((AN: Thank you all for reading. I suppose I should have warned everyone how long this would be. It isn't your typical one-shot or 3-chaptered fanfiction. This is an actual story. There will be at least 10 more chapters, I think. I will be putting out a much shorter fanfiction titled "Where the Wild Things Are", a short story of Castiel's time in the Ward with Nurse Meg, if you're interested. I might also be writing a story about Marin, and her life after Sam left the Ward. I do take requests for stories. I actually really enjoy when people give me prompts, so just review or message me if you'd like!))
Sam had helped Castiel pick out a nice café just up the street from them for his first date with Meg. It was so very Sam, and Cas silently hoped that Meg would enjoy herself. She didn't seem the café type to him. Dean had a nice talk with Meg while Sam coaxed Castiel out of his usual suit and flashercoat and into more casual wear. He was afraid is brother would turn the fashion-challenged angel into a pseudo-hipster, but didn't say anything
"This is Cas's first date, so don't be too... well, you on him." Dean leaned on the closed door with his arms crossed against his chest. Meg hadn't even bothered to get out of bed. She was still laying down, with headphones around her neck and her music volume up fairly loud, enough to listen to it as well as listen to whatever Dean was saying.
"Your boyfriend is fragile. Got it." She replied absentmindedly. Meg didn't bother telling Dean that his words were completely wasted on her. He would figure it out eventually.
"Meg, I'm serious." The Winchester began to raise his voice angrily. Nothing anyone said was ever taken seriously by Meg, and it pissed him off. It was always a game for her.
"Cas and I could have figured this shit out on our own." Heaving out a sigh, Meg sat up and tossed her headphones back onto her pillow. Her hair was still blonde, but her natural brown was beginning to show through her roots. "Wingboy out there might be completely dependent on you, but you should know by now that I can take care of myself, thanks."
Dean had enough of her mouth. He just wanted Cas to be safe and happy. He knew Meg well enough to know that she could be a huge bitch, and pissing Cas off was never a good idea. Both of the Winchesters, or anyone Castiel had ever encountered, knew that first hand.
He left the room in a huff, letting the door slam behind him, only to be faced with another problem; Sam had managed to make Castiel look like a huge dork.
"He, uh… picked out the clothes himself. I just showed him how to put them on correctly." Sam looked defeated and smiled sympathetically at Dean, who just stared at Castiel in awe.
The angel looked ridiculously proud of himself, even under the Winchesters judging stares. He was wearing four layers of shirts; a white button down dress shirt that was two sizes too big for him, two neon colored polo shirts on top, and finished off with a dark blue ultra-V neck t-shirt.
To make it worse, he wasn't wearing pants, but shorts. Denim shorts.
And knee-high socks, complete with croc shoes.
"Sam he's wearing crocs." Dean said with as straight a face as he could possibly manage. Sam smirked and looked down at Castiel's feet, nodding.
"Yep. Picked them out himself and everything."
Castiel looked down at himself. In his mind, he looked absolutely fine. The attire he had chosen for this event, breakfast at a café, seemed entire appropriate. He had watched movies, and learned layering from the Winchesters themselves.
The shoes, he just liked the way they looked.
"Are you ready yet, Clarence? Gotta get this show on the road. I don't have time to waste now that I'm-" Meg, hardly dressed up at all, opened her door and the three men turned their heads to look at her. She was only focused on the angel with a lack of fashion sense. "…human."
Meg pointed a finger at Sam accusingly.
"Did you do this to him?"
Sam held up his hands in defense and backed away from Castiel. He was still stifling laughter, and now Dean was beginning to snort as he tried to hold himself back. Meg rolled her eyes and walked towards Cas. She didn't look sympathetic, nor did she look angry. Just annoyed.
"Take this crapload off and grab your suit." She sighed as she grabbed his shoulders and turned him around in the direction of Sam's room. "I'll take you shopping later. For now, stick with what you know."
The café down the road from the Men of Letters bunker was called "Brewed Awakening", a name that Castiel found clever and Meg made fun of the whole way there. Dean had suggested they walk instead of zapping, and made a point to tell Cas about the complications zapping could have on a human, and who knew what would happen to a demon-made-human during transport.
The two of them took a seat in the tiny, well-lit café. Everything there seemed just as tiny as the shop was itself. The chairs, the tables, even the thousands of tiny lights hanging from the ceiling. Meg scoffed as she pulled up a chair near the very back. Cas had wanted to sit by the window but she didn't appear to hear him, sauntering all the way to a corner table.
Everything was so tremendously white and clean in the shop. And also very made of plastic. It seemed cheap to Meg but she did enjoy the smells that came from behind the counter. "Brewed Awakening" was more than just a coffee and breakfast hole-in-the-wall. They served gelato too, as well as just about every kind of crepe you could imagine.
After Meg had returned from ordering for both of them (Cas was incapable of doing so without making everything way more complicated than it needed to be), Castiel turned to her and looked at her very seriously.
"What were you before?"
"A demon, Clarence. You of all things should remember that."
"Before that."
