Chapter One – If You're Still Breathing
When a shooting causes the permanent shutdown of St. Michael's Catholic High School by the archdiocese, students are forced to transfer to the nearest public school, Lawrence High.
Or
The one where Castiel is the not-so-innocent Catholic schoolboy and best friend of the shooter and Dean is the closeted nerd and hunter of the supernatural, who believes that there may be a bit more to the shooting than an angry victim of bullying.
Screams, people rushing passed him to get away- to get anywhere but that hallway. A younger brunette girl falls to the ground facing him, clutching her stomach, hands quickly stained with dark blood, her eyes widening in shock and she makes a small noise, like she's attempting to speak. Oh god, he's frozen on the spot, can't move, can barely even breath. This girl is dying and he can't even pull himself together.
Her eyes grow wide and she now seems to be fighting to get even a word out, her lungs, when she coughs sound like they're full of liquid. Blood. She's drowning in her own blood. The girl is going to die and it will be all his fault. All his damn fault. She coughs, once, twice more and takes one last gulp of air before she stills. She lays in the middle of the hall, her petite body surrounded in a pool of maroon.
Her unseeing eyes stare in his direction, the last place she had looked before it was all over, and her eyes, despite their lifelessness, seem to ask him, 'Why? Why did you just stand there?'. He should have done something. He was right there, standing not ten feet away from her with a fully-charged cellphone tucked in his pocket, completely capable of helping her in some way, or at least trying. He didn't though. Why didn't he? Why did he just stand there like a useless statue. He let her die. Hell, he might as well have pulled the trigger himself. It was his fault.
His mind screamed at him, so loud he can't hear the sound of feet pounding on the ground, heading his way. He feels a hand rest on his shoulder, and a voice, though it sounds far far away asks him if he's okay. His throat feels like it's caving in, an avalanche waiting to happen. He can't bring himself to speak, but shakes his head, the voice in his head getting louder still. ' .ALLYOURFAULT'.
Castiel jolted awake to the sound of his alarm, looking around his bedroom, breathing heavily, sweat causing his messy hair to stick to his forehead. The sun was shining in from the space between his curtains, telling him that it was, in fact, morning this time. He placed his head in his hands, trying to will his heartbeat to just slow down, just please slow down, and trying to force air into his lungs.
Three weeks had passed since that tragedy and he was still having the nightmares, still waking up several times a night, the nightmares having felt so real that he usually needed a few minutes to fully convince himself that it had only been a dream. His counselor, Naomi, had told him vivid nightmares were completely normal for a survivor of a traumatic incident, especially taking into account what he had witnessed. She said the nightmares would start to go away eventually, but had given him medicine to help him sleep in the mean time. So much for that.
He climbed out of bed, his covers a bit damp from his sweating throughout the night, and glanced at the mirror on the back of his closet door. He looked like hell. His hair, which was usually a mess, was now damp on top of looking like a bird's nest, and he had dark bags under his bloodshot eyes. He would definitely need a shower before even attempting to join the world of the living.
He grabbed a set of clothes for the day- Guns & Roses tee, black jeans, and, embarrassingly, a pair of Superman boxers and headed for the door. Unfortunately, however, the second he opened his door he came face to face with his brother, Gabriel, hand already poised to knock.
"Hey, little bro, you-" He paused, suddenly not as energetic and happy, taking in his younger sibling's disheveled appearance and gave him a sympathetic look, though he tried to mask it with a small smile. "sort of look like shit. You okay?"
Castiel pushed past him, heading for the closet that contained the towels, not meeting his brother's eyes. "Yeah, Gabe, just fucking peachy."
Gabe held up both hands in, his mouth open in feigned surprise. "You know, I just came up here to check in on my favorite baby brother and I'm feeling very attacked right now."
Castiel rolled his eyes at his older brother's immaturity, but secretly, he was thankful. At least his brother was still acting like a goofball, if a bit subdued. "I'm getting in the shower. Goodbye, Gabriel."
"Glad to see your empathetic side is still intact!" Gabe called out as Castiel the door shut behind him. Sometimes Castiel seriously wondered if he were adopted, or if Gabriel might just be a member of some kind of extraterrestrial species that his family had found and taken in out of pity. Yeah, either one of those sounded about right.
•○•○•
"So, the transfer kids coming in today?" Dean asked, his mouth full of bagel. He was rummaging through his locker, trying to find his AP Calc homework.
Dean had never really been one for organization, but he was seriously considering asking Sammy for help with sorting out his locker. Between folders and notebooks and textbooks and, last but certainly not least, his comic books, his locker looked like a tornado had come in and devastated it. The only thing even vaguely organized was a magnetic basket hanging on the door, holding all of his writing utensils.
"Today is supposed to be their first day," replied Charlie, his best friend and fellow diehard nerd. She crinkled her nose in disgust at his open mouth and turned her face away from him. "Do you really have to talk with your mouth full? Swallow or shut up."
"But you love me," Dean said with a small smirk directed at her.
She sighed, clearly having given up on the lost cause that was Dean's manners, "Unfortunately."
"So," Dean said, finally swallowing his bite, "What do you think they're going to be like?"
