I Promise | A Destiel High School & College AU

CHAPTER 8 - A Familiar Pair of Eyes

"I wish I could say something to make you trust me. But if you give me time, I can prove it to you...because if I had a second chance I would never need a third."
-Anonymous

"Castiel?" Dean said. Cas tensed under Dean's grip and at the sound of his voice. His breath hitched in his throat, and his mind drifted back to the day Dean left him. All the pain he felt, inside and out, came at him all at once...and it hurt.

Cas still hadn't turned around yet, but he heard Dean mumble under his breath for the people around him to leave. As they walked away, anger began boiling inside Castiel.

"You left me," he said, barely above a whisper. Dean's head shot up as he tore his gaze from the ground to the back of Castiel's head. "What?" Dean said.

Castiel started screaming. "You LEFT ME!" he yelled as he pulled from Dean's grip and turned around to face him. "You left me...alone in that motel room. I was bleeding and I was hurt, and you just left! I told you everything..." he said, his voice breaking as tears cascaded down his cheeks. "I told you everything I was supposed to keep secret and you treated me like dirt!"

"Cas, I know. I'm so-" was all Dean could say before Castiel slapped him across the face. His cheek began to tingle and he knew it was turning red. "No," Cas said. "You don't get to speak. I spent months trying to get the sound of your voice out of my head. I cried myself to sleep for a year because you said I deserved better and then you left me alone! I went home and dealt with the same thing I thought you would protect me from, thinking I deserved better like a helpless piece of shit. Knowing what you did to me, how could you have the audacity to look me in the eye?!"

With every word, Dean's heart was shattering. He knew what he did to Cas would bring more pain than he hoped would take away following his absence. But seeing Castiel like this, after so many restless nights of seeing him the way he left him in the motel room...it was almost too much to handle.

Castiel was crying now, and with one hand covering his now puffy eyes, the other was giving him support on the side of the brick building.

Dean opened his mouth to speak again, but Castiel spoke before him. He said something that he obviously has never said out loud, judging by how much breath it took away from him to hear himself say it. It was, however, inaudible.

"What?" Dean said.

Castiel turned around, his lower back pressed against the brick wall and pressing his hands against his knees as he slid down the wall. He breathed in and out rather deeply before he said, "I tried to kill myself."

Dean almost fell to the ground from the lack of oxygen his brain was getting. His lips were moving, but no words were coming out. Castiel tried to...to end his own life. Dean thought to himself. And it's all your fault.

Without a second thought, Dean brought himself to where Castiel now sat, hugging his knees on the ground with his back leaning against the brick building. "C-Cas?" He received no reply, just small sobs coming from where Castiel sat, muffled by his trench coat.

"Cas, I...I know a 'sorry' won't fix this. I know it's not gonna be that easy. But you're gonna hear it anyway," Dean said. "I am so sorry, Castiel. What I put you through...it wasn't kind, and it wasn't fair. I've thought about you every day since then. The look on your face before I left...God, Cas, I see it every time I close my eyes."

Castiel removed his head from where it rest on his arms, but couldn't bring himself to look Dean in the eye.

He didn't say anything, so Dean continued. "I promise you I had my reasons for leaving, but if I can't be sorry without giving an excuse, then I ought to hate myself a lot more than I do right now."

Cas sighed, closed his eyes, and tilted his head back against the wall. "I don't want you to hate yourself, Dean. I just...I just want to know why you left, and why you never came back."

Dean nodded and looked at the ground. "You don't know how badly I wish I could tell you why, Cas. But it's what's best for both of us if it stays a secret."

"I'm tired of secrets, Dean!" Cas yelled, causing Dean to jump. "I've lived with secrets all my life and I can assure you with great confidence that they weren't what was best for me." And then Castiel turned his head. He dared himself to, yet again, gaze upon the forest of green inside Dean's eyes. They held so much, but expressed so little. And in that moment, Castiel realized why he could never come to forget Dean Winchester.

Dean, still crouched down next to Castiel, held his breath when he saw the magnificent blue of Castiel's eyes. He had forced himself to forget their radiant glow, but seeing them again made Dean remember why it was always so hard to get them out of his mind. They were stuck, and he wanted them to stay that way.

Dean sighed before responding. "Cas, what happened to you? Not just now, not a year and a half ago. What...what happened?"

Castiel held Dean's gaze for a while longer before looking back to the ground. He knew what Dean wanted to know. "Why? Wouldn't you just leave after I told you everything?"

Dean looked at the ground, shame and sadness filling his heart. "I promise you, Castiel. I am never going to leave you again. I know it's going to take a lot to earn back your trust after what happened last time...but last time, stuff was going on and I made empty promises I couldn't keep. Everything is sorted out for the time being, and I swear to God Castiel if you can ever find it in yourself to give me another chance, I won't waste it."

Castiel met Dean's eyes again. They shared similar looks of confusion and longing. Looking into Dean's forest-green eyes in that moment made Castiel want to share everything with Dean. He wanted to tell Dean everything he'd been through and everything he never got to do. He wanted to one day be able to have Dean to call upon when he was feeling down, a day in which Dean would hold him close and tell him that he was going to be okay.

The rules he had been living by did not seem to apply to Dean Winchester, whom Castiel had missed so dearly.

Castiel, once he had gathered himself from this rather...sudden...turn of events, said, "It's kind of a long story."

Dean smiled and said, "I've got time. And for you, I always will."