Runaway – Ch 16

Pairing: Jared x Reader
Warnings: Underage Drinking, Medical Emergency
Tags: consume alcohol carefully kiddos, angst angst angst
WC: 2.6k

Masterlist

Y/N/N was whining at Jensen and making grabby hands, as if she were a toddler, in the direction of the newly poured drink, which he was currently holding above his head and out of her reach. 

“I told you, you’ve had enough!” Jensen laughed. 

“But it’s my birthday,” Y/N/N pouted, trying to jump up to get the glass but only managing to knock herself against Jensen’s shoulders. “Mr. Padalecki!” she rounded on Jared, who was sprawled over a bed, guffawing as he watched the exchange. 

“He’s right darlin’, you’ve probably had enough,” Jared grinned. He’d clearly imbibed quite a lot as well, judging by how much his Texas accent had started to slip back into his speech. 

“Pleeeease,” Y/N/N looked to Jared with wide, supplicative eyes, dropping to her knees on the floor so her face was more on a level with his. Jared swallowed with difficulty, his drunk brain having trouble not imagining a scenario where Y/N/N was on her knees in this hotel room begging him for something very different. 

He sprung up without warning, knocking Y/N/N back on her heels. 

“Gonna get some air,” he gestured toward the balcony in explanation. 

Outside, Jared leaned against the rail, staring aimlessly into the black of the un-illuminated parking lot. The night was cool, and a soft breeze came up from the river, playing with his hair. The way the water rippled in his vision more than it should have done, the current wasn’t that strong. He dragged a shuddering breath into his lungs, closing his eyes to the world and trying to push away every feeling his body was having at that moment. He didn’t need this, couldn’t have this. 

The giddyness of the night slowly bled out of him. If it could have made a noise he imagined it would sound like the awful sucking pulsing a drain made as it siphoned the last vestiges of water through its sieve in a frantic whirl. He should go back inside, get him and Y/N/N a taxi back to the vineyard, let the night finish on a high for her. 

Turning, Jared looked back through the textured glass of the balcony doors. Jensen and Y/N/N’s figures were discernible in the bright light of the hotel room. Jensen was picking Y/N/N up from the floor, pulling her in close for a hug, which she melted into. He could hear Jensen talking, but he couldn’t make out the words. 

He couldn’t bring himself to go back inside just yet. Because if he did, there was a small part of him – a part that was growing larger the longer he watched Jensen hold Y/N/N – that desperately wanted to deck his best friend in the face. And that would be a bad move for a lot of reasons. 

Jared spun on his heel, finally wrenching his eyes away from the silhouettes behind the door as Jensen helped Y/N/N onto the spare bed. He accidentally locked eyes with a man in a hotel bathrobe, who was out on his own balcony, and quickly averted his gaze, not wanting to disturb the stranger’s privacy. 

The balcony doors crashed open, and in his periphery Jared saw the man in the bathrobe startle at the sound, dropping his cigarette. 

“Jared! Get in here!” Jensen shouted, not sticking around to see if Jared followed him in, but immediately going back inside. Jared stuck to his heels, rushing back through the doors, which slammed jarringly behind him. 

Y/N/N was lying on the bed, eyes closed, as if she were sleeping, except Jensen was calling her name repeatedly and shaking her shoulders, but still she gave no indication that she might be able to hear him. She wasn’t just asleep, she was unconscious. The sight of Y/N/N, limp against the pillows, finished the job of sobering Jared up that his moral crisis had started. It was then Jared noticed the cell phone in Jensen’s hand, 9-1-1 shining starkly on the backlit screen. 

Jared felt his mouth go dry and his limbs go heavy. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Y/N/N’s motionless body – the body he’d just been lusting over outside like a fucking pervert. God, how sick was he? A man over a decade older than this girl he’d just gotten illegally drunk – so drunk that she’d passed out. Fuck, he should be arrested for this. Locked up somewhere he can’t endanger the people around him; the people meant to be in his care. 

Jared was almost surprised when the ambulance arrived without police accompanying them as well. There would be plenty of time to arrest him at the hospital, he supposed. 

Jensen answered the door while Jared stayed on the bed by Y/N/N’s side, watching her breathing carefully, unfathomably grateful every time he saw her chest rise and fall in its involuntary rhythm. 

