Pull Me Up (a destiel au fanfic)

chapter 23

David was a mess. 

Not as a human being, because in that sense he was actually a really nice guy, but his childhood was a mess. Apparently he and Claire had the same release date and he planned on going home but his parents disowned him and told him he wasn't welcome home anymore, so obviously she and Cas invited him to stay with us. 

I knew I had no right to judge him for it, but I couldn't help but feel a little uneasy with the fact that he and Claire met in rehab. It was just a nagging feeling in the back of my head that I couldn't quite shake; obviously it was unfair of me to see him as unstable for being in rehab when Claire was there for the same reason, but I just wanted to protect her. I wanted no chance of her being hurt or surprised when he was different than he was in rehab. 

When Cas had mentioned David to me in passing, though, this nagging was far worse. He said Claire finally made a friend in the hospital, and that they seemed really close and I was of course happy for her, but when he proceeded to tell me this friend was a gorgeous nineteen year old addicted to opiates I happened to get a little overprotective. It's not that I didn't think he could recover from a drug addiction, it was more that I wanted someone stable for Claire. She had such a wreck of a life that she needed someone constant, and it didn't seem exactly right that she should be with someone else as unstable as her. 

Speaking of Claire's atrocity of a life, Charlie and I wanted to plan a welcome home party for her- which was shot down by Cas immediately and replaced with a night in. Something about wanting her to be comfortable and able to relax after we'd shipped her off to a mental institution. I sighed. She wasn't acting that different, but there was definitely a change in her. It was slight, but I noticed; we all noticed. She blinked more. You wouldn't have realized if you weren't so close to her but she blinked a lot. She had a few nervous ticks. Her voice was more sullen. But she was the same Claire. The same sweet, sarcastic broken Claire. 

We talked to her parents about how we'd admitted her into the rehab facility, and they cared, surprisingly. But unsurprisingly the care wasn't for their daughter, it was for themselves. For Alex. They did the casual opiate and shoot up once in a while, too, apparently and drank much too much and begged us not to admit them. Honestly I don't know what we ended up saying, but it was something along the lines of we don't care enough to do that so don't worry your pretentious little heads. The only thing that bothered them about Claire being in the hospital was how much it was going to cost them. They were loaded, obviously, but they still questioned themselves when they realized we stole their health insurance card. Oh well. 

We were gathered around the table, sipping our coffees and hot chocolates, David sipping his tea. I wanted to know more about him, especially since the way Claire was gazing at him was how I pictured myself looking when I looked at Castiel. Starstruck, in awe. It was a different thing to watch it than to experience it, and as Cas found my hand under the table, I could tell he noticed it, too. 

"So, David," Charlie began. I think she was almost more protective over Claire than I was, and had been grilling the poor kid all night. "What do you want to do when you're older? You wanna go to college?" 

He shifted uncomfortably, and I noticed Claire's arm shift to rest her hand on his under the table. I turned to make eye contact with Cas, knowing that he saw it, too. He smirked. 

"Well..." he started. "I've always wanted to be a forensic pathologist," she looked at him blankly. "Like, uhm... a medical examiner? Someone who performs autopsies, and things like that," he shrugged. "I think that's really interesting."

"Why? Do you have a fetish?" she asked. I gasped and smacked her in the arm. "What?"

"Oh... uh, no," he laughed. "No, only an interest."