Chapter One: Questionably Homoerotic Banter

The shrill beep of his alarm clock made Dean bolt upright.

He couldn't remember exactly what his dream had been about, but he had a vague memory of tenticles. He thought it was better that the dream remained forgotten before any serious psychological damage was caused.

After turning off the obnoxious sound (albeit more forcefully than necessary), he glanced around him. His room was a mess, which was no surprise; however it was bathed in golden sunlight streaming in through the window, which made the pile of 3-week-old laundry beside his bed look much more poetic.

So all in all, it looked like the day might actually be a good one.

Until he remembered that it was Monday.

Fuck.

Not that school-life for a flamboyant homosexual isn't just the peachiest thing; it was just that both of those stataments were incorrect, and both were regularly used to describe him among his classmates and, everyone, really. Thing is, number one: he wasn't in any way flamboyant; he didn't mind attention at all, but it's not like he wanted to be the centre of it 24/7. And number two: he was bisexual. Not gay. Not strictly into dick. Just...

Half-way into dick.

Yeah.

And so he didn't really appreciate people not being able to fathom that you could be into TWO genders (wow, what a concept). With that being said, he didn't complain too much; his school was pretty open to boys/men who preferred the nipples they fondled attached to a flat, antirely male chest rather than a female one.

It's just that no other sexualities except for gay and straight were heard of or discussed. It was as if the words 'bi' or 'pan' were long-lost forbidden curses that made the one that dared speak of them damned for all eternity.

Well. Maybe slight exaggeration, but pretty much.

Plus, all the other dick-liking males that he'd spoken to felt it necessary to comment on his freckles, and how 'cute' they were. He even heard the term 'adorable' once. It was a painful stab in the chest to his fragile sense of manliness.

And so, that was how he found himself standing in front of his bathroom mirror at seven o'clock in the morning on a Monday, examining the dark orange spots dusting his nose and cheeks, contemplating the existance of some sort of God and cursing him just in case.

Just as he was almost finished trying to fill the entire room with frustrated testosterone, his train of thought was broken by his younger brother, Sam's, shout to, "Stop being a hormonal princess and get the hell downstairs so I'm not late for class!"

To which he eloquently replied, "You shut your piehole, bitch!"

"Make me, jerk!"

Dean rolled his eyes somewhat fondly and decided not to answer, instead getting dressed quickly and touching his hair in random places trying to make something happen. After several failed attempts, he left it how it was and got downstairs and into the kitchen, ruffling his brother's hair along the way and getting an elbow to the ribs in return. He stuffed some piece of toast left on the table into his mouth, getting grumbled complaints about his unhelthy eating habits from Sam. Obviously, he then stuck out his tongue and showed him his chewed toast, which made Sam pull and extraordinary example of bitchface #43 and make a vegue noise of disgust, effectively shutting him up. Dean felt victorious.

After he was done, they got outside and waved to Bobby who was working on an old hippie-looking van near the house.

They had been living with Bobby ever since both their parants died in a house fire years ago. He took them in, helped them grieve and raised them as if they were his own boys (which at this point they practically were). He was a good father, and the amount of respect Dean had for him was hard to put into words or numbers. Of course, Dean still missed his mom and dad, but he thought of them less and less as time passed, their memories slowly becoming less of a burden and more of a pleasant thing he could come back to on a bad day.

Dean opened the doors to his prized 67' Chevy Impala. It was in immaculate condition, of course; that car meant more to Dean than he was willing to admit. Plus, it looked pretty damn awesome.

They didn't engage in much conversation on their way to school, just the occasional remark about Dean's music being too loud, followed by a teasing comment on Sammy's hair being entirely too long, and so on.

When they arrived at Kripke High School, Sam got out his overly full rucksack ("You're gonna break your damn back, Sammy") and started to make his way towards class, waving at Dean as he was already grinning over at his group of friends.

Dean observed them for a second, then started walking towards homeroom. The day had started off like any other. The older Winchester certainly wasn't expecting any surprises, anything special. However being born into the Winchester bloodline meant that things that you'd never expect happened obnoxiously often, and yet they took you off guard each time anyway. The same thing happened today, with the appearance of an odd boy with a long coat.

