Chapter Text
Castiel Novak was a man of routine and he was fine with his predictable life, thank you very much.
He would wake up at 8 am on the dot, not even needing an alarm clock for it, and get ready for his daily commute to work at the university. His trusted style of choice: a white shirt, a pair of black slacks and his signature tan brown trench coat, leaving the laidback plaid shirts for weekends lounging at home or the very rare occasions where he would go on dates. Those dates would go absolutely nowhere but that, too, was predictable. Right before 9 am, he would ride out on his bicycle to the town’s train station, his coat flapping in the wind behind him. Like clockwork, he would stop by Bobby’s kiosk to pick up the morning newspaper and a sip of the old man’s black coffee, the only caffeine intake he tolerated and came to love.
Cas was a simple man with simple needs. His life was always in the same order, just the way he likes it. He had always been proud at that fact, that he knew exactly what he wanted out of life.
Until one day, he didn’t.
Cas should’ve known something was off when he woke up late that day.
That morning, still with sleep in his eyes, Cas groggily peeked at his bedside alarm clock when he sat up with a start. The alarm clock, the one he didn’t need but owned anyway, stated clearly that it was 8.15 am. Fifteen whole minutes gone from his perfect routine. Crap! Throughout his shower, Cas tried to shake off the nerves. It was like an unsettling premonition of what was to come—the tremor preceding the earthquake. What followed was Cas rushing through his precious morning routine, buttoning up his white shirt while shimmying into his pants. He almost slipped to his knees when his coat snagged on a dining chair, Cas feeling betrayed by his own furniture for the first time. When he finally slammed his door shut, he had forgotten his breakfast and his tie on the kitchen counter but it was too late for them. Screw it!
He whizzed through town on his bicycle, pedalling faster than he had ever done in his life. His perfect schedule was in tatters, he was getting slightly lightheaded from his empty stomach and physical exertion, but if he could reach the train station in a few minutes, he could still get on his usual train. His schedule could still be saved. He could just write off this day as a fluke and forget about it.
It was then that his eyes suddenly caught sight of a man, almost gigantic in stature, carrying an armful of sunflowers on the other side of the street.
Later, Cas would argue with himself that it was the unlikely sight of such bright sunflowers that swayed his focus, added with the adrenaline rush of being late for the first time, and nothing else. But it wasn’t true—it was the beautiful man carrying them.
As his bicycle zoomed down the street, Cas craned his neck for a closer look at that man, almost hidden by the large plants he was carrying. For a second, his predictable little world was silenced and forgotten, all that existed was the man with the flowers.
Even from afar, Cas could see he was striking. His arms, strong and defined, held the stalks close to himself. But it was his face that truly stayed with Cas long after. His face was glowing with an inner softness, doubled only by the sunflowers. His eyes bright and brilliant, softened by the wavy locks of the brunette hair framing his face. The man had a dimpled smile that demanded to be taken notice.
He had a face that disrupted Cas’ day, a disruption that was not only sorely welcomed but created a craving almost instantly in his heart. What a face, Cas would later whisper to himself over and over again.
He had fallen in love—quite literally.
“Cas! Watch out!”
Hearing his name, Cas snapped back to reality in horror. The train! The perfect schedule! Bobby? In a split second, as Cas watched Bobby waving his arms manically like he had gone insane just a few feet away from speeding bicycle, Cas remembered the sidewalk curb. The very sidewalk curb situated right in front of Bobby’s kiosk, the one that he would have usually slowed down for to avoid crashing head first into the neat piles of newspaper on a table in front of the kiosk. The very same piles of newspaper his bicycle is heading towards.
“Shit!” yelled Cas, squeezing his bicycle’s brakes in a panic.
But it was too late. The bicycle tire hit the curb with a painful squeal and Cas found himself projected off his seat—airborne with his coat flapping behind him like wings. If his short flight was graceful, the landing was anything but. He crashed hard into the piles of newspaper, splitting the flimsy table into two through sheer force, and slammed his head against a hard surface. Cas’ day had just gone from bad to worse.
As his mind flitted in and out of consciousness, Cas could hear footsteps crowding around him with murmurs of concern.
“What on Earth got into him? It’s not like he—” said a familiar voice.
Then, Cas heard another voice rushing to his side, an unfamiliar one.
“Is he alright? I saw what happened through my window.”
“No idea. I think we need a paramedic here, stat.”
