Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“It’s like being chained to a comet,” the man explains, as Dean leans his elbows on the edge of the table and watches the man devour what Dean would call, at best, a third-rate cheeseburger.

The man is describing how it feels to be the one in charge of the entire country, responsible for the safety and wellbeing of the free world.

“That doesn’t sound like much fun,” Dean observes.

“Understatement.”

Well, at least the guy’s honest.

Dean thinks there’s probably a joke in here somewhere about honest politicians and needles in haystacks.

“When’s the last time you had one of these?” Dean tips his chin up to indicate the burger, still half-sheathed in its yellow wax paper, a curl of amusement on his lips.

“I don’t know. Months.”

Dean idly slides his fingers up and down the mop handle like the neck of a guitar—now propped up, mostly abandoned, against the table. “Sorry, buddy, but I think it’s my duty to inform you: that’s a piss-poor excuse for a burger.”

The man peers over the burger at Dean, his eyes flash with consternation. “You don’t understand. This is the best thing I’ve had all year.”

“Oh, I understand all right.” Dean chuckles. “What I understand is that’s a dime a dozen, bargain-basement cheeseburger. If I cooked you a real burger?” A dramatic pause. “You’d know the difference.”

Dubious, the man frowns. “I don’t think you can question the authenticity of a bur—”

“You’d know,” Dean insists, harder.

*

30 minutes earlier

Dean’s place of work always feels a little like something out of a Twilight Zone episode. A place where time seems to stand still.

The brown tile and molded plastic seats and plastic plants, all fixtures that have existed since the dawn of time—that is, whenever this McDonald’s was built, or last refurbished. Evidently, that was sometime in the early ’90s.

Dean’s tried to liven the place up a little, taking it upon himself to decorate seasonally. Might as well make the best of it as long as he has to work here. A mentality of If not me, then who?

Which only serves to make the ambiance more Twilight Zone-esque: the brown tile and plastic chairs and plastic ferns and, now, Dean’s cheap seasonal décor strung up across the windows. When the sunlight slants in just right, the place looks like a fever dream carved from the mind of a third grader circa 1995.

That doesn’t stop him from hanging the shit up, though. Mainly cheap laminated paper cut-outs of jack o’lanterns and snowflakes. Not both at once, of course. Except—well, shit.

They are, indeed, both hanging up at once right now.

Dean stands in the middle of the empty dining room, hands on his hips as he faces the windows, and tries to figure out how the hell that happened.

He’d been thinking about Thanksgiving, he recalls—standing on the seats of the plastic chairs, hopping from one to another, like leaping from rock to rock across a stream, as he strung up the snowflakes and little silhouetted pine trees. The dollar store where he’d picked up the decorations hadn’t had anything for Thanksgiving, only Christmas, and that struck him as a little unfair.

But that got Dean thinking about his plans for this upcoming Thanksgiving, what he’ll do while Sam eats turkey somewhere in sunny California. Dean’s plans: a solitary liquid dinner sponsored by a bottle of Wild Turkey—Get it? he asked no one, because no one was there to appreciate how his liquor of choice was appropriate and also very friggin’ clever—and then the memory gets a little hazy after that.

He remembers hastily slapping the rest of the festive shit up there and climbing back down from the chair, feeling distracted, walking off to take his fifteen minute break, and somewhere in there he’d completely forgotten to take down the Halloween stuff.

Dean shakes his head at all the pumpkins, the black cats with arched backs, and that’s just gonna have to be a problem for another day. His own back can’t take another round of standing on chairs and stretching his arms up.

He turns and gets back to mopping as the front door opens, probably for the first time in half an hour, and some guy walks in—wandering up to the counter in a very nice but noticeably (and hopelessly) rumpled suit. Seeming a bit out of place, somehow. Like he just doesn’t belong.

The customer stops in front of the counter and squints up at the menu like he’s never seen one before.

Pushing his mop ahead of him like a lawnmower, Dean nudges the yellow Caution: Wet Floor sign a little further into view with the toe of his shoe.

It has that dumb picture of a stick figure slipping and falling on its ass, and this customer looks spaced out enough to recreate that picture right here on Dean’s newly cleaned floor if he’s not careful. And the last thing they need is a lawsuit—same reason all the styrofoam cups say Caution: Contents may be hot. A no-brainer, but hey, Dean figures, some people just have no brain, or as good as.

“You don’t make Whoppers anymore?”

It’s a confused, slightly crestfallen voice. Just the kind Dean would imagine the spacey guy to have, too. Maybe a little deeper than he expected, though. Like it had been dragged over rocks. And somehow familiar.

“That’s Burger King, dude.” Dean draws up short behind the guy, looping his arm around the mop handle, gripping it near the top and letting it take some of his weight; it’s been a pretty slow day. There’s no hurry to complete his rounds.

“Yes?” The man tilts his head uncertainly.

Was that a question? Dean has no clue.

“Didn’t notice the golden arches on the way in?” Scooting a little closer when the man doesn’t reply—instead continuing to stare upwards at the list of Combo Meals—Dean points over the man’s shoulder, indicating the logo to the side of the backlit menu. “This is McDonald’s.”

“…Oh.” If possible, the man looks even more bewildered and lost, eyebrows furrowing—Dean can just barely make out his profile from this awkward angle, and those are definitely some seriously furrowed brows.

Dean gives the guy’s shoulder a friendly, but cautious, pat. The way you might touch a skittish alley cat. “Just order the #3, dude.”

And the guy does, apparently; Dean overhears this (the overly careful enunciation of the exact words “the number three” spoken to the cashier) as he glides away to the other side of the dining room. Daydreaming, this time, that the mop is a Zamboni. And Dean doesn’t really care for hockey, but damn if driving those things doesn’t always look cool.

A number is soon called out from behind the counter—the spacey guy’s, probably, since business always slows to a crawl this time of night and there’s hardly anyone else in here. Dean glances up just as the guy turns away from the counter with a tray in his hands, wandering over the wet floor in search of a seat, disappearing behind a patch of plastic flora.

His shoes leave footprints on Dean’s wet floor. Dry, clean silhouettes.

In his peripheral vision, Dean notices the guy sitting down at a small table meant for no more than two people, with those dumb swivel chairs that rotate only partway around. One tucked away near the back corner of the restaurant in a section currently devoid of customers, the table partially obscured by a huge leafy plant, one of those décor holdovers from the ’90s. Dean glances over once more, a little curious.

The table isn’t completely clean.

Fuck.

There are a few greasy fingerprints left over from previous customers, visible only if you turn your head a certain way and catch the glare of the ugly florescent lights overhead. And yeah, Dean’s job may be shitty, but he does it well, okay.

And that kind of mistake is unacceptable. His head does what it always does—clicks and whirs and plays back his own thoughts on repeat, What if Sammy came in and saw that? What if Dad saw that? You can do better.

