State of Seduction. // Dean Winchester COMPLETE

23.

Visiting hospitals had never been my thing. Between the judgemental nurses, the smell of disinfectant and the overall feeling of sickness and death that hung low in the air, I preferred to spend my time anywhere but in a hospital. To me, even visiting a cemetery was easier because at least when you went there you knew that there was no chance of your loved one getting better. At least you could start to deal with that, but with hospitals everything was uncertain. Mason was residing in the Northwestern Memorial Hospital which was only about six and a half kilometres from Grace Towers. I had come to visit Mason a few times, and nearly every time I had to leave before he even realized I was in the room because I couldn't deal with it.

Walking up to the nurses station on the third level, I smiled as sweetly as I could to the young girl behind the desk who glared at me in response, "I'm looking for Mason Reed, where is he?" I dropped my nice façade and glared back at her. I was only asking because I knew Mason had finally been moved from a communal room to a private and I hadn't been to see him since then, so I wasn't entirely sure where he was. The bitchy nurse tapped her fake nails against the keyboard of the computer as she looked up his name and read where his new room was. After several minutes of waiting, I was sure she had found the information already but she was just making me wait, she finally opened her mouth to speak.

"Room 205, just down the hall," She jutted her head in the direction Mason's room was before going back to playing on her iPhone that had a pink, sparkly cover and made me feel slightly sick. Without saying a thank you to the bitchy nurse, I walked down the hallway until I came to a stop in front of room 205. Sure enough, my brother was lying on the bed inside. The door was open and instead of walking straight in, I hovered in the doorway. Mason's eyes were shut and were surrounded by bruises and cuts, the fluorescent light above his bed shining down and illuminating all the skin deficiencies. His face was contorted in pain and I figured they must have taken away some of the pain medication he was on, seeing as the last few times I had seen him he had been loopy.

Taking a deep breath, I walked into the room. I tried not to look at all the tubes sticking out of him and all the cuts and bruises that littered his face, neck, chest and arms, and I'm sure the rest of him as well but the sheet was pulled up to his waist so I couldn't see. I sat down in the chair next to his bed and bit down on my lip. Seeing my brother like that, the usual light that followed him everywhere replaced with the artificial fluorescent lighting, it made me feel sick. This isn't the position you wanted to see the person you've looked up to your whole life in. His hair was pushed back and greasy and his chest rose and fell with uneven and short breaths. Reaching out and taking his cold hand in mine, I gave it a squeeze and slowly, Mason's eyes opened and he rolled his head to look at me. I smiled, "Hey," I said.

"Hey," He replied, his voice tired and raspy and with the hand I wasn't holding he reached out and grabbed a plastic pitcher of water and poured himself a glass which he drank down greedily. He looked back at me and a tired smile sat on his face. I wasn't sure if I was happier or sadder that he was in his right mind this time I had come to see him. I knew that the two of us had a lot of things to talk about and I just kept trying to put it off, even though I knew I couldn't put it off forever. But after what Dean had said yesterday, about Mason being so disappointed in me, I just wanted to gain a bump to my head and wake up with amnesia and not remember any of it.

"How are you feeling?" It took Mason a moment to gather his thoughts about how he was feeling and in that time I managed to grab a tissue out of my pocket and cough deeply into it. I didn't even want to look at how much blood had come out that time, and instead just scrunched it up and deposited it in the bin next to Mason's bed.

"Pretty shit," He finally said and I nodded my head in understanding, "What about you?" Just like him, I took a few moments to collect and ponder on my thoughts. How was I really feeling? I wasn't exactly feeling very good.

"Pretty shit," I finally copied his answer and Mason nodded, laughing at my answer before coughing into his hand. At least his coughs weren't laced with blood. We didn't talk for a while then, and rather just sat listening to the beeping of all the different machines he was hooked up too. I wanted to ask him so many questions; how he found out about The Pentagon, why he lied to me, and I still wanted to know about the family of Djinn's in backwater Indianapolis, but I figured that I'd leave that question for a rainy day when Mason, Trent and the Winchester's were in the same room and they couldn't escape my questions.

"How's Dean?" Mason finally asked and I flinched as I heard his name. Turning to look at Mason with my eyebrows raised, I wondered what he thought he knew about Dean and I and why he was asking me that question, "I mean, you two are together, right?" This had my howling in another fit of coughing and I threw the tissue away before Mason could notice anything and looked back at him, still wondering what he had been told, or what he thought he knew, to resolve to this answer.

"Together? No," I told him sternly, before remembering that we had always had a fairly honest relationship and deciding to give him some details he probably didn't want to hear, "I mean, we had sex. Twice. But we're not together, no way," I told him as I remembered Dean and I's fight yesterday afternoon. I had been ready to take full responsibility for that fight, but then Dean had to go and call me fucked up and after that I had to ask him to leave, I just didn't feel comfortable being around him after he said that, no matter how right he was.

"Why not?" Mason mused, not because he cared, but because he was my brother and he could tell when I needed to vent about something, even if it was about the romantic relationship between Dean Winchester and I.

"He called me fucked up, Mase," My voice was barely above a whisper but of course he heard every single word I had said.

"Why?"

"He said, and I quote; 'you're living with this messed up idea of not being open to love and that it doesn't exist and when I came along, you were so scared you tried to push me away, well guess what, it's starting to work,'" I assessed Mason's reaction but all he did was watch me with pursed lips, which was how I couldn't tell whether he was angry with me or Dean.

"Kale, you're not fucked up," He finally said, "You don't believe in love because you've never had a chance to experience it. Your whole life has been one constant disappointment after another and you've closed yourself off from that part of life, but obviously Dean is trying, and I basically hate the guy, but he cares about you and all he wants is to protect you. And if he wants to be with you, or if he wants you, if he's open to the idea of falling in love, maybe you should be too," I wanted to punch Mason and I wanted him to tell me that Dean was a dick because of the things he said to me, but I couldn't because I knew that he was absolutely right. Just like Dean was yesterday when he said those things and I told him to leave. "Are you open to the idea of love?" Mason asked.

"I wish I could be," I said, "But I don't know, maybe I'm just too fucked up,".