Dean Winchester was having a bad day.
Okay, no, that was a lie. He was having the worst fucking day he could imagine ever having. He forced memories of it out of his mind, though the act of focusing on ignoring them only made having them brought to his attention more infuriatingly inevitable. He was scared to close his eyes, because every time he did all he saw were flashes of the coffin, of the flowers, of all the black, of his brother's round eyes bright with tears, of…
No, he wasn't going to fucking think about that.
He was going to think about the road. He was going to stare it down as he sped past at a most ridiculous speed, downing the remainder of his beer. Dean didn't even have music on, which just never happened. This car existed for three things, three things only- to be the most beautiful and bad-ass ride ever, to provide a sometimes awkward but nonetheless hot place to have sex, and to blast music in his ears as he drove. But tonight she was silent, and Dean was silent, and all that existed now was the enveloping darkness of the swallowing night, the road, and the faint taste of beer still in his mouth.
After about an hour of this, Dean was crying and running out of road.
Castiel Novak, slender fingers loosely grasping his forgotten cell phone, had found the star chart.
Well, this was a planetarium, and there were plenty of things of this nature about, but this particular star chart took up a whole wall and depicted every constellation he knew of, which was rather impressive. It was the one thing he always wandered back to, no matter how much he'd tell himself this time he was going to actually look at some other stuff this time. Surely something new would be more informative than a big poster filled with stars with which he was already familiar.
It didn't matter, though. Not really. This particular corner of the planetarium was quiet, small, secluded. It was just him and the paper stars. And nothing, not even the annoying, insistent buzz of his phone, was going to disturb that.
Not even when his phone hissed at him, Cassie, dammit, where the hell are you? You can't just run off like that without telling anyone-
With an irritated hiss, Castiel finally turned his attention back to his phone and hastily turned it off. Now he might have some peace at last.
Dean was a manly crier, of course. When he cried, he didn't cry as much as have silent, sometimes even solitary, tears slide down his face, but when he drove past the Lawrence Planetarium, he gave up. He stopped the car, buried his face in his hands, and quietly sobbed.
Fuck, he'd forgotten his new rule not to close his eyes.
And he could see it all, every subtly grieving face, then his brother's not so subtle one, his mother desperately clasping on to his hand as the preacher started speaking…
With that he forced himself to stop. To just stop, turn off the car, and start walking towards the still-lit building. Just to have something to do, he told himself.
Dean found he often lied to himself.
As he opened the doors, he was both relieved and perfectly terrified to find everything exactly as it was when he and Sammy were kids and their parents would bring them here, their tiny hands safe in their big grown up ones. The only difference was everything had been much…well, taller, then.
The place was open, but barely. It seemed quiet remote, actually. There wasn't even anyone at the main desk to sell him a ticket or whatever the hell it was people had to do. So Dean just started milling about, which was okay, he told himself. He didn't really want to look at anything, he just wanted to walk, clear his mind, and he was already here.
After just a few minutes of wandering aimlessly, he started finding himself desperate to get the hell out. Everything was the same, everything.
And it was just like that Winchester luck of his to make him get utterly lost just as he decided he needed to leave.
Of all the things he remembered about the place and where they all were, the exit door suddenly wasn't one of them. But then, kids don't really have to ever know just where they are or how to get out. Not if they have parents holding their hands…
At some point, Dean found himself walking in something of a daze into a little pocket of the building he actually didn't remember. It was utterly plain- just a beige wall, almost nearly taken up by a big black poster with dots he supposed were stars, a little brown bench, and a boy.
Dean stopped, did a double take before walking away. The boy's back was turned to him and his head was tilted slightly as he looked on the poster in what seemed to be intense interest, though Dean couldn't much understand why.
All of a sudden, just as he thought of turning on his heel and finally leaving, the stranger turned around and Dean's eyes were arrested by vividly blue ones.
"I-um, sorry," Dean stuttered.
"You're fine," the boy assured him in surprisingly rough voice that made Dean wonder whether or not the kid smoked, nice-looking as he was.
And, damn, he was.
Just a few inches shorter than Dean, very slim, a sort of pale golden shade to his skin, just the right amount of stubble dusted about his jaw, a dark, almost feathery mess for hair…
Dean forced himself to stop staring and turned his eyes instead to his shoes. "I-uh.."
The boy just lightly chuckled. "You all right there?"
Dean didn't know what made him actually admit in a soft murmur, eyes still downcast, "No."
He glanced up a moment and saw the kid tilt his head slightly to the side again, blue eyes narrowed. "I'm sorry to hear that. Me neither."
"Oh, I-s-sorry to hear about that, too."
He gave Dean a small smile and turned back to the little white dots spangled about the vast expanse of black paper. Dean started to turn away again, knowing he didn't have any business here, but something kept him still.
After a few moments the boy looked back at him, something like amusement lighting in his eyes. He didn't say anything, just scooted a little on the bench. A silent invitation. Dean took it warily, though he didn't know why. Maybe a part of him wanted company, some distraction, even someone to talk to although that was stupid and he knew it. It was just the general anxieties and stress of the day taking their toll, he explained to himself with a sigh.
