Castiel set the last of his boxes down and stood up, proudly surveying his new apartment.

He loved it. It was spacious, in a nice area, close to work, and the rent was pretty cheap. It was a huge step from his old, tiny shoebox apartment, the one he had been living in since college.

It was mostly bare right then, just some of the bigger furniture and a pile of boxes, but he could imagine what it would look like when he finished unpacking and it was fully decorated.

But right now, he didn't want to do anything but sit on the couch and watch some crap tv because he had been driving back and forth from his old apartment to his new one with all the boxes all day. He hadn't wanted to rent a trailer, but now he was regretting that decision.

Movement to his right caught his eye and he smiled at Mabel, his orange tabby. She was on the counter, sniffing around in the kitchen.

"What do think, Mabel? Do you like the new place?" he asked. "The windows have a much better view than a brick wall, huh?" She glanced at him, but went back to her explorations.

He sighed and settled himself on the couch. He was reaching for the remote when a white ball of fluff hopped up next to him, nudging his leg for attention. His Persian, Whiskers. "Hey, bud," he said, stroking his back. Whiskers started purring and curling up next to him as Castiel continued petting him.

He turned the tv on, ready for a quiet night in.

About an hour or so later, he heard a loud thump from the bedroom and he watched as Alex, his Russian blue came darting from the same direction, looking spooked. Castiel only sighed disapprovingly and addressed his cat. "I told you to leave those boxes alone or one would fall on you, girl. But don't worry, I'll have all your stuff unpacked first thing tomorrow morning, and you won't need to play with my boxes." He resumed watching tv.

Later that night he woke up to a loud crash outside his bedroom. He groaned, too lazy to get up and investigate. "Guys, come on," he called out loudly, " I'm trying to sleep, you can play in the morning." He rolled back over on his side, trying not to disturb Maggie, his long haired tuxedo, who was curled up against his legs.

The next morning Castiel was sipping coffee on the couch, watching the morning news, when he heard a crash from the kitchen. He rolled his eyes, but set his coffee on the coffee table, got up and walked towards to kitchen. And there was Sanders, his tortoiseshell, sitting on the counter staring down at his sugar container on the floor. That had spilled sugar everywhere.

Castiel groaned. He had already woken up to find another box had been tipped over from where it was perched on another—the loud crash from last night—but luckily, nothing had broken.

He walked to the spare bedroom where he was keeping most of the boxes and started rummaging around for his broom and dustpan set. When he finally found it, he walked back to the kitchen to find that Sanders hadn't moved. "You know, you are like the stereotypical asshole cat who just knocks things over for fun," he told his cat as he knelt down to clean up the mess.

Over the next few weeks there were a lot more incidents, and frankly, Castiel was getting tired of it. Literally. He was woken at least once a night by some noise or a cat scrambling across his bed, spooked by something. And with five cats, he was used to these kinds of things happening often, but this was ridiculous. They were always knocking things over, causing picture frames to fall from the wall, scratching along the floor at night. He'd had to buy new plates the other day because they had broken so many. It was like they were trying to make life difficult.

And to add more problems, his AC was all out of whack. It would get really cold at random times, despite the whole system being no more than a few years old. And, every now and then, his lights would flicker and the tv would fuzz for a few seconds. But while it was quite annoying, it didn't happen often enough for him to really complain. Besides, the lights at his old apartments would flicker sometimes too. Though, Castiel expected better from the newer building.

Currently, he was in the middle of cleaning the apartment because his brother would be coming over for 'monthly bonding time,' as Gabriel liked to call it. Then he heard a loud crash and crack and watched as Sanders and Alex came running from his bedroom with wide eyes and arched backs.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Castiel shouted, startling Maggie who was asleep on the cat tree in the living room. "What the fuck is wrong with you guys?"

He walked into his bedroom and saw his mirror, which was now cracked, laying on the ground. He let out a frustrated sound. It was a full-length mirror that he hadn't hung on the wall yet, so the past few weeks it had been leaning against his dresser. Now it was on the ground next to the dresser and he noticed his alarm clock was on the ground too, probably what had cracked it. Luckily, it seemed unharmed, though he would have to find a new mirror.

"You know that's seven years of bad luck, right?" he called out angrily. "Sanders, you're already nine. You're probably not gonna live seven more years. You know what that means? Bad luck the rest of your life. The rest of your goddamn life!"

Then the doorbell rang. Castiel groaned and took one last look at the mirror, which had ugly cracks running from the center, and went to answer the door.

"Hey, baby bro, ready to do some brotherly bonding?" Gabriel said as he waltzed in, taking in the apartment. He had seen the apartment when it was empty, but this was his first time seeing it fully furnished and decorated. He turned to Castiel. "Nice place."

