Then and Now

Gabe almost gets murdered by a moose

Dean watched Cas from across the room. Subtly of course, as he drank from a bottle of beer identical to the one in Castiel's hand. He noted how different this Cas was to the one he had once known.

No longer was he the tiny little boy with large glasses. In that boy's place now stood a teenage boy with messy raven black hair, simple black-framed glasses and those same bluer than blue eyes that if possible, seemed to have grown even more blue. Dean watched as the quiet boy took a swig of his drink, sitting by himself on the chair as he watched Lucifer and Gabriel challenge each other to do handstands. 

Castiel looked out of place among all the drunk and loud teens. Dean knew that this wasn't the kind of thing that Castiel would be into, no that boy would no doubt prefer to be curled up somewhere quiet with a book. God, Dean hadn't realized just how much he had missed Castiel until now. They had once been best friends, now they were strangers. 

"Where's your brother?" Crowley was standing next to him, he too had grown up a lot since Dean had last seen him. "He's still around, isn't he?"

Dean rolls his eyes, still subtly watching the raven haired boy across the room. "He's back home, parties aren't really his thing." 

Crowley hums, leaning against the wall next to Dean. "Why don't you just go over and talk to him?"

"Who?" 

Crowley's laugh gets Dean to finally look away from Cas. "To Castiel, you're staring after him like some lovesick idiot." Crowley had a stupidly smug smile on his face. One Dean wished he could wipe off with a slap. 

"I'm not lovesic- I don't- I'm not gay." 

Crowley just laughs, much to Dean's annoyance.

"Besides, he has made it very clear that he doesn't want to talk to me."

"Weren't you guys best friends?"

"Yeah, so? We were kids, things change." 

"If you say so." Crowley pushes off from the wall, giving Dean a look. "But if you ask me, he misses you just as much as you miss him." Then he was gone, walking across the room without a glance back. 

Dean rolls his eyes again, given that Cas seemed hell bent on avoiding him, he found it hard to believe that the boy missed him.

A loud shout, followed by a crash draws Dean's attention back to the Novaks, where Lucifer lay groaning surrounded by a broken lamp. Everyone laughed as Gabriel did a small victory dance next to him. Castiel, looking very much done with his brothers, happened to look up at the same moment as Dean's eyes inevitability wandered over to him. Their eyes meet for a moment, and instead of looking away, Cas just stares back with an expressionless gaze. 

After what felt like an eternity, Cas looks away and Dean is left staring at the boy, feeling as though he had done something to make Cas hate him. He wanted to confront Cas, ask him why he was avoiding him and why he had stopped sending letters, but he doesn't. Instead Dean simply takes another swing from his drink and tries to force all thoughts of the blue eyes boy from his mind.

A loud bang startles everyone, the loud noise interrupting the noises of the party. Dean's heart pounds wildly as he jumps, spilling beer on himself. It had sounded so much like a gunshot, for a moment he thought that somehow, by some horrible bad luck, Azazel had found them.

Entire body tense, Dean clutches the bottle tighter in his hand and watches the door with wide eyes. No one enters, there was no mad killer with a gun. Already, the other teens had dismissed the noise and conversations had started to fill the silence once more.