Chapter Ten
*AN: sorry for updating so late guys! It's been stressful for me lately-school work is insane. I haven't had much time to write this week but.. hopefully I can keep up this updating on a Sunday thing. What do you guys think of it so far? Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and days off if you're American and if not, I hope you have a wonderful week too :) *
The week went fine for Castiel. Despite the rough handling by his uncle on the day before and the glares he got from his father, he was happy for the week, now hovering on an almost completed Thursday, to be almost over and his brother to have left him alone, being too busy at work to torment the kid. However, today had started off rough with his late arrival at school, rushing to class to find Deans seat empty. He hadn’t seen the boy throughout the day and, when he walked in to his shop class and found his table empty, was staring to worry.
Sliding in to his chair, Castiel opened his notebook and started tapping his pen, looking around the class room in such a fasion that it was easy to tell he was nervous, edgy. Today, as they had been doing all week, shop class was presenting projects. However, Dean and Castiel were signed up to present today, thinking they’d both be here seeing as the plan was for Dean to not be gone until tomorrow. However, Castiel sat there, alone, and in the midst of a near panic attack as he realized he would be presenting alone. For some, this was no big deal, just meant they would have to say a little bit more. But Castiel was not one of those people.
His first presentation had gone.. rough to say the least. Staring out with stumbling words falling from his mouth and ending up falling flat on his face, smashing the project to pieces on the way back to his desk; it was pretty obvious as to why he wasn’t fond of presentations, especially with the entirety of it laying on his shoulders now.
“Mr. Novak and Mr. Winchester. You’re up.” The teacher says shortly after class began. He looked up to find the table he had called only housing one of the pair of boys. He frowned, looking both confused and upset at the sight of Deans absence, a feeling Castiel understood. “Or just Mr.Novak, I suppose. Come on, hurry. We’ve got to get going.” He pushed, looking expectantly at his student, who was now closing his mouth he had opened to only protest.
“Yes sir…” Castiel mumbles, taking the robot he and Dean had built from the back where the classes were all gathered and bringing it to the front. He already felt panic close his windpipe, prodding his side and reopening wounds of insecurity and fear. Sweat pooled and the only thing Castiel could find to be greatful for in that moment was the trashcan being close.
The low, deep rumble of his (dads) car was the only thing keeping Dean calm. His knuckles were white as they gripped the leather steering wheel, white enough to act as another mirror, reflecting his worried green eyes back at him. This worry started the second he was woken by his father early that morning. Shooken by forceful hands he was commanded to get up, get dressed, and get packed in the car. They were leaving for the hunt a day early and Dean would have to drive; John needed sleep. This left Dean driving down the road far faster than any sign told him to go with Sam passed out in the back and John in the passangers seat. He wasn’t afraid of the hunt, in fact he was excited for it. He was afraid, angry, because he was skipping out on Cas for the presentation; the one thing Castiel didn’t want to do was the one thing Dean was now making him do alone.
He had attempted to call the boy all morning, praying for him to pick up his phone in a sleepy, out of it state since it was too early for anyone to be awake. However, the cell dropped to voice mail immeadly each and every time Dean called, causing the teenager to assume his shop partners phone was shut off. Dean tried reasoning with John too, saying he could stay till after school then take himself and Sam up safely. John wouldn’t hear of it though, demanding the boy get his ass moving as it was already getting late. This left Dean with no ideas, no clue what to do to help Cas. Right about now, he knew, Castiel would be presenting, and Dean only wanted to call the boy in class and help him through the words he would stumble on; sadly, the hunter had been out of cell covrage for miles, no hope of catching anything but annoying beeps on his shitty flip phone at this point. This left Dean to only sit and worry in his beloved leather interior, seeing as neither of his family members could be bothered to wake the fuck up long enough for him to play music or distract him with mindless chatter. The sonsofbitches
“Dean?” The cracky voice wasn’t the one he wanted to hear right now, but hell, he was happy to hear anything mix with the roar of the Impala at this point.
“Hey Sammy. Sleep well?” He asked, glancing back at his brother though the rear view mirror. He couldn’t help the small smile that graced his face when he saw his drowsy sibling.
“Where are we?” Sam asks, pushing his hair back and trying to fix what was undoubtly a bed headed mess.
“On the road.” Dean answers flatly, slowing down only to make a turn and then speeding the car back up to the illegal spead with ownership grade control. “Diffently not in Kansas.” This remark, which Dean was rather proud of, got him a class A bitch face from the younger Winchester.
“Please tell me you know where we are?” Sam says, sounding both annoyed and worried at his older sibling who, glancing up in the review mirror edgeingly gave the simple response of “I know where we’re going.”
“God Dean! We could-“
“Oh relax, Sam. We’re fine. You think Dad would let it go if I got us lost?”
