Chapter 1

Dean's footsteps were unnaturally sluggish as he walked back home from school. Usually it was sam who walked behind him trying to keep up with his fast pace, but today things were a little different. Sam walked in front of dean, his own feet being dragged as he put one foot in front of the other. Sam was never in a hurry to reach home. He liked to stay out as much as possible. But dean was different. He was always eager to get away from people he didn't have to talk to. For dean, there were only three things that mattered in this whole wide world, his family, his car and his friends. He didn't care about anything else. But as it turns out, it didn't matter. With his looks, no one cared if you gave a shit or not, and he got all the unwanted attention in school. But, in the midst of all this attention and girls swooning over him, he had found his share of friends, real friends, and they meant the world to him. He never imagined that anyone would mean anything to him, except his family, but he was wrong. His friends definitely meant a lot. And that was the reason for his sluggish steps. He was tired and angry and pissed. Tired of fighting with his best friend, ash. Angry at his father who had forced him to miss Ash's birthday party and visit Bobby for some stupid reunion of his friends… what was he even going to do there? And he was pissed at the whole situation! Not only would he have to miss his best friend's party, he would also have to make awkward small talk with strangers, so, that's what slowed his pace down.

Despite him showing utter disinterest in the family get together, his father forced him to get ready and drive to uncle bobby's house and plaster a smile on that face of his and at least pretend to have fun! So, he did what he was told. He reached uncle bobby's house and found a small groups of people talking about random stuff. Life after marriage, kids, divorce… it was sucking the life out of dean. But he did what he had to do. He walked over to bobby, gave him a hug and handed him the bottle of whiskey his father had asked him to give to bobby. They then shared a few sentences about dean's school life and sam and their father and then bobby excused himself to talk to other people. He looked over his shoulder and found his dad talking to Ellen, a high school friend of bobby's and johns. (Ellen didn't bring Jo! She never forced her daughter to do something that she didn't want to do. Dean was sure Jo was going to be at ash's party, making him look like even more of a bad friend that he thought he was!) He took out his phone and messaged ash:

Dude, I'm really sorry, I couldn't come today… but you have to trust me, I had no option. I'll make it up to you I promise. Next time, you can choose the girl first when we hit the bars.. Okay? Please talk to me, man. And yeah, happy birthday!

After 10 minutes, he still had no reply.

He decided to get out and get a smoke to release all his tension. He walked towards the door, but as soon as he put his hand on the door knob, the bell rang. He opened the door to find a young man standing there. He looked kind of like his father. Dean couldn't put his finger on what made him think that, but he definitely had an air about him which said that he knew how to get people to do what he wanted them to do, no matter what they wanted. The boy looked past dean and at bobby. He smiled lightly as bobby walked over to them with a huge grin on his face.

'Michael! You're here. I can't remember the last time I saw you! You've grown so much! How are you? And where the hell is your father?' Said bobby as he gave the new guy a bear hug.

The guy smiled, a little embarrassed by the sudden outburst of emotion from bobby. He replied calmly,

'Father couldn't come. He was out on business. But he sends his best regards.'

Bobby nodded knowingly and then his attention moved to a shorter guy standing next to Michael. Dean too, turned his head to look at what had suddenly caught bobby's attention. A boy stood behind Michael, head lowered. As soon as he felt bobby's and dean's eyes on him, he lifted his head, and as soon as his eyes met deans, dean felt like he couldn't breathe! He had never in his life, seen a pair of eyes so blue. But it was more than the color of the iris. There was something about those eyes that stopped dean from making any kind of movement. He didn't realize that he was shamelessly staring at the guy he had never even seen before.

'Castiel, is that you? I haven't seen you since you were in diapers! You were so small! It's so good to see you, boy.' Said bobby as he gave this guy a hug just like he had given to Michael.

All this while, dean just kept ogling at the new guy. He just couldn't seem to look away. The new guy noticed this and felt kind of uncomfortable. He lowered his head again, forcing dean to look away. And then dean noticed that Michael was talking to his father like they had known each other for years.

Michael was explaining something to john. Dean walked close to them to eavesdrop on their conversation to get a hint about who these people actually were and how exactly did his father know them.

' so even though castiel filled the college application months ago, he forgot to fill in the accommodation application, and now there is no room left on the campus and we were in town just going through some apartment options so that he can move here'

'Castiel? He's going to college here? And he doesn't have a place to live and all you could come up with was him living in an apartment all by himself? Not only is that unsafe, it's also highly uneconomical. Why, he can stay with us for a semester or two, till he gets a place on campus. We have plenty of room at our place, and it's not like he'll be living among strangers!' Said john.

Dean hadn't even known that someone named castiel existed and now they were going to be house buddies! Great! and it's not like he made a complete fool of himself by staring at him like a mad man the first time he saw him! Life's awesome for dean Winchester!

Michael and john continued to talk for a few more minute after Michael telling john that he'd ask castile if it was okay with him, and if it wasn't too uncomfortable for john, which, john told him, was no problem.

'Dad, what was that? Did you just invite a stranger to live with us?' demanded dean as soon as Michael was out of earshot.

'dean, oh... you mean castile? Stranger? Don't you remember him? he used to live next door till a few years ago. You two were best friends! You never left each other alone. Remember, you couldn't pronounce his name, so you used to call him cassie? Oh, how would you remember, both of you were only three. Well, guess it's time for you to revive some of your lost connections. Why don't you go talk to him? make him feel comfortable. He doesn't know anyone here anyway.' John said as if everything he said was something that happened every day.

As for dean, he had stopped listening after he heard the word 'cassie'

He scanned the crowd, but he couldn't spot the new guy. He felt something, he didn't know what. Like, he should remember what his father was saying, but he had no clue what he was talking about. Dean was thinking to himself about everything his dad had just told him.

'cassie' he said, thinking out loud.

'huh?´ a voice came from behind him, he turned around to find castile standing there, right behind him, looking at him, waiting for him to say something. He had just called a guy, he barely new, by a childhood nickname. He has to say something. But it was like; words got stuck in his throat. Nothing came out. He just stared at the stranger like some lunatic, again! Freaking awesome!