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It's amazing how much can change in a day.
Castiel hasn't been paying much attention to Anna recently, his own fault since the advent of Dean. Still, it comes as a surprise to him that she's still seeing Lucifer and that his father not only approves of this but is actively encouraging it. To such a degree that Lucifer is invited to eat dinner with them on the night of his dance lesson with Dean.
Lucifer is thankfully keeping quiet about Castiel's proclivities, whether out of fear of Dean or of earning Michael Novak's disfavour Castiel has no idea.
It's a slim silver lining.
After dinner the dancers come out, Dean and Lisa shaming the guests with a flawless display. Castiel watches with slight envy. Slight, because he knows Dean belongs to him more than he does to anyone else, but envy still because he can do that. He can partner Dean in a dance, not as well by any means, but he can do it, and he likes the way it feels.
He claps along with the rest of them when it's over.
A balding man approaches Dean, one of the richer guests judging from his suit and gold cufflinks. He takes Dean's elbow and Dean looks at him, Castiel catches the name 'Mr Adler' and his blood freezes.
Oh.
Dean looks up at the older man, his mouth all smiles, but his eyes are carefully blank and they don't even flicker in Castiel's direction as he laughs the hand off apologetically and backs away, leaving Mr Adler with a look of disappointment and ugly dissatisfaction on his face. Dean skirts a crowd and as soon as he's within reach of a door out onto the terrace he dodges through it, his face unshuttering to show the anger and shame underneath.
Castiel extricates himself from a conversation with Sam and some of the other guests and goes out onto the practically deserted terrace. Dean turns at his approach, his bowtie hanging undone and his top buttons opened to the humid night air. He almost reaches for Castiel, almost, but one glance at the windows running along the side of the building reminds him that this is not the time or the place for that. Instead he shoves his hands into his pockets and grows through his teeth in frustration and annoyance.
"That was Adler." It wasn't a question. Dean answers anyway.
"Yeah, he wanted..." Dean half laughs bitterly. "What he always wants...but I'm, not doing that. You know I'm not."
"I know." Castiel agrees. He waits. "How much did he offer you?" Because he'd seen the flash of green in Adler's hand, seen Dean's eyes go to the bundle of note before he got away from the older man.
"You saw that." Again not a question. Dean shakes his head dumbly. "...fifty dollars."
Castiel snorts, half amused, half angry. Angrier than he's ever been.
"What?" grunts, a defensive edge to his voice.
"You're worth more." Castiel says, feeling a sick and hopeless weight settle on him. He's leaving in two days. It's over for them in two days, and he'll become just another college boy and Dean'll go back to being a...well, perhaps whore wasn't generous enough, but he'd be with people who valued him below their sham marriages, below fifty dollars.
"Worth and value – two different things. And it all depends on demand." Dean mutters. "Thought they'd have taught you that."
"Come on." Castiel says, jerking his head away from the brightly lit ballroom and the sad spectacle of Dean bathed in moonlight.
At Dean's flat, questioning look, Castiel fixes him in the eye, feeling a familiar desperation overcome him.
"I want to be somewhere, where I can touch you. So come on." He rumbles.
They reach the line of trees and kiss roughly under the heavy pine boughs, the ground soft and dry underfoot, their shoes slithering on pine needles. Castiel's breathing is very loud in his own ears, Dean's hands leave despairing, possessing trails of heat on his skin.
It's desperation that dogs them the whole way to Dean's cabin, knowing that this might be the last time, that circumstances might come against them in the next two scant days, keeping them apart until it's too late. This might be their last night. Their last brief taste of each other, water before the 40 years of desert wandering to come.
Inside the cabin they fall on each other, casting their clothing to the floor and dragging themselves down to the floor mere feet from the bed. They shiver and rub together there on the bare boards, naked and exposed on the dark floor. Dean's hair tickles under Castiel's chin and their dry, bare feet scuffle together for purchase.
By the time they shatter apart there, pick themselves up and stumble lazily for the bed, the urgency is gone, but despair is still thick on them, like a coating of sticky, cloying pollen. With Dean on top of and within him, Castiel wraps his arms close around the other man and presses his face against his throat. He holds on until he's shaking, body coming apart all over again with pleasure and painful desperation.
Even afterwards, with Dean lying still and their bodies blushing all over with climax, Castiel cannot bring himself to loosen his hold. Gently, Dean takes his arms and slides away from him, getting out of bed silently and padding away to gather up their clothes and set them straight. Castiel watches from the bed, covered in the dappled light from the blinds on the window, warmth leeching out of him, the fight leeching out of him, until there's nothing left but the urge to sleep, to let the time pass away until he can start to forget this, this and how good it was.
Dean comes back to bed and lies down, laying his head against Castiel's chest.
"If this is it." Dean says after a while, still unused to verbalising his feelings. "If this is all we get...it was good, and...I'm glad it was you. That I knew you."
Castiel takes his hand and squeezes it in his own.
Words have never failed him, until now.
The next morning Castiel crawls out of bed, dresses in last night's clothes and leaves Dean at the door of his cabin, a kiss still burning against his mouth.
He doesn't see Zachariah Adler watching from the rest of the staff cabins, having just left Lucifer's abode. He doesn't know that Anna went to Lucifer's cabin the previous night and saw Adler with Lucifer. Castiel will never know that because it's not his story.
A lot can change in a day. Especially where greed and anger come into play.
