this is my second time uploading this chapter, so to those of you who read it yesterday before I took it down, it's nothing new. just fixing a few pretty stupid mistakes that were confusing as shit. thanks so much to aLoggedInReader for pointing them out to me! so yeah, sorry for getting your hopes up if you already read this and got a story alert about it. I'll try to update again for real ASAP.

Chapter 4

It's Tuesday afternoon and Dean is studying ferociously in the cafeteria, and that's the first of a few weird things that happen that day.

He's studying off of Castiel's notes, thanking God for giving Cas not only perfect handwriting but perfect note-taking skills. Dean's actually feeling pretty confident about the test that day in Statistics. And then he remembers that Castiel has Statistics right after lunch. And that it's an open note test.

Lunch is halfway over by the time Dean realizes that Castiel is going to need his notes. He curses under his breath and throws on a coat before dashing out into the crisp winter afternoon. It's then that he realizes he has absolutely no idea where Castiel eats lunch. Or breakfast or dinner for that matter. And fuck, he's running out of time.

"In a hurry, are we?" comes a stern voice from behind him. Dean whirls around to find himself face to face with the headmistress.

"Yeah, I need to find Castiel. Do you know where he eats lunch?" the frigid nun raises an eyebrow inquisitively.

"I'm afraid I do," she says quietly. "Is it very important? I know he prefers not to be disturbed." Dean is way past finding this information strange.

"I know he'd want me to disturb him with this. Trust me." Dean considers the fact that he could just give the notes to the headmistress and have her deliver them to Castiel, but his curiosity gets the better of him and he decides not to ask. He wants to see what his roommate has been doing all this time, and why he doesn't wish to be disturbed while he's doing it.

"Very well then, come with me."

Dean follows the Headmistress into a plain, somewhat depressing building near the church. He's never been in here before, and it's not until they pass by a group of nuns playing poker in a quaint dining room that he realizes this must be where they live. What the hell is Cas doing eating in here?

They stop in front of a closed wooden door toward the end of a long hallway. "Your friend is in there," the headmistress says with a small nod. And before Dean can ask any of the million questions swarming his brain, she walks away, leaving him alone in the empty hallway. Hesitantly, he opens the door.

The room on is small and Spartan, containing only a bed, an ancient, no-frills wooden dresser, and a wooden chair pulled up to the bedside. It's here that Castiel sits, his tray of lunch in his lap and a paperback book in his hands. Lying in the bed is one of the palest, skinniest women Dean has ever seen in his life. She's relatively young, maybe in her late thirties, but her skin hangs from her eyes in dark bags. Her long red hair is streaked with grey. She smiles at Dean when he walks in and, even though he's sure he's never seen the sickly woman before in his life, there's something instinctually motherly in the way that she looks at him.

"Hello there," she says, and her voice is soft yet brittle and it makes Dean hurt. Castiel looks up from his book. His eyes widen when he sees Dean. "I don't think I've ever met you before."

"No, ma'am. I'm Dean Winchester."

"Ah, so this is Dean! I've heard so many things about you," the woman says, causing Castiel to turn a shade of red Dean has never seen before on a human being.

"Dean, this is my friend, Sister Anna," Castiel mutters so low that Dean has trouble hearing it.

"Nice to meet you," says Dean. "Cas, I figured you'd probably want these for the test next period," he says, pulling the other boy's notes out of his back pocket. Castiel takes them and slips them inside the book he'd been reading.

"Thank you," he says.

"Well, I'd better get going. Lunch is calling," Dean says with an awkward thumb-jerk out the door. Sister Anna seems nice but he can't help feeling like he's intruding on something almost intimate. So he walks out of the room with a fond farewell from Sister Anna and a 'see you in Religious Studies' from Castiel, wondering what just happened.

Dean passes his Stats test, and Castiel aces it, and the two walk out of Religious Studies together in good spirits. But before Dean can ask his friend any questions about Sister Anna, Castiel hurries off with a quiet murmur that he needs to go to the library. And if Dean had suspected before that Castiel was bothered by their encounter that morning, well, now he knew it for sure. Now that he thought about it, Dean realized that there must be some reason Castiel had never mentioned the nun to him before, despite the fact that he spends three meals a day eating with her. He shakes his head and sets off to find Sam.

Sam's actually having a harder time with the "no girls within a five mile radius" thing than Dean. It's almost all he talks about. He even makes a few semi-joking remarks about wanting to sneak off campus just to see a female below the age of 30. Dean makes a mental note to keep a close eye on him. They hang out in the freshman common room for a while, watching some mindless game show on TV. It's the kind of thing the brothers used to do all the time when they were living in hotels, and for precisely half an hour, Dean feels sort of normal again. When the show is over and Sam goes back to his dorm to study, Dean follows suit, wishing that life were as simple as Deal or No Deal.

"Hello Dean," Castiel says casually, dropping an armful of books on his bed as he walks into the dorm.

"Hey, Cas."

"How were your classes today?"

