In the morning Katie wakes up, groggily, to the sound of bustling. She sits up and glances around the room. The lights are still off, but the gentle early morning light filters through the windows enough for her to see. Many of the homeless folk who'd come to the Winter Shelter that evening are still asleep, but a number of them are already awake, gathering their belongings and leaving as closing hours narrowed in. She notes the folded blanket on the cot parallel from her's, Cas having already left.
Katie sits up as well, picking up her bag and folding up the blanket, leaving it neatly placed atop the cot. As she heads down the front steps of the church, into the freezing morning chill, she thanks a priest and one of the volunteers. Climbing into her treasured Nova, she turns on the engine and waits for the car to heat up. Katie wonders what she should do for the day. Day labor or kitchen work, what will provide better pay? She maneuvers her car out of the street-side parallel parking spot and starts down the road.
The petite brunette stops by a local truck stop for a shower, lugging her laundry duffle out of the trunk before going inside. This particular establishment is off a ways from the interstate, so more locals and farmers frequent it than actual semi-truck drivers. It's cleaner, the employees are friendlier, and fewer sleazy truckers visit the place than the other two 'travel stops' that lie immediately off the main highway. It's owned by a local family, not a chain businesses like the others. The restaurant is a Topeka one-and-only, not some common fast-food dive like most truck stops have. The deli food is actually cooked in their kitchen, by their cooks, and the price of their gas is the cheapest in town. All in all, it's probably one of Katie's favorite places.
She's there early enough that the showers are mostly empty, thankfully. She pays the six dollar fee and the woman at the fuel desk gives her the key to her favorite shower, because Katie's a regular and she'd come to know her well enough in the time she'd been coming there. Katie unlocks the door to shower number five, one she'd discovered to be a bit larger than the others. The room is similar to what you'd see in a hotel bathroom, it has a stand-up shower, a toilet, a sink, and a towel rack on the wall. You can get towels from the front desk, but Katie doesn't trust those, she brings her own.
Over the years she'd gotten over the suspicious stains or uncomfortable grime in public bathrooms and truck stops showers. After all, you make due with what you can get when you have nothing. The number one reason she began frequenting this truck stop is the cleaner showers than their competitors, but every so often that place too can be disappointing. The phrase 'beggars can't be choosers' comes to mind as she flips on the hot water and strips out of yesterday's dirty clothes. Katie stands under the sweltering stream of water and diligently washes down her skin and hair. She doesn't have the luxury to worry about looking fashionable, but she tries her damnedest to look presentable.
All of her clothes are things she'd collected over the years. Some are things she's had since she was sixteen, when she'd first become homeless after her mother's death. Those things were mostly alumni sweaters from her high school and jackets that been over sized on her teenage body. Fifteen years had passed since then and she'd grown into them, just like the hand-me-downs she'd gotten in group homes, and the freebies she'd received at shelters.
The weather's freezing out that day, coldest it'd been so far that winter, so Katie dons a flannel shirt and a knit sweater, along with her dark colored jeans, her socks and her same ankle boots. She marches herself upstairs, hair still wet and parks herself in the tiny truck stop laundry room. She spends a good hour in there as her dirty clothes make there rounds through the washer and dryer. She gives her hair the time to dry as she reads through the local paper, folds her now-clean clothes, and debates with herself over what the hell to do that day.
She decides upon the soup kitchen. Considering the weather the day labor work will probably be limited, and she knows that today will be among the shelters' busiest days, they could use the help. The soup kitchen doesn't pay any, but she gets free food and the work keeps her busy. She cooks, and serves, and cleans straight through her lunch break, snacking on cafeteria french fries between shift changes. By seven-thirty that evening Katie is entirely tired out, as she sits down in the shelter's dining room and shovels stew into her mouth by the spoonful. Stuffed and ready to brave the cold, the petite brunette digs the pamphlet out of her coat and looks up the next Interfaith Emergency Winter Shelter location.
