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It's Thursday, October 13, 2005. 10:55 PM, to be exact. The bright red digital display on the wall behind the bar cheerfully tells him so.
That's a lie, technically speaking. The fact that it's Friday comes more from the bustle around the bar than from any screen that he can see. The display isn't cheerful in its warning regarding underage drinking, and it doesn't say a damn thing about 2005, either- it says that anyone drinking has to have been born on or after 10:56 PM on October 13, 1984. It also proudly proclaims that they ID people.
Dean shows off a fake, anyway, just out of force of habit. That, and the fact that he's pretty sure there's at least one warrant for his arrest in the great state of California, in spite of the fact that he's never set foot in Pescadero before in his life. Word gets around nowadays, apparently, and he wants to take no chances with the cops. It's not worth getting arrested for a shitty beer that's triple the price of the same one that he can buy at a gas station.
He sips at the bottle and looks around. It's the same kind of crummy bar he can find in any west-coast seaside town, vaguely beach-themed and intermittently actually using the blender. Football is playing silently on a few TVs, and there are several other bar patrons watching with avid interest. He imagines that he could find a nearly-identical scene in the bar across the street.
He sees no evidence of ghost, demon, or other miscellaneous spook activity, not that he's here because he suspects it. In fact, he's here because he just dealt with a haunting on the outskirts of L.A., and figured he was close enough to swing by Stanford on his way out to New Mexico to follow up on a tip he got about a possible werewolf.
Stanford was dutifully swung by, Sammy has been confirmed to not be dead, and Dean got out of dodge before he could be spotted and a giant bitch-fight could pick up. To be honest, he could be in New Mexico by now if he'd just gone east from there, but he didn't because he's a dumbass.
That, and there's a pretty cheap motel out here, which he prefers over sleeping in Baby.
So, here he is. Pescadero, California, a place he's never heard of before and doubts he'll hear of again. The bar is only moderately crowded, probably because the sports scene isn't as intense out on this coast as it is in the Midwest or the South. He wouldn't be surprised if it's also because the more bar-minded population- that is to say, the younger crowd of people who don't have kids at home or whatever else- has collectively immigrated to Stanford until Monday morning. College towns tend to be friendlier to people who have friends in college towns.
It means he's got plenty of space to himself, though. His chosen barstool- near enough to the corner that he's got a good vantage point, not so close to it that he's being subjected to the smell of the nearby bathrooms- has two empty neighbors, so Dean can focus on sipping his beer without subconsciously monitoring whoever's sitting next to him for creep behavior.
He scans the bar again, watching to see if anything interesting is going on between his fellow patrons. Nothing, as expected, aside from rowdy sports guys razzing each other or yelling about statistics during the ad breaks. He spots someone new by the door, a man in a dirty-looking trench coat who must've come in when Dean wasn't looking, but he quickly dismisses him from his mental roster of potentially-interesting people. Trench coat guy is, more than likely, just seeking to do what Dean himself is doing, which is to grab a quick nightcap before going back to whatever hole he's hanging out in for the night. Maybe grab a few mozzarella sticks on the way, but no more than that.
Unfortunately, as soon as Dean makes that decision, the trench coat guy forcibly sticks himself back on Dean's mental list by meandering over to Dean's little corner. Past multiple empty tables and stools, to be clear, past multiple opportunities to keep to himself, and over to the seat next to Dean. The seat slightly closer to the wall than Dean is, specifically.
Dean watches as the man's eyes skim over the whole bar, canvassing the area the same as he did half an hour ago. He keeps the guy in the corner of his eye as his eyes settle on the same rowdy people that Dean mentally tabbed as possible problems, before moving on and watching the rest of the people in the bar. He notes the bright blue eyes as they eventually settle on Dean, staring, like he wants to say something.
Then, Dean blinks, turns slightly- tries to rise to whatever bait this guy is setting, so that whatever this is, it can be put away quick- and the guy blinks and turns away. Like he got caught or something.
Dean isn't the kind of guy to make assumptions, but there's a difference between an assumption and an educated, experienced guess. He knows how to read people pretty well- he has to, considering that's how he stays alive- and he knows the signals that certain people send off. He evaluates the guy again, out of the corner of his eye, and makes another kind of judgement.
He's not bad-looking, really. Dean is comfortable enough in his sexuality to know how to say that easily. He's comfortable enough in his own appearance to understand the message he sends, too, because he knows he's been called pretty enough times to feel like sandpaper in his ears. He also knows that pretty is far from an insult when it comes from the California bar scene.
Dean isn't uninterested, and he thinks the other guy isn't uninterested, and he's still wary that it's a trap, obviously, but if it isn't, well, he could be in for a decent evening. More decent than his original plans were, at least. He could do with blowing off a little steam one way or the other.
He waits for the other guy to say something to get that off the ground, and sips slowly at his beer in silence. If it's bait, he doesn't want to give the appearance of falling for it, so he's not making the first move. He refuses to get caught off guard, no matter what kind of bait it might be.
The barman walks over before the bait initiates any conversation. He and Dean nod at each other- Dean's good with his halfway-empty beer, and that's good enough for both of them- and the barman focuses on the interloper.
"What can I get you?" The barman asks, and the stranger blinks like he's never been asked that question before. There's an awkwardly long stretch of silence where the interloper stares, unblinking, like he's trying to pull an answer out of the barman's mind.
"... Mead," The man says, like that's a normal thing to order, and to his credit, the barman only blinks. It's the first time that Dean hears his voice, gravely and deep and weirdly intense, and something about it commands his attention like few other things do.