Dean drags the mop closer to that corner of the restaurant; at least he can make sure the damn floor is clean.

Turn your life around, Dean, says the mocking voice in his head that sounds a lot like Sam. Except Sam would rarely say that with anything other than kindness or concern. Mop the floors, Dean, wipe the tables, Dean— and it’s starting to sound like that Cinderella song from the Disney movie, and Dean doesn’t even know how he knows that song, and all at once he forgets the rest of the words when he’s interrupted by a different voice.

“That’s unsettling,” says the voice, with concern. “Why is there a clown statue?”

Dean straightens, turns, frowning. The man at the table has swiveled the chair as far to the left as it will go, staring intensely at the fiberglass Ronald McDonald that stands by the door. It’s roughly the size of a small adult.

Uh, hello? goes Dean’s brain. Maybe because it’s a McDonald’s?

It’s another holdover from the ’90s, probably. Dean doesn’t think they even put these in the restaurants anymore.

“Like I said. McDonald’s.”

The man doesn’t react, not seeming to even hear him. Dean stares at the back of his head.

And, seriously? He already told the dude. There are signs and logos everywhere that say the word “McDonald’s”. Like, hello, there’s even the Mc-prefix in front of every other item on the menu?

Dean sweeps up some straw wrappers as the guy turns the chair all the way in the other direction this time, looking off to his right. He appears to freeze. Mutters disbelievingly to himself, “What month is this?”

“Dude, are you drunk?” Dean blurts out, incredulous as all hell—currently ducked halfway under a table and wielding the mop like the joystick in a crane game, trying to reach an elusive paper cup that’s stuck between the side of a booth and the wall.

“No.” The man rubs a hand over his face. Lets out a breath, seeming to crumple a little under an invisible weight. Suddenly looking smaller, even more ordinary and human, as Dean peeks out at him from under the table. “Just very, very tired.”

Deflating, Dean actually feels a little bad now, despite this guy clearly having a screw loose. The end of the mop finally pops the cup free, and Dean collects it in a hurry, retreating to the main dining area.

Better leave the dude alone.

For the last ten minutes, Dean’s been wiping down tables and playing the entirety of the movie Roadhouse in his head just so he doesn’t spontaneously drop dead from boredom.

The dining room remains as deserted as ever, no new customers. Even the register has been abandoned, the counter standing empty; Ash probably went out behind the building to get stoned—even more than he already was—although his break wasn’t scheduled for another hour.

By the time Dean looks back over his shoulder, towards that small secluded table, the spacey guy is gone.

Except everything is still untouched on the table.

Dean’s hand freezes on the mop handle. Huh. Okay. With his white-collar outfit and all, Dean reasons, maybe the guy decided he was too good for McDonald’s and just up and left—

Except, no, the rumpled trenchcoat the guy had been wearing over the equally rumpled suit is still there, draped haphazardly over the back of the stupid swivel chair.

Minutes go by as Dean cleans three more tables and the side of the tiled panel that houses the fake mulch of the fake plant, and he’s beginning to get a little bit concerned.

And maybe the dude did just bounce, and forgot his coat in the process, but—

Dean drags his equipment back to the restrooms in the dining room’s furthest corner, beyond even the secluded table, leaning his mop against the nearest tiled planter. Just to be safe—not the first time he’s done something like this, just to make sure all is well, usually when someone’s kid accidentally locked themselves in there—he raps his knuckles on the door.

“Uh, hey.” No answer. “Hello?”

He thinks he hears a distant tapping, like footsteps, but it could just be the sound of water dripping from a leaky pipe. God knows they have enough of those.

Dean tentatively pulls the handle—locked from the inside.

Well, shit.

That’s a never a good sign. The bathroom is not a one-seater; it’s not supposed to be locked from the inside.

So someone’s in there, and has been for a very, very long time.

“Uh, buddy? Everything okay in there?” No answer. “Uh, you alive in there?” It’s a joke. Mostly.

Damn it. He’s going to have to unlock it from the outside. His first impulse is to just break or pick the lock, but no, Dean, you have a respectable job now. A job with a big, heavy keyring, including the keys he uses to lock up the front doors at night and the master key to the restrooms—it’s his job to clean in there, after all.

He exhales, a rough puff of air, and steps back to pivot on his heel and go get his keyring, muttering, “I don’t get paid enough for this crap—”

Dean reels backwards when the door is abruptly flung open from the inside.

It opens into their uninviting little cave of a restroom, dark and windowless with a ceiling light that always buzzes and flickers ominously no matter how many times Dean replaces it.

So it’s not like the room is ever particularly well-lit, but there he is—the same guy—looking distinctly pale and wan, head ducked down low. With a kind of sweaty, clammy sheen on his brow. One finger threaded through the knot of his necktie like he’s trying to loosen it, like it’s a noose he’s trying vainly to slip out of.

Dean remembers the earlier tapping noise, clocks the guy’s dress boots, and has a very strong hunch that the guy’s just been pacing back and forth in here.

“I’m so sorry,” the man tells Dean immediately, breathless as he tumbles into the doorway.

“Uh.” Dean searches for words, catching his lower lip between his teeth, because what the ever-loving fuck. “You good?”

“I…I feel very faint, actually,” he observes, in a strangely detached voice, putting a hand against the doorframe and swaying slightly on his feet. “And dizzy,” he adds, like the word faint wasn’t enough. Breathing a little too fast and too shallowly.

Oh, okay. So the guy went into the bathroom to have a nervous breakdown. Cool.   

Shit.

With visible effort, the guy raises his head, now fully facing him for the first time—

And Dean kicks over his goddamn mop bucket.

“Jesus Christ,” Dean hisses, hopefully too low for the sound to carry.

Taking a reflexive step back, Dean steps right into the slowly expanding puddle of dirty water, almost mirroring the guy’s shaky posture when he catches himself with one hand against the wall, leaning there.

Because what in the ever-loving fuck.

He knows the dude’s face.

It’s the—

No.

Yes.

Okay.

So, this is a thing that’s happening.

In a McDonald’s, no less.

Dean’s McDonald’s.

Dean takes a breath as the floor dries.

Okay.

His initial shock wears off as quickly as the spilled water evaporates; it’s not like Jimmy Page just walked in. Not like it was Mick Jagger, or Gunner Lawless, or anyone else Dean actually cares enough about to get starstruck over.

It’s still fucking weird, sure, but Dean’s in no danger of kicking over any more cleaning supplies.

It was the surprise more than anything. This restaurant already feels like the Twilight Zone half the time, anyway.

Oh, and then there’s the guy’s apparent nervous breakdown to worry about.

Time seems to stall and then lurch into fast-forward.

