Chapter two
Castiel woke to the sound of his alarm clock yelping its two notes over and over again.
"ugghhghhhh" Castiel groaned as he reached over to turn it off. It had been two days since he had arrived at UFC and met Dean and his cast of friends, but after the dinner at the Salonica, he had seen very little of his roommate, except when Dean came to get his books or to sleep. Dean also usually left before Castiel woke up in the morning.
Except for today
"mmh….Cas turn that thing off" Dean mumbled sleepily from his side of the room. After the initial surprise of seeing Dean at all Castiel took a moment to take in Dean's appearance. Dean was clearly either sick or hung over and given that Castiel hadn't seen him come in it was probably the latter.
"Come on get up" Castiel instructed as pulled the covers off of Dean
"Whhhyyyyy" Dean whined
"Because," Cas said "sitting around isn't going to help your hangover and you," Castiel pushed Dean into the bathroom to shower and change, "need to get to class later"
Castiel quickly made his bed and got out his clothes for the day while Dean was in the shower. He tried not to think about the fact that he was helping Dean even though he hardly knew him, but Dean had done the same thing for Castiel earlier that week. Cas thought back to the night when Dean, Sam and Andrew had taken him out to dinner. They had shown him around the neighborhood and shown him all the bookstores and coffee shops where he could work on school work without getting kicked out. It was one of the first times lately when he had actually felt at home in a group of people, besides his siblings Anna and Gabriel of course. He thought back to the fight with his family, how they had told him to fix this "problem" or to leave the Novak household. For good. Dean must have gotten out of the shower while Castiel was in his reverie Dean must have gotten out of the shower because a second later he heard him say,
"Hey Cas showers all yours, forgot my clothes so I'll just get changed out here while you take your shower and stuff" When Castiel turned around Dean was soaking wet and only had a towel covering his waist and below. Castiel grabbed his clothes and tried to hide the fact that he had an erection as he made his way to the bathroom. When he had showered and put his clothes on he went out of the bathroom to the sight of Dean waiting for him on his bed.
"So you want to go get breakfast?" Dean asked casually
"Sure" Castiel replied as he grabbed his coat and let Dean lead the way out of their dorm and off campus, seeing as he knew it better. Dean walked to the street where his car was parked. It amused Castiel how much Dean loved the car, he referred to it as his "baby" and the classic 67' Chevy Impala was clearly very well taken care of seeing as the old car had a perfect paint job and started perfectly on the first try. They drove the mile or so to The Valois on 53rd street in companionable silence, with the radio playing 97.9, Chicago's classic rock station.
When they reached their destination they both got out of the car and Castiel followed Dean into the building he had pointed out. The restaurant was like a cafeteria in its setup, where you would grab a tray get in line, order, and as you moved along the servers would give you your order, but the food was definitely not cafeteria food. There was pancakes, eggs, hot or cold sandwiches, sausages and so much more, and almost everything was five dollars or under, which sort of made it the perfect breakfast restaurant. The line moved incredibly fast, even though there was a large number of people in line.
"Cas why don't you go grab us a table" Dean said as they were in line, because the tables were indeed filling up, "I have your order, so don't worry"
"Okay" Castiel replied as he shuffled out from the line to find a table to fit the two of them. He found one by the front of the restaurant, and it wasn't too long until Dean came over with a tray of food, and as promised he hadn't screwed up what Castiel wanted.
"So," Dean said as they started to eat their food, "What made you want to transfer" Castiel thought a moment before answering and then he said
"Well I had been going to NorthWestern because it's what my family wanted but they stopped speaking to me so now I'm here"
"If you don't mind me asking, why isn't your family speaking to you?" Dean said through a mouthful of steak and eggs
"It's sort of a long story but if you really want to hear it I'll tell you"
"Hey you don't have to tell it if you're uncomfortable" Dean said in a comforting tone
"No it's just…" Castiel inhaled and exhaled slowly before continuing "It's just I don't want to throw all my baggage on you"
"Cas, I asked, you're not throwing anything on me" Castiel couldn't express how much he was grateful for Dean in this moment, because this relative stranger was offering to hear Castiel's problems just because he wanted to be nice
"Ok" he said quietly "Well, um, my family is sort of religious, but not completely creepy religious with crosses on everything but just sort of…" Castiel trailed off not sure of the right word.
"I get what you mean, go on" Dean smiled slightly
"Ok, so yeah they're religious and stuff and my family has always had a very concrete idea of what me and my siblings were going to do in life, they wanted me to be a doctor in fact, um and whenever one of us would go against what they wanted for us in any way, well let's just say it never ended well"
"They didn't beat you did they?" the concern Dean felt for him was obvious on his face and Castiel felt guilty for making him think that
"No no physical violence, just being grounded or in the worst case scenario, my brothers Gabriel and Lucifer were disowned, Gabriel for more understandable reasons than Lucifer. So um when I came back to visit the summer between my freshman and sophomore year I told them I didn't want to go to med school when I left college, and let's just say it did not go well. They threatened to stop paying for my college so I did what I had to do, I told them that I would continue with what they wanted but the next semester I dropped most of my medical classes and instead took more English and writing classes, but I kept enough medical and science classes that they wouldn't be suspicious. I also didn't tell them that I was gay until the next summer,"
"Wait," Dean interrupted, "You couldn't even tell them that you were gay? Man that's not good parenting"
"I will admit that they were not very considerate of our opinions but they did give us a good education and a roof over our heads"
"How many siblings did you have anyways?"
"Five, one sister named Anna and four brothers, Gabriel, Michel, Lucifer and Balthazar, now if you don't have any more questions I would like to continue my story"
"No go right ahead" Dean said
"Ok well things didn't start to get bad until I went home the next summer. They had realized that I was turning more towards and English degree rather than a medical one and they were not happy about it. I probably shouldn't have also chosen that vacation to come out to them but I did and what's done is done"
"How did they react?" Dean asked, genuinely interested in Castiel's life
"They said that either I went to a workshop to "cure my disease" or I left the household. I chose the latter. Gabriel heard what had happened and helped me get in contact with my grandmother, who had taken in Gabriel and helped him pay for his remaining years of school and she helped me too. But I didn't want to go back to where I was so I came here, which is a better school for English degrees and it would help me get away from my family and closer to Gabriel, who lives in Ukrainian Village."
Dean was silent for a moment but then he spoke, "Geez Cas that's not right, a family I supposed to accept you, not fucking disown you when you don't want to be what they think is right."
"I know" Castiel sighed "But it's what happened and I can't change it. What I can do however, is make the most of it. For example, now I can choose whatever career I want and I can date whoever I want."
"Well" Dean said as he started clearing their dishes "There's only one way to help when your family disowns you"
"And what is that" Castiel questions
"Food"
And that is how they ended up at Treasure Island at 9:00 in the morning with a shopping cart full of groceries but mostly chocolate, cake, and cookies.
