Chapter Text
“So, what’s this all about?”
Dean holds up his phone as he enters the room, even though Sam is too far away to read anything on the four-inch screen. “I just got a text from Charlie saying she’s sorry. So why is Charlie...” Dean reads from his phone, “‘totes sorry, dude?’ Is it about the hunt?”
Sam is stationed behind his computer at his usual table in the library, pamphlets and papers and books cluttering his workspace.
“Yeah, she just called. I was about to tell you about it, but I wanted to make sure I had everything in place before I ran it by you.”
“Before you ran what by me?”
“Plan B.”
“Crap. What’s the problem with Plan A?" Dean pulls out the chair beside Sam and sits. "I hate plan Bs.”
“Me too.” Sam folds down the screen of his laptop. “But unfortunately, we have no choice. Charlie broke her leg yesterday.”
“What happened? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. She was LARPing. I think a horse was involved, and something about knights and jousting, maybe? I was afraid to ask for more details. She was pretty out of it, from her meds.”
Dean perks up. “She was jousting? That’s just...”
“Reckless?” Sam offers.
“Awesome!” Dean grins, leans back against the table and sends a return text to Charlie. “I hope she won. I’ve gotta find out if she won.”
“Anyway,” Sam continues while he gathers up the mess of documents strewn across the table into one heap. “I called Jody, and she’s not available until next week. Parent stuff. She suggested I try Donna.”
“Donna?” Dean bobs his head from side to side, considering. “That could work. I mean, we’d have to be careful, she’s not very experienced, but I think--”
“She can’t do it either. Deputy stuff. She’s been promoted, and can’t get the time off until next month, but she says she’d love to work with us whenever she can.”
“Promoted? Well whaddya know. Good for her.”
“Yeah. Good for her, not so good for us.”
“So, what now? We can’t just call the whole thing off.”
Sam fingers the stack in front of him. “No. I figure we have a few options. None of them are ideal. We can --”
“Ugh!” Dean moans, too dramatically. “Just skip to the least bad option.”
“Okay. We take Cas.”
Sam mumbles it so quickly that Dean’s not quite sure he heard him right. “What? What did you say?”
“I said we take Cas.”
“Huh?” Dean screws his face up, scratches his head. “I mean, I'm good with Cas coming along, the more the merrier, but how does that solve the problem?”
They’d been working with a couple who inherited a successful wedding planning business. It became even more successful when they added group destination weddings to their list of services over a year ago. Recently, however, the groups returned from two of the last three outings one couple short, the happy brides and grooms all leaving notes that they had “changed their minds and needed time to think” about their intended nuptials. Yet no one saw them go, and they disappeared, luggage and all, seemingly without a trace. Except, that is, for a trace of sulfur.
Sam sighs, looks up and away before he answers. “Cas takes Charlie’s place.”
Dean holds out both hands, palms up. “Charlie's place? Charlie's the bride-to-be. I'm not following, Sam. You want Cas to dress up as a woman?”
“No, Dean,” Sam says slowly, his patience forced. “Don't be ridiculous. A wedding can have two grooms. Cas can be the other groom. ”
“What? No! What else have you got?”
Sam sighs, frustrated. “Okay. Well the obvious one, of course, is we don’t do it. We reach out, see if we can find some other hunter – or hunters – who can handle it.”
Dean scowls. “No. We can’t dump this in someone else’s front yard now. We leave tomorrow.”
“True. Or, we postpone it all, wait until Charlie gets better, or Jody is available. Which is at least weeks, could be longer. And in the meantime—“
“More people go missing? No way. Next.” Dean and Sam had initially argued about whether or not this was a case at all. There was no indication of foul play; in fact, law enforcement considered neither situation to be suspicious, especially once the handwriting on the notes was confirmed to belong to the missing. The owners believed they were being haunted, but the sulfur left behind told Dean another story, and he convinced Sam that they should try to help. At the most, it was a demon hunt. At a minimum, it was a free vacation. To a beach. In Florida. Besides, anything was better than sitting in the bunker, waiting for the inevitable.
