Chapter Text
Dean has, until recently, been happy with his nomadic lifestyle. A new place every couple of weeks, leaving his mark in small towns and big cities alike. During their last weekly call though, Sam had insisted that Dean join him in California, set up shop in the open-air transit station where street performers were welcome without the stigma of roadside buskers. It was a good spot, too. Tucked against a wall covered in mosaic glass depicting the ocean waves. Dean sits on his folding stool, guitar case laid open at his feet, adorned with photos of his mother and father when they had first started performing together in the early seventies. Mary Winchester’s golden hair in a wild mop, tamed only by the flower crown she wore, barefoot and strumming the guitar Dean now held, and John, in loose jeans and dark hair, only had eyes for his new bride, the laugh lines cut deep into his face already.
Dean dedicates each day to their memory, thumbing the horned amulet he wears around his neck. The station is markedly quiet when he arrives each morning, few commuters brave the pre-dawn light. He’s certain that no one around here starts the workday before nine in the morning. His usual audience is the handful of homeless folks who couldn't get a spot in the shelter the night before, so he makes sure his tune-up runs are gentle lullabies and soothing sonnets until the sun makes its way over the horizon. He hums in his father's baritone and watches the people around him relax visibly deeper as his music envelopes them.
Hey Jude is a favorite of his in the early mornings, but he's been working on something special for a man named Joshua who has been waking to his guitar each morning for the past week. Once he's up, the elderly man disappears down the road and always returns with two steaming cups of coffee and a warm smile. They share stories - Dean often speaks of his parents and the places they used to play, and Joshua reminisces about the Cincinnati Botanical Gardens he tended before the city cut funding and he was forced to the streets. Dean tries to craft something for him akin to a flower unfurling its petals, punctuated with staccato bluegrass picking to mimic hedge clippers gently removing deadened leaves, making way for new life.
Dean loves watching the transit station slowly yawn awake, filling up with all sorts of people eager to begin their day. He tries not to choose favorites among his audience, typically moves on to the next city before that happens, but Joshua keeps him tethered, and there's a little girl who darts away from her mother, through grown-up legs, right up to his case and drops a little scrap of paper inside each morning. They're little pictures: a bird, tree, and globe. Yesterday’s drawing was his absolute favorite - his mother's guitar, complete with Sam and Dean's initials that the boys scratched into its body with a small pocket knife when they were six and ten. Dean had spent the rest of the afternoon writing her a song.
Today, when he spots her yellow windbreaker on the platform, he's ready, strumming sneaky chords as she snakes her way to him and sliding into a fully-fledged pop song once she gets to the case, each note punctuated by her footsteps. The look on her face is priceless, and Dean glances up and realizes he's gotten a two-for when the girl's mother graces him with a kind smile and a crisp bill on their way to the open-air platform.
He’s taking a quick break to stretch his fingers and unfold the girl's latest creation: a fat bumblebee with a dotted flight path, when he feels a tingle race down his spine, goosebumps raising the skin at the back of his neck. He tucks the drawing with the others in the breast pocket of his flannel, nestled amongst his guitar picks, and settles his guitar, eager to catch the first glimpse of his not-favorite, favorite blue-eyed commuter.
𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮
Castiel lets his mind wander to the day ahead, pocketing the change from his coffee order and making his way to the bus station, anticipation making him drag is feet. He truly loves his archivist job: it’s behind the scenes, and he gets to brag about the folk art museum's collection on its social media sites. He rarely makes public appearances except when new exhibits open. Recently though, he’s been pulled into a maddening quest for a new exhibit that he simply can’t wrap his head around, no matter how many times he reviews his colleague’s notes.
Charlie Bradbury had told him excitedly two weeks ago that she and her partner, Gilda, had finally received the green light from their adoption agency and would be bringing home the little boy they had fallen in love with months before. Castiel had been positively thrilled for his best friend and her growing family and eagerly accepted her workload as she prepared for life as a new mom. While she’s left him with plenty of planning and implementation time, the exhibit's subject matter itself is one in which he has no real interest: musical history. He needs to put together something to tie her research into the community - a requirement of all the museum's exhibitions, but he keeps coming up dry. The topic so far only brings to mind his brother, Gabriel’s off-key singing on Sunday mornings growing up.
