When they walk up into the crowd of students, Castiel can't help, but to feel like people are staring at him. Which is obviously not true, because there way to many people for all to know him, not even by look, and if somebody catches the attention, it's more likely Dean who strides just a step before him. However, the change of expression on faces of those who knows him is noticeable. Castiel doesn't feel comfortable under so much public scrutiny and he just prays to God that this wasn't the worst idea of his life.
"Hey, Bela." Dean stops to great a girl he's obsessed with lately. She's from Castiel's class and he doesn't like a bit about her.
"Hi, Dean." She smiles too sweetly for it to be a genuine smile. "Sam."
Sam just nods.
"Cas, you know Bela?" Dean introduces her proudly.
And finally, Bela's eyes find the last of their small group.
"Castiel?" She asks incredulously.
Castiel just looks aside.
"Wow! What made you change clothes after your grandpa for something like this?" She asks teasingly and Castiel simply can't take this.
"Thanks, Bela. You also look great today." He gives her a compliment and without a second look walks away, silently fuming.
"Cas!" Dean calls after him, but Castiel is not stopping, he can't stop now. If he was to talk to her or even look at her again, he would do and say things he wouldn't be proud of.
'So this is what people thinks about me?' Castiel ponders with heart heavy in his chest.
"Cas!"
Not stopping.
Then Castiel hears Dean to run over to his side and he finally stops, when Dean grips his arm.
"Cas," Dean turns him. "I bet she didn't meant it like that."
"Sure. So why doesn't she say so herself?"
Dean wants to reply, but is out of words, so he just closes his mouth. Just as Castiel thought.
"Dean, look. This was all a stupid idea. Just let it be, alright?"
"Alright." Dean's attitude grows instantly colder and Castiel almost regrets his words but to prove his point he continues in a direction of locker rooms.
Castiel actually doesn't need to change until later in the afternoon. He participates in a cross country run and that is one the last disciplines. Swimming starts first, so Dean is going to be in his swimsuit pretty soon. Castiel stalls, still upset, but then the loyalty and curiosity prevails and he ends up watching swimming race with the same rapture as anybody else. By the end he even forgets the guilty feeling that kept telling him he came mainly to ogle Dean with much less clothes than he usually sees him in. And that it was really worth it.
After the end of the part that took place at the pool, Castiel wanders between basketball and tennis courts until Sam's softball game is up and Castiel finds a comfortable place at the stands. He gets a glimpse of Dean, who apparently saw him, too, but who doesn't make a move to join him or wave him over. Castiel is so preoccupied by glaring in his direction he doesn't even notice where he perched until he sits next to Meg. Well, he's not exactly next to her, but she sits just two seats over and the space between them is empty. When she sees him, she reseats herself and Castiel feels funny that a girl and one as pretty as her on a top of that wants to sit next to him.
"Hello, Clarence." She smiles at him.
"Cl-" '–arence?' Castiel wants to ask, his forehead wrinkled in frown, but stops himself when her smile just widens. There's nothing sarcastic in it.
"Hello." Castiel settles at.
"I saw what happened in the morning." She says and Castiel feels it as a hit under a belt. It started good and now this. He sighs. Meg looks faintly sympathetic. "Sorry." She continues casually, with a smirk playing on her lips. "But your friend is a dick."
Cas cannot help it and corners of his lips turn up. Meg's close and still smiling.
"Well, clothes don't make the change. Besides, people probably think I look ridiculous." Castiel philosophizes.
"I think it's quite sexy." Meg smirks provocatively as she appreciates his new appearance and then, in one moment, her look flicks between his eyes and his lips and Castiel thoughtlessly dives in. He spans the remaining distance and kisses her red lip-sticked lips.
The lips are sweet and taste little bit like cherry and little bit like cigarettes. It's overall a pleasant experience and when he pulls away he's rewarded by an amused and slightly impressed look. Castiel schools himself and turns back in the direction of a playfield, the short glance he steals in a direction of Dean tells him that his friend has seen it all.
He didn't kiss her in spite of Dean, even though he knows how much Dean hates Meg. He kissed her because she was the first person who ever looked on him that way, like he's worth love and worth kissing.
He spent the rest of the game by talking with Meg, who was surprisingly easy to talk to, despite that most of people were afraid of her. They talked about baseball and journalism, then the debate turned to religion and then school system and universities and Castiel had a feeling he haven't had such a good talk in years. When the game was over, he wasn't prone to meet Dean, because he will need to explain things he wasn't prepared to explain or didn't know how to. It was easy to slip out amongst the crowd and since the game stretched up a bit, he needed to hurry to get ready for the cross country run anyway.
