"Stop fiddling with my bag and get your books out" Castiel didn't look up from the book as he reprimanded his cousin Gabriel. The blond and skinny boy stuck his tongue out at the back of Cas' head and dropped the bag he was ruffling through. The first day of school and Cas had begun bossing his way around his dorky cousin. It was as appealing as a 'cactus salad' according to Gabe. He simply wished Cas would strip out of the prickly armour and relax like a normal homo sapien.
Well, he was sure not getting any luck today.
"Hiya there Snowy!" a mass of dangly arms and knees flopped down in the seat next to Cas making the bespectacled boy jump. Technically it was a jerk, but in Cas terms, it was a high jump mixed with a pole vault. He looked sideways to see..him.
"Snowy? Like Snow White?" Gabe asked with barely contained laughter from behind Cas.
"Really", Cas thought, "if he held it back any harder it would come out of his rear end."
"No Gabriel, Snowy as in the remains of when hell freezes over." Cas muttered in a deceptively calm voice, ignoring the snort from Dean.
"Aren't you in a peachy mood" Dean observed as he comfortably invaded Cas' personal space and picked up a pencil from the neatly arranged stationery on the desk. He caught the knee-jerk grab attempt from the boy and grinned to himself.
"Control issues..", Dean thought to himself, "interesting."
The day was no less than a concentration camp torture for Cas. He couldn't breathe, speak, walk or read without a sugar-high, wood-pecker possessed Dean Winchester hovering around him. He still couldn't believe the boy thought it was okay to talk about clogged drainage while peeing. Continuously.
Cas had been tested to the edge of his patience but had managed to not wring the boy's neck. It was irritating at its best but Dean had never meant him any harm. Cas couldn't really bother about a little nagging and teasing from a partially plastered boy. That is until he saw Dean following him back home.
"What do you think you're doing?" he questioned as the boys took out their bicycles from the shed. There was no way Dean could follow him around flirting, while he went back home. Cas imagined the face of Lucifer, Gabe' elder brother, if he saw the scene. Nope, no way.
"Why, coming with you, of course." Dean replied in a voice that said what else would I do with a boy I met a day before and did not know?
"Coming with me." Cas repeated in a slow pace.
"Yep"
"To my ..house."
"Yep di doop."
There was a stretch of silence where Dean righted the chain of his bike and Cas stared at him with slightly narrowed blue eyes.
"Oh ok then" Cas nodded his head and took out his bicycle to the rood, seeming fine with the idea.
Dean stood stunned for a moment before rushing behind him. "Ok then?!" he sputtered, looking at the side profile of the slightly shorter boy.
"Of course. You wish to come home with me." Cas looked perfectly okay with the idea which made Dean nervous. What was going on here?
The teenagers rode their bikes in silence till they reached the Novak residence. Dean would have loved to rattle the other boy a little more but something about his sudden acceptance puzzled and scared him. If I get attacked by a giant panda wearing a tutu in this house, I am definitely going to sue the doctor Dean decided as he looked at the stark white double-storeyed house. He caught Cas smirking at him knowingly and made a face. Easy for him, HE must not be scared of pandas. And his smirk is definitely not as good as mine, Dean reassured himself as he waited for Cas to make his next move.
"Welcome to my abode" Cas gestured at the door and signalled that Dean walk in first. If he wasn't creeped out yet, Dean was certainly in serious jitters now. There was always something wrong with people who said words like "abode", right?
Pulling himself up a little, Dean gave Cas a fake smile and went up the front stairs to the door. He could almost sense it, the vibes that said you-will-be-eaten-as-panda-dinner-today as he stood in front of the dark redwood door.
"The door opens after the doorbell is rung." Cas reminded sagely as he enjoyed the other boy's nerves. Dean shot him the stink eye before pressing down on the door-bell a couple of times. He reached 9 in his mental countdown when the door opened to a tall, beefy jock. Specifically, a tall, beefy, confused jock. It could also be anger, Dean never could tell the difference with the scrunched up pooping face.
"What are you doing here?" Lucifer growled at the guy he had beaten up just yesterday. The little rat had practically asked for it when he flirted with his girlfriend, Robin.
"I'm here on a date with the new hottie in town, Lucy –pie" Dean goaded with a waggle of his eyebrows. He saw Cas from the corner of his eye and felt better when the boy simply rolled his eyes. Sam would have smacked his head for the stupidity but Lucifer always seemed to bring out the worst from Dean.
Before the older guy could rip him a new set of organs, Dean saw Cas push his way through into the house.
"Pipe down there Luce. No need to burn up the minimal oxygen in your brain. We can't have dad cure an aneurysm if your brain shrinks any further, can we?" Cas calmly put a distance between the boys, ignoring the chuckle from Dean. He laughs too much at his own doom, Cas thought as he saw Lucifer turn his 'angry boar' gaze to him.
" You brought him home, Castiel? Do you know who he is?!" Cas couldn't tell if Luce knew, but he really sounded like a bad opera singer right now.
"Yes Lucifer, I brought a friend home. And yes, I know him. His name is Dean Winchester. Of course, you must know him well from your manly rabbit fights?" Cas proceeded to calmly place his bag on the sofa without looking at his boiling cousin.
"No you don't! You don't know him! He is one of them Castiel. The Leftovers!" Lucifer flailed his hands emphatically as if that should have meant something.
Cas noticed Dean freezing on the spot, his face turning pale but his eyes flashing gold. He had an inkling of what his cousin was implying but wanted to clarify things.
"The..Leftovers? You mean Dean is food?" Cas confirmed in a mock-puzzled voice. He felt Dean's face gain some colour and eyes lose some anger at the strange comparison but Lucifer didn't seem to get the joke.
