CHAPTER ONE: HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS
The water looked so calm; so calm and dark. It looked so peaceful; almost enough so that it looked like it was taunting me and whispering words of encouragement in my ear as I dangled my legs over the edge.
"Come on, Cas… You know you want to come and play against the rocks with us!..." and I did. I wanted to play. I wanted to go and join them against the rocks… But not just yet.
No one knew I was up here. Nor do I think they cared. No one cared about me. I was a reject, a loner, an outcast… a freak. I didn't fit the normal so they cast me out. And where I live, Normal is all that matters. All anybody knows is: Normal.
"Cas! We're waiting! Come play with us! You know you're ready!" The ocean taunted me. I let a few tears slide down my face.
"I will…" I whispered in a rough gravelly voice that sounded alien to me, "just give me a bit more time." The water hissed at me in irritation. Another set of tears fell; I wrapped my arms around myself to protect from the cold ocean mist. I let my eyes drift closed.
"Cas, right?" a boy asked me. I turned around and my gaze landed on the greenest eyes I had ever seen. I was so distracted I was at a loss for words and I didn't know what to do. "Hello? Anybody in there?" the boy snapped his fingers. I looked down at the ground and away from his hypnotic gaze.
"No, my name's Castiel," I replied. I saw him smile as I looked up at him through my lashes.
"I'm Dean," he stuck his hand out, "can I call you Cas?" I didn't know how to react. No one had ever talked to me before; other than threats. His hand faltered and he lowered it and then leaned down to look at me. "Cas, you okay?" he asked. He actually sounded worried; but I knew that it was all just an elaborate scheme to embarrass me.
"Why are you talking to me?" I asked; squeezing my eyes shut.
"What?" he asked sounding genuinely confused, I opened my eyes. He reached his hand out to put it on my shoulder. I flinched away and hit the back of my knee on something; he immediately took a step back.
"Why are you talking to me? Did Zachariah send you to beat me up?" I asked again. I felt him step back.
"What?! No! Why would I? I was just — I mean — I'm new here and I was just looking for someone to help me around and you looked nice… So…" he trailed off. I looked up into his eyes – seeing as he was at least a good two inches taller than me – and saw he wasn't lying. He offered me a warm smile. "Will you show me around?" he asked. I felt something in my chest swell. I had never felt this before.
"Sure," I said shyly and began helping him around his new school, and for the rest of the day, I finally felt like I fit in.
I hugged myself tighter as another sob wracked my body.
"Cas! We're lonely! Why won't you come play with us?!" the ocean called to me again. Two more tears fell and I put my hand over my mouth to stifle a sob.
"I'm sorry, I'm coming," I called with a shaky voice, "I just need a little more time." They hissed angrily and smashed themselves against the rocks violently showering me in freezing cold ocean mist.
Plink! I heard something against my window while doing an essay for my English college professor's class at the university Dean and I were going to. Plink! I heard again. I paused my homework and walked over to the window. I opened my window and something small and hard hit my forehead.
"Ow!" I yelped and looked down to see Dean standing there picking something out of a small dark pile put of his palm. His head snapped up when he heard me.
"Oh! I'm sorry, Cas!" he called up to me. I smiled at him.
"What are you doing here? In the middle of the night, when it's snowing, too," I asked. He wiped his hands off on his jeans.
"I…" he stopped and even from here I could see him blush, "I missed you." he blushed even harder, making me smile at his awkwardness.
"Well what are you doing throwing pebbles at my window?" I asked. He shrugged his shoulders.
"I figured I'd try and be cliché about this," he joked. I smiled and rolled my eyes at Dean. He pointed to my front door. "Can I come in?" he asked.
"Dean, you know where we hide the spare key," I said. He froze and diverted his eyes to the snow covered ground.
