Castiel Novak is in Dean's class. He's quiet and serious and smart and just about the hottest thing Dean's ever seen. He's also stupidly in love with Dean's awful younger brother.
Okay, Sammy's not awful. He's pretty smart himself, and also caring and adorable in a flopsy-haired puppy kind of way and sweet and all sorts of other adjectives that Dean would be totally proud of if they didn't add up to Sam being a potential-boyfriend-stealing bitch.
It's not fair. Dean's known Castiel, or at least known of him, since they both started at LHS in ninth grade. They had homeroom together freshman year, they were lab partners in sophomore chemistry, and last year there was that Shakespeare project, translating Twelfth Night to modern English, that they were in the same group for. Sure, they've never hung out after school or really even talked outside of class, but they were—acquaintances. Friendly, if not friends.
Castiel's smiled at him a couple times, which is a couple times more than anyone else in their grade.
Castiel smiles at Sam every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 3 p.m. sharp, when he comes to the Winchester's house.
To see Sam.
Who he met this year in independent study, because Sam is a huge nerd who's trying to get early admittance to Stanford because I want to be a junior partner by twenty-five, Dean, I can't do that if I've only just passed the bar.
Castiel—who Sam gets to call Cas and sit inches away from and bump shoulders with when Cas, quiet and reserved Cas, laughs at his awful jokes—immediately befriended the ambitious sixteen-year-old and has been tutoring him ever since.
Even though Cas, like Dean, is eighteen and way too old for Sam. But Sam is mature for his age, always has been. They get along so well and if Dean were any kind of a good big brother, he'd just be happy for Sam. So that's what he's going to do. He's going to get over it and be happy for them. And until he can do that, he'll pretend to be over and happy for them.
Yeah, it sets of an ache in his chest every time he sees them all cozy with each other, and yeah, it sucks that Dean will probably have to see it for the rest of his life because they're so perfect together they're going to end up married with a house and a white picket fence and a dog and two adopted kids who will know him as the weird, lonely uncle who gets a little too drunk at family gatherings.
But he tells himself it has to suck even more for Sam right now, because he has an awesome boyfriend who he for some reason thinks he has to keep a secret. Doesn't he know that Mom and Dad, and especially Dean love him no matter what? Apparently he doesn't, and Dean could throw himself in front of a truck for not making it clearer, for making his little brother think he had to hide anything about who he was.
Dean himself hasn't come out yet, but that's different. He doesn't have anyone to come out for.
So he resolves to be a better brother. One Wednesday after Cas leaves, before their parents are home from work, he puts an arm around Sam's shoulder before he can disappear up to his room and guides him back to the couch he'd just been sharing with Cas.
Sam sits in the same place he'd been; Dean sits in the remainder of Cas's warmth and tries not to think about it.
"Sammy," he says. "Sam. You know I love you, right?"
"Uh." Sam looks startled at the sudden declaration, then wary. "Yeah. Obviously, Dean. Are you dying?"
"No! No, of course not, I just—I just want to make sure you know that. That I, and Mom and Dad too, we love you so much and nothing you do or tell us is ever gonna change that. We love you for exactly who you are. Okay?"
"O...kay," Sam agrees hesitantly. Understanding starts to spread across his face, even though he doesn't make any important announcements or anything. And he relaxes and smiles a little at Dean, so that's a good sign. "And you know you can tell me anything, too, right?"
It's sweet, but now's not the time to make this about Dean. "Yeah, kid," he says, ruffling Sam's hair. "I know, but we're talking about you for a minute here. If there's anything—anything you were worried to say, or if there's someone special, you can—you can tell us, okay? No matter what, no matter who it is."
He doesn't mean to look towards the door, where the image of Cas smiling and waving goodbye to Sam still lingers in his mind, but he does it so obviously that Sam suddenly goes, "Oh."
Dean turns back quickly and Sam's expression is back to being thoughtful, maybe even a little confused. Or nervous, it's probably nervousness, so Dean smiles reassuringly again and pats Sam's knee. He lets the moment sit for another minute, but Sam doesn't say anything else.
"All right," Dean says and stands, stretching. "That's all. I'll be in my room if you, uh, need anything."