"How should I know?" Charlie asked, "I've never even met any of them. We don't exactly run in the same type of crowds." She raised an eyebrow for emphasis and snatched the bagel from her friend's hand, tearing off a piece.
"Hey!" Dean said, glaring. "Get your own, Red."
"Hey yourself, Deano," Charlie smirked, handing the rest back. "You still owe me for the coffee I brought you yesterday."
"You mean that rocket fuel shit I was forced to ingest was actually coffee?" Having, by some wonderful miracle, found his textbook, he slammed the locker shut. A crash sounded from inside, making Dean sigh. Well, guess there went all of his pens and pencils into the rest of the mess.
"Ever think that maybe you ought to do some cleaning in there?" Charlie asked.
"Ever think that maybe you should consider who gives you rides everywhere, Ms. Bradbury?" Dean replied.
"That would be me, Mr. Winchester." said a familiar voice.
Dorothy Baum flashed him a smile before turning her full attention to Charlie, whose face had lit up the instant her girlfriend had arrived. She leaned in and pecked her girlfriend on the lips, thankfully keeping it chaste. Dean loved them both dearly, but the sight of the two of them, his best friends, making out would make him incredibly uncomfortable... and a little nauseous.
Dean scoffed, giving Dorothy a look. "Yeah, right. Then how do you explain me having to pick this one up and take her to the comic book store yesterday?"
"Really? You were probably going to end up there on your own sometime soon anyway," Dorothy said. "I just gave you an opportunity. Besides, one of your geek books must have a new issue out."
"Okay one, they're not geek books, Baum, and two, she's your girlfriend," Dean argued.
"And she's your best friend," the brunette said with a smug smile playing on her lips. "Best friend tromps girlfriend in terms of responsibility. Bros before hoes, or whatever."
"Could you both kindly shut up? It's only 8:00 am and I'm already developing a migraine." Charlie moaned.
Thankfully, before the two of them could continue their argument, the warning bell rang, signaling their need to be in homeroom right about then. They went their separate ways, Dean to his homeroom and the girls to theirs, but Dean could still hear Charlie's mutter something about her 'questionable test in company'.
•○•○•
As far as schools go, Lawrence Junior-Senior High School wasn't exactly the worst he'd ever seen. It was, from what he'd gathered so far, made up of 4 buildings, one containing the gym, another the middle school, and the last two housing classes for the upperclassmen. At St. Michael's, Castiel was used to seeing students from K-12, so this was nothing new to him. He couldn't exactly say he would miss the presence of the younger students, but it might require some time to fully get used to.
His first obstacle came during homeroom in the form of an overly-perky girl named Becky. She was plenty friendly, maybe even a little too friendly, but Castiel couldn't help but want to put his head through the wall listening to her. For the entire walk from homeroom to his first period class, he was forced to listen to her theories on the homoeroticism present between Captain Kirk and Spock. He, personally, agreed with her, because really, the hands on the window scene practically screamed homo, but refused to say so out of fear of her never leaving his side. The last thing he needed, after everything, was a blabbering shadow. When they arrived at the door to his AP Calc class, Castiel bid her goodbye with a forced kind smile, to which she positively beamed, and entered the classroom quickly- so quickly, in fact, that he tumbled into another person who was heading for the door.
"Sorry, man. I didn't see you there." said a gravely baritone voice. Castiel looked up and met a pair of bright green eyes and a shy smile.
Castiel looked the boy in front of him up and down. "It's fine..."
"Dean," Dean said, flushing. "First day?"
"Castiel. And how can you tell?" Castiel asked.
"Well," Dean said with a small chuckle that Castiel couldn't help but smile at. "for one, I've never seen you around before. Ya, know, the whole small school, everyone knows everyone kind of thing, and two, you were just trying to escape Becky Rosen."
"She's not that bad," Castiel said, though it was clear his defense was weak when Dean simply raised an eyebrow in disbelief. Becky wasn't exactly the type of person he wanted to spend time with, let alone be roped into a friendship with. "Okay so maybe she is a bit... obsessive."
Dean opened his mouth to say more, but right at that moment, a rather short man in a dark suit walked in, standing at the front of the class. A few others were still standing, visiting at friend's desks and seemingly unaware of the teacher's presence.
The man cleared his throat, causing students to, with sheepish smiles in the man's direction, return to their desks. He glanced towards the doorway where he and Dean still stood, shooting them a pointed look, and said in an unexpected yet somehow fitting British accent, "Unless you both are planning on leaving us sometime soon, I would suggest taking a seat."
Dean flushed a bit, but nodded and headed for a seat in the back. Castiel followed until about halfway before he realized that, while he had been nothing but nice to him, Dean never really invited him. Instead, he took one of the empty seats in the middle of the classroom. He felt eyes on him from all sides, people curious about one of the kids from that school, and he couldn't help but internally groan. It's not as if he were the only St. Michael's student in the class, in fact, two of them were sat just 2 rows to his right, Raphael and Hannah.
But you're much more interesting than those two, aren't you?
But really, it was ridiculous- how could they possibly know already? It was only the first day and he had hardly spoken a word to anyway thus far, only Dean, and he hadn't exactly ran his mouth about it. No, he was just being paranoid. They were simply curious because of where he was from, nothing more. For now, that is.