"Thanks," he responded tiredly, plopping down onto the couch.

"Woah, what's got you all stressed out? Noisy neighbors?" Gabriel asked sitting next to Castiel on the couch. Whiskers immediately jumped onto his lap, nudging his chest for attention. "Well hello there, Fluffy," he greeted in a baby voice, scratching under the cat's chin.

"His name is Whiskers, not Fluffy."

"Cas, look at this guy," he said, turning Whisker's chin to face Castiel. "He's more hair than cat. You clearly misnamed him."

"Why do you have to argue my cat's name every time you see him? And you know that I wasn't the one who named him, he came with the name."

"Geez, what's got your panties in a twist, we usual bicker a few minutes before you snap."

"It's the goddamn cats! They're driving me crazy," Castiel exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.

"But you love your cats," Gabriel said.

"No, I do, I love them to death, but just lately…I don't know." He sighed. "They've been acting weird and making a bunch of noise and breaking things and knocking things over. Right before you came, Sanders and Alex broke my mirror. And I mean broke it, all cracked like you see in movies."

"And they never did stuff like that at the old apartment?"

"No, they did, just not this frequently. I mean, yeah, they occasionally knocked things over or woke me up at night, but now it's happening all the time."

"Well, they're probably just adjusting," Gabriel said with a shrug. Whiskers had curled up in his lap and was purring contentedly as he stroked him. "You know, new place, new layout, new smells and all that crap. Give it a few more weeks and everything will be back to normal."

"Yeah, maybe," Castiel said, unconvinced.

"Well, come on. Are we going to lunch or what?" Gabriel said, gently placing Whiskers on the cat tree and standing up.

"Yeah, you go head on down, just let me get my wallet," he said, waving Gabriel towards the door.

As Gabriel headed out, Castiel walked back to the bedroom. He opened the drawer in his nightstand to grab his wallet when he felt the hair the back of his neck stand up. A shiver ran down his spine and he got the distinct feeling of being watched. He slowly turned around only to find Mabel crouched on top of his armoire. He let out a sigh of relief. "God, you scared me Mabel." He grabbed his wallet from the drawer. "See you later, sweetheart," he murmured as he left.

A figure watched as Castiel walked out the door, locking it behind him. He let out a loud groan of frustration, which of course, only the cats could hear, evidenced by Maggie and Whiskers blinking sleepily at him from their perches. Goddamned psychically-tuned cats. Though, admittedly, the five of them were growing on him.

He had been haunting this place for weeks—well, more than weeks, but this particular tenant for weeks—and nothing. Everything he tried to do was just blamed on the cats. He was starting to feel bad for them. But who had five cats anyway?

He supposed he didn't have to be a malicious spirit, he could simply share the space. And it was nice that he cats could see him, it made him feel less alone. The last tenants didn't have any pets and were quite annoying. He was more than happy to see them go. And the new tenant was nice, quiet, and it didn't hurt that he was very cute.

But what else did a ghost do for fun other than scaring the shit out of the living? He couldn't just sit around all day until this guy moved out.

So far, the apartment had been rented seven times, including the new guy. Nobody had lasted more than a year. He usually liked to play it slow. Spoke them a bit the first week or two, then back off for a while, with just the occasionally odd occurrence. Then, once they were properly settled, he would start making noises and moving things, getting worse and worse until eventually they couldn't take it anymore and they moved out. He felt a little bad about it all, but he had never hurt anyone or done anything too serious, and they would move on and laugh about it later.

But not this guy. From day one he had been trying to alert the guy to his presence, but the damn cats kept getting in the way. So, instead of giving him time to settle, he kept doing more and more things, but nothing worked. And it was making him angry which sometimes made the temperature drop or the lights flicker. He could do these things on purpose if he really wanted, but usually saved for towards the end of his hauntings. But even if he were doing it on purpose, the guy just thought it was faulty wiring and poor maintenance.

But he wouldn't give up. Not yet. He was determined to scare this guy away.

He had given up.

It had taken about three more weeks for him to finally call quits and for the past week he had just been floating around the house in depression. He still did stuff every now and then, just in case, but nothing. Nothing. And all it had taken was a few cats.

He had resigned himself to a boring life of just watching someone else's. And it would probably be a while—years, in fact, before this guy moved out.

His only real hope was that the guy would find someone and want to move to a house or a bigger apartment, but in the three months that he had been living here, had hadn't brought so much as a one-night stand home. And he supposes he wouldn't either if he had five cats, but the guy hadn't slept anywhere else so far, so that was ruled out. Hell, he hadn't even masturbated—not that he would watch that—well, maybe he would. Sue him, guy's hot and ghosts don't get a whole lot of action.

