Dean

Dean wakes to feel a small form pressed against his. He opens his eyes and finds Cas curled up into his chest, his nose pressed into Dean's shoulder. His breath tickled his collarbone, and his hair brushed at Dean's face. Dean angled his face so that he could study this curious anomaly that was Castiel Novak.
He looks so peaceful, laying there beside Dean. The lines of tension and sadness and anxiety that usually creased his features are gone, replaced by soft, gentle sloping of cheekbones to nose to chin. Long dark lashes twitch as his eyes move under his lids. Dean hopes he was dreaming of something happy. Cas was just so incredibly...perfect.
Then Dean's eyes travel farther down his body, and his heart breaks. Red gashes crisscross his bare arms, some almost fully scarred over, some looking as fresh as two days ago. Puckered white bands line his upper arms, several years old. Dean feels so hopelessly useless to ease this boy's suffering. Dean can tell the Novak hadn't been eating (Dean makes a mental note to ask Sammy for advice on that one too); his arms are thin and wiry and his collarbones are frighteningly apparent. Dean would bet real money that his ribs could be counted individually had his shirt been off. Dean's mind begins to wander elsewhere after this particular thought, but he is brought back to reality when Cas stirs next to him. Dean instinctively shuts his eyes and slows his breathing.
Dean feels Cas stiffen, then relax. Dean can almost hear him smiling, and he has to stifle one of his own.
"Dean, I know you're awake."
Dean smiles and says, "No I'm not," without opening his eyes. "I'm totally, 100% unconscious."
Cas laughs, a sound that makes Dean's heart do a little jump thing. Dean opens his eyes as Cas moves away.
Suddenly, Cas's eyes go wide with realization, and his hands go to his arms, feeling vainly for a sleeve to pull down, before he pulls the blanket up in an attempt to shield his scars from view.
"Hey, woah woah Cas, it's okay, take it easy. I'm not judging you or staring or hating you. You can let me see. Or not," Dean amends, seeing the look of terror on the blue eyed boy's face. "Just whatever you feel comfortable with."
Cas nods, relaxing his hold on the sheets but not lowering them a fraction of an inch.
"So. Breakfast?" Dean suggests.
Cas nods again, "Uh, sure. I'll get dressed."
The two get out of bed and shuffle off to their respective rooms.
At breakfast time, Dean serves Cas a plate of scrambled eggs and toast, with the same for himself plus coffee.
Cas just stares at the food.
"Come on, Cas, buddy, you gotta eat." Dean pleads.
"Actually, Dean, I think I'll just have some coffee, thanks." Cas says, not meeting Dean's eyes.
"No, you need to eat. Please," Dean says, a look of begging in his eyes.
Cas inhales shakily and picks up his fork.
Dean wants to grin from ear to ear and clap Castiel on the back, but does neither. He settles for a small smile and a mouthed, thank you. Cas sees this and smiles a little in response, eliciting a wave of relief mixed with an unknown emotion rushing through Dean.
Cas and Dean finish their meal in silence and without eye contact, but both could feel the other glancing up when they thought the other man wasn't looking.
Dean gets up and claps Cas on the back, "Thanks Cas." He notices how the Novak flinched when he raised his hand. Yet another thing to ask Sammy about...
Dean is too preoccupied with this thought to notice the dark haired boy steal away to the bathroom.

***

Castiel

Cas exits the bathroom, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Part of him feels guilty for going behind Dean's back like this, but the majority of him is lowkey flipping out,
How am I going to keep this up while he's around? He's not the kind to sit back and watch you destroy yourself, he's going to make you eat, make you stop cutting, tell your parents....
Cas inhales shakily and meets Dean at the door.
"Ready?" Dean says, grinning.
"Nope," Cas replies, a smile finding its way onto his face. "Not at all."

***

Dean

"Okay, Sammy, you really need to help me on this one."

