Stay Alive (Destiel)

Chapter 1: Swimming While Drowning

Heartbeats, blood, a flash of light, a dark mysterious silhouette. He woke up in a pool of sweat, hair sticking to his neck and clothes drenched, his brain pounding against his skull. He read the clock at his bedside: 3:28 am. He wouldn't need to be awake for another few hours but he knew that trying to go back to sleep would just bring back the horrifying nightmare he was trying to escape. He has had the same dream for a month now. It always started the same way; a faceless guy tied to a chair heart beating so fast it seemed his body couldn't keep up with it. Next a gruesome scene straight from hell, blood crept into the cracks of the wood-lined floor and screams filled the open-air.

 Suddenly a bright light, the mood would shift from grim to content, as if reminiscing about a past lover, joyful but also bringing along a sense of sadness with it. The light which had a golden green hue to it, was always so vivid, he could almost feel the soft warm rays hit his skin while he slept. Seconds later a dark outline would appear turning the comfortable warm into a harsh, blinding blue light as if he had just looked straight into the sun. With that, he would wake up, welcomed by an atrocious headache and only four hours of sleep.

He grabbed at his bed sheets as he pulled himself up and out of bed, making his way down the creaky hallway to the bathroom. He stopped at Sam's door, careful not to make too much noise and stir his younger brother. He was sleeping soundly with the covers pulled up to his chest, exposing his toes. Sam always said he liked sleeping that way, but Dean also knew that if he tried to cover his whole body with the old blanket it would disappoint the blanket was far too small. Dean drew in a deep breath and mentally added that to his 'save for' list.

He spent the rest of the morning curled up on their faded rough couch with his favorite book. It was always on his father's bookshelf when he was growing up until one day he was tall enough to reach it and he instantly fell in love. It had a thick deep red binding, OFF THE DEEP END, it read in large gold letters. It was printed in 1928, the yellowed papers clinged to the spine for dear life. The front and back of the book had no writing on them but instead, doodles in blue and a red that matched the spine. Men and woman both seated and standing on a crowded train, an older man scrolling through books on a stand off the road, two men walking in a hurry, their dapper hats and monocles seeming to move on the page, woman all enjoying a drink outside of a cafe in their high heels and short hair of the 20's. He always had a weird fascination with that time period. He checked the time on the aged oven: 6:32. He needed to wake up his brother and get them both dressed if he had any hope of making it to school on time. He hesitated as he closed the book, did he really have to go to school? He finally closed the book after a minute, Sam would be livid if he failed to wake him up, again.

***

Castiel made it to first period in just the nick of time. It earned him a glare from his math teacher who seemed to hate all her students who weren't the offspring of rich business men and woman. Castiel was the furthest thing from rich and business so he kept his head down and stayed quiet. Calculus was a pain but it also gave him the credits he needed if he ever wanted to get into college. That, in itself, was a far-away goal but Castiel decided it was best to not demolish his dreams just in case an opportunity, by some miracle, was to present itself.

 So he sat quietly and listened to the degrading sound of the teacher, hoping that one of the rich kids asked his question so he could get an answer without having to raise his hand and get a look of disappointment from up front. "Deal with it" he thought to himself as he started taking notes. Three hours later, he found himself leaving his English class and walking towards the library. He made sure to take the left stairs up in an attempt to avoid the athletic boys in case they decided they needed a punching bag that day.