Title: The Little Wooden Kitchen In The Suburbs (7/?)
Author: craystiel
Rating: PG (For now)
Pairing: Dean/Castiel. Bonus domestic!Team Free Will
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, all rights belong to Supernatural.
Spoilers: Based off the Season 8 storyline I suppose.
Warnings: Its a bit painful, sorry.
Notes: Hihi :) not as long a wait this time and extra long to make up for the lack of updates. Beta'd by TruffleHead :)
Summary: It's been a few months since they shut the gates of hell forever. They've given up hunting for a simpler life. But Dean, he's having a little trouble adjusting.
It was warm and bright the next time Dean Winchester opened his eyes; his vision was blurred and his chest felt tight for some reason. He blinked against the fluorescent lights and let out a long, heavy breath. A cool breeze rushed past him, causing goosebumps to trail over his body, chasing each other to his toes. He shivered against the wind and reached his heavy arms out to pull the blanket over himself. It was then he noticed his attachment.
His eyes trailed down his goosebump covered skin to find a hand clinging onto his. He followed the hand to its owner gulped. His brown hair fluttered up and down as his breath blew it into the air every few seconds. His chest was slowly rising and falling and his large warm hand was tightly secured onto his own. Cas. Dean gulped again. He attempted to pull his hand from the other man's, but discovered he couldn't. Despite Cas' peaceful sleeping figure, he was still pretty strong. Dean laid their hands back down on the bed and shifted the blanket up on one side. He closed his eyes against the light and drifted back into a restless sleep filled with images of Cas' hand clinging tightly onto his own.
It was dark the next time he awoke; colder, too. He shifted in his bed, lifting the blanket back over his chest and arms from where it had shifted during his rest. He could hear quiet murmurs just a few steps away, and he stopped fidgeting to listen in. The familiar concerned yet reassuring tone of Sammy snuck into his ears, making his heart thump with a fondness he couldn't describe. He closed his eyes, under the impression he could hear better that way.
"But what if he doesn't wake up at all? He's not used to being constantly beaten up and tortured anymore, Sam. Things are different now, this is different." The voice was deep, but not rough. Instead, it flowed through his ears easily, filling his entire body with a strange kind of warmth. He shivered against the sudden temperature change.
"It's Dean, Cas, he's not gonna die." Sammy said matter-o-factly, like it was the simplest answer in the universe.
"But you can't deny that it is still a possibility. We need to prepare ourselves." Cas responded and Dean thought he heard tears in his voice. His mind struggled against the emotion he heard in his friend's voice; it wasn't like Cas at all. "He could die, Sam. We could end up alone, without him, forever. We would just have to go back to-" Cas paused, his words faltering, and he heard Sam comfort the other man. Cas was sobbing quietly and Dean's heart tightened behind his ribcage. Suddenly his body was covered in goosebumps all over again. He wanted to get up, he wanted to speak, but he couldn't do either. It was as if his lips didn't work. He tried to wiggle his toes, too, but they remained frozen beneath his blanket. Son of a bitch, he thought.
"It'll be fine, Cas, I promise. Everything will be completely fine." Sam kept repeating. Dean's heart beat harder against his chest. They never came into the room, so eventually Dean gave up trying to speak and simply closed his eyes against the darkness. Instead of sleeping, he tried to pressure his brain into remembering how he ended up in here. He pushed against a seemingly stubborn blank slate, but only got flashes of the past. Screams, smells, dirt. The usual with him. He said son of a bitch over and over again in his head until he fell asleep once more.
He woke to hushed talking once more, but this time it was light. Cas was facing away from him, looking out the window. He was clinging to the phone next to his ear and scratching the back of his neck nervously every few seconds.
"No, that's okay, just keeping looking after Jimmy. No, I'm sure. No, Charlie, I do not need anything," He gave a hollow little laugh and Dean's heart tightened again. "Yes, okay, bring pie, I'm certain the smell will lure Dean out of his coma within seconds." He paused, letting out a long sigh. "They're doing another CT today to check for activity." Another long pause. "I know, me too. I'll see you when you get here." Cas hung up the phone and lent his head against the window.
Dean wanted to scream out to him, but his mouth still wasn't working. Desperate, he lifted his arm and pushed the closest item to him onto the floor. There was a loud crash as a vase of flowers shattered. Cas whipped his head around and Dean smiled, shrugging his shoulders.
"Dean? You're awake?!" Cas shouted. Dean nodded quickly as Cas ran across the room, slipping slightly in the spilt water. He jumped onto Dean's bed and pressed his body close to Dean's, wrapping his warm arms around his neck. Cas didn't speak for a long time, just holding Dean tightly in his arms.
"I'm very glad that you're awake," he finally muttered quietly into Dean's ear, before pulling away and wiping away a few stray tears. Dean focused in on those little salty droplets falling from Cas' face and he tilted his head. He'd never seen Cas cry before.
"Are you okay? How do you feel? Are you in a lot of pain?" Cas asked. Dean shrugged before pointing to his mouth, signaling that he couldn't speak. Cas stared for a moment before rushing to the other side of the room and coming back with a pen and paper. Dean scribbled a little message and then held it up to Cas.
'I can't talk, I've tried. I can't really move my legs either. I'm not in a lot of pain, but I don't remember- I can't even remember the last thing I remember... I know that doesn't make sense, but my mind is blank and I've tried but nothing is coming back.'
