Chapter Text
At this point, Cas would have been willing to take any job he could, any chore or piece of work cast across his path. No matter how revolting – no matter how dull and confining. He lived in a small, dingy loft apartment – falling apart at the seams, by the look of it. A blank, decomposing space, in which rested a neatly made bed (sagging on its posts), and an old kitchen set. One corner was filled with what had once been Cas’ main, and only, source of income: his easel. Paints, brushes, and tool lay about, stacked with exact precision against walls, or atop his only functional shelf.
They hadn’t been touched. Not for weeks. At least not for useful purposes. When he could, he liked to do art for himself – but at this point, he couldn’t afford materials to waste. Everything he did had to be for some sort of income.
He hadn’t stolen anything. But the panging, empty pound of hunger in his gut didn’t care. The empty urge just wanted to be gone, filled up – no, he hadn’t stolen, or lied, or tricked. But he was goddamn close.
He’d called his father; God knows he had. But the phone just kept on ringing; he hadn’t answered Cas in months. His brothers, on the other hand, lived overseas. In old, ancient European cities. Most of them were hauled up in London. It had taken so long for Cas to admit where he’d settled – New York. So new, and so flashy, and so bright. Not that he didn’t love the old, he really did – spires and arches, and buildings older than this city itself.
But Cas was just too in love with this place; he wouldn’t leave, to the point where it was an almost physical pang – he couldn’t leave, not willingly anyway. This busy, complicated, fast-paced place – where you could look out the window and see all those hundreds of people tumbling by.
Gabe had sent him a cheque once, a few weeks ago. When Cas had managed to actually overcome the dread of embarrassment – being so far away, so secluded, and so broke; so far off the path any of them had ever idealized when they’d first embarked.
But Gabe had sent it. To keep him going. Enclosed had been in a letter – patronizing at first, but then pleading. Come back to London. Pull yourself together. And, the thing was, Cas almost wanted to. He just loved this newfound independence more. He was living off that cheque, right now.
That’s why he’d just been so utterly pleased to get that call. A gruff, straightforward man who must have been some sort of middle aged – late in them, by the sound of it.
“Need an artist to design a cover for an album. You know – music? I’m their manager – for the boys. Saw your flier at the museum.” Cas had almost whooped then, a smile breaking across his face. Almost screamed from delight, relief. All of it pouring over him at once. But he kept his tone cool, his composure in check.
“Yes,” he articulated slowly, trying his very best to be in control, to be professional. So his mish-mash attempt at advertising had worked. He continued as steadily as he could, suppressing the delighted tremor, “I would be interested in that project.”
He could hear the easy grin on the other side of the phone, “Hear your charges aren’t bad.”
“They’re not.” Come to think about it, Cas had never established a particular price; he’d just rolled with it. And he supposed he might as well roll with it now. “… What kind of band is this?”
“Independent,” the man said simply. “Progressive rock.” Cas nodded as if he understood all the various definitions of various types of rock, before he recalled that the man on the phone couldn’t see him.
“Great. When can we get you in?”
Cas checked his watch for a second, just giving himself something to do. The one on the wall above the door had long ago stopped working; he hadn’t bought new batteries. “One moment.” He tried to sound important as he said it. Not some low-life desperate for work – someone so barely known there was no reassurance of his quality (or morality, for that matter) at all. People didn’t trust starving artists.
Finally, he announced as officially and as stiff as he could manage, “I can’t be there today, maybe we can schedule for Friday?”
“Sure, kid.”
“And one last thing,” Cas added hastily at the end, his eagerness betraying him.
“Yeah?”
“I’d like to be paid in advance.”
There was a beat of silence, in which Cas dreaded – for a split instant – that he might have just blown it. But instead, the man progressed to give him the details of their band, their location, which time of day was best. And Cas scrawled it all down on a notepad as fast as and as subtly he could, pretending he was a successful enough businessman that he had a computer, that he was typing it all down at his leisure. And then, at the end, just as he was about to hang up, Cas caught the end of a different conversation – carried out in some fancy studio, in some fancy place, that had no idea they had hired a not-so-fancy artist. The man was snapping at someone, the gruff fatherly tone obvious now. Cas opened his mouth, wondering whether or not the man still realized he was on the phone. The manager hung up with a simple, last remark:
“Balls. See you Friday.”