Shit. Shit. Dean takes an automatic step forward, hands out, because it looks like the dude’s gonna faceplant onto the floor—

And Dean has got to stop mentally referring to him as “the dude,” like this is the fucking Big Lebowski or some shit. Dean does, of course, know the dude’s first name. It’s pretty distinctive. In fact, he’s probably the only person on the planet named Castiel.

Except for however many babies have probably been named after him in the last four years.

Dean’s hands reflexively go to the guy’s arms, steadying—and the instant contact is made, way too much of the guy’s weight slumps heavily into Dean’s grip, like he truly can barely stand on two feet.

“Okay, uh—hang on. Hang on.” Dean wets his lips nervously. He’s pretty sure he recognizes the signs; he’s seen them enough times to tell, occasionally on his own face. He’s gotta do what he can.

Heaven knows no one else in this joint would have a clue what to do.

Still loosely holding onto the sleeve of that dark suit jacket, Dean gingerly walks the dude—Castiel—over to the far wall and deposits him by the sink. Where Castiel turns immediately to lean heavily on the edge of the fixture.

Dean shuts the door behind them. Talking people down is never easy, but he sure as hell would want some privacy if he were in the guy’s position. Which he has been. Though Dean’s usually on this side of the proceedings: he’s done this before, for a few other strangers, too, but mostly for Sammy.

“Alright. You with me?”

He’s been doing this sort of thing for years.

It’s not like he has any formal training, but after a few minutes of slow, calm words, he’s managed to get Castiel—fuck, that name is a mouthful—to breathe. To just focus on breathing. Five seconds for each breath, that whole deal.

Castiel—Cas—has been leaning on the sink and staring sightlessly into the mirror as the color slowly returns to his cheeks, light returning to his eyes. He blinks several times before turning back to face Dean, continuing to take deep, slow breaths.

“I don’t know what’s…. I’m sorry,” Cas says again, but looking and sounding much more lucid as he blinks at Dean. Good sign. “I don’t know what—came over me.”

Dean tries to sound as reassuring as possible, and as soon as he opens his mouth immediately feels he’s missed the mark. “Dude, it’s a panic attack. You’re fine.”

He’s speaking in the exact same informal, rough-around-the-edges tone as he had out in the dining room. It’s like a kneejerk reaction Dean has no control over, like his brain really doesn’t care who he’s saying this to right now. It could be God Himself for all the difference that would make.

Cas runs a hand back through his hair, dismayed, but his eyes are still clearer than Dean’s seen them so far.

“This has never happened to me before…. It can’t, in my line of work,” Cas mutters, like maybe he thinks Dean doesn’t know what that work is. “My apologies,” he says, like the first two apologies weren’t enough. “I don’t know how this happened.”

Dean shrugs. “It happens,” he replies, intelligently.

Cas’ gaze flicks up to the ceiling for a moment, and he gives a breathless half-laugh, barely audible and devoid of humor. “I know it’s no excuse, but this—” A sharp, dry edge creeps into his voice for the first time. “This has probably been the worst day of my life. “

“Hey, really,” Dean says, getting closer to convincingly reassuring this time, “we’ve all been there. You, uh, good to walk? Should probably sit down for a sec.”

Dean pulls the door open, flinching as harsh light streams in, the dining room blinding compared to the bathroom, artificial and alien, unlike the dark sky beyond the windows.

He keeps a wary eye on Cas and follows him back to the table.

Dean doesn’t think the cashier hassled Cas at all earlier, or got starstruck, when Cas placed his order. No small mercy, if Cas was in this state the entire time—or maybe Ash was just too high to recognize him in the first place. Which, hey, Dean’ll take that option, too.

“Okay. Take it easy.” Dean stands beside the table, making sure Cas actually sits down, sounding just like he does when he talks to Sam, if Sam’s sick or in trouble. “You’re not gonna freak out on me again, are ya?” he adds, his smile lopsided.

Cas looks surprised for a moment, like he didn’t expect Dean to joke about this, but then his features settle into something else, something almost pleased. “Definitely not. No. No ‘freaking out’.”

Sitting there, the guy looks like…well, just some guy. An ordinary guy teetering under the brink of exhaustion. Bags under his eyes. Like he hasn’t slept in—ever, probably. Shoulders slumped, terrible posture. Hair a mess, like he’s been absently raking fingers through it.

For a second, Dean actually questions whether he correctly identified this dude in the first place, because this is not at all what he looks like on TV.

Well, okay—Dean supposes the panic thing was fair. This is a person who makes life and death decisions on the daily, right? That’s gotta get to you eventually.

Standing by the stupid swivel chair, Dean notices what’s next to the table, directly in Cas’ line of sight were he to turn right: Dean’s messed up window shit. Like a box of mixed holiday decorations threw up all over the glass.

Oh.

What fucking month is it.

Suddenly, what Dean earlier mistook for the dude being extremely fucking drunk makes a lot more sense.

If the guy was already spiraling into some kind of breakdown, he probably saw Martha Stewart’s worst nightmare on the windows over there and thought reality was falling apart around him or something. Well, that much of it was Dean’s fault, then.

“Oh, yeah, that’s—heh—” Dean stammers out a nervous chuckle, abruptly embarrassed by his own idiocy. “I don’t usually, uh, put—”

Thankfully, Cas starts talking at the same moment and doesn’t seem to hear how stupid Dean’s voice sounds.

“I can’t thank you enough. You’ve been very patient.” Then Cas seems to just sort of…look at Dean. Really look at him for the first time. And if that blue-eyed stare isn’t piercing. Dean is almost sorry he got the guy’s full attention; he resists the urge to take a step back, because fucking yikes.

“No worries,” Dean tells him, still slightly uncomfortable, because the guy seems so sincere. Pinning Dean with that soul-searching stare that makes it feel like they’re the only two people in the room. Hell, in the world.

“No, honestly. Not everyone would do that. You’re exceptional in a crisis,” Cas notes offhandedly, like that’s just a normal compliment to give someone. “I apologize for taking time out of your day like that. Thank you…?” A questioning look, obviously leaving a blank for Dean’s name.

“Dean.” He flashes a real grin, amused, as he helpfully points at the small nametag pinned to his chest.

Cas’ gaze drops down, frowning until he realizes what Dean’s pointing at. “Oh,” he sighs, sounding deeply irritated with himself, rubbing a tired hand over his face. “Of course. My apologies.”

Damn, the guy sure likes to apologize. “Don’t sweat it, man.”

“Well—thank you, Dean.” That earnest voice again as he thanks Dean for the third time in two minutes.

Dean leans casually on the mop he’d left propped against the fake plant, folding his hands over the top of the handle. “No problem, Cas.”

And it just—slips out.

And maybe that should shock Dean, that his brain-to-mouth filter seems to be even more broken than the McDonald’s fucking ice cream machine. He’s not talking at all like he’s sure people are supposed to, but, well—he’s kind of always had a thing about subverting authority.

