Chapter Text
On Main street, there is a mechanic. He owns his own shop, formerly owned by his father, and works there with his kid brother and friends.
On Main street, there is also a grocer. He manages the store but also works as a cashier from time to time.
On Main street, there is a small strip mall. It houses two restaurants, a pharmacy, a toy store, a grocery, and a mechanic.
The mechanic and the grocer worked on opposite sides of the mall. Somehow, someway, they had never met before. But they were destined to.
-
“Excuse me, uh…Castiel?”
Castiel looked up from the shelf he was restocking to see a young woman holding a bag of apples.
“Can I help you, miss?”
The young woman asked Castiel nicely to point her in the direction of a scale where she could weigh her apples. Castiel did so very kindly and went back to restocking the shelf.
Once he was done, Castiel went to the front of the store to check on the cashiers. It was getting late; nearing 9 pm; so there weren’t many patrons at the registers.
“Hey, Cas!” One of the cashiers called. Hannah, Cas recognized. He made his way over to her.
“What’s up?” Cas asked.
“Just saying hi,” Hannah said. She leaned in and smiled. Cas felt his stomach start to drop. Hannah fixed Cas’ name tag for him and leaned back again.
“Your name tag was crooked.” She explained.
“Oh. Thanks.” Cas said awkwardly. He gave a robotic wave and walked away. Cas felt his face burning and fanned his face lightly.
Hannah made Cas nervous, to be completely honest. Not because he liked her–certainly not because he liked her. Exactly the opposite: he was afraid she liked him. He was sure of it. But Cas couldn’t bear to let her down. So he was anxious in silence. Which somehow was more bearable than just confronting her about it.
Cas made one last walk around the store, making sure nothing was out of the ordinary before he made it back to the front at 9:15.
“Z’it closing time, boss?” One of Cas’ employees asked. Cas smiled at them and threw them the keys.
“Get started on locking everything up. I’ll be in my office for a few minutes.
Cas headed back to his office to organize some paperwork and grab his personal items. By the time he came back out, nearly everyone was at the front, getting ready to leave.
“Want to do the honors?”
Cas turned to see Hannah, standing impossibly close, handing him the keys. Cas took a step away from her and gave an awkward smile. He then knelt and locked up the store.
“It’s quittin’ time!” Cas heard someone call. The rest of the workers cheered tiredly and the group started to disband.
Cas walked to his car and threw his bag and jacket in the back seat. He sat in the driver’s seat, put his keys in the ignition, and turned them. Nothing.
“Shit,” Cas said under his breath. He knew his car was old, but he was hoping it’d last a few more years. He turned his keys again. The car made a stalling noise. Then it went silent again. Cas threw his head back against the headrest.
“Not tonight. Not tonight,” Cas hissed.
Pushing the car door open, Cas got out and opened the hood of his car. He stared at it a moment before realizing that he knew jack shit about cars.
“Need help?” Cas heard a rough voice call. He looked up. A tall, rather well-built, guy in a flannel shirt was walking toward him.
“Uh, yeah, actually I do,” Cas said, relieved. The guy smiled and made his way to stand next to Cas.
“What seems to be the problem?” The guy said, scanning the engine.
“It wouldn’t start,” Cas explained. “I turned the ignition, but it just stalled.” The guy hummed.
“It could be a few things. Probably a dead alternator, though.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll be right back,” The guy said to Cas and ran toward one of the shops in the mall. Cas realized that shop was a mechanic’s garage. How had he never noticed that before?
The guy came running back with a large, grated car part in his hands and a wrench in his front shirt pocket.
“This should do the trick,” He said, a little breathless. Cas stepped aside to give the man some space to start rooting around in his engine. Cas watched him work for a few minutes, removing and replacing a few parts before being given the instruction to try and turn the car back on.
Cas sat in the driver's seat, his view of the man obstructed by the hood of the car. He half expected this not to work, but humored the man anyway. Cas put his keys in the ignition and turned.
“Look at that!” The man exclaimed as the engine roared to life. Cas let out a huge sigh of relief. He went to shake the man’s hand to thank him.
“Thank you so much…”
“Dean.”
“Thank you, Dean. I work at the store over there,” Cas indicated his store. “If you ever need anything, just tell the cashier that Castiel owes you a favor.”
“Thanks, Castiel, but it’s no problem. I hope you make it home safe tonight.”
“You, too.”
Cas climbed back into his car and started to back out of his parking space. He saw the man–Dean standing next to a vintage-looking car and waving at him. Cas waved back and pulled out of the parking lot.
That was a very nice man, Cas thought. Dean occupied Cas’ thoughts for the majority of the drive home, mostly contemplating how in the hell he had never noticed the glaring mechanic’s garage at the edge of the strip mall before. Little did Cas know that Dean would occupy his thoughts more than warranted in the near future.