The author's note below is longer than this last chapter. :/
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He won't remember an even line dividing things afterward. Won't be able to point to a single frame of time and indicate "that was then, that was waking up." Everything blurs and bleeds and seeps together.
All the same, he's still in a bed, still listening to a raspy voice pleading – only, no, it's different. His head is a universe of agony, and there are streaks of pain rampaging through his body – feels like broken ribs here, sprained ankle, busted shoulder, a dull ache in his thigh like something went through it.
He also feels a hand clenched around his, and this makes him open his eyes.
"Please, Dean. Wake up. Get up."
Cas.
Cas.
Cas!
Dean squeezes the hand as hard as he can, and Cas lifts his head in shock, tears slowly trickling down into the impressive growth of facial hair he's managed to collect. It reminds Dean of Purgatory. "Cas—you're alive?" he asks.
"You're awake, Dean!" Cas cries out, eyes wide. A fresh round of tears spill down too-pale cheeks. He yanks his hand free and dials a cell phone quickly. "S-Sam," he says breathlessly, while Dean looks around the room. A plate of pancakes sits on the otherwise unused breakfast table, next to a small uneaten half-pie in a grocery store's hard shell packaging. Cherry, from the look of it. Butter and syrup are on the pancakes, although it's all been there a while, judging from the texture of the syrup.
"Yeah. He's awake. Get up here now." Cas tosses the phone onto the table and resumes his staring.
"What? I got a booger?" Dean quips, his voice rough from lack of use, trying to ignore how his heart is hammering triple time at the fact that Cas is alive, Cas is alive, Cas is alive.
Cas's breathing is uneven, the man obviously finding it impossible to believe that Dean's both alert and talking to him. "You're awake," he says again.
"Well, yeah," Dean smirks. "You wouldn't let me sleep." He swallows and continues. "Wanna tell me how you're alive? That second ghost got you in the basement… Someone bring you back?"
Cas shakes his head. "No. You got knocked into the wall in the bathroom and we were almost too late to get you here," he whispers, glassy-eyed. "I hurled a piece of pipe into the ghost so hard, it went into a wall. And then I went up… I found you…" He breaks off, looking devastated.
Sam bursts into the room. "He's really awake!" he exclaims. "Jeez, Dean. You had us scared to death and back. You were in that coma forever."
"How—" Goddamn, Dean is starving. He stares at the pancakes and the pie hungrily. "How long?"
Sam leans in to hug his brother tightly. Dean can feel his shoulders shaking before Sam pulls away to take a seat next to Cas. "Sixteen days," Sam tells him, watching with amused relief as Dean reaches for the pie. "Cas wouldn't shut the hell up the whole time we were here." Dean picks up the container and is about to open it when Sam snags it out of his hands. "Whoa, maybe take it easy? Talk to a doctor or something first? You've been on IV nutrition for two weeks, calm down." He hits the Call Nurse button.
"Fine," Dean mutters as Sam sets the pie down and grabs the alert remote. He speaks into the receiver to a nurse, who says she'll send in Dr. Culp immediately.
Dean shakes his head in wonder, turning to Cas. "So… yeah. You were like, Alarm Clock of the Lord or something in there."
"You mean Chatterbox of the Lord," Sam says, still apparently shocked and hysterical as he lets the remote drop.
Cas smiles, brushing the back of his hand over the tear tracks. "I have heard about talking to coma patients, giving them a sort of anchor, so to speak."
"And the food," Sam cuts in, nodding his head to the pancakes. "He kept bringing your favorites, hoping the smell somehow got to you."
The burgers, the bacon, the pancakes, the fries, the pie. Unbelievable.
"Yes, the food and the talking both…" Cas mumbles, toying with an edge of the sheet hanging over the bed. He sighs. "I'm not sure if it worked, though."
Dean finds the button to push the upper part of his bed higher. He waits until he's in a sitting position, then leans forward, looking at Cas. "Come here a sec," he says. Cas pulls his chair closer. "It worked, Cas." He reaches out and pulls Cas into a hug, shuddering with relief that the dreams—nightmares—weren't reality. "It worked." He sniffs, and can't help the grin that crawls across his face. "But dude. You stink."
"You're one to talk," Cas scoffs.
Sam just laughs.
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OKAY! So I am sure it's obvious, but the inspiration for this was Futurama's "The Sting." I tried really hard to pay tribute to certain scenes without using exact wording, but I am an Aspiegirl and therefore not super super good at subtlety (reading or expressing) so I'm sure everyone figured it out anyway! :P *gives self a little mocking You Tried star* (And yes, that is the episode the one review said this story reminded them of!)
Thank you for reading! And if you have not watched Futurama, or that episode, you totally should. It's my favorite show after Supernatural and was a big part of my life for a long time. Goooooo watch!
The parallels I tried to lay in:
Dream 1, where Cas shows up with a burger / the stars scene: the stars are a ref to Fry and Leela in space when he gives her the gift from his locker. (Side note: I had the burger taste "strange" because I intended all the food to be not real or something, and then I forgot about that plotline through the rest of the food mentions. Sorry. :/ ) Also, the envelope was a light green, as was the wrapping paper on Fry's gift to Leela.
Dream 2, where Cas and Dean watch TV with bacon: Only thing here is the handholding. That's about as far into romance territory I was able to take it while still trying to make it feel organic (my shipper side was disappointed, lemme tell you!). Also, Cas takes his trenchcoat off and leaves it behind for after the dream.
Post-Dream 2, where Sam and Kevin are worried about Dean's sanity: He goes to get Cas's trenchcoat and only finds his leather jacket in its place. This is a direct parallel of Leela holding up what she thinks is Fry's red coat and is actually only her green one. Also, Sam temporarily having Bobby's voice and Kevin having Ash's voice for a sec = Amy, Hermes, and Bender all having the wrong voices for a line or two.
Dream 3, where Cas is back via Hannah: Such a flimsy explanation! That's really all I was going for. It was a weak explanation on Futurama (the couch and the royal jelly and Fry's hair/skin/blood on the couch), and it was a weak explanation here.
Post-Dream 3, where Charlie and Sam are worried: I could not and would not do the song thing. It would have been even more of a giveaway, and totally OOC. So I figured cliches would work in their place. As with Futurama ("Were you just singing?" "I'm not allowed to sing. Court order."), they don't acknowledge the cliches when asked.
The scene where Sam goes with Dean to dig up Cas's remains and it's not there: Scene in Futurama where Leela goes to find Fry's coffin and he's not there.
Pre-awakening scene with multiple Castiels and also Dean hearing the real Cas's voice: Leela in her apartment with the rest of the cast blaming her for Fry's death and then seeing the photo of him talking to her. I didn't explicitly say that Cas told Dean he loved him, but he did - it's in the paragraph where Dean's mind is going hyperfast and he mentions the Wednesday's child thing.
Misc: I could not have Cas saying "Wake up" throughout the story, so I changed it to "Get up" here and there, organic to the scene ("Get up [out of the car]," "Get up [so I can sit down too]," etc) wherever possible. I also thought that including food as well as talking to Dean was my own spin on things. I mean, c'mon, it's Dean after all :P I think Sam suggested this one, though, not Cas.
Like I said, I tried to both parallel and be subtle, but argh, it was way harder than I thought!
Thanks again for reading, following, and favorite-ing!