick.
**
John stared hard at the man lying in the bed, trying to will the image of his boy imprisoned in a bed, a machine keeping his breathing even, that god-awful drone that John always associated with that other prison Dean had been in on the day he was born. That wretched box that held him in a cocoon of sanitation and emphasized the point of how weak the baby had been. Dean wasn't a baby any longer. He'd fought everything that had been thrown at him. John knew what the fever of meningitis could do to a person. Blindness, deafness - death. He couldn't lose the boy, not now. Dean might not approve of being called a boy at seventeen, but he'd always be John's boy, his baby. He let out a deep breath and looked up. “Sam.”
“I brought your coffee.” He held the paper cup out to his father.
“Thanks.” He took it and motioned for Sam to join him. “Doctors said his fever is going down.”
“That's good.” Sam sat down and looked at his hands. He didn't want to let on how scared he was for his brother. “He looks...”
“I know Sam, he looks like a baby in a crib with those damn rails up like that.” John took a drink of coffee.
“Been listening to some conversations around the nurses station. Six more kids from Dean's gym class are in here too.” Sam rubbed the back of his neck. “Some are worse than he is.”
John leaned back in his chair. “Dean's a fighter, Sam. He always has been, ever since he was born.”
Sam seriously doubted his six-foot, hundred and eighty pound brother had any problems in infancy. “We're doing this project at school for biology.” He figures he might as well talk about something inane to keep his mind occupied. “About growth and whatnot... do you remember how much I weighed when I was born?”
John gave his boy a one armed hug and then took another drink of coffee. “Of course I do, Sam. Your old man might seem forgetful at times, but there's some things you never forget. Samuel Eric Winchester, born at six-fifteen in the morning on May second, nineteen eighty three. You weighed in at eight pounds, six ounces and twenty point five inches long.”
Sam grinned faintly, rubbing at a blister on his hand. “Let me guess... Dean was around the same?” He looked over at his father and saw that he'd gone slightly pale. “Dad?”
“No, Sam. Dean wasn't as big as you were when he was born. He wasn't even half your weight.” He set his cup down and covered his face with his hands. “Dean weighed in at three pounds, seven ounces and sixteen inches long.”
“What... how... I mean...”
John lowered his hands and looked at his youngest. “That's why I don't like seeing your brother bedridden, Sammy. Saw it enough in the first three weeks of his life that I don't want him to have to stay in bed any longer than a few days. I can't stand it, Sam.”
Sam shifted his gaze from his father to his brother. “Well, you know Dean...” He knew he had to get his father off this track. He'd seen it before, when November second rolled around every year and he hated it. “He'll probably be back to his surly self this time tomorrow demanding to know when he can leave.”
John let out a weak chuckle. “Sounds like our Dean, doesn't it?”
“Yup.” Sam left out the thought of his brother changing his mind about being stuck in bed if there were some cute nurses on staff. “That's Dean.”
Rating: PG
Characters: Dean, John, Mary, Sam
Warnings: None, really.
Prompt:Imprisonment
Summary: Written as a double prompt fill. First, for 'Imprisonment' on my HC-Bingo card and for this prompt at hoodie_time. Dean's birthday wasn't supposed to be in January. It was supposed to be in March. When the elder Winchester child makes his appearance a little under two months early, neither his mom or dad are fully prepared for what happened after. For John, this one event would trigger a deep seated fear of ever having to see his boy seriously ill.
John Winchester had no idea what the picture was for February on the calender in the kitchen. He knew January's quite well, a snow swept prairie accented by massive hay bales. The picture had been taken somewhere way the hell out in western Kansas, almost at the Colorado border. The picture for March was another one he knew - he even knew the location well. It'd been taken on the Kansas University campus, over near the basketball arena. But that wasn't why he knew March so well - it was because of the big, red circle around the nineteenth, where, in block letters were three words: Baby's Due Date.
But it wasn't March. It wasn't even close. It wasn't February. It was a cold, snowy, absolutely wretched Thursday morning in January. He kept his head in his hands, willing for all of this to somehow be a very, very bad dream. Mary had woke up screaming late last night and holding her stomach. The noise had woken John up and when he turned on the light, he'd seen the blood. Instincts driven into him as a Marine came and hit him full in the face and he was able to call for an ambulance. Mary had been nothing short of hysterical and had eventually just turned to a sobbing mess as the Winchesters were raced to the Douglas County Hospital. With an oxygen mask and medical technicians busy around his wife, all John could do was hold her hand and silently beg that both she and the baby would be all right.
