Now we meet the main players of the story :)

The new kid was... weird. Or that's what everybody else was saying when Dean pulled up in the school parking lot on the first day of his Senior year. His younger brother Sam was with him, just starting his Freshman year of high school and he was way too excited to be normal.

"You are such a nerd," Dean sighed as he shut the door of the Impala his father had gifted him for his birthday over the summer.

"Jerk," Sam responded.

"Bitch." Dean fluffed his hair teasingly and Sam batted his hands away. It was then they both heard two girls chatting about the new family as they walked past.

"I heard Dad talking about them too," Sam said, glancing sideways at Dean. "The Novaks. Dad met their mother at the shop when she got her car checked up. She was really suspicious when he casually asked her questions about her family. They like to keep to themselves apparently."

"Huh... wonder why..." Dean responded, ditching Sam at the front of the school when he spotted his friends, hearing the occasional word about the Novaks and something about their weird kid brother.

Dean shrugged it off; Lawrence was a small town so most of the people had the typical small-town, born-here-gonna-die-here mentality so anything out of the normality of their perfect little lives was considered weird. The kid was probably perfectly normal so Dean didn't cast another thought on it.

Until lunchtime when he met his friends at the cafeteria.

His group consisted of people he'd been friends with most of his life (Jo and Ash – their mother Ellen had pretty much become Dean and Sam's surrogate mother after their own mother died when they were kids so Jo was his best friend and she and Ash like siblings), guys he'd met in school (Gordon and Crowley) and girls who wanted to get in his pants (Lisa and Bela to name a couple).

He was busy catching up so he didn't notice the new family walk in until everyone went quiet and started whispering. There were three of them. Two guys and a girl all strikingly different yet with the subtle similarities that clearly marked them as family. The girl had long, deep red hair and was undeniably beautiful. She was on one side of the smallest sibling who was hunched within an oversized trench coat, dark head bowed so that Dean couldn't see his face. On his other side was a sandy-blond guy around the same height as his sister, he had his eyes narrowed scanning the cafeteria as they walked through, locating a table as surreptitiously as he could with everyone staring.

Dean thought it was unusual that neither sibling touched their younger, simply walked with him between them, guiding him with soft words. They passed by Dean's table and Gordon stuck his foot out, trying to trip the girl but she lithely jumped over his foot, shooting him a deadly look.

"Dude..." Crowley said with a snicker.

"What?" Jo demanded. "How would you feel if everyone was staring at you?"

Before anymore words could be exchanged Sam joined them at their table and Dean raised his eyebrows at his little brother.

"Really, Sammy?" he questioned.

"It's my first day," Sam protested.

"Alright but you need to find your own friends to sit with soon."

"Jo and Ash are my friends, too, Dean."

"That's right, we love this kid!" Ash announced, throwing an arm around Sam and squeezing him tightly. Dean rolled his eyes, holding back the smile threatening to break free as it always did around his family. Jo gave him a knowing look before glaring at Crowley who was muttering with Gordon in low voices.

"So, those are the Novaks, huh?" Dean questioned, catching her attention before she starting throwing a hissy fit. She made it perfectly clear to him repeatedly that she did not appreciate his choice in friends.

"Yeah, the girl Anna is in my grade, we had classes together this morning," Jo replied, eyes flicking to the boys by Dean every few seconds.

"What's she like?" Dean wondered, eyeing the long red hair at the table just down from theirs where the siblings were seated. That girl was damn gorgeous.

Jo raised an eyebrow and folded her arms across her chest. "Do not even go there, Dean Winchester."

"Who said I was going anywhere?" Dean demanded, feigning innocence. Jo just raised her other eyebrow and returned to his original question.

"She's quiet. Ran off at the end of class like nobody's business though."

"Huh..."

Dean returned to his lunch and ignored Gordon and Crowley which he realised too late was a mistake when they shifted down the cafeteria bench to a position with a clear shot to the back of the smallest boy's head and began flicking their cheese fries at him. Jo and Dean both moved to tell them off when they were cut off by a terrified shriek and all eyes turned to see the boy huddling in his trench coat, shaking like crazy, continuing his frantic cries.

"What the hell, you morons?" Jo shouted, leaping to her feet and brandishing her salad fork at them. Crowley cowered a little while Gordon just gave her a cool look. Dean's attention remained entirely on the boy who became even more distressed when his sister put a hand on him, withdrawing it immediately.

Dean spotted the principal being led into the cafeteria by a student who clearly hadn't known what else to do and Dean nudged his friends. Their whole table and stood and left, Jo giving the boys her haughtiest glare before stalking off, the other girls dispersing in different directions. Ash was dragging Sam with them who was still looking back at the family.

"You'd better hope nobody saw what you did," Ash said darkly.

"Come on, it was a joke," Crowley said before turning into another hall to visit his locker before class.