Two EMT’s crowded into the room along with a folding stretcher and the hotel manager that had shown them up to the room. Jared was ushered off the bed so they could check Y/N/N’s vitals and run through the triage procedure, rattling off a load of terms that neither Jared or Jensen were familiar with. 

“Providence ER is on by-pass; big fire a little ways north at a press plant, they’re drowning in admits. We’ve gotta reroute her to State,” one EMT announced to her colleague after a brief conversation on her walkie talkie. But that was the first thing either of them had said that Jared understood, and his brain kicked into gear, wanting to focus on something other than his fear. 

“Napa State? But that’s a psychiatric hospital, isn’t it?” Jared protested. 

“They’ve got an ER too, sir, don’t worry. Your daughter will be in good hands there,” the EMT assured Jared calmly. 

“She’s–” Jared stopped himself, sure that now was not the best time to discuss his relationship to Y/N/N. It suddenly hit him that her real parents had no idea where she was, that she was in trouble – that it was his fault. 

“Can we ride in the ambulance with her?” Jensen asked as they hoisted Y/N/N’s body off the bed and onto the gurney. 

“Of course,” the woman nodded, the kindness in her eyes not extending to her brisk tone of voice. “C’mon, she’s gonna be fine but we’ve gotta get her seen as soon as possible to hook her up with a full gastro-evac.” 

Jared did not like the sound of that, but he tried to latch on to their assurances that Y/N/N was going to be fine, and he hurried after Jensen and the rest of the medical party back toward the ambulance.

When they arrived at Napa State Hospital, the ER doctor and a nurse met them all at the emergency entrance. The EMT’s gave the nurse their initial diagnosis and relieved themselves of their patient. The woman with the kind eyes guided Jared and Jensen toward the duty nurse who was waiting with patient intake forms for them to fill in. 

Jared stared blankly at the clipboard, stark black lines waiting to be populated with details about Y/N/N’s life that he didn’t know. His gut twisted horribly, and he looked to Jensen, panic written clearly across his face. Jensen patted Jared on the back with a jerky nod and took the clipboard and pen. 

When they were allowed to see Y/N/N again following her procedure, she was still unconscious. The doctor said she would wake soon, but Jared realised he had no idea how much time had passed since they’d arrived in the first place. 

“Now, I’d like to speak with you both about her intake forms,” the doctor flipped through her charts. “You’ve written her first name, and almost nothing else. What is your relationship with the patient?” he asked skeptically. 

“We only met her out tonight,” Jensen answered casually. Jared looked at his friend, but schooled the surprise in his expression before he turned back to the doctor and nodded. 

“Told us her name’s Y/N/N, said she was celebrating her birthday and it was her first time drinkin’. That’s why I guessed at her birthday, there,” Jensen pointed at the line on the form where he’d scrawled that day’s date and the year twenty one years prior. 

“I see,” the doctor hummed, and Jared got the sense he didn’t completely buy the story. “And she was in a hotel room with the two of you because…” 

“She was on her own,” Jared supplied. “ She was pretty drunk, obviously,” he gestured to the bed, “and lost her purse. She needed a place to crash for the night, so we offered the couch in our hotel room.” Jared looked to Jensen for confirmation, and he gave the doctor a charming smile that rang of sincerity. 

“So, seeing as she had no purse, and no ID, I assume you don’t know if she has medical insurance?” he asked pointedly, and Jared scoffed. It was fucking typical, all they were interested in was who to bill at the end of the day. 

“I’ll take care of it,” Jared offered. “We bought her the drinks after all, it’s the least I can do.” It sounded so lame out loud, but Jared contained his grimace. 

“How responsible of you,” the doctor’s tone dripped with sarcasm. He clicked his pen loudly and scrawled a signature at the bottom of the chart before hanging it on the end of Y/N/N’s bed. “If you’ll follow me, we’ll just sort out that payment now, so we can process her paperwork.” 

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Jared nodded, following the ER doctor to the intake desk. 

“Hello, Mr. Padalecki!” the woman behind the desk greeted him. “Everything okay tonight?” 

“Oh, hi Sandra,” Jared stuttered through the greeting, surprised to see her here. “This isn’t your normal rotation, is it?” 

“Oh no, hon, don’t worry. You’ll still see me on the fourth floor next time you drop by, I’m just covering dinner breaks while we’re short staffed tonight,” Sandra explained, taking hold of the paperwork she was handed relating to Y/N/N’s case and beginning to input the details in her system. 