“Whatever, just keep your eyes on the road,” Sam grumbled, laying back into the seat and crossing his arms. Just as he was closing his eyes, a wad of paper hit the side of his head, causing him to jump and bang his arm on the car door. He herd snickers from the front of the car and threw Dean a glare. “What?” He hissed.
“Do you have service?”
“No! Why would I have service!?”
“Thought I’d check.” Dean shrugs, but Sam catches on. .
“You wanna call Castiel don’t you?” He had a tone to his voice that caused Deans fingertips to itch in the urge to smack him.
“Shove it.” He growls, glaring at Sam though the review mirror. The boy chuckles but lays back, his eyes closing as he was about to fall asleep
When another wad of paper hit him in the side of the head.
Castiel made it out of the classroom in one piece but ready to fall apart. It had quickly become obvious to the teenager that his anxiety over public presitations was still in full force seeing as he now felt ready to paint the floor with his lunch. The walls seemed to be spinning and it felt to Cas that someone was gripping him by his throat, cutting off his breathing to where he had to take quick breaths; that might have something to do with the spinning walls.
After a stop to the bathroom and giving the toilet said new paint job instead of the floors, he felt slightly better, if he excluded the nasty taste lingering past his lips. He spat a few times in attempts to rid himself of it, but this stuck around. Finally, deciding he would be late to practice if he didn’t move, Castiel left, slipping a piece of gum into his mouth as he left; mixing with the foul taste of his puke, the mint was anything but pleasant, but he ignored his uncomfort, knowing it would mask the smell of sickness on his breath.
As it turned out, that was a smell he had no need to worry about, seeing as his teammates and himself didn’t have a chance to speak before running out to the field. Hour after hour of hard, breakless practice, they returned to the locker room all smelling about ten times worse than Castiels breath ever could. And the team was ready to riduclule him about something far different than his breath.
“Cas! Dude! There’s a rumor going around you broke up with Anna, what gives!” Max asks, cocking an eyebrow at his teammate. “You guys just did something Monday night and you looked fucking happy Tuesday.” Cas thought back to when the guys had spotted his Dean-created hicky and assumed he had finally “got with” Anna; Cas hadn’t bothered to correct them.
“I wasn’t with Anna Monday night and we did break up, things weren’t working out.” He shrugs, knowing that same line had gotten some of his other teammates off the hook of answering questions. Appernetly, though, Castiel was different, as Max continued to push.
“Fuck, wait! Who were you with Monday if it wasn’t her?” Max moved closer, as did a small crowd of his teammates, pushing him in and starting to give Castiel that sence of suffocation again.
“Why does it matter?” He mumbled, packing his back as he realized he must leave before another panic attack insued.
“Dude, it matters. Just tell us.” Someone else spoke up, sounding annoyed; Castiel knew, without glancing up, that it came from a boy who had been in love with Anna since fifth grade, when girls stopped having cooties.
“It doesn’t effect you, therefore you don’t need to know.” Castiel muttered, throwing his stuff together faster as he ached to rush out of the room where tension was thicker than the steam from the showers. “So drop it.” He threw the poorly packed bag over his shoulder and started to leave, trying to push past the wall of his teammates but found it to be rather useless.
“It’s that Winchester asshole isn’t it?” Max snaps, his arms crossed in front of him as he sizes up Castiel who had now stepped back, knowing he wouldn’t be leaving that way. He stayed silent, trying to find another way out when the sound of shoes echoed around the almost silent room. The coach showed up, hands on his hips and his eyes narrowed in a glare at the oddly formed circle of his team.
“What’s going on here?” He demands gruffly and Max, without breaking eyecontact with Castiel, responds.
“Just having a little chat, Coach.”
“Yeah? Well how bout you do that outside. Get MOVING ladies.” He says, rolling his eyes and grumbling to himself as he heads back to his office. “I mean it!” This gets the boys to go back to their own packs but Max isn’t quite done. Castiel, however, doesn’t care as he makes a break for it. He already knows it, but his duchbag teammate decides to remind him “We’re not done here, Novak.”
Castiel had never worried more for a day of school in his life. Normally school was his escape from his long list of angst at home, but that Friday wasn’t normal.. However, everything went as well as it could have what with Dean still absent and his as mentioned angst.
Dean, however, didn’t seem to be having quite as much luck. The Winchesters ended up sumbling back to the motel covered in dirt, grime, and blood but with just as much, if not more, to do the next few days. Poor Sam couldn’t even make the effort to undress or shower before he passed out on the bed, leaving Dean to decloth the sleeping boy himself, leaving on his underwear before he wrapped him in blankets. Old habits stuck well, it seemed and taking care of his younger brother was one of the oldest and most instinctual. While Dean was doing that, he herd his father start up the shower. With a heavy sigh, Dean goes to the fridge, searching for something to eat. Finding it full of beers, the underage teen takes one and sets it on the counter before getting out sandwich stuff.