Sam doesn't need anything that night, and he looks at Dean a little weird all of Thursday, but by Friday when Cas comes over again he seems to have taken their little chat to heart. He doesn't say anything to Dean, but he sits even closer to Cas and leans right into him to point at a diagram in their shared book. When their hands brush together as they both reach for the chip bowl at the same time and Cas blushes, Dean has to get up and go to the bathroom to splash cold water in his face.
This must be what dying feels like.
Cas comes over that weekend, an unprecedented occurrence, and stays for dinner and a movie on Sunday night. Sam still doesn't admit to anything, but he and Cas spend most of Twelve Angry Men (it was Sam's turn to pick) cuddled together on the couch, whispering and giggling.
Dean pays such close attention to the movie that he's pretty sure he can recite Henry Fonda's lines by heart.
It's late by the time Cas leaves and they have school the next morning, so Dean waits until Monday afternoon to have another talk with Sammy.
He doesn't—really, really doesn't—want to do it. He doesn't want to think about why he has to do it. But Sam and Cas are both teenage boys, and the age of consent in Kansas is sixteen, and he's being a good, responsible big brother, damn it!
They just got home, which only gives Dean about ten minutes before Cas arrives, so he hurries Sam upstairs as soon as they get in the door.
Sam lets himself be led into Dean's room, but as soon as he sees the box of condoms on Dean's bed, he turns bright red and starts trying to back right through the closed door.
"No," Sam says fervently, shaking his head. "No way. I'm not doing this."
Dean can't get through this if Sam fights him on it; he's barely hanging on as is. "Okay, we don't have to talk about it. You're right, that's awkward. Just. Just be safe, okay? Here."
He picks up the box and holds it out to Sam, but Sam pulls his hands away like he's been burned, holding them up by his head in the universal sign of surrender.
"Nope. Nuh-uh. This has officially gone too far. Dean, for God's sake, put down the condoms!"
"Please, Sam. I'm not trying to be nosy but you're my baby brother. I need to make sure you guys are being careful. I—"
"Cas likes you!" Sam blurts in what can only be called terror. "We're not being careful because we're not dating, much less having sex—oh my God, Dean, we are not having any sex ever—because he likes you!"
Dean does put down the condoms. Not through any conscious effort, but rather out of shock; he drops the box. It pops open as it hits the ground and condoms scatter all over the carpet.
Sam, if possible, looks even more mortified. "Okay, yeah, I'm done. This went way further than I thought it would, I was just trying to prove to him that you like him too. I'm sorry you don't even have to get me back because I swear to you I'm scarred for life now I'm never going to forget this moment."
The doorbell interrupts Sam's rambling, probably for the best, and he bolts out of the room as fast as he can while saying, "Hey there's Cas I'll send him up and go to the movies or something I really don't want to know what's going to happen here with all those yeah bye I'll be back for dinner."
True to his word, moments after Sam yells "BYE!" and slams the front door, Cas hovers in the doorway to Dean's room, looking shy and embarrassed and still breathtakingly attractive.
He says, "Hello, Dean."
"Heya, Cas," Dean says.
They talk a little more after that, but it's all kind of a blur to Dean. Because they're alone in the house for the next three hours, and Cas is in his bedroom smiling and blushing at him, and not even a little bit in love with Sammy.
They stop talking before too long, at least as far as full sentences go. There's a lot of oh God and Dean and Cas and oh fuck, like that, just like that, fuck that's so good.
They also end up using a couple of the condoms, because even though they're both virgins and Dean has never wanted anything as much as he wants the taste of Cas in his mouth, he can't really be a hypocrite after his attempt at traumatizing Sam with the safe sex talk.
After, lying side by side in Dean's bed, they whisper all the secrets they've been too scared to share since freshman year (Dean is intimidatingly handsome; Cas's essay on Cat's Cradle was the best thing Dean ever peer reviewed; they both spent two years wishing they were in the same gym period so they could sneak a look, then when it finally happened, they were both too afraid of being caught to actually do it).
They fall asleep like that, and Sam has to brave the war zone that is a room covered in condoms with his naked, come-covered brother and friend in order to warn them that Dad's car just pulled in. He whines about the ordeal for months after, but Dean doesn't even feel bad.
That's what he gets for pretending to be a boyfriend-stealing bitch.