Dean was having a dilemma. No, 'dilemma' didn't have enough weight behind it to fully convey just how royally boned he was. He was undergoing some kind of catastrophe or something equally as earth-shattering, and he was only seventeen. Seventeen year olds weren't supposed to flip out over things that could potentially screw up the whole course of life as they knew it, or maybe they were. He didn't know, he didn't have much experience with freak outs of this caliber. Essentially, his world was ending.
"Hey Dean-whoa!" Sam had strode through his older brother's doorway, figuring things were fine and dandy if the door was slightly ajar, but he wasn't expecting an eyefull of his brother in full-on panic position. "Dude, what is wrong with you? Shouldn't you be packing?"
Packing, right. The annual (don't laugh) home ec camping trip was tomorrow, and they were supposed to leave at first dawn. Apart from clothes strewn all across the floor, Dean's things were hardly in packing position, but that wasn't what had the Winchester in a tizzy. Castiel Novak was going on this trip, ergo, this trip was already a disaster before it even went underway.
"It's only one weekend, are you really having that much trouble deciding what to bring?" Sam asked, choosing to ignore the fact that his brother might as well have been in the fetal position by the foot of his bed. He walked over to the dresser and cautiously plucked an inside-out shirt from atop a stack of comics, and flung it in Dean's direction. "Just wear your Batman shirt. I mean, you do all the time anyway."
"Not helping, Sammy," Dean groaned. The shirt fell off his head and next to the bag laid open in front of him, pooling up into a wrinkly black mess around his ankles. That shirt should have been washed, now it won't be fresh in time for the camping trip and everyone will know, and he will know, and this is a hundred times worse than the day he came out to his parents. A thousand times worse. This was the end of the year trip and probably the last time Dean would even see Castiel for a while. Knowing Castiel, his weirdo parents had arranged for the kid to spend the summer at some kind of camp like they usually did, or were going to take him on a vacation one last time before college
Bottom line: Dean has one chance. One chance that he most likely will screw up, but he'll be damned if he doesn't even try.
"Is this about Cas?" Seemed like Sam was still talking, so Dean decided to tune in. Yep, still talking, still prowling the room for clean clothes for him. Sometimes he had to wonder if he deserved the kid for a brother, in the best way possible. Also, what was this kid? A mind reader?
"Shut up," Dean growled.
"So yes, this is about Cas. Kudos on being so communicative." Another shirt was sent sailing at Dean's head, but he did well this time to dodge it and instead let it hit his chest. "Is he going away this summer?"
"Probably." Dean didn't want to think about it. Not like it hadn't gone over it in his head a million times already. After that, Sam stayed pretty quiet, much to Dean's relief. The kid just continued sifting through clean and not-so-clean laundry, silently evaluating what was worth being packed and what badly needed washing. Most things had oil stains from Dean fixing up the car his dad bought him for his seventeeth birthday (he loved that Impala, yes he did), and it seemed like every pair of jeans were developing holes in the knee area, which hadn't caused him much chagrin until this very moment in time.
After having packed everything for him, Sam lingered in the doorway for a moment, ready to impart some kind of weird younger brother worldly wisdom (he was apt to doing that, and he was also apt to getting noogies) or say goodnight, probably a mixture of both. No, actually, he just sighed and closed the door behind him as he left. Having migrated to his bed, Dean muttered into his pillow, "Could've turned off the lights."
...
With just minutes left to go before the bus came to pick up the group that was leaving campus for the campgrounds, Dean realised quickly that the existential meltdown he was having last night was nothing in comparison to the way he felt now. He wavered at one end of the line, sleeping bag and rucksack slung over his shoulders, and there was Castiel all the way at the other end. Typical. For a friend, he didn't really seem to grasp the concept of 'sticking together', so it was up to Dean to take the initiative.
Seriously, if he had to give himself a pep talk, he would have to put himself down.
"Hey Cas," Dean greeted, grinning while he tugged on the straps of his rucksack. There was no immediate response, Castiel just stared straight ahead with no concept of Dean even being in the same damn plane of existance. "Yo'." Still nothing. Plan B: kick him gently in the shin until he pulled the earbuds out of his ear because naturally Castiel was off in fantasy land, daydreaming to his tunes.
The plan was a success, and Castiel ripped his headphones out with a startled gasp. "Oh, Dean. It's you."
"Don't sound so happy to see me."
"Sorry, I- it's rather boring waiting for the bus." Castiel looked down at his watch. "It's one minute late so far."
"Don't like being late, huh?" God, Dean was terrible at small talk. If there were awards for being good at small talk, Dean would never even be nominated, because he sucked. "Ready to be done with high school?"
Castiel curtly nodded. "There are...things that I regret not having done in the past four years, but it's a relief for it to be over."
"Yeah, for another four or so years at college. Big relief," Dean teased. What was Castiel going to college for? He didn't want to be a doctor or a lawyer, or anything remotely big and impressive and time consuming. Dean half recalls his friend saying something about being a writer, but it's all very vague and hazy, and the memory isn't all there. Still, his heart leaps and tumbles like a loose rabbit in a field, racing at all the memories he's able to access now that he brought up one. Castiel makes his legs feel like jelly, and the worse part was that he didn't even know it.
