*FEELS* Set in AU

Cas flipped through the channels on the radio, searching for a good song, when the bell above the dinner's door rang out, signalling that a customer had entered. Cas glanced up, stopping his radio search as his eyes landed on the newcomer. A young man, dressed in a camouflage green outfit walked in and sat down at one of the booths, staring down at the metal table. 

Cas exchanged a glance with the other waiter, silently asking if he could take the booth.

"The cute guy's all yours," Jo teased. Cas rolled his eyes, made sure his uniform was on right and that the bowtie around his neck was straight, and headed for the booth, a country song starting up in the background.

Two days past eighteen
He was waiting for the bus in his army green
Sat down in a booth in a cafe there
Gave his order to a girl with a bow in her hair
He's a little shy so she gives him a smile,
And he said, 

"Would you mind sittin' down for a while?" The stranger asked, "I'm uh.....feeling a little down." Cas's smiled widened.

And talking to me?
I'm feeling a little low."
She said, "I'm off in an hour and I know where we can go."

An hour later, Cas and the man headed down the street together.

"What's your name?" Cas asked.

"Dean." He replied.

"You seem a little young to be a soldier."

"I'm only eighteen." He explained. "I just enlisted."

"Why?" Dean went quiet for a moment, and then shrugged.

"I got nothing else to do." He offered. "My dad doesn't want me around, and my little brother's living with our aunt and uncle, trying to have a normal life, which I shouldn't interfere with. I got nowhere else to go, and I'm good at fighting. Might as well help someone instead of messing up more people's lives."

"I'm sure you don't mess people's lives up." Cas declared. "You seem perfectly nice to me." Dean half smiled. 

"You don't know the half of me, Cas." They stopped at the edge of a pier and Cas turned to stare at the soldier before him.

"But I'd like to learn." 

So they went down and they sat on the pier,
He said I bet you got a boyfriend but I don't care
I got no one to send a letter to
Would you mind if I sent one back here to you?

"Only if you let me write you back." Cas declared. Dean smiled.

"Of course."

I cried
Never gonna hold the hand of another guy
Too young for him they told her
Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter said
A soldier's coming home

They stopped at a photo booth on their way back to the diner, and took all kinds of goofy pictures. Cas scrawled his address on the back of one of the pictures and Dean tucked it safely in his pocket, promising to send Cas an address to write to as soon as he could.

Dean left a few hours later, and Cas headed home, still smiling slightly with his copy of the pictures in his hand. 

The pictures made their way into Cas's room, and his favorite got pinned up in his locker at school, where Cas was a senior. His family mocked the idea of him writing to Dean, insisting that it would be a waste of his time. But Cas knew better. There was something special about Dean. Something he was beginning to love already. 

So the letters came from an army camp
In California then Afghanistan
And he told her of his heart
It might be in love and all of the things he was so scared of
He said, "When it's getting kinda rough over here,
I think of that day sittin' down at the pier.
And I close my eyes and see your pretty smile.
Don't worry but I won't be able to write for awhile."

Dean's letters didn't come often, but when they did, Cas would lock himself in his room and sit at the window seat, reading the soft pages that the soldier would write, his wonderful words capturing the teenager's heart.

Cas supposed he wrote back twice as often as Dean did, but the soldier didn't mind. The letters from Cas were the high point of his days. He'd read and reread them dozens of times, always smiling at the picture of Cas he had, and of the image of the boy in his head. The kind, funny boy with a bowtie and pretty eyes.

His own little angel. Dean's personal good luck charm.

 I cried
Never gonna hold the hand of another guy
Too young for him they told her
Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter said
A soldier's coming home

The letters slowed to a stop though, as Dean said they might, and Cas tried his best not to worry, but found it near impossible.

Dean could be anywhere, he knew. Anything could happen to him at any time, and there was nothing Cas could do. 

He continued to write to Dean, even if he hadn't gotten a letter back yet. He continued to tell Dean more about his life, about his horrible siblings and his awful stepmother, and how his dad was never home. Continued to tell Dean how much he missed them, and all the things they should do together once Dean came home. Continued to ask Dean more about himself, about his brother, who seemed to be the only member of Dean's family that he was willing to talk about. It occurred to Cas that he had no idea if Dean's brother even knew he was in the army. Dean's father didn't know- Dean had said that he didn't deserve to. 

Maybe, Cas thought as he sat in his window seat, rereading Dean's letters for the hundredth time, when Dean came home, he'd be willing to tell him what had happened to his family. 

"Cas, come on- we're gonna be late!" His sister, Anna, yelled up to him. Cas sighed. It was a Friday night. Time for a football game. He had told Dean all about the Friday Night games at the High School. Cas's brothers made up half the Varsity team, for crying out loud. Michael, Luci, and Gabe were three of the stars. Gabe was the smallest kid on the team, but he made up for his size by being quick. Cas, on the other hand, was entirely nonathletic, but he played in the marching band on the piccolo. In hindsight, Cas really wished he had chosen a different instrument.