Unless it’s his dad’s authority, but that’s another story.

For an instant Cas tenses up—shoulders going straight and stiff—and then, after another searing moment of eye contact, the tension sort of…begins to melt off again.

They hold each other’s gaze for a long minute. Establishing something—or perhaps cementing something that had already been established a moment ago, by the bathroom sink. Trust.

Cas is not afraid of him.

And Dean is not afraid of Cas.

They’d both sure as shit have enough reasons to be.

Then Dean’s eyes drop down to the table, breaking the eye contact and, as a result, the moment.

He frowns at the tray. “Hell, that’s not even gonna be edible by now. Lemme get you a new one.”

Startled, Cas seems to snap to life again, a bit of the tension springing back into the set of his shoulders. “Oh, no, you don’t need to do that.”

“It’s fine, man. On the house.”

“That really isn’t necessary.” Cas sounds more cautious now. “I’m perfectly willing to pay for a new one. But I don’t need a new one.”

“Dude,” Dean sighs, sharp and impatient, “that shit’s colder than a brass toilet seat in the Yukon.”

And if the caution in Cas’ voice was due to some misunderstanding that Dean might be doing him favors just because of who he is, this seems to effectively shatter that suspicion.

Cas barks out a startled laugh, then seems more surprised by that than the joke, and Dean takes that as his cue to grin and duck back into the kitchen.

In less than a minute, Dean’s in and out of the kitchen—bumping past Ash, who, true to form, is too high to even register Dean’s presence—and sliding a new tray of food onto the table in front of Cas.

“You probably need to, y’know, get your blood sugar going.” And there’s that voice again, the one he uses on Sam, the—weirdly maternal one. Dean cringes. “Or whatever. So, here. Enjoy.”

Cas peers down at the two trays now on the table, still hesitant. “I wouldn’t— I don’t like letting food go to waste—”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Dean says breezily, “it’s not.” And, grinning, grabs a handful of cold fries from the first meal and shoves them in his mouth. “It was time for my break anyway.”

That startles another laugh out of Cas, who again looks surprised that he even laughed at all. But the smile lingers longer on his face this time, crinkling the corners of his eyes.

“This is excellent,” says Cas, going to town on the burger like he’s ravenous. Using polite, formal language, like they’re in a five-star bistro and not a fast food joint, despite the sudden lack of any other table manners and the visible bulge of unchewed burger in his cheek as he pauses to speak.

“That ain’t excellent,” Dean chuckles, perched on the edge of the windowsill beside the table, arms folded across his chest. “You know what would make it better? Real meat. Eight, ten ounces of ground chuck, maybe some sirloin.”

“For a single burger?” Cas’ brows furrow, doubtful. “That…doesn’t sound like the correct amount.”

“Then if you wanna get real fancy, you melt some of the cheese right into the center of the patty.”

“People do that?” Cas seems vaguely awed.

“Maybe get a nice combo going on, get some bacon, barbecue sauce, slap a pineapple ring in there—hey, don’t give me that look, it’s not pizza, it works, don’t judge me—or even better, stick a fried egg on top. Cooked so you get that sweet spot in the middle, yolk just the right amount of runny.”

“They can’t do that here?” Cas wonders, riveted, continuing to eat as he stares up at Dean.

“Nope.”

“But they have eggs on the breakfast menu, surely. Couldn’t someone just ask for—” He tilts his head, considering. “Whatever happened to ‘Have it your way’?”

It takes a second for it to click. Then Dean bites his inner cheek to keep from laughing hard enough to spit out his own mouthful of cold burger.

“That’s Burger King again. Damn, you really had your heart set on that Whopper, didn’t you?” He’s fighting a losing battle against the grin at the corner of his mouth. “They haven’t used that slogan since, like, the ’70s, old man.” He’s actually pretty sure the guy couldn’t have much more than five years on him.

Cas just rolls his eyes a little dramatically. The reaction delights Dean.

“So, you’re a cook,” Cas ventures, taking another bite of his burger while Dean slips a few more cold fries from the old tray.

“Not here.” Dean throws an unfairly derisive glance at their surroundings. Although cooking here might be a step up from his actual job. Whatever. “But yeah. I—I cook.”

“You’re working to become a chef, then?”

Something in Dean’s stomach twists, killing his appetite for the partially-chewed fries in his mouth. Of course, Cas thinks this is some entry level job in a noble, ambitious quest to become a chef.

Except this job is probably as high on the ladder as Dean’s ever gonna get.

He’d have to go to school to be an actual chef, and studying has always been Sammy’s thing. Dean’s not cut out for it. This job is simply the only position he’s been able to land so far.

“Nah, I—” Words stick in his throat, and it has nothing to do with the dry, pulpy potato in his mouth. He hesitates. “I’m just here to—I’m helping put my little brother through school,” he admits. Another case of diarrhea of the mouth, which he seems to have today. “He doesn’t know that yet. But. It’s my plan.”

What he doesn’t mention is that this is Sam’s second go-round. Sam had to drop out the first time, and it was Dean’s fault. Sam says it isn’t—but Dean knows the truth. If he’d just been able to handle their dad’s drunken B.S. on his own, like he was supposed to, Sam never would’ve had to leave school.

“Oh.” For some reason, Cas looks almost impressed, cocking his head at Dean, that laserlike focus. “That’s very commendable.”

“Eh, not really.” He shifts, uncomfortable, the stone edge of the windowsill suddenly digging into his tailbone. And Dean knows that Cas is paid to kiss babies and pretend to care about the little people, but the details pop out of his mouth anyway: “He’s gonna be a lawyer someday soon.”

He can never help that small smile on his face when bragging about Sammy.

Something in Cas’ face seems to soften.

The thing is, Dean doesn’t deserve praise for doing this. He’s just doing the right thing. He hasn’t even landed a second and third job yet, which he’s pretty sure he’s gonna need in order to earn enough extra cash to fold up and send in a letter to Sam. Hustling pool can only go so far.

“Well, whatever. It’s family, you know? And the kid really deserves it.” Dean rubs the back of his neck, abashed. Not meeting Cas’ insistent eye contact.

For the first time in this conversation, he feels acutely aware of his current job. Is this really who he is? It isn’t what he wants to do—but since when has that ever mattered in his life.

“This is a means to an end, you know? Not that I wouldn’t want to cook—but it’s a hobby. It’s not my focus right now. And I know this job isn’t—” That sensation again of a fist grabbing hold of his stomach and twisting. He hears an edge of desperation in his own words and hates it. “I’m here because—”

“You know, there’s a real dignity in what you do,” Cas says.

The expression freezes on Dean’s face. He eyes Cas with a mixture of confusion and—an odd wariness, a distrust that’s appeared out of nowhere.

