18 Dates - Destiel High School AU

They're beautiful

"Tilt your head forward a bit." Dean says, his voice snappy, as he watches Castiel from where he's standing on the opposite side of the bench. "Make sure you gently pinch your nostrils closed too. The pressure should stop the bleeding." Castiel does as instructed without a word. For some reason, that angers an already furious Dean further.

"You said 'accident'. This is not a fucking accident, Cas!" Castiel flinches at Dean's outburst. The tissues he has pressed to his nose are bloody and crinkled. Dean is so angry it's taking all his willpower to not go looking for Crowley, the very obvious choice for who had done this, and give him his own bloody nose.

"I'm sorry." Castiel apologises but doesn't look up from the table. Instead, he uses his free hand to mess around with a clean tissue, dabbing it gently against a page or two to dry the few drops of blood that have stained the pristine white sheets.

Dean looks at all the papers spread around. Five individual piles of whatever... but Cas is being so gentle with them that it's clear they're important to him, so of course Dean goes around to the other side of the table and sits down on the bench next to him.

He looks through the pages that decorate the top of the wooden surface and recognises them as the work Crowley had thrown around before lunch. Four of the five are organised into different lessons. Obviously, Cas had been trying to get all of the things Crowley messed up back into whatever order they used to be in.

Dean looks around for a plain piece of paper, and once one is located, he rips it up into four sections. Fishing a pen out of his bag, he writes the subjects on each individual piece.

He shoos Castiel's hand away, the blood wasn't getting any dryer, and he starts stacking the piles. In between each group, he sticks the piece of paper like a bookmark so Castiel can find them easier later. He sticks the last unorganised group on top.

"We should go to the nurse." Dean says simply because that's the only option, isn't it? It would be a good distraction from wanting to sneak off to smash Crowley's face in.

"We should." But Castiel doesn't move. He just rests his chin in the palm of his free hand. He looks like he's in pain. Most of all, he looks sad. Dean didn't like seeing him like that.

"Because it might actually be broken. A professional should check it." Dean says. He's talking more to himself than Castiel, though.

"I know." Still, they don't move from the bench. Dean grabs Castiel's bag and searches it for something to put the work in. He finds an empty blue folder in there, scoops up the papers, and carefully puts them inside. He places the folder back into Castiel's bag for him.

They sit in silence for a minute or two, and Dean watches Cas from the corner of his eye. With careful hands, the boy sat beside him removes the bloodied tissue from his nose and gets a clean one out to replace it. Just the sight of it pisses Dean off.

His anger burns in him, white-hot and infinite.

He's struck by the sudden thought that he'd never been this mad when anyone else he'd been playing lookout for had gotten hurt. He decides to push that thought out of his mind. He didn't want to analyse why that might be right now. What mattered was Castiel and his possibly broken nose.

"What happened, Cas?" Dean asks for some clarification.

"It's not really important..." Castiel brushes it off. 

"Don't do that. Of course, it's important. Just tell me what happened here so we can sort things out." Dean presses, and after a heavy pause of silence from Cas says, "Please?" Castiel releases a sigh.

"I do not think we should go to the nurse. She's going to ask so many questions. I think it will cause more trouble than it is worth." He evades answering very well. Dean gets annoyed by it but quickly snuffs that feeling out. The last thing Castiel needs right now is for Dean to continue being snappy.