Dean Winchester's passion had always been pie.
He loved smelling it, eating it and, most of all, making it for other people.
It started with his mother, Mary – she made the best pies in the world. His family would eat her pies at least once a week around the table, after dinner, smiling and laughing, like the picture-perfect kind of household.
Mary had smiled and chuckled softly when Dean asked her to teach him how to make pies, but taught him almost every night.
It was obvious that John had his reservations about this. He thought it was a waste of time, his son baking pies when he could have been playing football or baseball or learning how to fix a car. Dean did learn how to fix up a car and he loved it, but never as much as he loved baking pies with his mother. Baking pies had been the highlight of his days.
But, his apple pie life ended abruptly when his mother died in a house fire.
His father turned to drinking and as soon as he was old enough to work, Dean had to cover most of their expenses, including saving up for college for Sam, since their dad had spent almost all of their college funds paying off his debts and buying booze. Dean's dream of opening a pie shop was starting to look unattainable.
When his father was having a particularly bad day, like when he had been fired from yet another job that he had had for only a couple of days or just when he was in a bad mood, he would take out his anger and frustration on Dean. He tried to go for Sam occasionally, but Dean always managed to get in the way because of the simple fact that his father favored Sam.
But Dean could never bring himself to resent Sam for that. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Dean felt responsible for Sam. He had to protect and look after him. Hell, sometimes he even provoked his father to keep Sam from being the one who got hurt.
He had a rough time growing up, even as a teenager, getting into regular fights on top of it all, but Sam was the reason that he was able to get through it. Sam and the memory of beautiful blue eyes, which seemed so endless and deep that Dean could lose himself in them.
Many years later, after Sam had received a full ride at Stanford, Dean was finally able to have his pie shop and was living as close to that perfect life as he thought he would get.
Sam was in college, and doing fantastically along with his girlfriend, his dad was lord knows where, Bobby had fixed up an old Impala and given it to Dean, his ability to pick up a pretty blonde was as good as ever and Dean's shop slash café was fairly successful. He had a comfortable life going.
In the mornings he would wake up, a lot of the time with a very mild hangover, get dressed, go downstairs from his apartment and into the store, set up, let his employees in and get to work. His work days were an absolute pleasure. During the day, he would make pies, with the help of one other pastry chef, and when he had a free moment, he would banter with his staff and maybe flirt with a few of the pretty customers that came by.
He would take a lunch break in the early afternoon; maybe give Sammy a quick check-up call, then go back to making pies. He would close up shop at 6:00pm, let out the employees that had come in for the afternoon shift and then, after eating some dinner, he would go out for a drink at a different bar every night. Sometimes he would pick up a girl, go home with her and get back to his apartment in time for a few hours of sleep and other times he would just have a few beers and then go home for a long night's sleep.
Even though he was usually the kind of guy who hated routines, was driven up the wall by them, he was pretty content with everything.
Except one small detail that he couldn't remember. One tiny detail that had been gnawing at the back of his mind since the night his dad had become even more drunk than he had ever been, the night that he didn't like to talk about. He could not for the life of him remember who the blue eyes belonged to, the blue eyes that he had long since associated with his savior, maybe even his guardian angel if he stretched it.
He tried not to think about it, though. He figured that that night was best forgotten completely, blue eyes or no.
So he carried on with his life, going through his days with normalcy.
Then, one Saturday morning, something unexpected walked into his shop.
A man, wearing a suit, with a pair of blue eyes that sent a shudder of recognition through Dean so deep that he could have sworn that the ground beneath him was shaking.
Dean had been taking a short break from baking and was chatting up a young brunette from behind the bar counter while he took some orders when the man walked in and all he could do for a good few seconds was stand and stare at him, somewhere between being in shock and denial. He quickly snapped out of it and flashed the brunette another grin when the man made his way over and grabbed a seat a few chairs down.
He chatted with the girl for a little bit longer before, somewhat reluctantly, going to speak to his new customer.