“You don’t think so?” Cas studies Dean, pensive, eyes narrowed in appraisal of what he sees. After a beat, he seems to come to a decision. “It’s not as though it’s easy work. I used to do shifts at a Gas-N-Sip while working my way through college.”

Dean’s brain screeches to a halt. “A Gas-N-Sip?”

“I was a sales associate,” Cas continues, nodding. Eyes going a bit unfocused, remembering. Almost wistful. “Working the register, signing for deliveries…cleaning the restrooms….”

Dean chokes on what might be a laugh, a rogue french fry, or just a surprised intake of breath. “You. Cleaned the friggin’ bathrooms at a Gas-N-Sip.”

Cas just nods. He doesn’t even look embarrassed about it.

“You’re bullshitting me,” Dean insists, delighted.

“I am not ‘bullshitting you’.” Cas shakes his head with a small smile. “The closest I ever came to cooking, however, was preparing the food.”

Dean bites his cheek again, trying not to guffaw at the air quotes. “Oh man, tell me you didn’t eat it.”

Cas arches a challenging brow. “It was free food. I was twenty-something. Of course I ate it.”

Dean gets that. You don’t turn down free food. He knows how to stretch out a jar of peanut butter for a week, learned to do that when Dad was out traveling for work, leaving him and Sam behind in motel rooms with about enough pocket money to buy candy bars and gum. So, put that on his resume under special skills. Right under lock-picking.

And it shouldn’t be funny at all, but Dean loses his battle with the laugh, another one close on its heels. “You’re lucky you got out of there alive! You never eat gas station food. It’ll give you dysentery faster than the friggin’ Oregon Trail. Especially the sushi. Or hot dogs.”

Cas shrugs again, keeping a straight face. “Actually, it was mostly nachos.”

Dean isn’t sure if the deadpan delivery and innocent roundness of Cas’ eyes are genuine or designed just to fuck with him.

He cracks up anyway.

He’s gratified to see the stoic façade splinter when Cas ducks his head to hide his own chuckle. It’s not a real laugh, not really. But Dean’s full-on cracking up, leading the way, and he’s pretty sure, if he tries hard enough, he can get Cas to follow.

*

now

Chained to a comet, he’d said.

Dean isn’t sure how they got here. He was discussing cooking, for some reason, and then Cas started discussing…his own current job.

The presidency. Fuck.

But Cas is the one who brought that up, which Dean assumed would be a taboo subject. So Dean figures it must be semi-okay to talk about it now.

From nuking taquitos to…the leader of the free world. In charge of actual nukes, or at least that’s how it seems to work in the movies.

And Cas had just started openly speaking about it. Sensible, Dean supposes. No use in both of them pretending that Dean didn’t know, or that Cas didn’t know that Dean knew—or whatever.

At least Dean’s day can’t get any weirder.

“You’d know,” Dean insists again, now actually sitting at the table, as Cas tells him this burger is the best thing he’s eaten in a year. “I already told you, this ain’t even real meat.” He’s fairly sure that’s not true, but he doesn’t retract the statement. “What you really want is a good cut of meat and some seasoning. Cooked medium at most.”

“It sounds as though you’d make a remarkable chef.”

Shit. Cas still thinks Dean is actually gonna get to be a chef one day.

Dean coughs. “Uh. Sure….”

He has the sudden, urgent need to get the attention off himself.

“So…this is the worst day of your life, huh?” Then Dean goes cold, snapping his mouth shut and internally cringing. “You don’t—shit, sorry, man, you don’t have to answer that, I shouldn’t’ve—”

“No. That’s fine.” Cas waves Dean’s concern away with another sigh and bite of his burger. “It’s not as if you wouldn’t see it on—see most of it on the news anyway. And after all this,” a vague gesture, indicating what just happened in the bathroom, “if anyone deserves to know, I suppose it’s you. You’re clearly curious,” he adds, wryly.

Dean shrugs, a chuckle. “Guilty.”

“Well,” Cas begins, his own elbows on the table now, mirroring Dean’s, as he eats. “You probably know I’m not running again next year.”

Dean nods. That was announced fairly recently.

“The divorce quite effectively put an end to any ideas that I might.”

Which Dean also knows about—as does everyone else not living under a rock—and thinks is stupid. A divorce, big fucking deal. But the nation didn’t agree, and his image apparently tanked, with screams of “family values!!!” and other outdated crap that the general public still clings to.

“But I hadn’t planned on running again anyway.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s—for my daughter. Claire.”

Dean’s pretty sure this reason is not public knowledge.

“These last few years have been…very difficult for her.” Cas has the same look in his eyes that Dean gets when thinking about Sam.

Dean pulls a sympathetic face, not actually sure he has a right to hear any of this.

So the guy had been having a bonafide nervous breakdown. For apparently the first time in his life. That explains why he’s baring his soul to a custodian at a fast food restaurant, Dean guesses. Probably.

“She used to call me a— She said I was ‘kind of a doof’.” Cas pulls out the air quotes again. And it’s clear from the fondness in his voice and faraway look on his face that his daughter meant that as a term of affection. “But now— She says I’m—” He stops, tentative, maybe even self-conscious.

Dean wonders if getting caught in the grip of undiluted panic and clawing your way out of it with someone is like going through a near death experience. You come out the other side different. Closer to the other person. Instantly bonded. War buddies.

It sounds like bullshit, but it’s the best theory he’s got going so far.

“Go on,” Dean encourages.

“I believe her exact words were—” Cas crooks his fingers, and oh god here come the air quotes again for the second time in under a minute. “—‘stuck up’ and ‘a dick’.”

Dean snorts.

Funny how this guy can seem so utterly cool and confident, stoic to the point of frigidity on the evening news, yet in person he’s—downright awkward at times. Which Dean had assumed was a temporary byproduct of the panic attack, but apparently not.

Despite the heavy subject matter, there’s an element of humor in Cas’ voice—obviously finding his daughter so endearing that even the insults are precious to him. She sounds like a cool kid. Dean likes her already. (Already? A dumb thought. Not like he’s ever gonna actually get to know her.)

“And I…understand where she’s coming from.” With another sigh, Cas absently pops a fry into his mouth, getting that thousand-yard stare. “When my campaign officially launched, I was so—” He searches for a moment. “Self-assured. Convinced I was on this righteous path—that I alone could somehow heal this country. As if I was above it all.” A hint of bitterness and self-deprecation creep in. “Now I know there is no righteous path. There’s no keeping your hands clean in politics. I’m no better than the rest of them.”

“Hey, man, that’s harsh,” Dean interjects, lips downturned.

He remembers some of the platform, what Cas stood for. They’d been good things, refreshingly. Despite attempts from Congress to block his reforms at every turn. (Or something like that. Sam had explained this problem to Dean in detail.) But that wasn’t the guy’s fault. The whole system was rotten. At least he’d tried to be different.

