Sweets to the Sweet

Chapter 1

"You're late."

A characteristically crooked grin tugged one side of Dean's mouth further up than the other. The other side was promptly replaced with the end of a cigarette.

"I'm always late."

The bad boy act was getting ridiculous. Gabriel shook his head and snatched the lighter from his project partner's hand before it could reach his lips. "You can't smoke in here, douche," he said, slipping the lighter into his own pocket for the hour or two Dean would be at his place. He'd be damned if he trusted freckles to listen to a simple instruction for a second.

There was nothing about their situation that wasn't cliché enough to make Gabriel miserable. God help him, they were in the same English class, and he'd been absent the day everyone chose partners. Except in the movies, a leather jacket wearing, class skipping slacker like Dean would be paired with some goody two shoes that would do all the work and then maybe fall in love and go to prom with him. Instead, Dean got Gabriel. Slightly above average intelligence and slightly below average height. Pretty much average overall.

Also unlike the movies, the two weren't mortal enemies before the hands of fate stuck them together on a fucking William Shakespeare project. Billy Shakes, as Dean liked to call him, and grin every time he did. They were little more than acquaintances; lived in the same apartment complex, only two floors apart, and occasionally caught the bus together. Conversations hadn't often exceeded what Dean missed during the class he'd decided to skip or what the test was on.

"To be or not to be, Yorick?" Dean attempted to recite, not hesitating to make himself comfortable on Gabriel's bed when he was led to the young man's room.

"Yorick's not in the 'to be or not to be' scene," came the flat response. "Doesn't come in for another two acts."

"Whatever."

"Can we please just work?"

Reluctantly, Dean agreed, and Gabriel came to discovered how productive the boy in leather could be. When he was sober, at least. He'd had the decency enough to be just that for the night. The bruise that had circled one of those brilliantly green eyes was nearly gone. Perhaps Dean hadn't been given a reason /not/ to be sober lately. Gabriel said nothing of it. No one ever did.

Themes weren't either of the boys' strong points. Were they anyone's? Especially in a language that may as well not be English at all. Hey spent a fair amount of time bitching and whining about Elizabethan before any work got done. Something they could agree on, at least. 'Forbidden love can never last'? That one wasn't working out so well.

"Even if there wasn't the issue of that being the lamest thematic statements ever," Gabriel protested, "Ophelia wasn't in love with Hamlet."

"You're joking, right? She was totally in love with him."

Gabriel wasn't having any of it. He shook his head and flipped open his borrowed school copy of the play, finding his way to act five. "Right here. 'How should I your true love know from another one?' She didn't believe him."

"Because her dad said not to," Dean retorted.

"She never did! Here, say you're Ophelia-"

"Why do I have to be Ophelia?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Fine, say I'm Ophelia. After I go crazy, all I sing about is my dad. Because I cared about him way more than I cared about Hamlet."

"Until here." Dean flipped the page in Gabriel's hands, searched it for a moment, having difficulty with the upside down lines, and eventually pointed to a stanza near the bottom. "Read that one."

With his best British accent and a falsetto that made Dean cringe and grin at the same time, he did. "Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day, all in the morning betime, and I a maid at your window, to be your Valentine."

"Remember what Gritsky said?" Gabriel was shocked that Dean remembered anything their teacher said, but apparently he was more attentive than anyone had realised. "They thought that the first person you saw on Saint Valentine's day would be your true love or whatever. That's what she wanted."

"And Hamlet?" The argument had somehow transformed into an actual discussion. Sitting cross legged on the floor across from Dean, his hazel eyes watched the other student with legitimate interest. Had either of them even noticed, they would have found it strange. They did neither. Gabriel had stopped trying to sound like Ophelia and Dean's laughter had subsided, that odd little grin serving as the only evidence it had ever been there.

"What about him?"

"How do we know he didn't just want in her pants? Or, you know, her dress."

"The graveyard part." Gabriel looked confused, trying to remember the scene, no doubt, and Dean took the book from him to look for it. After a minute or so of searching, he found it and stood. "I loved Ophelia!" He shouted, taking on an accent similar to the one his partner had done before, which made Gabriel have to put a hand over his mouth in order to keep himself from laughing and disrupting the show. He stood, allowing 'Hamlet' more of a stage.

"Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?"

Though he doubted Dean had a complete idea of what he was saying, but Gabriel had to admit, if at least to himself, he was remarkably good at speaking the part.

