Chapter 3

Dean looked around awkwardly as he realized that everybody was staring at them. He gave a smug nod to a blonde with perfect curls and really good contouring skills, which he could only judge because his last girlfriend really liked to talk about makeup. Made it easier to talk to other girls though. Cas wasn't looking at him, instead looking out the window, spacing out while listening to music. Dean took the empty seat next to him, taking out his binder and pens. As the teacher started to talk, Dean nudged Cas to tell him that class was starting. He took out his earbuds and clicked his pen a couple times. He was still humming under his breath, something with a very high tempo and syncopated beat.

As the teacher droned on about how you needed to stay organized in this class in order to succeed, and how he needed to get at least 10 different colored pens in order to better cement the information in his mind, his mind began to drift. He completely stopped paying attention once the teacher started lecturing the class about finding a good college in time to start preparing to fill out applications and essays and whatnot.

He became acutely aware of Cas's presence next to him. He could feel heat radiating away from him, was aware of his muscles pressing against his white button down shirt. A faint but very distinctive cologne filled the air around him. Something earthy, and wet; like the leaf litter that covered forest floors, as well as something slightly sweet, like fresh rain on rose petals. Dean snuck a quick sideways glance at him, and say black stubble starting to appear on his face, outlining his jaw.

He had to concentrate for another five minutes while the teacher took role and they made nametags. Ugh. Little did he know that Cas was also trying to sneak glances at him, taking in his whole appearance; the odd necklace hanging on top of a flannel, and a black metallica t-shirt. Over all of these layers was a worn leather jacket, patchy with tons of different blotches from different monster goop. (Luckily Cas didn't know this at the time.) His jawline was as rugged as newly formed cliffs, and his hair was perfectly messy. He smelled like old leather, gunpowder, and soap, as well as wood smoke. Dean wasn't really paying attention to the teacher, but neither was he. This year was going to be bad. Nothing really seemed important anymore. The apocalypse was happening in his family; his brothers were fighting, his parents were splitting up, and his sister had just gotten stabbed by the local gang. She probably wasn't going to make it. A lot of his cousins were seceding from the family as well; at least 10 had mysteriously disappeared in the night or stormed away angrily, riding down the highway with 20 bucks to their names and a couple knives under their belts.

His father's third cousin, who lived in Death Valley, was in charge of a lot of the prisons in the U.S. He had overheard his father talking to him a couple months ago about how a lot of the inmates were planning to make a big escape; they didn't know how or why, but he thought it was going to be bad; like lockdowns every week bad. Oh well, at least then they wouldn't have to deal with learning how to balance equations.

This school did things weirdly; you had the same seat partner for the entire semester, and you never moved seats. So in this case, Dean and Cas were going to be lab partners for the entire semester. This would be interesting.

Lunch came, and Dean had to go stand in the lunch line. Frozen chicken nuggets, a very mushy bowl of carrots, brown apple slices, and soggy tatertots. Lovely. But Dean wasn't one to waste food. He looked around the lunchroom, and tried to spot and empty seat. He found Cas, and saw that he was sitting at a mostly empty table. There were a couple different boys there; a tall black senior that wore a smirk and sneered whenever he talked, and a short, pimply boy with dirty blonde hair, glasses with thick black rims, and giant buck teeth that couple not be contained by his braces. A petite sophomore girl with bright red hair sat reading a book and eating a PB&J. The black boy walked around the table to Cas and tried to grab his sandwich. Cas pulled it out of his reach and the boy grabbed him, and started to shake him. His glasses came off, and the older boy threw them across the lunch room. Dean hadn't realized that he'd started to walk faster towards the two until he was next to him, and yelling at him to screw off, causing his fist to pause an inch from the bridge of Cas's nose, his fist balled up in the front of his shirt.

The black boy sniffed, and pulled a half smile. "One chance kid. Take it or leave it. Get lost and leave me and my brother alone to have some quality 'bonding time,' or face a year of regret."

"Hey I'm only going to be here for probably about 6 months, so I might as well tell my friend's dickwad of a brother to go screw himself if he thinks that I'm just going to leave him like this," Dean responded calmly. Cas oppened his eyes in a squint to see who had come to his rescue. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion; why was this person who he barely knew standing up for him on the first day of school, where any one step out of line could result in the ultimate judgement by the popular crowd? He had no idea.

The black boy laughed. "Your choice, buddy." He threw Cas back into the table, and stormed off. Two other thugs at other tables rose to join him when he waved them over. Dean turned back to Cas. He was fixing his shirt, his face bright red. "Thanks, but I didn't need your help. It happens all the time. I've gotten used to it," he said, his voice getting softer with every word, finally cracking on the word 'it.' He cleared his throat. "Thanks, Anna," he said, as the small redhead handed Cas his glasses back. There was a very deep scratch on one of the lenses. Cas sighed, and unwrapped his sandwich, beginning to eat. "That was my brother, Raphael." He put in his earbuds without another word. Anna just continued reading, while the blonde boy jabbered on to Dean about extraordinarily random crap, mixed with really bad puns, while Dean quietly observed Cas's cheekbone slowly turning purple.

The days continued like that. Dean went to all his classes, leaning about American history, famous works of literature, how to balance equations and various reactions that occurred when specific categories of elements were brought into close contact, and that compared to most other in his human performance class, he was in really good shape. Cas barely talked to him at lunch or in chemistry, even during the labs. Always listening to music, and always in a permanent state of unrest. It was kinda weird that Dean was already worried about his mental state, considering that he barely knew the guy, and he never talked to him.

But Sam had managed to get himself a girlfriend!

It had happened during the fourth week of the trimester; Sam randomly asked Jess one day during band, and she said yes! (He played great that day; completely nailed the rhythms in the piece they were sight reading.) Ever since, Sam had been talking to her over the phone for at least an hour almost every night… except for the nights that he had to finish essays. Dean was really proud of him, but he couldn't feel the full effects of his pride because of one thing;

Football tryouts were next week. And Raphael was trying out.

Authors Note: Hello readers. :) I really suck at updating regularly, and I'm really sorry about that. School is kinda crazy right now and I can't find much time to write, much less edit, so for the next few months these chapters will probably be updated at extremely random times and not very good quality, since I can not find much time to edit. Thanks for understanding! :3