“Finding one decent guy in politics is like finding, I dunno, a virgin in a brothel,” Dean says, and at last, there’s that joke he was trying to think of earlier. “Like finding a goddamn unicorn. It’s the system that’s fucked.”

Cas just sighs again, mood distinctly taking a nosedive back down into the solemn and serious. “I don’t like what this job has made me into. I think Claire could see that before anyone else.” He shakes his head. “What I’ve become, maybe it’s—not who I am.”

Well, damn. When the guy said it was the worst day of his life, Dean thought it was gonna be about accidentally kickstarting World War III or something.

But it turns out it’s all about his family.

“I never realized you could live together under one roof and still somehow be—an absent father.” Cas winces, so earnest that Dean actually has to look away. “I couldn’t do that to Claire again.”

“Really cool of you, man.” Dean nods, voice a little tight. “To make that choice.”

At Cas’ questioning stare, Dean waves a fry in his direction and tries to sound casual.

“I know a thing or five about absent fathers,” Dean explains. Cas does his weird head-tilt thing, so Dean goes on, “The whole—helping my brother through school deal? It’s pretty much always been just me and Sammy.”

Go on, Cas seems to say, but not in words, something encouraging—or, not encouraging so much as inquisitive, curious yet unthreatening—in the angle of his head, his unblinking gaze.

“This is what I’ve been doing my whole life, you know? Looking after the kid. S’what I do.”

Seeming to get it from that tiny scrap of information, just like Dean hoped, Cas nods once.

“But I think we turned out okay.”

“Yes,” Cas says, studying him, with another nod. “It seems that you did.”

5 minutes later

“Wait, you’re not even supposed to be here alone?”

Cas gets cagey, avoiding Dean’s eyes as he slides a slew of empty wrappers off the tray and into the trash. “It isn’t exactly…standard procedure.”

“So you really are breaking the rules right now?”

“Technically, yes.”

Dean gives a low whistle. “Wow. Rebel,” he teases, amused. Borderline flirtatious, to be honest, but that’s nothin’. He’s done worse. Hell, he flirts with cops all the time, though that’s mainly to piss them off.

For some reason, though, pissing Cas off is not actually something he wants.

“Well, you can’t go out that way, then,” Dean muses, eyeing the front doors. “You probably got a bull’s eye on your back, man. I could sneak you out through the kitchen, maybe. Go out the back way.”

Cas seems to consider it, staring past Dean and the doors, off into the middle distance.

“Dude, you’re sweating like a preacher in a whorehouse.”

“Do all your similes involve prostitution?”

The flat delivery, combined with Cas’ arched brow, makes Dean chuckle. “I don’t think you realize how funny you are,” Dean quips, unperturbed by the way Cas is squinting at him.

Then Cas’ gaze is tugged back, inevitably, to the glass doors and tall plate glass windows that surround most of the dining room.

“I’m not even sure where I’m going to go. Maybe it’s time to go back to reality, then.” Cas sounds resigned, like it’s a cruel fate, like maybe he wants to be free a moment longer.

Dean doesn’t miss the nervous glances Cas has been giving the huge windows. Cas thinks he’s going to be recognized, probably, or spotted by secret service agents, or whoever he broke the rules to get away from today.

Dean has a thought.

There are no other customers in here, so he steps into the kitchen and shuts off the main lights, all at once, plunging the place into near-darkness, save for the kitchen lights that Dean needs to work by.

Cas glances up with big eyes as it goes mostly dark, turning questioningly to Dean.

“I gotta shut this place down soon. It’s my job to close up tonight,” he explains. “Just don’t want anyone to think we’re still open.”

Plus, it’ll make it a lot harder for anyone to see inside the building without the whole dining room lit up like a Christmas tree, which Dean does not add.

“Of course,” Cas says at once, jumping up like he’s been burned. “I should go. I don’t want to inconvenience you any longer than I already have.”

That’s not why he shut off the lights. Dean hesitates. “I mean, you’re welcome to hang out here, I guess?”

Because Dean has apparently lost his mind.

But before Cas can answer—

Garth wanders out of the kitchen, where he’s been sequestered in the back, manning the drive-through window. Which has been getting about as much action as the rest of the place, the stream of customers slowing to a crawl and then a complete stop.

“Hey Dean, I’m gonna clock out.”

Garth strolls around the counter, looking down at the headset in his hands and fiddling with it.

“You know that patty that fell down the back of the grill last week, it’s still there all petrified, like a fossil,” Garth squeaks, excited. “It doesn’t even have any mold on it or anything—I have this bet going with Ash. I’ll give him 50 dollars if he actually reaches back there to get it and then eats off of it—”

Garth freezes. Looking past the counter and past Dean.

Right where Cas is currently standing.

Whirling around to face Garth head-on, putting himself between Garth and Cas, Dean stares at him, hard. Jaw set, arms rigid at his sides. A stern, unmistakable message in his eyes: Not one word.

“Bye, Garth,” Dean says pointedly, through gritted teeth, averting disaster.

Garth takes the hint, eyes like saucers. He backs away and does not make a fuss about their present company. “Okay—uh— See ya Dean.” He backs all the way into the kitchen and disappears from sight.

Dean lets out a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose like he’s fending off a migraine.

Close call.

He does not get paid enough for this crap. He closes his eyes, then counts to five.

Mumbling something like “be right back,” Dean leaves Cas alone in the dining area and follows Garth into the bowels of the kitchen. Checks that everybody’s done what they’re supposed to do before they clock out. That Ash has washed the fry station. That Garth did the dishes. That they at least got the assembly lines partway cleaned.

The rest is left for Dean.

His manager dipped out hours ago, as per usual. On a normal day, Dean would have started this whole process a lot sooner, but he was out there shooting the shit with Cas, so.

After a few minutes and a few goodbyes, refusing to answer any of Garth’s flustered questions, Dean strides back out, wiping his hands briskly on a towel, all business.

“Well, everyone’s gone, so if you decide you wanna chill here, you don’t have to worry about anyone walking in.”

And with that, Dean turns on his heel and starts working. Shutting off and cleaning the fountain drink dispenser. Grabbing armfuls of crap from the freezers to relocate to the walk-in freezer in the back.

A moment later, from behind him: “You’re doing all this by yourself?”

Cas sounds troubled.

Which is…not the response Dean expected. He’d been waiting for Cas to say whether he was staying or going—not this plaintive question about Dean’s job.

“We’re understaffed.” Dean shrugs, glancing over his shoulder at Cas—whose brow is furrowed with concern—before turning to the coffee machine. “Besides, ‘If you want something done right, you better do it yourself’.”

He cleans the coffee machine—or McCoffee, or McCafe, whatever its dumbass name is.

