Cas has always known he was gay, but it wasn't confirmed until he was in kindergarten.
On his kindergarten report card his teacher wrote: Paul is definitely gay and has a good sense of self. Cas saw it on her desk before naptime. And if he hadn't seen, he might not have realized that boys weren't supposed to be attracted to other boys. They spend all their time together and constantly made fun of girls. Cas thought it was because they all liked each other.
He was surprised to find out that he wasn't right. He looked through all the other report cards and found out that none of the others said the same thing. Ms. Barnes caught him at her desk and looked alarmed.
"Am I definitely gay?" Cas asked.
Ms. Barnes nodded.
"What's gay?"
"When boys like other boys." she said.
He pointed to where Raphael and Michael were wrestling on the ground. "Is Raphael gay?" he asked.
"No," Ms. Barnes answered. "Not yet, at least."
Cas found it all very interesting. Ms. Barnes explained it a little more to him, the boys liking girls thing. She explained to him about marriage, about how most marriages were made up of men and women.
"But that's not how I feel. How I feel is what's right…right?"
"For you, yes." answered Ms. Barnes. "What you feel is right for you. Remember that."
And he did. Sort of.
That night, he walked over to his mother, quietly reading in the den.
"Guess what!" he said. She jumped, then tried to pretend she wasn't surprised.
"What?" she asked.
"I'm gay!"
They didn't react the way he thought they would. Cas thought his mother would at least close her book. Instead, she turned to the kitchen and yelled to his father.
"Honey, Cas learned a new word!"
It took his parents a few years, but they got used to it.
Other than his parents, Anna was the first person he came out to. In the second grade, Anna came over his house. They were under his bed, playing a game called Avoid Death.
At one point Anna's sentence trailed off. She leaned forward, eyes closing. Anna's lips were coming near his. Forgetting he was under the bed he stood up and crashed into the bottom of his mattress.
"What'd you do that for?" they both yelled at the same time.
"Don't you like me?" Anna asked, hurt.
"Yes, but I'm gay." he said.
"Oh, okay. Sorry."
There was a pause. Then they continued on with the game. From then, Cas knew they were going to be best friends for a long time.
With Anna's help he became the first gay president in Mr. Singer's third-grade class. Anna was his campaign manager. She came up with his slogan: VOTE FOR ME…I'M GAY! It was going to be VOTE FOR ME…I'M A GAY, but Cas pointed out that could be easily misread as VOTE FOR ME…I'M A GUY, and that would definitely lose him some votes.
His biggest opponent was, unfortunately, Michael. His first slogan was VOTE FOR ME…I'M NOT GAY, which was really dull. He changed it little by little, until finally his slogan was DON'T VOTE FOR THE FAG. When the election was held he had a small percent of the vote, while Cas had girl vote, the open-minded guy vote, the closeted vote, and the Ted-hate vote. When it was over, Anna beat Michael up.
The next day, Luke traded him two Twinkies for a box of raisins. The day after that, Cas traded him three honey buns for a Fig Newton.
It was his first flirtation.
Luke was his date for the fifth grade semi-formal. Or he was, till they broke up over a Nintendo cartridge (in Cas's defense Luke could have handled it better). But they parted on friendly terms. He would have gone with Anna, but surprisingly she was going with Michael. She swore he'd changed.
In the sixth grade, Luke, Anna, a lesbian fourth grader named Charlie, and him formed the school's first gay-straight alliance. They looked at the straight kids and decided they needed help. They all dressed the same and couldn't dance for their lives. It wasn't acceptable.
Soon membership surpassed that of the football team. Michael refused to join, but Anna made them go to swing dance classes at least twice a week.
Since he was single at the time and felt he had met everyone there was to meet at school, he often snuck out to watch Star Trek in the AV room with Charlie.
In the eighth grade he was tackled by two high school wrestlers. They called him names like queer, faggot, the usual. At first Cas didn't know they were insults, just a strange form of foreplay. No one was allowed to talk to him like that, only Anna. Luckily he had gone with his friends from the fencing team. They took care of the wrestlers.
He also had a gay food column called Dining OUT, which was a modest success. He declined several pleas to run for student council since it would interfere with his spot in the school musical.
Basically, life in junior high was pretty fun. His life wasn't really out of the ordinary, just the usual crushes, confusions, and intensities.
Then he met Dean and things got complicated. He knows it immediately, driving home from Ash's gig. He feels more complicated. Not bad complicated.
Just complicated.