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Castiel had been sitting in Ben Braeden’s usual spot at the counter for almost twenty minutes, chasing marshmallows around his bowl with a spoon. He’d been living in the house for almost three weeks now and Ben had still barely spoken to him. Not that it was Ben’s fault or anything. Castiel spent all his time up in his room—what used to be the guest room, leaving only to use the bathroom or when Dean forced him to spend some time outside.
Dean had to force him to do a lot of things, it seemed like. Ben had only become aware of Cas’ presence in the house after overhearing an argument on how his clothes needed to be washed, and no he couldn’t just wear his trench coat while his other stuff was in the wash, Dean would get him some other clothes, and when was the last time he’d had a shower anyway?
Castiel had said something about when he was in the hospital (“Jeez, that long?” said Dean), and Ben thought he could be sympathetic ‘cause maybe the guy had gotten hit in the head or something.
He sat down next to Cas at the counter and poured himself a bowl of Lucky Charms. “Y’know you have to eat the rest too,” said Ben. “Not just the marshmallows.”
“But I only like the marshmallows,” Castiel argued, cornering his last red balloon against the side of his bowl. “The cereal company shouldn’t even bother with the rest.”
“I’m with you there,” said Ben, and tried to remember exactly when he had started eating his cereal in regular spoonfuls. He used to pick through and save all his marshmallows for the end, then imagine how awesome it would be to have an entire bowl like those last three bites.
Castiel looked at his marshmallow-free cereal mournfully, then got himself another bowl and poured fresh Lucky Charms and milk, leaving the old bowl half-full on the counter. Ben had to laugh. “Dude, my mom’s gonna be so pissed that you’re wasting food.”
Cas looked at his new cereal with what appeared to be great concern.
“Don’t worry. She’ll probably just yell at Dean about it.”
Mom blamed Dean for everything that Cas did. “Dean, your friend has the TV up too loud,” and “how can we be out of Swiss Cake Rolls already? I just got the groceries,” not to mention, “I understand he has nowhere else to go, Dean, but the point is we have an eleven year old living here and you guys can’t be drunk all the time.”
After that Mom had stopped offering Dean beers and he’d stopped bringing them up to the guest room. And shortly after that Castiel had started leaving his room and doing things like eating all the marshmallows out of the Lucky Charms.
Castiel finished off the last of the marshmallows in his second bowl and was reaching for the box again when he stopped. “You really think your mother will be upset with Dean?”
Ben shrugged. “Probably. He brought you here.”
Castiel looked at the Leprechaun on the cereal box as if it might help him decide what to do about all this.
“You could always clean up and dump the old cereal down the sink,” Ben suggested. “Who would ever know that you only ate the good part?”
Castiel smiled. “Yes, deception is the best way to proceed,” he agreed, and poured himself another bowl.
* * * *
Castiel was on the couch, just sitting there, looking at nothing, doing nothing. It was weird. Dean had bought him some new clothes, but Cas was in his same old outfit; he was even wearing his coat, despite the fact that it was summer and they were indoors. Ben wanted to go play video games, but with Cas in there…
There was nothing else to do though. Both his friends in the neighborhood were away on family vacations, and Ben was sick of watching daytime TV on the set in the kitchen. Eventually boredom won out and he joined Castiel in the living room.
The weirdo didn’t say anything as Ben turned on his game and began to play. He just kept looking forward, acting like he was ignoring the game on the screen, but Ben could see that he was secretly paying attention.
“You wanna play?” offered Ben. “I can set it to two player.”
Cas looked almost startled, but turned slowly to face Ben.
“You can even be Sonic if you want to, although Tails can be faster sometimes. If I’m Tails then I can pick you up if you get stuck.”
“No. That’s okay. I don’t really understand these games.”
“Ooo-kay. But if you change your mind just say so.”
Cas sat silently for another fifteen minutes or so before Ben felt like he needed to speak to the guy again, at least just to break his mile long stare. He just kept looking forward, his eyes sad and stoic, like his mom had forgotten to pick him up from soccer practice and he didn’t know what to do.
* * * *
Dean spent a lot of time with Castiel up in the guest room, and Ben wondered what it was that they did up there. He’d listened at the door a few times, but it was always completely silent. No TV playing, no snoring or turning over under the covers, not even voices. Once Ben thought he heard a quiet sigh, and he could imagine Castiel leaning sadly on Dean’s shoulder, because Castiel was almost always sad.
