#destiel highschool au | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

roger-that-cap · 14 days ago

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running back to home base (you)

chapter one (1/3)

destiel highschool/college/work AU

Summary: Castiel Novak and Dean Winchester are high school best friends. And then they are lovers. After that, they are strangers, ripped apart by Dean’s stubbornness, stupidity, and lack of acceptance of his own self. When Dean comes across Castiel again years after they both graduate college and have their own lives, he’s hit with a solid understanding of just how miserable he really is, and how badly he fucked up. Especially when Castiel is absolutely thriving, and just as beautiful as the last time they saw each other.

Castiel Novak and Dean Winchester were as thick as thieves. They had been that way since freshman year of high school, and Castiel still didn’t understand what exactly made Dean take him under his wing.

Castiel was sheltered. He grew up in boarding schools with people just like him, with money to burn and odd parents who either cared too much or nowhere near enough. High school was the first time he was ever in public school, and it was very obvious that he was an oddball. He was sure that he was off putting, even Gabe had warned him to maybe smile instead of just watching people, but Dean sat right next to him in their English class, anyway.

He remembered that first day they met like it was yesterday. It was the very first day of freshman year. Dean shot him a grin, asked his name, and smoothly told him his own name like he had never once heard of first day jitters. He had also announced that he was on the varsity baseball team as a freshman, and he was proud of it. Castiel didn’t understand the hype, but it was obvious that their peers were in awe about it. So, he had just nodded and filed it in his brain that it was an achievement.

The first few weeks between them were awkward. Cas didn’t speak unless spoken to (which was actually a lot because Dean never shut up), but he realized eventually that Dean was actually a nice kid. Maybe a little too confident, but he was nice. He never made fun of Cas, never gave him strange looks or asked where he came from. He treated Castiel like he didn’t just fall out of the sky and into their small town, which meant that he was more than okay in Castiel’s books.

The first time they ever talked outside of class was when Dean came up to him at lunch. Castiel had been annotating his personal copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray, very obviously deep into it with his earbuds in and all, and Dean had waltzed up anyway with that stupid, goofy grin. “Hey, did you read the book last night?”

Immediately, Castiel had been a little peeved. This kid had broken his quiet, peaceful lunch for absolutely no reason other than to try to get his answers for work he didn’t do. He glared at Dean. “I’m not going to help you cheat. And I’m not giving you the answers.”

Dean frowned. “Answers? I don’t want your answers, I want to talk about it,” he said, plopping down next to him. “Poor Lennie, right? I can’t believe this!”

For a moment, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He didn’t think Dean was stupid or anything, but every time Dean had spoken in class up to that point, it was about some movie or TV show that Castiel had yet to watch. Or even worse, baseball. He never wanted to talk about school, so Castiel had determined that it just wasn’t his thing.

“I mean… yes,” Cas had said slowly. “It’s very sad.”

“What are you listening to?” Dean asked, and he tapped on Castiel’s phone screen. Before Castiel could scold Dean about touching other people’s things, Dean’s brows raised. “Uh, you know this song is about a stalker?”

“Every breath you take” was playing on his phone. It was one of his favorites. It was a song Gabriel used to play as a joke, but it became one of the songs Castiel played the most, and one of the ones that had him wishing he was as skilled at music as he was with a pen or a paintbrush.

“Yes, it’s obviously about someone watching another person very closely,” Cas said, and Dean cracked a smile. “But that doesn’t make it any less good.”

“It’s all good, I like the song too,” Dean said, and then in another breach of personal space, he took Castiel’s earbud and put it right in his own ear. “We all share music on the bus,” he justified, and then to Castiel’s surprise, he jumped right into the lyrics.

After a few moments of watching Dean shamelessly mouth the lyrics, Castiel started to mumble them back, both inspired by his lack of boundaries and confused by them.

And then, as if Dean had cracked open a vault full of gold, he beamed. They finished the song together.

And that had started it all.

That very moment had somehow led to Castiel going to a game or two just to see what it was all about, after a time or two do Dean talking him into showing up. He discovered that Dean was actually very good at baseball, just as Dean himself and everyone else had been raving about. And even though the rules never seemed to stick in Castiel’s head, he enjoyed watching Dean play.

