Hey Leonardo, What's My Line?
Castiel Novak wasn't a mathematician. Math was just a configuration of random numbers bunched together like an awkward family reunion. Nor was he a rocket scientist. Science was just a bunch of mathematicians huddled around a test tube; birthing ideas like the kind baby daddy Zeus had prior to the birth of the goddess Athena.
While he's at this mind charade, he might as well jettison all thoughts of being a historian, a linguist, or some holy tax accountant. Luckily, society had already written off his stalwart opinions during his pubescent "angel boy" years, as his older brother Gabe had so righteously put it, for being a flaming homosexual because he had more than a few things to say about the education system in Kansas.
However, if you asked the dark-haired, blue-eyed sophomore what the hell he was doing at Lawrence High, Cas wouldn't wait with bated breath for you to figure it out. To him, it seemed so transparently trite: He was a gay boy with a hard-on for Broadway. All he needed was a neon sign (preferably one to match his rainbow go-go boots) that read "Live Action Cliché, Wind Me Up and Watch Me Go".
Meanwhile, in the auditorium he was sitting comfortably in now, a botanical garden and a white picket fence were par ingredients for the forthcoming play. That was the amazing thing about Theatre—once you were inside the class, the outside world became so dull, uninspiring, like a stonewashed dream of Extreme Makeover. Although everything was highly manufactured and consequently wouldn't last a day in the real world, having that small absolution he would otherwise be exempted of because of his "abominable lifestyle" meant something special.
"Okay, but if I'm doing the quotient property with quotient fractions and quotient, quotient, quotient, then where the hell does subtraction come into play?"
"Quotients and subtractions are the same thing, are they not? You're still defeating the number by docking the total. Same thing with multiplication and addition: Regardless if there's an x or t, you're still making the number bigger." A pause, and then: "Think of it as a loose brotherhood—different aesthetic, same unfortunate genes."
Cas smiled, erasing more than a few homoerotic drawings around the border of his loose leaf (Hey, it was some form of productivity), eyes crinkling in approbation. "Sam, what would I do without you?"
"Well, for one, you wouldn't pass Algebra." Sam was a freshman enrolled in advanced courses. Like, so advanced that Einstein would have to rethink his Theory of What the Actual Fuck. Unsurprisingly, he's also a technological virtuoso and was personally recruited by Miss Tara, the theatre mentor, to co-run the soundboard with yours truly.
He and Sam hit it off immediately, and it helped that Miss Tara and Sam's father, Mr. Winchester ("Like the mansion in San Jose, right?"), went way back during the bumfuck days of the bumfuck war in the bumfuck Middle East, guaranteeing him a permanent spot on the team. "Speaking of, how's your painfully 'delusional, pea-brained narcissistic' brother?"
"You left out Jerk-face."
Cas parodied his serious tone with a serious atonement, "My sincerest apologies." Castiel's met Dean Winchester through an insurmountable volume of stories. Tall (even though Sam insists he'll leave him in the dust one day), ridiculously handsome (but not high school jock-handsome because Dean detested jocks), the ultimate Puck (though he's pop-culture savvy, Dean's never seen a play in his life so he probably wouldn't get that reference), the list goes on.
Sam likes to give him a disreputable name, but while sophomore was the youngest in a fatherless family of seven, he knew that, when it came to blood, all's fair in love and war. Dean, despite his valiant efforts to get Sam to believe otherwise, sounds like a decent enough—
"He got suspended for hanging Benny Lafitte's boxers on the flagpole again." Little delinquent. At least he had good intentions; Benny was Douchebag of the Year. "Except, get this: Daddy Dearest bailed him out. He talked to Miss Tara and as of tomorrow morning, Dean's serving time for his crime here. Two hundred hours of theatre and he has to audition for Romeo and Juliet after school even though he's already guaranteed the part of Romeo."
Cas whistled low, forcing back the image of Dean's pearly ass in waist-high tights, "That's social suicide." A pause: "I take it you'll be there."
"Front and center," he retorted, waggling his eyebrows. "God, I can't wait to see him suck."
The sophomore chuckled again, muttering "Calm down, Tybalt" before narrowing his eyes at the newest paper before him (unfortunately, once the circuit board was running, there wasn't much manual labor involved other than the occasional spotlight shift, so Cas was forced into doing something). "Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what the hell is this?" he blasphemed.
Sam wheeled over to him. A shit-eating grin spread like the plague across his handsome face. He gave Cas a congratulatory pat. "Ah, welcome to the world of Quantum Physics, young Jedi."
Dean was a divine nightmare. That wasn't a hyperbole or a quote from Oscar Wilde. The boy was, despite his efforts, the theatre-adjacent of uttering MacBeth before a big production. Where his poise was lacking, his age-induced parlance was bleeding into Romeo's natural sophistication—it was like watching the Hunger Games trilogy immediately after being diagnosed with photosensitive epilepsy: two lethal combinations, 0/10 recommend.
If it was any consolation, he articulated a lot with his hands. He was probably studying to be an engineer—mechanics or something of the like. Or maybe he had a lot of practice…
He also had to give him credit in the looks department. Miss Tara could never cast a better looking Romeo. With hair tailored like a freshly whipped caramel macchiato, emerald eyes, and heart-shaped lips—hell, let's just say, despite his slapdash acting, he'll probably win an Oscar before Leonardo for Best Male Aesthetic.
Of course, he didn't notice these up-close features as head C.E.O. of the control booth. No, he deliberately climbed down from his cramped little corner of the universe, gallivanted up the stairs leading to the stage, and recited the final star-crossed scene from memory:
"Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavory guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark!
Here's to my love!"
