A/N: And suddenly, high school AU! Here is the next chapter, as promised, from a McDonald's somewhere in West Virginia. I had some formatting issues this time, ones that I don't really have the time/patience to work out at the moment, so forgive the line breaks that read, 'this is a line break.' Also, realized I've been forgetting that one staple of fic everywhere, the disclaimer, so: I don't own or pretend to own any of this, blah blah, imitation is a form of flattery, blah blah, all ripping off of characters is done with great love and devotion.

[this is a line break]

"Free at last!" Dean crowed as they stepped out of the cool interior of the ugly-ass brick high school and into the hot, clear June sunlight. He paused, stretching his arms high above his head, ignoring the press of students swarming around him in their desperation to escape into summer vacation.

"Dean," Cas sighed in exasperation, (but his mouth twitched in amusement, so it totally didn't count). "You are blocking the exits. If you don't come with me right now, as far from this hellhole as is humanly possible, I'm afraid I'll have to report you as a fire hazard."

"Cas, Cas," Dean sighed right back, shaking his head. He draped an arm around his friend's shoulders and steered them both toward the parking lot. "What you don't understand is, it doesn't matter now. We can do whatever the hell we want. We can stand in doorways. We can pick on freshmen. We, my friend, are now officially seniors, and that makes us gods."

"If you say so – "

"I do say so."

" – Then I believe you. But please, let's save all those wonderful activities for next year and right now just get the hell out."

"Alright, alright, fine." Dean rolled his eyes as they reached the Impala. The crush of students was less now, all the underclassmen having been stuffed onto buses and the seniors having skipped the last half of the day anyway in their eagerness to get gone. He opened the door and, taking his arm from around Cas, playfully shoved the other boy into the passenger seat. "Then get in the car, dude, let's get going."

They had barely made it out of the parking lot, windows down and Zeppelin blasting (Dean singing along loudly as he only ever dared with Cas or Sam), when Cas shuffled around and pulled something out of his bag. Dean glanced over and saw Cas' long fingers were clutched around a battered box of cigarettes, Cas fumbling one out with his mouth. Dean gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter, and when he spoke, his voice was strained.

"Speaking of fire hazards…"

"Dean, please – " Cas froze, unlit cigarette held in his teeth. They'd had this argument before, over and over for the past year (and, Dean hadn't failed to notice, more and more often recently).

"I just don't want my baby smelling like that shit, okay?" It was the only thing he could think of to say that wouldn't start something.

"Fine, I won't smoke in your car," Cas conceded with barely concealed irritation as he shoved the cigarette back into the carton.

"I wish you wouldn't smoke at all," Dean blurted before he could stop himself. Cas' entire body tensed, but he didn't say anything. He never said anything, and it just pissed Dean off. Normally, Dean would say something back at the silence, probably something stupid that Cas didn't need to hear. Something about didn't his mom notice how many boxes of her cigarettes went missing (Cas would snap back that, half the time, Lilith wasn't even aware she had children). Something about how the tar would kill him (Cas would say that living here was killing him faster). Something about Jesus Christ, Cas, I know something's wrong, won't you please just fucking talk to me (Cas would say that there was nothing to talk about, Dean, and the car would fall silent and things wouldn't be right between them again for hours, sometimes days).

But junior year was over, it was officially the first day of summer, they were free and it was sunny and they had an hour before they had to pick up Sam from middle school. So Dean didn't say any of those things. Instead, he let out a long, pent-up breath of frustration, ran a hand through his hair, and just shook his head.

"Sorry, man. Let's – let's not do this today." Cas just nodded, looking out the window. Dean hated that the most – when Cas wouldn't look at him. "Hey, you wanna drive down to the park before we go to pick up Sammy?" The real question there, of course, was: Do you think we can get away with not bringing you home for a while?

Cas (finally) turned toward Dean, staring so intently it was hard for Dean to keep his focus on the road. After a minute he nodded, a smile starting to tug at the corners of his mouth again; Dean grinned, mostly from relief, and turned up the stereo.

[this is a line break]

Dean had been friends with Castiel Milton almost as long as he could remember. Most of Dean's memories before Cas were of his mother, so he figured they must have met sometime after Mary's death when Dean was four. He would've just asked his dad to find out for sure, but casual conversation with John Winchester was generally something Dean tried to avoid.

In any case, Cas had basically been his best friend forever. They had held hands on the playground in elementary school. They had learned how to cook spaghettio's on the Winchester's stove together when they were eight and John had come home too drunk to cook for the first time and Sammy was crying from hunger. They had learned how best to sneak in and out of their respective houses by the age of ten, greatly assisted by the fact that Dad Winchester and Mom Milton seemed to be in competition for Lawrence's Most Neglectful Parent.