Dean opened the door to his homeroom and was met with the usual sounds of teenagers talking and laughing and rebelling in every way they could, even if that meant simply sitting on a table instead of a chair. Nothing seemed unusual until he noticed the boy sitting in a seat next to his, a boy he hadn't seen before. And in a town like this, everyone knows everyone, so his family must have just moved in. But why would anyone want to live in a small, closed off place like this?

Hm.

The boy had his head down, looking at a book or maybe a sketchbook. All Dean could see from this angle was a lot of messed-up black hair.

Okay, it was definitely sex hair.

He walked up to the guy slowly, boring his gaze into his hair, hoping he'd look up. He didn't. So, he cleared his throat pointedly, which proved to be effective. Sex Hair looked up.

Now, Dean doesn't believe in love at first sight. But one thing he does believe in is noticing-that-that-guy-is-incredibly-ridiculously-attractive-at first sight. So naturally it wasn't his fault if his throat went a little dry. Naturally.

"Can I help you? Oh, I'm sorry, am I sitting in your seat?"

Dean's first thought was that the guy could make a lot of money in the pornography business, with that voice and those looks, which in his opinion wasn't a good first thought to have about anyone, but hey, what're you gonna do?

He realised he'd been staring for a little while and cleared his throat again, this time for a different reason. "Uh, no man, it's fine, you've got the seat next to mine, actually, which is free, so yeah, good. It's cool," he replied and bit his lip to stop any other word-vomit escaping his mouth.

Sex Hair seemed to be trying to stare into his soul (and in Dean's opinion was succeeding) with a gaze that could not be legal. His eyes were a shade of blue that Dean was pretty sure didn't actually exist.

"Alright," he said after a moment, "Well, would you like me to move or is it acceptable for me to sit here? I do not wish to intrude if you prefer to sit alone."

Jeez, the guy spoke as if he'd been raised by a family of thesauruses. Dean let out a quick, nervous laugh and said, "No, it's fine. I don't mind at all."

Sex Hair smiled a little at that, his lips full and slightly chapped, and Dean realised that he was completely, utterly screwed.

Preferring not to worry about possible future school-boners right now, he sat down next to the guy and glanced over at him, which proved to be disastrous because the guy was looking at him, a little wide-eyed with slightly parted lips and fuck this shit so early in the morning.

'You're staring again, fucktard' he thought to himself and averted his gaze to the desk, even though he knew he wouldn't be able to keep it there for long.

He was right.

"So, what's your name?" he asked, hoping to dissipate the air of mild awkwardness between them.

"Castiel Novak. What is yours?"

"Dean Winchester, pleasure."

"Likewise," Castiel (he could stop calling him Sex Hair now) said with a little smile that did nothing for Dean's mental stability. But wait, Castiel?

"I gotta ask, what's with the name? Not in, like, an offensive way or anything, it's a cool name, but where did it come from?"

Ah yes, more glorious word vomit. Dean cursed his weakness for blue eyes and stubble.

"It's fine, Dean," Castiel replied, making Dean shiver slightly at the sound of his name coming from the other teen's mouth, "I admit, it is quite unusual. My parents are very religious, and named me and my brothers after angels and archangels. I am Castiel, who is the angel of Thursday. He's not very well known, so I understand your curiosity. My brothers and sister are called Anna, Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer." He smirked again. "I do not think they thought the last one through."

Dean laughed, and thought that he was fucking doomed because fuck, he's funny, too.

"Agreed. So, listen, Castiel... actually, would you mind if I called you Cas?"

"Not at all, people do it very often. My full name is a mouthfull."

Dean blushed at the innuendo and watched the remains of his manliness fade away.

"Haha, yeah, yup, it is. So, um, anyway, are you new in town or somethin'? Just that, I haven't seen you around before, and in a tiny-ass community like this everyone knows everyone."

Castiel fell silent for a second and Dean fell into a momental panic, wondering if he'd overstepped his bounds. But then Cas started to reply, making Dean let out a breath of relief.

"Yes, I have just moved in with my uncle, Jimmy Novak. Perhaps you know of him?"

"Yeah, I've seen him around, spoken to him a few times. Help out his wife with the chores sometimes; we're neighbours."

"Oh. Well then, I suppose we'll be seeing a lot more of each other than we first anticipated, won't we?"

