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One year and six months ago Castiel had said his emotional, tearful goodbye to Dean expecting to never see him again. Six months after that Castiel woke up in a Bunker bed with a headache and under a soft blanket he recognized as Dean’s. The hunter was asleep in the chair next to him, drooling. Through a cosmic loop-hole Castiel had not anticipated, Jack had managed to free him from the Empty. The price for Cas’s freedom was his grace, he had returned to Earth as a normal, human guy.
Castiel nudged Dean awake and Dean gave him a sleepy smile. Cas shifted on his bed, making room for Dean. He patted the space beside him and Dean obliged, crawling into bed next to him. They curled into each other and Dean whispered a soft, “I love you, too” as they fell asleep. For the first time in what felt like forever, they both slept soundly.
Through the next couple of months the inhabitants of the Bunker had fallen into an almost domestic way of life. Sam would go on his runs, do work in the library, and bug Dean about all the red meat he ate. Dean would work on the old cars in the garage, sort through their weapons catalog and bug Sam about how he needs to pop the question to Eileen because “sooner or later she's going to realize she's way too cool for you.” Cas would take care of the Bunker- making sure the wards stayed intact, look after the local wildlife, and watch with a fond annoyance as Sam and Dean bickered. Eileen would help Sam out in the library, work with Cas to teach the brothers sign language, and laugh when they got some signs comically wrong.
They had mostly retired from hunting, taking on a more Bobby type role. They would help look up lore and spells for hunters, advising on the best way to go about a hunt. They had phones set up so Sam could pretend to be all sorts of officers and agents. It was nice, they could help people without having to risk their asses over and over.
Dean had to have the “me and Cas are a thing now” conversation with Sam. Sam had been incredibly supportive of course, he was just glad they had finally gotten together so he wouldn’t have to watch their hopeless pining for another ten years. If he had to sit through one more session of wishful staring he was going to end up on the FBI’s most wanted list. Again.
It was this domestic bliss that led to Dean and Cas finding themselves in a grocery store and marking off a checklist of the most mundane, human groceries on the planet.
“Hey Cas, can you go grab some soy sauce? I think we have some stocked up but I want to grab an extra just in case. It's not exactly a quick drive to get here from the Bunker,” said Dean.
“Sure, Dean. Though I do think we have at least one bottle already. Are you making a specific recipe?”
“I think I want to try to make pad thai, branch out a little from the burgers and steaks. Oh! I think Sam’s fancy dried fruits are somewhere over there too, if you wouldn’t mind grabbing some. I think he wanted strawberries,” Dean said, knowing fully well that Cas knew Sam does not like dried strawberries.
“Dean, you can ask for the dried strawberries. I know you like them.”
Dean shooed him away with a wave and a “ppfffttt, no I don’t” before turning around and focusing back on the list as Cas walked off to grab the items. Dried strawberries? Dean would never eat dried strawberries, he liked good food like burgers and pie and stuff. Sure they were fun, like if fruit was a chip. Maybe he liked dried strawberries.
Dean was walking down the aisle, scanning the shelves for the canned mandarin oranges Cas likes when he walked right into someone.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. Must have been too focused on the oranges.” He blinked, taking a second to process who exactly was standing in front of him. “Cassie?”
“Dean! Wow, hi. You’re the last person I was expecting to run into. Honestly, I thought you were dead.” Ok so it was Cassie, damn. She had aged (like people tend to do) and cut her hair to be more chin length, but it was definitely her.
“Hey Cassie. Yeah no, I’m very much alive, heh. I can’t say I was expecting to run into you either, what are you doing in Lebanon?”
“I’m actually on my way to Denver with my husband, we just stopped here because he got excited about being in the center of the country. What about you, why are you in Lebanon?” So Cassie got married, huh? Good for her. Apparently the guy likes tourist traps, but hey, no one's perfect.
“I actually live out here now,” answers Dean, "Me and Sammy finally settled into a permanent home about eight years ago now.” Has it really been that long already? It feels like he’s been in the Bunker for all his life and none of it all. “Congrats on getting married, I’m sure he's a great guy. You always did have good taste.” He flashed her a signature Dean smile leading to Cassie punching him in the shoulder.
“He’s a hell-of-a-lot easier to deal with than you were. His name’s Jacob. We met around a year after the truck thing when he started working at the paper. His family lives in Denver and we’re going to visit them. We’ll probably get interrogated about grandkids and why I still haven’t changed my last name.” The last part comes out more annoyed than Dean thinks Cassie meant, but she seems to be genuinely looking forward to seeing her in-laws. Dean watches as Cassie glances down at Dean's left hand, notices the wedding band on his ring finger, and raises her eyebrows in question.
“I see you’ve gotten hitched since we last saw each other too. I’ll have to meet her and congratulate her on bagging the big bad monster hunter.” Dean opens his mouth to start explaining that he actually has a husband and he should be congratulated for marrying for managing to get Cas to marry him when the former-angel turns the aisle corner and walks up to Dean.
