(note: here's Chapter Two, a bit more eventful than Chapter One. I hope you like and thanks for reading ^_^ I'm not sure just how long this story'll end up being, but I now have a better idea of where it's going. I'll try to post a new chapter every Wednesday)
"Where the fuck were you, Cassie?" Gabriel asked the moment Castiel took a step inside their apartment. Castiel winced; he had tried so hard to open the door as slowly and quietly as possible, and had planned to go as far as to tiptoe to his room. Instead he trudged his way to the living room, where his older brother was waiting, sitting on the couch and looking up at him with pressing questions written plainly in his eyes.
"I stepped out, is it really a big deal?" Castiel countered, his voice low and not really even forming into a question, because of course these things were a big deal. He knew he'd been acting off ever since he moved in with Gabriel, and he also knew how much he was worrying his brother and how selfish it was of him to keep insisting he was fine, but he was at a loss whenever he wondered what else there was he could do.
Gabriel rose slowly to his feet, watching Castiel with wary hazel eyes, as if his brother were a small animal he was trying hard not to frighten away. "Cassie…please, I told you, you're an adult now and I can't stop you from, uh...'stepping out,' but you've gotta tell me, man."
"And I asked you to please stop calling me 'Cassie.'" Castiel's voice was barely above a whisper, bleak and weary and flat.
Gabriel sighed, walked up to him, and gently patted his shoulder. "Just…please try to help me out a little here. I really don't know what to do with you."
"You don't need to do anything. As you said, I'm an adult now." Castiel immediately wished he could take that back, and hastily added, "I—I know you're trying to help, and I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me—"
His brother cut him off with an abrupt hug. At first Castiel was rather stunned and didn't know what to do. They'd never been the hugging type. But Gabriel was insistent they should start now, apparently, and even rested his head on his brother's shoulder. So Castiel let himself relax into it, and wrapped his arms around Gabriel's smaller frame. It only lasted a moment before Castiel had to step back, eyes fixed on the ground.
"I…went to the planetarium."
"Again?"
Castiel nodded and started walking toward his bedroom. "Yeah. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, and that I turned my phone off. I won't do it again."
Gabriel sighed but didn't say anything else, and let his little brother go hide in his room.
Castiel didn't sleep much that night. He only drifted off for an hour or so at a time, and spent the rest of the night staring up at the ceiling and wishing desperately that he could just sleep and not wake up for at least ten hours. It had been like this off and on for months, and he was so tired.
At first it was because he kept having dreams about his parents, dreams that he always jerkily forced himself awake from. He'd tried to deal with their death, to heal, and most of the time things felt okay. Until he crawled back into bed. Until he saw them smiling at him.
No, stop, Castiel chided himself for what must be the millionth time that night, and many nights before. Don't think. Not about that.
He tossed and turned helplessly in his too-fluffy bed. All of Gabriel's furniture seemed too fluffy for his taste. Just like everything they had in the fridge contained entirely too much sugar and too little vegetables. Castiel sighed and tried once more to simply keep his eyes shut and slip back into another fitful bout of sleep. His efforts proved fruitless, of course.
He tried again about fifteen minutes or so later, and as soon as he shut his eyes he saw the memory of a face assemble in his mind. A stranger with almost unnaturally symmetric features, gently dusted golden freckles, and sad green eyes. Dean. That had been his name. Castiel was a little amazed he remembered. He was awful with names. Just as he was awful with remembering what groceries they needed, and what time he should set his alarm for his morning classes, and ordering from just the right pizza joint, much to his brother's vexation.
Dean. Dean with the warm hand and open smile, despite his obvious grief. Dean with the rough but pretty voice, who didn't shrug Castiel's hand off despite their being complete strangers and who had moved back in with his mother just to help her get through their devastating loss.
I wouldn't mind seeing him again, Castiel mused as agitated, restless sleep once more took hold of him.
Dean's shift at the bookstore started way too damn early in the morning, but he was an early riser anyway and it was always nice for him to feel like he was being productive. Still wasn't his idea of a perfect morning, though. That involved the whole family gathered in the kitchen for a big homemade breakfast, then a nice drive to a bookstore in which he just shopped rather than worked. The whole family…No, quit it. No wallowing today, you're working today. Family here was him and Mary, and breakfast was a granola bar, and instead of his preferred plain T-shirts he had to wear one with "Lawrence Bookstore" written in giant orange Comic Sans letters.
