Week 3

…

Cas and Dean were fast friends, and it turned out they actually had quite a bit in common. For instance, Cas knew he wasn't exactly up to date on popular culture, but he was obsessed with Game of Thrones. Balthazar had gotten him hooked on it. Dean had become a big fan after one of his customers had introduced him to the show. Even funnier, Cas knew the customer who'd introduced Dean to the show. Her name was Charlie, and they'd been in the foster system together. She was a fan of lots of things, and had been going to a convention of some kind when her car broke down and she ended up meeting Dean.

They also bonded over their love of old cars. Though Cas wasn't exactly a mechanic, he'd learned quite a bit from taking care of his car. Dean actually gave Cas some tips on how to tune his Lincoln up when it started running rough.

They had almost the entire week together, too.

Mitchell got picked for the first date. And neither of them were on the group date. That meant one of them would get a one-on-one date, and the other wouldn't get a date at all. Cas pushed that out of his mind, and just hung out with Dean.

Mitchell hung out with them during the group date, and he was a pretty funny guy, but he ended up leaving to go to bed before the date card came. It was still relatively early in the night, but Cas and Dean had been up late the night before talking about the latest Game of Thrones cliffhanger, so Dean offered to make some coffee for the two of them.

Cas accepted the offer, and then suggested they make cookies while they waited for the date card.

Dean grinned and asked, "What about pie?"

Cas laughed. By now, he was well-aware of Dean's love of pie.

"Okay; deal."

While the coffee brewed, they discussed what flavor the pie should be. They searched the fridge and pantry to see what options they had, and they finally decided on cherry.

Dean wasn't a very good cook, but Cas didn't mind. It was fun to goof around and make a bit of a mess. By the time they put the pie in the oven, they were both covered in flour.

They cleaned up the kitchen first, and then themselves. Cas helped clean some flour from behind one of Dean's ears and they dusted themselves off. When everything was taken care of, they went back into the living room to wait for the date card to show up and for the pie to be ready.

"Hey, Cas?" Dean asked when they sat down.

"Yes?"

"I never asked before, but I'm wondering… why are you here?"

Cas raised an eyebrow. "I think that's kind of a given, Dean."

"No, that not what I mean. I mean, why are you still single? I told you about my dating experience… or lack of it. And I told you about what happened with Lisa. But you've never said anything about why you haven't found someone."

"Oh. Well I haven't dated much. I was always rather shy. In college I was mostly focused on my academics, so dates were rare. I've only ever had one serious girlfriend- Meg. I met her in my last year of college. We were very different, but that was never a problem."

"What happened?"

"She died. She was a security guard at a museum, and she got stabbed one night by some gang member. The police never figured out who."

"Oh God. I'm so sorry."

"That's when I moved in with Balthazar. He made me go out on a few blind dates, but those didn't go anywhere. I had a few short relationships. Nothing really stuck. I did finally meet a guy that I connected with, and we dated for a month or so, but it ultimately didn't work out. I do want to fall in love, though. Balthazar said I needed to 'put myself out there'. He signed me up for this show and I wasn't going to do it, but he changed my mind. So here I am."

"Wow." Dean hesitated and then asked, "Did you say you dated a guy?"

Cas blushed. "Uh… well, yes. I'm bisexual, actually. So I like guys and girls."

"Oh."

There was an awkward silence, and then there was a knock on the door, meaning the date card was there. Dean jumped up to retrieve it, instantly slipping out of the envelope.

"It's for me," he said, after glancing to see what it said. "It says, 'I hope we can FIND love on this journey.' 'Find' is in all caps."

"Interesting," Cas remarked.

The oven beeped, and Cas watched a smile break across Dean's face.

"Pie!" he yelled, and he scurried into the kitchen.

Cas followed, and he grabbed plates and forks while Dean pulled the pie from the oven. Dean served them each a large slice and they sat together at the kitchen table.

Dean took a bite and then he noticed Cas watching him.

"I won't tell anyone, if that's what you're worried about. And I don't care about your sexual orientation. It doesn't make you any less awesome."

Cas smiled, relieved. He'd lost friends before when they found out.

"Now take a bite of your pie, man," Dean said with a laugh. "It's fantastic!"

"Okay, okay." Cas brought his fork to his mouth and found that Dean had not been exaggerating. The pie had turned out fantastic.

The two of them managed to finish off the entire pie by the time the other men got back from the group date.

…

Dean was excited for his one-on-one with Atara.

He was definitely attracted to her, physically and emotionally. How could he not be? It was unsurprising that she'd been chosen to be the Bachelorette.

He wanted to get to know her better. I mean, he still hadn't told her about his family, and hadn't heard much about hers. All he knew was that she was a Speech Therapist and loved Harry Potter.

It was funny, because Dean and Cas knew each other better than Dean and Atara did.

Cas had turned out to be an amazing friend. Dean had worried about the men being all competitive, and he thought he'd end up miserable every moment he wasn't with Atara. But in fact, that was almost the opposite. Dean had so much fun being with Cas, he didn't get caught up in any drama, though there wasn't much so early on. Plus, every moment he spent with Cas was so natural and great, it kept him from feeling too edgy. Meanwhile, whenever he was with Atara, he was nothing but nervous and awkward. Hopefully, that would go away once he got to know her better.