Castiel always liked running, not that much for its fitness value as for that it gave him time to think. He chose the cross country run because he liked nature, the part of world where everything God created was perfect just as he has been taught. This time it wasn't quiet and there's been to many people for him to just admire the surroundings, but when he got into his pace, it was what he did – running – and he found a strange peace in that.
Castiel was thinking about Dean's shocked expression when he saw him kissing Meg. Dean himself was sitting next to Bela. Castiel couldn't understand what Dean sees on her apart from her wavy hair. She wasn't even all that pretty, let alone her fake smiles. He get why Dean hates Meg, though. Some time ago, Dean tried to hit on her and she sent him to hell in such a brilliant way, that people laughed at him for two more days after it happened. And whenever they met, she made sure to show him at least a little bit of what she thinks of him. Needless to say that Dean often tripped himself on his own words, giving her perfect chance to comment it. What will he tell Dean?
When he ran through the finish line, he was tired, but happy. Balthazar, who was helping with writing down the scores, got up from his seat and handed him a towel and bottle of water.
"Here you go. You weren't bad." He says and it sounds more like he didn't expect his friend to achieve such a score rather than a compliment.
"Thanks." Castiel pants and wipes his face before he downs half of the bottle.
"Hey, your friend was looking for you."
Castiel stiffens.
"You know, that hot guy who won the 50-yard freestyle swimming sprint race in the morning." He winks at Castiel knowingly.
Castiel tries not to blush, which is probably a waste of energy on his side, because he is already all flushed from running.
"Hey, Cas." Castiel's heart get stuck in his throat when he hears the familiar voice. "Can we talk for a bit?"
Castiel turns and Dean's standing few feet from him and he's licking his lips nervously.
"Yes." He walks up to him.
"What happened at the stands during the softball match, with you and Meg - what was that?" Dean interrogates and Castiel is prepared for it.
"I kissed her." Cas states bluntly as it was pretty obvious.
"Yeah, but I mean… Why? Why Meg?" Dean questions and gesticulates with his hands as if he was delivering the question physically.
"Because she likes me." Castiel answers solemnly.
"Cas. I don't wanna hurt you, but I doubt Meg likes you."
"Meg is nice to me."
"What?! Meg is a bitch!" Dean tips his head back and rubs his forehead to deflect the upcoming headache.
"You won't talk about her like that." Castiel warns coldly and there's an anger mounding in his chest.
"Cas, if you think that one day you pop up in a different shirt and girls are instantly all over you, I can tell you that's not how it works. For all I know she might be using you to get on me, because it's obvious we're friends, when we showed up together this morning, and she hates me. She's just using the fact she attracts you and you believe her like the saint naïve angel you are!" Dean shifts from upset forte to being outright screaming on Castiel.
"Dean, that's not how it is!" Castiel urges, but it doesn't seem to get through.
"And how is it then, hm? You'll marry her and you will live happily ever after?"
Castiel didn't see when Balthazar left his spot at the referee table and started to listen to their exchange, but when he speaks up, his face is strained and agitated.
"What is your problem, man?" He cuts Dean's mocking. "Castiel is gay. Now, does he look like somebody who's a victim to his own hormones to you?" He asks with his peculiar high-class English accent. "Because as far as I remember, he is not going around kissing boys, whenever they smile or say something nice to him."
All the blood from Castiel's face is gone. "Balthazar, I-" Before he's able to say something, Balthazar turns to him.
"Castiel, you didn't have to tell me. Before we became friends you were staring at my derrière as if I was wearing underwear over my pants. And you talk about girls… next to never."
Castiel doesn't even want to think of how many people have heard that, besides Dean, naturally, which would be already bad enough by itself. When he was imagining possible ways how to come out to his family and friends in the future, he never thought of such apocalyptic scenario like this one. 'Balthazar, fuck you.'
There's nothing more left than except the verdict now. Everybody within earshot is staring at the thin boy in tank top and running shorts, with sweatbands on his wrists and head, but those people don't matter now. Castiel looks into Dean's eyes.
"So, you… ehm." Dean looks aside. "You do dudes?" He asks awkwardly.
Castiel heart sinks.
"Dean, you're friends with Charlie. And she's gay." Castiel protests indignantly.
"Yeah, but she's a girl."
"And how's that different?"
"It just is. Don't ask me such questions!" Dean yells back.
Castiel waits, but Dean doesn't look at him again.
"Narrow-minded douche." Balthazar comments it.
"Shut up, Balthazar." That's all Castiel can muster up to say before he leaves like a body without soul.
