Author's Note:
To a guest reviewer, Connie Elaine, I really wanted to thank you for what you said. I appreciate that a lot.
And to everyone, sorry it took so long to update this time; I'll put 16 up shortly after this one as a sort of apology lol
"It's been a couple days since Dean got outta here, I have a feeling he's not coming back terribly soon." Sam speculated aloud, it'd been a good hour since his brother left the mansion. In that amount of time Castiel had gotten through one of his wings and was working on the other, he didn't seem to be too concerned about Dean just yet.
"I know, makes me want to go downstairs and check Cas' history while he's gone." Jet grumbled from his slumped position on their second couch, Sam knew he wouldn't dare do it without Dean though.
As the two slouched about they heard the loud knock of their door, Sam glanced up warily and noted that Jet made no move to get it. "Who would that be?" Sam muttered as he stood up, he was nowhere near as fast as Castiel though. The winged man whisked away to the door before either of them could say boo about it.
"I think I should care more about them seeing Cas than I do right now, huh?" Jet mused and Sam shot an unamused glance.
Sam ran down the hall toward the door, "I'll be right there!" he called just before grabbing onto Cas and dragging him to a nearby room. Castiel of course didn't take kindly to it but he didn't fight, instead he squawked angrily and growled once Sam put him down. "Sorry, just sit here for a second, okay?" Cas snorted at him but Sam closed the door anyway. As he turned around he heard the door click behind him and alarms went off in his head, when the hell had Cas learned to open doors!?
He spun back around and caught Cas again before he could slip away, the sound of the main door opening nearby. "Hey, great timing," Jet said in a surprisingly chipper way. "C'mon in, I'll show you where we want it all set up."
Sam sighed in relief and tried to pull Cas into the room with him. "Sorry," he said again and stood by the door like a guard. "The world isn't ready for your story yet."
Castiel mimicked a familiar Dean-like dramatic sigh and dropped onto the floor, going back to his unfinished wing. Sam slid down the door and sat with him, knees tucked close to his chest and a great place to rest his arms. "Castiel Novak," he repeated softly, watching how Cas' eyes lifted to look at him briefly before dropping back to his feathers. "I wonder who you were," Sam fished for his phone and brought up Facebook, decidedly using his data plan instead of wi-fi. He stared at the search option at the top of the app for nearly a minute, his mind circling around in so many directions and falling on the same question; should he look for Castiel?
Curiosity had always been a part of Sam's personality and he couldn't fight it now either, he typed in Cas' name and hit search. It didn't take long for him to see a familiar blue-eyed face; it was a decently taken picture of Cas peeking over a set of sunglasses, a confident smirk on his face. Just the idea that it was a real photo tightened Sam's chest and left a pit in his stomach. He looked up at the fluttering wings of a muted stranger and tried his hardest not to connect the two.
"That's you," he inevitably said as he moved the phone closer to Castiel, "See?"
Cas looked closer, blinking at the little box for a few seconds before he snatched it out of Sam's hands. He turned it over a few times and then looked back at the now dark screen, a soft squeak escaped him as he looked it over again. His gaze darted up to Sam and he tapped the phone a few times with a few chittering noises.
"Looking for the guy inside?" Sam asked with a smile he fought to keep more joyful than sad. He lifted his hand and Cas placed the phone back, watching carefully as Sam pressed the button on the side and lit up the screen again. "There," Sam said and showed him the picture again, "do you remember him?"
Of course Castiel didn't answer but he was fixated on the image; Sam wasn't sure if it was because Cas hadn't seen that kind of picture before or if he was trying to remember his own face. Either way it was nice to have him distracted while Jet was dealing with the Internet guy.
Sam didn't realize what Cas was up to while he played around with the phone, he didn't think Cas could really operate it. He was, however, proven wrong when Castiel handed the phone back and it was on Sam's profile instead among a few of his older pictures. Castiel gurgled with a questioning tone and tapped one of Sam's photos he'd taken with Jet and Dean. It was from the previous summer; Sam was in the middle with Jet leaning really close on one side and Dean was peering up from the bottom of the frame as the one taking the picture. It was a good time; he remembered they were at the exhibition park that had travelled to town for the month.
Though Sam would've spent some more time reminiscing Castiel wouldn't give him that time, Cas tapped at Dean's face and made a short whining sound. "Dean's gonna be right back," Sam tried to reassure him, "He just went out for a bit."
Cas stared at him for a bit and Sam knew it wasn't quite enough, so he went to Dean's page and looked into the videos he'd uploaded. "Here, maybe this'll help." He said softly as he chose a random video and turned his phone over to Castiel again.
At first it was just the sound of crunching leaves, the camera angled down at biker boots walking through a grassy field. "Fucking love autumn," Dean said and Castiel lit up immediately.
"Dee!" He cried excitedly and nestled down in comfort with the phone like it was a tiny Dean. The video continued;
Dean panned the camera up to a massive pile of raked leaves and approached it with increasing speed. He jumped right in, kicking it in all directions and watching how the wind stole and swirled it all over. Dean laughed and distantly a very sharp "HEY" echoed. The camera swung around to see Sam and Jet standing a little ways off with angry expressions.
"You motherfucker, we just raked that shit!" Jet cursed him out.
"If you're not going to help then at least stay out of our way!" Sam shouted, just as pissed as Jet.