But, despite the endless teasing from his siblings, Cas put on his band uniform, tying his bowtie around the collar, grabbed his instrument case, and headed out for the game; because if Dean could be brave enough to go and fight in a war, then Cas could be brave enough to face his siblings.

But Cas wasn't exactly prepared for what happened at the game.

One Friday night at a football game
The Lord's Prayer said and the Anthem sang
A man said, "Folks would you bow your heads
For a list of local soldiers dead."

The list was short, but one name was all it took for Cas's world to come crashing down. 

"Dean Winchester."

Cas's face went colorless, and his instrument crashed to the floor of the bleachers as he rushed out of sight, one hand to his mouth, unable to decide whether he was going to puke or sob. People watched him run, but hardly any of them knew what it was really about.

Crying all alone under the stands
Was a piccolo player in the marching band
And one name read but nobody really cared
But a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair

Nothing could have prepared Cas for the moment Dean's name was called out. He cried and cried, bawling under the stands for the rest of the game, not even returning to retrieve his abandoned instrument. He froze up on the car ride home, refusing to break down in front of his family. Hannah and Gabe kept sending sympathetic glances his way, having put two and two together, but the rest of Cas's family didn't even notice. 

Cas remained in his room for the next week, shedding his band uniform for a pair of ratty pajamas as he curling up on his bed with Dean's letters held to his chest, sobbing. 

He just couldn't believe it. His heart refused to accept it. Dean couldn't be dead. Not Dean, the sweet, innocent, kind boy he had loved. The man who only went to war in the first place because he thought he had no other path. The person who loved his little brother so much, he had left him alone to have a better life then Dean could ever give him.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. 

And Cas couldn't let him go. He couldn't stop grieving, for he knew that no one else was.

No one else even knew who Dean Winchester was. They didn't bother to mourn him for longer then a second.

"Cassie?" Gabe's voice asked gently, knocking on Cas's door. "Can I come in?"

Cas didn't reply, not able to face the world.

Gabe took the silence as a Yes, and barged in, sitting on the edge of Cas's bed.

"Jo came by," He began. "She said you hadn't been showing up at the diner, and was wondering if you were okay." Somehow, Cas was not even surprised that Jo cared more about where he was then his whole family combined. No one had even noticed that Cas had been missing from school for over a week.

"Charlie stopped by too," Gabe went on. "She says she misses seeing you at school......She uh..." Gabe dropped his head. "She dropped off your piccolo." Cas shut his eyes hard. The very mention of the instrument brought it all back, and it was just too much.

"Michael threw it out." Gabe added. Unknowingly, Michael had done the kindest thing he could, even if all he had was bad intentions. 

"Cassie, please just say something." Gabe pleaded. Cas thought to himself, not knowing anything Gabe could possibly want to hear.

And yet, of all things, the lyrics of a country song came back to him, and Cas was forced to think back to a seemingly normal day at the diner, until the bell had rung, and a handsome young man in an army uniform had stepped inside. 

Cas started to hum slightly, and then, quietly, so quietly, he started to sing. His voice wavered a lot, and shook, but Cas pushed through the chorus until tears filled his vision too much for him to see.

 "I cried
Never gonna hold the hand of another guy
Too young for him they told her
Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter said
A soldier's coming home."

Gabe could never have understood the pain. No one did. But Gabe, with the help of Jo and Charlie, got Cas up and out of bed. They got him to go to school.

And everything seemed to be moving forward for Cas, until he opened his locker, and made the mistake of glancing at the metal door.

A lone picture was stuck to it. A goofy picture, of a smiling, green eyed man in an army uniform, and a laughing teenager with a bowtie and a diner uniform. 

Cas stared at the image, everything flooding back at him. He was unable to take his eyes off it, unable to blink. Unable to even hear the sound of footsteps approaching. Blinking back tears as hard as he could, Cas slammed the locker shut and immediately froze.

 I cried,
Never gonna hold the hand of another guy.

A man stood before him, in an army uniform.

Too young for him they told her
Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier.

He had green eyes and a wavering smile, and held a small bouquet of flowers in his hand.

Our love will never end
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again

He gazed at Cas like he was the most precious, perfect thing in the entire universe, and that he couldn't believe he was right in front of him.

Never more to be alone when the letter said,

Cas stared at him like he was on fire, not believing what he was seeing. 

"Dean." He whispered, barely breathing.

Dean didn't say a word, simply wrapping his arms around Cas, hugging him. Cas latched onto him, hugging him as tightly as he could, like he was about to disappear right in front of him.

Finally, Dean pulled back, staring at Cas, and he kissed him. Kissed him like there was it was everything he needed to do in his whole life. Cas kissed him back, just as hard.

A soldier's coming home.