Author's Note: I'm SO sorry for the late update! I have been so swamped with homework and high school life (quite like the charries, eh?) and it's been wild. I'll try to get back to updating more regularly. Sorry again! Hope this makes it better! J

Nothing's Really Working But That's Okay

Chapter 4

Dean

Today was gonna be great. I could feel it. I went to bed before two a.m., I took a shower when I woke up, got dressed in a white tee with a dark blue button up and my leather jacket to keep me warm, and ate some not-totally-stale toast for breakfast before piling Sammy up into the Impala. 99% of everything I did this morning was completely abnormal, and that's how I knew today was going to kick some serious ass.

'Heat of the Moment' by Asia was blasting out of the speakers, and Sammy's fingers were jammed in his ears. "Dude, turn that crap down please!" he shouted over the chorus.

"I don't get why you hate on this song, man," I replied as I turned the knob to appease the kid. "Asia is classic."

He rolled his eyes. "It's Wednesday, Dean, that's why." At my confused look, he continued. "Every Tuesday morning you play this stupid song until my ears bleed. Mondays are Kansas, Wednesdays are Metallica, Thursdays are AC/DC, and Fridays are Styx. It's been in the same order since Bobby gave you the Impala," he explained matter-of-factly.

I growled. "Bobby didn't give me the Impala, you brat, I fixed it up and so I hold rightful ownership. It's not my fault that idiot had Baby sitting on cinder blocks in the junkyard for so long," I said wistfully, stroking the dashboard. Sam made kissy noises and earned a playful punch in the shoulder.

We reached the school and I shoved the kid out, handing him his backpack. "Go get 'em, Tiger," I said with a wink, and he smiled real goofy before jogging toward a group of his friends. I drove to find a parking spot and settled my Baby underneath a tree, so she wouldn't get too much snow on her hood.

Climbing out, I heard a voice calling my name and whipped around. Lilith was waving me over, her younger sister Ruby chatting up Sammy a little farther away. I sighed and ran a hand across my mouth. This Lilith chick was hot, and as fun as it was having my own personal cheerleader, it was starting to get old. And I didn't like the way her sister was inching closer to Sammy every time he said something; he was oblivious to this kind of shit, and it made me uncomfortable to think of what could happen between the two of them.

Regardless of my reservations about Lilith, I walked over to her anyway. I was optimistic enough to overlook her smothering personality and smug attitude. She ran at me, closing the distance with a hug that, if the crack I heard was accurate, broke all of my ribs. I gave her a half a second before I really, really needed to breathe.

"…Hey…Lilith…" I managed in between gasps of air. She gave me a bright-'n-white smile, one of those commercial dings going off in my head when the sun glinted off her artificially-cleaned teeth.

"Heeeey Dean," she replied, her hand barely grasping my wrist; her thumb was rubbing against my pulse. I could feel my heartbeat coincide with hers.

"Wanna go inside, sweetheart?" I asked, giving her the usual charming-Dean-treatment. She grinned and nodded, pulling me toward the double doors. I tried to give a warning glance to Sammy but he was busy describing some smart-ass thing to Ruby.

Before I could turn my head back around, I felt liquid fire running down my shirt and looked up to see Anna Milton staring at me with a horrific expression on her face, two coffee cups lying empty on the ground. I gritted my teeth, refusing to reveal the pain I was experiencing. She was absolutely frozen for a solid thirty seconds before she snapped back into action.

"Oh shit, Dean, I am so, so sorry! I tried to avoid Lilith and then I didn't see you and oh crap, Gabe's gonna kill me and the rest of the student body if he doesn't get his morning coffee…" She trailed off and shook her head, realizing how unintelligible she sounded with her babbling. With a tremendous amount of self-control, she regained her composure. Shrugging off her jacket, she started to dab my shirt with it, being careful not to press too hard.

"Give that to me," Lilith commanded, grappling Anna's jacket out of her visibly-shaking hands. Forceful patting replaced the tender touches I had been previously been administered, and I took a step back to avoid crying out in agony.