They turned out to be very compatible friends. That evolved into them sitting next to each other at lunch every day. Then Castiel was going to his house whether that was to study or just talk. That was how he met Sam, Dean’s sweet, tall, considerate younger brother who was very smart. He was a good kid, and even though Dean teased him at times, it was obvious he loved Sam to pieces.

As the years went on and Dean got more and more friends, Castiel always had a seat on the right side of him. Their interactions kept snowballing, and before either of them could understand it, they were always together. And before any of them could stop it, they were stealing glances at each other, subtle hearts and stars lingering in their eyes.

The stolen glances changed into something more, too. It went from looking at each other and then looking away to holding each other’s stares until one of them (usually Cas) couldn’t bear it anymore. It went from sitting on the bed far apart to being close enough to touch thighs, and then Dean’s hand hovering over Cas’s. By the end of freshman year, it was obvious to the both of them that there was something other than friendship going on between the two of them, even if it remained unspoken out loud.

The spring of sophomore year changed everything. Cas was going to every game that he could make at that point, just as Dean went to all of his art shows and book competitions. There was one game, one of the last games of the season, where Dean was so happy that he pulled him away and behind the bleachers. For a moment, the look in Dean’s eyes was so wild that Castiel was sure that Dean was on a high, and just like in the movies, they shared a kiss in the middle of May, hidden away from everyone and everything besides the buzzing beehive under the bleachers.

After the kiss, it still took three weeks for them to put a label on things. That label came on one of the first days of summer, and Castiel felt like he had gained angel wings because he was so excited. After a long time, Dean Winchester was his boyfriend. His boyfriend.

They spent that whole summer together, just the two of them. Sometimes Sam would tag along, definitely suspecting something, but never bold enough to ask his brother about a thing. It was perfect. And as stupid as every high schooler was, Castiel had been so sure that the perfect summer world they had built together would last forever.

The cruel hands of time led them to college applications and acceptances. They both got into the same school, and after they practically jumped up and down over that, they both committed to going. Dean wasn’t happy with Castiel at first, because he knew that Castiel could have done “more”. But what was “more” without his best friend? It worked for the both of them, having the exact majors they needed and the programs, too. So, they would go to school together, and Castiel thought that it couldn't have worked out any better.

The summer after high school was their best yet. It was full of laughter and affection and swimming and talking about their future and kissing and love, and it was glorious.

And then it was time to pack up and head to school.

It hadn’t come to a screeching halt, though. There was a week left of summer that was full of family visits, and his favorite- a sendoff party.

Castiel hadn’t ever heard of a sendoff party, but if any family were to do it for their child, of course it would be the Winchesters. Dean was going to the same school as he was, just an hour and some change down the road, but Mary Winchester was as celebratory as she had been at their graduation, somehow equally proud of them both. Castiel always felt grateful that Mary treated him as her own on more occasions than one. Gabriel was a great brother, but it was obvious that Castiel was missing a supportive mother figure in his life, and Mary had been kind enough to fill that ever since Cas first came to the house. John wasn’t mean, he was just a tired man who spent most of him time grunting or paying attention to his children when there were accomplishments. He was nice enough to Cas, but Mary was kind, and very inclusive.

And that was what led him to blowing out candles on a cake, standing next to his favorite Winchester of all, grinning from ear to ear.

“Hey, uh, can we talk?”

Castiel was still smiling. The smoke from the candles on his cake was lingering in his nose, and he noticed that Dean hadn’t even blown his candle out yet. He nudged him. “Make a wish.” Dean just stared at Castiel for a moment, and then after a few long seconds, he leaned down and blew out his candle.

The kitchen erupted in applause and congratulations, and Castiel couldn’t stop grinning. He graduated, and he was going to college. They both were. It was on to the next thing. They could finally leave town, finally be bigger and better than what they had been confined to. Dean could be more than baseball, and Castiel could… he just could be himself. He was ready to grow, and he was ready to watch Dean grow, too.

He could feel Dean hovering around him awkwardly, which was funny, because usually it was Castiel who was the awkward one in a crowd. Castiel was always Dean’s little shadow, the shadow that Dean always thrusted forward regardless, the shadow Dean forced to be side by side with him, shown as his equal.

