No matter what he did, Castiel had the worst luck with, well, everything really. He had to start riding his bike to work every way because his brother somehow managed to wrap his car around a tree without getting a scratch on himself. Then, of course, his bike got hit by a stranger's car because they weren't paying attention and creamed into the bike rack outside of the library.
Really, he was better off just taking the bus everywhere.
It wasn't just transportation, however. His cat, Edison, had a nasty habit of only chewing up the books and periodicals he needed to be researching to get his PhD in ancient languages. His guinea pig loved breaking out of his cage so that he can crawl around on the counters, but only while he was cooking and had his ingredient packages open. The flour now has to be sealed at all times due to Mozart making it his own personal body powder. Amazon packages always arrived smashed, opened, or at the wrong address. He had broken more phones than the average person because he tended to talk with his hands, and his brother had "accidentally" sat on his opened laptop and shattered it, right when he was in the middle of an important piece of research.
Castiel felt like his entire life needed to be surrounded in bubble wrap and packing peanuts so that he didn't have to replace everything multiple times a year.
The day started off as normal as could be for Castiel. He was seated at his kitchen table with a steaming cup of tea, Mozart resting on his shoulder, with a classical mix playing quietly in the background. Instead of writing his dissertation on his computer like he had planned, he instead had a spiral-bound notebook that was littered with sticky notes, bent pages, and multi-colored ink splashes.
Gabriel had still not gotten his computer fixed, so he was stuck writing the old fashioned way in the meantime.
He was thirty pages into his planning and research - Pages were strewn everywhere on the small table, and he had to keep replacing Mozart on his shoulder so they wouldn't end up chewed. Edison was suspiciously nowhere to be found, but Castiel was too distracted to worry about what his insane cat had gotten himself into this time. He was so close to making a breakthrough into why Enochian disappeared from almost all documentation, and nothing could break his focus now.
Until something did.
He had gotten up for a minute so that he could stretch his legs, use the restroom, and possibly find himself something to eat when he started to smell smoke. Curious, he half-jogged back to the kitchen where he left his dissertation research, only to find the table in flames, his cat and guinea pig nowhere in sight.
Panicking, he called the fire department while trying to find something to douse the flames. A year's research, up in smoke!
"Edison, Mozart!" he called into his apartment, using the first thing he could find to beat at the flames. "Eddie! Momo!"
He was truly harried when the fireman burst through the door, a new extinguisher in hand.
"Why the hell are you beating at it with a broom?" the man barked through his helmet.
Castiel finally took an actual look at what he was using to try and subdue the flames, only to find that it was, in fact, a broom, and that it was now on fire as well. Quickly, he dropped the broom and the fireman put out the smoldering flame.
With everything now under control, the fireman put down the extinguisher and removed his helmet, only to reveal to Castiel a perfect smattering of freckles, the greenest eyes he has ever seen, and hair that he could run his fingers through for days.
Castiel visibly gulped.
The fireman was poking through the charred remains on the table to try and find a cause for the blaze, looking confused when nothing turned up. There were no overheated electronics, no candles left to burn out of control, no matches – there was nothing in the vicinity to cause a small blaze.
"This is impossible!" raged the fireman. "How the fuck did you manage to catch your table on fire without actually starting a fire?"
Castiel shrugged, his face burning as hot as his table had been moments ago.
"I don't know how it happened, sir," he started, his deep voice cracking from the disuse of the day. "I had just left the room to take… FUCK!"
"What?" the fireman asked, raising his eyebrows at Castiel's panic.
"Not only did I have a year's worth of unsaved research sitting on that table that needed to be typed up to present to the PhD board, I don't see Edison and Mozart anywhere!"
"Dude, those guys died ages ago."
Castiel shot a scathing look at the fireman before leaving the room in search of his pets.
"Listen, man, I've got the truck waiting for me and I need to fill out my report," the man said, following Castiel around his apartment. "Can you tell me how the fire started or what the fuck we're looking for?"
Spinning around on his heels, Castiel glared at the fireman, meeting his eyes for the first time since he had arrived.
"I'm look for Edison and Mozart," he snapped. Seeing that the fireman was about to say something degrading as he did before, he rushed to continue. "Edison is my tabby cat, and Mozart is my guinea pig."
"You have a guinea pig?"
"Do you have a problem with me having a guinea pig?"
"No, he's just going to be a pain in the ass to find. Not as bad as a ferret, but still annoying enough that I have to radio the truck to let them know to bring my car here so that the truck is ready in case of another call."
Castiel rolled his eyes before returning to his search. He looked in cabinets, under couch cushions, in the bread box, and even in his flour canister. Edison and Mozart were nowhere to be found.
The fireman had come back from radioing the truck, this time in just his fire pants and a tee-shirt.
"Any luck?" the attractive man asked.
"No," Castiel sighed sadly. "I know they have to be somewhere in the apartment, because the doors and windows were shut. I just have no idea where they could have gotten."
In the silence, a slight squeaking could be heard. Of course, it was coming from the scene of the fire – the kitchen.
The fireman smirked as he walked in to find the guinea pig sitting atop the charred remains of a whole year of research.
"Momo!" Castiel said excitedly, picking up the piggie and putting him firmly in place on his shoulder. "Now where's your brother, you silly pig?"
"Mrow….?"
The fireman looked up in the direction of the sound only to see Edison sitting atop the refrigerator, batting around a stub of melted candle.
Castiel, looking shocked, turned to the fireman. "I have no idea how that happened. Really, no idea."
The fireman pulled the cat from the fridge, laughing.
"It seems you lead quite the exciting life, Mr…"
"Novak," Castiel said with a head duck and a small smile. "Castiel Novak."
"Dean Winchester," said the fireman, sticking his hand out to Castiel. "Does this kind of thing happen to you often, Castiel?"
"Unfortunately."
"Well, maybe I can come back later?" Dean blushed, putting Edison down on the floor before rubbing the back of his neck. "Just in case your cat manages to set something on fire again?"
"That would be lovely, Dean."
Two Months Later
"Hey, Cas! Have you seen my matchbook? I want to light a candle to get the smell of cat vomit out of here, and I can't find it anywhere."
"Have you checked the top of the fridge?"
Dean looked up nervously, only to notice a small fire started on the counter.
"God damn it, Edison. Not again."