Here we have a starter to Dean and Cassie's relationship. How they started being friends, how they continued, and how their friendship has evolved.
Notse:(1) These kids go to a private school, and I've never been to one, but I decided it would be fun to write. Sorry if I mess things up. :( (2) Cassie is paired up with other people, not just Dean! I'm not too descript (except for a few instances), but I know there are a lot of people who don't like it. (3) Since this is AU, Cassie is a bit less . . . well, a bit less Canon!Castiel. She's more funny, gets the references, and is just plain less Castiel. So are the rest of the characters. (4) I've been on a Dawson's Creek kick the last couple weeks, so there is a section that's based off of that. I don't own Dawson's Creek, or SPN, so just nope.
Age 6
"Dean!" Cassie shouts. Dean has a hand wrapped around her long black braid. She twists around and punches him square in the chest. He stumbles to the ground; the shorter girl was a lot stronger than he thought. He glares up at her.
"I'm telling Ms. Campbell!" Dean says, leaping up from the ground and racing towards the building.
"Oh, yeah?" Cassie yells, chasing after him. Her uniform skirt makes it a little difficult, but she manages to catch up and grab the back of his jacket. "And what are you gonna tell her when she asks why I did it?"
"That you're a snot-faced brat!" Dean tries to pull away from her, but can't. She's got a grip around his shirt collar, too.
They fall to the ground, Cassie sitting on Dean's chest. "That's not gonna work, Dean. Stop being stupid." She stands, and helps Dean up.
"Yeah, okay," Dean grunts before taking off in the opposite direction. Cassie played along.
Age 9
"Dean?" Cassie whispers. It's the middle of the night, she doesn't really expect him to answer.
She had spent the night over at the Winchester's that night, not for the first time and not for the last. She was sleeping on the bottom bunk in Dean's bedroom.
"Yeah, Cassie?" Dean whispers back just as quietly.
Cassie's father had left them three weeks ago, and the little girl had been so very upset about it. She never talked about it, but always insisted that she wanted to be near Dean. Her mother thought it was some weird coping mechanism, to be near a male presence that she associated with goodness, and allowed her for the first time since her father left to stay the night at Dean's.
"I'm scared." She can hear shuffling, the bunk bed shaking as Dean climbs down the ladder. The next thing she knows, Dean is poking her to move. She shifts back enough so that Dean has room to crawl in.
Dean wraps his arms around her. "Don't be afraid, Cassie. You can share my dad, okay?"
Cassie wants to roll her eyes, to tell Dean he was being stupid, because boys are always stupid. She knows it doesn't work like that, that they can't share dads, but Dean's words calm her. She nods her head, takes a deep breath, and shuts her eyes. She falls asleep, hearing Dean humming a song she doesn't recognize.
Age 12
"Dean," Cassie groans. "Do you have to be so gross?"
Dean is currently shoving his face full of popcorn. They're sitting in the extra cheap movie theater, the one that has older films that have long been available to the public, getting ready to watch Breakfast Club again. Dean won't admit it, but he likes it just as much as Cassie.
Dean says around his mouthful, "Yes." The opening bit starts, while Dean sucks down about half the soda they're supposed to be sharing.
Cassie rolls her eyes, puts her feet up on the empty seat in front of her, and tries to concentrate on the film.
Later that evening, back at Dean's house, they're eating dinner with Mr. Winchester. Mrs. Winchester is staying late at her journalism job, where she recently got promoted which meant more work and more hours. Mr. Winchester made pizza, which looks a little too perfect to be handmade and Cassie saw the box anyways, and served them grape soda. Mrs. Winchester and Ms. Novak would both have a heart attack if they saw what the kids were eating.
When Cassie gets back from using the bathroom, Dean is on his way upstairs. He stops her in the hall.
"Hey, you're staying over tonight, right?" he asks. He's biting the side of his lip, looking up at her (because he still hasn't gotten that danged growth spurt yet) like she might actually say no.
"Dean. It's Saturday. I always stay over on Saturday." She's looking at him like he's crazy, because, really, they'd had this tradition for almost two years now.
He nods. "Okay." He tosses her a pair of his clean pajama pants and a t-shirt.
Age 15
"Dean! Dean!" Cassie chokes out breathlessly.
Dean's straddling her, squeezing his legs around her so she can't wriggle away. Cassie thinks she might die if she doesn't get some air in her lungs, get some relief from this torture.