They'd no sooner gotten to the hospital than Mary was whisked away from John for surgery - an emergency c-section and John, shock and fear rushing into the place abandoned by adrenaline, was led into a waiting room. At least the hospital staff already knew who the Winchesters were. In a city this size with only one hospital, there wasn't a frantic search for records or regular doctors. He let out a shuddering breath as he heard the door of the waiting room open and he looked up.
“John Winchester?” The man had a calm expression, although his face was slightly flushed.
“Yes?” He stood up, his heart already fearing the worst.
“Your wife's going to be fine. She suffered some sort of hemorrhage we've not yet determined the cause of yet. Her going into labor was merely a side affect of it.” He tucked the clipboard he was holding under his arm. “We were able to remove the infant and he is currently in intensive care.”
John blinked, as if not understanding a word. “But... the baby wasn't supposed to be born until March... can.... how...”
“Babies born at this week of gestation have an ninety percent chance of survival, with the right care. I can assure you, we are doing all that we can. Your wife is still in recovery and won't wake up for another few hours.” The doctor gave him a wan smile. “Would you like to go up and see your son?”
John was torn; see the child or see Mary? Maybe if he saw the boy first, he could somehow soften the shock when Mary woke up. “I.. I would.” He rubbed his eyes tiredly as the man led him out of the room and up to the NICU. The hospital was showing signs of preparing for the day. When John had come to this room, janitors were cleaning floors. They'd been replaced by nurses pushing carts and the smell of Lysol was replaced with the smell of coffee.
The NICU was a place John was not prepared for. He'd been in an intensive care unit before, after his mom had a stroke this past summer. But somehow, surrounded by incubators and monitors and tiny infants, it seemed so much worse. They'd put scrubs on over his clothes and a cap over his head, making him look like some misplaced doctor rather than a parent. The nurse guided him over to one of the incubators, were a tiny, wrinkled and very red infant lay, hooked up to a ventilator that somehow seemed far to big for what had to be a very small pair of lungs. For some reason, all John can think of as he looks down at his boy is the eggplant his mother once found buried in the back of a crisper drawer of her fridge: wrinkled and soft.
When his finger made contact with the little one's hand, he could see the involuntarily flex of the boy's hand, trying to grasp, but somehow either too tired or too weak to do so. His eyes flicked to the card at the head of the incubator - frowning at the 'weight' line. Three pounds, seven ounces. How was this even possible? Just last week, Mary had been laughing, telling him that the baby was quite the kicker. John had been absolutely floored the first time she'd grabbed his hand, pressed it against her swollen belly and he'd felt the flutter under his hand. A good, strong, steady kick - 'a troublemaker already' Mary had said. John had chuckled and stated they had a soccer player on their hands. Mary pegged him of more of a swimmer, as the baby liked to kick and punch at the same time; stretching out, letting his parents, mainly his mother, know that 'I'm here, I'm here, look at what I can do!'
Now here he was.
John gently brushed the boy's head with his fingers, stunned that his whole hand could almost engulf the infant. “You're a strong little fighter, aren't you Dean?” He smiled. Dean. “Just wish you didn't have to face this hard of fight right off the bat.” He smiled - ninety percent chance of survival - whatever you do, don't think about that other ten percent. In the corner of the room, John could hear a woman faintly humming to her own child, but the song was unfamiliar. Right now, there's only one song he can think of to sit and hum at his own little boy. He does his best to fight back tears as he softly sings 'Happy Birthday' to Dean, telling himself that come this time next year, he and Mary are going to watch this boy make a mess of himself with his first birthday cake. That five years from now there will be a gang of kids in their house for a party, and sixteen years from today, he and Dean are going to take the Impala down to the DMV and he's going to wait for his boy to come back from his driver's test, all eager and excited about passing it with flying colors.
*
Mary sat slumped in the wheelchair, looking rather despondently into the incubator her child was lying in. “He looks so... small.” She felt John's hand squeeze her shoulder. “I never had dolls that were as small as he is..” She swallowed hard.
“He's a tough little guy, Mary.” John gave her arm another squeeze. “He'll be ready to come home before we know it.”
“I...” She swallowed. “It seems hard to believe right now, that's all.” She sat forward with some effort and placed her hand on her son's back. “I was counting on you to be a Pisces, young man. Now you just get your strength up so daddy and I can bring you home.”