When he saw her, he smiled nervously. She looked gorgeous, dressed in mostly black as usual. But the slightly gothic style suited her, and he was glad he was wearing something he felt good in.

Atara smiled back at him brightly. "Dean! Hi!"

They came together and hugged.

"Good to see you," Dean said.

Atara grabbed his hand and led him to…

"Is that what I think it is?"

"You said you liked classic cars."

Dean ran his free hand over the hood of the DeLorean with a dopey grin.

"Man. I always thought it'd be cool to have one of these."

"Me too," Atara agreed. "Mostly because of Back to the Future."

"I can't blame you for that," Dean remarked. "So, am I allowed to ask what we're doing?"

"Yes, you are. Well, we're not time traveling, but we are doing something pretty exciting. Do you know what geocaching is?"

Dean shook his head.

"Okay. Well, a geocache is a container filled with a few random objects and a little piece of paper. People hide them outside, in public areas, and their coordinates are put out. So geocaching is when you get those coordinates and try to find the cache. If you find it, you can take one thing out of it and put something else in to replace it. And you put your name and the date down on the paper."

"That actually sounds pretty fun," Dean said, nodding his approval. "It'll be interesting to try."

Atara's smile widened. "Awesome! Let's get to it then!"

Dean got in the passenger seat, and man, it was cool getting in and pulling the hatch down. He half-expected to see time travel controls in there.

Atara had an app on her phone that gave them some options, so they picked the closest cache in the "easy" category and Dean gave her directions while she drove.

They found ourselves in a neighborhood with a small park in the middle. It was pretty much empty.

They had a GPS to get them to the right coordinates, which landed them dead center in the middle of the park, in an area surrounded by trees.

Dean chatted with Atara while looking through bushes for anything out of place. Atara had never geocached herself, but she'd read a book where several characters did, and she thought it would be fun to try. They knew they were looking for something mid-sized, but it wasn't buried, just hidden.

After they'd searched the bushes pretty well, Atara asked, "Do you think it could be in the trees or something?"

Dean's eyes widened. "Oh. I hadn't thought of that. Yeah, we should check there."

She checked one tree and he checked another. It only took a few minutes to find a dark Tupperware container with an official-looking tag taped to it.

"You're a genius!" Dean shouted, snatching the thing off the branch and holding it out to her.

They snapped the top off and found a piece of paper inside with the heading, "Cache Log", plus a tiny pencil. There were also several large beads, a Canadian coin, a rubber snake, and a ghost-shaped eraser.

Atara pulled a bag from her pocket with some other random objects- a silver chain, three dog-shaped erasers, an extra-long rubber band, and two colorful marbles.

Dean took the ghost eraser from the cache and put in one of the dog erasers, while Atara picked out a crystal bead and put the silver chain in.

She told Dean to sign their names, since he'd found the cache, and he noticed some of the names were made-up titles or nicknames, like Ashes to Dust and The Whovians.

He thought for a moment and wrote, The Hunters (Dean & Atara).

He showed her the entry, and she told him it was perfect.

They geocached a bit longer, sticking with "easy" caches, and they each collected a few more interesting artifacts. They stuck with the name Dean had come up with.

At the end of the day, they even made a geocache of their own, putting in it all the artifacts they'd collected as well as the last few things Atara had brought.

That night went wonderfully as well. Dean finally told Atara about Sam and about his parents, about everything he went through and how it changed him.

She also told him about her family. She was the second-youngest of five kids, and she was never particularly close with any of her siblings, though she wished she would have been. Over the years, she'd grown close with her younger brother, who came out to her as gay even before the rest of her family. Her parents were always pretty accepting and liberal, encouraging her and her siblings to find whatever suited them best, so it wasn't a problem. However, Atara admitted she'd always felt pressure to be successful, as both her parents were. Her dad was a pilot and her mom was an eye doctor, and they'd amassed a small fortune between the two of them. She said she sometimes wondered how much t6hat contributed to her desire to be a speech therapist, but always ended up deciding it didn't matter because she loved her job.

Dean asked her if she'd be interesting in moving at the end of the show, assuming she'd be engaged. She said that she didn't really want to move because she loved where she worked and lived, but would be willing to move as long as she loved the person. Dean told her that moving for him would be tricky because of his auto repair shop, but if he were able to sell the place, he could restart somewhere new. He would miss Sam, though.

All in all, it was a great date. They had fun geocaching, they had good conversation, and they even kissed a few times. Dean could have kissed Atara forever.

And yes, Dean did get a rose.

…

Fourteen bachelors attended the Rose Ceremony that week, and three of them left at the end of it, leaving eleven men to try and win Atara Kemmiam's heart.

Those remaining were:

Benji Columbus

Castiel Novak

Dean Winchester

Drake Lyndon

Dustin Total

Edmund Jonathan

Keith Grace

Mitchell Davies

Paul Sanders

Scott Jiminy

Stephen Alexander

…

REVIEW!

I STILL NEED DATE IDEAS, TOO! THEY WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED!