Cas didn't know how Dean managed to get him so riled. Usually, Cas had zero fucks to give, but when Dean was around…it loosened him up—and not exactly in a good way. It made him snappy and frustrated and irritable and…it made him almost care. And Castiel had stopped caring a long time ago.
Dean was candy. Delicious, but not good for you. And very nice too look at.
Cas was bad at metaphors.
In historical lit, Cas spent most of the class reading Le Morte Dartur-by choice. As a class they were going briefly over Greek philosophers. If it snatched anyone's interest, the hope was that they would take philosophy next year. Cas already knew he was because it wasn't a popular class.
Gabriel cast him worried glances throughout the period, but Cas pretended not to notice. When the bell rang, Cas took his usual time getting his things together. (He'd found the halls to be a much more dangerous place than the classrooms-in most cases.) Everyone had emptied the room and Cas was just getting up to leave when Mr. Shurley spoke.
"Castiel, what happened to your face?"
Cas didn't take any notice of Mr. Shurley's phrasing; he was an awkward man.
"I fell of my bike," Cas lied easily. He didn't even own a bike. "Face-planted on the pavement."
"Oh, well-try to be more careful. Looks a bit like somebody tried to knock your teeth out."
Cas offered a smile despite his split lip. "Just my own stupidity."
Dean was waiting for him at his locker-there was no other way to say it. Dean was standing with his back against his own closed locker and righted himself when Cas approached.
"Hey. Feeling any better?"
"I'm fine," Cas answered curtly. "I just fell off my bike."
"Oh, is that what happened?" Dean played along.
Cas got that familiar prickle along his spine that said someone was watching him-that past couple years, it had developed so well that he could often times tell who it was that was staring. This one had Uriel written all over it and a glance over his shoulder confirmed it. Dark eyes glared at him hatefully and Cas found himself wanting to crawl into his locker and shut the door behind him.
"Dean," he hissed when he realized Dean was glaring right back at Uriel.
Somehow, Dean won and Uriel looked away-or he just got bored.
"What a dick," Dean noted, obviously unimpressed.
"Dean, don't challenge him," Cas said. "You've got good friends here, don't make enemies."
"I thought this place was all anyone-who-isn't-a-friend-is-an-enemy. Why even..." His green eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Is he the one that did this to you?"
Cas shook his head vehemently. "No, he's not." But damn if he was bad at lying directly to Dean.
"He is, isn't he? I swear, I'll rip—"
"Dean, no," Cas said, leaving no room for argument. "Don't do anything. Don't even look at him for the next week."
"How can you say that? Don't you want to get back at him? Get even?"
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm serious. What did you do to deserve that?"
"What didn't I do," Cas muttered.
"What?"
"Just leave it be."
"Cas, come on. At least tell somebody. You can't let him get away with beating you to a pulp."
"Thank you, for emphasizing just how helpless I am. Really, it means a lot. I survive. That's enough." Castiel walked around Dean, once again late for class.
"Surviving and living aren't the same things!" Dean called after him.
Surviving's good enough for me, Cas thought. Surviving's good enough for me.
Dean was pretty sure Cas had forgotten they had painting together. But while he was walking down the hall, he kind of did this little hesitation step where his foot froze midair momentarily. Dean got the feeling that that was when he realized.
Cas' slight shoulders rose as he took a breath.
"I didn't mean to be rude," Cas said without turning around.
Dean half ran the few steps it took to catch up to him. "Yes, you did," he said with a smirk.
He knew he'd been successful in lightening the mood back up when the corner of Cas' mouth twitched upward minutely. "Shut up."
"Nah, I like the sound of my voice too much."
"You're a very strange person, Dean Winchester."
"You're not too normal yourself, Castiel Novak."
Cas rolled his eyes and Dean grinned. Something about making Cas happy made him happy. But there was nothing wrong with that, right?
After Dean took what was becoming his usual spot beside Castiel and Cas got out his work, Dean asked, "What happened to the green one?" He'd gotten out a new blank paper. What had he called it...bristol?
Cas frowned, something changing slightly in his eyes. "It was a stupid idea. I'm starting over."
Dean shrugged and tried to ignore the significantly minuscule change in Cas' ambience.
"You still haven't started yours," Cas observed.
"I don't really know what I want my subject to be. I'm thinking a blue color scheme, but other than that I'm pretty much clueless."
"Blue often times represented fidelity and truth," Cas said.
Dean gave him a weird look. "Dude, you and my brother would get along great."
Cas tilted his head. "What do you mean?"
Dean just shook his head. "You two could co-write an encyclopedia of weirdness."
"At least we could write an encyclopedia."
"Hey, I know my classic rock and cars."
There were several beats of silence and then Dean had an idea. "What are you doing this weekend?"
"No more than usual," Cas said warily. "...Why?"
"Good. Then you'll be able to hang out with me and a couple of friends from my old school."
"Or not."
"Come on, they're pretty cool. And I was gonna ask Gabe and Anna and Balthazar at lunch, too. You guys used to hang out, right? I know they still want to be friends, if you'd just let them."
"I can't."
"You just said you weren't doing anything," Dean said.
"No, I didn't," Cas retorted.
"But that's what you meant."
"I'm not going."
"Yes, you are."
"No."
"I'll kidnap you."
Then Cas did something really surprising. He dipped a fairly large brush in the nearest available paint-it just happened to be yellow-and flung it at Dean. Dean jumped back in a vain attempt to dodge the splatter and it left yellow splotches all over his face. A grin made a home of Cas' lips for several minutes after that. Mrs. Milton was off somewhere and the other kids weren't sure how to react, but Dean didn't care.
"Okay, now I'm definitely kidnapping you," he said, trying to wipe the paint off on the back of his hand but only succeeding in smearing it further.
"I'm very efficient in the art of hiding."
"I am the art of hiding," Dean said as he turned to the sink that was behind him and got some damp paper towels.
"Oh, is that why you're covered in bright yellow paint? Is that some sort of top secret method?"
Dean gave a weak retaliation, sending a flick of water Cas' way. A few droplets landed in his dark hair and Dean tried to ignore the fact that he wondered what it would be like to run his fingers through that hair.
"Oh yeah," he said, pausing to wipe some of the paint off with the brown paper towel. "We're talking CIA level here."
"You'd think the CIA could train its agents to dodge some paint splatter."
"Yeah, well, they never used yellow."
Dean heard some whispers coming from the table next to theirs. "...tell him. Lucifer'll be mad as Hell. He has his sight set on Winchester and Novak's just asking for it now..."
"Lucifer's a dick," Dean said without warning.
The entire class grew so quiet you could have heard a feather drop. Dean was pretty sure most of them had even stopped breathing.
"Dean," Cas said, voice unnaturally loud in the silence, "just stop talking."
"I'll say whatever I want," Dean said. "Everyone else does. Just as long as it's not about Michael or Lucifer or Uriel or any of those douchebags."
When Mrs. Milton came back into the room, conversation picked back up but never regained full volume.
"Is that…paint? In your hair?" Balthazar asked, squinting.
"Are you kidding? He said I got it all out…" Dean ran his hands through his hair, as if that would get the remaining dried paint out. "So, I was gonna go hang out with some friends from my old school this weekend. And I was wondering if you guys wanted to come along."
"Saturday or Sunday?" Anna asked.
"I was gonna head out there on Saturday and maybe stay into Sunday."
"Will they mind if we come along?" Anna asked hesitantly.
"Nah, they're pretty laid back. And I bet Jo'll like having another girl around. Most of the time it's just us guys and her."
"I'm in," Gabe said.
"I'll come, too," Anna said with a smile.
"Will there be alcohol?" Balthazar asked.
Dean gave a short laugh. "Yeah, prob'ly."
"Then I suppose I'll tag a long as well."
"Do you wanted drive out there in separate cars?"
"Why waste the gas?" Gabe asked rhetorically. "We can all fit in your ride, can't we?"
"Well, it'll be full, but it would work."
"Who else is coming?" Balthazar asked, taking a drink of his said 'water'.
"I told Cas I was kidnapping him if he didn't coming willingly."
Anna's face lit up. "That's great! Here—" She pulled a pen out of her pocket and scrawled something down in her neat script on a napkin. "This is my address," she said, passing it to Balthazar. He and Gabe wrote their addresses down too and gave it to Dean.
"Let us know a few minutes before you stop by," Gabe said.
"And if it's before noon, don't even bother stopping by my house," Balthazar advised.