John set his hand next to Mary's. Together, the two hands almost completely covered the boy. “All you've got to do, Dean, is gain a few pounds in a few weeks.”
Mary let out a soft giggle. “If you can gain weight out here as well as I did when we were waiting for you, it should be no problem.” She bit her lip as she felt the tears start to run down her cheeks. “I'm... I don't know...”
John sat down in an offered chair and wrapped his arms around his wife. “He's going to be just fine, Mary. You both are.” He reached out and set a finger against Dean's hand. “Week of good meals and a little bit of hair on that bald head of his, he'll be ready to come home.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “When did you get so optimistic, John?”
“When you weren't looking, darling.” He kissed the side of her head. “So if he's not a Pisces, what is he?”
“An Aquarius.” Mary let out a weak chuckle. “You two are in so much trouble.”
“Why is that?” John was just glad his wife had something to think about other than their tiny son fighting for his life.
“You're a Capricorn John. Aquariuses are known to get along with everyone but Capricorns. You're too serious for them.”
John shook his head. “Long as he keeps his room clean and stays out of detention at school, I'm sure we'll be fine.”
“Start doing your own laundry before you talk about him keeping his room clean.” Mary clasped John's free hand in hers. “It's going to be fine, right John?”
John kissed her forehead again. “Everything is going to be wonderful, Mary. By this time next year, people are going to be asking if he's two instead of one.”
*
John absolutely hated going home alone from the hospital. It would take Mary a full week to recover from her surgery and the doctors put Dean's tentative release date as Valentine's Day. He went home, cleaned up the mess in the master bedroom, doing his best not to think about the blood stains he was bleaching out of the sheets. He was glad, however, that Mary had already gotten Dean's room ready. The crib was made, the walls were painted, everything was done - it only needed it's occupant to come and take up residence. He leaned against the door-frame, frowning at the ceramic angel who seemed to be regarding him with a very enigmatic look. Almost as if the darn thing had been expecting him to notice him. He'd called the angel corny; Mary had called it sweet. If his wife wasn't so damn attached to the damn thing, John probably would have hurled the curio across the room and let it shatter against the wall.
He stepped into the room and went over to the dresser, opening the top drawer to look at the clothing within. Everything in the top drawer was for newborn to three months old in size - and everything was currently too big for their owner. John shut the drawer and absently straightened things in the room. The blanket over the railing of the crib. The crib he'd gotten from his aunt's house up in Atchison back in August and spent almost every Saturday in September refinishing. Turning from the bed he stopped at the piggy bank that his cousin had sent over Christmas. A white porcelain pig with a KU Jayhawk painted on it - and underneath were the words 'Future Jayhawk Fund.' John didn't know if his cousin had been serious or was being silly. He dug into his pocket and pulled out the change in his pocket from the vending machines at the hospital. He didn't even pause as he dropped the sixty-five cents in dimes and nickels into the pig and left the nursery.
*
Mary was afraid that Dean would break in her arms. He was so small, so fragile. Yet one thing was very clear: the boy could eat. She shifted her shoulders a little to get a better look at him as he drank greedily from the bottle she was holding. The doctors said he wasn't strong enough yet for her to breast feed him. The boy was so light, she had to keep watching him to make sure he was still there. Dean was now one week old and was one pound heavier. The best news she and John had since last Thursday was that their boy wouldn't have to stay in the incubator much longer if he kept up his progress through the week. The bad news was the fact that Mary was cleared to go home and that they would have to leave Dean in the hospital. What the hell she was going to do when she got home? Mary had no idea.
John was already back at work, unable to take much more time off. Mary was supposed to be at work herself today, not sitting here in the hospital with her first born in her arms. Thankfully, her boss was far more understand than John's would ever be. John would come by the hospital this afternoon and drive Mary home. She might have been released from the doctor's care, but there was nothing against her being here for the nine hours John was at work as a visitor. She still wasn't cleared for things like driving, lifting anything heavier than ten pounds and a bunch of other things that fell under the category of 'heavy work.'
The bottle was now empty and Dean didn't look to perturbed when his mother took it away, he only made a small smacking motion with his lips and then settled. “That tasted good, huh?” She straightened up and set the boy against her shoulder, slowly rubbing his back. “Any burps in there, baby?” Mary willed herself not to cry as she heard an almost inaudible sound from her boy. She moved him back down into her arms and kissed his forehead. “It's okay baby.” She brushed her finger against Dean's cheek. “Mommy's here. I'm always going to be here.”
