Catch A Flame

Chapter 8

March 13, 2014

The days all seemed to stick together. That annoying happenstance when the tape flutters down and adheres to itself. A single day impossibly stuck to the next until they became a mangled ball of useless office supplies. One rolled into the next, and so on. Nothing special ever really happened. Those who worked the same shift as Dean had come in weekly. Some of the members of truck 33 visited from time to time. Sam, Charlie, and Bobby made an appearance almost every day.

Cas, he couldn't remember the last time he'd actually slept. When he did it was in that stupid chair right there next to Dean. Dean had never left Cas, so it was definitely going to be mutual the other way around.

Week 2: March 20, 2014

The hospital walls existed even behind Castiel's eyelid. Dark stubble along his jaw was the beginnings of a beard. The same people visited. Nurses came and went. The doctor checked Dean over every other day. Still, he lay there hardly responding to the doctor's testings.

Week 4: April 3, 2014

He continued to need the breathing tube. They had tried to take him off of it, but that didn't end very well. His smaller cuts were starting to heal. Mostly, nothing had really changed.

Week 6: April 17, 2014

By now all Dean's stitches had been removed. Everything was still the same...

Week 7: April 24, 2014

They had forced Castiel out of the hospital. Sam stood by him making sure he'd take care of himself. He slept on the couch of their home even though there was a guest bedroom. Cas had to go back to work eventually. Nothing about Dean's condition had changed. A blessing and a curse.

Week 10: May 15, 2014

Castiel stopped by every day after work and spent the night on weekends. His students were starting to miss the quirkiness of their art professor. Benny was taking over Sam's self-proclaimed duty. The younger Winchester diving into a court case, though came in near daily to see his brother. Sam's birthday has come and gone. Dean still laid still in that bed. White bandages covering most of him. At least his shoulder had healed and his lung hadn't given any more grief. Tube down his throat and no signs of waking. Not even Castiel was shaking this nightmare.

Week 13: June 5, 2014

His shoulder now was out of the sling. Hell, all the bandages had been taken off. There was nothing wrong with Dean anymore. So why wouldn't he just wake up?

Nurses now came in and moved around his arms and legs after looking at his vitals. He looked much smaller laying on that bed, so much muscle mass has just drifted away. Just like Dean seemed to have.

Week 16: June 26, 2014

Castiel started reading to him. There were these silly books that had entertained Dean so much. The two main characters were named Sam and Dean running all across the country to hunt monsters. There were other books that connected to the main Supernatural series such as Hell's Melody -Castiel's personal favorite- and The Queen. There were several others, but those two were the most notable. Cas smiled, he had been reading another connecting set of books that belonged to the Us series when he had first met Dean. Those books went on through the eyes of Dean's daughter Eden and her seemingly personal guardian angel Castiel. Cas had been enjoying the third book We are Us, actually. Dean had dove into the books to find common ground and a conversation starter when he first -quite literally- ran into Castiel.