Dean was willing to do a lot for his little brother. He practically raised him, after all. He was willing to fly to California for Sam and Jess' wedding. He was willing to leave his shop (and his baby) in the capable hands of Benny back in Kansas for the couple weeks he'd be there. He was even willing to help set up tables, chairs, décor, and anything else they might need help with before the big day. Then again, that was his duty not only as a brother, but as best man.
One thing he was seriously considering not doing for his little brother? Continuing to deal with Jess' preppy best friend and bridesman, Castiel. He didn't understand why he couldn't work more closely with her maid of honor, also known as her hot sister. Though, when he voiced this, the look Sam gave him told the whole story.
Apparently his brother didn't want to keep that wedding tradition, the best man and maid of honor sleeping together.
Anyway, back to Castiel and seriously? What type of name was that? As much as Dean would love to just tell him to go stick it where the sun don't shine, that would cause even more of a predicament than they were already being forced to deal with.
The flowers Jess had originally wanted were out of season and not sold in any flower stores around town, but she had found them at a store quite a distance away. A store that, unfortunately, didn't deliver, so they had to be picked up. Apparently there were more problems, but this is the one he had gotten saddled with. It seemed like Dean had arrived just in time for a frazzled Sam to confront him, begging for help. It wouldn't have been a big deal if he could have just gone by himself and picked up the flowers but apparently Sam didn't trust him that much, because he'd been paired with Castiel.
So somehow that resulted in him and Castiel being paired together. Apparently, Castiel was a big problem solver. And Jess' hot sister, unfortunately, was not. Now they were driving down what must be the loneliest road in all of California, in the middle of nowhere, all because Jess had been forced to order the flowers she wanted from a shop a trillion hours away. Technically, three hours, but still, it felt like a trillion hours with the annoying pop music playing on the radio bopping around his brain. If he had baby, then he would have never even had to touch Castiel's fake car. Sure, it had an engine and wheels, the components of a real car, but it ran on electricity.
"The more I think about all the things that have gone wrong, the more I suspect you're simply bad luck. They started when you arrived." As if reading his thoughts and knowing that Dean was mentally insulting his crappy car, Castielinterrupted his train of thought.
"Or maybe, you're the bad luck." Dean grumbled back, knowing it was a weak comeback. To distract, he continued, "How much longer?"
Dean pointedly didn't notice Castiel's little smirk as he answered, "Jess chose the most distant flower shop I can imagine. So we still have a good hour until…" He paused as his car made a whining noise and slowed to a halt.
"What? Forget to charge the battery?" Dean snipped, even as he pushed open the car door to go take a look. He was a mechanic. He could handle things car-related. Even fake car-related.
The design was a bit unfamiliar, but recognizable enough. Especially recognizable enough for Dean to see that the problem was a faulty coil wire. Groaning, he shut the hood again.
"Call a tow truck." He instructed, plopping back into the passenger's seat.
"You're kidding." Castiel responded, deadpan. Dean gave him a look.
"Unless you have a new coil wire and the tools to fix it, then no. I'm not kidding." Crossing his arms over his chest, he kicked his feet up on the dash, feeling the man beside him bristle. Unfortunately for him, he'd already begun calling the mechanic and apparently, Cas didn't feel the need to snap at him while on the phone.
Huh. Cas. Certainly less of a mouthful than Castiel.
The moment Cas got off the phone, Dean instantly asked, "Where did you even get the name Castiel?" It distracted him enough that he didn't force Dean's feet of the dash.
"My family is religious. I was born on a Thursday. Castiel is the angel of Thursday. Get your feet off my dashboard." Or not. Dean stifled a sigh, moving his feet back to the floor. The drifted into silence, Cas fiddling with his phone, Dean staring moodily into the distance.
Finally, Dean broke the silence, "How do you and Jess know one another?" Cas seemed grateful for the polite conversation and it made Dean wonder why he even disliked the guy so much. Sure, he had a high and mighty attitude about him that rubbed Dean the wrong way and a car that made Dean miss baby more than ever, but still. Might as well give the guy some semblance of a chance, right?
"We met at Stanford. She decided to take a classical literature class as an elective, while it was part of my core curriculum as a classics major. We hit it off and were friends ever since. How do you and Sam know one another?" Cas seemed to realize instantly what a stupid question that was and began to flush as Dean laughed.
"Well, I came out of my mom's stomach and then four years later, he came out of my mom's stomach. We started chatting since we seemed to hang out at a lot of the same places and have been friends, practically brothers ever since." Dean snickered again as Cas shook his head, face still red. They lulled back into silence for the remainder of the wait time, before the tow truck driver arrived.
The tow truck driver that didn't seem to realize that there were two of them in the car, because he had a backseat full of tools and only one seat in the front. After a car ride of Cas awkwardly perching on Dean's knees, trying his damnedest not to fall back into Dean and make this experience any more weird, they arrived at the tow shop and Dean instantly went to work. It only took him another half hour to fix the car and he and Cas were back on track.
And back in Cas' fake car with his horrible pop music.
"I sincerely hope this setback doesn't mean the shop is closed by the time we get there." Cas mused, and Dean grunted.
"I sincerely hope my brain doesn't melt thanks to this crap that you call music blasting."
"Let me guess. You like hard rock and anything else is garbage?" Something about the way Cas said that made Dean's hackles rise.
