Closet Nerds and Fanfiction Authors

Walking Barefoot

{A/N: Hello, so I know that it's really early for me, someone who doesn't get out of bed until noon, but I woke up and couldn't sleep so here's your next chapter. The first three quarters of this chapter made me so happy to write but I'm going to put a trigger warning right here because the ending to this chapter contains self harm so just... there's your warning. thanks for all the reads and stuff the vote and comments literally make me squeal with happiness so... enjoy.}

Over the course of the next day Dean and Cas were back to talking, and of course being careful about not getting caught. They now considered each other friends, and Gabriel continued to send Dean random pictures of Castiel doing things around the house. 

He had sent him a picture of Cas cleaning the house with the caption "He'll make a nice wife someday."
A picture of Castiel eating pizza 
And many more random images, but Dean's favorite thing Gabe had sent him was a video. Cas had been listening to music and cleaning the house. He had been wiping down the pillar that stood at the top of their stairs with a rag. Cas wasn't aware of Gabriel watching him and he was listening to his headphone so he started to dance. He was dancing like a stripper around the beam and laughing to himself. Dean would never admit to it, but Cas had looked hot dancing around that beam, and Dean had needed to take a cold shower. 

Sometime around midnight Dean received a text from Castiel. 

Cas: Meet me at Tastee Treet. (You know the ice cream shop next to seven eleven?) 

Dean met Cas there, and Cas told him to order something. Elvis played softly from the speakers in the late night and Cas sat in the shop with a strawberry milkshake. Dean came back with a Burger and some fries, that Cas stole little by little. Dean laughed and looked into Cas's insanely blue eyes, smiling. 

"Cas why did I have to meet you in town at midnight?"

"Because I didn't want to be sitting on my roof alone staring at the sky like I do every other night."

"Oh, Cas, you can always call me. You're never alone."

"Let's go for a walk."

Dean and Cas paid for their food and left the little ice cream shop, happily walking down the streets. Dean looked down and noticed Cas wasn't wearing shoes, or socks, but his feet were covered in what looked like burn marks; at least what showed from underneath his pajamas.

"Cas are those burn marks on your feet?"

"Don't look at me feet!" Cas screeched and kicked his pants over his toes.

"Are they?"

Cas sighed, "Yes, and I hate them, but they are."

"How did you burn your feet?"

"I didn't my parents thought that if God didn't hate people who don't believe in him that I would be able to walk across a bed of red coals and he would protect me, but that was highly illogical and I couldn't walk properly for weeks."

"Cas I'm so sorry I didn't know."

"It's fine, it's just my body, besides, once you leave town I'll be back to meaning nothing to anybody here."

"I'm not leaving until you're safe."

"This is a discussion for another time."

They dropped it and Cas walked over to a fountain and pulled a coin out of his pocket. He threw it in and muttered something under his breath. Cas smiled to himself and walked back to Dean, telling him to make a wish. Dean laughed and pulled out a coin, tossing it into the water before muttering a wish under his breath. Dean wouldn't tell but he wished for Cas to be safe, for him to feel loved again. 

They wandered around for a bit, joking and laughing, skipping, throwing rocks along the sidewalk. They looked into windows of stores and they talked to other night owls. Cas and Dean enjoyed the night and looked at the stars from the beauty of a closed golf course green. 

They walked around the library and looked at the old building. They got yelled at by old people calling them "Hooligans" and they wandered down by a creek that meandered through the middle of town. They stripped naked and swan in the deepest parts, laughing and telling stories. Cas forgot about any scars he had and was thankful that when he remembered them Dean still hadn't mentioned them. Dean and Cas, now dressed walked through a field and back towards Cas's car. They laughed as they walked next to a church and Dean played quiet rock music from his phone as they walked down the bike path that cut through town. Cas showed him the best places to pull crayfish from the creek and the best place to get pizza in town, which was a gas station that friend's of his parents worked at. Cas swore by their pizza. Dean laughed as Cas showed him the best place to get clothes and showed him the record store they had in town, it was a bit old fashioned but Cas loved it.

"I should be getting home now..."

"Okay, but you live like three miles out of town."

"I have a car, Dean."

"Right. See you sometime else?"

"Maybe I should sneak out more often."

"Yes, yes you should."

Dean and Cas walked back to Cas's car and Dean watched him drive into the night and then turned back to his motel, thinking that Cas was happy for tonight. 

What he didn't know, and wasn't told, was that when Cas got home his room was trashed. His father had gone through his whole room and pulled things out of drawers and left his books on the floor. Dean didn't know that his father had written on his mirror the words "disgrace" "faggot" "useless" "not mine" "devil spawn" repeatedly in a slanted script, showing that he was drunk. Dean didn't know that Cas was left crying on the floor in a ball, pulling at his hair and wondering what he had done wrong by trying to be a good son. Dean would never be told that after Cas left, smiling and happy he went home and raked a blade across his skin, wishing to die until Gabriel came in and calmly took the blade from his hands. Dean was unaware that the Gabriel had wrapped Cas's arms and climbed into bed with him, making sure he was safe. Dean wouldn't know that Castiel was bending too far and things that bend too far tend to snap.