Hello all. I would like to thank rainystv for the lovely review. I would also like to thank all of you lovely people who have followed and favoured this story since my last update.
Now before I start I would just like to say that I'm not sure how much I will be updating in August what with holidays and all that, so just to give you a heads up I haven't forgotten or given up the story, but I might be busy.
So anyway here's the next chapter, I hope you like it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
Sam had spent three weeks taking care of his brother, making sure he ate, showered and got dressed. It was too much to expect Dean to bounce back from the news of Cas' disappearance, he knew that. But this reaction, it worried him. It was as if his brother had crawled so far into his own mind that none could reach him. He tried, hell even Gabriel came round and tried, not that he was any more successful, and Gabriel was dealing with his own mourning. Thought the elder Novak seemed to be doing that by keeping himself busy with everyone else's problems. He worried Sam also as much as Dean did, not that he knew Gabriel well. What they both really needed was each other, and yet Dean stayed in his own world. Or at least that was how it was until three weeks after Sam had found his brother broken on his bed.
Sam got up from the spare room ready to try to force food down his brothers throat only to stubble into the kitchen to find Dean standing at the stove cooking bacon and eggs. And he was dressed, and clean. What was going on? Cos even Sam knew this was far to a quick a turn around for Dean.
"Sammy. Here breakfast, eat it all up then get your ass to work. Don't want you losing your job." Dean spoke in his authoritative voice which was reminiscent from his childhood, what the hell?
"It's alright Dean, the firms given me as much time as you need." Sam replied in a sympathetic voice which gained him a glare from his brother before Dean spoke in a harsh tone.
"Well, I'm going to work so you might as well go too."
With that Dean left the room to go grab his stuff and before Sam had time to truly react to Deans announcement his brother was out the door and gone. With that Sam ran his hand through his hair and looked round the kitchen while taking a bite of the almost cold breakfast Dean had made him. It was then he noticed that there was no other dirty plate in the sink. It seemed that while his brother may have made him breakfast he had forgotten about his own. With a sigh Sam got up from the table and tidied the kitchen before making up a lunch for Dean and going to get dressed. He wasn't about to let his brother starve himself.
That evening Dean didn't come home until it was nearly time from him to get up and go to work once again, and Sam knew that there was no way his brother had eaten anything in the time he had been missing. But Sam really didn't want to think about what he had been doing instead.
This continued for the next two weeks, Sam tried to watch his brother, but he seemed to just slip away and whenever Sam ventured to ask how he was feeling, or he gave him a you can talk to me look, he just brushed it off and vanished. Thinking about it Sam should have realised that that would be Deans response, he had never been one for discussing...well anything really. Or as he put it, no chick-flick moments. He always deflected, but now it seemed he vanished and Sam had no idea of where he brother was going. And so he decided if Dean was being sneaky, then he could be too. With that thought he agreed to return to work and his own apartment, though he really hated the idea of leaving Dean alone. Once that was done he started staking out his brother. It was then that he saw the truth he had refused to even contemplate.
Every night Dean would go out, he changed the places and the times, but every night he was out, and every night he would stagger home completely trashed. Sam hated seeing this, his brother had always had a not very healthy relationship with alcohol. But he had thought he had got better from that time. The only other time he had seen Dean like this.
Sam was 14, his big brother had just finished high school, gaining his GED. But he knew Dean had no plans to go to college. He had got himself a job with their uncle Bobby in his garage, and for all that Dean didn't realise it, he was damn good at it. Sam was proud of his big brother. But there was a cloud on the horizon, one that none of them saw coming.
It was a fine summers day when Castiel turned up at their house, Sam let him in with a smile and then went back to the summer project he was working on while Castiel made his way to his brothers room.
"Hello Dean." Castiel said from the doorway of Deans room as he watched him move around, changing out of his work clothes.
"Hey Cas, what's up? Want to come and watch some clouds?" Dean asked jokingly smirking at his best friend at the in-joke from earlier in the summer where Cas had mentioned that he liked to watch clouds, to let the rest of the world just pass him by as he just stopped. When Cas didn't reply, just stood there looking at him blankly he continued. "What was it you said? 'Because people spend all there time rushing. sometimes you need to just stop.' right?" at the end Deans smirk turned into a genuine smile as he looked at his best friend.
The smile broke Castiel heart. If only... but that was not to be.
"I have just received information that Stanford have accepted me." He said in response to Deans sentence without any emotion in his voice.
"What? But I thought you were going to school down the road." Dean replied confused about why Cas was mentioning this. I mean that had been sorted for ages.