He takes the first step down to the bus station platform and slips, reaching for the sticky handrail to keep himself from careening into the woman in front of him. He’s still feeling flustered from his near-fall when the sound of a guitar cuts through the general din of the station. It's a genuinely beautiful melody and the cadence reminds him of a field of wildflowers, watching bees flit here and there. Castiel breaks out in a wide grin that wrinkles the corners of his eyes as he makes his way to the source of the strumming. The man, with his short beard, is effortlessly charming, shirt sleeves rolled just below his elbows so the fabric doesn't impede his playing. Castiel has noticed him before and has made an effort to drop his change into the man's case each morning over the past week.
He reaches into his pocket just as he arrives at the man's case and produces a ten-dollar bill. He bends to put the bill inside the case and when he comes back up, the man is smiling, the apples of his cheeks tinged pink when Castiel returns the gesture. The man plays on at a quieter tone, like this song is just for the two of them and Castiel is compelled to speak to him.
“New song?” he asks, counting the freckles along the man's nose, uncaring that this is the first time he's given more than a passing thought to what's playing around him. “It's lovely,” he adds and watches as the man's blush deepens.
He doesn't stop playing as he murmurs a quiet, heartfelt, “Thanks, man,” in a rich voice that has Castiel instantly smitten - the way you fall in love with the next person in line at the grocery store for as long as it takes them to bag their items and be on their way. He parts with a smile and a small wave and loads into the cramped bus, thoughts of Charlie's exhibition forgotten in favor of wildflowers and green eyes.
At the museum, Castiel badges into the staff entrance at the back and takes the freight elevator to the basement level. He winds his way through the brightly painted hallways to his workspace. The room is large with light blue walls occupied on one side by two large desks and a set of storage drawers, and cabinets on the opposite side. The center of the room is dominated by a flat work table so large the movers had to bring it in parts through the elevator. There's an oversized crazy quilt laid across the table that Castiel had flagged for restoration. It's a wild mosaic of patchwork pieces held together by hand stitching so even it could pass for machine-made.
Castiel hangs his messenger bag on a hook near the door and pats the Chewbacca bobblehead on Charlie’s desk, retrieving the watering can from his desk drawer. After a quick trip to the water fountain, he makes the rounds of their little garden, ending with a spider plant that he’s let die several times which Charlie somehow manages always to resurrect. He says quiet hellos to each plant as the water sinks into their rich soil, thankful for the small amount of life they are able to bring to the subterranean environment.
His morning tasks complete, Castiel sets about booting up his desktop and logging into the hard drive Charlie left him. He is grateful for her superior organizational methods, and quickly finds the project file for the upcoming music exhibit. He's lost in thought, jotting down potential ideas and doesn't hear the museum's preservationist enter the room.
“Are you humming?” Anael asks from the doorway. Castiel jolts, turning in his desk chair to face her stunned expression.
“I don't think so,” he answers with a furrowed brow, his head tilting to the side as he considers the implication of her words. He never hums or sings along with the radio. Truthfully, he encounters very little music in his daily life.
“You were definitely humming,” she replies, leaving no room for argument.
Anael sets about examining the quilt, making notes in pencil in a leather-bound notebook. Her expensive necklaces jangle as she bends to inspect where the threads have begun pulling along the hem. Castiel is grateful for the background noise. Since Charlie left, he has taken to listening to art history podcasts just to hear another voice. He already misses her clacking keyboard and exclamations of success. Most of the staff works on the first floor in administrative offices. Anael is the only other person who ventures into the basement, and even she has a second office above ground.
“How's the new exhibit coming along?” Anael asks around lunchtime.
“Charlie has already completed the majority of the planning. She's come up with a truly unique perspective on oral histories through folk songs. She plans to display our collection of instruments to tell the history of the bardic tradition. I suspect she secretly wants a tie-in with Moondoor if at all possible. The missing piece will be pinpointing how best to bring the community element into it.”
“What in god's creation is Moondoor?”
“Live Action Role Playing. It's a social club for people who wish to act out mock battles as part of a larger strategic game. Charlie is Moondoor’s current regent.”
“Good for her! I have no idea what you said, but I'm always up for a woman in power,” Anael admires with a smirk.