They ate the cake, which was half vanilla for Cas and half chocolate for Dean, and Castiel talked animatedly to Mary, who was still gushing over his perfect GPA and the fact that he was third in his class, to which he was perfectly excited about. That meant he hadn’t had to do a speech.

He could feel Dean. It was a talent of his that he had acquired in their second year of being best friends. He was good at sensing when Dean was having a bad day, or when he was having negative thoughts. He was good at it, and he knew for a fact that there was something wrong with Dean.

He wasn’t sure exactly what his problem was, but he wasn’t eating his cake with as much vigor as he usually ate desserts. It wasn’t pie, but it was still cake, so Dean should have been excited to shovel forkfuls of it. But he wasn’t. He was pushing it around his plate and looking around like someone was watching him.

“Can we talk?” Dean asked again after a few more pushes of his cake, and Castiel turned to look at him, really look at him.

He looked nervous. Dean was never nervous. Even when he was, he always had this air of confidence that couldn’t be disputed. He always brought calmness and content wherever he went, and he was so cool and handsome that he could have been a model on a magazine. He could have been a statue, made of strong, beautiful marble. That was Dean. That had always been Dean.

“Sure,” he said softly, still giving him a small smile, and they walked down the hallway together.

Castiel was sure that Dean was nervous about being away from home. He had never been away from Sam or his parents before. Meanwhile, Castiel had been sent to boarding schools until high school. Cas was used to being away from his awful parents, he thrived on it, but Dean was different.

The bedroom door shut, and the second Castiel took a seat in the middle of the bed like he always did, Dean turned to look at him with apprehension written all over his beautiful face.

“I don’t think we should hang out anymore.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. For a moment, the words bounced around in his head, ringing like a bell and bouncing off the thick walls of his skull. It was all coming crashing down in front of him at once, in the middle of their joint fucking going away party, and all Castiel could do was blink.

“What, Dean?” He managed to grind out, and he saw the look on the other boy’s face, and his heart sank. That was the look that Dean got when he was about to pull away.

“I said, I don’t think it’s good for us to hang out anymore. After this,” he amended, and Castiel watched his face closely.

Hang out. What an immature way to describe what they were doing. Like they were twelve years old and neighbors, playing games on a console until it was time to walk home. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said,” Dean said snippily, and Castiel swallowed at the sharp tone. Dean rarely ever spoke to him like that. That was how Dean sounded when he felt like he was backed into a corner. “I don't…maybe we just shouldn’t.”

Castiel’s mind was racing. He needed a reason. “Is your dad making you say this?”

“No, Cas,” Dean said quickly, but Castiel narrowed his eyes anyway. John wasn’t openly terrible, but he hadn’t acknowledged what was blatantly in front of him, and Castiel was sure it was because he didn’t want to. “I just- we shouldn’t.”

Usually, Castiel wouldn’t pry. He wouldn’t even get close to begging for someone to speak to him, let alone about their feelings. Even worse, Dean. But he had to. “Why not?”

Dean sighed, but instead of sounding bored, his breath was shaky. “We’re going to college, Castiel. I’m gonna be busy, you’re gonna be busy, we’ll hardly get to see each other-”

All Castiel could see were the decorations in the living room, the dark red and the white, the colors of the school they were going to together. “We committed to the same school-”

“I’ll be doing baseball and you- you have all your art stuff,” Dean paused his rambling, and it was enough time for the words to settle in and for Castiel to start feeling his heart slowly shatter, “and you’ll probably join a writing club. We won’t have time-”

“We’ve always made time before.”

“I’m not good at school and I don’t want to drag you down-”

“Dean, you know I’ll help you with your school work, now what’s actually wrong?” Castiel asked, and for the first time in a while, he was outwardly bewildered. “You’re giving excuses.”

Castiel saw the moment Dean’s walls, the walls that took years for him to tear down brick by brick, go back up. “What, I’m not allowed to break-to say I want a break from us being around each other?”

“You are, of course you are,” Castiel said calmly, “but this makes no sense, Dean. We’re both smarter than this, and you know that excuses are stupid and they’re not fair. So what’s going on?”

There was a pause. That pause scared Castiel, because Dean was rarely ever silent. Unless he was eating. But a silent Dean in a serious conversation meant that there was about to be a bomb dropped on the both of them.

