Another Tumblr inspired story. Runner up for the poll I did on what Dean/Castiel fic to write. I liked it enough and I know a fair amount on the subject matter so I decided to give it a go. I blame my best friend for the cheesy title. I have no excuse for the equally cheesy summary.

Warnings (this part): Minor character death, hospital drama (because I feel that should be a warning), slight homophobia, some graphic medical procedures (not really but just in case)

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"Code blue. Burn unit. Room four-seven-one. Code blue. Burn-"

Dean is on his lunch break when the code is called overhead. He drops his half eaten cheeseburger, and runs as fast but as safely as he can to the patient. His patient.

The survival rate of seventy-five percent burn victims is unfortunately low, but that's part of the reason Dean went to all the trouble of going through medical school. His mother Mary was one such patient when she and the rest of the Winchester family were caught inside a terrible house fire.

It turned out their neighbors, some boys renting a house for college, were running a meth lab in the basement. Running a meth lab was stupid and dangerous enough, but living in the same place as the lab put idiocy to a new level.

The hospital was already short on ICU and Burn staff that night and with six more patients coming, four of which were over seventy-five percent burns, there was little that could be done. Fortunately for the hospital, one of the students who suffered from a ninety percent burn passed away on the ambulance ride over, but it was still too much for the unit to handle. The other two college students had to get diverted to another hospital as their burns were beyond that what the staff could safely deal with, and according to his father John, Mary should have been transferred as well.

In the end and even with the minor burns that Dean suffered, it was still clinically unsafe for the hospital to treat the current patients and the Winchester family. Mary was treated first and put in isolation to keep from the wounds from becoming infected. Sam was sent to the pediatric floor when the nurses and doctors didn't find any indication of burns, but were still concerned about smoke inhalation that might have occurred.

Dean wasn't as lucky as his brother, however. When John stayed behind to help put out the flames that encompassed Mary, he screamed for Dean to get him and his brother out. Fire was blazing everywhere and it was almost impossible to get down the stairs and out of the house, but Dean tucked his younger brother closer and shielded Sam from the flames. In the end, Dean's left shoulder was too close to the walls and his shirt caught fire. Rather than putting it out, he kept running and made sure to get him and Sam out of the house first.

Before Dean was sent to his own room, John praised Dean for keeping his brother safe and to behave for the nurses. While John still had a good amount of burns, it was nothing compared to his wife or the college students, so John was determined to see that Mary and his sons were taken care of first.

Mary didn't make it through the night. She kept crying out. The sedatives weren't enough, but the nurses told her they couldn't give her anything more for safety reasons. It surprised the nurses that she wasn't actually crying out for more pain relief but for the condition of her family. When the nurses finally told Mary that everyone was stable and that she should focus on her own recovery it was all Mary needed to hear before she finally slipped away.

Dean was in his own room with a burn nurse doing a dressing change as well as a pediatric nurse who was taking his vitals when the code was called. When he asked the two nurses what that meant and what was going on in his mother's room he was met with silence and pitied looks. He jumped out of his bed and tried running to Mary, but was met with resistance from where his IV was attached. The nurses were quick to react and pulled him back into the bed ignoring Dean's screams and protests, and Dean watched as the MET team ran by his door in what he assumed was in Mary's direction. One of the nurses was on her hospital phone for a brief moment before she focused on keeping Dean on the bed. A new person ran into his room and held Dean down while the nurse went for a syringe. She injected the needle into Dean's IV and before he knew it, Dean's body was sluggish and the stress of the night was lifting away. He fell asleep thinking about the painting on the wall and how the angel watching over the two boys looked like his mother.

He was too young at the time to understand why the hospital was so slow at giving help to his mother that night, but as Dean grew up he made a promise to do everything in his power to keep that from happening again.

When Dean gets to the room he sees the family standing outside to the side of the door. There was a man kneeling and holding his two children closely as tears slid down his face. Dean only paused a second to lock eyes with the man who looked desperate, pleadingly even, for Dean to fix this. He's seen the look before, and it nearly kills him every time he sees it. To see families at their most vulnerable but that moment before the last of their hope is shattered away. He turns back to the room, determined to not see the moment when it's torn away from them and replaced by grief.

The room inside has a completely different atmosphere and Dean can tell they are already getting ready to call the time of death. He pushes through when the last nurse gives up pulls away and Dean starts administering CPR. It's only been five minutes and he's disgusted that his colleagues have already given up. Minutes pass and there's been no response and someone puts their hand on Dean's shoulder who simply ignores it.

Right as one of the nurses leaves the room to talk to the family there's a beep on the monitor. Everyone sucks in a breath and begins the normal protocol again as Dean keeps pushing for another beep. It's weak, but it's there and Dean can't help but feel selfish at the fact he's glad he doesn't have to be giving any bad news today. Not yet. They're not quite out of this, and just as Dean starts screaming out orders since no one else is one of the doctors from the heart center finally shows up.

The doctor doesn't waste time and immediately goes to work. Dean wants to be mad at the guy for taking so long to get here, but it's just past one in the morning and he's honestly surprised with how he managed to get here in only nine minutes. If Dean's being fair, he would have been amazed if the guy showed up in thirty. The heart beat drops again and the patient is back to flat lining. Dean feels his panic well up and gets ready to start CPR again, but the doctor holds him back. Just as Dean starts yelling every obscene name he can think of, the doctor barks out a few orders, which startles everyone.

Even Dean is shaken because not only is the guy going to open him up here, but he's going to risk infection to the burns by rushing him to surgery. Even with the shock, Dean's the first to react as the doctor cuts open Mr. Hiserly and starts pumping the patient's heart with his own gloved hand. It seems to be working according to the monitors, but now the patient is losing blood and they need to get him to the operating room. The doctor, Dean and two other nurses fly through the door as fast as possible in the direction of the OR. Dean can't bring himself to look at the family as they run by, but if they can save the patient it won't matter.

