Chapter 1 – People I Might Never Meet Again
Dean slams the hood down.
He can't believe it. His baby is broken. Some bastard has bashed the hood in, sliced the tires and shattered the windows and tail lights. He heard some noise last night, but noise isn't unusual in the city and he hadn't thought much of it. And, in an unfortunate twist of fate, he hasn't been outside today and thus hasn't seen this shit until now.
The damage requires time and effort to fix and he doesn't have even a minute to spare right now. He needs to be there for Sammy.
His brother has invited pretty much everyone they know to dinner at his house to make an announcement. Dean knows what it is, because he kept prodding before and Sam couldn't keep it in – he and Gabriel have gotten engaged.
Dean needs to be there. He wants to be there, wants to hear everyone congratulate his baby brother on his happiness. Dean has felt responsible for watching out for Sammy all their lives and he isn't going to stop just because his brother has another person to lean on now.
But his car is fucking broken. He won't have time to fix it until the weekend, and tonight is a Thursday. Bobby can come pick him up for work tomorrow morning but tonight? No, that's not fair. Bobby is probably already there, and Dean is bordering on late.
"I'm sorry, baby." He runs his fingers along the now uneven hood.
That's when he notices something. It's an inverted cross, about the size of Dean's little finger, keyed into the car in the slope of one of the cavities. He's seen that symbol before. He knows who uses it as a signature. It's a tagline, always associated with destruction.
But Alastair is locked in. It has to be a coincidence. This has to be the work of some wannabe devil worshipping kids.
Dean shudders. Then he calls Sam.
"Dean?"
"Yeah, hi Sammy. Look, something's happened. The car's broken. I can't fix her up now. I don't know if I'm gonna make it."
"It's fine", says Sam calmly. "I'll call a cab for you. Got cash?"
"Yeah. But Sam, you know I can't-"
"I'll call right now."
"No, Sam, listen! You know I hate being in a car when someone else is driving."
Sam scoffs.
"I've driven you lots of times", he says.
"Yeah, well, you're different."
"Get over yourself, Dean. Suck it up. I'm calling a cab for you now."
With that, Sam hangs up and leaves Dean alone outside his apartment building, waiting for some strange person in an ugly ass car to show up and drive him while he sits there like some kind of hunting trophy. He's going to feel like a prostitute. Except he's the one that's paying. A reverse prostitute.
It's not that Dean needs to be in charge of everything that happens around him. He doesn't desperately crave to have everything his own way or for people to obey him. It's just that many people are very stupid and highly undeserving of trust on important matters. They take long routes, wrong turns, go too fast or too slow and who knows who might drive into the wrong freaking lane and get them killed? Dean doesn't need anyone to take him places. He can do it himself.
When his car isn't fucking broken.
Ten minutes later a taxi pulls up in front of him. The window slides down and a man leans over the seat and peeks out at him. The little lamp in the ceiling of the car illuminates his face. He has the bluest eyes Dean has ever seen, dark, a bit scruffy hair and some five o' clock shadow that really suits him. He looks kind but oddly intrusive at the same time.
"Dean Winchester?" he asks. His voice is low and husky, but not malevolent.
"Yes." Dean nods. "Great."
That last thing may have come out a tiny bit mean.
Dean gets into the car, straps on the seatbelt and sighs. He doesn't really care if the driver detects his resentment for the situation. The driver, however, doesn't seem bothered.
"Did my brother give you directions?" asks Dean.
"Yes", says the driver. "We should be there in about fifteen minutes."
"Alright."
The man starts talking to him when they're on the road.
"So, Dean", he says, emphasizing the name as if he were trying to get to know it, "your car broke down?"
"Yeah", says Dean. He thinks of the '67 Chevy Impala, his own gorgeous car that he inherited from his father, how much better she is than this one, and how much nicer it is when Dean is driving. "I would've fixed her right now if I could. I've never taken a cab before."
"Why not?"
"I prefer driving myself."
"I see." The man turns the car around a sharp corner, maneuvering perfectly without slowing down. "I hear there's this really good car repair shop on the outskirts of town. Singer's, I believe it's called. Perhaps you should have your car taken there."
The man sounds serious and ridiculously formal. Dean almost laughs.
"I work there", he says. "And I won't have time to fix her up 'til the weekend. It sucks."
The man doesn't reply. An awkward silence fills the car. It's uncomfortable and annoying and after a few minutes, Dean decides he can't take it anymore.
"Did you want to become a cab driver?"
It sounds much more rude than he intended, but the man doesn't seem to take offense.
"No", he says matter-of-factly.
Dean can't help but prod.
"So why did you?"
"I was looking for something, and… I ran away. I was young." The man struggles to hold back a smirk. "Then I realized I needed to get money for food and a place to live. This was the first job I found with sufficient pay, and here I am."
"But if this isn't what you want, why keep doing it?" asks Dean. He's growing genuinely curious in spite of himself.
The driver shrugs.
"I don't know what else I would do. Besides", he glances at Dean, "with this job I get the opportunity to talk to people I have never met before. People I might not have met otherwise." The car stops, neatly parked by the curb outside Sam's house. "People I might never meet again."
"How romantic", says Dean sarcastically. He unbuckles his seatbelt and is on his way out of the car when his jacket is grabbed from behind.
"You-"
"Hey!" Dean whirls around and seizes the cab driver's wrist, raising his free hand, ready to punch him in the face.
"Nice reflexes." The man smiles – a big, eye-crinkling, too close to contagious thing – and Dean stares. "I was just reminding you that you were forgetting to pay me."
"Oh." Dean glances down at his hand, knuckles going white from how tightly he's clutching the man's wrist. Somewhat awkwardly, he lets go. "Right. I'm not used to-"
"You do have money, don't you?" The driver raises his eyebrows.
"Of course." Dean digs a couple of bills out of his jeans pocket. "Here."
The man hands a few of the bills back to him.
"There. I'm not that expensive."
"Huh. Well, uh… Bye, then." Dean gets out of the car.
"Have a nice evening", says the driver.
"Yeah, you too", says Dean.
Just as he closes the door he hears the man scoff and sees him smiling and shaking his head to himself. A warm anger ignites in Dean's stomach – is this dude making fun of him? In his own head, sure, and with no one else to hear, but still, Dean feels offended. That guy was weird. Dean doesn't ever want to see him again.
He turns around and walks up to the door of Sam's house, ringing the bell three times as he always does just because Sam hates it.
Castiel scoffs.
Nice evening, yeah, sure. As a taxi driver – a.k.a. chauffeur of the drunk and horny, henchman of the cheating, watcher of the fainting and vomiting – there is no such guarantee, even with well-meaning wishes ringing in the back of his mind.
He does love it when he gets to talk to people he hasn't met before. That's no lie, but it isn't all that often that he actually gets to do that. With the hours he works – irregular and changeable as they are – Castiel frequently gets the drunk and 'otherwise occupied' passengers in his backseat.
Yeah, most of them sit in the backseat. As far away from him as possible.
This Dean, while he may have been a bit blunt and stand-offish most of the time, had at least been in a state that allowed for communication. And actually, now that he thinks about it, it was the first real person-to-person interaction Castiel has had for months.
It saddens him a little that he is probably never going to see that face again.