Castiel Novak never asked for much in life. He was once the youngest of many, then Alfie was born and he got to experience the joys of being an older brother. Castiel never lacked in love, his brothers loved him, his parents loved him. He was lonely in school, sure, but he grew used to it. He had once hated school. That was before the Winchesters entered his life. Then he knew what it was like to have real friends outside of his family, until that fateful day that the Winchester's left.
Being friends with Dean, Castiel found himself experience the one thing he had been lacking in his almost perfect life. Friendship. Those days, he remembered, seemed so much more brighter. It was as if everything was perfect at last. Castiel Novak felt... complete. They had been kids, they didn't know things such as love. That didn't matter, however, because Castiel had been certain that Dean was what his parents meant when they said he would one day meet someone he would want to spend the rest of his days with.
When Dean left. Well, Castiel had never felt such sadness as the day following Dean's departure. He missed his friend greatly, but at least they still had their letters. Dean always wrote to him, and he wrote back.
Then, he didn't.
Castiel remembered the day Dean's last letter arrived. He hadn't been replying for weeks, not since Dean had wrote to tell him of his latest move. Castiel, only 10 at the time, had no good reason for not replying. Not that he could tell anyone anyway. You see, Castiel harbored a giant secret that he had recently began to uncover. He had recently come to realize that he like Dean more than one might like their best friend. This quickly lead to him realizing that he was... gay. Knowing how the kids at school would treat him, he kept this secret locked up securely deep inside him, and vowed to never tell a soul.
He also was so tired of always missing Dean, with each letter the space between them seemed to grow larger, he felt like he would never see Dean again and that hurt. So, scared of his own feelings and tired of missing Dean, Castiel made the hard choice to stop responding to Dean. To move on from his childhood friend. Then Dean's final letter had come. It had been short, written on the back of some motel notepad paper:
I know you haven't written in a while. Hell, you probably don't care about me and Sammy anymore, and that's... whatever. But I just, my life has turned to hell Cas, and I have no one else to turn to. So, because I know you will read this and never respond, I just wanted to thank you for being my friend. For showing me a bit of normalcy before we were plunged into chaos. I don't have a new address to give you, we're on the road now. Maybe we'll meet again one day.
- Your bestest friend
Dean.
It had been so... Dean. Castiel had barricaded himself in the attic room he had claimed for himself. Reading it over and over again. He wanted to ask Dean so many things, why would they have no address? What had happened? Were they okay? He felt a strong sense of regret in that moment, the feeling so overwhelming that he had to sit back and focus on each breath. Why had he let his fears stop him from keeping the best friendship he had ever had?
That was the past, however. There was nothing you could do to change the past, and Castiel quickly grew to realize that his days of a carefree child were over. His classmates grew crueler as the years passed by, and the classwork was harder. By 14, he arrived at high school as a freshman with dread in his heart. He couldn't help but wonder what Sam and Dean were doing, Sam would also be a freshman that year.
By the end of the year, he barely thought of the Winchester's anymore. He thought that they were just a part of his past, some people he knew once, years ago.
At the start of his Sophomore year, he saw a familiar face staring back at him that dark night when he left the house to walk and clear his head, Cas couldn't move. Surely not.
"Cas?" That rough, world hardened voice held the faintest echos of the kid it had once belonged to. Castiel would recognize it anywhere, no matter how many years passed.
Never had he thought that this would happen. He had never truly believed that he would see Dean Winchester again. His mind turned blank. What could he say? He struggled to form a coherent sentence in his now turbulent mind. He felt bad, in that moment, for not writing back. Even in the darkness, he could see in Dean's hooded eyes and tense posture that he had been through things that Castiel could never understand.
So, what else could he say but; "I'm sorry." Then, like the wimp that he was, Castiel turned and ran back into his house.
Now he felt like a colossal idiot. Sitting on his bed, with his knees drawn up to his chest, Castiel tried to calm his racing mind but it was useless. What was Dean doing back in Sioux Falls? He had been gone for how many years now? Castiel wondered, once more, what exactly Dean had seen during those years that had robbed his beautiful green eyes of their brilliant spark. He wanted nothing more than to see that light in the other teen's eyes once more. Was it his fault? Had he hurt Dean with the abrupt end to their correspondence?