"Oh yeah," he stuck a hand in his back pocket and pointed to me with the other, "I'll meet you up there." He said and dashed off. I chuckled and closed my window, running through my house and meeting him at the bottom of the stairs. He closed the door and turned to me. His hair was plastered against his head from the melted snow and there were rapidly melting snowflakes on his face. He shook his head and got some water droplets on me and everywhere else. When he stopped his hair was sticking straight out from his head. I laughed at him.
"Dean, get up to the bathroom, I'm going to fix your hair," I said. He looked at me skeptically. "Dean, my mom is a hair dresser, I've picked up a few things." I told him. He nodded his head and then ran up the stairs two at a time while I walked into the kitchen to get a chair. I hurried up to the bathroom and saw him standing in front of the mirror trying to fix his hair.
"Hey, how about this look for me?" he joked. He had smoothed down all the hair on the whole left side and left the right side sticking up, "I think it makes me look original."
"No, it makes you look crazy." I said; I set the chair down and positioned it for him.
"Gee Cas, tell me what you really think of it?" he said jokingly while sitting down in the chair. I laughed and grabbed a towel and plopped it on his head, covering most of his face save for one corner of his mouth. I began massaging the towel into his head to dry his hair. It didn't take me long to get most of the water seeing as his hair was pretty short. I grabbed my mom's dryer and some bottled of lotions and creams for your hair.
"What are all the bottles of –"
"Ah, ah, ah," I shushed him. "Let's play a game of: 'Pseudo-hairdresser picks the products and the hairdress-ee shuts his cake hole,'?" I said. He laughed at me; he had said something akin to that earlier today. Dean shut up after that and let me do my thing. It didn't take long for me to finish; partly because his hair was easy to dress and partly because I'm not a professional so I didn't use anything to professional-ee.
"We done?" Dean asked. I nodded and told him to go to my room. He got up and walked into my room while I went and put the chair away. When I got up to my room Dean was on my bed, legs outstretched and his upper body propped up against the wall.
"Comfy?" I asked, he nodded not taking his eyes off the screen, I smile and sat down next to him. He groaned not long after I sat down and punched in some random numbers.
"Whatever comes up now, is what were watching," he stated and threw the remote down. We looked up at the TV.
"And now we'll return you to your schedule program," and announcer said.
"Ha!" Dean laughed, I smiled and grabbed the remote to see what we're going to be watching. I read the summary and bit my lip. "What's it about?" Dean asked.
"It's about two guys who are best friends and they realize that they're in love because one of them gets a brain tumor. So they realize that and the one boy who had a brain tumor gets the surgery to remove it even though it's still very experimental, and it works so they love happily ever after," I recapped, "want to still watch it?"
"Eh, but I did say that whatever channel we land on we're going to watch, so let's watching it," Dean said. I nodded and threw the remote down between us. Dean got up a little while into the movie and brought back popcorn. We continued to watch the movie and I have to say, it wasn't half bad. I mean, I would totally love it if I hadn't kept imagining it as Dean and I. Yes; I do have a gigantic crush on my best friend, but he was my only friend in my defense. When the movie was over Dean turned to me suddenly.
"What?" I asked confused.
"Can I ask you a personal question?" He asked me. I nodded my head slowly.
"Yeah,"
"How come I never see you talking to any girls? And whenever they come up to you you just kinda brush them off even though they're clearly interested in you," he said making me pale a bit. I swallowed thickly.
"Well, I'm pretty much head over heels for someone so no one else looks appealing to me because they're not him," I said and then paled.
"Him?" Dean asked. I looked down squeezing my eyes shut and nodded, "can I ask who?" I shook my head.
"I can't, it would probably ruin our friendship. And lyre my only friend and I can't lose you," I said. I saw Dean nod out of the corner of my eye.
"I can respect that. But what if I guess who it is?" He asked, I shook my head again.
"Fair enough." He said. I rubbed the back of my neck and looked up at him.
"What about you? Girls swoon over you and seem to not even care?" I formed it as a question. Dean pursed his lips and nodded his head like he was thinking.
"It's because I'm — as you phrased it — 'head over heels' in love with someone, too. And I can't seem to get over him, which is—"
"Him?" I asked surprised, he smiled and nodded his head and then continued.