"Don't have that," He answers, with only about half a second to think about it. "We've got plenty of wine, though. You want the list?" He's already got a hand behind the bar, probably flipping through little cocktail menus, but the interloper shakes his head.
"No. I'll have whiskey," The man says instead. "Neat," He appends, like he's just remembered that he has to specify, and the barman nods. He hesitates, probably waiting for the stranger to specify what kind, and when he doesn't, the barman just grabs a glass. He reaches into the well and pours out a shot of whiskey, then slides it over to the stranger.
"You going to start a tab?" The barman asks, and the interloper stares again, for longer this time, before reaching into his dirty trench coat. He pulls out a ten-dollar bill from a wallet that looks about as old as Dean, and hands it over to the barman. The barman takes it, then walks over to the register. He counts out the change, puts it on the bar near the stranger, and earns another long stare for his trouble. Dean idly notices that he did not, in fact, ID the guy.
"You keep that," The interloper says, like it's not a tip but simply the way that things are done, and the barman pockets it with a nod and a little smile. He then walks away, back to one of the larger groups at the bar, and the stranger raises the glass to his lips.
"... Mead?" Dean doesn't stop himself from asking, because it's definitely an odd choice for a bar, California or not. It's also the kind of choice that a lot of rogue minor deities go for- not that he's met one in person, but he's heard plenty of stories, some of which came from his own dad- which puts him on high alert. If there's something that powerful here, parking its ass right up close and personal to Dean, he should probably pay a little more attention. Play into the bait, at least a little.
"It's made of honey," The stranger says, like that explains everything. It would, if Dean didn't know what mead was- and, in all fairness, most people don't- but as it stands, that's far from what Dean's asking.
"Is it any good?" Dean asks, trying to be casual, trying to play into the idea that this man is just an exceptionally strange person, because for all he knows, he could be. Maybe there's something about it that gods like, he doesn't know.
"You would hate it," The interloper says, like he knows Dean personally. Like he has any reason to know anything at all about Dean's tastes. He sits up a little more, facing the stranger more than the rest of the bar, because whatever kind of thing he is, human is growing less and less likely with every word he says.
"You remind me of someone I once knew," The stranger continues. "He tasted it once, for my sake. He said that he would rather stick to beer." He finally looks up from his whiskey to make eye contact with Dean. His eyes are still an intense, burning blue, and Dean briefly wonders why he thought this man could've been human at all. He wonders what this interloper wants from him, because it doesn't seem violent, but of course that could change in an instant.
Dean raises his beer to his mouth again, more to have an excuse not to respond than out of any desire for it. He doesn't know what to say, because he doesn't have any idea who this thing is referring to, or how that could help him. He doesn't know if he can escape this bar unharmed. Then again- if this thing has a fondness for someone else, someone like Dean, doesn't that mean he can gain a powerful ally? Something that could help him out a little bit? Hunting ghosts and monsters and shit, that's risky business, and so is what he's planning, but the possible reward could save his life one day. Could save someone else's life one day.
He sets his bottle back on the bartop and steels himself for what could be the last gamble of his life.
"Beer's pretty good," He settles on, which is a deeply stupid thing to say, but the thing's face changes into something that seems almost fond. Dean thinks it's remembering this other guy, the one that he apparently reminds it of, and he doesn't mind that. Some other idiot charmed this thing, and he'll gladly reap the benefits.
"You are an extraordinary person, Dean," It says, sounding melancholy, though Dean almost misses its tone of voice, too busy feeling like he was just dunked into a pool of ice water. His hand creeps up to the neck of his bottle, about to use it as an impromptu weapon, but he waits. He notices that the entire bar has gone quiet.
Not just quiet, he amends- silent. The only sound is his own breathing, and the soft shifting of the thing's trench coat as it moves.
"What- " He starts, but doesn't even finish before the thing is talking again.
"I am Castiel," It says. Castiel sounds biblical, which is about seven hundred times worse than his original minor deity theory, because there's only one biblical thing that he knows is real. He's not ready to fight a demon, and in spite of the fact that this thing's eyes are a good distance from yellow, that doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot when it's staring him down in a bar that it's managed to stall out completely.
"You call me Cas," It continues, again in the kind of way that doesn't sound like a command or a threat, just a statement of the way that things are. Dean doesn't even know if he's being threatened, really, because if he stops to think about it, all he's gotten is a really weird compliment and an introduction. It hasn't attacked him yet, though honestly, he thinks that the second it does attack him, he'll already be dead.
"I am the angel of Thursday," It says, which is patently untrue because angels sure as hell aren't real. Besides, Thursdays specifically don't seem like the kind of thing that get their own angels. Is there an angel of every day of the week? Which lucky bastard gets Sunday?
"Did you draw straws for it?" Dean asks, instead of something useful, like Christo or fuck off or no the hell you're not.
The thing cracks a smile, something that looks genuine, which is somehow even creepier than if it remained expressionless.
It reaches out towards Dean's head, and he jolts back, but it holds its hand to the side of his face in spite of that. Its touch burns, but not in the way of something that actually, genuinely hurts- its familiarity, the callouses on its skin, the way that he can physically feel it making certain that he feels only the softness of the human hand and not the enormous power of whatever the hell is piloting it around, all of it pulls at something in him, some part of him that he holds close to his chest, and he hates himself for it because he knows, intrinsically, that the feeling comes from him alone.
"I want you to remember that," It says. "I want you to know that no matter what else you go through, you are unique. You are wonderful. Your soul shines in a way that I did not know a human's could. No matter what comes across your path, the brightness of your spirit will never be dimmed. I will not allow you to diminish."
Dean's breath catches in his throat, he blinks, and he awakes alone, fully clothed, in his motel bed.