"What can I get ya?" He asked, giving him a friendly smile and hoping that the shock wasn't too obvious on his face. The man paused for a moment and Dean swore that he looked a little surprised.
"I will, uh," The man glanced up at the chalk board overhead, his voice gravelly, as if he'd just woken up, "I will have apple pie and a cup of coffee. Milk and Sugar."
"Coming right up," He smiled again and made his way into the kitchen while trying to ignore the feeling gnawing at the back of his mind.
The man kept coming back almost every day after that. On weekends he would come in the mornings or the afternoons and during the week he would come at lunch time or in the late afternoon. Most days he would order the same apple pie and wear the same, almost awed, expression, like it was God's gift to the earth and Dean couldn't help but smile to himself and watch out of the corner of his eye.
Finally, after two or three weeks of this routine, Dean spoke up.
"So, what's your name?" He asked, leaning on the counter – he was taking another one of his semi-frequent breaks.
"What?" The man asked, sounding genuinely surprised, in between bites of his pie.
"Your name. What is it?" He repeated, the corner of his lips turning up into a slight smirk. "You come here almost every day; I ought to know the name of one of my favourite customers." This remark earned him a small frown from the man in front of him and a not-so-small scoff from one of his employees in the kitchen.
"He says that to every gorgeous woman that walks in here," Someone, probably Jo, called from inside the kitchen.
"Oh, shut up," Dean called back, trying to ignore the slight burning in his cheeks and what his embarrassment meant. This, however, got him a small smile from the man, which he couldn't help but return.
"My name is Castiel," He said evenly. "You are Dean, correct?"
"Uh, yeah, how'd you know that?" He couldn't help the caution that crept into his tone.
"Don't worry, I'm not a stalker," he could have sworn that he just saw a smirk on the man's lips. "Some of the, uh, female customers talk about you a lot. And not too quietly, I might add."
"Really?" He pretended to sound surprised. He knew that he had a reputation of sorts amongst the ladies and being humble wasn't one of his talents. Castiel just smiled faintly at this. "So, anyway, d'you mind if I call you Cas?" Castiel blinked, seeming hesitant for a moment.
"Sure," He said, sounding a little surprised.
"So, Cas, how did you find this place? You don't exactly seem like the type for pie and coffee. You seem more of a fine-dining kind of guy," Dean gestured to his suit and gave him a lop-sided grin.
"Well, I just transferred to this city for my work and I was investigating the city one morning when I had some free time, when I saw this establishment. It," He paused for a moment, swallowing slightly, and Dean couldn't help but chuckle internally at his formal language, "reminded me of someone I used to be acquainted with."
Dean wasn't entirely sure why, but he couldn't help but feel a little jealous at the fact that Castiel might be thinking of someone else when he seemed so happy eating his pie.
"I see and what do you work as?"
"I work for the FBI," He stated and Dean couldn't help but feel a little shocked at that. Apart from the suit, there was nothing about him that remotely said "FBI" and Dean would have never guessed it in a million years, which is why a small "huh" was all Dean could get out in response.
"Well, I gotta get back to work," Dean said after a moment or two of weirdly awkward-yet-comfortable silence. "Do you maybe wanna go grab a beer sometime?"
"I am generally not one for beer," Castiel began and Dean felt a small pang of disappointment as he thought he was going to get rejected (and why was that such a big deal, anyway?), "But I will join you."
"Great," He grinned, taking a step back. "I'll chat to ya later." And with that, Dean disappeared back into the kitchen, stupid grin still on his face, leaving Castiel to his thoughts.
When Dean emerged again, Castiel was gone – cue inexplicable pang of disappointment – but in his place was a napkin and on it was a phone number, scrawled in insanely neat handwriting, which left Dean thinking, holy shit did I just pick up a Dude?
That night, after Dean had closed up shop, he sat on his couch, TV blaring in the background, and stared at the phone number, wondering if he should call or not. He groaned loudly, knowing no one would hear him.
