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“It’s fake… This is all fake. It’s in my head… I am nothing but a rational seventeen year old who’s currently being utterly irrational.”
Castiel was mouthing these words of encouragement to himself on repeat, even as his heart was beating in his throat, his hands balled into fists, fingernails pressing into his own palms. He squinted as he glanced around, but the long narrow hallway was too dark for him to see anything; the occasional torch on the wall was clearly there to serve as decoration, not as a real source of light. All Castiel could spot were his own two feet.
Excellent. If he ever made it out of here, his brother Gabriel and his best friend Balthazar were so going to pay for this.
Let’s go into the Haunted Halloween House of Horror, they’d said. It’ll be fun, those ten bucks will totally be worth it, they’d said. We know that this kind of stuff freaks you out, but we’ll be with you every step of the way buddy, they’d said.
Castiel counted three lies, right there. A scream echoed in the distance, and he flinched.
This reminded him of what creeped him out the most; the silence. Almost every similar attraction had overly-dramatic spooky music playing in the background, effectively reminding the ‘victims’ that all of it was merely a game. But not here.
Castiel shivered. He was feeling more than a little bitter as he remembered how Gabriel and Balthazar had laughed their asses off when Castiel had screamed because a dancing skeleton had popped up out of nowhere. After that, they had sneakily disappeared, ditching him because apparently they thought it was hilarious to scare Castiel to the point of a heart attack.
“Gabriel?” Castiel called out in the dark, hesitantly taking a few steps forward. “Balth? This isn’t funny…”
Another step, and out of the blue, something was touching the top of Castiel’s head, ruffling his hair. He yelped, wildly waving his arms, finding out that it was a bat. A harmless plastic bat, naturally. He cursed at how silly he was being, but was all the same unable to stop it.
Deep down, he knew what the real problem was. The dark, the unexpected. The fact that this haunted house was practically a giant maze, and Castiel was slightly claustrophobic. His heart was racing again at the thought of being stuck there forever, even if that thought was insane; at the end of the day, all the lights would turn on and some janitor -probably a guy named Earl- would sweep the place and make sure that everyone was gone.
Yet, none of that kept Castiel from whimpering pathetically as he stumbled around a corner, even more desperate to find his way out.
Castiel downright screamed as he abruptly crashed into something warm and solid.
When two hands grabbed Castiel’s shoulders, his first thought was to scream some more, just in case. But as soon as he somehow snapped out of his blind panic, all that was waiting for him were two curious green eyes staring straight at him. Human eyes. Eyes that belonged to a good looking boy about Castiel’s age. A boy with long eyelashes and lots of freckles, who was wearing a worried frown, unsubtly observing Castiel.
“Hey, are you okay? You look like you’re freaking out, man.”
It was weirdly intimate, the way they were standing there, nose to nose, seeing as that was the only way to properly look at each other with so little light to work with. The boy seemed to be aware of that, for he awkwardly let go of Castiel’s shoulders.
“I… I am… My friends left me behind and I’m not that good with… With dark, foreign, maze-like situations.” Castiel stuttered, hating himself for confessing all of that to the handsome stranger that he’d only just met. “Truly, I’m being ridiculous, I apologize.”
The boy chuckled, but his eyes remained friendly, not mocking Castiel in any way.
“I get it… These things used to scare the crap out of me. Still kinda gives me the creeps actually, only reason I’m here is because my friend Charlie forced me to go inside with her. I think she bailed on me on purpose too.” The boy explained, fondly rolling his eyes as he mentioned his friend. “I’m Dean, by the way.”
“I see… Some friends we have.” Castiel remarked dryly, staring at a particularly interesting freckle on the boy’s cheek. “I’m… My name is Castiel.”
“Castiel…” Dean repeated slowly, smiling mischievously. “So… Do you wanna get out of here, Castiel?”
Castiel snorted at Dean’s rather suggestive offer. “You do understand what that sounded like, right?”
Dean nodded, grin never fading. “Yeah… Yeah I do.”
They exchanged shy smiles. Even in the semi-dark, Castiel didn’t doubt that Dean could see his blush, as he could see Dean’s. Another scream not too far away was plenty to relentlessly burst their little private bubble.
“Let’s go.” Dean said determinedly, wrinkling his nose at the noise.
For a while, they walked in silence, staying close to each other, shoulders brushing.
They kept that up until a zombie came at them, making them both gasp. Seconds later, Castiel suddenly felt a warm hand slip into his own, Dean’s fingers reassuringly curling around Castiel’s.
Neither of them mentioned it, but they never let go of each other as their quest to find the exit continued.
Roughly half an hour later, they were back in the land of the living at last. Castiel narrowed his eyes to adjust to the daylight, but Gabriel and Balthazar were nowhere to be seen. When he peered at Dean, to his left, this time it wasn’t fear taking his breath away. If Dean had been attractive before, the watery October sun made his eyes glow, and allowed Castiel to see every perfect angle of Dean’s face.
Dean caught him in the act, meeting his stare, and it was in that moment that Castiel realized that they were still holding hands. In public, in the light of day, for everyone to see. Castiel gazed down at their linked fingers, and Dean didn’t miss it, for he lightly squeezed Castiel’s hand in acknowledgement.
“Well… Do we have to go find those lousy friends of ours, or can it wait?” Dean started eventually, tone nonchalant. “Because I was thinking that maybe we could bail on them for a change… Wanna go over there and get some ice cream?”
Dean lifted their joined hands, pointing at the ice cream truck that was parked nearby.
Castiel didn’t need any time to make a decision.
As it turned out, eating ice cream while at the same time chatting and holding hands, was a little tricky. Tricky, but not impossible. Curling up on a park bench together and trading cinnamon flavored first kisses on the other hand, turned out to be easy as breathing.