“I’m just ready to turn over another leaf, Cas.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Castiel watched as Dean took in a long breath, one that was uncharacteristically shaky considering how pseudo confident Dean always was, and he held a breath of his own, because he knew that whatever came next was about to rip his world apart.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

Ow. Fuck. That hurt. But Castiel just blinked and breathed in real slow through his nose, like that would curb the pain. He nodded his head once and ignored the slight shake of his hands. He prayed Dean would, too. “Okay. Can I ask why?”

Dean looked like he wanted to do anything but answer as he shrugged. His shrug made it look like his shoulders alone weighed a hundred pounds. “I don’t… I just don’t want to be known as the gay guy.”

Castiel frowned. If anything, that was him. Dean was still the cool baseball guy that just so happened to have the weird little art guy following him around. Castiel was the gay guy who just fell into being Dean Winchester’s “best friend” in the eyes of those who didn’t look close enough.

“And I can’t… I can’t be with you if that’s not what I want. How I want to be seen.”

It shouldn’t have surprised Castiel. Dean had never openly claimed him, never openly defended him beyond how a friend would. But that was all to outsiders. That was when Dean had a front on. That was how Dean showed himself to everyone else.

But there Dean was right in front of him, tearing down every banner they had ever hung on their shitty little castle that was never built to withstand the rain and wind. He was ripping it all down and putting up shutters, hiding from the one person who was always allowed in on the other side of the walls.

“So… you don’t want anyone to know that you’re gay?”

Dean made a face. “It… it’s not like that.”

“You want to break up with me so that people can’t see us together,” Castiel said slowly, like every word was glass on his tongue, “because we’re both men.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to be seen with you.”

“That's exactly what you just said, Dean,” Castiel said, and he looked toward the closed bedroom door as if he could see through it and make sure no one was listening. “You don’t want to be seen with me.”

“Cas, you’re my best friend in the whole world-”

“I’m your boyfriend, Dean.”

Dean flinched.

“Dean, I’m your boyfriend. I have been for a long time. Ever since we kissed under the bleachers, you know this.”

And Dean did know it. It was something that they had laughed about plenty of times. They laughed about how nervous they had both been for no reason, how shy that they had been despite having a gut feeling, just knowing, how the other felt.

“Cas I just-” Dean closed his eyes for a moment. “I realized that I can’t love you how you want me to, alright?”

That knocked the breath out of Castiel. “What?”

“I’m not like you,” Dean said, and Cas noticed that he was shaking, too. “I’m not. And you can’t make me be, okay? I can’t love you like that. I just- it doesn’t work that way.”

“You don’t love me?”

“Not in that way,” Dean said, and Castiel would have had to be deaf to not hear his voice breaking. “Not… romantically.”

Flashbacks flew through the shorter boy’s mind quicker than ever. He saw them laughing together, holding hands, looking at the stars late at night and sneaking out of the house just to swim in the lake. He remembered them playing house together while his parents were gone. He could see images of the two of them staring into each other's eyes and then leaning in to kiss like they were magnets. He remembered their hands in each other’s pants for the first time and taking off their shirts like they fucking had to, kissing like their last breaths were in each other’s lips. He remembered all the art shows and how Dean never missed an exhibit, or how he always went to Dean’s games. He remembered the trips they took in the summer and the birthdays and the holidays and getting so close with Sam like it was meant to be and the job at the ice cream shop that they both worked at together simply because it was the only job that let them constantly be on the schedule at the same time-

“You don’t love me romantically?”

Dean looked like he was about to scream in his childhood home. He looked the smallest that Castiel had ever seen him, beaten down by his own fists. “No. Not like that. I can’t.”

Castiel wanted to drag it out. He wanted to ask why. He wanted to do the whole “so that’s it” thing, but he knew it wouldn’t go anywhere. Not with Dean. And not with himself, either. He knew the look in Dean’s eyes well enough to know that he would get nothing more, at least nothing that wouldn’t drive him crazy.

He would be getting nothing more from Dean, at all. And he couldn’t help him, either.

“Dean, if you can’t accept who you are,” Castiel said slowly, shaking his head, “all you’re going to do is hurt yourself.”