Why on earth was he making such a big deal about this? This customer of his happening to have the same eye colour as were in his memories didn't mean a thing.
Sighing resolutely, he punched the numbers into his cellphone and pressed the 'Dial' button. After only a few rings there was a click and Castiel's unmistakable voice came.
"Hello?"
"What are you, a teenage girl? Leaving me your number like that."
"Hello, Dean." And those two words resonated with him so absolutely, that he could hardly keep himself from shuddering.
"So, bar? Tomorrow night?"
"I am free then."
"Awesome, it's a date."
"Um-"
"It's a figure of speech, Cas," Dean interrupted him before he could refute what he said. He didn't know why but the last thing he wanted to hear right then were the words "it's not".
"Alright," He could almost hear the laughter in his tone.
"Well, I, uh, gotta go. Early morning tomorrow. See ya," Dean said, not having anything to talk about and not wanting to make an idiot out of himself by sitting for half an hour on the phone with Cas in what was mostly silence, something that he'd actually probably be pretty comfortable doing.
"Goodbye, Dean."
When he fell asleep that night, he heard the same words that Castiel had said to him earlier in his dream.
He was dreaming about the night he wished he could just forget. The night when Sam had ended up in hospital.
Dean couldn't have been any older than fifteen.
That was the night that their father had lost everything, absolutely everything, all their money, their property, even his beloved car, while gambling.
He came home that night, more drunk than he'd ever been and even angrier than Dean had ever seen him – and he'd seen him pretty damn angry before. At first he just sat on the couch, hands clenched together, physically shaking with the anger that was inside him that was beginning to boil over.
Dean, wasn't stupid, he knew the signs when he saw them. He took his brother upstairs almost as soon as his father walked through the front door and they sat in their shared bedroom apprehensively. Dean assured Sam that everything would be okay, even though he knew that there was every chance that everything would turn to Hell after that night.
When they heard their dad's heavy footsteps come up the stairs and towards their room, Dean's throat closed up for a moment.
"Everything's going to be just fine, Sammy," He croaked, smiling weakly. He knew it wasn't going to be okay. But he was going to do everything that he could to keep his brother from being hurt.
When John threw the door open, Dean stood up, putting himself in between him and Sam, and squared his shoulders, trying to make himself look as big as possible. Without a word John stalked towards him and collided the back of his hand with Dean's face hard enough to send him tumbling to the side. Once Dean was on the floor, he walked forwards. Towards Sam.
In a panic, Dean grabbed John's leg and tried to trip him up, but all that happened was Dean getting two kicks to the face and three to the stomach, leaving him coughing and spluttering. All he could do for a good minute or two was watch as John grabbed Sam by the arm and drag him out of the room. He heard fighting and shouting and crashing and by the time he got up and ran towards the sound, Sam was on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, broken glass scattered about and blood running from his face and lord knows how many other places. But he wasn't dead. Dean could see from there, the rise and fall of his brother's chest.
Even so, that was when Dean lost it. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fist and almost everything after that was lost in a blind rage.
He found John, stalking towards him and threw punches and kicks, which John threw right back. He landed a punch to John's jaw. John landed a punch to his jaw. Punches. Kicks. Elbows. Knees. And then somehow Dean was on the floor, his head thudding against the wood beneath it, hands tightening around his throat. He felt wetness and soreness all over and all he could see was John's face. John's seething, hateful face. Everything was starting to go black.
Then, he heard a faint fluttering sound. John disappeared. Dean turned his head to see his father flying across the room. He barely had the capacity to think, What in the Hell?
He heard footsteps and then his torso was being lifted up gently. He felt faint panic at the back of his mind, but his brain still lacked enough oxygen to do anything. Then there were blue eyes above him. Infinitely blue eyes. But they were so, so sad and Dean frowned as he tried to figure out why. He opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted when the figure above him spoke first, in a deep, gravelly voice.
"Hello, Dean."
He felt the pressure of two fingers on his forehead and then, he was out.