Normally, Castiel's mornings start with being woken up by his alarm clock at five thirty. He'll hit the snooze button until six o'clock. After that, he'll take a short shower, head down stairs, eat a nice full breakfast, before Gabriel drives him and Anna to school.

This morning however, started off with a loud banging on his door, Gabriel screeching that they're late with Anna's tooth brush hanging out of his mouth. Anna is showering, singing obnoxiously loud, trying to make her father upset. Cas jumps out of his bed, gets twisted up in the sheets and collides with the floor. Groaning, he pushes himself up, grabs a change of clothes, and rushes into the bathroom on the second floor. He jumps in the shower and has five seconds of peace before Gabriel is shouting at him to hurry up before he jumps in with him. Cas knows he'll do it too- he has done it- so he scrubs furiously at his hair before rinsing it out and hopping out. Cas gives Gabe the all clear so the brunette barges in, stark naked, before jumping in the shower. Cas gets dressed and rushes down the stairs, running past Anna's singing and into the kitchen, trying to avoid Zachariah's study.

Cas makes the three of them toast; just butter for him, strawberry jam for Anna, and butter, cinnamon, and sugar for Gabriel. Cas hefts his bad over his shoulder before anxiously shifting his weight from foot to foot. Gabriel runs past Cas with Anna hot on his heels. She's yelling as loud as she can and the three of them are out of that door right as Zachariah's study door swings open. They rush to Gabriel's Corvette Stingray and they're tearing down the road before Zachariah can rip the front door open.

Cas hates the way Gabe drives; he's too fast, he rarely stops at stop signs, and his turns are far too wide. Cas grips the edge of his seat the entire way to school. Gabe turns into the student parking area so hard Cas is practically laying sideways in his seat. Here, Gabe finally slows down, not wanting to hit anyone else's car with his own. As Cas is slinging his bag back over his shoulder, Gabe slams on the brakes. Anna looks like she wants to punch Gabe but she just asks him if he's retarded.

Gabe ignores both of them as he ogles another car in the parking lot, sitting near the front entrance. Cas knows it's a muscle car, but not much beyond that. Gabe makes a comment about how beautiful it is and some other odd things, so Cas and Anna just get out while the car is still and make their way into the school.

He only has ten, maybe fifteen, minutes of class left when he gets to Mr. Shurley's class. He apologizes to his English teacher before making his way to the seat he'd been assigned. There was a new boy sitting in the usually empty seat. When he got to his seat he realized it's the boy who had stood up for him; the one who had been suspended for him on his first day.

Cas sits down and thinks about how he should act. Should he introduce himself? Should he ignore him? Cas shook that idea off because that would be extremely rude. Cas was so far in his head, he jumped when the bell rang for class to end. The boy next to him jumped up and ran out the door. Cas packed up and looked to see which way he'd gone, but he couldn't tell. Cas decided he'd introduce himself and thank his savior.

His next class was home Ec. He still couldn't get out of it, unfortunately, because his counselor told him that all other electives were taken up. But he worked diligently in all of his classes, this one was no exception. After that he had Band, which had the boy again. Cas wondered how many classes they had together; or if they had lunch together. Their band teacher forced them to be quiet, claiming she had a head ache, but Cas had his suspicions. The entire class period, Cas tried to convince himself to just get up and go over to him, but his legs wouldn't move. Before he knows it the bell is ringing again and he goes running off with his friends, leaving Cas behind again.

Then Cas has lunch, and he sees him, but he's surrounded by a large group of people and Cas is afraid of crowds. He's having a hard time in the cafeteria without anyone looking at him. He can't imagine approaching a large group of people and having everyone look at him like he's imposing on them-which he probably would be. It figured that the guy he wanted to talk to was popular; he had stood up for him. He probably did that for all of his friends. Cas left the cafeteria with his food and headed to the nice quiet library.

His next class is Econ, but he's not in this class. And of course he wouldn't be in the 9th grade English class he TA's for. But he is in Theater, so Cas is kind of happy. He was always talking to his friends, but here, with these two girls, he's especially loud. Cas can hear him laugh and it's rather nice. He also over hears their plan to go to their lockers, and decided to talk to him there. So after their final class ends, Cas follows him down a couple hallways-he's rather tall so he has longer strides. Cas had always considered himself tall, but he stood about half a foot taller. It would be weird to talk up to someone for once.

He's finishing up when Cas catches up and closes the distance. He's standing right next to him when he closes the door to his locker. When he notices Cas, he jumps back and clutches at his chest, like he's trying to stop his heart from popping out of his chest.

"Hello." Cas manages to get out and God, he didn't think it would be this hard to talk to someone he didn't know. It usually isn't. He doesn't say anything; he just keeps staring at Cas with the greenest eyes he's ever seen.

Cas continues, "My name is Castiel Novak, and I would like to thank you for what you did last week. I would also like to apologize for getting you suspended before we were ever properly introduced." He panicked a bit. "Not that I was planning to get people I know in trouble, it's just- I have a hard time saying what I meant most of the time and you're probably thinking I'm really weird right now because I'm rambling. Cas you really need to stop rambling, this is me not rambling. I'm stopping." Cas bites his lips painfully hard before he notices the other doesn't seem to be paying attention. He looks like a deer caught in headlights. He looks like he did right before he passed out a week ago.

"Are you okay?" Cas is worried he's going to pass out again, and that would be rather awkward.

He doesn't respond.

"Dean!"

"Hey, Winchester!"

The boy in front of him whirls around and Cas leans over a bit to see who's calling out to him. There's a taller boy-Cas didn't know they could get taller than Dean without being beefed out- and a short red-head who's not Anna walking towards them.

The boy- Dean-turns back to him, "Sorry, I gotta go, late for club!" He darts at the girl, dragging her down the hall she'd just come down like there's a bear behind him. The other boy looks down the hallway with fond exasperation. Apparently this is a common occurrence.

He just smiles at Cas, "Sorry about my older brother, he's such a weirdo sometimes. It's good to see you're still in one peice without me and my brothers here." It takes Cas a minute to realize he's joking.

"Oh, yes. I was just thanking Dean. Thank you as well…"

"Sam."

"Thank you Sam. I should get going."

"Yeah, me too." Sam waves at him as he makes his way back down the hall after his brother and the redhead.

Cas heads out into the parking lot where an irritable Gabriel is waiting with a pissed off Anna. He smiles apologetically and they go home. He does his homework. He helps Uriel, Zachariah's wife, prepare dinner. They eat as a family after Grace. He gets ready for bed.

Then it hits him like a ton of bricks as his head hits the pillow.

Dean.

Winchester.

Dean Winchester.

He just talked to Dean Winchester.

After nearly six years, he'd talked to Dean Winchester. And he'd run away from him.

Cas has half of his classes with him.

Tomorrow was going to be an awkward day.