Ten minutes later he’s made three sandwiches-his, Sams, and Johns, along with two beers, his own and his fathers. He dropped the meal off at the tiny deck that his dad worked at and took a few minutes, sitting in the dimmed light of the room and ate. The days events had left his muscles sore and dirt and grime cover his body, the most obvious now being the coloring under his fingernails that held his sandwich. He finished his food quickly, no objection on his fathers part on his drinking, before heading to the unoccupied shower. Five minutes after that, he’s laying in the same bed as his brother, eyes closing without his permission.
The Winchester boys were gone for an entire week, returning late that Thursday night. Sam did something similar to what he had done for most of the week, go inside, drop his bags and pass out. John also stuck to the pattern of the week by going to work on their case and figure out the next trip. All Dean knew was that it meant they’d be sticking around here for a while, which was fine by him.
This lead to the reason Castiel woke up at three in the morning to a tick of pebbles being thrown at his second story window. Groaning, he rolled out of bed and turned on the light, stumbling over to the source of the noise and glaring out at the darkness, trying to make out shapes. “Hey asshole, knock it off.” He hissed, not wanting to be too loud and still unsure of whos figure that was in his yard.
“Oh, assholes a new one for you Babe.” He herd the rough, quiet tone of Dean Winchester and was hit by a flurry of emotion and no one in arms reach to take it out on. He froze, stunned in silence and herd the same tone chuckle before saying “Come down here.”
Something possessed him to throw on a shirt and a pair of shoes and sneak out of his house, despite his worry of waking his family, to see Dean Winchester. Something found it’s way through the layers and layers of white hot, blind hatred towards the boy for leaving him for a week. It was something entirely different, probably something closer to that hatred, that threw the first clenched at his side into Deans face, making the boy stumble back and almost fall.
“Jesus Cas.” Dean says, his voice stunned but quiet, still well aware of how close they were to the house. Castiel, however, didn’t want to be aware. “Warn a guy before you dislocate his jaw?”
“Warn a guy! Why don’t you warn a guy before you leave him alone for a week!” Castiel snapped, giving Deans chest a hard shove causing him to stumble back further, and further more with his next shove. “You left me on the presentation day. No text. No calls.” The Novak boys voice was a low, deep growl that borderlined lethal. His next two shoves sent Dean stumbling in to the fence, the wooden structure being the only thing preventing him from falling flat on his ass, something he was shocked hadn’t already happened. “Fuck you Dean Winchester! Do you know how worried I was! You… you assbutt!” Castiel threw another punch, hitting the gut of the cornered boy which made him almost keel over. It hurt the Winchester more than it should have, seeing as there were bruises littered there from the weekend debackle. Castiel threw two more successful punches, hard but blockable ones, until Dean finally retaliated.
Deans hands clutched into fists now too, but instead of closing around themselves at his sides, they found their use by clenching the other teens t-shirt. A jerk pulled Castiel to him and their lips met as well as their bodies, both pressing against each other; their lips molding together in a deep, angry, angesty kiss. Dean could actually feel a low rumble of a growl vibrating the Novak boys chest, demanding the length of the kiss to draw past what the returning hunter had expect, but Cas found no argument from him as he got what was demanded.
“I’m sorry,” Dean says, his voice a whisper as he littered kissed on his boyfriends face. His voice held emotion and honest regret, the regeneration of a mistake. “Something came up and my dad had to bring us up a day early. I called a few times before we left but it was too early and I just got a dead tone. Then I didn’t have any service so I didn’t get anything until I got back into town.” Dean explains gruffly as he fished his phone from his pocket, flipping it open for the other teenager to see. There in the digital text was in fact proof that the only use of his phone had been a week earlier to attempt calls to Castiel, none of which had gone through due to the boys service being restricted, and then a massive flood of received calls and texts, all of which the Winchester had opened, about an hour earlier.
“Where have you been?” Castiel whispers, his voice calming down but still held an upset, hostile tone. Dean knew, however, that the tone suggested a deep concern, one that is proof of caring, toward him; he had herd it enough with Sam and sometimes John and he had dealt it out more times than he could count towards the two of them and even towards Castiel when he was a fool in shop class, getting his fingers too close to a saw.
“A family friends got sick… it happens a lot and we’ll have to go up for a few days or even a week to help out.. “ Dean lied flawlessly, meeting Castiels blue eyes with his own. He didn’t have to act regretful or sorry because he honestly was and had been since the second he left. “I’m sorry Cas.”
“It’s fine.” The Novak boy finally caved with a sigh as he handed Deans phone back. “I was just…” His words drifted off, leaving Dean to only guess what he was going to finish the sentence with. Despite the fact he wasn’t certain Castiel felt the same was as Dean did, the teenager nodded and responded with a soft “I know.”