"No, like trash!" Lucifer explained in a self-righteous voice "The trash of food. He is the kind of breed you don't want to get your hands dirty with. Uncle Ralph does charity by patching him up when he messes with others, but that just that. Charity! You can't possibly associate yourself with a stinking, rabid human-dog like this one! What will people say?!"
Dean had never thought he would ever let a little trash-talking affect him but Lucifer was always like poison. He was ready to launch himself at the older boy when he saw Cas come between them. Going by the rigid posture and the twitching of the boy's hands, Dean guessed that Cas wasn't happy as well. Too bad Lucifer didn't notice.
"Let me get this right," Cas began in a low and barely restrained voice, "You called a 13 year old boy you almost beat to death- my classmate, my friend, a rabid-dog?"
There was something in Cas' voice that chilled the room but Lucifer didn't back off.
"Yes" he shot back, with a tiny trace of fear in his voice.
"You think that Dean here is trash because he doesn't look like you, doesn't live like you and doesn't believe in propriety like you?" Cas prodded on, his eyes still stone like.
"Well not..yes, I guess.." Lucifer seemed a little dubious but didn't back down completely. Dean almost felt pity for the guy at the way he knew Cas was going to shred him. He didn't know why or how he knew but he just knew that this boy was going to blow Lucifer up.
"You think you can judge a boy who has the courage to defend himself against 6 boys stronger and older to him. You think you can insult someone who has more integrity than your entire band of bumbling masochistic friends. You think you can humiliate a human being who has every right to every privilege you enjoy and yet doesn't whine about the shortcomings in his life. You think you can run your fungus infested mouth about his breed when you cannot qualify to even 1% of his dignity and self-respect. You believe that my father treats a patient who was hurt by a vicious and egoistic bully, because it is charity. You think that he is nothing because he did not get the comfort of a silver spoon at birth. Is that what you think Lucifer?" Cas was breathing hard at the end of his rant and Lucifer looked like he was going to explode. Dean wanted to look better at Cas' face but his feet were rooted to the place.
When Lucifer didn't give an appropriate response, Cas inched closer to him and looked up into his eyes dead-on. "Because, if you think so my dear cousin, you must know something else." Cas breathed through this teeth. Giving him a cold smile Cas cocked his head slightly "I am a Leftover too. At least, I would like to be one, through Dean's friendship."
Turning on his heel he Cas stalked up the stairs to his room, pausing only to motion Dean to follow him. When he didn't look like he was following, Cas came back down and took Dean by his hand.
The silence in the hall where Lucifer stood, was louder than anything Dean had heard.
"I apologize" were the first words out of Cas' mouth as he shut the door behind him. The small room looked comfortable and friendly but the atmosphere was anything but that.
"You..apologize?" Dean asked slowly, trying to get his brain work faster that a snail.
"I didn't intend to..have an outburst like that." Cas looked like he wanted to dig a hole and bury himself.
Dean took a moment to study the boy in front of him. Here was a guy who had, in the past two days, mocked him, sassed with him, borne his idiotic antics and to top it all, defended him. Defended him, like he was his real friend. Dean didn't know much about life in his brief 13 years, but he knew when he saw someone special.
"Why did you do that by the way? Have an outburst?" Dean wanted to clear things up before he decided on his next step. He was almost sure that he liked this guy but there was nothing like being 100% sure.
Cas looked up at him with the bluest eyes, his face holding such a confused expression that Dean almost smiled. "He insulted you." Cas answered, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.
"He isn't the first one to do that." Dean reasoned calmly, trying to sense any bit of falsehood in those blue topaz eyes. He wasn't the first but YOU sure are Dean thought as he relived those brief moments when someone had actually stood up for him.
"Well, you shouldn't be. Nobody deserves to be humiliated for being themselves." Cas shot back so passionately that Dean raised his eyebrows.
"Cas, it isn't humiliation if it's true..and you shouldn't care so much." Dean was getting uncomfortable with this talk. Why was he trying to stop Cas from defending him?!
"It's true..How can you even say that?!" Cas exploded, making Dean jump a little, "He called you trash! Like you didn't matter in this world! And I do care, so there!" Cas crossed his arms and looked so stubborn that Dean cracked a smile.
"And why would you care exactly?" he teased, sitting on the nearby chair with some regained confidence.
Cas narrowed his eyes at a hidden implication he thought Dean meant. Finding none, he shrugged and sat on the bed across the chair.
"Because we're friends." He said in a voice that sounded like duh
"You're making us friends? Just like that?" Dean felt amused by this strange guy and cocked his head.
"Yes, I am. That is what you wanted when you followed me like a lost puppy all day long, right?" Cas quipped with a slight frown.
Dean was tempted to let Cas down and tell him that he was simply an experiment. A joke. But he didn't believe that anymore. Sure, it had started off as a joke, but it couldn't be one. Not after what had happened.
"Yes, I did." Dean relented noticing the slight release of stiffness from the shorter boy's shoulder.
"Good, because I am going to make sure you never fight Lucifer again. And that might involve threatening and physically restraining you." Cas commented like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Oh yeah? And why wouldn't I fight Lucy-pie again?" Dean challenged as he leaned back on the chair with a quirky smile.
"Because then I would have to join in and I don't like to hurt animals."Cas replied as he stuck up his nose in the air.
Dean chuckled at the animal reference and shook his head. The conversation with Cas was easy and natural. Like they had been friends for a long time and not just a day.
An hour later when Dean went out the door, he turned to Cas who was standing with a book in hand.
"Did you really call me food?" he asked with a teasing smile.
"Go home Dean." Cas rolled his eyes and smiled a little before shutting the door.
Yes, Dean thought to himself, he was going home.
Now if only he found a way to explain what had happened to Sammy without sounding ridiculous.