18 Dates - Destiel High School AU

That's all there is to it

Dean gets woken up way too early for a Saturday morning. His bladder complains about having to pee, and as soon as he's done with that, his brain immediately starts asking for coffee.

He throws a comfy brown hoodie on over his tee and heads down stairs with Castiel's empty glass to refill it. The kitchen clock says it's half past eight when Dean passes by, and he turns the heating on to warm the house up a little bit before the others wake up on his way back up the stairs.

Castiel looks peaceful as he sleeps, despite the bruising on his face, which appears angrier and darker than yesterday. His eyelashes are fanned out against his pale skin, and his dark hair is thoroughly messed up.

Dean's band tee is too big for his slender frame, and his collarbones peek out from behind the dark fabric. The blonde puts the refilled glass of water on the bedside cabinet next to the pain medication and leaves immediately.

When he's back down the stairs, he finally starts making the coffee he so desperately needs. On instinct, he puts three sugars in it and the tiniest bit of milk. It's how his mom used to like it.

The thought makes him remember his conversation with Cas last night. It had been only slightly embarrassing. He loved talking about her, obviously; that was never his issue, but he hated how visibly upset it could make him. That was the embarrassing part.

He missed her a lot. It didn't matter that he was so young or had limited time with her. He felt her departure in every milestone he achieved, which sucked because it made accomplishing anything with his life harder to do when the feelings of success were coupled with feelings of sorrow.

It was easier now than it used to be, though. Maybe because, like he'd said to Castiel last night, his memories of her were getting few and far between. He wished he could remember more.

He remembered really well little snippets of things that were routine for them, like being pushed on the swings every day when they went for a walk just to get out of the house and cleaning up flower stems and petals on a regular basis because of her job.

Mostly, he remembered how it felt to hug her—warm and safe, like nothing could ever touch him. He hadn't felt like that in what felt like and was very close too, forever. John had tried to be as good of a single dad as he could be before all the bullshit happened, but it was never the same.

To distract himself, he picks up a stray newspaper that had been left folded up on the tabletop. He opens it up and begins to read random articles and news columns, which is pointless because the date is from before his dad left, until he hits the crossword.

A rummage in the drawer full of random crap proved successful in finding him a pen, and he gets to work solving the thing. It's fairly easy, and he smiles triumphantly when he finishes it with minimal mistakes.

He continues to read bits and pieces of the paper until Sam appears in the doorway with some books in hand. He spreads them out across the tabletop when he gets to it. Dean didn't even have to ask what the kid was doing. Of course, the answer would be homework.

"You're up early." Dean takes a sip of his lukewarm coffee.

"Half nine is not early. We get up earlier for school." He supposed the boy was right. Dean usually gets up at six, maybe half past at a stretch. "Can I have some coffee?"

"I swear you're an old man trapped in a fourteen-year-old boy's body." The blond comments, but he gets up to make his brother a drink anyway. He throws his own, mostly cold drink, down the drain while up on his feet so he can get himself a refill.

"You're calling me an old man?" He puts a lot of emphasis on 'me'. "Dean, you're sitting down here in your flannel pyjama bottoms and slippers, at the table with a newspaper and a coffee; I bet you've even done the crossword puzzle in the back of that." He points to the paper that's lying open on the table. "All you need to do now is wear glasses, and you'd fit the bill better than me, old man."

Honestly, there is no coming back from that, so Dean decides not to reply. Instead, he begins to boil some water.

"I saw Cas' face yesterday when he was asleep on the couch. I'm not going to ask what happened because I think I know you well enough to guess." Sam says, changing the subject when he realises Dean isn't going to argue a defence. "It looked pretty bad."

"Yeah, it wasn't great. He's having a few problems with some short fuckhead." Dean waves what he's said off as unimportant as soon as it's out of his mouth because, as far as he's concerned, it wasn't going to be a problem anymore. Not on his watch. "Do not say anything to Gabe. I have no idea if he knows or if Cas wants him to if he doesn't." Dean adds.

Sam hums out a response as Dean turns back to making coffee. The boy is only silent for a second or two before barreling on with whatever else he has to say.

"The thing is," he pauses to consider his words before continuing. "I've seen you do this stuff before, helping people who are being bullied, but you've never brought any of them back to where we were staying." Dean stirs some sugar into Sam's drink.

"We didn't really live in the kind of places you could bring people back to." The oldest Winchester mutters, but that wasn't the reason or his answer; it was just a general comment.

The real reason he'd not bought anyone else around was simply because he didn't want random kids coming back to where his family was. Just because he went a little out of his way to look out for some people who were being unfairly picked upon didn't mean they were friends enough to have an invitation to his temporary homes.

"Maybe not the hotels or whatever, but we've rented places for months at a time, long enough to bring anyone you wanted over if they were in trouble, but you haven't. Ever."

Right. Okay. He knew exactly what the younger boy was trying to get at. "You think I'm giving him special treatment or something?"

Sam shrugs. "What I'm saying is that you haven't ever put yourself out for them like you have with Cas. Or that's how it seems to me."

"I've literally taken punches for people in the past. How is that not 'putting myself out' for others?" Dean says this as he goes to get milk out of the fridge.

"Well, this is more personal, no? Because this is your home. Because he slept here." Sam says, emphasising the word 'slept' to drive the point home. "It's kind of a big deal, Dean."

Dean shakes his head and puts the milk down, the coffee momentarily forgotten. The fact of the matter was that Cas and Dean were just better friends than Dean had been with the other kids. Sam himself was close friends with Castiel's own brother, so of course he wasn't worried about bringing Castiel here for any reason. Of course, he wasn't bothered by him sharing his room.

They're friends.