He was sitting on the couch, moping about the shitty situation when things changed.

Castiel struggled to unlock his apartment door with two armfuls of groceries. Eventually he was successful and he walked in. He opened his mouth to call out a greeting when he caught sight of a man sitting on his couch, petting Mabel.

He dropped his groceries in shock, but the man merely glanced over before returning his attention to the cat. "Who the fuck are you? How did you get in here?" he asked, thoroughly freaked by the stranger in his living room, however, the man didn't so much as look up when Castiel spoke. "Hey, I'm talking to you," he said angrily, taking a careful step closer.

This time the man did look up. He frowned and his eyebrows scrunched up in confusion as it seemed to register that Castiel was referring to him. "Me?" he asked, pointing at himself.

"Who the hell else would I be talking to? What are you doing in my apartment?" he shouted.

The man looked very confused now. "You can see me?" he asked incredulously.

Castiel wasn't exactly sure how to reply. "Is there a reason why I shouldn't see you?"

"Uh, well," he floundered, "It's just that, uh…most people can't really…see me, I guess."

"What?" Castiel asked, now very confused.

"Well, I'm sorta…a ghost?" he said uncertainly.

"A ghost?" Castiel asked skeptically, cocking an eyebrow.

"No, seriously," the man claimed, "I really am a ghost."

"Right," he said slowly. "Look, I am willing to chalk all this," he said, waving his hands around, "up to an honest mistake—or maybe a drunk or drug induced one—if you just leave my apartment peacefully."

"Look, I can prove it to you," the man said. He looked around for something, then shrugged and put his arm through the back of the couch. Like, through the couch, his arm passed cleaning through it as if there was nothing there but air.

"Holy shit." Castiel thought he might be feeling a bit faint. "You're a ghost," he squeaked.

The man smiled, very bright and sunny smile, the kind that might have made Castiel blush if he weren't so focused on the ghost's arm, which was still through the couch. The man seemed to notice the staring and he pulled his arm back sheepishly. "The name's Dean."

"Bu–but what're, uh, I mean, just–" Castiel stuttered, staring at the ma—at Dean in bewilderment. "Holy shit," he finished lamely.

Dean smiled awkwardly. "Yeah, um, I don't really know what to do now. No one's every really seen me before," he said, almost…excitedly?

"Oh," Castiel replied, stumbling towards and sitting in the armchair without taking his eyes off Dean. "Well, um, I–" he couldn't seem to form any words as he sat and stared a few minutes. Then he gaze turned sharp and angry. "You've been haunting my apartment!" he accused, but continued before Dean could speak. "This whole time I've been blaming it on my cats, but you're the one who's been braking things and making noises and scaring my cats."

Dean looked sheepish as he looked toward the ground and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, not everything, I mean, five cats are bound to make some noise, but yeah, pretty much."

"Well, why?" he asked angrily.

"Um…boredom?" he offered. He shrank a bit under Castiel's piercing gaze. "Look, I'm kinda tied to this apartment and there's not much to do as a ghost other than haunt the current residents, okay? And it always worked with everyone else." He muttered the last part angrily.

Castiel let out a deep sigh. "I…guess it must be hard to be a ghost."

"You have no idea," Dean immediately started spouting. "It sucks. I mean, I can't eat or drink or sleep and technology doesn't really work for me so I never have anything to do except read, but I can't do that with you in the room or at night when it's dark and it's so lonely. There's nobody to talk to or interact with, in fact, your cats have been a bit of a blessing because they can see me so I can interact with them, but even still they're just cats, you know? And— Well, that's probably more information than you needed, it's just been so long since I've talked to somebody. At least, talked when I knew they could hear."

"Right, so. I guess you're not going anywhere then," Castiel said, feeling very overwhelmed.

"Nope," Dean said, popping the 'p.' "I am here to stay."

Castiel was silent for a few minutes. "So what now?"

"Well, someone's got a new roommate," Dean said with a big smile.

"Alright then," Castiel said.

The true severity of the situation, of living with a ghost, would probably sink in later and he would freak out again, but for now, there wasn't much he could do. Except maybe have a drink—or more than one—and get to know Dean.

His new roommate.

The ghost.

Jesus Christ, how was this his life.

Notes: Thank you for reading, comments are much appreciated. :)

Dean and Cas will return, so please follow for more updates, though I don't know how long it will be before the next one.

Also, this story is posted on Ao3 where it has pictures of Cas' cats, so if you wanna see them, use this link archiveofourown works / 11936928, or you can search the story and it's titled The First Meeting and under the same username.