Before Castiel had a chance to reluctantly argue, the bus pulled up into the parking lot and saved them all from (god forbid) standing any longer than they needed to. Since they were next to each other in line, Dean and Castiel opted to sit next to each other for the ride there. 'A+ choices there, Dean' he chided himself. And Castiel wasn't a conversationalist at heart, so the ride was dreadfully quiet in their neck of the bus, so quiet that Dean could hear his own heart pulsing in his ears.
Worst bus ride ever.
...
Just like with every other camping trip Dean had ever been on, the time went by fairly quickly. All he had to do was blink and suddenly everyone is putting out the fires and staking out flat places to lay out sleeping bags, or crawl into their previously pitched tents. Fortunately, Castiel had already made his own little kind of camp far away from all the other students, and Dean saw this as an invitation to sleep in the same vicinity. Couldn't hurt to ask, though.
"Are you trying to keep to yourself, or do you mind if I sleep here too?" Dean inquired, bundled up bag in hand.
"Go ahead. I assumed you would gravitate towards the familiar, anyway," Castiel replied. They both knew that Dean didn't really have any friends in the class aside from Castiel himself, and that was likely to be the reason why he didn't have friends there in the first place. They were always close in the class, partnering up if Mrs. Becker didn't force them into groups with other classmates, and together they'd earned a pretty good grade on everything they did. The point was that Dean was going to sleep next to Cas no matter what. Dean kind of felt embarrassed that Castiel was even aware of that 'fact'.
It came to pass, the two of them laying down and admiring the stars overhead, Castiel pleased that light pollution was hardly a problem out here, and Dean just humming in agreement. And then Dean ruined all his plans. All of them. They could have just laid there a little longer until one of them fell asleep, and the other one would soon follow, but that was not the Winchester way.
"Cas? I have something to tell you." Dammit. He couldn't exactly retract it now, or else he'd be lying. Adlibbing was something he was typically good at, but the skill was useless when he couldn't lie to his best friend. Stupid is as stupid does.
"Yeah?" Castiel tore his gaze away from the stars and reached up to card a hand through his hair. Oh, man, Dean really wanted to be the one ruffling Castiel's hair right now-focus, Dean, focus.
"I kinda like you." Previously he believed that a weight would be lifted off of his shoulders and chest if he got it out into the open, but then came the tension after the words were spoken, and the grace period for Cas to respond was getting smaller by the second.
Finally, though, Castiel responded. "I like you too, Dean."
"You do? Really?" Dean asked, mirth and disbelief snared into his words. It took all the restraint he had to resist pinching himself because this was too much like a dream come true. Seriously. He had dreams about this kind of stuff sometimes.
"I thought all friends liked each other," Castiel said. "Dean, you're being uncharacteristcally quiet. Wrong answer?" Castiel had a habit of asking 'wrong answer' whenever he replied to a rhetorical question that he was unsure of, but this was different. This was a whole new world of hurt and it only took seven words to unleash the pain. Overdramatic, maybe, but they were teenagers still, they could afford the luxury of dramatics. "Wrong answer."
"It's okay, Cas. I understand. We're on different pages here, or somethin'," Dean added with a whimper. Again it was quiet, not even the gentle rustling of the pine trees or the chirp of a cricket to offer a reprieve from the loud, hammering thoughts Dean was being subjected to. Rejection stung, especially from a guy you've had a crush on since you figured out you even liked guys (who knew?), and this just took the icing on the cake. Farewell, happy future; hello, miserable one.
"Is there room for one more?" Castiel asked, prodding Dean in the shoulder. Dean snapped out of his thoughts to find Castiel on all fours next to him, waiting to be granted entrance to the snuggly little cave of a sleeping bag that he himself could've hibernated in if he was tired enough. Conflicted, Dean scooted over and shivered when Cas snuck inside alongside him, their arms and legs were skin to skin. This sleeping bag wasn't exactly designed with two people in mind, but Cas was skinny, thank heavens.
"So," Dean began, then let the words die out. "Are we on the same page?"
Castiel craned his neck, deliberately invading Dean's personal space, and ghosted his lips over Dean's, chapped skin rough to the delicate touch. Again, Castiel's lips sought out a part of Dean, this time aiming for the underside of a freckled jaw. Chaste, yet to the point, the smaller boy let a hand wander over Dean's chest and let it rest over his heart, fingers brushing across his clavicle. Cas wet his lips, an act that had Dean focused solely on his tongue, and gathered the two of their mouths together for an earnest kiss.
Perhaps sparks didn't fly, the earth didn't quake, but Dean felt everything shift into place right then and there. He let his mouth mesh with Castiel's, the ache in his chest dissolving and quickly replaced with a sensation that felt as reckless as flying. Just as he wished to do, Dean ran a couple of shaky fingers through Castiel's hair, smiling into their kiss as his friend's hair became even more unruly as he mussed it. Just before either of them had the thought of skating a tongue across the other's lip, they mutually broke apart, but the buzzing warmth between them did not dissipate.
"We're on the same page."
They came back together, working their way into tangling up legs and breathily laughing when the sleeping bag seemed about to burst or unzip with all their movement. They discussed their summer plans, cool breezes joining their conversation and forcing them to huddle closer, and they made whispers of promises to stay together, same college, same everything. The crisis Dean was having had come to its climax, fizzled out, and morphed into something altogether more rewarding than he could have hoped, and he hugged Castiel to his torso as tight as was allowed, just to remind himself that this was real.
In the morning, they woke up together, sleepy and trapped inside one another's grasp, and Dean figured everything would be okay. If every day could start like this one, then his world wouldn't be ending any time soon.