Despite never actually giving Dean an answer, Cas is now sitting at one of the tables out front, closer to the counter and safely away from the windows, peering down at his phone and typing in the dark while Dean cleans the grill.

And Dean had been wrong earlier: his day has gotten weirder.

Poor guy’s phone is probably blowing up; this is the first time Dean’s seen him check the thing at all.

Ducking into the office, Dean switches on his own music, replacing the unbearable Muzak and soft pop that usually plays over the sound system all night and makes Dean want to chew his own arm off.

The sounds of an electric guitar are like a relief.

It’s not even a scorching riff, just some relatively quiet notes, but he instantly feels more at home.

Back in the kitchen, hidden and surrounded by shelves of stainless steel, he scrubs a brush across the grill over and over, humming and singing little snatches under his breath, more softly than he would in his car, or any other place where he was completely alone.

I've got a feeling, a feeling deep inside, oh yeah—

His hand stills and his jaw snaps shut when he hears a noise from the dining room.

Turning the corner, past a wall of gleaming metal equipment, Dean sticks his head out and sees Cas still sitting there bowed over his phone as he furiously types.

“You say somethin’, Cas?”

“Yes.” Cas raises his head, light from the phone screen pale on his face. “What is this?”

“What, the music?” Dean questions, and Cas nods. “The Beatles.”

He turns, his back to Cas and his hand empty—flexing his fingers, trying to figure out where he just set down that brush.

When he hears no response from Cas, he tries again. “You know, the Fab Four? Hey Jude? Abbey Road?”

“...Oh. Right.”

That response took too long, emotionless to the point of sounding robotic.

“Hey, if they’re not your thing, I can put on something else. I got Zeppelin, Seger, Metallica—any of those more to your taste?”

Again no response. Dean turns around, nonplussed, only to see Cas already observing him with an expression of deep concentration.

“Could you say those names again,” Cas eventually says.

“Do you—” The lightbulb in Dean’s head finally clicks on. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you.”

Cas stares up at him guilelessly. “I wasn’t allowed to buy records as a child.”

“Wow, they really did keep you on a short leash, didn’t they.”

“Well, you know what they say,” Cas replies, very dryly, obviously reliving some bitter stuff from his past. “ ‘Rock and roll is the devil’s music’.” The change from guileless to sarcastic is so fast it gives Dean whiplash.

“Family, huh?” Dean offers, commiserating.

“Yes. I was literally named for a biblical angel.”

“Them’s the breaks, buddy,” he shrugs, and keeps working, because he already knows this.

Because Dean knows, like most of the public, that Cas came from a devoutly religious family, “devout” in this case bordering on fanaticism, and famously so. In fact, it probably helped him get elected—which, by all accounts, Cas appears to hate with everything he’s got.

That had been one of the more interesting articles Dean read around the time of the election. (He could always count on Sam to forward him the important shit so he can stay at least somewhat informed.)

It mentioned that Cas had reportedly given explicit instructions that his campaign never mention his family or past, distancing himself from all of it. So when that past helped sway the minds of some of the more conservative voters anyway, it probably rankled the guy.

There was a piece Sam sent once that was mostly a long list of facts, summarizing Cas' stance on major issues—Dean had been surprised to see that Cas was basically pro- everything good. That had been one of the major selling points for Dean, admittedly. There was even close to a full paragraph detailing the ways in which he’d been vocally pro-LGBT, probably a big reason Sam selected this specific article for Dean. (Though Sam had the good sense not to comment on that part directly—or that gut-wrenchingly difficult conversation from last year—in his accompanying email to Dean.)

Anyway, the writing was too stark and factual to give any real insight into Cas’ personality, but the idea of the at-the-time future president metaphorically sticking up a middle finger at his conservative, bigoted family had struck Dean as pretty awesome.

The Beatles play on, Dean moving to the easy rhythm of the song.

Working with his hands and crossing back and forth across the kitchen in time to the beat. Whirling around to deftly grab a canister of sauce instead of simply turning, almost like dancing, almost like he could pretend he was at a bar, or a concert, and not stuck here working by himself with no help at 11 p.m. on a Thursday.

“I’ve heard of the Beatles,” Cas says, a little defensively, after a lull in conversation so long that the sound of his voice startles Dean out of a reverie.

“You and about 500 billion other people. Join the club.” The fingers of Dean’s left hand dance through the air unconsciously. “This is a fun one to play on guitar.”

“Do you play guitar?” Cas sounds interested, fuck knows why.

“Yeah—” Dean quickly looks down at the counter, wishing he was hidden behind the steel shelves right now. “Well, just for fun, but yeah.”

When he was a kid, a teenager even, he thought he was gonna be a rock star when he grew up. And look how things worked out.

“Anyway, that devil stuff? It’s not completely wrong.” Dean changes the subject and disappears into the kitchen, grins as he swipes a white rag over metal to the rhythm of the song. “‘Crossroad Blues.’ ‘Hellhound On My Trail’.”

When he checks, Cas is regarding him blankly, like that was gibberish, an incomprehensible foreign language. But Dean expected that.

“I mean, okay, that ‘devil’s music’ crap got thrown around by a bunch of ignorant racist fucks in the ’50s—one, ’cause the music wasn’t invented by white people, and two, ’cause—you know what ‘rock ’n roll’ really means, right?”

Dean cranes his neck around another stack of silver shelves to see Cas’ reaction. Cas stares back, clearly no intention of even attempting to answer.

Dean chuckles, half-hidden again as he continues washing the grill. “You know. Knockin’ boots. Riding the skin bus. Testing the suspension. The bedroom rodeo. Netflix and chill.”

Cas’ blank face finally pinches in exasperation. “Dean,” he says, simply, which obviously translates to what the fuck are you talking about and could you please stop using fucking idioms for two fucking seconds.

And that’s the first time Cas has actually used his name in conversation, Dean thinks.

Dean beams at the soapy grill under his hands.

“Sex,” he finally gives in and explains. Rolling his eyes for good measure, like duh. “Anyway, it scared the hell out of bible thumpers everywhere. Because the idea of actually having any fun scares ’em shitless.”

Dean swings past the shelving and slides up behind the counter with an effortless grace. Idly swirling a rag over it, around and around, clockwise like vinyl on a turntable.

“—And that’s the roots of rock ’n roll. This is the good shit,” Dean points up at the speakers, “but it wouldn’t even exist without those roots. That’s what good music does—

“It’s fun, and maybe even scares you, and reminds you you’re fuckin’ alive.”

He eyes the phone sitting forgotten in Cas’ hands, its screen gone black.

“I gotta tell ya—” Dean lifts his gaze, and Cas is already looking at him, which just keeps happening over and over, their gazes locking onto each other like guided missiles locking onto targets. “You’re missin’ out.”