The video ended with Dean's laughter escalating.
Cas made a trilling sort of sound as the screen went dark. He looked up at Sam who smiled and found another random video to play. He remembered that last one was from the year before, he'd gotten Jet to agree to help him with the yard work but Dean refused to do it. He knew that Jet hadn't actually wanted to do it, and he kinda knew why he said yes.
The next video was more of Dean than from Dean.
"C'mon man, lemme see!" Jet had said, the camera holder this time around. Dean sighed heavily and walked into view, a 16-year-old kid wearing a hand-me-down tux. His hair was combed and parted, gelled down and just amazingly dorky. "You look stunning."
"Dee…" Cas whispered softly the second he saw him.
"I know you're just trying to be a dick." Dean grumbled.
"Pssh, me? Never." Jet chuckled.
"You look so uncomfortable…" Sam's voice came from elsewhere in the room and only made Dean scowl in his direction. "What? You do."
"I hate this stupid thing," Dean's face started to flush red as he pulled on the ends of his jacket.
"Well yeah, it's your dad's." Jet offered unhelpfully.
"No, it was Bobby's." Dean corrected quietly.
"That's what I said." Jet's comment brought a lighter look to Dean's expression and he couldn't help but smile at the thought.
"Thanks man," he curled his fingers through his hair slicked down hair shyly.
"No problem."
Sam was enjoying watching Castiel's reaction to the videos, though he'd be lying if he said he wasn't enjoying them on his own. He hadn't revisited them in a long time; in fact he generally didn't make a habit of looking back. Before they'd met Jet neither Winchester liked to film anything, Bobby didn't like to be recorded much and really they hadn't thought about it. Jet was the one who introduced the concept to them, he loved to make videos to remember and watch later in life. Sam still wasn't sure why, he never bothered to ask.
"Sam?"
"Hm?" he looked to the unfamiliar voice saying his name and realized after a brief second of confusion that it was Cas who'd said it. "Oh! You said my name!" he couldn't explain the jolt of excitement that shot through him. He smiled brightly as he addressed Cas' concerns, "What is it, Cas?"
Castiel touched the phone again, "Dee?"
Sam considered the idea of teaching Cas to say Dean's name properly but decided quickly that he kinda liked the silly nickname, even if it was an accident. "Want to see more of him?" he asked instead and Castiel nodded.
'He understood me…' Sam thought with some surprise, wondering intensely how Cas' mind worked. He wished he could ask but Cas had no way of properly conveying the answer because Sam couldn't follow it. As his mind worked a mile a minute he picked another randomly titled video.
A slightly higher view from behind Dean, following him through a crowded hall of teens the camera jostled in unsteady hands.
"Alright, you ready?" Dean looked over his shoulder with a grin, his hair was getting a little too long and a cut couldn't have been too far in his future.
"You know I am," Jet responded, the smile almost audible in his words.
Dean turned back toward the crowded hallway and Jet fell back a little, revealing an old boombox stereo in Dean's hand. He hit play and put it down against the wall, ACDC poured out with Back in Black filling the halls. People slowed down and looked to see what the hell was going on.
Sam remembered moments like those, where Dean decided to cut loose and let Jet plan something for him to do. Dean was one of the cute boys at school, he was considered pretty cool but some of his interests were often regarded as too old school, especially his music taste. Jet came up with ways to prove Dean's relevance or that the older things weren't necessarily outdated. Sam remembered Jet showing Dean the choreography for the video; it was funny to him because he knew how frustrated Dean had been behind the scenes. But that didn't show in the vid, no one else saw him throwing a fit because the whole thing was too complicated. Sam always had preferred when Jet was the one in the spotlight, but he kept that to himself.
Dean's performance came with a classic costume-like outfit from the times and he drew people in. A circle had formed around him, some sang along with the stereo while others grooved along with him. He took the hand of a girl in the crowd and spun her around, performing for just her.
Her name was Lisa, Sam remembered her pretty well. Dean used to have an obsession though it didn't exactly work out in his favour.
He noticed Castiel chatting softly to the tune though it wasn't in any language that had been recorded. It was nice to see him enjoying the experience; Sam made a mental note to show Cas more videos in the future.
Dean's little show ended with some classic air-guitar skills and cheers from the other students. While trying to bask in the newfound praise Jet made a confused sound and turned the camera to see an older looking man with a deeply creased frown. "Oh, hey, how's it going?" Jet attempted to make conversation but the phone was taken from his hand with the cut off sound of Jet protesting.
Sam laughed after the clip ended, "They got detention for that," Cas didn't know what that meant but he was still smiling.
"Yo," the door swung open and Jet stood leaning against the frame, "Internet's all hooked up, Cas is free to go."
"Oh," Sam looked at Cas who didn't move from his spot, watching Sam with a look that suggested he wanted to spend more time watching videos. "We'll be out in a bit."
Jet raised an eyebrow and walked over to see what they were up to, "What's so interesting?"
"Just some old videos on Dean's wall,"
"You mean the stuff I tagged him in?"
"He took some too, like when he messed up our leaves last year."
Jet snorted back a laugh, "Oh yeah, stupid jerk." He glanced at Cas then back to Sam, "We can watch it on a computer now, bigger screen."
Sam smiled and looked at Castiel, "I think that'd be good."