"Anna, Anna, it's all good," I lulled, watching as she stopped panicking. "I'm fine, really. Just…watch out next time, okay?" She nodded before shooting me another apologetic look and scurrying off. I heard a snort of disgust beside me and turned to look at Lilith.

"God what a clutz. She should be offering to dry clean your clothes for you," Lilith seethed, and reached to hold my hand again now that the drama was over. I backed away before she could get her claws on me.

"I'm going to go clean up, okay? See ya later," I called, and ran toward the boys' bathroom. I pushed through the door and stood in front of the full-body mirror that was hammered to the adjacent wall. "Fuck," I murmured. Not only was my white tee stained beyond repair, but my jeans were covered in drying coffee stains. And did I smell…caramel? No, no way was I walking around smelling like a caramel macchiato all day.

One of the stall doors opened and out walked Castiel Novak. He did a double-take when he saw my disheveled appearance and started to laugh. "What's so fuckin' funny, huh?" I snarled, taking a step toward him. He backed away, raising his hands.

"Nothing, nothing." He sniffed the air. "Oh shit, do I smell a caramel macchiato?" At my nod, he went from jovial to fearful in a heartbeat. "Dude, that's no good. How did you manage to get Gabriel's morning fix all over your junk?"

"Your friend Anna bumped into me and scalded my body, that's how," I grumbled, looking down at my pants. "What the hell am I supposed to do now? I'm gonna smell like a Starbucks all afternoon," I whined.

Castiel had a thoughtful look on his face. A light bulb seemed to go off in his head. "Wait here." Before I could protest, he ran out. It seemed like eternity before he came bursting back into the restroom. He had a bundle of clothes in his arms and he was breathing heavily.

"Here's an extra pair of jeans I keep in my locker," he set them down on the counter, "and here's some from a couple of the meatheads who owe me for tutoring. I didn't know what size you wore so I figured I'd just bring multiple pairs. It looks like your over shirt is clean so you could probably just scrap the tee and wear that for the rest of the day." He smiled at me, and I couldn't help but grin back.

I grabbed the pile of clothing and went into a stall, trying on Cas' pair. They were a little bit too small, which didn't surprise me; he was well-built from what I could tell, but he was wirier where I was, uh, filled in. One of the jock's pairs fit well enough, though, so I decided to just roll with it.

I walked out of the stall and jumped about three feet in the air when I saw that he was still standing there, leaning against the wall and staring at his shoes. "Dude, why are you still in here?" I asked, unnerved by his presence. There was something about him that I couldn't put my finger on, but it made me uneasy in a very confusing way.

"Uh, well, if my jeans didn't fit…" He held his hand out, and I felt like a complete moron.

"Ah shit, yeah man, sorry," I apologized, handing him the smaller pair. "So uh…" I rubbed the back of my neck. "Thanks for the pants." He gave me a half-smile and I returned it. I felt sticky, and realized I had yet to take my shirt off. I yanked off my button up, threw it on the ground, and had my hands on the hem of the tee before I noticed that Castiel had still I yet to leave.

"Dude," I said real slow, "you can leave now." He chuckled, his cheeks going pink.

"Whatever. Yeah, yeah. I'll go," he replied, and pushed out the door just as first bell rang. With a curse, I nearly ripped my shirt in half before I haphazardly threw on my over shirt and buttoned it while I ran toward my first class.

I saw Cas walking down the hall and shouted, "Tutoring?" When he threw up a thumb as confirmation, I smiled and continued toward AP Physics. Maybe today was going to turn out as good as I'd thought it would.

I was sitting in one of those private cubicles in the library, the ones that surrounded you on three sides and gave you a nice little personal space to do your work in. Admittedly, I was hiding; from Castiel, specifically.