"More or less, yeah. Why? Is that a problem?"
"It's not a very open way of viewing the world. It's rather closeminded."
"It's music. Some of it's good, and the rest of it is bad."
"In your opinion, which you're entirely entitled too. In my opinion both pop and hard rock music is agreeable."
"Great, that why don't we pop in the metallica so we can both enjoy?"
"Because you insulted the pop music I like, so I think I'm just going to listen to that on repeat now. And since it's my car, I can do just that with no say from you."
Dean blinked. "You're a giant five year old, pretending to be some sophisticated grown up man." Cas didn't bother with a response to that, huffing and ignoring him the entire remainder of the drive.
Yet, Cas couldn't help the smirk when Dean started humming along to some of the oh so horrible pop songs that were playing.
Dean now realized why Sam didn't trust him to go alone. Apparently there were no good way of telling what colors the ribbons that wrapped around the flowers would be from over the phone, so Jess had sent Cas along to insure that they got ribbons that matched the color scheme.
"Just get the purple ones." Dean complained after ten minutes of Cas scrutinizing four different ribbon shades that looked more or less the same.
"They're lavender, Dean." Cas commented back absentmindedly.
"It's the same thing. All four of the ribbons you're holding in your hands are purple."
Cas held up the ribbons one by one. "No, this one is lavender. This one is thistle. This one is mauve. And this one is violet."
"Oh my god, they're all purple." Cas give him a look that told Dean he'd be huffing like a child if he wasn't so mature, and then promptly ignored him. It still took five more minutes of Dean complaining and Cas contemplating before Cas finally decided.
"Wrap them in the lavender-"
"Purple."
"-ribbon please and thank you."
The florist glanced between them, bemused, but did as Cas asked. Dean and Cas spent the ten minutes it took her to get the bouquets and vases ready arguing about the subtle differences of purple.
"I'm not saying that all those weren't a shade of purple. It's simply that they weren't purple. They were lavender, thistle, mauve, and violet."
"But they were still all purple."
"I'm done having this argument with you." Cas declared, taking what flowers he could carry from the florist and stalking off to the car. Dean rolled his eyes, picking up the rest and pointedly ignoring the florist complimenting on how cute a couple they were.
Things were pretty much okay from there. At least for a while. At least Dean thought for a while. He and Cas let the purple argument go and actually had semi-civil conversation about Jess and Sam and the wedding. Everything was going well.
He probably should have known better.
The problem came when they reached the highway, and the wind started whipping around the car and out the sunroof.
"Cas! Shut the damn roof!" Dean exclaimed, wedged between the front seats, barely managing to keep a hold of all the flowers. Cas frantically reached back for the switch, car swerving and almost sending Dean flying into the backseat. The sunroof seemed to take forever to slide close, but when it was, both he and Cas breathed a sigh of relief, Dean unwedging himself from between the seats and plopping back down.
After a few silent seconds, Cas spared Dean a contemplative look, "No one's ever called me Cas before." Before Dean could comment on that and how insane that was, given that Castiel was one hell of a mouthful, they were interrupted by sirens.
Police sirens.
Fantastic.
"You were swerving quite a bit back there young man." Cas turned wide, mournful eyes up to the police officer.
"I'm terribly sorry. My sun roof was open and I have my friend's flowe-"
"License and registration please." Cas' mouth snapped shut and he nodded curtly, handing over the required documentation and slumping back in his seat.
"He didn't need to be such a dick about it." Dean muttered, once he was sure the cop was out of hearing distance, glancing back behind him at the man in the cop car.
"He's probably just busy." Dean spared Cas an incredulous look, before pointedly scanning his eyes over the miles of bare road in front of and behind them. Cas shrugged sheepishly.
"Okay, you're right. He's just being a dick about it." Cas agreed, and Dean snickered. Good to see Cas had stopped being such a stuck up dick.
"So, no one has ever called you Cas before?" Dean recalled, knowing that the stupid cop would probably take too long, like cops always did.
"No. Just Castiel. Though, my brother Gabriel and my cousin Balthazar, tend to call me Cassie, only to annoy me. You're the first." Cas smiled, "I like it though."
"Good." Dean smiled back, relaxing further in his seat.
The cop returned with a ticket for reckless driving or something stupid like that. Then they were off on the road again.
Dean only grinned when Cas changed the station to classic rock.
"I couldn't have done it without you man."
"Aw, not true Sammy. I'm pretty sure if push came to shove, you and Jess would have left the mess behind and eloped." Sam's dopey grin showed how in love he was and how likely that scenario would have been. "You two would have been married today. Hell or high water."
"Still, I'm glad we actually got a wedding. And it was the wedding Jess and I always wanted. Thanks to you. And Castiel. You two make a good team."
Dean automatically opened his mouth to object. Hours of arguing and near disasters equaled a good team? Not in his book. Still, his eye caught Cas dancing with Jess and the other man noticed his looking and waved.
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess we do." Dean agreed, clapping Sam on the shoulder, "Now go get your girl and dance with her."
Sam eagerly did just that, stealing her from an amused Cas, and Dean was more than willing to step into Jess' place. Cas' eyes twinkled in amusement, but he willingly went with the change.
And Dean may not have gotten to sleep with Jess' hot sister, but he was perfectly fine with sleeping with her hot best friend instead.