A door slammed shut downstairs, indicating that Lucifer had returned home from soccer training, and Gabriel from dance practice. Castiel, not feeling up to socializing even with his family, turns to the laptop resting on his nightstand. In two clicks, he has his current work in progress loaded. This was when he felt most like himself, and less like the outcast in his family. When he was writing. So, after the shock of seeing Dean at school today, Castiel let himself breath as he wrote up a storm. His fingers brushing across the keyboard like strokes of an artists brush, each letter bringing a new world to life on his screen.
This was what he loved about writing, the way he got to bring so many amazingly different and unique worlds alive with his words, each one full of its own amazing characters and conflicts. His current book was something he had been working on since the beginning of summer. It was about an orphan boy, all alone in the world with a destiny that he could not yet comprehend, and then he meets the only one who could understand him. Another boy (Castiel decided there weren't enough gay books out there), an asexual boy who was supposed to help save the world, but already felt so broken and like such an outcast that he rejected this destiny.
He was just up to the part where the first boy discovered how his parents had died, because of him. Castiel loved writing the angst following this scene, where the boy felt so broken and more alone than ever, and the other boy, Kane, was the only one there for him. It was so, beautifully gay and sad.
Of course, then his... dearest brother texted him and informed him that he would be going to a party. As if. Then Lucifer threatened to take away everything he loved if he didn't come downstairs. Then Charlie ambushes him.
This is how, half an hour later and after much persuasion from Charlie, Castiel finds himself at some party. He knew the Winchesters were here somewhere, Lucifer kept trying to get Castiel and Dean to talk but Castiel always managed to slip away. He knew he was acting childish but he just... didn't feel ready to talk to Dean.
So, he sipped his safely non-alcoholic lemonade and sat by himself in the backyard of Belphegor's house and stared up at the stars, deep in thought. This, he mused, was not how he wanted his story to go. The story of Castiel Novak. Once he had hoped for a happily ever after, now it looked like he was just a side character, invisible and unworthy, never to have his own story. The ever-present dark cloud continued to hang over him, turning every thought of his dark and poisoned. It constantly whispered cruel things to him, even now it told him how worthless he was. How silly he was.
"Cassie?" Gabriel sat down beside him, his golden eyes glowing. "Why are you out here?"
Castiel shrugs, looking down at his drink. "I don't really feel like a party." He glanced at his older brother out the corner of his eye. "Why aren't you inside?"
"You looked lonely."
Lonely. That's all you deserve to be. Castiel shakes off these thoughts, of course. His brother was just being a good brother. "I don't need to be babysat."
"I know, I was just worried about you."
"Well you don't need to be, I can look after myself."
"I know that." Gabriel sounded frustrated. He was probably sick of always having to deal with him, Castiel thought.
"Shouldn't you be reuniting with Sam?" Castiel hadn't seen the boy inside, but he assumed his old friend was somewhere.
"No, he didn't come." Gabriel sighs.
Castiel doesn't know what to say, so instead he just takes another sip of his drink. He's only out here because there's no one better. The dark cloud whispers. As always, he tries to ignore this depressing thought but it had already taken root.
"You should come inside." Gabriel says.
Castiel shrugs, looking back up at the stars. He wondered what Gabriel's story would be.
"Please? Lucifer is driving us all crazy."
Sighing heavily, Castiel could feel himself caving. "Fine." He couldn't let his older brother terrorize everyone, it was a miracle he even still had friends.
He followed Gabriel back into the house, forcing a smile onto his face as several people waved at him. Lucifer, already drunk as heck, was walking around yelling about ships. Castiel knew what his story was, it was a tragedy that both started and ended with Michael leaving, Castiel wondered if there would ever be a conclusion to that. He hoped for his bother's sake that he made up with Michael. The two had once been close.
Then Gabriel was handing him a drink, and Castiel decided it was time to forget about people and their stories.