***
Sam didn't understand a lot of things. At eleven, he didn't quite get the whole hunting monsters thing. Dean had told him time and time again it was important, but for him? It just seemed unreasonable. Couldn't someone else do it? Someone who didn't have kids or something? People like Uncle Bobby - he was a hunter and he had no family. That sort of hunter made sense to Sam. Not people like dad. Dad was so obsessive about the whole thing and Dean blindly followed him. Sam didn't understand why dad thought it was okay to leave his two kids alone in motel rooms across the country while he went off and hunted those monsters. Didn't understand why dad didn't show much interest anything his kids were doing that wasn't hunting related. But if there was one thing that confused the hell out of Sam more than anything were the times when dad would return from the hunt to find his youngest in his pajamas watching TV, recovering from a cold, the flu or some other bug - and going into full on dad mode when he told his father that Dean was sick.
Maybe dad had done the same for him at times when Dean told him that he was sick. If he had, Sam couldn't remember. He just knows that he feels something akin to jealousy when he watches dad take care of his eldest like he's still a baby. Then there's dad's weird habit of always giving his older brother a new pair of boots on the nineteenth of March every year. It was always on the nineteenth and no other day. It wouldn't be until Dean's bout with meningitis at seventeen that Sam finally learned the reason behind the shoes and the reason dad always freaked when Dean was serious, bed ridden sick.
**
John stared hard at the man lying in the bed, trying to will the image of his boy imprisoned in a bed, a machine keeping his breathing even, that god-awful drone that John always associated with that other prison Dean had been in on the day he was born. That wretched box that held him in a cocoon of sanitation and emphasized the point of how weak the baby had been. Dean wasn't a baby any longer. He'd fought everything that had been thrown at him. John knew what the fever of meningitis could do to a person. Blindness, deafness - death. He couldn't lose the boy, not now. Dean might not approve of being called a boy at seventeen, but he'd always be John's boy, his baby. He let out a deep breath and looked up. “Sam.”
“I brought your coffee.” He held the paper cup out to his father.
“Thanks.” He took it and motioned for Sam to join him. “Doctors said his fever is going down.”
“That's good.” Sam sat down and looked at his hands. He didn't want to let on how scared he was for his brother. “He looks...”
“I know Sam, he looks like a baby in a crib with those damn rails up like that.” John took a drink of coffee.
“Been listening to some conversations around the nurses station. Six more kids from Dean's gym class are in here too.” Sam rubbed the back of his neck. “Some are worse than he is.”
John leaned back in his chair. “Dean's a fighter, Sam. He always has been, ever since he was born.”
Sam seriously doubted his six-foot, hundred and eighty pound brother had any problems in infancy. “We're doing this project at school for biology.” He figures he might as well talk about something inane to keep his mind occupied. “About growth and whatnot... do you remember how much I weighed when I was born?”
John gave his boy a one armed hug and then took another drink of coffee. “Of course I do, Sam. Your old man might seem forgetful at times, but there's some things you never forget. Samuel Eric Winchester, born at six-fifteen in the morning on May second, nineteen eighty three. You weighed in at eight pounds, six ounces and twenty point five inches long.”
Sam grinned faintly, rubbing at a blister on his hand. “Let me guess... Dean was around the same?” He looked over at his father and saw that he'd gone slightly pale. “Dad?”
“No, Sam. Dean wasn't as big as you were when he was born. He wasn't even half your weight.” He set his cup down and covered his face with his hands. “Dean weighed in at three pounds, seven ounces and sixteen inches long.”
“What... how... I mean...”
John lowered his hands and looked at his youngest. “That's why I don't like seeing your brother bedridden, Sammy. Saw it enough in the first three weeks of his life that I don't want him to have to stay in bed any longer than a few days. I can't stand it, Sam.”
Sam shifted his gaze from his father to his brother. “Well, you know Dean...” He knew he had to get his father off this track. He'd seen it before, when November second rolled around every year and he hated it. “He'll probably be back to his surly self this time tomorrow demanding to know when he can leave.”
John let out a weak chuckle. “Sounds like our Dean, doesn't it?”
“Yup.” Sam left out the thought of his brother changing his mind about being stuck in bed if there were some cute nurses on staff. “That's Dean.”