Dean took a step back like his words had burned through his chest and into his heart. “You don’t get it, Cas.”

“I do, Dean. I’m gay. And so are you. At the very least, you like men.” Dean shook his head, and Cas wasn’t sure if he was disputing a claim that wasn’t even his, or if he was blocking out the entire conversation. “You’re only denying yourself-”

Dean’s jaw was sharp as he shook his head one more time. “Shut up.”

“You are,” Cas insisted. “And that’s that. You’ll figure it out eventually, Dean, but I really hope that the fall doesn’t hurt as badly as I’m sure it will.” Castiel turned on his heel, intent on leaving Dean before the heartbreak bled into his expression and his words.

He got about three paces away before he heard Dean speak again. “Are you mad because I said I can’t love you?”

“No, Dean,” Castiel said, turning just his head to look at Dean, who was tense standing there, looking seconds away from falling apart. “I’m upset because you’re saying you can’t love yourself.” He forced himself to look at Dean one last time, right into his green eyes, eyes that never cried but were surely shining right then. “Goodbye, Dean.”

Castiel beelined out of Dean’s bedroom, and as he heard people laughing and celebrating their graduation in the living room, he forced himself to act like he hadn’t just left Dean’s room for the last time.

He was thankful that he was blessed with the art of the poker face as he faked a headache, thanking everyone for letting him join the party. There wasn’t a person that could tell there was something wrong with him, but Mary looked at him strangely, like she could see right through him, but she let him go without saying a word about it. She hugged him tighter than usual. John waved goodbye, as nonchalantly as ever.

Castiel was ready to go home. He was seconds away from running, genuinely breaking out into a sprint just to get away and get home. He was so ready that he almost forgot about Sam, who seemed to have spawned out of nowhere right by the front door.

“Cas?” Sam asked, frowning, and Castiel could already see the hesitation in his eyes. “Where are you going?”

“Back to my house,” he said calmly, when in reality, all he wanted to do was bawl his eyes out, possibly even scream, but Sam had done nothing to him. He would always think of Sam as his family, despite what his older brother had done.

Despite what he wouldn't do.

Sam tilted his head to the side. “But this is your send off party, too,” he pointed out. “You can stay for as long as you want, I’m sure Dean would want you to.”

Castiel was sure of it before that conversation, too. He had been very sure. After so many touches and words and kisses, he was sure Dean wanted Castiel to follow him anywhere, and that he would have even followed him. But Dean’s teeth were extra sharp to make up for the softness of his lips, and Dean always managed to bite the gentle hand that fed him.

“It’s alright, Sam. I’ll uh, I’ll see you later, okay?”

Sam was younger, but he was so observant. It was something Castiel had admired in the boy, especially when it was paired with his intelligence and eagerness to learn. But now, as it was just the two of them by the front door, it made him uneasy. Sam’s stare pinned him into place, and Cas waited for whatever Sam wanted to say to hit him in the chest, just like his older brother's words had just moments before.

“Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

That was a weird thing for Sam to say, and he had never said it before. That sounded an awful lot like a resolute goodbye. And as Castiel stood there and watched Sam blink back tears, he knew that they both knew Castiel wouldn’t be coming back.

“I’ll see you around, Sam.” And then Castiel opened the door and walked out of the Winchester’s house, and he made sure that he never turned back to look.

Under any other circumstances, Castiel would have hated moving all of his stuff. He would have hated the packing and the boxes and the shopping for shower caddies. He would have despised buying pots and pans and labeling them and all the other things that he realized were expensive only after swiping his own card. It all would have felt like a tedious chore but as time went on, he welcomed it as a nice distraction.

Dean would have had about ten people helping him move all of his things, and people buying him stuff, too. He would have had his whole family and his cousins and probably even boys from the team. He would have had so much help and positivity around him, and that was something Castiel had never been jealous of before moving almost on his own.

Gabriel, even though it was just him, ended up being a big help. He had always been the best older brother, the only one willing to move to a new area just so that Castiel could be normal for a few years before he got out of school and into the real world. Gabe was always Castiel’s best support system, and it was no different as they moved him into his dorm.

