Standing Together

Chapter 65

"How are you feeling?" Castiel asks the next afternoon. Dean's already back from surgery, his leg in a cast and ready to heal itself. Dean is only stuck here for one more day, and then they can finally leave the hospital.

"Nothing," Dean replies.

Castiel lifts his head off the side of Dean's hospital bed to look up at him. "I don't think that's how you answer that question."

"No, I'm literally feeling nothing," Dean says. "Gotta love pain killers."

Castiel chuckles softly. "Oh, that actually makes sense."

He rests his head back on the hospital bed, and Dean cups his face in his hand, his thumb gently caressing Castiel's cheek.

"I still think you should have gotten a bright pink cast," Castiel tells him.

"I still think I would rather die," Dean replies.

"It would've been cute," Castiel says playfully. "A cute little cast for a cute little person."

Dean chuckles softly. "That's a no from me, but I'll make sure to remember this in case you ever break a bone."

"No, I would get a light colored cast and paint a rainbow on it," Castiel says.

"That's the worst idea I've ever heard, but somehow I still like it," Dean says.

"Of course you do," Castiel replies. "It's brilliantly gay."

They lapse into silence for a few minutes. It's how their day has been going since the start. They'd chat for a little bit, then sit quietly for a while, and then talk some more. It's not an awkward silence; it's comfortable just sitting together, Dean's hand resting against his face.

Eventually, Castiel quietly says, "Dean?"

"Hmm?" Dean hums.

"What are you going to do if you can't play football?"

Dean lets out a long sigh before saying, "I don't know."

"Are you going to be okay not playing football?" Castiel asks.

"I think I'll adjust just fine," Dean says. "It'll just take some getting used to."

"When did you start playing football?" Castiel asks, not because it's relevant but just because he's curious. He really doesn't know much about Dean from before they met.

"When I was 13," Dean replies. "Not because I thought I'd enjoy it, but just because I was hoping for some type of college scholarship for it."

"And you did," Castiel recalls. A full ride to UCLA — the beginning of the end of their relationship the first time around. "So you were 13? And you're 26 now. That's half your life playing football."

"So it is." Dean chuckles softly. "God, it feels like so much longer."

"Is there any chance you might be able to play again?" Castiel asks.

"Maybe," Dean says. "They're saying about three months in the cast, and hopefully I'll be able to get that off. Then I'm stuck in physical therapy for a while to make sure my leg can still function as a leg. If all that goes well, they'll come to an absolute conclusion after 40-ish weeks about whether or not I can play again, but at this point, they're thinking this is it."

"'This is it' meaning...?" Castiel prompts, because even though he's Are he knows what Dean means, he has to hope he's wrong.

"The end," Dean says. "Yesterday was probably my last day ever playing football."

"I hope it works out," Castiel says. "This is a crappy way to go out."

"I know, right?" Dean agrees. "Forever jobless at 26. Talk about shitty luck."

A/N This is hella short but it just happened to work out that I wrote a whole fanfic yesterday and published it a few hours ago if ya wanna read that to make up for how short this is idk you do you