Castiel isn't great with social cues if he’s honest with himself, and he isn't entirely sure if Anael expects him to explain the intricacies of the gameplay to her. People tend to baffle him. The few coworkers he interacts with directly know to keep conversations work-related. Charlie is the only person he has ever opened up to and he wonders if he should try to get to know Anael better. She'll be working on the quilt for at least a month and making no attempt at all would surely be noticed.
“Are you going out for lunch?”
The statuesque woman looks momentarily taken by surprise but quickly recovers, a genuine smile turning up the corners of her mouth.
“There's a cafe two blocks from here that serves killer sandwiches,” she mentions. At his nod, Anael swaps her heels for flats and the pair walk together to the cafe, making polite conversation about the museum's upcoming events.
On their way back, lunch in tow, they sidestep a young woman strumming a bright green ukulele, its small case set open in front of a slouchy backpack with patches sewn into it. It reminds Castiel of the quilt despite the lack of finesse. A small handwritten sign propped against the case asks for donations and gives a social media handle: @claireukes. Anael digs into her Hermes coin purse and pulls out her phone and a few bills, depositing them into the guitar case and taking a quick video clip while the girl plays on with her eyes closed to the world around her. She hums counter to her strumming and Castiel finds himself smiling, remembering the man from the transit station with his rich voice and kind smile. He gives the girl the change from his lunch order and they carry on to the museum, humming the girl's song while they eat their cold cuts.
𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮
Dean can't get rid of the butterflies swarming around in his stomach. He's been riding high since the blue-eyed man spoke to him. He spends the rest of the morning wearing out his fingers on variations of the wildflower tune, in an attempt to perfect it, the amulet a warm weight around his neck. His phone vibrates in his back pocket and he silences the alarm. He packs up his guitar, pocketing the money he's collected and tucking his folding stool into its pouch. He slings the strap over his shoulder and carries the guitar case to the edge of the platform, pleased when he realizes that it's the same one his not-favorite boarded that morning.
On the way to campus, Dean listens to the music blasting in tinny notes from the headphones of the lanky man seated in front of him. It's some old R&B song, and Dean tries to make out the lyrics but settles for tapping the beat on his knees until the man gets off five stops later and his seat is filled by a woman and her stroller. Dean spends the rest of the trip making goofy faces at the baby and enamoring the little old lady seated to his right.
Stepping off the bus, Dean looks across campus for a moment, admiring the stone buildings. Stanford's law school used to intimidate Dean; the people hurrying about in pencil skirts and creased slacks are intense. Dean is keenly aware his flannel and jeans stick out like a sore thumb, but he carries on regardless, head held high. He remembers having a case of stage fright when he was younger and his mother telling him to keep his chin up and always look the audience in the eye. She said more often than not, he would be met with a smile. He suspects the lawyers-in-training are too stressed to share a kind interaction, and once he made peace with that thought, he found he had no fear of them.
Dean jogs up a flight of stairs of the stone building and opens a side door that takes him directly to his brother's office. The door is open and Dean strides in, knowing that if there were any students, Sam would have closed the door. His brother shares the office with three other TAs on a rotating schedule, so there isn't much personality to the room's decor. There's a solid wood desk in the center, a few filing cases behind it, and two guest chairs. The window at the far side of the room looks out over the campus and is adorned with vertical slat blinds whose pull chain taps against the plastic, motivated by the air conditioning. Sam looks up from his laptop and opens the desk drawers, coming away with their lunch.
"How was the station?"
"Real good, Sammy. Wrote a new song."
He takes the Tupperware container from Sam and opens the lid, revealing a thick roast beef sandwich with a side of horseradish and a little cheese wheel. He claps his hands and rubs them together excitedly like some greedy banker in a B-movie. Lifting the sandwich, he takes a too-big bite that puffs his cheeks like a chipmunk. Sam rolls his eyes.
"Big tipper?" Sam asks with thinly veiled amusement. Dean scoffs, then coughs when he inhales a bite of bread.
"For the girl, dude. Get your head out of the gutter," he mutters taking a drink from Sam's water bottle, which he quickly snatches back and places behind his desk. Dean distracts himself by unwinding the red wax from around the cheese wheel, popping the entire thing in his mouth at once. Sam snorts at Dean's expense and finishes his veggie stir fry.
