The demanding life of a teenager [Destiel AU]

From a different point of view

Warning: thoughts of self-harm in this chapter.

Cas exhaled, allowing his body to sink even further down into the couch. He was lying upside-down, with his back resting against the cushions, the back of his thighs up along the backrest and his head left to hang over the edge of the couch.

Admittedly, it wasn't the most comfortable position - his head was pounding with too much blood and his feet were threatening to fall asleep - but for some reason it helped him relax. Besides, his parents would never allow him to sit like this if they were there, so he had to use the rare opportunity.

The aforementioned parents had left town the previous day to attend some distant relative's funeral (whom Cas hadn't even heard of before the sudden news of her death), taking Michael along with them, thus finally giving Cas some space to breathe. To think. And then to freak out.

Almost as soon as his family had left, leaving him home alone without a babysitter for the first time in his eighteen-year-old life, Cas had sat down to think. He thought about the last few weeks and everything that had happened. Everything he had done. He thought about Michael, about April, and then finally about Dean. Most of all, he had thought about Dean. About the devastated look on his face when Cas had broken up with him. The longing glances in the hallways, and in class.

Cas had done his best to ignore him, he really had. Every time he had wanted to return Dean's peers, he had heard Michael's voice in his head and felt his fists on his skin, almost as if he were there right next to him, telling him not to. And he had obeyed his brother. Of course he had.

Cas was not proud of how his brother had gotten into his head. He had always liked to think of himself as someone independent. Someone unaffected by other's influence, immune to persuasion and inducement. It had become brutally clear to him that that wasn't who he was at all. That was just facts.

What scared him most was how Michael had made him believe it himself. He had actually made Cas believe that he and Dean weren't good for each other. Made him believe that if he broke it off with him, he would not only do himself, but also Dean, a great favour. That they had no future together, and it would be better to end it now - as quickly as possible. He had even believed that Michael going through his calls and messages every evening, to make sure he had managed to stay away from Dean, was for the good. God, what a fool he had been.

He started drawing circles on the wall with his heels. His slippery socks slid effortlessly over the smooth wallpaper. The soft scraping sound was the only noise in the room. For once, he was making all the noise in this house. It was a surprisingly satisfying thought.

It was not before his slip-up with Dean in the bathroom a week earlier that Cas had started doubting himself. Started doubting Michael. Being with Dean again had felt right. He had been so close to apologize and tell him everything right there and then. But for some reason he hadn't. He'd changed his mind at the last minute. Now that he was finally alone and had time to think for himself, without Michael's propaganda disturbing him every twenty minutes, he had finally come to his senses. It had taken way to long, but he had finally done it.

Cas had decided he was tired of being a goody two-shoes. Tired of doing everything his parents and brother told him to. For a while, he had used all his energy on being the perfect son: He had gotten excellent grades, been unnaturally polite, followed his family to church every single Sunday and gotten himself a girlfriend. Girlfriend, mind you.

Well, that was definitely all over now. Over the past weeks, April had annoyed the crap out of him. They weren't really a good match. They never had been, and he was well aware of that. But when she had heard about his breakup and asked him out, Cas had thought Why not? What a better way to forget about your ex-boyfriend than to get a new girlfriend? April didn't exactly know it yet, but they were done. Cas had made up his mind about that as he walked home from school that day. He simply didn't have room for her in his life anymore. He wanted someone else to fill that space.