Cas is looking at him with an inexplicably awed expression. Pupils as wide and black as the phone screen. Face oddly cracked open all of a sudden, searching. “Am I?” he asks Dean, in a strange, faraway voice.

Another moment of blistering eye contact, and Dean clears his throat. Hand automatically darting to the rag, wiping in soothing circles.

“Anyway. Okay.” His eyes flick up at Cas and down to the counter. It’s already spotless. He doesn’t remember what he was doing before this. “I gotta clean,” he mumbles, mechanically, to the kitchen.

He makes it a few steps before another interruption.

“Are there regulations against allowing customers inside after closing?” Cas asks, abruptly stricken. Like he’s deeply concerned on Dean’s behalf, that Dean might get in trouble for this.

Dean turns to the counter again, kitchen forgotten in an instant, teeth bared in a grin.

“Dude. The customer is freakin’ you,” Dean exclaims, finding this wildly funny.

Cas huffs, no longer looking so deeply, bleeding-heart-sympathetic. “Yes, well—”

“What are they gonna do, clap me in irons?” Dean holds up his wrists dramatically, a bright laugh. “Throw me in Club Fed?”

Dean dimly wonders if he’s committing a felony or something. After all, Cas did let slip that he wasn’t supposed to be here either, just stumbled in because he needed time to himself, space to breathe. Maybe that counts as harboring a fugitive. Aiding and abetting? Then again, doing the commander in chief a solid has got to earn him some diplomatic immunity—and okay, Dean has no idea what the fuck that even means and is just taking every random term he’s ever heard on Court TV and pulling them out of his ass.

If Sam heard him now, he’d be clutching his Stanford pearls at the sacrilege.

“I could just tell ’em it was your idea,” Dean adds, beaming.

Cas’ frown is almost petulant. “It was not my idea.”

“Yeah well, they don’t need to know that, do they?” He leans forward on his elbows, braced against the formica, cheeky.

“The audacity,” Cas intones, dry, arm resting on the table, chin in hand. But one side of his mouth just barely ticks up, and the smile reaches his eyes.

“Oh, is that what you’d call it?” Still with that bold, irreverent grin.

Cas raises a single brow again, still visibly amused. “If you don’t like that word, we could try ‘impertinent’.”

“You could try getting that stick out of your ass.”

“You could try showing some respect.” Which is a sentence that, with that voice and those eyes, Cas could easily make scary as fuck if he wanted it to be.

But he clearly doesn’t want it to be. In fact, Cas looks about one second away from laughing for real.

One more little push from Dean, just the tiniest nudge, and he knows he can get that goddamn laugh.

He rises to the challenge.

“Please,” Dean retorts, all confidence and smirks. “You know you like it.”

Cas’ fingers shift over his mouth a little, like he’s trying to hide it, but his lips visibly twitch behind them. Fighting to keep a straight face.

They lock eyes.

A strange, heavy silence descends.

More weird eye contact that makes Dean feel like he’s just gotten an electric shock off the faulty toaster in the kitchen.

Dean’s eyes flick down a few times to Cas’ partly covered mouth. Unconsciously licking his own lips, like a nervous tic. Has to make himself drag his gaze back up.

In the silence, the tape in Dean’s head rewinds, and he fully processes what he just said.

Oh, fuck, what did he just say— He did not just say—

The shit he insincerely says to cops is one thing, but this—

“Gotta clean the grill,” Dean blurts, without warning, hooking a thumb back over his shoulder and turning on his heel to do just that.

Only remembering, once the brush is in his hand, that he already did it.

He’s spent their entire conversation cleaning the thing until it shines.

At some point, the distance becomes too great to hold a decent conversation, and Cas stands up, abandoning his phone to the table.

Cas wanders around, pacing the room in ever-narrowing circles, a tethered falcon spiraling around a falconer, getting closer to the counter as they continue to chat.

Until Cas is leaning on the front of the counter, and Dean abandons his own chores and comes to lean across from him. Both of them on their respective sides of the counter, almost meeting in the middle, to speak across it.

And so they do.

When Cas’ phone pings again, he gives it his typical cursory, businesslike glance, but this time it sticks.

Cas’ gaze is glued to the screen, the energy going out of him in an instant, like a puppet whose strings have all been severed at once.

“My—assistant, Hannah,” Cas sighs.

Apparently she knows where Cas is and is threatening to send a fleet (probably literal) to collect him if he doesn’t come back right now.

Apparently she has, in fact, known where he is the whole time, and secret service goons have been sitting parked outside the building for the last two hours.

Dean feels a stab of something like humiliation at the thought that they could have been watching him, too, through the big, incriminating plate glass windows.

“I did think it was somewhat strange that they hadn’t caught up to me almost as soon as I arrived,” Cas muses, more to himself than Dean.

It was surprisingly considerate of Hannah and Co. to just let Cas stay in here to cool off, Dean thinks.

“She’s…not pleased.”

“Shit. Go, go.” Dean chuckles at the bizarreness of it all, waving his hands and pretending to shoo Cas away. “Run, Forrest, run.”

Cas pauses in the middle of reaching for his coat, frowning at Dean. “My name isn’t Forrest.” It’s pretty obvious that Cas is not making a joke. Which is absolutely insane, yet somehow endearing.

Cas shoots a Dean a cool look that says: I know you’re making a joke, and I’m not interested in getting it, because it clearly isn’t funny.

“Jesus, I know your name, just get outta here before they drag you away,” Dean busts out, still chuckling.

A beat. “My name isn’t Jesus either.”

Okay, that one was definitely a joke.

Dean rolls his eyes theatrically. “Dude, you’re so lame.”

It does kinda blow his mind how approachable, how normal—well, maybe normal is the wrong word.  But there’s something— It’s so, so easy to get drawn in by Cas. Dean doesn’t even get that weird thing he gets around most authority figures, that hackles-raising feeling of innate distrust. Or, despite being closer to forty than thirty at this point, that feeling of “you’re-a-grown-up-and-I’m-not.”

“Hope you’re not gonna get in too much hot water for this, man.”

“I’ll live. After all—what are they going to do?” Cas asks, acerbic. “Fire me?” Except as a joke, it just falls flat. It almost sounds like he wishes they would.

It kind of blows that he’s, you know, the president. Dean could actually picture them as friends, maybe, in another life.

Cas grabs his trenchcoat and slips back into it, hands coming up to tighten the knot of his tie in a way that seems unthinking, automatic. All the neat, orderly pieces of him snapping back into place, one by one.

It happens so fast.

“Thank you again,” Cas says.

Dean nods. “Not a problem, man.”

Cas hesitates a few seconds too long, like he’s about to say more— But he doesn’t.

Dean watches the tan coat flare out behind him, briefly, as wind from the parking lot rushes in.

And then he’s out the door, lost to the night.