Groaning in disgust, he reluctantly pulled it on and reached the bookstore within ten minutes. He entered through the little café at the front, where his coworker Garth had fallen asleep face-first on the counter.
Dean smiled and tapped him none-too-gently on the shoulder. "Rise 'n shine, buddy."
Garth shook with a startled yelp, eyes wide. "Jackass," he moaned unhappily, rolling his eyes and slugging Dean in the arm as hard as he could, which reminded Dean of Sammy's cute little ten-year-old punches.
"Okay, okay, sorry," Dean laughed. "Anyone else here yet?"
Garth shook his head and turned away from him to start up the coffeemakers. "Nah. Want some caffeine?"
"Do you think that could be considered stealing company property?"
"You always this mouthy in the mornin'?"
Dean grinned. "Yep. But, yeah, caffeine sounds great." Garth mumbled something under his breath but got a couple of mugs out from one of the cabinets anyway.
Dean sat down on the table farthest away from all the natural light spilling through the windows. He liked Garth already, which was saying something because it usually took a while for Dean to get used to someone new, let alone genuinely like them. Maybe he just felt especially lonely and short of friends here in Lawrence. Maybe he appreciated how distracting their light bantering was. Either way, they got along well when Garth wasn't all pissy about his unnatural morning cheerfulness.
For a few peaceful moments the only sound to be heard was that of the coffeemakers buzzing and growling and Garth snoring again. Dean took a book out of his tan messenger bag and started reading as he waited for the day to truly begin.
It began much earlier than expected when the door opened with the sudden tinkling song of the little bell. Dean's head snapped up, eyes wide in surprise, and he rushed to get behind the counter and shoulder Garth out of the way and try to make things look slightly more professional.
He was surprised enough already, but downright shocked when he saw that their early bird customer possessed a familiar face.
Castiel looked much different than he had last night, all rumpled hair and weary eyes and wrinkled clothes, his face still slightly puffy. Dean would assume he'd just rolled out of bed if he weren't dressed in jeans and a cute black pull-over sweater.
Wait, cute? Dean never thought of things as "cute," especially not things that other guys wore. He quickly shook himself back to attention as Castiel approached the counter, slowly looking up at him with those sunken eyes.
Castiel blinked and canted his head to the side a little. "Dean?" he asked, his voice even more gravelly than usual.
Dean gave him his brightest Unnatural Early Morning Cheer smile. "Hey, stranger. Fancy seeing you here. Or anyone, actually, at seven-thirty. We're technically not open yet," he added, inclining his head in Garth's direction.
Castiel's eyes didn't waver from his face, however, almost unbearably intense despite his obvious exhaustion. "I apologize," he said after a pause. "Should I come back?"
Dean shrugged. "What the hell? We've got fresh coffee now."
Castiel smiled, his face tired but not unfriendly, and took a seat. "That'd be fantastic. How much?"
Dean had no idea of what made him blurt out, "On the house," as he filled Castiel's mug.
Castiel raised an eyebrow as he set it before him, the coffee's steam sending its rich aroma right into his nose and making his mouth water. "You sure?"
Dean smiled and nodded. What the fuck? he demanded of himself as he poked Garth awake once more. "Hey, did you bake those scones last night?"
Garth mumbled a curse around a wide yawn but nodded. "Yeah, I'll get 'em out of the back." And then it was just Dean and Castiel again, and for some reason that thought made apprehension laced with unexpected giddiness spread all over his body.
"Um, so…" he started lamely, claiming the chair across from Castiel. "What are you doin' up this early, anyway?"
He half-expected Castiel to give him a grumpy Garth-esque reaction, but the boy just shrugged. "I set my alarm too early. I do that sometimes. Better than too late, I guess. So my first class doesn't start for another couple of hours and I thought maybe I'd pick up this botany book I've been eyeing."
Dean chuckled. "Plant guy, huh?"
Castiel shrugged and took a careful sip of his still-steaming coffee. "I like birds too. And stars, as you saw last night. But I'm taking mostly English classes. This stuff's more of a hobby."