“I found the soy sauce we needed, but I think the store’s out of dried strawberries,” Cas says, giving Dean a small kiss on the cheek as he puts the bottle in their grocery cart. Dean watches Cassie’s face to see her reaction. There’s a brief look of shock before understanding settles on her features. Her eyes glance at Cas’s hand and confirm he’s Dean’s husband after seeing his matching wedding band.
Dean looks at his husband and grabs his hand before beginning to speak, “Cas, this is Cassie from the racist ghost-truck case I told you about,” he turns to Cassie, “Cassie, this is my husband, Castiel.” Castiel puts out his hand and Cassie shakes it. “Nice to meet you Castiel,” she turns to Dean, “I’m sorry Dean, I shouldn’t have assumed.”
Dean just smiles at her and gives her a soft shrug, “Don’t worry about it, it's not like you could have known otherwise.”
“How did you two meet, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Dean and Cas look at each other trying to decide what version of the vague truth they should tell her. Cassie may know ghosts and monsters are real, but angels are a whole different ball park and it wouldn’t be fair to drop that on someone in the canned fruits aisle.
“We met while Dean was working, I helped him recover from a particularly bad hunt.” Cas says eventually, it's technically the truth- just an easy-to-swallow version of it. It didn’t seem like talking about angels and hell and Dean stabbing him while in a grocery store was the wisest decision.
“Yeah, I was pretty dinged up from it. I probably wouldn’t have made it if not for Cas. My very own guardian angel.” Dean smirks at Cas, proud of his stupid little joke. Cas just looks at him with a “at least you’re pretty” look.
“I’m sorry that happened to you Dean, but I’m glad you and Castiel found each other. And I’m really glad you’re still alive. The news has said some interesting stuff about you and Sam over the years, but it's good to see they were wrong.”
Dean’s face scrunches at the mention of his news-channel appearances and Cas chuckles a little, “they certainly made him out to be something he isn’t. I suppose without knowing what we know, Dean comes across a lot scarier than he is,” Cas says. Now Dean has a look of mock offense on his face, “I’m scary! Monsters wet themselves at the mention of my name.”
“Of course they do, dear. It was good to meet you, Cassie. Dean has mentioned you before and I appreciate having a face to the name. If you have time we should go out for dinner somewhere, Sam would probably love to see you again,” Cas says, before patting Dean’s shoulder and walking off. He sensed that the two of them wanted a minute to speak alone, or as alone as you get in a grocery store. Dean and Cassie stood there for a couple seconds, both trying to figure out what to say. It was weird for Dean, having his first love meet the love of his life. There were a weird amount of similarities between the two, obviously they have similar names, but it was more than that. Both of them have this energy of self-assuredness. They know what they want and they’ll do what they need to get it. More than that though, they’re both kind. Sure they weren’t always nice- Dean had experienced his fair share of yelling from both of them, but he usually deserved it. Cas and Cassie were both people who would always always try to help people no matter the possible threat to their own safety. Apparently Dean had a type.
“So,” said Cassie, “Castiel is an interesting name.”
“Yeah, well he’s an interesting guy. I know he may come off a bit weird, but when you get to know him he really is a wonderful person. Hell, he’s saved my life more times than I count.” Dean smiled at the memory of his and Cas’s first introduction, stabbing someone usually doesn’t give the best first impression but it makes for a good meet-cute story. “If we end up doing that dinner with Sam, I’ll give you the full story of how we met. It’s a bit more complicated than Cas let on.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Winchester. I bet you’ve acquired quite the catalogue of stories in your line of work.” Cassie’s posture changed a little, her arms loosened up and her face relaxed into a more emotional smile, Dean knew she was about to get sappy on him. “Listen, when we were together it was a lot of fun. I loved you and I loved being with you, but the way you are with Castiel- it's so different than you were with me. You seem so happy and comfortable with him in a way I’ve never seen you. I’m really happy for you, Dean.” Dean took that in. It was such a small declaration, if you could even call it that, but something about it healed a part of him. Seeing that Cassie, the first person he fell in love with and the first person he tried to tell “the big secret” to, was happy and supportive of him? It warmed Dean’s heart.
“Thanks Cassie. There are a lot of people from my past who wouldn’t be cool with this, so it means a lot to me that you are.”
“Of course Dean. Let's set up a time for that dinner. Jacob and I are only in town for a few more days and I want him to meet you guys.”
“Sounds good. I would love to meet him too.”
Dean and Cassie exchanged numbers, Dean had gone through quite a few since he last saw her. They set up a time to have dinner at a small local diner, deciding that bringing people into the Bunker wasn’t a smart move. It was nice and Jacob seemed like a cool guy, a bit more nerdy than Dean had been expecting that doesn’t matter. Sam was happy to see Cassie again and introduce her to Eileen. They spent the night playing board games the restaurant had and eating french fries with too much salt on them. Dean was baffled his life could look like this. His friends and family out for dinner and having fun doing normal, human things. It was nice. He didn’t have to worry about demons or leviathans or Chuck anymore. He could just exist and live and love, and god damn did that feel good.