Chapter 3!

Enjoy!

At this point, Dean probably could have written a dissertation on students with bipolar disorder, he'd done so much research. Any other teacher would have read Wikipedia and been done with it. Not Dean. No, he scoured every book he could find and had been on every website worth anything at least twice. From WebMD, to MayoClinic, to , Dean had read everything.

So when Castiel missed his class the following week, Dean began to worry. He asked the other teachers. Cas hadn't been to their classes either.

Rarely did he abuse his power as a professor. But it was the third day Cas hadn't been to any of his classes. Dean cancelled his last two classes, went straight to the admin office, and damn near charmed the pants off the female secretary. He got Cas's address and headed to that side of town.

Cas groaned when the knock on the door snapped him out of a waking-coma. He hadn't left the couch in three days, opting to watch reruns of Roseanne instead of doing anything productive. Half-expecting it to be his landlord, who checked in on him sometimes, Cas opened the door without checking the peephole.

He couldn't speak when he saw who it really was.

"Cas…" Dean spoke on a sigh, sounding relieved. He couldn't imagine why.

Then, suddenly, he was enveloped in a tight hug. Cas stood stock still.

"Um…" was all he could get out before Dean abruptly let him go and entered the apartment.

Cas rarely had company. In fact, he never had company. Which meant that his apartment was barely livable by most people's standards. Embarrassment turned his cheeks a deep red. Dean looked around the room for a moment, turned to him, said "Shower," and pushed him towards the bathroom.

Any protest Cas had died on his lips when he saw the look in Dean's eyes. He looked…concerned. With a warm feeling in his stomach, Cas hit the showers.

Dean hated cleaning almost as much as he hated math. And research. Yet, here he was, cleaning the apartment of the student whom he had a massive crush on. Why was this his life? By the time Cas got out of the shower, all the old pizza boxes and empty pop cans were gone, and the clothes littering the floor had been put in the laundry. Dean was sitting on the hand-me-down couch with a cup of coffee.

He looked up when Cas entered the room. He looked better, to some extent, and he had put on a clean pair of lounge pants and a zip-up hoodie, foregoing a shirt. Dean couldn't think of anything he'd ever seen that was quite as beautiful as the sight before him.

"You…You didn't have to clean…" Cas said softly, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

"It was nothing, really. I read somewhere that…um…people with bipolar disorder do better in clean environments." He hoped his voice didn't betray his nervousness.

It was the right thing to say, it seemed, because suddenly, he was on the couch next to Dean. They looked into each other's eyes for a second before Cas's leaned in and their lips met. Of course, Dean responded in kind. The person he was head over heels for was kissing him, why wouldn't he kiss back? But then Cas pushed him back on the couch and straddled him, deepening the kiss.

And Dean pushed him away, breaking the kiss. The look on Cas's face was full of rejection.

Shit.

"Cas…I'm not stopping because I don't want it. I do, okay?" Cas nodded. "I just…We need to talk. You need to talk."

Cas got off Dean and sat on the opposite end of the couch. He looked…doubtful.

"Cas?"

He sighed. "Why do you even care? Why did you come over here? No one else does. No one else asks how I've been or why I missed class. My teachers don't even notice when I'm not there. Which speaks a lot about our educational system, mind you. In case you haven't noticed, I don't have a lot of friends." He paused. "No, I take that back. I don't have any friends. My parents don't even call to see how I am. When I was diagnosed, they decided that having a son with this many problems wasn't worth it. So they gave me some money and shipped me here. I have an aunt that lives in the area, but I'm pretty sure the last time I saw her, I was 4 years old. People don't like me, okay? It's a fact of life. I've gotten used to it. You should too."

His words were harsh, but Cas couldn't stop them from coming out. It was his reflex when someone got too close.

Dean laughed. He actually laughed. Cas was about to tell him to get out when Dean's hand cupped his cheek.

"Are you dense?" Dean asked. "I like you. Why else would I be here?"

"But…But I'm you're student." Cas stammered. Clearly, his brain didn't want to cooperate.

"Yes. You are. But when this class is over, you won't be."

It sounded so simple. Unable to come up with anything intelligible, Cas just smiled.

"Will you…talk to me? Please? I want to know what makes you…you."

Dean's plea wasn't much. Cas had told his story and spoken to countless of therapists and doctors. But this wasn't a professional who only wanted a paycheck. This was someone who really freakin cared.

"Well…What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

So Cas started with the easiest memory. "This isn't the first college I've attempted. When I got out of high school, I wanted to be anywhere but Podunk nowhere, which is where I grew up. So I chose the first school that accepted me."

Dean rolled his eyes and muttered something like "Didn't we all" under his breath. He never failed to make Cas smile.

"I had a hard time making friends the first few days, but by fall break, I had a full blown posse. We ate lunch together every day. We were all the same major. Hell, we did everything together. I slept in my friend's dorm room more than my own. I felt on top of the world. But when I went home for fall break, I hit rock bottom. I got so depressed I didn't know which way was up. It was so…dilapidating. I felt like I couldn't do anything. Keeping my eyes open was a hardship. Unfortunately, it didn't stay at home. When I went back to school, the low came with me. My grades started to suffer. I lost friends because they were so tired of me 'just being sad for attention.' It was…disheartening. Every friend I'd made had just left on the drop of a hat."

Dean shifted to sit closer to Cas, placing a hand on his knee.

Cas continued, eyes quickly filling with tears. "After that…I started drinking heavily. I went to every party I caught wind of. Anything so that I didn't have to feel. Because when I did feel, it wasn't pretty. My weekends were filled with bad beer and pot. On weeknights, I'd just lie in bed and stare at the wall. It was all I had energy for. It went like that for a while. Little did I know, I was rapid cycling and my moods were switching and I couldn't really control any of it. Hence the self-medicating." Tears were flowing freely now. "Then…one night…I just. I couldn't do it anymore. I was so lonely. I hated my future. I hated my present, my past. I didn't have friends. My teachers didn't pay any attention to me. So I just…decided. I drove to this lake near the school. It wasn't very big, but it would do. I…I parked my car. And…"

Sobs racked his body. Dean thought about interrupting, saying something, anything. But he had a feeling that Cas needed to say this.

"And...I…I walked to the edge of the lake. And I thought about all the friends I used to have. And how nothing was ever right with the world. And how no one would miss me when I'm gone. And I….I just…walked into the lake. Step by step, the water rising higher and higher until I…I woke up in the hospital. And I'm on the bed and there are IVs everywhere and a heart monitor and my breathing is being watched. And I'm lying there. Half dead. And the cop they stationed outside my room is talking about the weekend he had with his kids. Someone just tried to kill themselves, and the hospital staff didn't even care."

Cas crumpled against Dean. He was crying hard, hiccupping every so often. Dean just held him. He rubbed his back. And he whispered soft words that both of them needed to hear.

"I care, Cas. I'm right here…I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here…I've got you, baby. I've got you. It's gonna be okay. I care…You're alive and I care…"