Strings Attached

Chapter 53

Three days later and it's the last day of vacation. Naturally, they decide to take their last day of happiness to move Castiel into Gabriel's room once and for all. The only three that work on it are Castiel and Gabriel, whom this concerns, and a very bored Lucifer.

"I'll be back," Castiel excuses himself before heading to the bathroom, leaving his brothers in his room to bring stuff to Gabriel's. It's only three minutes, give or take. They can't do anything too bad in there.

Castiel returns to his room to see his two brothers lying on his old bed with a notebook in hand. It takes Castiel a moment to realize what it is, and he quickly walks over and snatches it from Gabriel's hands.

"That's good," Gabriel tells him. "Really. You should be a songwriter."

"Don't go through my stuff," Castiel snaps, shutting the notebook so none of the pages can be seen anymore.

"I was trying to figure out if we could throw it out," Gabriel replies. "Like an old school notebook or something. Then I got distracted and Lucifer and I decided to read it because it's awesome."

"It wasn't my idea," Lucifer adds. "Don't hurt me."

"I'm not going to hurt either of you," Castiel replies.

He pauses a moment and looks down at his notebook. This has been his escape for years. He's almost filled up every page in this five subject notebook with his feeling, sculpted into songs that he used to love playing. But he doesn't really need this anymore. He's past this.

He walks over to the trash to throw it out. Gabriel grabs his arm and pulls the book away, grabbing it back before Castiel can get rid of it.

"Don't throw it out," Gabriel protests.

"It's mine. I can do whatever I want with it."

"Seriously, Castiel," Lucifer adds. "That's... That's just awesome. You can't get rid of it. You could make a fortune if you sold those."

"And I can only imagine how awesome it sounds with music," Gabriel adds. "You should totally play one for us!"

"No," Castiel says immediately.

"Pleeeeaaaaase?" Gabriel begs.

"You have to!" Lucifer adds. "You can't just leave it out and not play it."

"It was under my pillow," Castiel replies. "That's not leaving it out."

"It might as well be," Gabriel replies.

"Pleeeeaaaaase play one!" Lucifer pleads.

"No," Castiel repeats.

"Pleeeeaaaaase?" Lucifer and Gabriel both say again, and this time, they drag the word out much longer.

"Okay, fine!" Castiel agrees, though he doesn't want to. "But only one, and then I'm throwing this out and you guys can't complain. Deal?"

"Fine," Gabriel replies.

"You're just gonna let him throw it out?" Lucifer repeats incredulously.

"Yes," Gabriel replies. "I mean, he'll do it either way. Might as well get the song from it."

"True."

Castiel sighs and flips through the pages, finding the two weeks of happiness he felt during the beginning of high school, before life became hell for him. He has to find a song that only has the chords Dean has retaught him, which shouldn't be too hard because he's looking at old songs that didn't have a lot of them. Finally, he settles on one of them that isn't too depressing.

He pulls out his guitar from its hidden corner. He has to retune it, but that isn't a long process, and he's ready to play. He tries to convince himself that that's the case, but he's lying to himself. He's not ready. He's never played any of his songs in front of anyone he knows, with the exception of that one time at the park, but that was because he didn't think anyone he knew would hear it.

He takes a deep breath before he plays, his eyes on the notebook to remind him of the words and chords. He blocks out the sight of his brothers, because he knows he'll clam up if he sees them watching. He only looks up when he's done, but even then, he doesn't want to. He's always been self conscious about his music, and he's nervous to hear how they feel about it.

He doesn't get an immediate reaction. It's Gabriel who speaks first, after a pause that seemed to stretch on for eternity, but in reality must have only been a couple seconds.

"What was that about?" Gabriel asks.

"What?"

"The song," Gabriel clarifies. "What was it about?"

Castiel gets up to put his guitar away, mostly because he doesn't want his brothers to read it on his face as he lies, "I don't know."

Lucifer smacks the wall and imitates a buzzer sound. "Wrong answer," he replies. "What was it about?"

Castiel shrugs. "I wrote it a while ago. I don't remember."

"Then let's have a group brainstorm," Lucifer suggests. "'Playing with fire.' I'm thinking... Fireworks! Cuz baby you're a firework! Come on, let your colors burst!"

"This is almost as bad as Bee Movie," Gabriel mutters.

"Bee Movie is awesome!" Lucifer cries. "And so is Katy Perry!"

Gabriel imitates gagging noises. "She sucks."

"How dare you insult Katy Perry?" Lucifer demands.

"How dare you not insult Katy Perry?" Gabriel retorts.

Once they begin their full out argument — which somehow evolves into a fight about who's better, with Lucifer siding with Katy Perry and Gabriel with Taylor Swift — Castiel blocks them out and gets to transferring rooms. He's suddenly very glad that it's him that bunks with Gabriel and not Lucifer, because none of them would ever get any sleep.

He throws his notebook in the trash, though he finds himself hesitating slightly before he does. But he doesn't need this anymore, the constant reminder of how bad things have been on him. He's done. He tosses it away, and doesn't look back.