Angel on Your Shoulder • A Destiel Fanfiction

Part One • Holding On

It had started out like a normal day.

Castiel woke up to the sound of his alarm clock, dreadfully early as usual, screeching at him from beside his bed. The taste of his breath against his tongue compelled him to get up and brush his teeth. Rolling from the rumpled sheets, he hopped to the bathroom, clad only in boxers, a sheet wrapped like a vine around his calf.

He spat the nasty taste from his mouth and glared into the mirror at his reflection, which, of course, glared back at him. After he brushed, he raked a hand through his hair, still sticking up in several places, and decided that he was too lazy to do anything with it. Castiel tugged on a rumpled blue shirt, adjusting its collar, and jeans that he wouldn't mind getting dirty. If his memory is anything to go by, today at the kindergarten they'd finger-paint. It brought a half-smile to his face when he thought about his work, and he ate breakfast quickly and was on his way.

Castiel biked to the school he worked at-Lawrence wasn't a very large town. As he locked his bike, several children toddled up to him with bright smiles and wrapped themselves around his legs. One of the shyer kids offered him a gleaming red apple, which he accepted with a blinding grin. Dear Lord in Heaven, he loved his job.

He walked his group of chattering toddlers into their designated classroom and talked with a few parents about the school and their worries with it. Some had talked to Castiel, saying that a few of the lightbulbs in the school were starting to go out, and he'd responded with that he'd let the administrators know.

A pair of men, one of which who was extremely tall, watched the other parents carefully when they'd mentioned the light. The parents thanked him and kissed their children goodbye, before heading off to work themselves. The pair of men from earlier had vanished without another word, but maybe they'd been really late to work, so Castiel pushed the thoughts of them from his mind.

A lightbulb going out? It was strange, certainly, but not as strange as some of the other things that had been happening at or around the school for the past week. It had been weirdly cold in Castiel's designated classroom, and no matter how much the heat had been turned up, the cold pockets wouldn't dissipate. None of the other teachers were willing to swap with him, as he'd had the luck to get the room where a child had choked to death the year before, and it was supposedly haunted. Not that something like that worried him; he believed in God, and that gave him confidence enough in any situation....

A tug on his sleeve interrupted his train of thought, and Castiel sighed before bending to the child's level. The child who had tugged on his sleeve was curly-haired and bright-eyed Lacy, who liked to read anything and everything. She was, as some of the other teachers put it, a regular Matilda.

"Was there something you needed?" Castiel asked her kindly.

Lacy pointed to the doorway. "Two misters are looking for you, Mister Cas." Her r's sounded more like w's. Castiel's eyes followed the direction her finger pointed, and the two men from earlier stood in the doorway, both wearing leather jackets and plaid like armor. The shorter one with grass-green eyes beckoned him to come over. Hmm. There was no denying that he certainly was attractive.

Castiel stood slowly and thanked Lacy, sending her off to play with the other children, and asked his assistant to watch the kids in his place. He made his way relatively quickly across the classroom, dodging tiny children and stepping over and around toys. He stood in front of the two men and smiled welcomingly at the both of them. Suddenly he felt very short. "I'm Castiel. Did you need something of me?"

The taller one stepped forward, hand extended. "It's nice to meet you, I'm Sam...uh, Wesson, and this is my brother, Dean." Dean also extended a hand, eyes glittering like emeralds in the sunlight.