Once they hit the operating room the doctor asks Dean to stay. He doesn't actually ask for him specifically by name, he just kind of grabs Dean's shoulder and asks him to keep an eye on the burns and to keep them as clean as possible while he operates. It's completely unorthodox, but so is the rest of the situation. Everyone garbs up for the surgery and Dean focuses on doing what he knows.

It's a long and rough surgery, but given the rotten situation the staff was given it seemed like it was Mr. Hiserly's lucky day. Well, okay, Dean won't go that far. A seventy-five percent burn followed by a cardiac arrest is easily one of the worst days someone could have, but the guy seems to be stable.

"It's a miracle. Thank God," the doctor sighs as he leaves the isolation room.

Dean huffs a laugh as he peels off his gloves and then washes up at the wash station, "God has nothing to do with this man. That was all you."

"I don't think you give yourself enough credit…" The doctor pauses to look at Dean's name tag, "Dean."

It's the first time he's had a chance to slow down and finally get a good look at the doctor. The first thing that catches his eye is the messy brown hair like the guy just got out of bed and to be fair, he probably did. He's looking down at a chart but Dean can see black framed glasses and a five o'clock shadow. After that he notices the lack of a badge. "That or we give the other nurses too much credit, Doctor…"

"Novak, but with what we just went through for the past several hours, please, call me Castiel." Doctor Novak's eyes darkened when Dean spoke poorly of his coworkers and in turn himself, but made no comment on it.

Dean feels the adrenaline slipping away and he mentally curses himself for picking up so many extra shifts this week. He leans his head back and rubs his eyes, "Shit." When he looks back he's staring into the bluest eyes he's ever seen.

He finds himself quickly getting lost in them and Dean doesn't realize he's staring until Doctor Novak says something. Dean doesn't catch what the doctor said and finds himself blurting out, "Sorry, what?"

"Is something wrong?" Doctor Novak's eyebrows are furrowed and he looks concerned.

"Oh." Dean grimaces as he realizes he's cursed in front of a doctor from a completely different unit. By now everyone in the ICU areas are aware of Dean's rude mouth, but it's not very professional of him to do it in front of a doctor he's only just met. Then he remembers everything he called the doctor in the patient's room. "Sorry. I just remembered that I picked up another shift at three later today."

"Burning the candle at both ends I see. Not that I'm one to talk. I must have broken at least four state laws getting here, and I normally don't start for another hour." Doctor Novak removes his glasses so he can rub his eyes once before placing them back on. "It will be a long day, but it's worth it."

Dean couldn't agree more.

"Are you going to be staying with this patient later today then? I know it's not your floor, but I have a rather strong feeling this patient is going to be a two on one and will more than likely need a nurse from the burn unit," the doctor says it casually as if used to saying patients need two nurses to themselves. "Though I suppose we're still debating if this is going to be treated as a CVICU patient, an ICU patient, or a BURN patient."

"I don't know," Dean shrugs, "I guess it comes down to where Mr. Hiserly ends up."

Doctor Novak nods and looks past Dean, "I'm sure Mr. Hiserly and his family would like to keep you on his team."

"Yeah. Well-" before Dean can finish he feels someone grabbing one of the shoulders of his scrubs.

"I heard what the nurses said!" The man talking to him is Mr. Hiserly… or rather the other Mr. Hiserly. "They said you're the one that saved him."

Of course they did. Nurses love to gossip. Dean's certain it's what they live for.

"I wouldn't say that it was just me-" and Dean's cut off again as Mr. Hiserly's husband pulls him in tightly for a hug.

"Thank you. Thank you so much! You have no idea what this means!" The man is practically sobbing at this point and Dean just lets him cry it out, throwing in an awkward pat here and there. "Because we can't officially get married in this state… if Evan… if Evan died, we wouldn't have been able to…"

Dean's only heard about this. Some same sex couples can't share benefits with each other. In some cases when something happens, the 'spouse' is left with nothing when the family takes everything. It's horrible to see that a lack of a name and a slip of paper coupled with homophobic and disapproving families can ruin someone's life. It's bad enough losing a loved one, but to add all that to the mix just seems heartless.

That's when it hits Dean that Doctor Novak, or rather Castiel, seemed just as concerned for the patient as he was and that the relief on his face Dean saw was genuine. Either the guy is a new doctor, or Castiel becomes as emotionally invested in patients as Dean does. If he's new, he'll learn real quick, but if he's like Dean he's in for a world of hurt. Dean's never been able to distance himself from the patients like most can, and he can tell it's slowly eating him away. All the patients that have been lost on his shift, he's taken personally. His brother constantly tells him it's unhealthy and Dean knows it is, but he can't help but think each one is his fault.

Mr. Hiserly thanks Dean what seems to be several hundred times more before he says he's going back to wait with his sister who is currently watching the kids.

Dean turns to tell Castiel goodbye, but finds the doctor is already gone. Something inside him twists at the thought of missing him, but Dean blames it on heartburn and laughs at the irony.

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All the knowledge I have picked up is second hand from nurses and doctors (I apologize in advance if I get anything wrong. I'm not a nurse nor have I had any actual classes, but I know the environment fairly well as I work at one. Also, if I use jargon and I don't specify and you don't know what it means let me know so I can fix it or clarify.

The painting that was being referred to is this one: the color version is here but is really tiny Angel_Guarding_two_ (Let's just pretend it doesn't look like the angel is going to push them and he/she/it is actually making sure the two boys aren't going to fall… or the fact that I think it's supposed to be Gabriel.)