Smoking In the Boys Room // Destiel

Chapter 22

Dean wandered through the mass of teenagers, hoping to find a wall to hide against.

What the hell am I doing here...?

He was nervous about the risk of being found out in public, it seemed far higher than when they were at school.

He eventually reached the far left wall of the small, dark venue. He found comfort in leaning up against it, knowing it would be harder to spot him here. Glancing at his watch, it was still 7 minutes to 8. He hoped Cas would go on soon.

~~~~~~~~

Backstage, Cas sipped his lukewarm water sparingly and listened to Garth and Ash go back and forth about something. He was actively tuning them out. All he could think about was Dean.

Is he here?

Castiel hated how thinking about Dean NOT being here made his heart ache.

He probably has better things to do on a Friday night than follow your sorry ass around, Castiel.

He jumped and a pair of hands clasped onto his shoulders.

"Woah, Castiel, you're jumpy tonight. You okay?" Balthazar said softly as he let one hand slide from Cas's shoulder and down his arm before landing at his own side, other hand still firmly in place, rubbing what was supposed to be soothing circles into the shorter boy's shoulder.

Castiel tried to shrug him off as politely as he could, not wanting to offend Balth, but also not being able to stop the uneasy knot from forming in his stomach.

"Yeah, fine. Just thinking is all." He nodded reassuringly at his friend, hoping Balthazar believed him.

The blonde boy looked skeptical.

"You can tell me if something is wrong, it's okay. I'm here for you, Cassie." Balth smiled at him. Castiel nodded.

"Thanks, I appreciate that." He said simply before walking perhaps a bit too fast away from Balthazar.

~~~~~~~~

"What the fuck is up Lawrence?!"

Two songs in, Castiel had given up on maniacally searching the crowd for Dean and stepped fully into his frontman persona. It felt good to just loosen up and perform again.

In the middle of song three, however, Castiel's eyes wandered to a tall, muscular figure leaning up against the wall to his right. He had accidentally happened upon Dean, which from the way his stomach flipped and his hands slipped to the wrong chord on his keyboard, he wasn't sure it was a good discovery. Forcing himself to contain his wellspring of joy, he continued through until they finished the song.

"Hey guys," he said gently into the mic downstage of the rest of the band. He paused for the roaring screams and applause of the crowd, chuckling. "Thank you!" He said cheekily. "In case you didn't know, we are Bathtub Dahlia," more applause, "I'm Castiel, right here is Garth," he pointed and Garth plucked out the Lick on his bass. More cheers. "That's Ash," he pointed to the other side of the stage and Ash stepped a distortion pedal and slammed a nasty chord out. More applause. "And behind me on drums is Balthazar." He played a small fill. More screaming. "Thanks for coming out to see us tonight, or if you're here for one of our lovely openers, thank you so much for supporting us as well." Claps and hoots. "Now we're gonna play a little song we wrote for the upcoming album, which will be our first and has been in the works for a very long time. This is Bad Behavior."

~~~~

Their first single was absolutely a smash hit, based on the reaction of their audience. As was every song after that. Despite playing a significant amount of covers, they were very well received, and Castiel was thankful everything went according to plan.