"Show me what thou'lt do: woul't weep? Woul't fight? Woul't fast? Woul't tear thyself? Woul't drink up eisel? Eat a crocodile?" A dramatic pause. The corner of Dean's mouth quivered as he kept from grinning. "I'll do't. D-"

The next line was never finished, or started. Gabriel had silenced the proclamation with a kiss; sudden, without thinking, but without regrets. Mostly because, while Dean did hesitate out of surprise, it only took a second before those chapped lips pressed against Gabe in return. It was brief. Too brief. They pulled away, silence falling over the room.

Dean coughed.

"I should get going." His freckles had faded against the tint of red covering his cheeks, mouth barely concealing the traces of a smile. "My turn to do the dishes."

Walking past the lift and into the stairwell, Dean took the steps two at a time. Not that he was particularly excited to get home, but that a certain average boy that happened to not be average at all's taste still lingered on his lips. To think that Shakespeare would be Cupid in disguise. Shakespeare, of all people, the one who had a tendency to kill off his fictional romantics. That was irony if he'd ever heard it. He stuck his key in 217's lock and creaked it open, the horror movie soundtrack-esque sound not bothering him; in one ear and right out the other, really, his mind was much too occupied. He hadn't even realised he'd been smirking until his father pointed it out.

"What's funny?"

The expression dropped off his face faster than the temperature had between Gabriel's apartment and his own. John didn't like to waste money on heating bills when the bar down the street was plenty warm anyway.

"Nothing, sir." His mood slumped with his shoulders. Green eyes downcast, the grip he held on the strap of his bag tightened.

"Where's my lighter?" John asked calmly. Dean could feel his father's accusing eyes on him like the weight of a thousand pounds. The question alone almost hurt more than a slap to the face, which would certainly follow soon enough. Hurt because it justified that slap. He'd forgotten all about the borrowed lighter - without permission, at that - because of a damn kiss. Fucking idiot.

"I-"

"Took it," John finished for him. "You took it."

Things couldn't possibly get worse.. but of course, every time that phrase comes up, things most certainly do get worse. John held out a hand, palm up, a look of expectancy on his face but an indescribable coldness in his eyes.

"Hand it over."

It would have been bad, yes, for Dean to place that dull blue lighter in his father's hand, admitting to taking it in the first place and eventually being caught in his smoking habit. Yes, that would have been bad. But what was awful was that he had no lighter to place in his father's hand. It was two floors up, probably just as forgotten in Gabriel's pocket as it had been in his mind. Clearing his throat, he could still not meet John's gaze. "I don't have it."

Again he fooled himself into believing he'd hit the bottom. Again he was promptly proved how foolish that was.

…

Dean had already been gone half an hour, but that feeling remained in Gabriel's chest. A fluttering, childish excitement. He'd kissed back. The bad boy with the dull blue lighter and the leather jacket and the pretty blonde girlfriend had kissed back. What did that mean for them? Probably nothing, but Gabriel maybe, just maybe allowed himself to believe otherwise. He had passed his tongue over his lips for the millionth time when there was a knock at the door. Apparently it was urgent, because when he wasn't there in an instant, the knock came a second time. Opening that door was like taking a shotgun to all the butterflies in his stomach. Now he just felt sick.

"Oh my god, are you okay?"

Dean didn't answer, but he didn't have to. He was most certainly not okay. He didn't at all look like the broad shouldered, confident young man that had been over just thirty minutes before. Now the fading bruise around his eye was reddened, more so than it had been earlier; there was no doubt it would blossom into an unpleasant blue-purple overnight.

"Hey, man, you still have my lighter." Remarkably, he didn't sound any different. A hand lifted to briefly rub at his mouth, but it retracted too quickly, like the action had stung him. Gabriel could see blood on a crack in his lip that looked recently dried.

"What happened to you?"

"I need my lighter."

"Dean-"

"Please."

Gabriel's eyes were pleading, but Dean's tone in that one syllable had silenced him. He couldn't help but feel responsible. Slipping one hand into his pocket, he turned it over, palm up, gaze fixed on the boy in front of him. Half an hour ago, that boy had been a man. Somewhere between then and now, something terrible had happened to that man.

Without a word, Dean took the lighter, attempting to smile in thanks, but only succeeding in looking as though he wanted to cry. He disappeared down the hallway with slumped shoulders and dragging feet, fully aware that Gabriel was still watching him, but not turning around for fear that he wouldn't be able to resist running back to that safe haven, back into those arms that wouldn't be able to protect him, but by God, would they try. To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them..

Gabriel wasn't surprised to see that Dean wasn't at school the next day.