Cas took his hand and held it tightly. Dean pulled away, and Cas looked like he'd been hit with a ton of bricks.
"You have two broken legs," Cas started, "you were hit and tortured around your chest and throat, so the voice loss is only temporary until your voice box heals." Cas smiled sadly. "The doctor warned us that you could have some short term memory loss, but he said it would return eventually." Dean smiled this time, flipping the page to write again:
'Where's Sammy?'
Cas pulled out his phone once he saw Deans message. "Sam! Yes, just now." Cas smiled into the phone before hanging up.
Dean began writing again.
'Who's Jimmy?'
Cas stared at the page for what seemed like hours. He blinked and he blinked and he scratched the back of his neck. His eyes watered and the most magnificent shade of blue flashed into his eye line before Cas wiped a sleeve over his face and the colour washed away. Dean quickly scribbled another message.
'Are you human?'
The brilliant blue emerged in Cas' eyes again, releasing a few tears as he bowed his head. "You say you don't remember the last thing you remember, but how far back is that; how much do you remember? You know me, and Sam, and Charlie?" Dean nodded, "You remember what happened last year? To Kevin? To us?" Dean shook his head no, and Cas sighed.
'I'm sorry, I'm trying' Dean scribbled.
Cas smiled before pulling Dean into his arms again. Dean wasn't entirely sure why, but he accepted the hug and closed his eyes against Cas' hair. Sammy and Charlie turned up about 20 minutes later, Charlie immediately curled up beside him and refused to leave his side and Sam talked at him for 20 minutes straight while Dean just nodded along.
He was surprised to see Cas beside his bed every morning. He never left. He hardly ate and he spoke to the doctor what seemed like every few hours. He helped Dean with his speech therapy and he told him different stories to try and trigger memories, but Dean's mind refused to connect with any of them. They smiled softly at each other and Dean sensed that there had been a large shift in their relationship, but he wasn't entirely sure what it was, and, if he was being completely honest with himself, he didn't exactly want to know.
Under the doctor's orders, Sam and Cas gave Dean large details of the things he'd missed, in a final attempt to bring his memory back. Dean had cried when he learned that Kevin had died, cried even harder when Cas told Dean the story of how he fell. He laughed when he learned they'd closed the gates of hell, and tried to smile but failed when he learnt that they'd given up the hunting life completely. Everything was so different now, and Dean didn't know how to get the blank black space currently occupying his mind to fill with colour.
Dean was let out of hospital a week later with semi-functioning legs and a husky voice. His memory had returned slightly. The last thing he remembered was simply driving Kevin to a field before his brain shuts down and starts from the beginning. Sam drove them back through an unfamiliar town, into an unfamiliar suburb and finally into a unfamiliar driveway. Cas helped him out of the car and into an unfamiliar house through an unfamiliar little wooden kitchen and into a unfamiliar little bedroom. Charlie stayed with them while Dean recovered. She helped Sam with the cooking and talked to Dean while the boys were at college. Dean didn't know who he was supposed to be, here, or what it was that they all were. He filled his days by watching the sci-fi channel with Charlie against his will and willing his memory to come back with zero results each day.
Time passed fast with nothing to do but heal and before he knew it, he'd been home two weeks. It wasn't too long before the nightmares started, either. Flashes of colour and smells that he couldn't escape. He woke one night screaming and sweating and panting, images of something he couldn't quite place still flashing through his mind. "Dean?! Dean, are you okay?" He felt warm hands on his shoulders, squeezing and shaking him out of his slumber. "Dean!" A hand pressed against his forehead, breaking him from his haze.
"Cas?" He scrambled for Cas' hand.
"Shh, I'm here," He pulled Dean into his chest and for once Dean didn't object, just let himself be held by his friend's strong hands. Cas laid down beside him, letting Dean rest against his chest. Cas was running his fingers though his sweaty hair and Dean felt confused and scared but he closed his eyes anyway and allowed himself to fall asleep.
The sun broke through the curtains in the very early morning. Dean groaned and pulled the blanket over his head. He snuggled back into the body next to him, closing his eyes and wrapping an arm around their waist. He froze.
"Cas?! What the hell?" He jumped, jerking away from the man beside him. Blue eyes peeped out from behind heavy eyelids as Cas stretched and yawned in the large bed.
"Mm, good...morning." There was a smile evident in Cas' voice and Dean felt a sharp pain strike through his chest.
"Cas, what are you doing? I, what happ- why are you?" Dean stuttered and stumbled over his words, feeling stupid and nervous and not at all like himself.
"Oh, shit." Dean had never heard Cas swear before, and it made something stir low and deep in his stomach, "I- Dean, I'm, I apologise, I must've fallen asleep after you, well, you were very scared and I, I'm so sorry, I'll let you go back to sleep, I-" Cas shook his head and Dean just stared at him as he got out of the bed.
"Cas, this..." Dean cleared his throat and Cas stopped by the door, "this isn't the first time you've slept in my bed is it?" Dean scratched the back of his neck, not entirely sure why he spoke up.
"We were much more than friends before your accident." Cas managed a small smile. "Now we're much less." He left the room and Dean laid back down on the bed. What had his life become since he'd left the road? Cas was human, and they were what? A couple? He shook his head. Dean Winchester didn't do relationships. And he certainly didn't do Cas.