A/N: Hi! This is a Destiel high school fic, and I plan to take this pretty far. I have lots of ideas, and plenty of time to do it. This is relative to their actual ages, so it's not a modern-day fic, and all you need to know about the background before going in is that the Winchesters aren't hunters. Everything else about the Supernatural universe is the same in this story, except they aren't a family of hunters. The rest will be explained in good time. This is rated T, but includes bad language. I figure T is for Teen and if a teenager is offended by the f-word, then they're also probably offended by slash fiction and therefore shouldn't be reading this story.

August 20th, 1996

Dean walked into the classroom, a grimace on his face and a bitter taste in his mouth. Freshman World Civ., a class he'd failed when he took it the first time. He was a senior now. And, goddamn it, he didn't want to be stuck with all the bratty freshmen for an entire semester. It didn't help that the teacher, Mr. Karp, hated him.

Mr. Karp was actually the reason Dean failed the class in the first place. History is one of Dean's best subjects, but Mr. Karp had it out for him for some reason, so he did badly out of spite. He didn't mean to fail, but after it was apparent Dean was trying to do badly in the class, Mr. Karp had done everything he could to make sure Dean had to take it again. And so there he was, first day of his senior year of high school, sitting in a freshman class. First period, no less.

He sat down in a seat in the back row, leaned back with his arms crossed, and closed his eyes, prepping for a nap. The first day, if his memory was correct, was a movie day; a boring National Geographic documentary about the beginning of human development or some shit. Dean figured he could get away with taking a nap during the movie.

His eyes were still closed when he heard someone sit in the seat in front of his. He opened one eye and saw some guy with black hair and a tan jacket on. Disregarding the guy as a freshman, Dean closed his eyes again and rested his head on the wall behind his chair.

A couple minutes later, the bell rang, and Mr. Karp shut the door with a bang, effectively jerking Dean out of his sleep. He gave the teacher a dirty look as he crossed the room to his desk. Mr. Karp brought a TV on a rolling cart with him into the room, indicating that Dean's memory was in good standing.

Mr. Karp made eye contact with him and smiled wryly. "Dean. Good to have you back. I expect you remember how this class goes. No sleeping."

Exhaling and fighting the urge to roll his eyes, Dean nodded and leaned forward, resting his elbow on the desk and his head in his hand. Mr. Karp grabbed the roll call sheet off the desk and began calling names.

"Meg?"

"Yeah."

"Chuck?"

"Here."

"Hmm, this is an interesting name. Castiel?" Castiel? Dean thought. Poor kid. Bet the kindergarteners never let him live that one down back in the day.

The guy in front of him answered, "Here." Dean looked at him in shock. Jesus, that's an awfully deep voice for a freshman.

"Ah, it says you're new to Lawrence High School. Welcome."

"Thank you, sir."

Mr. Karp finished the roll call and turned on the documentary they would be sleeping through for 45 minutes. "I expect everyone to actually watch the video. There will be a brief quiz over it tomorrow." With that, he walked out of the room, leaving a room full of freshmen to their own devices. What an idiot.

Dean was leaning back in his seat to go back to sleep when he heard someone say, loudly, "What kind of mother names her son Castiel?" Dean's eyes popped back open and he sighed. Was that really necessary?

Another douchebag piped up, "Yeah, you really got the short end of the stick, dude. Are your parents retarded?"

Castiel calmly spoke up, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't insult my family." Dean looked at the back of Castiel's head incredulously. He was taking it a lot better than most would.

"Oh, you'd appreciate it. That's cool. I'd appreciate it if you'd-"

Dean leaned forward and yelled, "Hey! Listen here, asshat, I'm not understanding who died and made you better than everyone else. Turn around and shut the fuck up. Before I make you." The kid gave him a dirty look before turning around and talking to his friends. Castiel turned towards Dean.

"Thank you. I'm certain I could've handled that on my own, but I'm grateful nonetheless." Dean looked at him curiously for a few seconds. He looked so… serious. And he talked so formally. And he definitely didn't look like a freshman.

"It's fine, man, no big deal. What grade are you in?"

"I'm a senior. I'm going to assume that you're not a freshman either."

Dean smiled. "Nope, I'm a senior, too. Why are you in a freshman history class? If you don't mind me asking."

Castiel looked down. "I actually just really like history. I took it at the other school I went to, but I feel like I didn't learn as much as I could have." He looked up to see Dean staring at him wordlessly. "I'm sorry, I suppose that sounds ridiculous."

Dean shook his head. "No, not ridiculous, just surprising. It's a much better reason than mine." Castiel looked at him curiously. He sighed, "I failed this class the first time. Not because I don't like history, though... it was mainly to make the teacher angry."

