52 Things

Chapter 2

Cas's POV

Don't cry, he told himself, Whatever you do, don't cry.

But what else was he supposed to do?

He'd just left him there. Standing in the middle of the hall. With no clue about what to say or where to go. Just a bad map that looked like Mandarin to Cas. He'd tried to be nice, to be polite, but apparently that didn't work here either.

Cas honestly didn't know what to do. Things just seemed to be getting worse and worse. He had never wanted to come here in the first place, he'd known that things weren't going to work out.

He wanted nothing more than to be back home in LA, but he knew that he had to stick things out here. He'd promised his mother. He didn't want to disappoint her. She'd been through enough because of him.

Gabriel had been the only person who'd been honest with him about the entire thing. During that car journey, Gabe had been the only one who really understood.

I'm not going to tell you everything's going to get better, because it might not. But if we don't try this, there's only one way that things will go.

But was that so bad? Cas didn't want what was coming under any circumstances, but he wasn't planning on walking through hell just to fight against it either.

What was that guy's problem anyway? Would it have been so difficult for him to at least give Cas some direction to where he was supposed to be going. It wasn't fair.

He felt his emotions collapsing again. Not just because of what just happened, but under the weight of everything. His brothers were here with him, both of them, yet he felt so alone. He was segregated from the world, and no matter what he did, he couldn't regain entry.

"Are you alright?"

He heard the voice from behind him, soprano high and light as a feather. As Cas turned around, he realised he recognised this girl. She was the one who'd been at the office this morning. She'd been crying, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue as she'd sat in the waiting room.

The girl seemed fine now though. She offered Cas a smile, the first genuine one he'd witnessed all day. Her brown eyes were bright.

"Not really", he replied, "I'm kind of lost."

Her smile widened. "Hi, Lost. I'm Sylvia."

He smiled. She seemed approachable. And possibly helpful, which was more than he could say for Dean Winchester.

"I'm Castiel. Nice to meet you."

She held out her hand. Cas stared blankly for a second. Then it dawned on him. It was strange. He wasn't used to people being nice to him like this. Well, honestly nice. He shook her hand. She had a grip tight as a tourniquet.

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance. Where were you headed?"

"Um, English?", he said, unsure.

"What teacher?"

Cas fumbled with his backpack, looking for the vague timetable that'd been sprung on him this morning. Before he could unfold the paper, Sylvia plucked it out of his hands.

"Ms Peterson. Ugh, unlucky. She's having a permanent senior moment. It's not very pleasant, but you'll get used to it. Eventually."

As she spoke, Sylvia bent her head just so, enough that her long sweep of blonde hair shielded her face from view. When she did look up every so often, it seemed like she was hiding something behind her eyes. Cas couldn't exactly place what it was though. He couldn't possibly guess.