As she makes her way through the poorly lit parking lot, she spots two suspicious figures huddled around the driver's side of her Nova. "Hey!" Katie calls, stomping toward the men, who are clearly attempting to break into her car. She's small, but every inch of her is spitfire. She launches right into argument with the two men, who aren't the slightest bit intimidated. Years of living on the street and fending for herself has hardened her, but also perhaps made her quick to react without fully observing the situation. She doesn't even notice a third man, who'd been a look out, approaching her.
It's a good thing for Katie's sake, that a dark haired, blue eyed man happens to be coming out of the shelter right about the same time. At first Castiel thinks better than to get tangled up in other people's business, he's human now after all. He's begun to learn to pick his battles. But, then he sees the small woman cornered between three men and a car, and he decides he'll pick his battles another day.
"You should learn to mind your own business, lady." One of the men says. He's clearly homeless as well, he's got that look of not having bathed in a while and his teeth are yellowed. "Someone breaking into my car is my business, pal." She answers, annoyance clear on her face. One of the men laughs, leaning close, and Katie turns her head away from him. His breath reeks, both from a lack of dental hygiene and from having recently consumed alcohol.
She sizes each of them up, looking them over, trying to determine their strength and just how drunk they are. All of them seem to have been drinking. She curses inwardly, thinking on the pocket knife she'd accidentally tucked into her duffle that morning instead of her coat pocket. The duffle which is now locked in her trunk. She could have taken them, she thinks, with her pocket knife. Two of them at least, the third one, the look out, was tall. Considerably larger than her, compared to his two buddies, and she isn't sure how to handle the situation. Call for help? Fight? Negotiate?
Thankfully Katie doesn't have to decide for herself, as someone comes out of the shelter and heads straight for them. "Is everything alright over there?" questions the newcomer. She recognizes that voice, she thinks, as one of the men answers that everything is fine and tells the man to move along. She peeks her head between them trying to get a glimpse at the new addition.
Standing a few feet from them is the man from the night before, Cas, if she recalls correctly. He's got the same tousled hair and pretty blue eyes, but his expression is more troubled. "Cas?" Katie tries. He seems to stand straighter at this, looking around the three men and spotting the petite girl from the emergency shelter. Katie, she'd said.
"Friend of yours?" The man standing closest to her asks. She doesn't him with a reply, but she doesn't need to. Castiel begins to make his way over, matching the height of the third man as he stands beside him. "Are these men bothering you?" he questions and she nods.
"Look buddy," the second man starts, "Just be about your business." The way he says it isn't harsh, but he conveys a promise of violence with the switchblade he draws. Cas' face remains neutral, but Katie is the one that makes the first move. No longer outnumbered and seeing an opening, she abandons her worries of being over powered and smashes her elbow into the closets man's face.
It's all in an instant, the first man clutching his bleeding nose, the second man going for Katie with his knife. Cas has him before either of them can realize, twisting the man's arm with one hand until he drops knife and catching it as it falls with the other. As the second man crumples onto one knee, the third makes his move. He's big, nearly the same height as Castiel, but not nearly as quick. Cas dodges the man's first punch and uses the momentum of his second to take him down as well. With the switchblade to the third man's throat, the angel stands victorious. He snaps closed the knife, tossing it across the parking lot and releasing the man, before speaking. "I think you three should be going."
As her assailants gather there wounded pride and shuffle out of the parking lot, Castiel comes to stand beside her. He notices her outfit is different than the day before and that her eyes seem more tired. "Thank you," Katie offers, and he nods in response. "I'd been going to find shelter for the night when I happened upon you." He explains and she with holds her giggle. Sometimes his speech pattern is so formal, but she finds it endearing. "Well, I'm glad you did." She tells him, looking him over and reaching out and touching his arm, in a gesture that surprises him. "Are you okay?" She's worried he may have been cut and is right to be. His fingers are bleeding, from catching the knife. "I'm alright." she's thankful it's just a minor cut, nothing Neosporin and a bandaid wouldn't be able to fix. "You didn't happen to be heading to the emergency center did you?"