I had been thinking nonstop about our interaction in the bathroom since that morning. Wasn't it kind of odd that he was just, like, there the entire time? No, maybe it wasn't. I mean he wanted his jeans back, right? But why did I feel like his eyes were glued on my abdomen the entire time? Don't get me wrong, I like being ogled once in a while, but with him…it almost felt like scrutiny. I dunno.

In either case, it was nearing the time for our tutoring, and I was kind of regretting the offer I had given him to get tutored. I wasn't going to wuss out of course, but still, after our run-in I kind of wanted to just take Sammy home and leave Cas hangin'. It sounds mean, but I've never been accused of extreme kindness.

I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder, and looked up to see Sam staring at me. "Come on, jerk," he whispered. "Your friend has been sitting at a table for a good 15 minutes waiting for you."

I glanced at my watch. "It's only 3:50. I told him 4-5:30," I replied dumbly.

He sighed. "Apparently there's someone he was hoping to avoid, so he thought he'd get here early, but he didn't have your cell number so he couldn't tell you. Just come on, will ya? I gotta get out of here early." I grabbed his wrist before he could strut off.

"Where are you off to so fast?" I asked with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

"Ruby and I are going to the arcade later," he explained nonchalantly.

I narrowed my eyes but stood up to follow him. "I don't know if I want you hanging with that girl," I replied, feeling a sense of fatherly protectiveness wash over me. That girl was nothing but trouble if she followed in the footsteps of her psycho-bitch sister.

"Whatever, Dean. You had sex for the first time before you hit 14 so I think I'm gonna be fine," he hissed right as we reached the table where a nervous-looking Castiel was sitting, chewing on his bottom lip like he was a dog and it was his chew toy.

"Uh, let's keep that on the down-low," I growled quietly before pulling out a chair and plopping down in it, my arms resting on the back of it and my head resting on them.

"Sorry for getting here so early," Cas rushed out in a whisper. "I was hoping to avoid Gabriel. He comes here after school every day to read his…" He paused and rethought what he was about to say after taking a glance at Sam. "…His novels." My eyes widened for a second before I regained my calm and collected expression.

"I thought you guys were BFF's," I teased, and heard a sigh from Sam as he stood up and wandered off, probably uninterested in listening to a conversation between two very easily distracted people.

Cas cleared his throat, "Well, we had a little bit of a blow-out and I've been keeping my distance since then," he explained softly. My interest was officially piqued.

"What was it over?" He became considerably more uncomfortable when I inquired, and shuffled in his seat a little bit.

"Uh…well…" I gave him a pointed look that screamed 'I don't have time for games.' "It was over you."

My eyebrows shot up. Well, I'll be damned. Now I was incredibly interested. "Huh. Care to share what about me you were arguing over?"

An unrecognizable emotion passed over Castiel's face before he made a personal decision and leaned forward. "Gabe's been in love with you for as long as you've been at Garrison and when you offered to tutor me, he accused me of cock-blocking and we both said some things after that and then I left and we haven't talked since," he said in one big breath, seeming to deflate as he finished talking.

I frowned. "Why would he say that? It's not like anything would happen between me and him anyway," I replied.

His cheeks went pink. "Or us, for that matter," he added.

I laughed uneasily. "Yeah, of course. I am definitely not batting for team Homo," I said adamantly, though my tone of voice contradicted my firm words.

He laughed too, but he seemed even more uncomfortable than I was. "Uh, right. Well, I really should be going. It looks like Gabriel's about to walk in, and confrontations in the library after a day of no coffee for him would end up nuclear," he joked, though I could tell his heart wasn't in it.

I stood up, putting my hands in my pockets. "Okay. Hey, but uh, we should definitely meet up so I can help you with your math. We can go to a different library or something. Sammy wouldn't mind, he likes adventures," I offered, and regretted it immediately when his face brightened.

"Oh! Yeah, sure, okay," he replied, and gave me a heart-stopping smile before rushing out of the library.

Well, shit, I thought, mentally slapping myself. Why'd I have to go and say something like that? People I couldn't get a read on made me anxious, and yet I kept instigating interactions with this guy. I really must've been going crazy.