Since Dean had gotten a job, Cas had started leaving his room more often, but he never seemed to know what to do with himself.
“What’cha doing?” asked Ben. Castiel looked puzzled and tilted his head to the side.
“I’m bored too,” said Ben. “Wanna do something?”
“What would we do?”
“I dunno. We could go somewhere,” Ben suggested.
“Where can we go?”
“Anywhere we can walk to!” said Ben. “Well, we can’t just go inside anybody’s house or whatever. But we can walk to the store or the park or something.”
“I would like to go to the park, I suppose.”
“Okay dude, let’s go.”
The day was sunny and bright, and Castiel squinted and shielded his eyes with his hand.
“It’s getting hot out,” said Ben. “I wish I knew someone with a pool.”
“It hurts my eyes,” said Cas.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“My eyes never would’ve hurt before. I was brighter than this before.”
Castiel kept attempting to look right at the sun, and Ben had no idea what the dude was talking about, so he just ignored it and led the way to the park, hoping that Cas wasn’t going to hurt his eyes.
It really was hot out though, and Castiel was once again wearing his suit jacket and that trench coat of his. Ben could see he was getting overheated, as beads of sweat formed across his brow and dripped down his temples. When Cas started breathing heavily, Ben had to say something.
“Don’t you think you’d be more comfortable if you lost the coat?”
“I’ve found I am the most comfortable in these clothes.”
“Yeah, but it’s hot out Cas! You can’t wear so many layers when it’s gonna be ninety degrees, dude.”
“I know that it’s hot, but the clothes Dean gave me don’t feel right. They aren’t mine.”
Ben sighed. It was a pretty wimpy park. A field with a few trees, some scant playground equipment—one of those merry-go-round things and some swings. Castiel sat down on a bench, and let his shoulders slouch.
“You’re just gonna sit here in the sun, sweating in that jacket?”
Castiel closed his eyes for a long moment before speaking. “What would you like me to do, Ben?”
Ben shrugged. It wasn’t like there was a whole lot to do. In all honesty the park probably had less to do than the house, it was just a change of scenery. “Well, you should take that coat off for starters. ‘Cause seriously dude, you’re gonna overheat and get dehydrated, and I don’t want that to be my fault.”
“It wouldn’t be your fault,” Castiel assured him, but he obediently pulled his arms from his sleeves, looking unsure of himself.
“The suit jacket too Cas. I can’t believe you weren’t dying in all that.”
Castiel removed both his extra layers, letting them fall behind him on the bench. “We are all dying,” he said.
Well that was morbid, thought Ben. It was true but…
Ben frowned and Castiel just watched him, waiting for him to do something. He shuffled his feet. “Do you uh… How ‘bout the swings? We could go swing,” Ben suggested.
“I believe as an adult I should be watching you swing.”
“Bullshi—“ Ben stopped to see if Castiel would get upset with him for swearing. When he didn’t he continued. “I see grown ups on the swings all the time. And some of the high school kids are bigger ‘n you. C’mon.”
Castiel’s eyes were downcast as he resigned himself to following Ben to the swing set. He leaned over to pick up his coat and jacket, but Ben put a hand on his arm. “You’re not putting those back on Cas. It’s actually not safe.”
“You don’t need to worry,” Castiel said reassuringly, but he left the items on the bench.
Ben wondered if Cas even knew how to swing. On one hand he seemed like he could do plenty of normal things and he was smart. He said philosophical type things, like his morbid comment earlier, and he could tie his shoes and stuff.
On the other hand, he had to be guided by Dean to do a lot of really basic things, like brushing his teeth.
“You know how to pump, right?”
“I’ve observed people swinging, before, yes. Although I’ve never attempted it myself.”
“Okay, just do it like me,” instructed Ben, sitting on the swing. Cas sat down the same.
“Now push off the ground with your feet. Stick your legs out in front of you when you go forward, and then you pull them back when you go back.”
Castiel did as instructed, but only managed to rock himself back and forth while the swing swung itself to a stop.
“Ah, you’ve gotta pull back on the chains too. Lean back when you are going forward. See?” Ben was swinging high now, rusted chains creaking from the bar overhead.