Dean had taught Cas how to play baseball. Cas had taught Dean how to do algebra. Cas had made room for Dean and Sam on nights when John was feeling mean; Dean had given up his bed when Lilith was in the hospital for an accidental overdose, and fourteen-year-old Cas was afraid to be there, and afraid to be alone.

Cas had watched as John Winchester went from a decent father who was a mean drunk to a barely functioning alcoholic who occasionally remembered he was also a father. He didn't ask questions when Dean showed up at school with a new bruise, just pursed his lips and was careful about Dean's personal space for a change. When John's driver's license had finally been taken away for good last year, Cas didn't ask why Dean suddenly had full ownership of the Impala, and instead just remarked that he assumed this meant he had a ride to school from now on.

In turn, Dean had watched as Lilith tried and failed to cope with being a single parent. Cas' dad left when he was only a year or so old, and the family was so bitter about it they all used Lilith's last name, and woe be to anyone who mentioned Charles Shurley in their presence. Lilith's decline had started with some sort of drug prescribed by her therapist for her depression or anxiety or something, and everything had gone downhill from there – up the dosage, add some new pills, up the dosage, on and on in an unchanging cycle. By the time Cas was in middle school, she was forgetting to pick him up from band practice, and Gabe and Anna would have to steal the car to go get him. By the time they were freshmen, Lilith's brother Michael moved in with the Miltons to "care" for Gabriel, Anna, and Castiel.

And when his care was so strict that Gabriel ran away at the age of sixteen, Dean had helped Cas look everywhere for a way to find him, or at least contact him. When Anna was sent to juvie shortly thereafter, it was Dean who helped Cas plan to bust her out so he wouldn't be alone; and it was Dean who made sure Cas still wasn't alone when Anna broke herself out of juvie to join her twin brother, wherever he was, leaving the youngest Milton to fend for himself.

So yeah, they had seen the shit that addiction did to a family. Dean had seen how his dad's drinking could get under Sammy's skin, turn his little brother into an angry stranger. With Lilith, he had seen how Gabe had laughed it off until he became incapable of taking anything seriously and skipped town, abandoning his family when shit got too tough. He had seen the price Anna paid for rebellion under the care of her uncle, until her mother's absent presence had driven her away, too. And he had seen – was seeing – how it was slowly destroying his best friend.

Dean wasn't sure when it had started, only that it was sometime after Michael moved in. Yeah, life sucked with Lilith as a parent, but Michael was worse. It was a total 180 – from Lilith's drugged neglect to Michael's overbearing need for constant control. Ridiculously strict and hyper-religious, he was not an especially fun person to be around, and his failure to keep the Milton twins in line was being taken out on Cas a hundredfold. Cas spent more time grounded than not, and was technically forbidden from speaking to or hanging out with Dean, fat lotta good that did. Michael liked going on about the liberals, about the feminazis, about the homosexuals, about the atheists destroying America to anyone who would listen, and to Cas, whether he listened or not.

About a year after Michael's arrival on the scene, Gabe had called Dean, practically begging him to come over to Meg Masters' place because Cas was drunk and being belligerent and needed his damn boyfriend to come calm him down. Not long after that, Dean had started finding the cartons of cigarettes tucked into the side pockets of Cas' messenger bag. Before tenth grade was over, they'd had their biggest fight ever when Dean went over to the Miltons' and Cas' room reeked of pot. The fights continued, only getting worse, more tense. When Dean found empty bottles in Cas' locker; when a fake ID slid out of Cas' wallet.

It wasn't that bad, not really. It wasn't like Cas came to school drunk (except that once, but he'd had an awful fight with Michael that lasted until three in the morning, so Dean supposed –hoped – that was probably just a one-time thing). It wasn't like he was stoned constantly (except some weekends, when he started getting smoking Friday afternoon and wasn't sober again until Monday morning). It wasn't like he was stealing his mother's pills (except for that one time, the night of junior prom, when Dean and Cas were supposed to hang out but Cas had called to tell Dean he'd been grounded again and wasn't feeling well anyway and his voice sounded suspiciously hazy and really kinda off and Dean hadn't been able to make himself ask why).

It wasn't like Cas was Lilith or John, but it pissed Dean off all the same. Really, after all the crap Cas had seen their parents do, everything they'd put their kids through, how could he even want to touch shit like that? Dean couldn't even think of going near alcohol, afraid that every drop of beer would make him more like his father. So how could Cas be so friggin cool about this shit, so nonchalant, so, so – goddammit, how could he use that fucking shit to deal with his life when Dean was right there?

Every time Dean saw Cas' eyes red from the weed or from a hangover, or glazed from some unnamed prescription thing that Dean didn't even dare think about, he felt his gut clench tight with anger and yeah, with fear. Fear that he wasn't doing his job as a friend, fear that Cas was getting harder to reach, getting further away. Fear that he was losing his best friend.

So no, it wasn't that bad, not really. Not yet.

And that was the part that scared Dean most.