So this is the sequel to "Angels Fall on Playgrounds." It involves a huge time jump, as this is a high school fic, though I'm sure I will reference childhood moments plenty (I have at least one scene planned where that is really important). This is part 2 of the When You Were Young series, and will be a decently long fic.
Huge thank you to my beta, PharoComics!
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. If I did, my obsession with end!verse-inspired!Cas would probably have come through lol.
Summer before senior year is a surprisingly lonely one for Castiel. He spends most of it sitting at home, rereading postcards from his wayward mother. Charlie does her best to see him as much as she can, but between her normal travels with her family and the time she dedicates (most understandably) to her girlfriend Dorothy, it isn't as much as either of them would like. Dean, however, basically falls off the face of the planet in the couple of months that they aren't in school. He'd begun dating the unequivocally perfect Anna Milton towards the end of junior year, and, as such, has been up her ass ever since. He barely so much as speaks to Cas all summer, and the couple of times they do make plans, Dean bails last minute to go see Anna, with nothing more than a shot out text of "You understand."
He does understand. He understands that Dean tends to think with his dick more than his brain, and he understands that sometimes it is very hard to be friends with someone like that. And Cas finds himself starting to resent Anna, which isn't really fair because he actually likes her. She's smart and kind and gorgeous, to boot (which often leaves Charlie and Cas pondering just what, exactly, she sees in Dean). It isn't her fault that Dean is being an awful friend, as Dean has always been the type to do whatever he wants. It is simply a fact that, up until this point, most of the time 'doing what he wants' included Castiel. But as stated, Anna Milton is perfect, so Cas can kind of see why Dean is hooked.
So, summer before senior year has an interesting, if not altogether awful, sense of melancholy about it, and instead of amping Cas up for his last year of high school, he instead finds himself wholly dreading it. Yet, somehow, he still finds himself being dragged to a party at Lisa Braeden's house the last weekend before they're due back in school (no one can ever make him admit that Charlie's winning argument had been that Dean will be there).
When they get there, the house is full to bursting, and Castiel can't help musing that it's a wonder the police haven't shown already. Dorothy claims it has something to do with Lisa's father's place in the local government, which Charlie and Cas are more than willing to accept as fact.
It's all terribly unexciting in the way that high school parties are, between horny couples hooking up in dark corners and warm beer being the beverage of choice. Still, Cas will always find himself grateful for warm beer in the absence of anything stronger, so he finds himself oscillating between standing against walls with a drink in hand and dancing with Charlie and Dorothy. Dean doesn't show up until about an hour and a half after they get there (and if Cas was counting, which he most assuredly was not, he would be able to say it had been exactly one hour and thirty-seven minutes). Anna is, surprisingly and unsurprisingly, absent (it's surprising in the sense that to see Dean without her is an oddity now-a-days, but unsurprising because perfect Anna Milton would never be caught dead at a place where underage students were drinking). Dean casually strolls up to them, high-fiving and greeting all the usual suspects along the way, and he seems so wholly unaware of what a bad friend he's been that it almost makes Cas's blood boil.
When Dean finally reaches them and, smiling obliviously, greets them with, "Hey guys, long time no see, how's it going?" Charlie, at least, has the good graces to grimace.
Dorothy, walking poster child of confidence that she is, takes the reins and answers, "We're at a party, genius, how do you think?" But she says it with a coy smile, so Dean just laughs in yeah, you're right kind of way. Leave it to Dorothy to be passive-aggressive and leave the victim none the wiser.
"Where's Anna?" Charlie asks.
Dean shrugs good-naturedly. "At home. You know Anna."
Cas wants desperately to point out that, yes, he does know Anna, that he knew Anna before any of them, actually, as they are in all the honors classes together and went to church together their whole lives up until Cas stopped going. He wants to point out that Anna doesn't come to these parties not because she is against the underage fraternization, but because she has an image in the town to keep up (he knows she isn't against it because in freshman and sophomore year, the two of them had spent plenty of weekends at her older boyfriend's frat house, getting wasted in every sense of the word, though Cas is sure he's the only one that knows that, as Luke has long since been a thing of the past and she'd hid his existence well to begin with). He also wants to point out that if he'd known Dean was going to be such a bad friend after they started dating, that he never would have introduced them to begin with (because how else would someone like Dean Winchester get on Anna Milton's radar other than through a mutual friend).
So, instead of commenting, Cas doesn't respond at all, letting the girls do all the talking as he takes a long pull of his beer. This only works so long before Dean starts shooting him questioning glances before finally straight out asking, "Dude, what's wrong with you?"
It takes everything Cas has to bite his tongue, already loosened by the cheap booze, but he can't manage to stifle the glare. He knows Charlie and Dorothy are both waiting with baited breath to see how this plays out, wondering if they'll have to field a fight between the two.
Cas saves them the trouble, grumbling, "I need some fresh air," before stalking off to the Braeden's back deck.
Despite the din around them, he can perfectly hear Dean's "What the fuck is his problem?" What he can't hear quite so clearly is Charlie's response, though he's sure she's chewing Dean out on his behalf.
He downs the rest of his beer on the way to the door, grabbing another bottle before heading outside. Popping the cap, he leans against the deck's railing, pointedly ignoring the rutting couples around him and wishing he had something stronger in his hand besides the beer. He manages about ten minutes outside before someone invades his personal space. Expecting it to be Charlie, he's surprised to find an oddly familiar looking blonde girl leaning with her back against the railing and smiling at him.
