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Another car pulls up. Castiel can tell by the loud ding he hears in his headset, indicating a customer. He could also see it on the monitor, if he bothers to watch the cameras. He holds back a sigh, and turns on his mic, repeating the same phrase he says all day, everyday.

“Welcome to McDonald’s, how can I help you?”

He typed in their order before asking them to pull forward.

A mobile order for a milkshake pops up on his screen, he reaches for a cup to make it when he freezes.

1 small vanilla milkshake

and there’s a note under the “special instructions” underneath.

“86 cherries” it reads.

What the fuck.

Castiel scratches his head before shrugging. Inias appears behind him, speaking loudly over his shoulder. “86 cherries? What the fuck?”

Castiel shrugs again. “Perhaps he meant 8 or 6 and it was a mistake.”

“Nah, customers are fucking weird. He probably just wants a shit ton,” Inias says before going back to his task.

“86 fucking cherries?” Charlie whisper-shouts.

Castiel once again just shrugs and continues blending the milkshake.

“What are you gonna do?” Charlie stands awkwardly to the side, eye wide looking at him and the screen. “Are you gonna count out 86 cherries?”

While that would be petty, Castiel doesn’t have time for that, or patience. And he’s sure there’s some point he needs to charge for the cherries, and looking at his jar, he doesn’t think there are 86 in there.

He finished the milkshake, and forgoes whipped cream. “I guess I’ll just…. put a bunch on there, hope he doesn’t count.”

Charlie nods, but doesn’t move. She watched him shove as many maraschino cherries he could fit into the plastic dome lid. He didn’t end up counting, but the milkshake is beginning to look like something you’d find in a cannibal’s refrigerator.

He give Charlie a look, she nods approvingly, as if to say yeah that works.

He takes note of the customers name and brings the order to the front. “Dean.” he says.

Presumably, Dean walks up, with a kind smile and golden freckles dusting his skin. Castiel is almost mesmerized by him, until his eyes dart toward the milkshake and his face falls.

“Hi, uh, I’m Dean.”

Castiel holds the milkshake up.

“I, uh. Actually I didn’t want any cherries.” Dean looks somewhat amused and horrified at the god awful amount of cherries shoved onto his vanilla milkshake.

“I’m confused,” is all Castiel says as he brings the milkshake back down and checks the ticket again. 86 cherries. “You wrote you wanted 86 cherries.” He holds the milkshake up again. “This is, well it’s not 86, I don’t think I can give you that much, but there’s a lot.”

“Yes, I see that.” Dean laughs a little uncomfortably. “86 kinda means like none.”

Castiel stares at him.

“Like ix-nay… nix?” Dean falters. “Eight miles out, six feet under in bar speak?”

Castiel blinks. “Sir, this is a McDonald’s.”

Dean scratches the back of his head. “Uh, I’m pretty sure it’s restaurant slang, like for out of stock but can kinda mean take off. I used to work at a restaurant, the Roadhouse, they used that.”

“Why would you not use ‘no’? It has the same amount of characters. Infact the number zero is even less characters.” Castiel is trying not to sound rude. He’s genuinely confused, and it comes out as blunt.

“Right, well, that’s my bad, I’ll just—“ Dean reaches to take the milkshake, but Castiel pulls it back out of reach.

“No, I’ll remake it.”

“Man, that’s not necessary, I messed up.” Dean reached for the shake again, wrapping his hand around it, his fingers brushing Castiel’s. Castiel doesn’t let go. “Listen, my brother likes those kinds of cherries, he’ll eat them.”

Castiel stares for a minute longer before letting go. “If you insist.” He doesn’t like the idea of messing up Dean’s order, he also doesn’t normally offer to remake something unless the customer specifically asks for it.

“See ya, Cas.” Dean offers a smile before walking away, meeting up with a tall man with long hair, presumably his brother, who wrinkles his nose when Dean offers him his cherries, shaking his head and pushing the shake away. Dean laughs at his brother’s adverse reaction.

Cas hopes he sees Dean tomorrow but he also hopes to never see him again.