A Winter's Tale (Destiel Fanfiction)

(2) A Winter's Tale

Dean read the awful list one more time, flipped the notebook closed with a thwack and stood. He put the notebook back in Cas's battered leather bag, setting the notebook carefully very deep down at the bottom. Then he put Cas's ziploc bag of cash and ids on top of the notebook, and the bundle of clothes on top of that, and set the angel-blade on top of that. Once the notebook was safely covered up, Dean buckled the bag closed, set it gently on Cas's little rolling bedside table, pushed the table to the other side of the room against the wall, and then went back and sat by Cas's bed again.

But after that Dean found himself strolling over to the table and almost picking the leather bag up. "Nope," he muttered to himself. "Not mine to read." It had been painful enough to read anyway; and it seemed it might have been somewhat private, too, maybe? So Dean made himself turn around and go back to Cas's chair.

But now he was far too restless to sit. Instead he stood, arms crossed over his chest, and looked once more at Cas's bruised face, and Cas's closed eyes; and he watched Cas's chest rise and fall slowly with each click-psshhh of the breathing machine.

Finally Dean ran both hands through his hair, spun on his heel and left the ICU bay in search of some food. Though he really wasn't very hungry.

Dean knew, from far too many late-night hospital vigils like this, that every hospital always had a twenty-four hour cafeteria somewhere. (Usually somewhere on the complete opposite side of the building, in the most inconvenient place possible). He wandered back to the lobby, found some signs pointing to the "cafe," and followed the signs down a long empty linoleum-tiled hallway that led, sure enough, clear to the other side of the building. He passed department after department — Laboratory, CT Scan, Radiography, Chemotherapy, Internal Medicine. But he didn't notice much of what he was passing, for there was a phrase running through his mind over and over:

Things to ask Dean when he calls.

Things to ask Dean when he calls.

Things to ask Dean when he calls.

"When" he calls, thought Dean. Not "if." When.

The whole long hallway smelled faintly of that inevitable hospital smell - a mix of bleach, alcohol swabs and betadine. And maybe a faint tinge of the stale breaths of the sick and the dying. The smell brought back far-too-vivid memories: of Dad dying, of Bobby paralyzed, of Bobby dying, of Lisa nearly dying, of Sammy nearly dying. Dean had sat by hospital bed after hospital bed, far too many times, over his life. Keeping vigil. Waiting. Hoping.

Praying, even.

Praying to Castiel, usually.

Cas had always helped when he could. And even when he couldn't help, he'd come anyway, or he'd called. Maybe he'd been a little brusque sometimes, a little blunt, in his Castiel way; but whenever Dean had really needed him, Cas had always tried to help.

By the time Dean got to the cafeteria, what little appetite he'd had left was entirely gone. The cafeteria was a small one, with just a stack of burgers and fries sitting under heat lamps, and some yogurt cups, pre-made salads, and sandwiches stacked in a cooler. A scattering of the usual late-night hospital crowd was hanging out at the little tables nearby: a couple of worried-looking family members staring glumly at a plate of uneaten french fries; a table of surprisingly chipper hospital staff in blue scrubs chatting with a pair of EMTs who were scarfing down some burgers on a late-night break; and one ambulatory patient dragging an IV pole around.

Dean didn't really notice any of them.

Things to ask Dean when he calls....

Dean got a cup of coffee and headed back to the ICU.