Chapter Text
Castiel always felt uncomfortable when adults told him to “have a seat”. It immediately made him suspicious, because it gave off the impression of either treating him like an adult, or like a child; which he was neither. Still, when the school guidance counselor said these words and gestured to the armchair across her desk, he sat.
The chair was the second reason to be suspicious. No chair in a high school office should be that large and comfortable; it was obviously supposed to make you feel better about sitting there for longer than you wanted.
“Mr. Novak.” The counselor sat down behind her desk and studied him, a warm smile on her lips. On her desk there was a framed picture of Leonard Cohen and a name plaque, which read Bela Talbot, PhD. There was no pristine diploma on the wall. She looked young – too young to be an experienced counselor. Cas narrowed his eyes a little.
“Castiel.” He said, shifting uneasily in the chair. Only his siblings called him Cas; his full name felt like a reassuring barrier.
“Alright.” She smiled. “Castiel. I’m Ms. Talbot, but you can call me Bela if you wish. It looks like we’re going to be spending some time with one another this year.”
Cas was bouncing his knee in agitation. “My brother’s idea.”
“Yes. I spoke with Bartholomew on the phone earlier.” Bela’s eyes never left Cas’ face. It made him nervous. “He seems quite worried about you.”
Castiel didn’t say anything. It wasn’t technically a question, so he didn’t have to respond, right?
“How has your first week of senior year been?” Bela switched tracks. Cas shrugged, looking down at his hands.
“It’s about the same.” He said. God, this was useless; what was he supposed to get out of these sessions, anyways? He already knew that when it came to anything important, he was going to lie through his teeth. He was just wasting this poor woman’s time.
“I see in my file that, apart from last year’s brief hiatus, your grades are quite good.” Bela was swiveling a little in her chair. “Are you thinking of applying to college?”
Castiel nodded. College, grades – this was safe ground. He could navigate this. All he had to do was say what she wanted hear.
“I’m not sure what I want to study, but yeah, I’d like to go to college.”
“Your education is important to you, then?”
Castiel wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “Actually, I just want to get out of my house.”
Bela tilted her head a little. “Are you unhappy at home?”
Cas kept his face composed. “Not necessarily. I just don’t feel like it’s my home, that’s all.”
“And why is that?”
Hell if I know. He shrugged.
“You live with your brothers, yes?” Bela pressed.
“With Bartholomew, now that he’s back. Gabe left for college a week ago.”
“How’s life at home with him gone?”
Cas frowned a little. “It’s… quieter.”
Bela gave a small smile, as if she knew what Cas meant. Which she probably did – she had been around to witness Gabriel’s last year of high school. It was like one long year of senior pranks.
“Is it just you and Bartholomew at home?” Bela lifted her hand, resting her chin delicately on her fingers in a very psychiatrist-like gesture.
“Yeah. My dad’s living out of the country right now. Business.”
Bela still had that small, curious frown. “What kind of business?”
“Mission work.” Cas supplied. If he mentioned his father’s name, he was sure Bela would know who he was immediately. But he didn’t necessarily want her to. “Last I heard, he was in Africa.”
“And your mother?”
“She died shortly after I was born.” Castiel said this levelly. ”I never knew her. Should you be writing any of this down?”
Cas had tilted an eyebrow, looking at her bare desk. Bela dropped her hand and smiled.
“I’m sorry. I know this must seem like a lot of questions. I just want to lay the groundwork; get to know you.”
“Doesn’t it say all of these things in my file?”
“I wanted to hear it from you.”
Cas nodded but didn’t say anything. He could see that file now, perched on the edge of her desk. His fingers itched.
“Your file also shows,” Bela said, leaning forward a little, “That you had quite good grades all through your freshman and sophomore years. Art is obviously your strong point. But things took quite a dive after your second term of last year. Did something happen around that time?”
Cas was looking at his hands again. There was a smudge of blue ink near one of his knuckles, and he rubbed it obsessively. It wouldn’t come off.
“Not really. I just lost interest.”
“You lost interest in school?”
“In everything.”
Bela was quiet for a moment. “Right after your grades dropped, you ran away from home. Did you want to talk about that at all?”
Cas looked up at Bela sharply. Did she honestly expect him to say yes?
Bela smiled thinly, as if reading his mind.
“Perhaps not today.” She said. “Castiel, I can tell you’re not thrilled with the idea of seeing me. But this is the arrangement Bartholomew has decided on, and he is your acting guardian. Just try to remember – I’m not your enemy. I want to help you.”
Cas was still staring at her, his blue eyes distrustful. Sure, he believed that she wanted to help him. The only problem was that he was certain he didn’t want her to.
*
It was his first full week as a senior, and all Dean Winchester could think of was how nothing had changed. All his classmates were practically strutting around the halls, acting like they owned the place. Idiots. Everything was still the same: everyone hung out in the same clicks, they still smoked by the same back stairwell, and the same kids played the same sports. The fact that they were seniors now was irrelevant.
Jo rolled her eyes when he expressed this sentiment to her.