Cassie hates being tickled. Hates it likes she hates Hitler or Brussels sprouts. And Dean was only just now realizing this.
"No way, Cassie-girl, I've got years to make up. No way am I gonna let you down this easy!" He squeezes her ribs, extracting a shriek and a loud peel of laughter.
"Dean Winchester, I hate you!" she screams, trying to push him off. Unfortunately, the last year of puberty has really taken its toll. He's now about six inches taller, with a good fifty pounds on her. He's restraining her arms, but her legs are blessedly free. She yanks her knees up suddenly, pounding Dean in the back. The air whooshes out of his lungs and he falls back, giving Cassie the chance to jump up away from him.
Little Sammy barges in the door, then. "Are you two having sex?!" he shouts.
Cassie starts shaking in laughter, but Dean flushes res as he tries to catch that breath. Cassie drops onto the bed, gripping her stomach. That doesn't do too much good for Dean's esteem, but he won't let it show.
"Please," he scoffs at the eleven year old. "Like if I had a girl up here she'd be screaming—" he starts a falsetto tone, mocking his best friend—"Dean Winchester, I hate you!" This makes Cassie laugh even harder, actually rolling off onto the floor. "Like I'd have Castielle screaming my name."
Sammy makes a face, and just backs out of the door.
Dean collapses onto the bed, giggling.
He doesn't realize for a long moment that Cassie has stopped laughing with him.
Age 16
"Dean, I don't know." Cassie's worrying her lower lip, standing by the door.
"I don't understand, you've been sleeping over since you were like ten." Dean gets off the floor, only to sit back down in his swiveling desk chair. He makes slow circles.
"I just think our emerging hormones are destined to alter our relationship, and I'm trying to limit the fallout." Cassie picked at an open seam in bottom hem of her shirt.
Dean stops spinning, facing Cassie. His arms are crossed over the back of the chair, and he's grinning like an idiot. "Your . . . emerging hormones aren't developing a thing for me, are they?"
Cassie rolls her eyes and glares at him. "A thing? No, I'm not getting a thing for you, Dean. I've known for too long. I've seen you burp, barf, pick your nose, scratch your butt. I do not have a thing for you."
"Then what's the problem?" He resumes his spinning. "What's with this weird When Harry Met Sally male/female difference crap? It doesn't apply to us, we transcend it!"
"I have breasts, now, Dean. You've got . . . genitalia." Cassie blushes, and crosses her arms over said breasts.
"I've always had genitalia." Still spinning.
"But there's more of it!" Cassie exclaims, fed up. She flops herself on the floor.
Dean stops spinning. "How do you know?" There's a strange set to his mouth, not that Cassie would see, as her face is currently looking away. He gets up and sits on his bed. It had been traded out for a full when Dean was about twelve, but that didn't stop the best friends from sharing it.
"Long fingers… I have to go."
"No, you don't. I can prove it."
"Yeah?"
"Listen, we can still remain friends, despite any . . . mounting sexual theoretics."
Cassie pauses, standing up. "I don't think it works that way, Dean."
Dean groans. "Come on; don't get female on me, Cassie. I don't wanna have to start calling you Castielle." He's sporting a huge grin now, tucking his hands behind his head.
"Castielle this!" she mutters before leaping onto the bed, attacking him with punches. He laughs, catching her elbows and pushing her until she falls off the bed with a thud. Dean starts tickling her.
Before it gets too far, Cassie shouts, "Okay, I give, I give!" Dean releases his hold on her and helps her up.
"We're friends, okay?" Dean says, looking into her blue eyes. "No matter how many hormones we acquire? Deal?" He sticks his hand out.
She grasps it and agrees, "Deal."
"And—let's never talk about this again," Dean says, leaning back onto the bed.
"You got it."
They climb into the bed, shut off the lights, and turn away from each other. Dean's staring out of the window, contemplating what Cassie had said. It was completely ridiculous, wasn't it? That they could strangely come out of this friendship, and into something more because of hormones?
Cassie was staring at the blackness of the rest of the room, trying to go to sleep, to stop the images of Dean's lips against her own from flooding into her brain.
AN: So I've never done an actual AU before, and certainly nothing that I'm planning to be so long-winded. Hope you like! Please, please review! I want to know the audience's reaction to this! I'll send you pie! Or cake, if you like cake.