" I know, but Dean, this opportunity is one I can't pass up." Castiel said again with no emotion in his voice. If he allowed that to enter then there was no telling what he would say to the beautiful man in front of him.
"But...what does that mean?" Dean asked in a quite voice, he couldn't believe that Cas was telling him what he thought he was telling him. Because it couldn't be true, it just couldn't.
"It means I'll be moving to California in 3 weeks." Castiel answered his heart breaking as he watched the emotions cross Deans face at the words. He didn't want to do this to the man he had come to love, but he needed to do this for himself. He needed time away from Dean, from his unrequited feelings for the man. Because he could not go on like this. Loving his best friend but not being able to say the words. But Dean was still and always would be his best friend and he did not want to hurt him.
"Just like that? You're leaving?" Dean whispered finally finding words though the look on his face was broken.
"Dean, I'm sorry. But I can't turn this down." Castiel tried to explain, he wanted to take the pain away from him. Take it on himself.
"Yeah you can Cas. You just say no." Dean demanded back at him making Castiel close his eyes at what he was about to say.
"Very well, I don't wan to turn this down." He replied opening his eyes once more and looking at Dean.
"So your just going to leave." Dean stated his eyes going hard.
"I'll be back in the holidays." Castiel argued back. He wouldn't be able to leave Dean forever, that was never going to be possible in his mind.
"Yeah right, you'll be too busy with your new college friends to come back here Cas." Dean replied sarcastically, though Cas, who knew him so well over the decade of there friendship, could hear the pain and uncertainty under his voice. Dean really believed that Castiel could replace him. It would be funny if it wasn't so heart breaking.
"I have never been too busy to come back to you Dean. You know that." He said trying to make Dean remember what there friendship had lasted through. How his parents had sent him to a different school in the hopes of spliting them apart, how they had constantly been trying to send him on summer camps for the same purpose, but none had worked. He had Dean had always come back to each other.
"Yeah well this is a little different than you going to the local private school, this is the other side of the damn country." Dean argued. Yes he knew what Cas was saying, but that had been his parents doing that. This was Cas' choice to break them apart, and that Dean just couldn't get his head around.
"You know, you could come with me Dean." Castiel ventured to suggest, even if part of the reason he was leaving was to get space from his feelings for this man, he couldn't see Dean in this pain. And maybe it would help, being somewhere else, somewhere where no one knew who either of them was.
"What come and be your little pet project? Get real Cas, what the hell would I do in Stanford?" Dean spat at him, he couldn't believe after all they had been through Cas was once again suggesting he become his little charity project.
"I'm sure you could fine a job-" Castiel tried to argue, though in truth if Dean did not want one Cas would happily support him if he truly wanted to come.
"No." At that Dean tried to turn from him making Cas reach out and grab his arm. There eyes connected and Cas saw the pain in the green. He would do anything to make it go away, but he need to go to Stanford for himself. He knew that.
"Dean." he said in a voice which was almost pleading with the other man to understand that he needed to do this. Not that it would change a thing.
"No Cas, just go. Live your life, you obviously don't need me any more." Dean replied in a broken sounding voice.
"I will always need you Dean." Castiel stated, it was the simple truth after all.
"Yeah well, I don't need you. I've got Sam to look out for. Without you around my life will be much easier. Your nothing but a baby in a trench-coat." Dean growled at him, flinging the most painful things he could think of at his best friend so that he hurt the way Dean himself did.
"Very well Dean." Castiel replied. He knew that no matter what he said Dean would not believe him, the only way to get Dean to believe was to show him. The man had little faith in anything after all. with that Castiel turned and left the room, leaving the house so caught up in his own feelings he didn't even see Sam flush against the wall as he walked past.
What followed that conversation was Sam finding himself smothered by his brother, while Dean turned to drink to get his comfort. Sam watched, but there was nothing he could do about it. And it seemed that no one else noticed his brothers deterioration. He was as some would say a functioning alcoholic. But still Sam watched, and he dreaded the day that Dean fell apart. But it never happened. Instead Cas came back for every holiday, it took like a year, but soon Dean realised that he wasn't going to desert him, as such he started drinking less, and gave Sam the freedom he desperately wanted.
But this time Sam knew, there would be no Cas to catch his brother, not this time. No this time he was going to have to be the one to help him. The only problem was, Sam had no idea how to do it. And this time it was a lot worse than the time Cas went to college. He was going to need help. With that Sam pulled out his phone and made some calls getting the name of a professional that could maybe help with his brother, or at least he hoped she could, the name was of one Jessica Moore.