Half an hour went by where neither Cas nor Sam spoke, they just stared at Dean, both wrapped in their own heads, playing their worst nightmares over and over again, wondering if they were going to come true. Dean's chest was rising and falling rhythmically in time with the respirator which was making little hissing a clicking noises as it breathed for him. The ECG machine beeped slightly out of time with his breaths. The little orchestra of sounds seemed deafening in the quiet room as they counted out each painful second. Sam eventually announced that he was going for a walk, that he couldn't stand doing nothing anymore, and just like that he got up and left. Cas stood up and listened until he knew Sam was far down the corridor.
He pushed the brown hair from Dean's forehead, feeling his cool and clammy skin beneath his fingertips. He pressed two fingers to Dean's skin, using a little of his very limited power to assess Dean's injuries. The doctor was either completely incompetent or he had been sugarcoating the situation because Dean was in terrible shape, he was never going to regain consciousness. He probably wouldn't last more than a few hours.
Cas felt confused, looking down at that stranger in the bed. Although it felt much longer to him, it had been less than a day ago that they were playing Twister in the bunker, Dean had laughed until he cried, full of witty remarks and warm smiles. Now he lay there, grey-skinned, empty and still. Cas was very familiar with death, but this sensation, whatever it was, was very new to him.
With a rush of dread, he was suddenly aware of another presence in the room. Standing by the door was a tall, dark-haired woman, dressed all in black. She was staring at Cas.
"You're Castiel," she said.
"Yes," he replied, walking around the bed to stand between the Reaper and Dean.
"What's wrong with you?" she asked, seemingly with genuine curiosity in her brown eyes.
"I fell from heaven a few hours ago," he said. "I'm not fully recovered yet."
"No, that's not it," she said, frowning slightly. "You're not like other angels."
"That's putting it lightly," he said. There was silence for a few seconds, and Cas reached behind him to lay a hand on Dean. "You're not needed here."
"Come on, Castiel. Half the Reapers in the country are in this hospital waiting to take him." She looked from Cas to Dean and her expression softened slightly. "It's time."
"No. I can heal him."
"We wouldn't be here if you could heal him. It's time for you to let him go. Stand aside."
"I said no," he said, his voice rising like thunder and reverberating off the painted walls. The Reaper looked taken aback.
"I'm trying to be tactful here, but the reality is you can't heal him without killing yourself. He's as good as dead already."
"Don't tell me what I am capable of. I could destroy you in a second." A small smile crept on to her face.
"Maybe on a good day," she said, approaching Dean. "Come on, Castiel, you aren't going to kill yourself for this mortal. That's all he is, no matter how famous he is amongst hunters."
"You have just made two terrible mistakes," Cas said, dropping the angel blade from his sleeve and in to his hand. "Never underestimate Dean Winchester." She reached out to push Cas aside and he plunged the blade in to her chest, felt the hilt hit bone. "And never underestimate me." With a piercing scream and a blast of white light she crumpled to the ground.
Cas was breathing heavily, his hands shaking slightly as he glanced up to make sure no one had overheard the commotion. He stood frozen for a second, waiting for the door to burst open and a crowd of people to find him standing over the body of a stabbing victim with another body at his feet and a bloody knife in his hand, but no one came. He dropped the blade to the ground with a loud clatter and turned back to Dean, suddenly feeling panicked by the pressure of a hundred Reapers on his tail.
"Dean," he said, not quite sure what he was doing. "I don't imagine you can hear me but that Reaper was right. Healing you will kill me but…" he faltered, looking for the words to convey his feelings. He stared up at the ceiling as though he expected the right words to be written there. At last he glanced back down at Dean and said, "I have no interest in walking this earth if you are not on it with me."
He felt a sudden, cold breath of air behind him and he turned around. He saw nothing but the plain white wall and the square window, but had the unnerving feeling that someone or something had just touched his face. But he didn't have time to worry about that, he turned back to Dean and gathered his strength.
"This is the only way to save you. Please don't blame yourself," he added, although he knew that was exactly what Dean would do. "I have many conflicting emotions right now, many of which are very painful. I feel... broken." He frowned, frustrated with himself that once again he couldn't find the proper words.
Something smashed at his feet. A cheap looking vase was in a hundred pieces on the floor, the plastic flower it had contained resting on his shoe. He looked around and saw a circular stain on the windowsill where the vase had previously stood.
"Who's there?" he asked the silent room. Nothing. Perhaps a patient in the hospital was having an out of body experience and their astral form was in the room with him. Perhaps it was Dean. "Is that you?" he asked. Still silence. He shook his head, telling himself that it had been a non-existent draft that had knocked over the vase.
He took a deep breath, and looking down at Dean he realised that he wasn't afraid to die. He reached out to place his hand on Dean's face. The second he touched his skin, Cas was blinded by white light as every last atom of strength was drained from him, he was immobilised, a high-pitched, constant scream deafened him. He felt like he had just been banished again but he had no idea if he was even still inside the hospital, let alone if he had managed to save Dean. Let him live, he thought before the blinding whiteness faded to silent black.
But instead of infinite darkness, Cas opened his eyes and found himself slumped in a chair by Dean's bed. Sam's hand was on his shoulder.
"Cas, Dean's awake." He opened his eyes to see a baffled looking doctor standing over Dean who was wide awake and sitting up, looking as bright as ever. Cas's eyes scanned the floor, the body of the Reaper was gone. He looked questioningly up at Sam who gave him a quick wink.