When Castiel hears the accusation, over breakfast with his family, it comes from the mouth of John Kellerman, and it very near turns his stomach.
"It's always a shame when you learn one of your staff can't be trusted." The elder Kellerman sighs, jabbing at a cut of sausage and making conversation with Castiel's father.
"What happened John?"
"There've been thefts all summer, petty stuff at first, wallets, watches...but it's gotten so bad I've had the cops here and guests leaving...now I find out it's one of my own."
"A waiter?" Anna asks, her cheeks flushing even as she asks, with disturbed knowledge.
"A dancer." John sneers. "Could have been worse but...you take these kids in when they've got nothing, you give 'em a job and roof over their heads, and how do they repay you? By biting the hand that feeds first chance they get, suck the rings off your fingers and pawn 'em once they're done."
Castiel's guts clench in expectation of the worst, when it strikes it feels like a snake bite, or how he might imagine a snake bite. Pain and then icy numbness, wrong and painful in and of itself.
"Dean. Winchester." John announces. "Delinquent with an attitude problem a mile wide. Tell you the truth, I'll be glad to get rid of him. Zach Adler says he saw him stealing wallets last night, after the show."
"It wasn't him." Castiel speaks without meaning to, icy numb lips spilling his secret uncontrollably.
Everyone at the table looks at him, his Father hardest of all.
"Well...it wasn't." Castiel says.
"What makes you say that?" John sputters, half smiling mockingly. "He tried to tell me he'd been in his room all night, reading. Like he owns a book."
"But he was." Castiel exclaims. "Dean isn't a thief."
"Quiet, Castiel." His mother tells him.
"But it's not true." Castiel growls.
"That's enough." His father snaps. "I'm sorry John."
Castiel sucks in a breath and lets loose the secret he knows will damn them both, but he has no choice, Dean'll lose his job if he doesn't, he might even go to jail. The urgency is so complete that he doesn't even stop to consider what will happen to himself, or that Dean will probably get fired anyway.
Desperation. It's blinding as it is possessive.
"Dean was in his room, all night." He says slowly. "And the reason I know, is because I was with him. The whole night."
John Kellerman's mind does not go towards the truth. What he imagines is a poker game, maybe girls, drinking, music and debauchery. He thinks little of Castiel but not so little that he would instantly think him queer.
His mother and sister look equally disapproving and shocked, not seeing the wood for the trees.
Not so his father.
Michael looks at his son, the dreadful weight of knowledge settling in him like tainted food.
"Father..." Castiel sees the light in his eyes go out, replaced by something hectic and dark. "Father, I'm so sorry..."
"Michael..." his mother's questioning voice follows him as Castiel is heaved bodily from his chair by his father, dragged through the dining room by his arm and out into the light of day. All the way back to the cabin they go in silence, until Michael throws the door open and pushes Castiel forwards, not stopping until they're in his room. He seizes Castiel's suitcase and throws it on the bed.
"Pack."
Castiel has held his shocked and frightened tears at bay until now, unbidden they slide from his eyes and run downwards, his Father looks at him with disgust, appalled at the softness of his son.
"Pack. Now." He demands, picking up a handful of shirts and sweaters from a chair and hurling them into the case.
"Father, please..."
Michael strikes him across the face with the flat of his palm, rocking Castiel's head sideways and causing the taste of blood to flare in his mouth.
"You, are not my son." Michael spits bitterly.
Castiel looks at him, his face completely white save for the pink splotch on his cheek. Colourless tears still falling down his face.
"I want you gone. I don't care where, but before the hour's up I don't want one thing of yours left under this roof." Michael snaps, his face red with rage and his body trembling with disgust. "You are not to go home. You are not to talk to my wife or Anna. Take your things, and leave."
Castiel stays frozen.
"Now!" Michael shouts at him, and Castiel turns with shaking hands to attend to his case, packing clothes in a disjointed kind of way, not really believing, despite himself, that his father would seriously disown him so suddenly, casting him away with barely any of his things or any support to speak of.
He takes his clothes from the closet under Michael's glare and packs them, the books from the bedside table, including the one he'd been reading as they arrived in the car. It seemed like so long ago. When he had nothing left to pack he hesitates before closing the case and fixing the clasps shut.
He stands limply by the bed.
"Now take it and get out." Michael mutters, the rage having dampened down to hard determination.
"Where will I go?" Castiel asks, shocked at how small his voice is.
"I don't care." Michael bites out. "Out of my sight and away from my family."
"I am your family." Castiel's voice catches.
His father seizes his arm and drags him from the bedroom, the suitcase in his other hand. He throws Castiel out of the front door and drops the suitcase into the dirt after him with a heavy 'thunk'.
"If you speak to any of us, I will have your bank account emptied, then you'll have nothing." Michael huffs, getting his breath back. "I'll contact Stanford and tell them you'll no longer be attending."
"Father..."
Michael slams the door and walks away, back towards the main house.
"Please, don't do this to me..." Castiel's mind races, and he almost follows his father back to the dining room. Almost.
He has no money with him, save the hundred dollars or so in his own bank account. He needs that money if he is to leave and have any hope of survival.
He watches his father go with a kind of surreal desperation in him.
His life has just walked away from him.
He is no longer Castiel Novak, his father is not his father. His mother is a stranger. His sister, merely a girl, one of thousands.
He is no longer Castiel Novak.
He imagines a bird's eye view of the world, his speck blowing away in a stiff breeze, his name and possessions with it. He has ceased to exist.