Castiel staggers to his room, he barely remembers how he got there, but he slams the door and locks them. He gets to his old-fashioned cassette-recorder, which his parents refused to replace by modern piece as long as this one is functional, and turns it on and raise the volume up to so that it almost hurts his ears. The music is drumming in his chest and finally he cannot hear his own heartbeat. He falls face-down on his bed, clutches the sheets and screams as much as he can. Once he's too tired screaming, he cries and he cries all night.
In the morning, Castiel's eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, he dresses up to his usual clothes and skips a breakfast. When he gets to school not a single pair of eyes meets his, everybody is stealing glances at him and stops talking when he gets closer. Every frigging person knows what happened at the race finish line yesterday and even those who usually do not give in gossips are giving him odd looks.
Castiel's desk is scribbled with 'sassy', 'fag' and 'sinners go to hell' and anonymous and sadly single 'you rock'. Some "good" soul even added a card for a psychiatrist. Castiel doesn't care. He spreads his textbook and notepad over the disgusting display and waits for the lesson to start.
First class is a disaster, everybody keeps whispering about the scandal and at the end of the lesson the teacher can't stand it and asks them what's going on. After few moments of awkward silence, one of his female classmates stands up and tells her.
"They are talking about Castiel being a gay." She says quietly and sits again.
The teacher's look slides to Castiel and then she faces whole class again.
"That's… natural. We should not judge people on either – their race, religion or sexual orientation."
'Is she not even going to ask me, if it's true?' Castiel waits for her to continue, but that's apparently all the teacher has to say. Not that Castiel feels comfortable with his sexual orientation being publicly discussed. However, he expected something more, some support, not just a school book precept. As it turns out, being the only open male gay at school will be more though than he thought.
He's angry with the teacher and with the silly rumors and Balthazar, Dean and himself. He feels like vomiting at the men's toilets instead of the next class.
"Hey there, pretty boy." Someone calls sarcastically. It's a male voice and Castiel can say the person just stopped behind him. "It looks like your wet-dreams prince's has ditched you."
The sound of the laughter is drowned in a rapid beating of Castiel's heart and humming of blood in his ears. He doesn't even look who it is and punches him with all anger and frustration fuelling the strength of his fist. The guy falls down and fights back, but Castiel is in rage he keeps punching and strangling with a furious insanity in his eyes, until a six other guys get their hands on him. Very soon, Castiel is the one on floor and he can't even count how many punches and kicks he gets before the school bell breaks the spell and the attackers retreat. Students hurry to their classes, passing him in a wide arc and no one stops to help him. When he things that everbody's gone and everything's over, a sharp kick lands to his ribs and somebody spits at him. "Cock-sucker."
It escapes Castiel how somebody can be so cowardly that he wouldn't show self even when kicking someone who's lying on the floor in his own blood.
He can't even cry anymore as he lies in the empty muted corridor. Eventually, a teacher who goes for her class finds him and helps him on his feet. He spends some time at the school nursery until his parents pick him up and takes him to a clinic.
Castiel ends up with two broken ribs and multiple bruises, but otherwise he miraculously comes out of the incident relatively undamaged. When they ask him what happened, he doesn't lie. He says that a guy offended him, so he beat him and in return he got beaten by the guy's friends. He doesn't go into details and fortunately his parents don't force him to.
When he checks his phone, he finds some text messages and few missed calls. Most are from Dean and some from Sam. He doesn't look at them and turns his phone off. He lies on his bed and doesn't think about anything. The pain is dully throbbing in at least dozen parts of his body. It's strangely satisfying, a proof that he's still alive even though he feels dead inside.
He recalls the fake smile school nurse gave him, telling him that everything will be fine again. How could it be, when it never was fine to start with? Castiel wishes he could just fall asleep and wake up as somebody else.
He's excused from a school until his wounds heal decently, so he just hangs around in his room, reads comics and listens to music. There's a one song he heard the previous day in the radio that keeps repeating in his head and he looks it up. Somehow, it's like its text speaks out his soul. He records it on a free cassette, so that he can play it and listen to it again.
By the dinner, his mother tells him that Mr. Winchester stopped by to ask about him.
The next afternoon, there's a knock on his door. Castiel expects it to be his mother, so he freezes when he hears Dean's voice instead.
"Cas?"
The doors are locked and Castiel has every intention to keep it that way.
"Cas, could we talk?"
"If you want your T-shirt, I'll return it to you once it's clean." Castiel remembers the bundle of white fabric that in the corner on the floor. He isn't usually this messy, but the late events were kind of taxing.
"It's not about the T-shirt." Dean sighs. "Could you open the door?"
Castiel is in temptation to raise the volume of his radio, so that he doesn't have to listen to Dean anymore, but he can't. Even hurt and shamed, he wants to hear that voice.
