Dean

"Bah!"

Dean yanks the shower curtain back into place, shutting out the half asleep, but still suspiciously avid face of Casper, the world's quietest homo.

"Dude...privacy?"

"I didn't know you were in here." The other boy says calmly. "I only came in to brush my teeth."

Dean glares at the thin layer of plastic curtain between them, partly out of annoyance and partly to gauge its ability to hide his naked body. He can see only the faintest outline of the stranger in the bathroom, so presumably the guy can't see him.

Water runs somewhere to the left, things are picked up and set down, small wet scrubbing sounds support the notion that the guy is indeed just brushing his teeth. Dean taps his foot impatiently on the tile.

"I'd like to get out at some point, just so you know."

There's a small, perplexed silence.

"I'm not in the way, come out whenever you like."

Dean grits his teeth.

"I know you're not in the way." He tries again. "But you're still in here, with your...eyes."

There's a quiet huff of laughter.

"Dean, I'm not looking."

Dean frowns doubtfully.

"I'm really not." Castiel singsongs softly.

Dean peeks around the shower curtain, he can see Castiel's face, reflected in the mirror. His eyes are indeed shut. Quickly he darts out of the shower and claims his towel, wrapping it around his waist before throwing his robe on over the top.

"Can I look now?" Castiel asks politely.

"Yes." Dean snarks, a flush spreading over his face as he realises how ridiculous he's being. Castiel opens his eyes and goes back to scrubbing his molars. He withdraws the brush after a few seconds and glances back at Dean.

"Do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"If you ask me whether I'm cold, I'll beat you to death." Dean snaps by way of a 'Yes', Castiel ignores the mood beneath the words.

"What do you think about?" He asks instead.

Dean blinks.

"In the shower?"

Castiel cocks his head to one side.

"I suppose so, yes." He mutters. "But also...all the time, generally."

Dean frowns half disbelievingly.

"You don't believe in working up to the head scratchers at 7am, do you?" He sighs. "Why do you even want to know?"

"I'm supposed to be learning how my brain ought to work." Castiel recites, like he read it in a medical journal. "I need to think like a straight person, not just emulate them."

Dean feels a stab of pity for the poor guy, at least Dean doesn't believe this bullshit about rehabilitation, and he's already straight, so he doesn't have to engage with it. Castiel on the other hand seems to have hitched his wagon to the crazy parade.

"We think exactly the same Cas." He mutters, embarrassed by the guy's direct stare in the mirror and his own sadness for him.

"I highly doubt that." Castiel murmurs, looking down at his hand on the toothbrush, china white fingers light on the thin piece of plastic.

"Well...I think about..." Dean frowns, thinking about thinking is not easy. "You know, the things I'm looking at, what they remind me of, films I've seen, places I've visited, conversations I had." He shrugs. "That's how people think."

Castiel flushes delicately, like a painter's applied a tint to him.

"You don't think the same things as me...about what we see."

"That's because we're different people." Dean explains, as if imparting great wisdom. Castiel smiles a little, then bites his lip. His teeth are very white against the pink of it, freshly cleaned and porcelain fine, likely tasting of mint.

"You see...men...differently." Castiel says, in a hushed, hurried tone that implies that he really does not want to talk about it.

"That's because I'm not gay." Dean quirks his mouth slightly as he said it, self assurance in his smirk. Castiel frowns down at his hands again.

"That must be nice for you." He says quietly.

Dean kind of feels like an ass.

"There's nothing wrong with what you think." Dean covers, awkwardly. "This place...it's some retro, bible thumping torture pit for kids with old-fashioned parents." He bites the corner of his lip thoughtfully. "It's not going to be a big deal for the rest of your life."

"Dean." Castiel says his name like he's a separate species, not in a bad way, but as if a gulf separates them and Dean can have no understanding of the hidden ways of the cautious, Castiellus Nervousa. "If I don't fix myself...I'm not allowed home...I won't get to go to college."

Dean feels sad again, and it's not a great feeling to have at the asscrack of morning in a bathroom.

"What do you think about Cas?" he asks. The other boy frowns, in part at the twice used nickname but also at the question.

"When I look at men?" he clarifies.

Dean nods.

"I like them." Castiel says, bluntly, but with an edge of wistful desire that makes Dean feel slightly too warm under his towelling. "I think about how I'd like them to be, with me." The blush rages and he looks down, then up awkwardly, finding Dean's eyes. "Kind, and..." he gropes for the right word. "Rapt." He says eventually. "Focused on me." his tongue chases the slight salt sweat on his lip, diluted by steam from Dean's shower. "Naked, with me."

Dean realises he's stopped breathing.

He rectifies this abruptly, sucking in a lungful of air when his body really needs to expel some – causing an odd rushing in his ears like he's suffocating. His cock, resting in the damp hair of his groin, twitches just slightly, already stimulated by warm water and a soaping somewhat surplus to requirements, it grows a little saturated with blood, warm and plump and ignoring Dean's mental insistence that there are no women around – no one's said anything to do with women for at least twelve hours. There are clearly no breasts in the vicinity. His eyes find Castiel's lips again, damp with saliva and silk smooth under their slight chapping. His groin telegraphs the question as to whether those lips are not in fact better than any breasts (real or imagined or airbrushed) that Dean has seen for a good long while.

Dean's brain denies this.

His swelling cock calls him a liar. It demands recompense in the form of those lips, wrapped around the crown of his still plumping shaft, right now, sucking lightly and rubbing that covering of dry skin into his still wet, smooth flesh. His dick twitches expectantly.

Dean tells it to shut up, swallows, and tries to focus on Castiel, who is currently looking at the floor in embarrassment, his last words still hanging in the air.

"Cas." Dean says, coughing to get the croak out of his voice. "That's not...bad, that's normal for someone..."

"Someone like me." Castiel finishes, tiredly, an edge of anger creeping into his voice. "I can't afford to be 'like me' that's the problem."

And to that, Dean has no answer.

He does have his own problems to deal with after all, or at least – now he does.