Castiel nodded. "I see."

"So, where are you from?"

He looked behind Dean at the map on the wall. "A lot of places, actually. Too many to count. But before I moved here, I lived in Seattle, Washington."

Nodding, Dean asked, "So you move around a lot, then?"

"Yes. But my parents have promised to keep me in one place for my last year of high school. They said I need to make friends, establish myself somewhere so that in the future, I might have a place to come back to."

Poor guy, Dean thought. And he decided then to befriend him. There was something vulnerable about this guy, and he instinctively wanted to protect him. It probably had something to do with the way the other students made fun of him earlier. Dean thought it was curious, though, that Castiel's parents moved around so much.

Curiosity getting the best of him, Dean asked, "What is it that your parents do to make you move around so much? Are they in the military?"

"No. They're researchers. But I'm not even sure what they research. I just know that when they're done with their work, we move. I tend to not ask many questions."

This was beginning to sound weird to Dean. But before he could dwell on it for too long, the bell rang. He reached down beside his seat to grab his backpack before standing up to stretch.

"It was good to meet you, Castiel. I hope you like it here. I'm Dean, by the way."

Castiel smiled. "Thank you, Dean. Call me Cas."

They went their separate ways and throughout the rest of the day, Dean found himself wondering how he was doing. After he set his tray on his usual table at lunch, he looked around and saw Cas sitting by himself. Before he had a chance to go over and sit with him, he felt someone's hands cover his eyes.

"Guess who!" Dean smiled, grabbing the hands and spinning around to wrap his arms around his girlfriend, Lisa. Lisa laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him on the cheek. Dean wasn't very much into PDA, and Lisa knew that. But she still managed to be sickly sweet sometimes, and while Dean would never admit it, he enjoyed it. He'd been with Lisa for approximately four months, and he enjoyed being with her.

"How's your first day going?" Dean asked, sitting down and opening a bag of chips.

Lisa sat down next to him and opened her lunch bag, pulling out yogurt and fruit. Lisa was into organic foods and such, something Dean would never understand. He'd be satisfied if he could eat bacon at every meal. After she emptied her lunch bag, she replied, "It's been alright. I'm a little disappointed that I don't have any classes with you, though."

Dean grinned. "Yeah, but think about how distracted I would be if we were in the same classes. I'd fail everything."

Lisa scoffed and nudged her shoulder into his, and laughed, "Shut up. You would not."

Putting on a mocking serious face, Dean looked at her. "Oh, I definitely would."

Lisa laughed again and looked past Dean across the lunchroom. She abruptly stopped laughing and grabbed Dean's shoulder. "That doesn't look good."

Dean, puzzled, turned around and his heart dropped. At the other end of the lunchroom, Cas was being approached by two of the biggest assholes in Lawrence, Kansas. They were laughing, and Cas looked annoyed. Why does this keep happening to him?

Cas didn't have the patience for a lot of people. Especially close-minded idiots. He'd observed, wherever he went, that when certain people see something they don't think is normal, they feel like they need to fix it. And, everywhere he went, for some reason, Cas wasn't seen as normal. It wasn't normal that he didn't wear trendy clothing. It wasn't normal that he preferred reading over watching television. It wasn't normal that a lot of the time, he just wanted to be alone.

This usually resulted in Cas being picked on, something that didn't upset him so much as it was seen as a nuisance. It followed him wherever he went, and he observed that where there were nice people, there were also those who wanted to change him, wanted to make him normal. And this really pissed him off.

So, naturally, when the two guys in the lunchroom approached him, he already knew what was coming. He was sitting by himself. He was a new kid. He was a loser. This wasn't news to him, and he knew that the conversation that was about to commence was pointless. Nevertheless, he couldn't stop it.

"Hey, dweeb!" One of the guys laughed and elbowed his friend next to him.

"Why're you sittin' all by yourself, hmm?"

Cas sighed. "I suppose it's because I want to."

The other guy laughed loudly. "You're so much of a loser, you want to sit by yourself? That's sad, man."

Cas's face got red as he got more and more annoyed. "Where are you going with this? Would you like to sit down? All you had to do was ask."

The guy's face got red and he scowled. "No, dude, I don't want to sit with you. What do you think I am, gay?"

Cas smiled humorlessly. "Could've fooled me."

Both of their faces turned beet red with anger, and their fists clenched. "What did you just say to me, dweeb?"

"Are you gay and deaf? That's unfortunate, because -" Cas was cut off as the two guys reached across the table, grabbed him by his shirt, and punched him in the nose, effectively shutting him up. They threw him back, and he tripped and hit his head on the table behind him. Right before everything went black, a thought crossed his mind.

Welcome to Lawrence.