Katie gives him a ride to the shelter, after all they'd been heading to the same place and he'd saved her ass from getting mugged... or worse. So they ride together in comfortable silence. The radio is on some soft classic rock channel, but they don't talk. Riding in her classic American muscle car listening to some random 80's rock song takes Castiel reeling back to his time with the Winchesters. For a moment he's nearly overcome with nostalgia. But, they aren't flying down some backwater highway in the middle of nowhere, they're cruising down a main drag off of well populated Topeka, Kansas. There's no Dean in the driver seat belting out the lyrics and there's no Sam there complaining about his brother's singing.
They pull to a stop in front of the church that is hosting the Interfaith Emergency Winter Shelter that night. Cas nearly jerks out of his reverie, blinking out the window at the people walking by. He and Katie enter the church together, each lugging backpacks, and he follows her over to one of the pews. Once seated, his companion pulls a compact first aid kit out the front pocket of her backpack. "That isn't necessary." He tries to offer, but the young woman will have none of it.
"You know what is most dangerous to those of us who live out there in the elements?" She asks rhetorically as she pours some hydrogen peroxide onto a cotton ball and begins dabbing it onto his cuts. "Infection."
Castiel watches her pull out a white and yellow tube, reading Original Ointment NEOSPORIN in jade green font on it. She applies it to his cuts as well, while she continues speaking. "Most people think the biggest issue homeless people have is finding food. But, that not so true here in the city, there are a number of shelters and soup kitchens to find food for free or inexchange for volunteering. The biggest risks of living in the gutter are dehydration and infection. People always underestimate how important drinking water is. Especially when all you have is a hand full of change and it's either a bottle of water or a bag of chips." Castiel recalls the night at the laundry mat when he'd first become human. That night he'd chosen water and abandoned Jimmy's trenchcoat. He misses time to time, especially in this weather.
"And, getting injuries, even simple ones like this-" she gestures to his fingers as she applies the bandaids to his cuts. "- can get nasty if not given any attention. It's best not to let them get infected, even if you can only wash them with anti-bacteria/ soap and water." Castiel files these notes away for later, should he need them, "Thank you." he tells Katie, as she begins to pack away her first aid kit back into her backpack.
"You're welcome. You just seem like you're new to this." She says, an almost playful look on her face. He had to give it to her, she'd only met him those two times, but she had him down pat. "How did you know?" questioned the angel, but Katie just shook her head. "I've been at this for a long time, I'm good at weeding out the newcomers. Besides you've got that family man look about you, like you had something before this."
Castiel doesn't really want to talk about that, not with a stranger at least, but he doesn't know how to say it. Luckily, she doesn't want to talk about it either. "You don't have to say anything. We've all got out skeletons, pal." He decides in that moment that he's fond of this girl. If the Winchesters were here they would be too.
Before they both head off to where the cots are stationed, she stops him again, "But, really Cas, thank you for earlier." He smiles, quite genuinely, and tells her it was no trouble. Then the two of them go off to get some much needed sleep.
When Katie wakes the next morning, it's the same as the day before. Most people around her are still asleep, but Cas' cot is neatly made up and the handsome man is nowhere to be seen. She admits to herself she's a little disappointed, she's become a bit fond of the good looking, kind natured man.
As starts up the Nova and takes off down the road, once again heading in the direction of her favored truck stop. A few miles down the road she spots a familiar mess of dark hair, the same coat and red hoodie huddled to his form as Cas made his way down the road. Katie pulls up along side him, honking her horn as she comes to a stop.
Castiel recognizes the car as hers and approaches as she leans across to roll down the window. "So I've been thinking," says the brunette as he leans down to hear what she has to say. "Maybe you and I could, I don't know, stick together?" She looks flustered and he can tell it's definitely not something she would normally do. "It's just that you seem trust worthy and there's safety in numbers, ya know?" She's rambling, but Castiel is happy regardless. "I'd like that." He tells her, and with a sigh of relief Katie opens up the passenger door and he climbs in.