“I might have something for him in my store. Help me.”
Suddenly, Cas felt many hands on him, heaving him up. A roar of pain seized his body that he couldn’t help to moan pitifully. If only he had woken up 15 minutes earlier as he used to, maybe none of this would happen.
“Hang in there, buddy,” said the unfamiliar voice again. Cas let his mind doze off.
He felt something cool smeared against the throbbing bruise above his temple, soothing the roar of pain into a whisper. It felt like magic. His senses were slowly coming to and he could smell a fresh floral dewy scent in the air. Cas turned to the voice and slowly blinked his eyes open. Wherever he was, it was awfully bright, almost blinding him. But there was a face accompanying the voice and what a face it was. The first thing Cas saw was a pair of kind eyes, stunning in its array of copper, blue and green colours, looking at him with such concern. Then, the rosiness of his cheeks, as pink as his soft-looking lips. In his disoriented state, Cas almost wanted to reach out to this beautiful man, he wanted to kiss those lush lips. There was only a small space separating them, if Cas could just lean forward…
“Cas?” asked the man again, as though they have always known each other.
Maybe it was the concussion. Maybe it was waking up to the most beautiful man he had ever seen with his two eyes. But Cas said whatever that made sense to him at the time.
“Are you … an angel?”
Then, he heard a snort and a giggle—Cas was suddenly awash with reality. Cas did not die and go to heaven. In fact, he learned that he was lying on a table somewhere, surrounded by a few other people who just heard him call another man an angel. Perhaps it would be better if he had actually died.
“Lord, I knew you banged your head hard but—” Bobby couldn’t finish his sentence, practically wheezing with laughter. A few other by-standers grinned among themselves. Cas felt his cheeks burn and it was not due to his injury.
Cas rushed to sit up but immediately felt an awful shot of pain that made him stagger back. There was no way he could make a graceful quick exit.
“Whoa there, cowboy, take it easy,” said the beautiful man, placing a warm hand on his shoulder. It took all of Cas’ willpower to not melt under the touch.
“I—there’s a train, I gotta—”
“You’re not going anywhere, Cas,” Bobby chimed in. “Samuel here may have fixed up some magic goop to take care of all the cuts and bruises you’ve got but that noggin of yours still need a rest. I’m getting you a cab home.”
As Cas was left alone for a while, he took stock of his own body. The “magic goop” Bobby mentioned was all over his hands and face, a sticky pink layer on top of all the angry scratches he earned for a few seconds of rubbernecking. But maybe Bobby was right, perhaps there was some magic in them as most of the cuts seemed to be healing up already. Then, Cas looked around him and found himself surrounded by flowers. Long stalks of creamy white lilies in tall glass vases. Thick bunches of purple and green hydrangeas gathered in a tin basin. An entire shelf filled with rows of roses in assorted colours. There were flowers and plants in containers from the floor all the way up to the walls, some that Cas had never seen before. When Cas looked down, sure enough there was a bouquet of sunflowers by his feet on the table.
Cas sat there, slightly dazed at the haven around him. Has this florist shop always been here? From the store’s front window, he could see Bobby’s kiosk across the street. Has he been too occupied to notice? If he hadn’t been late today …
“Hey there, I got you something,” said a now familiar voice. It was the man with the flowers, except Cas knew the name attached to the face now. Samuel. He held out a tiny paper bag to Cas. “It’s more of the herbal cream I gave you. I’m pretty good with natural remedies so let me know if you need more. Just put it on those nasty cuts every night and you’d be as good as new.”
“Thank you, Samuel,” said Cas, reluctantly grabbing the paper bag and avoiding direct eye contact lest he was tempted to stare and stutter. “I don’t know how to repay your kindness.”
“Don’t worry about it, Cas,” said the man with a casual air that gave Cas a quiet thrill down his spine. “Also, please, call me Sam.”
As Cas looked at Sam’s dimpled smile, he knew he was in trouble. An error in his organised mind. Already he knew he had to fit Sam in his schedule somehow, that no way this could be their last interaction. Cas never quite believed in fate—the idea that there was an uncontrollable external force jerking him around in his life went against his need for proper. Yet, as he waved to Sam from the inside of a cab, his mangled bicycle in the trunk, he couldn’t help to wonder.
To say Cas was fixated was an understatement.
Cas was completely, whole-heartedly bewitched; life plans be damned.