"I guess so."

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

Dean coughed to clear away many, many suggestive thoughts and said, "Um, if it's okay for me to ask, why did you move here in the first place? I mean, this town can be considered something of a hole in the ground surrounded by trees."

Cas chuckled at that, a sound that shouldn't, in Dean's opinion, be able to portray that level of sadness.

"Dean, I'm not sure you want to know. It's a somewhat depressing story."

"No, I do. Really. If, you know, if you're comfortable with sharing an' all."

Cas sighed. "Well, the short version is, as I said- my family is incredibly religious. Aggressively, in fact. I was always considered a rebel among them, never quite following their orders to the extent they wanted me to. I suppose one day they simply had had enough of my unwillingness to become a mindless follower of unexplained rules, so they got rid of the Inconvenient Child."

Castiel looked over at him. However, seeing the look on his face, he quickly added, "I, my apologies Dean, that's- that must have made you terribly uncomfortable, I'm really sorry, I-"

Dean silenced him with a gesture and said, "No no no no no, dude, I really don't, uh, don't worry about it. Really, it's fine. I'm not uncomfortable, it's just, I was just kinda surprised. That your family would do that. It's one of the most messed-up things I've... shit, are you ok? Like, generally speaking?"

Castiel smiled at his concern. "I am fine, Dean. There is no need to worry. In fact, I'm probably better than I've been in a while. I'm finally rid of that condescending, idiotic bunch of assholes."

Dean didn't expect him to swear. It sounded kind of bizarre coming from him.

"Hah, I hear ya. They sound like dicks."

"They are."

The two boys laughed, and the atmosphere shifted from sad to friendly, at least for now. Dean considered that good enough.

Their conversation was cut off by the entrance of their teacher, Chuck Shurley (nobody called him 'Mr Shurley', it felt wrong), who was about ten minutes late as usual. The class fell to silence gradually, and Dean and Cas exchanged a last amused glance before looking over at Chuck.

"Okay guys, settle down. I'm a figure of authority, please listen. Uh, sorry I'm a little late, traffic and all. I'll take the register."

His gaze fell to Castiel, who was sitting in the second row, looking at him expetantly.

Chuck pointed a finger at him.

"You, are new."

Castiel stared at him, seemingly unable to reply to such an obvious statement. Dean stifled a laugh.

"Yes, sir. I am."

"Oh, yeah! I was told you'd be arriving today. Class, we have a new student, Castiel Novak. Castiel, why don't you stand up and introduce yourself, tell us a little about you?"

The boy in question stood up, and Dean saw that he was maybe a little shorter than him, and was muscular in a lean, not obvious kind of way. A swimmer's body. Or maybe a runner's? Whatever the hell he did, it certainly worked for him, Dean thought. He noticed the looks he got from a couple of girls and guys, and bluntly ignored the spark of possessiveness he felt.

"Sir, with all due respect, have you not already introduced me?"

There was a sound of amusement throughout the classroom, and Chuck looked a little taken aback by the comment. But before he could reply, Castiel continued.

"I'm not sure what you would like me to say. I am eighteen. I enjoy reading and drawing, sketching mostly. The works of Dan Brown and Kurt Vonnegut particularly amaze me. I play several intruments, sing a little. Badly though."

That got a laugh out of his peers, Chuck included.

"Yes, thank you Castiel. Do you mind if I-"

"Yes, it is alright to shorten my name."

"Good, okay. Anyway, thank you Cas, you may take a seat. Now, there are a few notices you should know about, firstly..."

Dean lost interest, instead focusing on Cas, who'd just sat down.

"Wow. Didn't know you were one for smart-assing, Cas."

The other boy grinned at him, making his stomach flip repeatedly.

Not that Dean would ever admit to that, of course.

"A lot you don't know about me, Dean Winchester. Let's hope that you'll hang around long enough to figure it out. You seem like a good friend."

Dean blushed fifty shades of pink and nodded, not trusting his voice no stay even after a somewhat flirtatious remark from this particular boy.

He looked at his desk whilst Cas listened to Chuck, and frowned. What exactly was it about this particular boy, anyway? He could normally flirt like there's no tomorrow.

Dean Winchester didn't goddamn blush.

And yet here he was.

