*clears throat*
So. James Novak, the famous indie folk singer, has a very well-publicized meltdown and disappears from the public eye. His agent refuses any interview requests and puts out very vague statements about how James is taking time off from the music industry “to reconnect with himself.”
Really, James was just exhausted from being James, so he threw a dart at a map of America, packed up all his things, and introduced himself to his new neighbors by his childhood nickname of Castiel. He does not mention his music, and when he’s a suit and tie rather than his traditional “stoner” clothes, no one seems to recognize him.
The very last thing he expects is to run into is his old best friend Benny at the supermarket, or for Benny to have a different last name. Wasn’t it LaFitte, not Hargrove, when they were in high school?
Turns out Benny is trying to keep from being recognized too, though for very different reasons. While Cas might get mobbed by fans or reporters, Benny might just be murdered. That’s kind of what happens when you testify against your wife and the serial-killing cult leader the two of you used to follow. The case was three years ago now and Benny’s not technically in Witness Protection anymore, but he’s cautious. Paranoid, maybe. He’s seen some stuff, okay?
It’s a weird situation.
Which only gets weirder when, waiting for Benny to clock out at the coffee shop he runs now, Cas gets recognized by someone he’s never seen before in his life. Except the man calls him Jimmy, which he hasn’t gone by since he was seventeen, then switches to Cas when Cas still doesn’t recognize him.
There’s a blush on the man’s cheeks for no reason Cas can place, until he says, “We went to high school together. I, uh.” He lowers his voice. “I went by Samantha? Back then?”
That’s when it clicks. Sam, the third member of their trio, two years younger than them but still an integral part of the group for the two years that the Winchesters lived in that town. She looks- well, he, Cas guesses. He looks good. Happier now, than he did when he was fifteen.
Turns out that Sam, after divorcing his husband Brady (and the less said about that the better), used the money from the settlement to go out and get surgery, start HRT, buy a new wardrobe, and relocate somewhere that no one would know who he used to be. It was just pure chance that he happened to end up in the same place as Cas, who just happened to end up in the same place as Benny, who only picked this town because Washington is about as far from Louisiana as he can get without leaving the country.
So yeah basically the three of them hiding their pasts for very different reasons and they just happen to stumble into each other and then they FALL IN LOVE.