Castiel tried again and slowly began to gain altitude. Eventually his tie was flapping behind him as he soared forward. Ben noticed the look of bliss that crossed his face as he went higher and higher, and how his face fell when he swung toward the ground again.
Ben was feeling ready to jump, but if he tried then Castiel would probably follow his lead and he’d get hurt.
“I’m gonna jump Cas, but you shouldn’t. It takes more practice.” Ben looked to Castiel to see that he understood and saw that tears were streaming down his cheeks.
“It’s a little like flying,” he said.
* * * *
Ben was going to figure out some totally epic tricks to do on his new skateboard. In this new neighborhood almost all the boys rode around on skateboards, and Ben felt kind of stupid because he was eleven and he’d barely been able to stand on the thing at first. But he’d never had one before a couple months ago, so obviously he wasn’t going to be perfect. Still, he practiced out on the patio in the back so no one would see him make a fool of himself in the driveway.
It wasn’t long before he noticed Castiel was watching him from behind the patio door.
“What?”
“I am just observing.”
“Okay, but I’m still crap at it, so don’t laugh.”
By now he could scoot along, pushing with one foot, the other on the board, like a pro. Next what he should try is to jump, he figured. Ben got himself going around the patio at a decent speed, then he went for it.
Jump!
Ben knew this wasn’t going to end well as soon as his feet left the skateboard. How was it those other kids managed to make the board jump with them? They clearly knew some secret that Ben didn’t.
He landed elbows first on the concrete, his left arm scraping along picking up little rocks and bits of leaves.
Castiel was outside and crouching next to Ben almost before he hit the ground, sitting him up and inspecting the damage. It stung quite a bit.
“This isn’t too bad,” Cas said. His voice was hardly comforting; just the same as it ever was. Gruff and kind of sad. He wrapped an arm under Ben’s armpit and hefted him up to his feet. “C’mon, let’s go clean it up.”
Ben gulped, and tried to be as brave as he could for Cas, but it really did sting. And he’d gotten a lot of dirt and crap in the wound, so it was only going to sting more when Cas sprayed the disinfectant on it. Maybe Cas wouldn’t know to do that though, Ben mentally crossed his fingers.
“How badly does it hurt?”
“It’s not too bad. I can totally handle this,” Ben said. Then he winced, totally giving away how much it really hurt. Castiel rubbed his back and it made Ben feel a little better.
“There are band aids in the bathroom? I saw them earlier.”
“Yeah,” said Ben. “That’s where all the first aid stuff is.”
Castiel nodded and led Ben into the small room, guiding him to sit on the edge of the tub. He ran warm water over a washcloth, then dabbed it on Ben’s arm. It stung more, and he bit his lip. He didn’t think Cas would think any less of him for crying, but Ben wanted to be strong, and he didn’t want to make Castiel think he was doing anything wrong.
“It hurts more,” Castiel observed. “I’m sorry.”
“’Sokay. It’s gotta get cleaned.”
“I should be able to heal it. Make it not hurt at all. It should be gone.”
“What?”
Castiel didn’t answer; just shook his head and sprayed the awful disinfectant spray all over Ben’s forearm. Ben closed his eyes and turned away, so Cas couldn’t see them fill with liquid. It was his least favorite part.
In the end Castiel fastened two large band-aids to Ben’s arm—one on his elbow, and one about halfway down. He rested a hand on Ben’s shoulder and waited for Ben to meet his eyes. “You were very brave,” he said.
Ben smiled and stood up and hugged him. “Thanks, Cas.”
“I’m sorry for eating all the Swiss Cake Rolls,” he said.
* * * *
Ben was lounging around, flipping channels, hoping that something interesting was on. “Boring, boring, boring,” he said as the boring images flashed across the screen.
“We should go to the park again,” said Castiel from behind him.
Ben jumped. Castiel was silent and sneaky like a ninja. Ben hadn’t had any idea that he was in the room.
“Nah. I’m not really feelin’ the park today, Cas.”
He furrowed his brow and gave Ben an inquisitive look. “But you’re bored. The park is something to do. Also look, I’ve put on a t-shirt. Appropriate park attire.”
Ben sat up to look at Castiel. He was like an eager puppy or something. That still didn’t change the fact that Ben was lazy today and didn’t want to leave.
Then Dean emerged from the basement. “Cas, why’re you bothering Ben?”
“I thought he might like to go to the park.”
Dean grinned, putting a hand on Cas’ shoulder. “You want to go somewhere? Really?”
