A Winter's Tale (Destiel Fanfiction)

(2) A Winter's Tale

When he got back to Cas's ICU bay, he sat in the chair by Cas's side again, holding his new cup of coffee, and he looked at Cas for a while.

"You wrote out a whole list, huh, Cas," said Dean at last.

Cas, of course, didn't answer.

Click-psshhh.

"A whole list for whenever I would finally get my sorry ass around to calling you, huh. A whole goddamn list."

Thinking a moment more, Dean added, "You must've bought the whole book just to write that list, didn't you? That's why it's on the first page, right?"

Once again the scene from a few months back replayed in Dean's mind: Saying goodbye at the bunker door. The chilly, silent dawn. The early-morning fog twining through the trees; Cas trudging away with his head down. And Dean saying — uselessly, pointlessly, too little, too late— "I'll call and check in."

The new cup of coffee had gone cold. Dean sighed, and stood to pour the cold coffee down a tiny sink in the corner of the room, chucking the empty cup in the trash. When he made the way back to his chair he had to pass the corner with the rolling bedside table, and somehow he stopped and unbuckled the bag, and then somehow his hands were taking out the angel-blade and the bundle of clothes and the ziploc bag and uncovering the blue book, and then he was sitting down by Cas's side with the blue spiral-bound notebook in his hand.

He scowled at the battered blue cover for a while.

He glanced again at Cas. Silent. Still. Obviously not able to tell Dean much of anything anymore. But clearly there was stuff Cas had wanted to say.

Things to ask Dean when he calls...

"All right, Cas," Dean said, as he flipped the book open. "What else you got to ask me? Cause I'm listening now, I promise."

That sounded pretty lame. Of course Cas couldn't hear him anyway, but just the same Dean winced at how lame it sounded. So he added, "Sorry it wasn't sooner."

That sounded even lamer.

Click-psshhh.

Dean drew a breath, and turned to the second page.

******

The second page said "REXFORD, IDAHO," in big neat letters at the top of the page, and the entire rest of the page was a beautifully detailed hand-drawn map of a smallish town. There was a huge block in the center of town that Cas had labeled "The University" and which dominated the map. Rexford's university was a conservative religious school, Dean knew; and it seemed to be Rexford's primary reason for existing, for there wasn't much else to the town. Cas had drawn in almost all of Rexford's small grid of streets, even including the set of shops along little Route 20, and the tiny municipal airport, and even so the whole map still fit on one page. Dozens of locations had been carefully noted on the map, often with little notes by each one: a bus station with a tiny list of bus fares to other Idaho cities (including, Dean noticed with a pang, the fare back to Kansas); the town library, with a list of the days and hours it was open; a laundromat (a big star by this one, along with "$1.25/load not including drying, soap is $0.75"), a YMCA (a big star here, with a note of "SHOWERS $1.00"); a pizza place with the note "Closes 11pm, sometimes gives away unsold slices"; and a grocery store with notes about when they threw away rotten food in the dumpsters and when the dumpsters were emptied.

Several parks had been sketched into the map too, each one with a note about "Safe To Sleep" or "Not Safe To Sleep" and little diagrams of places that Cas had apparently tested out for sleeping.

Cas had written a few paragraphs on the facing page:

Need to locate safe, warm, dry place to sleep . University student tells me there is no homeless shelter; need to find housing somewhere. (Could hitchhike to larger city with homeless shelter but don't want to risk other people like before. Better to stay in small town on own? Fewer people at risk, & less risk of discovery?) So - Motel? Apartment?