Happy Birthday.

That was about all the fanfare turning seventeen got around here, and it was a half hearted gesture from his mother in a card because she couldn’t be bothered to appear.

Of course, the woman had two jobs that were anything but flexible, she was rarely seen doing anything besides trying to make ends meet, but Cas had originally seen her absence as abandonment and not much had really changed.

He was flopped on his bed, surrounded by homework that would remain undone and his obsessive logs that had gone into overdrive with pointless details. Writing calmed him down. When stress beat down on Cas, he usually became repressed and quiet, but the anxiousness and knots were still there and were usually undone by writing. It didn’t matter what. The details of what he had for lunch, the strange way someone at school was altering their uniform to skirt dress code, unremarkable graffiti on the wall, it didn’t really matter. Just something, anything.

But tonight he had written pages and pages and it wasn’t working.

Unsure with how to cope, he just flopped around and laid there, trying not to get too introspective on the fact he was another year older.

He had more freedom now, to do his Negaversy things, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He had come back from hiatus to find the structure had changed, and the villainous anarchy he had been schooled in by Painite was no longer allowed.

But the Negaverse was the closest thing he had to a way out, at least one he could see.

He was brilliant, but somehow failing at school and producing lackluster work. He had no hobbies, and he had alienated his best friend in a fit of rage and jealousy. He thought about Johnny and felt feelings bubble up that would’ve brought him to near tears if he didn’t push that s**t right back down and try to ignore it.

Worse, though, was when he thought about her.

He had a terminal crush on Lydia, or at least he used to. Starting from their middle school days onward. But she wasn’t just some weird mix of feelings he had taken as ‘crushing’, she had been his friend mostly. Someone that could be positive and driving, someone who indulged in his fantasies and games and never once insulted him for it.

She used to be one of the more comforting friends he had. Since he started adapting to his new role, both in school and in the Negaverse, though, he had more or less broken off contact. He sat up and looked through his phone, landing on her name. He could call her, he realized. He could push a button and be talking to her right now.

But he didn’t.

He found himself asking the question if he even wanted to. His feelings had all but vanished and been replaced with a sort of longing he had done his best to ignore and push away until it dulled to the slightest tinge, even when he purposely tried to invoke it, just to see. See if this could be a thing that could be fixed.

He wasn’t sure if it was her he missed or the stupid sense of childhood that came from reminiscing about what idiots they could be together.

In the end he decided it was pointless and tossed his phone away.

He was seventeen. Happy birthday. One more year until you’re out in the real world, enjoy it.

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