"So you're a student?" Dean was surprised. He'd guessed the kid was a bit younger than him because of his slimmer, not-quite-grown-into-everything frame, but…
"Freshman," Castiel answered with a nod, setting his cup gingerly on the table and wrapping his long hands firmly round it.
Dean's eyes widened. He certainly never guessed he was quite that young.
Castiel huffed out gruff laugh. "You're looking at me like we just fucked and I just told you I'm fifteen. Which I'm not. I'm nineteen, and we didn't fuck, so you're good."
Dean was positively gaping at him now, when a rumble of laughter rolled over him, too. "Jesus, I never pegged you for a teenager. Or a potty mouth."
"It's a gift," said Castiel with one of his lovely small smiles. Okay, no way in hell did Dean ever describe anything as "lovely" to himself. Yeah, everything that had been going on was definitely getting him in some weird funk, one that began with his new habit of talking to teenaged strangers. Boy teenaged strangers.
And then there was something about the way said boy teenaged stranger was looking at him over the rim of his mug, his gaze heavy and bright with a spark of interest about which Dean wasn't sure how he felt.
He awkwardly started to rise from his seat. "Um—"
Almost as if reading his mind, Castiel swiftly cut him off. "I'm sorry if the fucking comment was a bit blunt. I don't know what I'm saying half the time this early in the day."
Dean nodded curtly. "Uh, yeah…"
Castiel took his cue with a graceful smile and politely got up to set his almost-empty mug on the counter. "If it's all right, I guess I'll go hunt for that book. Thank you very much for the coffee, Dean."
"Yeah," Dean murmured. "See you around, Cas."
Castiel shot him another smile over his shoulder before walking out of the café.
Dean was most definitely not stalking Castiel as he walked leisurely about the store, occasionally picking up a book and leafing through it with gentle hands before setting it back down in its proper place and returning to his original search. Just like Dean most definitely did not feel a small but very present twinge of affection every time Cas did that, or most anything else. He couldn't help but be fascinated by the boy's quiet little mannerisms and how he seemed to be lost in a world all his own, completely unaware of everything else, including a certain bookstore employee who was absolutely and positively not following him.
Finally, Dean made himself stop and return to the café, where Garth was nowhere to be seen, having probably fallen asleep in the middle of his scone mission. Dean sighed and finally poured himself a cup of coffee, wrinkling his nose when the lukewarm liquid hit his lips.
It wasn't as if he thought it was wrong to feel this…thing toward Castiel, it had just caught him very off-guard. What disturbed him far more than Cas' being a man was the fact that this "thing" was a damn crush, something Dean had thought he'd left behind in high school.
Fuck, he didn't even know the guy. They'd met twice, and talked to each other for approximately five minutes during each encounter. No, they didn't know each other and Dean didn't know that he was suddenly bi and wanted to take the kid out for a movie sometime. All he knew for stone-hard fact was that he wouldn't mind if Castiel started frequenting the bookstore, namely the café in which they might actually get to know each other.
Castiel found his way back into the café about an hour later, a small paperback in hand. "Hey, Dean, do you think you could ring me up real quick?"
Dean couldn't imagine denying him anything in the world when his eyes looked so innocent and suddenly youthful instead of sleepy, and especially not when he said something like 'real quick.' Dean looked up from the counter, which he'd been scrubbing clean for probably far longer than necessary, and smiled back. "Yeah, sure. Um, actually we can do it here; I'll just stash it in this register instead."
"All right," Castiel hummed, digging into his back pocket for a crumpled ten dollar bill. He handed Dean the book first so he could make certain that Castiel wasn't cheating him, as if he would ever suspect that, and then the proper amount of money, and suddenly that was it. The student's business here was done for the day and within a few seconds he'd be walking out the door. For some reason the idea seemed incredibly undesirable to Dean.
"Thank you," Cas said with that same innocent little smile that made Dean wonder if the boy was feeling something even remotely similar. "I think I'll be back."
His words sent a wide grin spreading across Dean's face. "Y-yeah, okay! See ya, Cas."
With that, Castiel was gone for good, or at least for a while, but now all Dean could think about was that smile, and the promise that it seemed to have held.