A Winter's Tale (Destiel Fanfiction)

(1) A Winter's Tale

Dean's phone began buzzing on the dash just when he was merging the Impala into morning traffic, trying to get onto the highway heading east out of Rapid City. The sun hadn't even risen yet; it was eight in the morning, but the sun rose pretty late at this time of year in South Dakota, and it wasn't all that easy to merge into rush hour traffic in the dim twilight. Dean glanced over at Sam, half-wondering if he'd offer to help with the phone, but Sam was slouched against the passenger door with his eyes closed, well on his way into a nap. Wasn't gonna be much help.

Probably didn't want to help anyway.

Dean managed to merge successfully and scooped the phone off the dash, glancing at the screen. "Unknown caller", said the phone's glowing screen.

He frowned. Unknown callers were rare. They'd just wrapped up a hunt— a simple enough ghost case, made difficult only by the sheer awkwardness of trying to work with Sam at all. At any rate, the hunt was done and Dean hadn't been expecting any further calls on that case. Was this call about something new? Not many people had this particular number.

Dean hit "Answer Call" and said, "Yeah, who is this?"

"May I please speak to Dean Winchester?" said a female voice.

"Who is this?" Dean repeated. (Cell Phone Rule #1 was to figure out who was calling before he confirmed his real name to somebody unknown.)

"I'm calling from Eastern Regional Hospital in Spokane, Washington. Is this Dean Winchester?"

A hospital. Hm. Another case, maybe? Something funny going on in the morgue?

"Yeah, what's up?" Dean said.

"May I ask if you know a Steve Smith?"

Dean hesitated. He didn't know the name, but Cell Phone Rule #2 was to always pretend you recognized any name, whenever someone random was asking. It might be some fellow hunter in need of an alibi or a backstory.

"Steve Smith" was a new one though. Steve Smith...

Oh. Wait.

Steve.

Dean had heard that name not that long ago, actually. A couple months ago.

At a certain Gas-n-Sip in Idaho.

And, "Smith", their most generic last-name alias.

Cas. Had to be Cas.

Dean sighed. Cas must be trying to work another case on his own. Just liked he'd been trying at that biker-massacre scene at the Wyoming bar a few weeks back. Dean had tried to get him to settle down and go back to his thrilling new Gas-n-Sip life; could Cas have tried to branch out into hunting again? Dean had sent him packing so quick that there hadn't really been time to talk to him about how it important it was for Cas to keep his head down and stay out of trouble. (Well, it was Gadreel who had pretty much sent Cas packing, really. Dean hadn't had a whole lot of choice.)

Belatedly Dean realized that he hadn't gotten around to checking on Cas since. Things had been pretty busy.

What with Gadreel killing Kevin and all.

"Sir, did you hear me? Do you know a Steve Smith?"

"Uh... yeah," Dean said. "Steve. Smith. Yeah, I know a Steve Smith."

Sam opened his eyes and looked over at Dean; he was awake after all. Dean mouthed "Cas," at him, and Sam sat up a little as the voice went on, "Steve was admitted to our hospital last night. Unfortunately he hasn't been able to tell us anybody to contact, but we've just located his last employer, and his employer says you're listed in his paperwork as his only emergency contact. May I ask, do you know if Steve has any family that we could notify? It's urgent."