He had the feeling Castiel Novak would be one hell of an adventure.

The bell rang, indicating the end of homeroom. Dean stood up, waiting for everyone else to spill out of the room before looking over at Cas.

"So, what do you have first? Maybe we could walk together, if you want."

"I'd like that. I have... debate?"

"Awesome, I've got that too," Dean said, grinning. He wanted to spend as much time with Cas as possible, and it actually wasn't just because of his seemingly angelic good looks, Cas seemed like a pretty great person.

Which was terrifying, because no, that is just not fair. You can't have the handsomeness and personality, that is just greedy.

Basically, Dean couldn't deal with this kind of perfection.

"I'm very happy that you do, however... debate?"

Dean looked at him, confused. "Yeah, man. Debate. You know, whare you debate stuff?"

Cas rolled his eyes. "Yes, Dean, surprisingly enough I gathered that from the title of the lesson."

Dean chuckled, and started making his way towards the door, Cas following.

"I was just not aware of such a subject existing."

"Wait, what?"

"I was home-schooled before I moved. I'm quite sure that the subjects were different than they are in schools."

"Ah, well that would explain it. It must be weird for you, huh? All these annoying people suddenly surrounding you."

Cas gave a short laugh, and smiled over at him. "So far eveyone I've met has been the furthest thing from annoying."

Dean realised what he meant and turned red, again.

God dammit.

"Hah, well, I'm-I'm sure as you get to know me you'll realise how wrong you are."

"Oh, I highly doubt that." Cas said, looking over at him, and licked his lips subconsciously.

Dean followed the quick movement with his eyes, and then took his gaze straight back to the floor, going even more red, hoping Cas hadn't noticed.

Wait. Wait, was that flirting? Were they flirting just know? 'Cause that felt suspiciously like flirting to him.

Nah, he was probably just imagining it, a guy like Cas wouldn't go for him.

Right?

They reached the classroom, stopping Dean's somewhat confused train of thought.

He walked in and sat in his usual seat, near the window in the first row. Dean didn't particularly like sitting there, but the teacher had a 'strategically designed seating plan' which forced Dean to sit at the front. Alone.

Fun fun fun.

He turned to look at Cas, and realised he wasn't sitting beside him, but standing near the desk.

"May I sit next to you again, Dean? I don't have to, of course. If you have another partner or prefer to be rid of my company for a while-"

"No! Uh, I mean, it's fine, no-one's sitting here and I like you. As in, um, you're a cool guy and friend and yeah, it's fine. Why would you think I'd want to be 'rid of your company' anyway?" Dean asked, putting air-quotes around the phrase.

It was kind of endearing, actually.

Ugh.

"Well, I've been told I can get quite annoying after a while. Plus, after being home-schooled I haven't had much experience with people, I do not catch some social clues. I'm sure it's quite obnoxious." Castiel said, and looked down, blushing, looking slightly ashamed and embarrassed.

It was the cutest thing ever, but his words made Dean a little angry and very, very protective.

Which, he'd known the guy for maybe half an hour. This was getting out of control.

"Dude, no! Look, you're-"

"Everybody! Please, be quiet for once. I know you don't want to be here, but it's the law, so you might as well learn somethin', right?"

Dean frowned at being interrupted by the teacher, but kept quiet, only giving Castiel a look that he hoped would be somewhat reassuring. He'd continue this after the lesson.

At least Cas was sitting next to him now. That was a win, right?

He focused on Ms Harvelle, knowing the consequences of interrupting her. Things were not pretty when Ellen got angry.

Even though she was a family friend and practically a mother to Dean, she still treated him like one of her students, which he supposed was only fair.

"Okay, everyone, settle. Today's subject is uniform, specifically whether it should be compulsory in schools. I'll put some information on the subject on the board, then you can get out your books and make notes for and against. Then you can make a very rough draft for both sides. We won't be debating today or next lesson so that you have time for research, then we'll start off with volunteers. So, the- sorry, hun, are you in the wrong class? I don't recall you coming to my lessons before."

The question was directed at Castiel, who fidgeted slightly and picked at the skin around his fingernails; Dean guessed it was a nervous habit of his. He knew Ellen had an air of intimidation about her, so it was understandable.