"Dean, just do what you think is right! Do what you did when it was me: stay close and be loving. You've already done the right thing by catching it early, but any more and you'll drive him away." Sam sighs, his breath crackling over the line, "To be honest, I don't remember much of that time, but I do remember the kindness. The love. I remember who was nice to me and who wasn't. He'll remember you, just make sure it's a good memory."
The phone clicked off, and Dean sighed, flipping the phone shut with a resigned clack.
"Hey, Dean!" Dean hears a familiar voice behind him. His face breaks into a grin even before he turns around, even despite the previous conversation.
"Heya Cas," he says, slapping the smaller man a high five. He is immensely relieved that Cas seemed to be warming up to him.
"So how was classes?" Dean asks. One of the tips Sam had given him to make Cas come out of his shell was to ask open-ended, non-threatening questions.
Cas groans, and launches into a story about how it was the second day--the second day!---and the amount of homework they were given.
"I mean, you see all those Tumblr posts about how college is way easier than your parents make it out to be, and what are they? LIES." Cas has an animated grin on his face and his hands are gesturing wildly in the air, and all of this brings a smile to Dean's face. Dean had only known him for a couple days, but he can tell Castiel hasn't always been in the state he was now: animated, smiling, happy.
Dean hopes he can make a difference in this boy's life. He doesn't want to come to the dorm and enter the bathroom to see Cas lying there, comatose from an overdose or covered in blood or God forbid dead--
Dean stops himself, and focuses on all the ways Cas is not dead.
His hands. Dead people's hands don't wave in excited motions, depicting the injustice of the Kansas school system. His eyes. Dead eyes aren't blue and lively, and the colors wouldn't be so deep and blue and look like an endless frozen ocean, nestled in a snowy expanse of fresh white powder on the slope of a mountain--
"Dean. Dean."
Dean snaps out of it, genuinely clueless about where his mind was.
"Dean. Why're you looking at me like that?"
Dean shakes his head, looking down and biting his lip to stop the shy smile that was curling his mouth. "Nothing Cas..." Dean says, but blurts out a split second later, "Hey, did anyone ever tell you you have really pretty eyes?"
Cas trips over his feet and face plants on the pavement despite Dean's feeble attempts to catch him--Dean didn't want to hurt his wrists again.
Castiel looks up from where he's sprawled on the ground, then finds his way to a seated position.
"I-I what?" Cas splutters, his cheeks flushing, blood dripping down his face from a cut on his forehead, "I have pretty eyes?"
"Jesus, Cas, your head just split open, let me help you."
Cas stilled himself as Dean got down to his level and pulled out a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and began dabbing at the wound.
As the silence and the tension from the loaded question stretch out between them, Dean knows he has two decisions: awkwardly say "never mind" and never speak of it again, or embrace the awkward and play it up.
He decides on the second one,
"Well, you know, they're nice eyes. I wish I had eyes like that. Mine are just green."
Cas looks at him disbelievingly, "You serious? I'd kill to have your eyes. They're like a...forest. Like a forest of pine trees."
Dean laughs, glad that the awkward had passed. "Pine trees? That's specific."
Cas shrugs, "Well, pines are evergreen, and I'm betting your eyes don't look any duller in winter, in fact they'd probably look brighter--" Cas stops, aware he's crossed some heterosexual line. "I'm sorry, Dean, I swear sometimes I'm way too gay to function," he laughs, running his hand through his already messy hair, sending an odd tingle through Dean.
"Wait, you're gay?" Dean asks, equal parts confused and intrigued.
Cas laughs, "Yeah, did the word 'faggot' spray painted across my car not enlighten you enough?"
Dean nodded, not sure whether to sympathize for the vandalism or to probe further into the gay-ness.
"I'm--I'm sorry for your car, um, I didn't do it, obviously, since I didn't know you were, um, gay, but..."
Cas laughs again, "It's fine Dean, I don't mind. I'm used to it," he says this last part quieter, his smile dropping a little.
"Cas, no one should have to get used to being hurt so much that vandalism doesn't even bother them. That's stupid as hell."
Cas shrugs, "Well, I am. I'm so used cutting myself that a freaking head wound seems like nothing. I'm so used to starving myself, a skipped lunch seems like a missed snack." His voice had changed from passive and matter-of-fact to hard and spiteful. As soon as he said these words, however, his face stills and grief comes into his watery blue eyes. "I'm sorry, Dean. Sometimes I'm a bit too broken to function, too."
Dean's heart is about to be too broken to function, and he looks hard into Cas's eyes.
"Listen to me, Castiel Novak: you are not too broken. You are perfect and you deserve to be happy. You need to get that through that head of yours and then never let it go. You. Are. Loved. It doesn't matter if no one has before now, because all the matters is right here, right now."
The sun has almost set now, and there were very little people in the fading light. Dean is struck by the intense desire to pull Cas's face towards him and kiss the fuck out of him, wrap him in his arms and squeeze him so tightly that he might stick all the pieces back together.
Cas's eyes are locked onto his, an anomaly in it of itself as Cas was generally very bad with eye contact. His breath catches in his throat, and the moment seems to still: the air has taken on an otherworldly quality, the remaining light in the sky filters through the darkening trees, illuminating sporadic motes of dust in the cooling air, and Dean is aware of the blood rushing in his ears, Cas's face is right there, right within reach, and--
"Thanks, Dean. I...I really appreciate it." Cas's face breaks into a small smile, but his voice completely shattered the moment.
Dean clears his throat and nods. "All righty then. Good talk." Dean puts up the nonchalant, neutral façade he normally used and jumps to his feet. He offers Cas a hand, which he takes, trying to digest the butterflies in his stomach.
The two walk home without another word being spoken, each absorbed in their own version of the events that played out.