Twist and Shout

Chapter 12

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Another nurse came in to do bed stretches with Cas and Dean excused himself, walking into the hall. He saw Tessa leaning against the nurse's station, examining some medication, and pushing her hair back. She was extremely beautiful, he thought. Even if she was tired she never showed it - and her smile always made her glow.
She looked up as he approached, smiling a little and jotting something on her clipboard.
"He doing his exercises?"
"Mhmm," Dean said. "He doesn't like when I watch. It makes him feel weird."
Tessa laughed lightly, shaking her head.
"Why do you like him so much?" Dean asked, and Tessa shrugged.
"I think you can tell me the answer to that, but, I guess it was because he was lonely. None of the nurses really - they didn't really talk to him. What he has, it's getting a kind of stigma and, well, people don't know what's happening here. You hear about these boys dying and they live a certain way and people get scared."
"Yeah," Dean rasped. "I know."
Tessa shrugged again.
"He just wanted someone to talk to, mostly about you."
Tessa gave him a look.
Dean smiled vaguely and fiddled with a pen on the counter.
"What's happening to him?"
"A fungus, or a tumor...we don't..." she paused, weighing her words. "Dr. Ether doesn't really know. It could be anything and at this point. He doesn't think it's worth pursuing. Any more in-depth testing could seriously stress his system."
"It's been barely two weeks," Dean said. "He was supposed to have more -."
Tessa seamed her mouth shut, trying to remain professional.
"These things just happen," she consoled as best she could, "but regardless of the timing, he's going to need you. Now more than ever. He's starting to become delirious, and his memory is coming in and out. When we were in there..."
She stopped, covering her mouth, forcing herself not to cry.
"Tessa you have to tell me."
"Dr. Ether asked him what the last thing he remembered was, and he said he had dropped you off at the base."
Sweat broke out on Dean's face, making it damp.
"That was over ten years ago."
"It's inconsistent. One minute he seems able to remember, the next, he isn't. We just don't know. Dean, you have to be able to handle it."
Dean's fingernails bit into his palms.
"I just want it to be over," he found himself saying, and then immediately he was ashamed of it.
Tessa nodded.
"That's totally natural," she whispered, "If you want, I can give you some tips...just to, make it easier for him?"
"I would really like that," Dean rasped.
They spent the next twenty minutes discussing it, Dean listening closely as she explained what was happening to Cas' body, how soon he wouldn't be sleeping as much, and eating less. She talked about the anxiety his breathing placed on him, about how important it was to keep him from overexciting himself.
By the end of it Dean felt like if anything, he could do something. He wasn't totally powerless. He could help Cas. He could do the right thing.

"Tessa?" he said suddenly as she walked away. She turned over her shoulder and Dean licked his lips for a moment before saying it, "Do you have any way to get a hold of a projector?"

Cas didn't know what was happening when they brought up the small table and set the projector on it. Dean didn't know why he had brought the reels along. Something had just told him that he should.
When that day comes, I'll thank you...
He sat up, watching as Tessa placed his glasses gently on his face, laughing when he blinked blearily in confusion. Sam and Jess were there as well, sitting side by side, Sam's arm around Jess's shoulder. A friend was watching the baby, they said, when Cas asked, patiently answering the question over and over as Cas asked it again and again.
"What...are you doing?" he breathed, watching Dean click one of the reels into place. He glanced at Cas as Tessa took her place by the wall, turning the lights off. They had taken the pictures off the wall and as Dean started up the projector, adjusting the lens, he leaned towards Cas' bed.
"Taking you to the beach," he replied.
Cas' face took on a look of total surprise and he stared at the wall. Dean knew he hadn't breathed for a moment because he couldn't hear it - that telltale swollen sound.
The projector picked up, and suddenly, they were at the beach.
Dean wasn't watching the wall though, he was watching Cas.
The shadows played over his face, gleaming off his glasses, and his eyes were wide and childlike as he watched the scene unfold. Jess gasped when Cas came into view on the wall, his hair thick and shiny, his whole body glowing in the sun under his windbreaker. The camera panned down the empty beach, looking at the water, and then up to look at the gulls.
The scenes changed. Dean was standing beside a tide pool, pointing to a sea urchin and Cas, holding the camera looked at it and then at Dean's face. Dean grinned, and said something he couldn't remember saying.
"That's you," Cas whispered, and Dean felt for his hand on the blanket, taking it. It wasn't as warm as usual, and the grip Cas had was weakly if barely there at all.
"That's me," he ascertained, and Sam glanced back at them, his smile watery, even in the dark.
They wandered over the beach, sat down on the blanket, and Cas read a paperback, trying to shove Dean away when he bothered him. Dean recorded Cas taking pictures with his Polaroid, the sun and the cliffs. Dean held the camera out as he kissed him and Jessica covered her mouth with her hands. Dean stared at Cas, watching the tears roll down his face, his chest rising and falling, his eyes fixed on the water. On Dean. On the beach. Dean knew, without a doubt, that he didn't remember most of it. His face was full of some strange, beautiful expression, eyes darting around, eating everything up.
The reel ended and Dean fed in the next one, and it was much the same for a while. Just the two of them joking around, but then the scene became far more familiar.
Cas stood and walked a little ways from the camera before turning around. He smiled, and it was so clear what he was saying.
I love you.
Cas marveled, his whole body tingling. He knew that. He had been there. He remembered the feeling, the way it had felt to look at Dean and say it. Like a secret he would always carry. A heart within his heart. He was looking at Dean, not the camera. I love you. He'd waved and laughed and smiled, but it wasn't as important as what he'd said. I love you. He'd shouted it.
I love you.
"That's me," he whispered. It was him. That was him. I love you. Him. He felt Dean squeeze his hand.