"Oh." Meg hadn't thought about that in a long, long time. She hardly even remembered anymore. She knew she had been human once before, that part was true. But what had her name been? Did she have any siblings? How did she die? What era had she even been born in?
"Don't remember. Not even that important, I would assume. Besides, I liked being a demon. It was all fun, all the time. Nothing like being an angel." She chuckled to herself and rested her head on the back of the wall behind her. Castiel didn't stop staring at her. Meg opened an eye and glared at him.
Their food had arrived and they didn't speak as they ate. Castiel did indeed enjoy waffles, to Meg's amusement. She didn't like much that didn't have meat in it, so it was a pleasant surprise when she enjoyed her savory crepe. Castiel smiled at her as she ate. Not much about her had changed, except
"You smell different, you know. And you look different. I can't see your face." The neighboring customer glanced over at him with a concerned look, causing Meg to giggle under her breath, but they returned to their plate soon enough.
"Perks of being a human, I guess. No more monster face under this pretty pale skin. I'm sure it's a whole big breath of fresh air for you too, huh, Clarence?" She pushed her plate aside gently and leaned in closer to him. Castiel didn't stop chewing his food, but looked at her with his eyes narrowed.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Now you get to enjoy my face without seeing the demons underneath. I'm still me, Castiel. Meg 2.0. The demon that tried to kill the Winchesters, the demon that killed that blonde girl and her mother." Castiel almost thought he heard a bit of regret in her voice, but she hid it well under that sassy smirk she almost always wore.
"But without my big, black eyes, you would never be able to tell how many people I've killed. Now all you see is this squishy human body I'm now stuck in. Doesn't that scare you?"
It was as though she was trying to scare him, to intimidate him. It was something that she was so used to accomplishing. Castiel didn't flinch, and that pissed her off. He is so zen sometimes, Meg thought. It's like he can go from cool to crazy to violent in all of.5 seconds.
That was something she found strangely attractive.
"Why would it scare me?" Castiel said absentmindedly. He had begun on his third waffle, and fourth cup of coffee. For a celestial being that never needed to eat, he sure did eat a lot.
Meg didn't care to answer his question. Of course it should scare him. Now it was possible for him to believe she was just a normal person, not someone who had once attacked him and his friends, and at one point tried to kill his friend's father. She was just a human. It sure as hell scared her, not that she would ever let him hear that.
"Remember that time you used me as a ladder to escape a ring of holy fire?"
They both looked up from their plates at the same time. Neither of them were smiling, and Cas had even stopped chewing his mouthful of food. There was silence for a moment before Meg snorted and let out a loud chortle of laughter. She was followed by Castiel who managed to utter a few chuckles, but a genuine smile.
"I don't understand why that's funny, but your laugh makes me smile."
"Haven't I already told you this, Clarence? I don't like poetry." This only made her smile wider. Like a domino effect, so did Castiel.
He thought about the time he had done that, and yes, he did remember. He remembered every moment he spent with demon Meg, the one he had gotten to know very little and yet enjoyed being around so much. Their bond had grown in the hospital, where she had taken up duty as his guardian while he lay there plagued by Lucifer taunting him every moment of every day.
Those were all very good memories. He hoped that she felt the same way.
The two of them went back to silence. This silence was no longer odd and confusing, but the kind of comfortable silence between two friends that had once been very close and were meeting months later, reliving their past and laughing over the mistakes they had once made.
"You told me that you would show me taking you out was a bad idea. So far, you've been wrong." Castiel told her as they began to walk out onto the street and into the morning air. He was, unfortunately, right.
Meg had honestly thought that this "date" was going to be a disaster. She had never considered "dating" anyone as a human, let alone Castiel, the angel she had once wanted to have sex with, mostly because she was a demon and that would be all manner of hot, sweaty sin.
She couldn't simply deny that she did have feelings for him, however. He made her feel something other than the normal things a demon should have felt and she hated him for it. But she also loved him for it. It was all too confusing her with these new human things. It felt overwhelming, but she would deal, just as she always had.
"Beginners luck." Meg slung her leather jacket over her shoulder and had it hooked there with one finger. The two of them walked back up the street side by side, with Castiel hovering just a half a foot above her. "Maybe you could take me out again, just so I can show you this was a fluke."
"I'd like that." Castiel replied with a smile. He looked down at Meg, and saw that she was smiling, too.
But Meg had begun to think about something while having breakfast, and now, out in the open, she felt uncomfortable, exposed. She couldn't just smoke out of this meatsuit. She was right when she told Castiel that she was stuck in it, and that didn't make her feel any better about anything.
As a Demon, she never felt vulnerable. Scared? Sure. Crowley was out for her ass most of the time, and it wouldn't have been the first time that the Winchesters had tried to kill her. She could die, after all. They had a demon blade. She had never, in fact, felt vulnerable.
Now? She could die if someone pushed her in front of traffic, or if she fell off of a building. She could no longer see and avoid Reapers, or Hellhounds. Meg had become so pathetically human.
And Crowley, once he found out, would use that to his advantage.