Ash decided he couldn't stand to be in a still chuckling Gordon's presence any longer and decided to leave. Sam had a thoughtful frown on as he sat beside Dean outside in the courtyard. Gordon tried to pull Dean into a conversation but he wasn't very responsive, all he could think of was that kid and wonder why he'd reacted that way.

"Dude, are you even listening to me?" Gordon demanded as the bell rang.

"No," Dean responded honestly. "What do you think was wrong with that guy?"

The other boy scoffed and jumped down off the table, followed by the Winchesters.

"Just some freaky-"

"He's not a freak," Sam cut in and Gordon shot him a dark look that had Dean bristling at his so-called friend. "He's autistic. Any idiot can see that."

Dean blinked. Oh, well that explained nothing to him. All he knew about autistic kids was that they weren't very good at being social. He didn't know any specifics. He certainly didn't know they had freak-outs over being hit with cheese fries.

"Then he should be in some nuthouse. It's not up to us to look after lunatics."

"He's not a lunatic either," Sam huffed and Dean put a hand on his shoulder.

"Go to class, Sammy," he said gently and pushed him off. Sam glared at Dean, looking hurt and stalked off. Gordon scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"Your kid brother is a brat," he said and Dean looked at him darkly which made Gordon recoil slightly. "I mean-"

"Shut up," Dean snapped and walked off to his next class. He was surprised to see one of the new kids sitting beside his usual seat. He looked distressed and anxious. Dean didn't blame him after the cafeteria incident. He sat down and the kid looked at him and smiled weakly.

"Hi, I'm Gabriel Novak, I'm new here," he offered.

"Dean Winchester, and I know," Dean replied. "So you're that autistic kid's older brother?"

Dean was taken aback when he was suddenly fixed with a harsh stare. Looks like he wasn't the only protective older brother in this building.

"Don't you dare say anything bad about my brother," he said in a soft, dangerous voice.

"Relax man, I wasn't going to. I was just asking." Dean raised his hands warily and Gabriel flushed, embarrassed.

"I'm sorry. I'm just used to people acting as if he's got some kind of disease. I hate people treating him badly. I just know that's how it's going to be here." He looked sad and Dean smiled a little.

"Don't worry, I've got a little brother too, Sammy. I mean, he doesn't really need me to look out for him – or so he says – but I still get the whole protective thing." Dean pulled his folder out as other kids started filing in and Gabriel looked relieved.

"How old is Sammy?" he wondered.

"Thirteen going on fourteen, but he got skipped up a year so he's a Freshman," Dean explained. "The little nerd."

Gabriel laughed. "Cassie – Castiel – is fifteen. He shouldn't really be here but..."

"Yeah, I was wondering about that. Our school isn't really equipped to deal with someone... like that." Dean winced at his own choice of words but Gabriel didn't seem to mind. Dean wondered why they were even discussing this, they'd literally just met.

"Well, we don't have the money to send Cassie to any of those special programs to help him," Gabriel explained. "Michael and Lucifer, those are two of my older brothers, tried to home school him but Cassie would get upset when Anna and I left for school. Sometimes he seems to know just how... different he is from most people and it upsets him. I think he wanted to come here with us to feel a little more normal. Michael eventually gave in because he can't deal with Cassie being that upset every single day."

"Your brothers look after Castiel?" Dean wondered. "Where are your parents? Why aren't they in college?"

"Raphael is, thank God. But Mikey and Luci decided to stick with us."

"Yeah, but why?" Dean looked at his – he supposed new friend was an appropriate term – with a frown, trying to understand.

"Well, it's Michael's job to look after Cassie and Luci loves his twin and wouldn't go without him so they both do distance ed," Gabriel shrugged.

"Why is it his job?" Dean wondered.

Gabriel looked suddenly very sad and very tired, so much older than he should. "Dad left a long time ago, he just couldn't deal with Castiel and how much attention and care he needed. Mum'd been taking care of him by herself for over ten years. She eventually got depressed – I mean she's a mother who can't even touch her youngest child – and tried to kill herself and Cassie. Michael and Lucifer stopped her and while she was getting treatment in the psych ward Michael made the decision to become Cassie's legal guardian and put off college to look after him. Lucifer stuck with him because they've always got each other's back – the whole twin thing."

Dean almost smiled at that but the situation was just too much.

"None of you have ever touched him?" he wondered.

Gabriel shook his head sadly. "It kills Michael and Lucifer. They would love to be able to hug him and make everything better like they did with Anna and me when we were little."

The teacher called them to attention so Gabriel just gave Dean a smile and turned to the front. Dean tapped his pen on his folder, thinking. He knew that he and Sam had it tough after their mum died but it was nothing compared to this. He decided to have a word to Gordon and Crowley about leaving Gabriel's little brother alone – they didn't need harassment on top of everything else. With that in mind he focussed on his work, not really thinking about Castiel again for a while.