The stranger took note of it and lightly tilted his head to the side, silently sizing him up. "My name is Castiel," he said at length.
Dean couldn't hold back a snort of laughter. "Weird," he blurted out. Once he realized how rude that sounded, he winced, wishing he could take it back, but Castiel didn't seemed particularly bothered.
"Yes, I know. My parents were…" Castiel paused as he tried to find the right words. Finally he went with, "Religious nuts. Anyway, it's an angel name, like my brother's—" Quite abruptly, he fell silent, his eyes downcast, his shoulders slumping as if weighed down by something invisible but unbearably heavy.
Dean knew that look and rushed to the stranger's rescue. "I'm Dean." He thrust his hand out to shake, uncertain if it would be taken but inexplicably eager to find out.
With that same sad smile Castiel wrapped his hand around Dean's, its grip warm and firm but soft all at once. Dean found himself wondering if he used fancy hand lotion or something like his mother and a few ex-girlfriends were partial to, while Castiel drew it back.
"Do you come here often?" he asked, shaking Dean from his trivial train of thought.
"N-no." Clearing his throat, he added more steadily, "I mean, when I was a kid. But no, I just moved back to town, actually."
Castiel nodded, his eyes distant but his tone polite and even subtly coaxing. Or maybe Dean just really liked that almost gritty note to his eloquent voice. "And why is that?"
"I—" Normally Dean would tell some stranger asking dumb questions to piss off and then proceed to storm away and vow never to talk to strangers at all ever again. But instead he found more words somehow spilling out of his mouth. "My father died last week and today was his funeral and my—my mom, she…she isn't doing so good. I'm moving back in with her, just for a few months I think, till she can start to cope on her own or something and my brother would do it but he has to go back to school and…" Finally, he seemed to run out of words and just stared blankly down at the tiled floor, tracing its boring checkerboard pattern with his gaze until it grew hazy. He blinked and was surprised to find that tears had started welling in his eyes.
That, and someone's hand had found its way in between his shoulder blades, a warm but unobtrusive and non-invasive pressure. "I'm…sorry," Dean said after a short silence. "Didn't mean to dump all that on you."
"My father has also died, though I was not given the luxury of having my mother left behind," said Castiel in a small, bleak voice.
Dean's eyes widened. "Oh, shit, I—fuck, I'm sorry…" Dean couldn't think of anything better to say, and once again, Castiel didn't seem to mind. And yet he did feel something was lacking, some sort of sentiment he didn't quite know how to give words to yet. Another useless apology to the stranger? That was all that came to mind, so they fell once more into silence.
It was broken rather jarringly when Dean's phone buzzed insistently against his denim-clad thigh. He looked away and pulled it out, suddenly aware that he'd been staring at Castiel while they brooded, and frowned as he read the new text. "Lame as it sounds, that's my mom. I should, um…I should go…" The last sentence almost came out like a question, as if he needed Castiel's permission or insistence that he leave.
Castiel seemed to be ripped out of a trance of his own and abruptly nodded at him. "Yes, you should be with her." As his hand left Dean's back and Dean started to rise from the bench, he added, "I, um…"
Dean immediately looked back at him, stuffing his phone back in his pocket. "Yeah?"
"As…undesirable as the circumstances of this meeting were, I'm glad we did meet."
"You're a weird kid, you know that?" Dean asked with a tiny but sincere smile. "But, yeah. Me too." He almost thought of ruffling his already-messy hair. Almost. But that was weird and they were strangers and besides, it was time to go.
Castiel smiled as Dean finally walked away, then turned his attention back to the stars.
"Dean?" Mary asked as she heard the front door creak open.
Dean winced. Damn, he'd been hoping that she had already gone to bed. He had no idea of how he was supposed to justify abandoning her after the funeral, even to himself. He'd just…needed to get away from it all.
But when his mother emerged from the kitchen, radiant even in her sadness, she was smiling her sweet smile at him and pulled him into a warm hug. Dean was confused by this reaction but let himself melt into it, even clinging onto her and burying his face in her neck as the world seemed to crumble around them.
"Thank you for staying with me," she murmured softly. Dean could've laughed. That was the opposite of what he'd done. He almost went as far as to wonder if she was being cruelly sarcastic, but Mary wasn't like that. Even without him saying anything, she knew, of course. Knew he'd needed time to himself but that he'd still be there for her for as long as she needed him.
He didn't know how long they just stood there in each other's arms but at some point someone started pulling away. Dean wasn't even sure who, he was too tired of being awake and being aware of all the shit that was going down around him. It would be a blessing to crash in his old room and just ignore everything for a few hours.
Mary smiled and stood up on the tips of her toes to kiss his temple. "Goodnight, my little angel. I love you."
Dean let out a soft sigh as the familiar words washed over him, and with a gruff but heartfelt, "I love you too, Mama," started stumbling in the general direction of his room.