My flat mates are idiots. I mean, they are complete jackasses. It wasn't always that way, though; shit only started going down at the start of summer 2004, so I've only had to put up with it for a year and a half. That's a whole lot longer than I'd like. Fools in love; that's what they are. Fools, because neither of them actually knows that the other feels the same way. One thinks the other is straight, meanwhile the other also thinks that he's straight. Honestly.
Castiel Novak (Cas to most) was my friend for decades before Dean arrived on the scene and got him all love-sick. We went to school together since we were both nine years old. I was the new girl that moved from the UK because of her dad's work, and he was the nicest little boy in possibly the whole state; the only one who didn't pick on me for my accent and cropped hair. We grew closer and closer as the years went on, spending summer and winter vacations together as well as the rest of the time in between. He was even my date to several Proms, before he came out as gay at the end of our freshman year of high school; which was the most emotionally confusing summer of my 15 year old life. We were still cool though, and now, as we reach the end of our third year in Kansas City Art Institute, we still are.
Cas definitely belongs at our college; to say he is artistically gifted would probably force God to strike you dead as punishment for a ludicrous understatement. Cas is a poet, has the singing voice of a whole flock of angels, can draw and paint both with unbelievable photographic prowess and abstract playfulness to put all abstract artists to shame. He plays most instruments, including the piano, keyboard, all types of guitar, a few varieties of the trumpet and even a few weird and wonderful instruments from old, forgotten worlds and far off countries.
Cas has this conviction about him that he injects into everything that he does. He has a fiery passion for his art and his life in general that, coupled with his politely curious blue eyes, perpetually messy, short, dark hair and overall good looks, makes clueless girls in his classes fall for him and makes all his teachers love him. He knows what he wants, and goes for whatever that may be with unbeatable determination. Or at least, he did until Dean arrived on the scene.
Don't get me wrong; I love Dean too. But poor Cas' face when Dean first moved in with us told me in a snap that he was done for. This kid is ridiculously attractive. Big, green eyes, long lashes, full lips, playful-boyish smirk; the whole goddamned package. I honestly didn't know what my neighbours would start to think of me living with these two male-model looking types.
Now, if you came into our apartment as an outsider, you might assume straight away that Dean was just a typical 20-something year-old male; from afar the way he slopes around the place in mostly just his underwear until as late as he can manage, and the way he sprawls himself out on the sofa in front of the TV from when he returns to the apartment at four until the 'wee hours' of the morning might make him seem lazy, but he's really not.
He's more committed to his job in his uncle Bobby's car workshop than I've ever seen of someone with a job in a car work shop and is charmingly proud of both his wages and his work, and he does his bit around the house as well. He never leaves a dirty dish anywhere, does the laundry when it's his turn and since he moved in Cas and I have been able to enjoy warm, home cooked meals on most days instead of Super Noodles and microwave pizza 24/7. Yeah, despite being otherwise excellent with his hands, the only thing Cas can cook (and by cook I mean prepare without burning around five times out of ten) is a piece of toast. And I wouldn't trust myself with big knives and fire any day of the week. It's actually surprising, and it was when we first discovered this, that an almost stereotypically men's man like Dean Winchester has such a flare for home cookery. It's a nice big 'screw you' to gender boundaries though, I guess; and I know that I couldn't carry on living without at least one of Dean's specialty beef burgers every fortnight.
The things are to die for, seriously.
And then there's me; a short for her age, baggy t-shirt-wearing, be speckled 22 year-old girl from Belfast with kind of curly, kind of not, shoulder length, brown hair and freckly skin that hasn't seemed to realise that it lives in America now and that it's OK to tan. I always sort of saw myself ending up in an art college, and I always kind of hoped for the pleasant type of student life that I have now; two amazing best friends, a pretty nice apartment in America. Kansas City is a great place to live.
But I never imagined that I'd have to balance the duty of 'match-maker to the clueless' with the rest of my day to day life. Especially not with these two idiots.