“God, Winchester, you’re such a downer.” She said, stuffing her biology textbook into her locker. “And that’s not true. Haven’t you noticed? Everyone else gets pretty new clothes each year. Meanwhile, how old is that Zeppelin t-shirt?”
Dean looked down at his shirt, thumbing the faded black material. “Hey, I like this shirt.”
“Also,” Jo continued, shutting her locker, “We get to use the good guitars in Lafitte’s class. Now that is senior privilege at its best.”
“Fine, you got a point there.” Dean allowed. He fell into step with Jo as they walked down the hall, toward their music class. It was the only class of the day that Dean actually enjoyed. Of course that would mean he had to wait until the end of the day for it.
The music room was situated in a back corner, sandwiched between the tiny school theatre and the art studio. It didn’t have any windows. Just thinly carpeted walls and a high ceiling – perfect acoustics. The floor was made of steps and littered with chairs and music stands.
Dean felt his muscles relax as he stepped into it. He’d never pegged himself as a music geek – he had a difficult time reading notes, and he couldn’t play any other instrument to save his life. But he could remember the first time he’d picked up a guitar: one near-freezing autumn night, out with Rufus and Bobby in the scrap yard. Rufus had passed Dean his ancient guitar and Dean rested it on his knee, hugged it with his right arm and felt the strings vibrate across his fingers…
Dean got straight A’s, but that was because he worked his ass off to get them. Music was his best class without hardly any effort. It was the only class where Jo teasingly called him “teacher’s pet”.
Okay, so Dean had to admit that Mr. Lafitte showed a preference toward him over a lot of his other students. But he seemed to favour Jo, too. And that definitely had its perks. Just like today, when most of the class was practicing a complicated fingerpicking sequence in Minuet in G, Dean and Jo had been given the task of brushing up on “Dueling Banjos”. They passed the time like this, Jo with her arm slung over the school’s only banjo, and Dean complimenting each note she played with a pluck of his guitar.
“So,” Jo said, once they’d run through the sequence a few times, “This year doesn’t have to be exactly the same as last.”
Dean looked up at her. He knew what she was getting at, and he was actually surprised it had taken her this long to bring it up. But in the middle of guitar class was the last place he really wanted to talk about it.
“Who cares?” He said in a low voice, looking down at his guitar and plucking a few random notes. “It’s just one more year. Then we’ll be clear of this place anyways.”
“Come on,” Jo leaned forward, cheeriness forced into her voice, “Can you be a little optimistic? There are lots of things that can be good about this year.”
“Can you drop it?” Dean’s voice was a low growl now. “You don’t have to fix me, Jo; you’re not my goddamn therapist.”
Jo recoiled slightly, but she took it in stride; she was used to him lashing out by now. Still, Dean felt guilty. It wasn’t Jo’s fault. She was only trying to help.
Frustrated with himself, he set his guitar against his music stand and went to get some fresh air. He saw Mr. Lafitte watching him out of the corner of his eye, but the teacher didn’t say anything.
The September day outside was insufferably bright. Dean squinted, leaning against the school’s brick wall as he pulled a cigarette out of his jacket pocket. He’d promised Sam he’d quit. And he would – just after this pack.
Dean lit the smoke and rested his head against the wall, inhaling. Glancing sideways, he caught a reflection of himself in the art studio’s windows.
He looked like shit. There were dark circles under his eyes, almost as if he were recovering from a broken nose. The product of not having slept in two days. His light brown hair was mussed and sticking at odd angles. There was a faint shadow along his jaw from not having shaven in a while. He looked like he was nursing an incredible hangover. No one would think this was the result of being clean for two weeks.
But that was just it – nobody did think that. Dean had hoped – stupidly – that the summer would act as a big enough buffer between him and what happened at the end of last year. But it hadn’t. He still saw other kids staring at him as he walked by. He saw how the older kids would point and whisper to the freshman behind his back: explaining that that one, that kid right there, he was the stupid junkie who’d almost died at the homecoming baseball game last year…
Dean pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and flicked ash onto the asphalt. As his reflection shifted, he was able to see the classroom on the other side of the window. Kids sat at high and long tables, expanses of paper beneath their elbows, paint-smeared canvases on the walls, lumps of clay sitting in random corners…
Dean caught the eye of a few students. They glanced out the window nervously, probably wondering why Dean Winchester was allowed to have a smoke during class hours and yet guessing it was because no teacher dared bother him. He didn’t know which was worse: when they looked at him with pity or when they glared with contempt.
While most of the class stared – even nudged their neighbor and started whispering, nodding toward the window – there was one kid who didn’t seem to have noticed. He had dark, ink-black hair that was swept up in a way that was either very intentional or quite by accident. There was a dark smear of charcoal across his angular jaw, and his blue eyes were glued to the large sheet of paper in front of him. It was blank.
With this boy, Dean was the one to uncomfortably look away. Castiel Novak. Dean had never said two words to the kid in his life; actually, he was certain they’d never even had a class together. But something about him always stirred some kind of curiosity in Dean, which he never allowed himself to satisfy.
Dean dropped his smoke to the ground and stepped on it. As he turned to go back inside, he looked once more into the art studio, taking in the students’ wary stares and the oblivious boy in the back.
No, nothing had changed at all.