"I haven't been to any of your past lessons, ma'am, I'm new too the school. My apologies, I should probably have informed you earlier."

Ellen looked mildly surprised by the boy's manners. "No, that's alright, I should have been informed by the principal. So, you're new to the class, huh?"

The entire class made vague noises of empathy for the new kid, making Castiel look around with a worried expression.

Dean frowned, knowing exactly how Ellen responded to someone new joining Debate.

"Ms Harvelle, go easy on him, would ya? He didn't even know debate existed as a subject until today, not too much torture, yeah?"

"No worries, Dean. Your friend will do just fine. I wanna... test out his abilities, is all."

Surprisingly enough, that did nothing to settle Dean's nerves.

"Excuse me for interrupting, but could I know what exactly is going to happen?" Castiel inquired, calmly, trying not to seem rude. Ellen smirked.

"You see, we have this little tradition. Whenever someone joins this class, I like to test their abilities, just to see what level they're working at. Nothing scary, don't worry."

Dean begged to differ.

"All it is is a small debate. With me."

Castiel looked weary. Well, Dean thought, at least he isn't as clueless as some of the stuck-up know-it-alls from the past who'd greatly misjudged Ellen's supreme ability to argue her way out of everything, making her excellent at this subject. They'd been dumbstruck and embarrassed, it was all pretty hilarious. Dean just didn't particularly want to see Cas in that situation.

Because friendship, that's why.

Nothing more.

Nnnnope.

Castiel nodded, and asked if he'd have to come to the front, to which Ellen said that since it was his first time, he could just stay where he was. Dean suspected that she only said that because he was practically in the front anyway.

"Okay, so, um..."

"Castiel Novak. Or Cas, if you'd prefer that."

"So, Cas, do you have an opinion on the subject?"

"Yes, I suppose so..."

A short debate between them followed. Cas put up a surprisingly excellent fight, however Ellen had years of practice over him, so in the end she was triumphant.

"You did good," she said. "I'm impressed. Now, please sit down, we still have to use what time of the lesson we have left for note-making."

She wrote the subject along with the task on the whiteboard, and there was a rustle of paper as everyone took out their books and started taking notes and making drafts.

Dean and Cas did the same. Dean looked over at his friend, who still looked like he wasn't quite sure what to think of the whole thing.

"You okay there, Cas? You look confused as hell."

"I am. Is that really normal?"

"Oh, yeah. The woman is famous for her Power of Debate, she can out-argue anyone, and she knows it. So she uses that power to test anyone in sight. It's an addiction. You did very well though, especially for a first-timer; usually they crash and burn."

"Oh. I suppose I have had some practice; me and my brothers argued about everything... oh well. As the year progresses, I'm sure I'll prove to be worse at this than she might think I am."

"Dude, don't think so little of yourself. Give yourself some credit, yeah?"

He smiled at that, which in Dean's book was a victory, then said, "I hope we don't have any topics based on religion this year. I might stab something."

Dean burst out laughing, thinking about how this guy just had to have something fundamentally wrong with him.

No-one is this fucking perfect.

The lesson ended, and Ellen asked (or begged, depends which way you look at it) Castiel to join her Debate Club, to which he politely replied that he'd like to get settled in before joining anything, but he'd definitely consider it. Ellen looked satisfied with that, and let them go to the next lesson, which was Trigonometry.

Finally, they discovered something Castiel wasn't inhumanely good at. In fact, he kinda sucked at it, and admitted that fact openly, mumbling under his breath about how they couldn't possibly have a need for this subject in future life, which made Dean laugh.

He was very okay with Cas being not-so-great at trig, since Dean himself was pretty good. Not genius-level good, but he understood it well enough, which was more than most of the students in the class could say. And, being the better of the two, he obviously offered Cas his help in case he needed it. Cas gladly accepted, which resulted in him leaning over to Dean very often and pressing their shoulders together in a way that wasn't completely necessary, however Cas' oblivion to personal space was understandable; after all, his social life had been practically non-existent before today. Yeah, it was totally expected, and yeah, it still made Dean blush like a twelve year old girl. His shoulder felt warm where it connected with Castiel's, and it felt nice, and damn that's creepy, he thought.

And maybe it was, but he couldn't really bring himself to care, for once.