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The grocery store was Cas’ favorite place to go now that he was human. Well, favorite place that wasn’t also a person. There was just something about all the fluorescent lights and the people quietly pushing along before returning to their own world. He knows that that food will be cooked, will be given to toddlers just starting to eat and to lovers having their own date night. In the grocery store he feels like an angel again, peering into all the bright souls.
That isn’t to say he dislikes being a human. He knew that Dean removing his grace was the only way the Empty would have let them escape. Besides, he had nothing waiting for him in Heaven, the place that had only ever turned him into something he was not. Sometimes where you were from needs to remain where you were from, nothing more.
“Okay, maybe I do need help,” Dean said, interrupting Cas’ thoughts. Cas turned his head away from the row of brightly colored cereal towards his lover, whose arms were filled with bags of chips and snacks and other goods. Dean’s habit of fighting beings that he shouldn’t had apparently extended to gravity.
“And you protested when I grabbed a shopping cart,” Cas teased, taking some of the load off of Dean and depositing it in the cart in front of him. He stopped when he could see Dean’s face again, and watched as Dean leaned over the cart and simply opened his arms.
“In my defense I didn’t think we’d be grabbing this much stuff.”
“Being god makes Jack hungry,” Cas said. At that, he turned back to the cereal aisle, grabbing the cookie one that Jack liked so much. There was still an urge within him to reach for the healthier one, intent on helping him develop healthier habits. A parent’s instinct didn’t fade just because the kid became all-powerful.
“Do you think we have everything?” Dean asked.
“Have you checked Sam’s list?”
Dean grimaced. “I left it in the car.”
“Then I guess we have everything,” Cas said.
Self check-out was one human skill Cas had yet to conquer. He’d helped waste Sodom and Gomorrah, stopped the apocalypse, and fought Chuck himself, but couldn’t quite seem to master the timing of sliding the little barcode across the scanner. Dean and he had worked out a system where Cas would bag as long as Dean would scan, although Dean had asked him not to tell Sam about it.
(Something about not wanting his brother to think he was a sap. Dean hadn’t argued his point well, but Cas enjoyed the way his blush spread across his face when he said it.)
They loaded the groceries back into the cart, this time bagged, and walked out to the Impala. Once the cart was emptied, Cas put it back in the store, and returned to the car to see Dean fiddling with the radio.
“There’s nothing good on,” Dean complained as Cas awkwardly climbed into the car. Sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala was something he was well-versed in, but his newly human body occasionally just forgot how to work when he thought about it for a millisecond too long.
“Maybe you could try the CD Claire left in the car,” Cas said.
“I’m not listening to her melodramatic teenage girl shit.”
“Maybe if you had listened to more ‘melodramatic teenage girl shit’,” Cas said, doing air quotes in a slight mockery of his past self, “Then you would have confronted your emotions earlier.”
Dean shot him a dirty look and Cas laughed, dropping the air quotes and resting his hand on the steering wheel on top of Dean’s.
“I thought you liked my music,” Dean said.
“I do, you know I still have that mixtape.” Cas paused, reveling in the way Dean blushed. “I just also enjoy Claire’s music, it makes me feel closer to her. I don’t understand Jack’s, but—“
“That’s cause we let Charlie introduce Jack to her music, which was a mistake from the start.”
“Maybe.”
They pulled out of the parking lot in companionable silence, Cas pulling his hand back and leaning his head against the window. It was peaceful just watching the scenery pass by on the half hour drive back to the Bunker.
Well, it would have been peaceful if not for the protesters.
“What?” Cas asked, sitting up to get a better look. Stretching down the street were crowds of people holding signs depicting hellfire—or, Cas guessed, what they thought was hellfire—with words on them written in big black text. Dean was driving too fast, but Cas caught some of the horrible things they were yelling.
“In all my time observing humanity I’ve never understood how people manipulate religion to justify their prejudice. I can assure them that Jack does not care about human sexuality,” Cas said, glancing at Dean.
“Yeah,” Dean replied, mouth quirking up. But Cas didn’t miss the way his knuckles turned white on the steering wheel, or the way he was resolutely looking ahead. Cas made up his mind.
“Stop the car.”
“What?” Dean asked, glancing at Cas, but Cas was already unbuckling his seat belt.
“I said stop the car.” Dean had slowed down enough that Cas just got out, almost tripping over the landing. Behind him he heard the screech of tires and Dean’s confused yell, but he ignored it in favor of walking towards the protesters.
The protesters were still there, and away from the safety of the Impala he could hear just how loud they were. For a moment, the noise of their microphones combined with the honking of cars speeding past almost overwhelmed him, but Cas kept walking until he stood directly in front of the man holding the microphone.
“You are wasting your time,” Cas yelled, struggling to be heard, “Sexuality is not a sin.”
The man ignored him, content to spout hate speech into his microphone again. Logically, Cas knew that none of it mattered much. Just like him, the people in the cars likely couldn’t actually hear what they were saying. The group would probably disperse within the day, finding another place to spread their message.
But Dean’s knuckles on the steering wheel, white as a string of pearls, stayed in Cas’ mind. When Cas had rebuilt Dean it had given him access to his memories, and he could feel the shame that Dean had been taught to carry. How he had been forced to hide a part of himself, and the oppressive silence that came with it. People like these protesters were one of the reasons why Dean and Cas had to wait twelve years, why Claire was nervous to hold Kaia’s hand when she went out.
He faintly recalled his time as God and how it had felt to destroy that preacher’s tongue. Cas hadn’t been at full power in a long time, but the people in front of him were triggering that old righteous fury that used to simmer within him. He opened his mouth, and—
“Cas, buddy, you can’t just get out of a moving car like that,” Dean said, clapping a hand on Cas’ shoulder. An idea flickered within Cas, and he spun around and grabbed Dean by the collar, pulling him in for a kiss that was mostly an angry clash of lips.
The yelling behind them turned to pointed jeers, but Cas closed his eyes and stuck out one finger, the way he had seen characters in Dean’s movies do. Pulling back for air (and that’s one thing he cursed about being human, how needing to breathe impaired his time with Dean) Cas laughed at the wide-eyed look on his lover’s face.
“Let’s go,” Cas said, taking Dean’s hand and walking away from the crowd. In the distance, he could see the Impala haphazardly parked in a random parking lot, and his heart swelled. Cas knew it was a small detail, but he appreciated that yes, he really did come before Baby. Within minutes they were in the car and back on the road
“I’m sorry for pulling you into that,” Cas said quietly, looking at Dean.
“No, no, don’t apologize. It was fun. Besides, you were kind of hot yelling at them like that.”
Cas threw his head back in laughter, and heard Dean chuckle beside him.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it, then,” Cas teased.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll be less glad when we get to the Bunker and find that the ice cream has melted.”
Cas banged his head against the window at the thought of having to clean up that sticky mess, but he couldn’t bring himself to actually care. All the melted ice cream in the world was worth the comfortable way that Dean now sat in his seat. Cas might not be an angel anymore, but if there is one order he knows how to follow, it is looking after Dean Winchester. And so he will.