You always imagine that bloodcurdling moment when everyone's eyes are on you—even though there's a better chance of winning the weekly Powerball, falling off the Empire State, or waking up in a world bereft of oppression. Because really, who the hell would deliberately choose to zone in on someone—an awkward teenager, more or less—when there were perfectly good media whores?
He would openly laugh at that concluding thought if, oh yeah, had everyone's eyes not been on him. He didn't need a mirror to know he was wearing the face of a tween coming from Warped Tour. Any second and he would contract heat stroke.
Because he was staring at him—Dean Ridiculously Handsome DiCaprio was staring at he without a title. "Or, uh, something like that…" he tried. This prompted no initial reaction from Dean or the other crew members, save for Miss Tara, who sat front row with a bemused smirk. She drew her hands together in a slow clap, emerging from the light-deprived upper house.
"If I didn't know any better I'd think you were trying to upstage Dean here."
Cas's mouth ran fruitlessly as he scraped his mind for a proper apology, head darting from his beloved teacher to his… well, damned if he be unloved best friend's brother. "Oh, I—no, I—"
His mentor opened and closed her hand like a conductor would signpost the end of a number. As if on cue, the backstage crew broke into a collective applaud. "Don't play coy, Castiel. Did Juliet try to dissuade Romeo from believing she was beautiful? What light through yonder window breaks? Is it you, Cas?"
"I'm sorry, Miss Tara, I don't follow…"
The teacher sighed as she said, "Cas, be our Juliet."
"Oh, I—" The small boy pushed up the bridge of his glasses even though he just got them adjusted last week. Cas may have been a theatre adherent, but the t-r-e-e that came from the scramble was strictly devoted to him. His role in the class was to manage equipment—all from his little tree that was the control booth. Save for Sam, that area was his personal escape pod from his insignificant little life. The last thing he wanted was to be thrust back into the world.
"It wasn't a question, Castiel. Be our Juliet." She hesitated, if only to cast an unidentifiable look at Dean. Probably was giving her the bird with his face. Which made perfect sense, because who would want to kiss a tech ner—oh, shit. Slap on a skirt and screw me pretty, Shakespeare, he was going to get to first base with Troy Bolton. "Besides, Dean sucks."
Cas manage to swivel behind him to see him grinning at the accusation—the little shit, "Hella." His voice was deep, too deep to be anything but lethal.
"B-but, Sam, he's—"
"A perfectly capable young man," she finished. "He'll manage just fine."
The sound technician was a second away from pinching himself out of this dream. Dean strode and sooner than never, Cas had an involuntary hand on his neck and a wide, white smile beaming down on him. "Hey, buck up, Blue Eyes, it's not like you're working with Leonardo."
He knew then that Dean Winchester would be the death of him.
The following morning Sam stopped Cas short of the stage entrance booth with a single red rose tied behind his back. "Sam, I can't say I'm not flattered…"
The youngest maimed his laugh, "Ha-ha. It's from Dean. But congratulations."
Cas acknowledged the flora now with slight hesitation in his grip. That's awfully thoughtful coming from a guy who had deliberately set out to sully his hard-earned drama club reputation less than twenty-four hours ago (and may or may not have made him piss his pants a little). "I didn't even want the freaking role," he whined, twirling the scented object in his hands.
Sam snorted, "Could've fooled me, Richard Gere." Unfortunately, the jest didn't stimulate a healthy reaction from the Shakespeare enthusiast. The freshman rested his hand firmly over his arm (it was safe to say the Winchesters were big touchers). "Hey, I get it. Just imagine Leonardo—or Winslet, hmm…" Cas coughed, jostling Sam from his Titanic fantasies. "Or Leonardo works too."
If only that was the problem. At this point, he'd rather take Sam's caprices and kiss Winslet, wherein he would stay comfortably at first base. If he heard Blue Eyes one more time, there would be some serious sexual hell to pay…
How was it that he was both incredibly pissed off and turned on? Friggin' hormones.
Now he was lying on his tunic-clad back, facing thousands upon thousands of constellations. The grass beneath him prickled in places he'd rather not mention and the midair carried his hair like a sinister phantom. The sound of cicadas left his ears far from orphaned and would've made for a nice midnight serenade had he not been yacking up a storm. Yacking, what a weird word. Yacking, yacking, yacking.
Verbosity was his greatest ally when he was nervous.
Dean sat a little less than a foot beside him, staring up with Cas. They really should be rehearsing, especially when Miss Tara had trusted him enough with the leftover props, display and sounds from last year's production of To Kill a Mockingbird.
"Cas," roused Romeo, breaking through the last loop of the cicadas that, after an hour, started to sound like Chewbacca's second cousin twice removed. Beholden that he wasn't referred to as the dreaded Blue Eyes, Cas craned his head and lied on his side to see him better. "Kiss me."
These had to have been the rewrites, Cas decided as Dean mounted his damsel in distress, kissing and touching and pulling him closer until he couldn't comprehend anything over the torrent of his tongue and the sound of his rapid heartbeat drowning in the pleasurable sounds secreting from Dean's mouth.
Dumbly, when the latter man had pulled away, Cas uttered, "Uh, line?"
"'Be my boyfriend'," supplied the first-born with a shrewd smile, dragging his finger idly from his lower lip to the waistband of his jeans, emerald eyes steadfast on cobalt.
Cas mulled over the statement as if he was re-learning the Quantum Theory before eventually repaying him a hearty smile, ushering Dean's lips to his once more. "Be my boyfriend?"
Granting him with another pleading kiss, he said, "I thought you'd never ask, Blue Eyes."
Suddenly, a full house seemed to be the least of his concerns.
-END-
