The Story Teller (Destiel)

5 | High School Drama

"Hey, wanna go to the park?"

Castiel blinked, his fingers gripping so tightly onto the door handle that his knuckles were turning white.

"Uh, hi?" He frowned at Dean, who had unexpectedly turned up to his house at 4pm. His frown deepened when he saw the scab on Dean's bottom lip, and the subtle but definitely there bruise on his eye. He reached halfway out to his face, but stopped himself.

"What happened to you?" he asked. Dean's face straightened and he became completely unreadable. He leaned back a little, as if Castiel's hand was still there. He swallowed and closed his eyes.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said bluntly. Then he opened his eyes again, daring Castiel to say another word about it. He knew he shouldn't, but he wanted to. The thought of someone hurting Dean like that made his stomach turn. Not being able to think of anything but the one thing Dean didn't want to discuss, he remained silent. Helplessly silent.

"Really, Cas. You should see the other guy," Dean chuckled, although it didn't sound too convincing. Castiel forced a smile and nodded, which made Dean relax his shoulders a little. He should try to forget about it.

It was exactly a week since Castiel had worked up the courage to invite Dean to the mall with him. He'd been staring at the phone in his trembling hands for a full five minutes before finally thinking Fuck It, and phoning him up. Everything had ended up going ten times better than he could've imagined, but after Dean dropped him back home they hadn't spoke a words outside of school. Even then, their conversations felt slow and awkward, and he couldn't understand why. Castiel felt like the two of them wanted to talk, they just didn't know how.

"Uh. I'm here because I was just thinking maybe we could go out and grab a burger or something," Dean said casually, leaning against the door frame. Castiel envied his confidence. And this is certainly not what he expected late into a Sunday afternoon. This was usually about the time he plugged in his PlayStation and played that for four, maybe five hours. Dean had disrupted his entire routine, but he realised that he was okay with that.

"Cas?" Dean had stepped away from the door and snapped his fingers in Castiel's face, a mask of confusion on his own.

"Yeah! Yeah, uh. Yeah, let me just get some money. Come in, I guess," Castiel stood back and gestured into the oversized marble hallway with his right hand, using his left hand to rub his nose.

"What a warm, welcoming invitation," Dean drawled, sarcasm dripping from the words.

"Haha," Castiel said nervously. That was the worst fake laugh he'd ever attempted in his life, and he couldn't even ignore it because Dean was staring at him, although his lips were still smiling. The whole thing felt very weird to Castiel.

"Sorry, um. My room is upstairs, I'll be right back?" he began to turn away, but his guest was still standing outside in the heat. "Please, come in. It's cool," he added.

Dean scanned the floor for a moment. It dawned on Castiel that it was actually probably quite weird for Dean to see the inside of his house - he was sure that Dean was comparing it to his own one two streets away. The was a creamy marble tile with an elaborate pattern in a darker shade right in the centre of the floor. There weren't any doorways, just glossy wooden archways leading into even more large, pristine rooms that looked as if they belonged in some fancy shmancy catalog, not a home that people actually lived in.

He scrubbed his feet against the door mat before venturing in, careful of getting a smudge of dirt or something on the immaculate floor.

"Uh, you can sit in the living room. I'll be right back," Castiel said. It felt kind of weird leaving his crush alone in his living room, but hey, what else could he do? There was no freaking way Dean was going with Castiel to his bedroom. Gabriel was up there. Probably laying sprawled out on his unmade bed listening to weird indie music as he chatted to people on Facebook. He had a habit of leaving candy wrappers or soda cans laying about. Something that always embarrassed Castiel, but he always thought hey, at least no one comes up here.