One

Dean extricates himself from the blankets he's wrapped up in on his couch and pauses The Dark Knight when he here's a frantic knock on his front door. Dad and Sammy are out doing some grocery shopping—on a Friday night, what the hell—so there's no one to finally break down and get it themselves while he passive-aggressively sits on the couch and refuses to answer. So Dean makes his way to the front door cursing whoever is on the other side, unless he happened to forget ordering a pizza and now there's a magical pizza delivery person on the other side.

But when Dean opens the door, there is definitely no nice stranger holding a hot pizza. Instead, there's his best friend Castiel Novak, with furiously red eyes that look like they've shed a couple hundred tears and disheveled hair. But Castiel isn't crying anymore. No, now he's just pissed. There's a rage in his eyes that Dean has only seen a very few times—when he caught Dean dog-earing one of his books, when his Dad finally did what he'd been working up to for 10 years and left, and that one time in sixth grade when their classmate Jo killed a bee that was buzzing around he head.

But even now there's something different about the pure fury etched across Castiel's face. He doesn't just look irritated, or annoyed, or even pissed off. The eighteen year old looks like he actually might run out into the night and smite the first person he comes across. And that is something that Dean has definitely never seen.

"Dean, let me in," Cas grits out through his teeth as he shoves past Dean in the front door and toward the living room.

"Yeah—oh, okay, doing it yourself, that's cool. Dude, Cas, what's going on?" Dean stutters out as he hastily follows Cas into the house.

Cas turns his furious glare on Dean and Dean nearly—nearly, he definitely did not actually—squeaks in fright. Nearly. Though he did definitely flinch a little. Dean's reaction seems to soften Cas a bit, because he then sighs, runs a hand through his hair, and leans back into the couch on which he's perched.

"Well, you know since Michael's been sick for the past few days and hasn't been at school, I was going to drop by his house tonight to surprise him, maybe get some pizza or watch a couple movies or something? Yeah, well, I surprised him all right. But I'm pretty sure he surprised me a whole hell of a lot more."

Dean replies, "Oh, well that's kind of goo—okay, no, not good, bad, very bad. So, bad surprise?"

Cas laughed ruefully as he responds, "Very, very bad, horrible, terrible, excruciatingly painful surprise."

"Dude," Dean says. "What the hell happened?"

"I knocked on his door and when he answered, he didn't even want to let me in. Said he was contagious, didn't want to get me sick. But because of course I'm an idiot, I insisted and pushed my way inside and told him how much I'd missed him and that I was going to order some takeout and that'd I'd brought some DVDs we could watch in his room. And that's when he really started freaking out. He ran ahead of me upstairs and blocked the door to his room and wouldn't let me in, said he really didn't want to get me sick, he'd feel so bad if he did, and that his room was full of his sick germs from him being in there all week.

"I just thought it was really weird. It's never been an issue before, he sat with me for two days straight when I had the flu over winter break. But then I heard a thump inside his room."

"Oh, God," Dean says, immediately knowing exactly where this story was going.

"Yeah. So I shoved him out of the way and opened his door, and there's a random guy I have never seen before in my life just lying in his bed, just waiting for him to come back. He wasn't even wearing any clothes, I saw his dick, Dean, just sitting there waiting for Michael to fucking come back and hop on for a ride!"

The blatant rage is back on Cas's face as he jumps up and starts pacing in front of the couch. Dean has no idea what to do as he stands and watches from the doorway.

"And then the asshole doesn't even have the decency to apologize or cry or freak out over being caught or anything! He just stands there and says 'Castiel, this is Dylan." Castiel, this is Dylan, this is fucking Dylan? What the hell kind of thing is that to say?"

"Yeah," Dean mumbles, "that's, uh, really shitty."

"Yes!" Cas yells. "Yes, it is really shitty! So then he finally goes on to explain that he met Dylan, the fucking sophomore from Lawrence Community College a few weeks ago when he was running on the campus, and they've been hanging out since. Turns out he hasn't been sick the past few days, he was in Kansas City at a music festival with good old fucking Dylan!"

"Well what did you do? Did you, like, try to talk to him about it or anything?" Dean asks.

"I punched him in the face," Cas grits out.

Dean is shocked, and completely unsure of what to do with that, so he steers Cas back to the couch and sits down beside him, placing an arm around his shoulders in the process. Castiel finally lets his rage fall to a slow simmer, and the tears start again. Dean feels Cas's shoulders shake under his arm, and he murmurs to his best friend as he rubs comforting circles on Castiel's arm.

"Dean," Castiel begins through sobs. "I just really like him, you know? He was always nice to me—well, until now at least—and he just made me feel wanted and special for once. I really thought we would work."

Dean had to admit he thought the same thing. Castiel and Michael latched onto each other during the first semester of their senior year of high school when Michael moved to Lawrence in the middle of October. Cas was one of the only openly gay students at Lawrence High, and Michael didn't even bother with pretending there was a closet he could try to hide inside when he enrolled. The two found each other in their AP Chemistry class and didn't lose the other for even a second after.

By the end of October, they were dating. By mid-November, they were an official couple. By their night out on Valentine's Day, they were in love. But apparently, by the end of March, they were out of it, at least according to Michael.

"So I'm guessing the punch to the face was your way of breaking up with Michael?" Dean asks.

"Yeah," Cas sniffles, "definitely."

"C'mon, man, don't cry anymore. Yeah, he's a douche, but if he's going to treat you like that, you're better off now. You deserve something better, someone who'll treat you right. Not some asshat who's clearly asking for a kick to the balls," Dean tries to comfort Cas, hoping that he's going about this in a somewhat decent manner.

"Ugh, I wish I could kick him in the balls," Cas replies, surprisingly viciously for someone usually so nonviolent. "I just—I thought I loved him, but now I just really, really hate him, so I don't know if I ever actually did or not. I mean, shouldn't I still love him? Shouldn't I want to work it out, shouldn't I want him back? I hate him for making me question this, your first love is supposed to be good and he just shit all over it. God, I just want to, I don't know, destroy him!"

Dean mulls over Cas's speech for a minute, considering. He looks over at his friend, sees the pain shining in his eyes despite the anger written on his face. Dean decides then that there is nothing he wouldn't do to Michael to help make Castiel feel better.

"Well… We… We could. You know, if you wanted to," Dean says hesitantly.

Castiel looks over, brow furrowed in confusion, question all over his face.

"Destroy him?" Cas asks.

"Yeah," Dean replies. "I mean, obviously not kill him or beat him up or hurt him or anything, but… We could definitely get back at him."

Castiel just stares at Dean for a moment, eyebrows scrunched together, before a smile starts spreading slowly over his face. He huffs out a short laugh and runs a hand through his hair, before flashing a triumphant smile directly at Dean.

"You're brilliant, Dean. That is exactly what I need."