anonymity was never an option

73: castiel

"Hmm, whats this?" Gabriel asked pulling on the collar of the flannel.

"Oh just drive." Castiel rolled his eyes, looking out the window of the passenger seat of Gabriel's car.

Well technically it wasn't all Gabriel's, but Cas didn't really give a shit about much anymore to worry about driving anywhere. He had Dean for that.

Castiel couldn't remember the last time he had actually driven himself anywhere. Before he met Dean, Gabriel always had the car, out and about at some party or a friends house. He could've asked for the car, but it would've been pointless, Gabriel always had seniority.

Being a middle child didn't ever really have its perks in Castiel's case. He wasn't old enough to get first dibs and he wasn't young enough to get coddled. He was always kind of forgotten. Anna got everything she wanted and all Michael or Gabriel had to do was ask. Michael could've had everything he wanted, but for some reason he never chose to. His brother was always like that... putting others before himself. If there was a picture of a perfect person next to the dictionary definition, it would look a hell of a lot like Michael.

There were few things Castiel ever thought of as being close to perfect:

One was water.

He never really knew why he had such a fascination with water. It was empty. It was nothing. It was colorless. Yet everyone needed it. Everyone. Castiel spent most of his life with the same qualities and only one person actually loved him for it. Well only one until Dean.

Dean was another.

Castiel could go on about Dean, but he never had anyone to talk to. Gabriel didn't want to hear him ramble about the color of his eyes, or how soft his hair was when he just woke up in the morning. Dean was something so unreal and unfamiliar that it took Castiel forever to figure out. Hell, he didn't even know if he had figured him out yet. He learned more and more everyday. Castiel couldn't wait for Michael to meet Dean. He dreamed everyday of seeing the smile on his older brother's face when he realized Castiel finally found someone to love him back. He was so close. He kept thinking about when the right time was, without realizing that their time was running out.

Time was so interesting like that.

Seamless, never ending, yet everyone's always asking for more time, or running out of time, or coming to the end of times... but is time a quantity? Castiel figured in the literal sense time had minutes and hours and days and years, but all those units never stopped. Time would never stop. But when would his time stop?

There were moments when Castiel was younger where he thought it would be sooner rather than later. He kept thinking about the end as if it were some glorious destination. He dreaded waking up everyday and knowing in a private school full of godly rich kids, he was still nothing. His mother's money could never fix his problems. Michael knew how to be the face of the family, Gabriel knew how to spend all his allowance, and Anna was unfalteringly popular all of the time... but Castiel... who was Castiel? Money didn't fix his problems. A new phone wouldn't help the fact that he had no contacts to put in it. New clothes, wouldn't make him cool, it would just make him normal. His own car wouldn't help the fact that he had nowhere to go—maybe that's why he never asked for one. Castiel never asked for anything because he knew the only thing he wanted was the only thing he couldn't have.

He had it now.