Event Private A Poor Gift

Samuel didn't know why he'd signed up. It had been spur of the moment, encouraged by his dorm parent. He was supposed to get out there.

Getting out there was significantly harder than he'd thought.

He imagined that most people probably already had their gifts. He imagined that most people had probably just gone to the store and bought something that fit. Samuel had his allowance, and that was an option for him, but he was hesitant to actually spend it on anything non-essential. He'd much rather keep the money, just in case something happened.

That left him with a limited number of options as far as gifts went.

He'd been informed--even though he didn't have any experience--that hand crafted gifts were ideal, so he'd gone with something handcrafted. It wasn't nicely wrapped by any means, but the box in his arms--wrapped in plain brown paper--was undeniably a christmas gift.

Samuel just hoped his secret santa wouldn't take too long, considering they were meeting on lunch break.

Shoulder tapping wasn't going get him far, because Samuel was just as much of a non-entity as Castiel himself was. No one was going to know him, and unless Castiel got really lucky, shoulder tapping wasn't going to find him.

Samuel's head jerked up when someone called his name, panning around as he tried to locate the person yelling. It wasn't until the third repetition that he spotted a boy--around his age, although several inches taller--and started waving his hand to draw attention.

"Uhm!" Samuel said, quickly digging his hand into his pocket to pull out the note and double check his partner's name. "Castiel?!"

Maybe that wasn't even his partner. There were probably a lot of Samuel's on the island. Maybe he was just flailing his arm for nothing.

Samuel flinched back at the harsh tone, but after a second with no followup--either verbally or via a punch--he let himself relax slightly. He quickly bobbed his head, and then realized that since Castiel wasn't looking at him, nodding his head wasn't going to do anything.

"That - uh, yeah, that'd be me," he spluttered out, and then in a desperate attempt to minimize the awkwardness, shoved the hand-wrapped gift forward. "This is your gift, by the way."

The gift itself wasn't anything all that special, but it certainly had a fair amount of thought. The main part of the gift was a handcrafted coin purse in the shape of a cat. Samuel had gotten fairly good at sewing from having to repair his own clothes, and a coin purse wasn't terribly hard to do. The secondary part of the gift was a bit easier - a bag of homemade cookies in the shape of cats, made by himself with help from his dorm parent.

Samuel's usual christmas gifts could have been described as tragic or sad even in the best of years. He'd grown up barely making ends meat (and sometimes not even that). Christmas gifts were minimal, and tended to be things that were better described as needs than wants.

He needed a winter jacket, for example, so he'd gotten one.

So when it had come time to put down requests, Samuel had settled on anything and genuinely meant it. He could have actually gotten socks and been happy with it, because while the school now provided for his needs, Samuel was still very much in the mindset that he should be saving, and that as long as his socks were still mostly together, he shouldn't be spending money on more.

So when he opened his gift--finding a large book (the title of which he missed entirely on first glance), a piece of some kind of cake he couldn't identify, and a card, Samuel was delighted. He hadn't even thought to put a card. Should he have put a card? All of a sudden he was worried that he should have put a card, and had to make a conscious choice to push down his anxiety before it got the better of him.

Be thankful, he reminded himself, and focused on that instead.

"Thank you very much," he said, abruptly sidetracked by the name of the book. He pushed the fruit cake to the side, reading it again, and then realized what it actually was. It was good--really good--although he assumed it was simply a coincidence.

"This - actually, this is perfect," he said, flipping the book open and glancing through the first few pages. "I needed something like this to help - so I could figure out what people were, without having to be rude and asking."

He didn't know enough mythology to really wrap his head around it unfortunately, and the book would help with that a lot.

"And this is... cake?" He said, sliding his eyes over to the fruitcake. He'd never seen a fruitcake before, and it looked a bit, uh, weird.

He'd eat it anyway though.

"But you picked something out," Samuel pointed out. "Which took a lot of thought." Especially when he'd been so terribly unhelpful with suggestions. He'd had no idea what to ask for, and truly even the idea of asking someone for a gift struck him as wrong.

"I don't think I am," Samuel admitted in response to Castiel mentioning gods. He really didn't know what his powers were. "I mean, I just... am."

Not exactly the most eloquent of responses by a long shot.

"Uhm, thank you very much," he said, although he didn't know very much about fruitcake. Food was food, and he didn't really get why it being dry was a bad thing.

With that said, Samuel collected his packages, straightening up and giving Castiel an awkward little bob of his head.

"Thank you for everything," he said, thanking him for about the thousandth time. He didn't really feel like he deserved it, but he knew it was rude to argue. "I should be going to classes though, hopefully I will see you around...?"