He was enough to make Castiel break a smile every now and then, to take him out of his thoughts with thoughts of something so incredibly stupid that he had to do a double take. Gabriel was funny, but Gabriel also was extremely aware that something happened. And he was too talkative for his own good.

So, as Castiel and his older brother unpacked the last box, Gabriel looked at Castiel with eyes that were less full of their casual mischief and more full of concern, and it made Cas bite his tongue, bracing for impact.

“So, you two are done?”

The ache in his chest got worse instantly, and for a moment, he was hoping that he could just not respond and it all would go away. But Gabriel was still there, watching him silently, waiting for an answer that would surely tear its way out of Castiel’s soul.

“I’m not sure if we ever were anything,” Castiel said quietly, but the words sounded like a bomb going off in his own ears.

“What?”

“I’m not sure if we were anything at all,” Castiel repeated, and Gabriel frowned, just looking at him. Watching.

“Don’t let him do that,” Gabe scolded, and Castiel cocked a brow.

“Do what?”

“Don’t let him write the narrative about what you were just because he doesn’t know what the fuck is going on with himself,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t let him make you think that what you two had was insignificant.”

For a moment, Castiel was shocked. It wasn’t like Gabe to be so profound, or to say something that didn’t circle back to something that was somewhat a joke at least once. “I… he’s not. I guess I was just thinking back on it-”

“That dumbass was definitely your boyfriend,” Gabriel said, sipping on his Coke, “and you’re going through a breakup. Taking it really well, I might say,” he added, and Castiel looked away.

Gabe knew about the breakup, but he had no idea why it happened. Cas figured it was better to explain in person right then and there than over the phone in a week or so while he broke down crying, so he sighed.

“He broke up with me because he didn’t want to be seen as gay.”

Gabe was silent for a moment, and then Cas looked back at his older brother. His eyes were narrowed. “How odd.” There was a pause. “Does he know that it’s college and it’s a huge school and no one gives a shit if anyone’s gay here? Like, at all?”

Castiel sighed. “It was more than that, Gabriel. Deeper than that. I saw the look in his eyes. There was nothing I could have said to get him to change his mind. Nothing I say was going to reassure him.”

“It’s a personal issue,” Gabe agreed. “That’s all on him. And I honestly feel very sorry for Dean.” That was odd. He had never called Dean by his name, not since he and Cas started running around together. And he almost never said that he was sorry, not for his own actions, not for others. Gabriel was being wholeheartedly serious.

“Why?”

“Because Dean is so in love with you, to the point where quite literally everyone close to you guys knows it. And he’s going to shit a thousand bricks once he realizes that he fucked up.” He sipped his soda again. “But, he’ll realize a long time from now. I can see it already.”

“I doubt it, Gabriel.”

Gabriel put his soda down, and then with another one of those rare, serious looks, he nailed Castiel with a glare. “Cassie, mark my words. In about ten years, you’ll run into him somehow, some way. And he’s gonna lose it.”

Castiel wasn’t sure if he even wanted that idea in his head. He didn’t want the hope. He couldn’t afford it. He just… he couldn’t. It was a comfort that may or may not have been real, and he couldn’t cope with any more rugs being pulled out from under him.

“But he did you a favor, honestly. Now isn’t the time to be tied down. Freshman year!” Gabe practically shouted, and Castiel flinched a bit. “Have fun. Go to clubs. Go on dates. Get laid. Stay safe though, please. Be free and all that. Be a young adult.”

“I…” Castiel started, and by the time he knew his throat was closing up, it was already too late to stop the tears. “I don’t know how to do any of that without Dean,” he choked out. “He was the one with a hundred friends and- and all the invitations and- I can’t do this without him, Gabe.”

It hit him like a tower falling down on his head, bricks crushing him to bits. He started crying then and there in front of his brother, as close to sobbing his eyes out as he could get. He just stood there like a big baby, bawling his eyes out and covering his face as if that would shield him from judgement that was never going to come from Gabe in the first place.

A hand reached out, gentle yet grounding, and squeezed Cas’s shoulder. “You have something better,” Gabe said, and Castiel looked up, wiping his eyes. “You have the guts to be yourself. Without shame. And that’s worth so much more than a hundred friends who don’t really know you, Castiel.”