“That leaves us with Cas.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. Wait - maybe Cas can just go fix Charlie?"
"There's no time for that. Besides, when you stop and think about it, taking Cas along is not a bad idea. It’s actually a pretty good one. He wants to hunt again, and he knows a lot of things, Dean, you can’t deny that. He’s smart, and quick, and you know he’ll have our backs. There’s no reason not to have him stand in for Charlie.”
Dean’s eyes widen. “No reason not to? It’s a wedding trip! I need a fiancée, not a fiance!”
"You do realize that those two words sound exactly the same?" Sam looks up and exhales slowly, as if gathering patience. “Dean, just listen.” Sam uses that tone he always pulls out when he thinks Dean is being unreasonable. “I already spoke to the owners. They said they have same sex couples as clients all the time. No one will suspect a thing. They're desperate. They need our help before another couple goes missing.”
Dean clicks his tongue. “And those are our only options? Those are all bad, Sam.”
“Maybe. But you asked me and I’m telling you. Cas is the least bad option.”
Dean kicks his chair out and stands, takes a few back and forth paces. He’s going to do it, he knows that he will, but he’s not going to make it easy. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable being engaged to Cas.”
Sam looks up at Dean and nods. “I figured as much. That’s why I’m going to do it.”
Dean wasn’t expecting that. “Wait. What?”
“I said I understand. Cas and I have already discussed it, and we’re going to be the engaged couple. You’re off the hook.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Dean didn’t mean to say that out loud, but once he realizes that he did, he tries to cover. “I mean, come on. You’re way too tall for him.”
Sam raises his brows. His lips curl up, holding back a chuckle. “Right. Well I think we can fake make it work.”
Dean rubs his hand over his mouth. “So you’re saying that Cas is good with this?”
“Yes, he is.”
“Completely on board?”
“His idea, in fact. He'll be here in an hour.”
“Oh.” The word hangs off of Dean’s rounded mouth several moments longer than it should. “Okay. Good, then. I guess that makes me the best man.”
“About that.” Sam takes a long, deep breath before he goes on. “I know that the plan was for me to pose as the best man when it was you and Charlie getting married, but since things have changed, I understand if you’d rather stay here.”
Dean jerks his head back. “Why would you think that? I’m perfectly fine with you and Cas getting fake married. You know, other than the height thing, which is obviously a valid issue, why would I care? Why would that bother me at all? Why? Huh? Why?”
Sam narrows his eyes at his brother. Dean worries that he’s protested too much, made it all but impossible to give in and agree to play the groom.
“Uh, no reason?” Sam says. “I was actually referring to the fact that the location has changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’ve had a lot of cancellations. Not surprising, of course. So they had to cancel the Florida trip. Instead we’re going on another trip. It’s been planned for a while, and although several of their clients have backed out of that one, there are three other couples who are still willing to stick to their plans to marry at this particular exotic location.”
“And what location is that?”
“A private resort island on the Indian Ocean.”
“Are you talking about the Indian Ocean on the other side of the planet?”
“That would be the one.”
“As in there’s-no-way-to-get-there-other-than-by-plane Indian Ocean?”
“Yes,” Sam nods. “Airplane, then another airplane, then a seaplane.”
Now this is a real problem. Dean makes an unintelligible noise, something between a snort and a gulp. “I, uhm, how do we? If I can’t? Who will uhm, do the things?”
Dean doesn’t actually form sentences, but fortunately, he’s talking to Sam.
“I think Cas and I can probably handle it on our own. Like you've said, at most it's a demon. But there’s a small hunting community in Mumbai if we need help. I have a call in already.”
“Huh.” Dean grunts, hands on hips. “Okay. I guess you've got this all figured out.”
“Look, we’d love to have you there, Dean. According to the pictures, it’s really beautiful, and the weather is amazing. But we understand that with the whole flying thing…”
“Who’s we?”