"Cas, I am really sorry." Dean really sounds to be.
"I was a jerk. I should have reacted differently. I am not exactly proud of what I said, OK?"
Castiel can picture Dean, rubbing the back of his neck and his jaw as he keeps shifting on his feet.
"You don't know what is it like." Castiel finally speaks again.
"What? Being gay?" Dean's voice turns puzzled.
"No. To be me."
"Then tell me. I will listen to you."
There a pause in which Castiel considers Dean's words.
"Let me be, Dean." Castiel says tiredly.
"Cas?"
"What part of 'Let me be' escapes your understanding?"
There's a silence. And then again:
"Cas."
Castiel growls, gets out of his bed, snatches the crumpled white T-shirt, then walks to the door, but stops by the cassette-recorder. He looks at it for a split of second as an idea is born in his head. He pulls out the newly recorded cassette and wraps it up in the T-shirt.
"Cas, I won't leave, until you talk to me."
Castiel opens the door, to Dean's utter surprise, pushes the bundle of T-shirt and cassette to his hands and closes and locks the door again, before Dean even opens his mouth.
"Everything I want to tell you is there. No go." And this time, Castiel raises the volume so that it's obvious the discussion is over.
An hour later, when it's obvious that Dean is gone, Castiel turns the radio off and thinks of the song he gave Dean on the cassette. He knows it by heart now.
It goes:
'Do you ever feel like breaking down?
Do you ever feel out of place,
Like somehow you just don't belong
And no one understands you?
Do you ever wanna run away?
Do you lock yourself in your room
With the radio on turned up so loud
That no one hears you're screaming?
No, you don't know what it's like
When nothing feels all right
You don't know what it's like
To be like me
To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down
And no one's there to save you
No, you don't know what it's like
Welcome to my life
Do you wanna be somebody else?
Are you sick of feeling so left out?
Are you desperate to find something more
Before your life is over?
Are you stuck inside a world you hate?
Are you sick of everyone around?
With their big fake smiles and stupid lies
While deep inside you're bleeding
No, you don't know what it's like
When nothing feels all right
You don't know what it's like
To be like me
To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down
And no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like
Welcome to my life
No one ever lied straight to your face
And no one ever stabbed you in the back
You might think I'm happy but I'm not gonna be okay
Everybody always gave you what you wanted
You never had to work, it was always there
You don't know what it's like, what it's like
To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down
And no one's there to save you
No, you don't know what it's like (What it's like)
To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down
And no one's there to save you
No, you don't know what it's like
Welcome to my life
Welcome to my life
Welcome to my life'
Cas isn't sure if that was the most brilliant idea, to give Dean a song like this, but at least he tried. He did something. He couldn't say it better, if he tried. What's done is done.
Later that night, Cas is reading one of his comics with only a bed-side lamp on, when he hears hushed:
"Cas!"
His window is open, because it started to be hot and the night air pleasantly cools the house.
And then again: "Cas!"
He tries his best to ignore Dean. And for a while it seems his tactic succeeded, until there's a suspicious rattle and in the next moment, Dean is squeezing in through his now fully opened window.
"Dean!" Castiel hisses, but it doesn't have any effect on Dean's presence in his room.
"Cas, just listen me up." Castiel sits straighter on his bed. "I was such an idiot. I hope the invitation stands?"
"What invitation?" This time, it's Castiel's turn to be confused and he tilts his head to a side when he asks.
"That I will be welcomed to your life." Dean explains.
Castiel stares at him in incomprehension.
"Because I want to be part of your life and you to be part of mine."
Then it hits him. 'The words of the song…'
"Dean, I appreciate your interest, but the truth is that although we can be just friends, I can't think of you that way. I was trying, but you are… very appealing."
Dean sits on his bed by his feet.
"That's alright, because…" Dean talks into his lap, but then forces his look up to meet Castiel's.
"I also find you appealing. I am-" He gulps heavily and for a while it seems like he will never continue, but then he finishes in a hoarse voice. "bisexual."
And here comes the most treasured secret of Dean Winchester. Castiel shifts closer.
"Dean." He says simply and Dean's eyes catches on his lips. He looks terrified. Castiel wounds his arms around him and pulls him into a hug. They just sit like that for a while, drawing reassurance from each other's arms.
When they finally pull away, Dean's eyes are tranquil, the storm that took place behind them is cleared like a summer night sky after rain. All the awkwardness from physical proximity is gone and Dean slowly leans in and kisses Castiel.
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OK, I could have written more and maybe I will in the future, but as it is I found this point as a good one where to stop ;) Hope you liked it.