“I’ll see you soon, hon. You have fun filming that movie,” she waved Jared away cheerfully when all the finances had been taken care of, and he quickly ducked out of the lobby and back down the hall to Y/N/N’s room. Upon seeing her again, he let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. She was still asleep, but she looked more peaceful than she had back at the hotel room. She actually looked like she was sleeping, now, rather than comatose. Jared had never considered that there might be a distinction, but he was deeply grateful for it now.

“How is she?” Jared pulled up a plastic chair next to Jensen, sinking into it gratefully.

“Same, a nurse came in and checked her oxygen, said it looked good,” Jensen shrugged. His worry had settled into exhaustion by this point, it was visible on his face. Jared was sure he looked similarly.

“She’s gonna be fine,” Jared breathed heavily, more to reassure himself than anything. 

“We were such fucking idiots,” Jensen groaned, dragging his fingers through his hair, trying to shake away the tension that still lay thick in the air.

“No fucking kidding,” Jared scoffed. 

“We’re never letting her drink again,” Jensen asserted, and Jared looked at him skeptically. 

“That’s assuming she even wants to speak to us again after we nearly killed her.” 

“She’s not dead,” Jensen pointed out. “She’s not even nearly dead, she’s gonna be fine.” 

The pair looked at each other in uneasy silence. 

“Why did you lie?” Jared asked.

“What, you wanted to spend the night in jail?” Jensen scoffed.

“We probably deserve to,” Jared muttered.

“We made a mistake, Jar. We let her drink too much too fast – I don’t think they’d make us do hard time for that.” 

Jared shook his head, disbelief evident in the set of his jaw. 

“Look, if we got arrested for landing a minor in the hospital with alcohol poisoning, it’s not just jail we’d have to worry about,” Jensen argued. “You could lose your job, or she could lose hers. How do you think PR would like it if a scandal about their lead actor and his PA wound up on the front page?”

Jared deflated a little. Jensen was right, that could be a disaster for the production. Not to mention, if Y/N/N wound up in a national news story – what if her parents saw it? She’d come so far to get away from them, she would hate Jared for sure if he was the reason they tracked her down. 

“You’re not gonna go on some martyr kick like you did with Mere, are you?” Jensen grunted in aggravation, settling back into his chair with a loud squeak of plastic. 

“Excuse me?” Jared’s eyes flashed dangerously. Jensen wasn’t seriously going there, was he? 

“You spent ages moping around and blaming yourself after that when it was never your fault. It wasn’t her fault either-“

“If you say it was no one’s fault-“ Jared interrupted angrily.

“Of course it wasn’t no one’s fault, it was that scumbag’s fault and I hope he wound up in a ditch at the end of the night. But this,” Jensen pointed to Y/N/N still asleep in her hospital bed, “this wasn’t your fault. It was a mistake, an accident. And you’re not going to make it all about you and blame yourself for the next five years.” 

“Fuck you,” Jared growled, shoving out of his chair and pacing angrily around the room. Both men were breathing deeply, gazes locked in restrained silence, only permeated by the ominous beeping of the heart monitor Y/N/N was hooked up to. Shaking his head, Jared grunted and ran his hands through his hair in an effort to channel his frustration into something that wasn’t shouting at his best friend. 

“I’m gonna go outside for a minute,” Jared announced, with the intention of bumming a cigarette off someone. He’d quit a long time ago, but it was still a source of comfort he fell back on if he was ever too stressed to think straight. The alone time that came with having a smoke always helped him to clear his head. 

“Fine,” Jensen huffed and rolled his eyes, arms crossing passive-aggressively over his chest. He knew Jared was going to smoke, but he didn’t have the energy to start arguing about that too. 

Jared spun on his heel, taking one last look at Y/N/N in her bed before he left – except as he paused to examine her face, he noticed her eyes flutter.

“Y/N/N?” he called urgently, going to her side and gently placing a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, Y/N/N,”  he smiled, leaning closer as she rolled her head to the side and looked up at him sleepily. She tried to say something but it was too quiet for him to understand. 

“What was that, sweetheart?” 

Y/N/N tried to take a deep breath, but coughed, her throat still irritated from the procedure. She squeezed her eyes shut to get her bearings and tried again. 

“I said,” she whispered hoarsely, “I’m never drinking again.”