"You look like you could use a pick-me-up," she says, expression turning compassionate. When he remains silent, she extends her hand for a handshake. "April Kelly."
Castiel squints at her, slowly extending his own hand to take hers. It must look as unnatural as it feels because then April is laughing at him.
"You have a name to go with that brooding face?" she asks.
"Castiel Shurley." After a beat, he adds, "You look familiar." And she does, though not in the way someone from school might.
"I work at the Applebee's in town," she offers helpfully, and he thinks that must be it, so he nods, offering a small, "Ah."
She suddenly pushes off the railing, setting a heavy gaze on him. "So since you look like you're having about as much fun as a bag of wet cats, and I'm feeling about the same, what do you say we get out of here?"
In the span of about ten seconds Castiel goes from thinking to all the reasons he should say no ("my friends are still here", "I don't know you", "I can't reciprocate your advances") to thinking of ridiculous green eyes to agreeing because he doesn't think he can face anymore of Dean tonight (nor does he want to face any of Charlie's attempts at bridging the gap between the two boys).
They slip back through the house, specifically avoiding the living room turned dance floor at Cas's request, and once they reach the sanctuary of April's old, blue Honda, only then does he pull out his phone to shoot Charlie a text saying he isn't feeling well and went home. They're about halfway down the road when Charlie's response of "hope u feel better. call if u need anythng" comes through, but he doesn't respond and simply pockets his phone once more.
Cas doesn't even bother to ask April where they're going, instead choosing to just sit and listen to the low murmur of the radio playing the new hit song of the week. After about a forty-five minute drive, they pull up at a park in the next town over.
She reaches over, and, for a brief moment, he's afraid she's actually going to grope him, but, instead, her hand goes down under the passenger seat and she pulls out a paper bag containing what is obviously a bottle. When she sits back up, she smiles nervously.
"Anna told me that you liked to party, so I kind of just assumed... should I not have?"
Cas squints at her, even more perplexed. "Anna?"
April visibly swallows, nodding. "Yeah. We're in bible study together."
And that's when it dawns on Castiel just why April looks so familiar. "We went to church together."
April's smile widens a little, but it does nothing to break up the nervousness on her face. "Yeah, but... it's been years, and we weren't in the same youth group, so I get you not remembering."
His face pinches into a frown. "Still, I'm sorry. That was rude of me."
She quickly shakes her head. "No, no! You're fine."
Awkward silence falls between them, giving Cas just enough time to ponder that Anna was talking about him and did April know that Anna 'likes to party, too?' before April clears her throat. He looks over, and she lifts the bottle slightly. "So...?"
Well, hadn't he just been wishing for something stronger at the party? So he offers her a small, half-smile.
"Why not?"
As it turns out, there is a different sort of party going on at the park, one that assures Cas that April does indeed know about Anna's habit since the redhead is sitting with a group of people, passing a joint off to a blonde guy to her right. He can't help raising an eyebrow at her as he walks up.
"Surprised to see you here."
She glances up at him through her eyelashes. eyes rimmed red. "Well, everyone from school is at Lisa's."
Of course that's it. With the rest of the school preoccupied, Anna can hang out with the stoners.
He frowns down at her. "Does Dean know where you are?"
She smiles prettily up at him. "I won't tell if you don't."
He huffs out a laugh because, of course, Dean doesn't know, but instead of brooding over just what Dean would think about his best friend and his girlfriend skulking about in the woods in the next town over to get high, he sits down on Anna's left, snatches the flask from her lap, and takes a swig, wincing at the sharp burn of the tequila.
"Really, Anna?"
She shrugs, taking another hit off the joint before passing it to him. "It works in a pinch."
And Cas supposes it does. "Did you send April to get me?"
"I figured I was saving you?"
He narrows his eyes at her. "As flattering as it is that you thought of me, what makes you think I want to be here any more than I wanted to be there?" He doesn't ask what he wanted to, which is where was this so-called consideration all summer while she'd been hogging his best friend.
"Because I'm pretty sure you're mad at Dean. I would be." She turns to face him fully. "Castiel, you have to know that I tried to tell him he should spend time with you when I found out he was blowing you off. He just said you understood, though."
And of course, this is the reason Cas couldn't stay mad at perfect, beautiful Anna Milton. He's known Anna long enough and well enough to know she isn't really a deceitful harpy, despite how much her double life might imply it.
She's staring at him with wide, hazel eyes, silently imploring for his forgiveness (because as much as he prefers Dean and Charlie's company, Anna is his friend too, more so than people realize, the two of them having clung to each other in the times that meeting their families' expectations proved too much), so he softly bumps her shoulder with his. "Next time you want to kidnap me, be sure to bring better alcohol."
She smiles brilliantly at him. "Noted."
They spend the rest of the night getting high and drunk, and in the morning he's left wondering how he even made it home as he wakes up in his own bed with the hangover from Hell.
He checks his phone to find two texts, one from an unknown number that says "Hope you feel ok. Had fun last night tho. Txt me sometime ;)" He shoots a text back asking who this is, and then attends to the second message which is from Dean and reads "sry man. charlie n i talked last night n she told me what an ass i was all summer. can u forgive me?"
Castiel sighs, his head hurting far too much for this right now. He ponders ignoring it for awhile, but instead sends a text back saying "it's ok. i understand. we'll talk later. not feeling well today." The response is immediate- "thats cool. hope u feel better. call me whn u do?" He quickly responds that he will, and just as he's about to roll over and go back to sleep, his phone vibrates again.
It's the unknown number this time, and all it says is "Balthazar."