Cas nodded.
“Awesome! Hey, how ‘bout ice cream?”
“I want ice cream,” said Ben, because for ice cream he didn’t feel so lazy anymore.
“Okay, let’s go!” Dean pumped a fist in the air, his other hand still on Castiel’s shoulder, guiding him out the door. Then the three of them piled into Dean’s awesome black car.
At Dairy Queen Castiel looked at all the options before him with wide eyes. Ben already knew what he wanted. “I want a Butterfinger Blizzard,” he told Dean. “And can I get a medium? Mom says I won’t finish it, but I totally can.”
“Sure dude. How d’you know you can’t finish it if you don’t get to try?”
“Right?” Ben grinned. Dean was awesome.
“What’re you gonna get Cas?”
“I don’t know. What do these words even mean? What is a ‘Dilly Bar’?”
Ben laughed. “Don’t get one of those Cas. You should get something with sprinkles, ‘cause you like those. My mom always gets Crunch Cones and those have sprinkles.”
Dean ordered and the three of them sat outside, soaking up the hot August sun. Ice cream melted down Castiel’s fingers and dripped stickily down his arm.
“Eat faster Cas,” Ben grinned, passing him a napkin. Castiel responded by ignoring him and licking a stripe up his arm, catching the melted ice milk on his tongue.
Dean laughed. “I like the new you, Cas.”
“What was he like before?” wondered Ben.
“You know better than anyone that there’s stuff in this world that isn’t ‘normal.’”
Ben nodded. His mom had seen more of the scary stuff when it came to the Changelings, but he still remembered seeing the other him before it walked off to take his life from him.
“Castiel used to be an angel.”
Ben’s eyes grew wide, picturing Castiel as a ridiculous Precious Moments type figure. “Like with wings and a halo and sitting on a cloud?”
“I had wings,” said Castiel, and he looked sad again so Ben wanted to talk about something else.
“It was faster to fly than to ride in Dean’s car.”
“Would everyone lay off about my car? Jeez Cas, first Lisa, now I don’t need it from you too. And you’d better finish that, because you are not bringing that mess into my baby.”
“I think your car is freaking awesome,” Ben declared.
Dean patted him proudly on the back and passed Cas some napkins.
A medium Blizzard was too much to finish, as it turned out, but everyone promised not to tell Mom.
* * * *
Ben was nervous for school to start. It was his first year in middle school and everything was new all at once. “You’ll be awesome,” Dean assured him, then helped him practice opening a combination lock.
Mom bought him new clothes and shoes, and pulled down a map of the school from the district website, so Ben would know where to go for his first class.
Castiel started to mope around and spent more and more time up in his room. “What will I do while you’re gone, Ben?” I will miss you.”
“It’s only for the daytime. You can sleep in ‘til noon, and then I’ll be home a few hours later!”
Cas didn’t sleep in though. On the first day he had breakfast waiting when Ben came downstairs. It was Lucky Charms and a Swiss Cake Roll.
“I ate the other one in the packet,” he admitted. “But your mom said they aren’t good breakfast food anyway.”
Ben ate what he could of Cas’ breakfast, but his stomach was starting to roil with nerves. “Thanks Cas, but I’ve gotta go catch the bus. Bye dude!”
“Goodbye Ben.”
Ben’s first day went great. His friends were in three of his classes and he didn’t get lost even once. He didn’t think about Castiel until he was almost home, but then the bus started to empty out and become quiet, and Ben wondered what the former angel had done all day.
Maybe he had finally sat down and played video games, now that there was no one around to see him screw up. Or maybe he’d just sat around watching the squirrels run around the yard, thinking about his life before now. He did that a lot, and now that Ben knew that he’d been an angel, he knew that Dean was trying to get him to stop that. To get him to go outside and enjoy the world as a human, because that’s what Cas had now.
The bus rounded the corner and Castiel was standing in the driveway, waiting for him. Ben ran off the bus, new textbooks in his backpack thunking against him.
“I got out juice and cookies,” Castiel announced.
“You freaking rock, Cas!” Ben said, holding up a hand for a high five. Castiel stared at it, so Ben grabbed his wrist and slapped their hands together. “C’mon, lets have cookies!” Ben shouted, running ahead and into the house.
Castiel followed, asking him about his day. He had a smile on his face.
The End.