“Me and Cas, of course.”
“You and Cas.” Dean ponders the words as he says them aloud. So it's already begun. Sam and Castiel. Sastiel. Or was it Samstiel? “Sure. Of course.”
______________________________
He hates shopping, always has, and Sam is quick to point that out when he insists on tagging along with him and Castiel while they pick up what they need for their pending fake wedding.
“Since I can’t come with you, helping you with this part is the least I can do,” he lies.
“Sure. Whatever,” Sam responds, and that’s how he ends up here, in the menswear section of a stupid department store, watching his brother and his best friend pick out their stupid, make-believe wedding clothes. Dean’s done a lot of unthinkable things over the years, but this is the thing - waiting outside of a dressing room, arms loaded with bags of purchased merchandise - that makes him question his life choices.
“You look great in that Cas,” Sam says when Castiel steps out of the dressing room wearing the tuxedo suit Sam picked out for him to try on.
Dean looks up at him from the chair he is slouched over in and does a double take. “Jesus Christ!”
Castiel looks down at himself, smoothes his hands along the lapels of the jacket. “What’s wrong, Dean?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Sam snorts. “Right, Dean?”
Dean straightens up in the chair, nods. Castiel wears a suit every day, but this, this is something else. “No. I mean yeah. Nothing’s wrong. But don’t you think it’s...too much? I mean, do you really need to play dress up? You’re gonna be on an island.”
“We’re getting married. That’s something that yes, generally requires dressing up.” Sam disagrees with him semi-adamantly. “Besides, Cas looks pretty incredible in that tux.”
He can’t argue with that. Dean’s not sure if it’s the bowtie, the perfect fit, or the glimpse of striped vest barely visible beneath the jacket that causes the strained groan that makes its way past Dean’s pinched lips.
Castiel looks at him, head canted like a curious pup, and Dean knows that he’s trying to figure out what it is that Dean is not saying. He thinks that after all of these years, Cas would be better at it than he actually is.
“Sam, I think I would prefer something less formal,” Castiel says. “Since it will be on the beach, I would like our wedding to be less traditional and more comfortable, if you don’t mind. I feel that we can make do with what we already have.”
“Cas is right,” Dean says quickly, holds up the bags hanging from his arms. “He has plenty of new clothes here. I think he’s set.”
Dean considers it a win. Sam glances over at him in time to catch the tail end of his smirk. “Whatever you want, Cas,” Sam says. “It’s your wedding too.”
Castiel nods, grateful.
“Fake wedding,” Dean reminds them. “And fair warning, Cas. Don’t fall in love with Sam for real,” Dean jokes. “Because then you’re dead meat.”
Sam frowns, crosses his arms. “Was that really necessary, Dean?”
It wasn’t, and Dean feels kind of badly about it. It didn’t come out as funny as it sounded in his head.
“I believe that would be a risk one would find worth taking,” Castiel says decisively. “Your brother has overcome much, and he is one of the finest men I know. Pretend or not, I will be proud to walk down the lane with him and call him my husband.”
Castiel’s defense of Sam makes his stomach knot up; the fact that he does it so staunchly and easily is comforting and unsettling at the same time. “That’s aisle," Dean corrects, more bitterly than necessary. "When you get married, you walk down the aisle."
“Oh,” Castiel says. "I stand corrected."
“Maybe you should work on your wedding lingo if you’re--”
“Close enough.” Sam interrupts Dean, glares at him before turning back to Castiel. “And thank you, Cas. I feel the same way.”
Dean clears his throat, wastes no time rising to his feet. “So I take it we’re done here now? Can we leave this soccer-mom hell hole once and for all?”
Sam shakes his head. “We still have one more purchase to make.”
“What’s that?” Dean asks, brows furrowed.
Sam smiles at Castiel, grabs his left hand and holds it up, points to their fingers.
“Rings.”