Castiel forced himself to nod. The words made sense, they really did, and they were just as calming as Gabriel’s energy in that moment as he swallowed and blinked back tears.

“You’re gonna be just fine.”

“I am,” Castiel confirmed, nodding his head again, and he let Gabriel’s words sink in. and he promised himself that he wouldn’t ever forget them.

So far, Castiel wasn’t the biggest fan of college. The university as a whole wasn't exactly his vibe, he wasn’t the biggest fan of some of his roommates (they were either dirty or rude), and it wasn’t as walkable as they had claimed it was when he first toured it.

Now, there were good points to it. He was in a great writing program with likeminded people, and he felt like he had finally found a small crowd to fit into. His favorite professor already liked him, and he had a single roommate that wasn’t insufferable. It all sounded perfect. When his mother called, he made it sound perfect. When Gabriel called, he let loose and complained a little. In his journal, he was mostly honest. He was missing something, and he was sure that anyone who knew him knew what it was.

He missed Dean.

Castiel was trying not to be too hard on himself regarding missing Dean. Dean Winchester was practically his other half for years, years before they ever kissed. Years. So as he closed his eyes holding a jersey that Dean had outgrown and given to him sophomore year, he let himself grieve.

Castiel had always seen their school colors as ugly. Green and blue, and some white thrown in the mix. Castiel was a color guy, he loved art, but the way that the jerseys looked never drew his eye in a good way. Unless Dean was in it. He remembered commenting on it one night after a baseball game went particularly well, and Dean was beaming under the sunset.

“I just can’t stand the colors,” he had said offhandedly, and he remembered the way Dean threw him an amused glance.

“Why not?”

“Too much blue,” he said, waving a hand over the jersey Dean was wearing.

“Well, I like it,” Dean had said, and Castiel nodded to himself, ready to hear about how Dean wanted to wear the green and blue for the rest of his life, because as far as he knew, Dean wanted to die with a bat in his hands. “The blue reminds me of you.”

Cas frowned. “Of me?”

“Well, your eyes,” Dean said casually, and Castiel remembered the way his heart skipped several beats then and there, and the way Dean kept walking like they were talking about the weather. “And my eyes are green. Green and blue go well together.”

They did. And Castiel was so convinced that they went together too, and that they would forever be immortalized by the stupid fucking jersey, the stupid fucking jersey that he was gripping in his hands like it was slipping through his fingers.

“Hey,” he heard, and he opened his eyes, still holding the jersey in his hands. It felt like holding ashes in his hands. He couldn’t bear to drop it, so he turned to look at Mick, the one roommate that wasn’t actually half bad. “We’re all going out and uh, did you want to get out of the apartment for a while?”

Gabriel would have wanted him to say yes. He would have been shouting at him to take the offer, actually. So, he put a smile on his face and nodded his head despite the fact that it took all of his energy to even think about carrying out conversations with anyone at any type of bar or club. He wasn’t even sure which was worse.

It took him no time at all to get ready. He never was one to take his clothes seriously, and he really had no reason to, because there wasn’t anyone he wanted to impress. He walked out awkwardly with his roommates, his supposedly new friends, and down the street to the bar. He already hated it as they laughed. Why were they laughing? What the hell was so funny? He knew what wasn’t funny, and it was eating him alive, grinding him up between teeth until he was nothing but mush.

By the time that they got their IDs checked and led into the glorified room with a dance floor and a bar, Castiel was already having to coach himself into not going home early. It was pathetic almost, but he kept hearing Gabe’s voice in his head, encouraging him to just stay out for the night. Just a few hours. And as the minutes went on and he nursed his first (and probably only) drink, he felt a little more at ease.

It took a few minutes for Castiel to realize that he was having an okay time. Usually whenever he went out, there was someone (Dean fucking Winchester) that built the bridge over the gap that was caused by his awkwardness. He didn’t have that safety net anymore, and that meant he was mostly standing off in the corner, watching his new roommates live their lives, laughing and dancing and taking shots.

That was fine by him. He liked to watch people. He liked watching the girl in the pink flush a similar color to her skirt when the boy she was talking to moved her hair to the side. He liked watching the two upperclassmen at the bar take a shot without flinching. He liked watching as a group of girls laughed and danced with each other, carefree and in their own worlds. As his eyes kept trailing around while he hardly even drank his own room temperature beer, they landed on something excruciatingly familiar.

