The Story Teller (Destiel)

3 | Fear of Falling

August 22, Saturday, 9:37pm

Castiel skimmed through the list once more, just to double check he had everything Gabriel needed before he left the store. Yep, he got everything. And he even had ten dollars left over, so he bought himself a smoothie and some book about an old man climbing out a window. It looked mildly interesting.

After paying for it all, Castiel had left the store and was toddling down the sidewalk, swinging the plastic grocery bags forwards and backwards as he gazed up at the sky, which was a hazy purple shade with a few stars dotted around. He was the only person in the street- wait, no, there was one other person. Castiel did a double take when he realised that this other person was Dean. Dean Winchester, of course. He was maybe thirty feet ahead, walking towards Castiel. He hadn't been spotted yet.

Castiel dropped his pace and slid aside, trying to blend in with the shadows that the streetlight didn't reach. As Dean approached, Castiel held his breath, then asked himself why he was hiding. After everything that had happened Wednesday and Thursday, Castiel had concluded that Dean was not, in fact, pissed at him. He couldn't quite pinpoint what his exact problem was, but Castiel was almost sure it wasn't to do with himself.

And, even on the tiny chance that it was him that Dean had a problem with, it was definitely a lot weirder to find a hiding Castiel, than a Castiel simply walking home from the shops. Each footstep Dean took seemed to echo in Castiel's head, but when he was just an arms length away from him, Dean turned and walked down an alleyway Castiel had forgotten about.

Castiel propelled himself away from the wall and stepped forwards, peering into the alleyway with some concern. It was dark and wet and dirty. Most alleyways were, in his experience. A large dumpster was pushed against the wall at the left, and there was a ladder on the right one. A ladder that had Dean Winchester climbing up it. What is he doing? he thought as he watched Dean disappear over the top of the building

Before he could think twice, Castiel had dropped the plastic bags beside the dumpster and began his climb to the roof. All that was really going through his mind at this point was that this was a chance to learn more about Dean. He'd realised before how extremely weirdly he was dealing with this whole Dean situation. When he wanted to be someones friend, he simply did nothing. But now he guessed he was just tired, at this point. Now, in that moment, the part of him that worried how he appeared to others was gone. He left it behind with the plastic bags. He just wanted to do something.

When Castiel had only one rusty rung left to climb, he was more hopeful than ever. He was four storeys high, and the wind whistled in his ears. After taking a shaky breath, he pulled himself up to the roof of the building and whatever he had been expecting, it certainly wasn't this.

The scene laid before Castiels eyes was shocking and dirty. This was the kind of thing his good Christian family had shielded him from his entire life. In fact, he didn't think people actually did this. He thought it was something that existed only on the television and in novels.

There were about twenty people scattered around, and the only source of light was a huge campfire burning in the middle of the ground, but the orange glow didn't stretch far, and he couldn't make out any faces. Their shadows were big though, bigger than Castiel, who was quite tall anyway. A knot of people were huddled beside the fire, laughing and smoking something that was not a cigarette, as more people sat around chatting and waving beer bottles. He spotted an empty syringe on the ground, inches away from him.

Castiel realised that he was frozen. The excitement had suddenly drained away when he realised the danger these people were getting themselves into. And the danger he was in, clinging for dear life onto the ladder at the top of a four storey building. On his climb, he was too busy fantasizing about how adventurous and brave he was being to remember his fear of heights. All his remaining energy went into not looking down.