Work Text:
Suzy knew before she even fully opened her eyes that today would suck. She woke up with a headache because her sinuses had decided to drain all night and she's pretty sure there's a group of gorillas living in the apartment beside hers. She had to take a cold shower because someone had used up all the hot water, and she staggered into the kitchen to find her cat trying to stick its butt in as many bowls as it could before she could stop it.
This apparently has nothing on the day of work ahead of her. When Suzy gets to work, she discovers her co-worker had called in sick and left her all alone to man the shop. And her period started over lunch break.
Then this guy, who looks like he's never come across a hairbrush or a laundromat before in his life, comes in. He's got something weird about him, the way his hands are always hanging down by his sides without moving even as his legs go forward to slowly roam the aisles, the wide-eyed look on his face fading only to morph into this weird tilted-head, narrowed-eye frowning expression.
The dirty trench coat swishes behind the guy when he turns into the snack food aisle for the fifth time, the end of it whacking against a display and threatening to topple it over, which would only force her to clean it up.
"Can I help you with something?" Suzy finally asks, catching the man's attention.
"Dean is mad at me. I'm trying to get him something that will appease him." The man tilts his head and adds thoughtfully, "He enjoys the consumption of junk food."
"Uh, okay. Anything I can do to help?" she asks hesitantly, hoping he says no.
"What does Dean like?"
"I don't know Dean," Suzy replies. This is gonna be a long day.
"You should," the man says. He doesn't say anything else, instead staring into Suzy's soul or something. "He likes pie," he eventually adds. "Where do you keep the pie?"
Suzy sighs and steps away from the counter. "We've got some around here. Lemme look."
She goes into the backroom to search up and down for this pie, but doesn't end up finding any. Feeling particularly generous, she takes a look at when they're supposed to be delivered, and finds out that they're being brought to the store in a couple of hours.
Suzy returns to see the man still standing motionless right in front of the counter, a blank yet intense look on his face. What a weirdo.
"Sorry, we're out of pie," Suzy intones. "We're getting some delivered in a few hours at three, though, if you wanna…"
The man nods once. "All right." He doesn't move otherwise.
"It's gonna be a few hours, if you wanna come back later," she tries again, hoping he understands better this time.
"I'd rather wait here. Dean won't be pleased if I come back without pie. He gets upset when Sam returns without it."
Suzy sighs, resigning herself to the weirdo's company until the godsend delivery comes by. "Who's Sam?"
"Dean's brother."
"And who's Dean?"
"The Righteous Man."
Suzy blinks. "Sorry, I'm not really the religious type. That's a weird thing to call your boyfriend, though." The man doesn't say anything, just staring at her silently. "How about you?"
"How about me what?"
This time, Suzy rolls her eyes. "What's your name?"
"They call me 'Cas,'" he replies, finger-quoting and everything.
"Oh, like, 'call me Ismael'?" Cas blinks slowly, so she shakes her head. "Nevermind. I'm Suzy."
"Yes. I read your name tag." Cas frowns to himself, musing, "Perhaps everyone should wear name tags. Then you would not have had to ask my name."
Yes. Today is going to be a very long day.
-
By the time the delivery truck rolls up, Suzy is ready to kiss and possibly marry whoever steps through that door. This Cas guy has been going on about the different types of bees and their importance to the ecosystem for forty-five minutes, clearly unable to pick up on Suzy's uninterested body language or tones. He'd taken her sarcastic 'tell me more' as an invitation to tell her more.
When the delivery guy comes in with a package full of wet wipes, she actually gets down and begs him to bring the pies in next, which he does.
Suzy disregards every other proceeding pack in favor of practically tearing the box open with her teeth to get the freak his stupid pie. By the time she finally managed to get him his requested apple and cherry pies, Suzy's ready to quit.
Cas smiles appreciatively at her as he takes the pie into his arms like they're something precious like his stupid bees or whatever and—yeah, she's not gonna pretend that the soft look on his face was worth it or anything, but it is nice to feel appreciated.
Cas turns to leave without more than a thank you, and Suzy regrettably stops him, cursing herself the whole time. "Wait, you didn't pay."
The man freezes and turns back around, looking at her bewildered, as if he's never heard of payment for items before. Finally, something clicks, and Cas frowns and brings the pies back to the counter.
"I don't have any money," he says, moving to set the pies down before Suzy quickly stops him.
"Hey, it's fine. It's on me," she tells him quickly. "Just don't come back, okay?"
"I can pay you back at a later date—"
"Noo, nononono, it's really fine. Please, just enjoy the pie, okay?" Cas nods a little, peering down at the pies for a second before nodding again and heading back towards the door. "Hope you patch things up with your boyfriend or whatever."
"Thank you," Cas says before walking out the door, hopefully never to return.
-
He comes back a couple hours later, asking for the recipe for 'the homemade Myers' apple pie' because, unfortunately, Dean had apparently liked it a lot (though not the cherry, which tasted like cough syrup) and Cas is a total sap and wants to try to make it from scratch or something.
That's how Suzy somehow ends up spending the rest of her evening trying to find the recipe for the apple pie the store has been getting for the last twenty years and the only thing to show for it being an oddly happy Cas and the strange absence of the migraine she surely should've gotten by that point.
She knew she never should've gotten out of bed this morning.