"I don't understand this," the doctor said, pushing Dean forward and untying his hospital gown to inspect the stab wounds on his back. "The lacerations are still here, your arm is still broken, but all your internal injuries have healed. I am not a religious man, but frankly," he said, looking from Dean to Sam, "this is nothing short of a miracle."
"Yeah, it's a real mystery," Dean said, dryly, glaring at Cas. The doctor checked his various monitors one last time before asking Sam to fill out some insurance forms. Sam patted Dean on the shoulder before following the doctor out. As soon as they were gone, Dean rounded on Cas. "I know what you did," Dean said.
"I didn't do anything," Cas said, staring fixedly at the corner of the bed.
"You're a terrible liar."
"Why do people keep saying that?" Cas asked.
"I was standing right behind you when I was unconscious," Dean said. "I saw everything."
"You were having an out of body experience," Cas realised. "I felt your presence. You touched my face."
"Actually I punched you, but it didn't quite have the impact I was hoping for. You could have killed yourself, what were you thinking?"
"I don't understand why you still have injuries," Cas said, evading the question. "I should have cured you entirely or died in the process." Now Dean was the one looking shifty. "You stopped me from healing you entirely, didn't you?" Cas said. "You pulled me off of you while you were in your astral form."
"Yeah. It took a hell of an effort to knock over that vase, let alone drag a buck-seventy angel off of me, but I wasn't about to let you die."
"That was incredibly dangerous," Cas said. "You could have killed yourself or been trapped outside of your body forever." Dean shrugged.
"Danger's my middle name," he said, with a smile. Cas still looked concerned.
"You don't have a middle name."
"I know that, Cas."
"I'm sorry I haven't healed you," he muttered.
"Hey, I'm alive aren't I? Don't you dare go feeling bad about that." Cas nodded. Dean turned around and pushed himself out of bed, unable to stay mad at the angel when he already looked so disappointed in himself. "Come here, you beautiful moron," he said, pulling Cas into a one-armed hug.
Cas hugged him back, a little stiffly at first, but Dean thought he was getting the hang of this physical contact thing. Dean had his back to the door, but he heard Sam enter the room.
"Uh… Dean," he said. "Do you know your gown doesn't have a back? I'm seeing a little more than I need to…"
"It's okay if you're jealous," Dean said to him, slapping Cas heartily on the back before eventually releasing him.
"Hey, it's not like I haven't seen your ass before, but this nurse probably doesn't need to see it." Dean spun around to see a very pretty nurse staring at him with a little smirk on her face.
"Mr Singer," she said. Dean stared at Sam. Sam nodded slightly behind the nurse's back to let him know that he was Mr Singer.
"That's me," Dean said. "Mr Singer. Born and raised. Mr Dean Singer." Sam rolled his eyes and then something seemed to catch his eye and he grinned widely. Dean didn't understand why Sam was laughing until he realised that he now had his back to Cas who was getting a front row seat to his bare backside. He grabbed the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around himself.
"Would you get me some pants please?!" he asked Sam.
"Sure," Sam said. "I'm going to go back to the bunker anyway. You want anything else?"
"Nah, just clothes." Sam nodded, taking one last amused look at Cas who seemed complete unfazed by Dean's semi-nakedness. Just as he turned to leave, Dean added, "Would you bring my laptop? And pie. And maybe a burger. Oh and a couple beers? Maybe a magazine too. You know which one." Sam smirked, shook his head in mock exasperation, and left.
"Mr Singer, I have to change your dressings and do a couple blood tests."
"I'll go," said Cas.
"You don't have to," Dean said, but Cas walked out in to the hall anyway. Dean sat up straight while the nurse began to peel off his bandages and he noticed a shining silver wedding ring on her finger. He wasn't sure he felt better or worse about presenting his ass to a married woman.
"You're incredibly lucky to be alive," she said. "The doctors are going to be talking about this one for years. They're already calling it the Singer Miracle." Dean laughed.
"Yeah, well it's all thanks to him," he said, looking out at Cas who had only gone as far as the hallway outside, and was staring intently at the wall.
"I don't mean to be rude," she said, "but he's a little different, isn't he?"
"Yeah," said Dean, smiling at how out of place Cas looked. "He doesn't really understand human interaction."
"He seems to understand you," she said.
"I guess so."
"You're a really lucky guy," she said.
"So I keep being told."
"I don't mean surviving the attack," she said, allowing him to lean back in the bed again and looking over her shoulder at Cas, absent-mindedly playing with her wedding ring, a little smile on her lips. "It's not often you find a love like that. Don't ever let it go." Dean smiled again and Cas looked in at him, still standing stiffly in everyone's way. But then he realised what the nurse was implying.
"We're not… I mean, he's not my…"
"Say no more," the nurse said, but instead of looking embarrassed by the misunderstanding she just smiled a knowing smile. "You take care Mr Singer."
Once the nurse was gone, he looked back out in to the corridor, but Cas had vanished. Feeling strangely disappointed, Dean picked up the TV remote and started flicking through the channels. He watched a few minutes of an episode of Dr Sexy MD before deciding he had already seen it. When he switched over to the local news station, he dropped the remote in surprise.
"Damn it, Crowley," he said. Almost immediately, Cas walked through the door followed by a confused and frustrated looking Sam.
"I don't believe we're in Kansas anymore," Cas said.
"You think, Dorothy?" Dean said.
"Why the hell are we in Alaska?" asked Sam.
"I think it's Crowley's way of reminding us that he's still a complete dickbag," Dean said. Then he was suddenly struck by a deeply concerning thought. He looked up at his brother. "They still have pie in Alaska, right?"
A/N Thanks again for reading, your support has been brilliant. Please leave a review if you have a minute! CMPerry x