He knew that back anywhere. He did. He would know it in the dark and under the blinding sunlight. He knew it with a shirt on or off, or wet from the ocean water. He knew it in a jersey or in a long sleeved shirt. And it was hunched forward, bent in the same way he imagined it looked from behind when they used to kiss.

His stomach dropped. He knew what he was seeing, who he was seeing. He understood it before his poor heart could catch up, and as if he needed more to fill in the blanks, the back turned to the side, and sure enough, there was a girl pushed up close to him, running her hands over his arms, kissing him right there.

Castiel’s brain fought its way to a conclusion as he stood there in shock. After three seconds of hardcore analysis, he blinked and forced himself to see it. Dean was in a college bar, making out with a girl who had dark hair, striking blue eyes that he could see even from afar, and sharp features. And if Castiel squinted a little, if he wanted to be self-absorbed, he would have thought that the girl looked a little like him. Castiel’s brows raised as it all settled in.

As if it was a joke from the universe, a familiar song started to play. He recognized the starting notes just as easily as he recognized Dean’s back, and the memories hit him instantly.

Every breath you take

No. It couldn’t be fucking real. He wasn’t living in the correct timeline, because why would the universe force him to watch Dean Winchester kiss a girl while their song played in the background? A song about-

The only option for Castiel was to leave. He had to leave quietly before he started to bawl on his very first night out. He had to get the hell out of there before Dean noticed him. And then, like he was in his own worst nightmare, Dean’s body straightened, and he turned his head as the girl kissed his neck. Castiel’s blue eyes met Dean’s green ones for the first time in what felt like years.

Dean looked like a deer in headlights. He was frozen as they looked at each other, stuck in time while the girl was completely oblivious to the sudden tension. They stared at each other from across the bar, and with his broken heart and all, all that Castiel could do was shrug.

Every game you play, every night you stay, I’ll be watching you

He saw Dean take a deep breath, one that reminded Castiel so much of all the ones he would take as he laid his head on his chest, listening to Dean’s heartbeat and his breaths and trying to sync their bodies together. He watched Dean exhale, and then with a nod that felt so heavy it nearly broke his neck, Castiel turned around and walked away, disappearing into the crowd and walking over to his roommates.

The one closest to him had a girl next to him, and he looked a little irritated as Cas walked up, but Castiel paid no mind. “I think I’m gonna head back,” he said over the music. “I have a headache.”

“Alright, man,” his roommate said, but he was clearly focused on the girl who was trying to drape herself over him. Castiel was grateful for it, because he probably would have seen the tears in his eyes if he had paid any more attention. He flew past everyone that he “knew” and right to the door, not even turning back as he ran away.

The walk to get there had been five minutes, but Castiel was fast. He turned it into a little under a minute, booking it down the street. He was running so fast, with so much clouding his mind, that he didn’t even realize it was beginning to drizzle. The drizzling turned into downpour just as fast as he approached his building, and his eyes were burning with tears as he chose to take the empty stairs rather than risk running into someone in the elevator.

Every step made his legs feel heavier, and made his heart ache travel even deeper into his soul. Every step was a step away from Dean, and away from the person he used to be when Dean loved him. His hope was torn to shreds in that very moment, and he knew that there was absolutely nothing that he could do for Dean Winchester.

But he would do himself a favor and leave his memories of Dean back home, where the other Winchesters still loved him, and where they used to have their whole lives ahead of them planted out onto different sides of the same path, running parallel with ivy growing from left and right and intertwining. Castiel was stumbling all through it, tripping with every step and cursing every single seed that he and Dean had ever placed into the ground together. And he had a feeling that he would be falling and getting back up for a long, long time.

********

hey! i'm writing again for real, i guess, because i have a destiel miniseries! never thought i would post again, let alone switch fandoms and do a miniseries. i'm so glad to be back even if it’s with a completely different group of people! there are so so so so so many talented destiel authors and i am so happy to contribute something (even if it’s shit) to the pile.

i'm excited yet nervous about this one (i love destiel so much that i will always be afraid to do them a disservice), so any and all feedback is worth so much to me! i hope you liked it 💕

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