"Really a problem, because he's my best friend," my hear dropped. Dean may be my best friend, but he has a lot of other friends too.
"Oh, that must be tough," I said, he nodded his head and smiled.
"I can remember the first day we met..." He trailed off and turned his head to the ceiling and smiled. He moved his eyes down to look at me and smirked. I looked down and blushed, "He was wearing a navy blue suit with a tie to match," I snapped my head up to look in his eyes, he was smiling widely and happily at me, "and over that he was wearing a trench coat. I thought that it was cool that he wasn't afraid to go against the norm." I opened my mouth to say something.
"Dean—?"
"He thought I was there to beat him up or something, but in actuality I just wanted to get to know him. So I asked someone for his name and then went to introduce myself and things went from there. The guy I like," he paused to look at me, "is you." He finished.i was at a loss for words.
"I uh... Wha... Uh..." I stuttered. Dean smiled and leaned in a little.
"I'm going to kiss you," he said and my breath caught, "stop me if you don't want too." He told me and leaned in more. He stopped halfway. I whined and met him halfway eagerly. He smiled and was about to pull away so I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled our lips together more firmly.
"No." I whispered against his lips; I felt him smile. We kissed for what seemed like forever, but we both realized we were human and needed air. We pulled apart and had a thin line of saliva still connecting our lips. Dean smiled and pulled our foreheads together. I closed my eyes and enjoyed his warmth.
"I've wanted to do that since the first time I saw you," he started, "when I saw you that day at school, something kicked me in the chest and I knew that I had to protect you; whatever the cost, I knew that the only thing that mattered was you and your safety and your happiness. It felt like nothing else mattered and that if you were happy I was happy." He paused to catch his breath.
"So that day five years ago, I knew that I had to do anything possible to talk to you, to gain your trust, to become friends; I just knew that I had to be near you. I had to do anything possible to get to know you.
"And I may just be going on and on now, but I don't care; because Cas..." He paused again and looked into my eyes, "I love you." He finished with a smile. I didn't know what to say for a second.
"Dean... That was the cheesiest thing I've ever heard you say," I said smiling and making him laugh, "And Dean," I made him look in my eyes, "I love you, too." I finished and Dean smiled so happily that I could feel his happiness flowing from him and into me and everything else. He kissed me and then he laid down on my pillows. I slid up next to him, putting my head on his chest and listening to his heart beat. I fell asleep on his chest, right over us heart, not long later.
"I love you, Dean." I said sleepily.
"I love you, too, Cas." Dean said and held me tighter to him. I smiled and sleep came not long after.
Another sob wracked my body and I had to grab onto the grass next to me to steady myself.
"Cas! We can't wait much longer!" The ocean cried to me.
"I know, I'm sorry. Just give me a little more time and I'll be done and I'll come play with you." I said. The waves calmed down because they knew I was almost done with my time here. More tears fell as I closed my eyes again and pulled my knees up to my chest.
"You're a freak!" They yelled at me, backing me into a dead end alley way.
"Dean!" I called. The four of them laughed at the weakness in my voice. I knew these kids; they had hated me ever since I walked on campus.
"Dean won't be coming to help you," Michael said and tried to advance on me. I looked behind him with wide eyes and saw Dean looking around for me.
"Dean!" I cried. His head snapped to where my voice came from and in the next moment he was there pulling Crowley and Raphael away from me. Crowley swung blindly and hit Dean on the cheek. I lunged to try and hell him but Michael and Crowley pushed me back into the wall roughly. My head whiplashed back into the wall. I yelped and I saw it distracted Dean allowing Crowley to pin his harm behind him and Let Raphael punch him the the gut. Lucifer — who was Michael's younger brother — went to help in beating Dean up. Michael leaned into my ear and whispered to me.