"What did she draw for you?"
Dean pulls the bumblebee picture from his pocket and realizes, as he hands it over to Sam, that his song for Blue Eyes has outside influences. He's immediately disappointed that he hasn't created something truly unique for him. He hasn't told Sam yet, that the man might be something more. More than just someone putting money in a case, enjoying the music at face value.
"Very cute," Sam grins, handing back the paper and watching Dean fold it neatly into his pocket.
The air conditioning kicks off, and the room is suddenly silent. Sam taps his fork absentmindedly against the empty plastic container. Dean hides a grin. The beat belongs to a song they used to play together during warmups with their parents. Some old seventies tune that Dean hums along to openly. Sam uses his free hand to drum along the desktop and the pair's ramblings evolve into a full-on jam session, complete with air guitar provided by Dean, and an extended drum solo from Sam who trades his fork for two ballpoint pen drumsticks.
By the end, the brothers are giddy, the rush of the performance warming them. They never play together, haven't since Sam left the family band, and Dean feels a sudden pang of longing. When he looks at Sam, he sees his emotions reflected back to him. Neither are willing to break the spell though, and Dean packs his dirty dishes, Sam reaching to place everything back in his desk drawer. Dean moves out of the guest chair, bends to pick up his guitar and the stool, and turns away from his brother.
"Maybe we could play something later," Sam lilts when Deans turns the doorknob.
"Yeah, Sammy," he replies, opening the door to three of Sam's students. Each one sits on chairs lining the hallway, books open in their laps, scribbling away in notebooks. One looks past Dean into Sam's office and gives him a radiant smile.
"Come in, Alice," Sam gestures the girl inside.
Dean hears her say, "I didn't know you played," as he makes his way down the hall.
𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮
Castiel spends the remainder of his workday helping Anael with the quilt. They chat about their weekend plans and on his way home, he considers how much he enjoys her company. That perhaps his first month without Charlie won't be so bad after all. The thought buoys him for the rest of the evening.
He stands in front of his bathroom mirror, squeezing toothpaste onto his toothbrush, and realizes that he's humming. He suspects he may have been for most of the day. It's the song from the man at the transit station. Wildflowers and honeybees. He drops his toothbrush in the sink with a clatter. He flinches at the sound, spits out a mouthful of suds and rinses out his mouth.
He’s got it.
It's perfect.
Castiel dashes from the bathroom to his messenger bag hanging from the coat rack next to the front door, and pulls a notebook from its depths. He opens to the middle of the book where he keeps his exhibit ideas and finds the blank page for Charlie's. It's mocked him relentlessly for more than two weeks, so it feels fantastic when he finally pens something there for the first time:
Modern-day bards = local street performers.
𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮
Dean jumps out of his skin when he hears Sam come home. He feels like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He knows he's blushing as he props his guitar against the couch and tries to arrange himself in a mockery of comfort. Sam catches him scratching his short beard, halfway to horizontal, and scoffs at his brother's antics.
"Guilty much?"
"No, bitch, just got up from a nap," it's a bald-faced lie and they both know it; Dean never sleeps on his back. Let alone uncovered. Even when he doesn't have a blanket, Dean uses his flannel to cover as much of himself as possible.
"Mhm," Sam grunts and finds himself a beer in the kitchen. He returns with a bottle for Dean and says, "Who's the lucky sap that's got you acting all squirrely?"
Dean uncaps the bottle and takes a drink. He doesn't want to tell Sam about Blue Eyes, and he really doesn't want to admit to spending the last six or so hours crafting his best work to date. It's strange how easily the man has gotten under Dean's skin.
"Nah, just trying to figure out what we might play when you got home."
Sam isn't expecting anything so personal from Dean and it shows clearly on his face. Dean picks up his guitar and plays a chord. "Whaddaya say to Heat of the Moment ?" Sam chucks a pillow at his head and both brothers spend the night reminiscing about all the pranks they played on each other as kids, including the month Dean woke Sam up with that particular song every morning before sunrise.
That night, Dean lulls himself to sleep with the song he wrote for the blue-eyed man, the quilt pulled high over his shoulders.