"This is what you get. This is what you get for being an abomination," he spat he words at me. I struggled against his hold but I knew it wasn't any use. I really wasn't that strong. Michael pulled back and smiled wickedly at me. He raised his hand to hit me but we were both distracted by Dean yelling and ripping away from Crowley, Raphael, and Lucifer. He threw them on the ground unconscious and turned to Michael.
"Dean," I gasped. His face was covered in blood. Michael loosened his grip on me for a split second.
"Argh!" Michael yelled in anger. He grabbed my shirt and threw me against the wall opposite Dean and pulled something out of his jacket; that was all I saw before getting a face full of brick wall. I turned around to see Dean and Michael fighting; Dean was about to push Michael down and knock him out. Michael punched Dean and then next thing I knew:
BANG
An ear popping sound ripped through the air. I looked over at Dean; he was standing there not moving with a pale face. I looked over to Michael to see him holding a smoking gun; Michael also had a white face. Everything went in slow motion from there. I saw Dean fall to his knees and I ran over to him just to catch him in time before his head collided with the pavement.
"Dean?!" I said as tears began sliding out of my eyes.
"I didn't mean— I just wanted— I—" Michael stood there stuttering. I looked up at him crying.
"What did you do?!" I yelled at him. He dropped the gun and backed away.
"Michael! Come on! Let's go!" One of his posse said. He looked at me for a second and then ran. I looked back down at Dean. I moved to cradle his head in my lap. He stared up at me with hazy eyes; I cried harder.
"It's okay, Dean. I'll just call for help and you'll be okay. You'll be okay and we'll be fine," I rambled. Dean lifted his hand to my cheek and I pressed my hand to his more firmly into my cheek.
"Cas," he said and the coughed up some blood.
"Oh god Dean!" I cried even harder. He looked back into my eyes.
"Cas, please listen to me?" He asked. I shook my head.
"No, Dean save your breath. Someone will be here, someone will come and help and you'll be okay," I said and began reaching for my phone; he stopped me. I frowned and looked down at his stomach. I pulled his favorite leather jacket aside and saw where Michale had shot him. I quickly covered it Up and looked him in the eyes urgently. He shook his head.
"Cas, listen to me," he said more firmly. I pulled him into my lap. He smiled in thanks.
"Okay Dean, I'm listening—!" I broke off into a sob. He pushed his hand against my face to tell me to look at him. I did, still letting the tears slide down my face as they wished. He smiled a bloody smile at me.
"Cas, I love you," he said and a tear fell from his eye, "and I'm scared. But having you here makes it easy for me to be calm."
"Oh god no Dean," I sobbed, he looked into my eyes.
"Cas you're the one. You're the one I want to spend the rest of my life with, however short or long that may be," more tears fell from his eyes as well as mine, "I need you to know that I would do anything for you—there isn't anything in this world or universe that I wouldn't do for you. You're the love of my life; and nothing can or ever will change that. I also need you to know that if all this didn't happen and you broke up with me tomorrow, as long as I could still be in your life I would be fine. If you found someone else that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with I would be happy; as long as you were.
"Cas, from the moment I saw you, I knew you were it. You were the only person in this world to make me feel happy, to make me feel whole... To make me feel love." He tried to laugh but it came out as more blood, I sat him up some more to help, "and I realize that sounds cheesy but right now isn't the time for that.
"Cas, I need you to know that I love you more than anything; and when I'm with you I feel at peace, and like I'm finally happy." He said.
"Oh god Dean—!" I sobbed again, he nudged my cheek again. I leaned downy I kiss him for a second. I pulled back and looked into his eyes.
"I love you, Cas," He said and let a few more tears spill; I choked on a sob.
"I love you too, Dean! I love you so much! Please let me call someone?! Just hold on a little longer and you'll be okay," I sobbed. He shook his head and smiled; he looked I to my eyes and I looked I to his. I could see every emotion he was feeling right now fly through his eyes: fear, peace, happiness, uncertainty, and above all Love.
"I love you, Cas." He said.
"I love you too, Dean," I replied.
"You're my angel, Cas," he murmured.
"You're mine too, Dean!" I cried.
"I love you... Cas..." He said and closed his eyes. I felt his body slump and his hand go limp between my cheek and palm. I sat there: tears spilling out if my eyes uncontrollably just looking at him.
"Dean?" I whispered, no answer. "Dean?" I said a little louder, still no answer. "Dean?!" I yelled slightly, and got no answer still. I knew the truth: he would never answer again. I felt more tears spill out of my eyes and onto my face. "Dean!" I sobbed brokenly and pulled his bloodied and dead body against mine. I buried my face into his chest while his head hung down and sobbed so hard I shook his ever limb as well as mine. I don't know how long I sat there sobbing, but when someone finally started walking down that alley, I was broken beyond fixing.
"Hello? Boy? You okay?" A man asked. I pulled my head from Dean's chest and looked at his face. It looked so peaceful and happy.
"I love you Dean," I said. I looked at his serene face a little long and then leaned down and kissed him one last time; I savored the feel of his lips against mine. It was the last time I was ever going to feel them together, and in all truthfulness, that scared me more than Death.
I stood up and went to the edge of the very edge of the cliff.
"I'm done," I called to the ocean as tears flowed freely down my face, "just let me tie up
a few ends."
"Cas!" The ocean cried to me happily, "hurry up! We want to play!"
"I do too, you know I do," I whispered and sat back down.
Michael was never convicted. Even when they found his fingerprints — and his alone — on the gun that killed Dean. But that night — exactly one year ago today — Michael killed two people. I wasn't the one who took the bullet, but I may have been; because without Dean, I'm nothing. My family doesn't care about me, the only one who did was Dean. Dean was my lifeline and now he's gone. Dean and I were more than just soul mates, we were best fiends; we were just... One. If Dean had a bad day, I would make him feel better by listening to him or if he didn't want to talk about it I would make him his favorite dinner or just kiss him until he felt better. If I had a bad day Dean would do the same for me. We knew each other's strength and weaknesses and never used it against the other. Sure, we would have our fights, but we would always make up; and they never lasted long.
Michael may never be tried for what he did. And right now, I couldn't bring myself to care. But if that letter I stuck in Dean's cousin Jo's mailbox before I came — that confesses everything and provides enough evidence to put Michael away — doesn't help, I couldn't care less.
It took me a whole year to do this. Not because I didn't want to, I didn't have the physical strength. Everything I did hurt; every little movement reminding me of Dean and it broke my heart over and over again. It took me a year to be able to get here, and I realized: I am so close to happiness... One step and I'll be happy. Truly and utterly happy.
"Cas you're the one. You're the one I want to spend the rest of my life with, however short or long that may be. I need you to know that I would do anything for you—there isn't anything in this world or universe that I wouldn't do for you. You're the love of my life; and nothing can or ever will change that. I also need you to know that if all this didn't happen and you broke up with me tomorrow, as long as I could still be in your life I would be fine. If you found someone else that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with I would be happy; as long as you were. Cas, from the moment I saw you, I knew you were it. You were the only person in this world to make me feel happy, to make me feel whole... To make me feel Love. And I realize that sounds cheesy but right now isn't the time for that. Cas, I need you to know that I love you more than anything; and when I'm with you I feel at peace, and like I'm finally happy." I shook myself crying as I remembered the speech he have me, "You're my angel, Cas," I covered my mouth before I was able to scream,"I love you... Cas..." Were his final words.
I opened my eyes and focused on the ocean for a moment. So calm... so happy...
"I'm done," I said and walked to the ver edge again. "I'm done." I said and turned around as the ocean slammed particularly violently against the rocks and spraying me in the icy cold water. I looked back at the place I grew up in. It was littered with little blotches of light here and there. Home is where the heart is, I remembered the quote; and my heart was with Dean.
"I'm going home..." I whispered. I let myself lean back and I was falling. I could feel the wind rushing past me; I closed my eyes and just let myself fall.