"Good. Cas, listen. What's up with Sister Anna? Is that who you're always eating with? What's wrong with her?" He doesn't mean for it to sound so insensitive, but as soon as the words are out of his mouth he wants to shove them back in. Castiel's face darkens and he turns his back on Dean, pouring all his attention into the stack of books on his bed. For a while he doesn't say anything. Dean gets up and walks over to him. "God Cas, I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"No," Castiel says, not turning around. His voice is even but his shoulders are uncharacteristically hunched, like he's fighting back tears. "Sister Anna… basically raised me. She's the closest thing I have to a mother." Sensing the pain in his voice, Dean does something he has never done before. He reaches out and places a comforting hand on Castiel's shoulder, and Castiel exhales loudly. He doesn't shrug it off. "Whenever I was sad, or there was something I wanted that I couldn't have, or I had questions about God, the other nuns would tell me to read the Bible. That's the only advice they would ever give me, 'Read the Bible, and God will help you if you are to be helped.' And I'd read the Bible. I'd read it so many times that I had most of it memorized, but it never told me where my parents were, or why the other kids made fun of me, or how I could get them to stop. But Sister Anna… she gave me advice. She would sit me down and talk to me for hours until I wasn't sad anymore. She loved me. She still loves me, and she's the only person in the world who ever has."

Dean is struck by this. He wants to tell Castiel that he's wrong, surely someone else loves him, because how could you not? But all that comes out is, "Cas."

Castiel turns around and the look in his eyes is like a knife in Dean's heart. He's never seen his roommate this emotional before, about anything. At the same time that he feels like shit, Dean is slightly thrilled at how much Castiel is opening up to him. And then he feels like shit again.

"She… she's dying," says Castiel. "Last year she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She used to be a teacher here, but since her illness she's been on bed rest 24/7. She refuses to go to a hospital for treatment. Sister Anna believes that if this is God's plan then she has no right to interfere with it." He looks angry when he says it, like he thinks this is the stupidest fucking thing he's ever heard in his life, and Dean has to agree with him. "I've eaten all my meals with her ever since. I think she appreciates it. People do visit her but… it's lonely." Dean just nods, unable to say anything. He realizes that he's standing very close to Castiel, and that his hand is still on the other boy's shoulder, and it has a strange effect on his stomach.

"Cas I'm so sorry," he whispers.

"Why?" Castiel looks up, confused. "This is not your doing."

"No I mean, it makes me sad that this is happening to you. You seem to really care about her a lot."

"Oh," Castiel says. "I do. Until this year she was my only friend."

"Until this year I didn't have any friends." Castiel's eyes are focused very intently on Dean's lips, a fact which sends a sensation coursing through Dean that he can neither name nor justify. It scares the hell out of him. So he drops his hand, grabs a towel left hanging over the foot of his bed and all but runs into the bathroom where he takes a shower that's way too cold and tries not to think about anything at all.

It happens all of a sudden, really, and Dean can't fathom why he'd never noticed it before. One day Castiel's just this endearingly weird kid he shares a room with and likes more than he should. Now, out of nowhere, he's several things that confuse Dean completely, to the point where he's sitting in class, trying to hear the nun lecture, trying to read the words on the board, but none of his senses seem to extend past the disheveled head of black hair two rows ahead of him.

Nothing about Castiel's appearance has changed. Not really. He's got the same impossible blue eyes fringed permanently with tiny crinkles around the edges. His face and body are shaped like they've always been, and while Dean's never found Castiel unattractive, and while yeah, he would have admitted before that the guy isn't bad looking, that's about as far as he would have gone in assessing his roommate's sexual appeal. Now Dean finds himself getting flustered whenever Castiel walks into a room, goes through entire study sessions without absorbing a single speck of information because they're just so close. Hesits through movies that he loves, feeling distinctly the inches of distance between their bodies, wanting to close it but not knowing what would happen after that. Knowing this is how it's going to stay. Because he is not gay, and neither is Castiel, and it would be ridiculous to act on this. It's probably just all the not having sex getting to him. No girls around, Dean's body is trying its best to improvise. But damn if it didn't find a good substitute.

Dean's starting to notice other things, too. Like how Castiel never looks at anyone else the way he looks at Dean, and how more and more frequently he's been coming back to the dorm out of breath at the end of the day, as if he'd been running to get there. The dominant, pessimistic side of Dean's brain attributes these things to just about anything else it can come up with- maybe it's getting colder outside, maybe Dean has a spot of particularly interesting acne on his face. The other side of his brain, however, is starting to get ideas. And as much as he wants them to go away, Dean can't help but entertain them.

Sam's picking up on it, too, which more than anything solidifies this vague phenomenon as an actual thing in Dean's mind. And while he waves off Sam's suspicions, tells him that it's just lack of sleep that's distracting Dean, both of them know that it's a lie. But Sam leaves it, and Dean is grateful, and things get better eventually. Dean is able to pay attention to what Castiel is saying, as long as he doesn't look too hard at his lips. He can take adequate notes in class if he keeps his eyes on the page in front of him.

And sometimes, if Dean tries really hard, he can even pretend that he's completely straight. As long as Castiel's not in the room.

They always start a movie on opposite sides of the bed, with feet of space between them. By the time it's halfway over, they're pressed against each other tight, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, leg to leg, and Dean never has any idea how it happens. At this point Dean's mind starts to wander. He pictures himself leaning into a kiss he'll never get, Castiel's soft gasp of surprise he'll never hear. When Dean's in a bad mood the kiss ends there. Castiel pushes him away, angry and disgusted. Other times, it doesn't, and by the time the credits roll and Castiel wants to talk, Dean can't explain to him why he can't remember any of the key plot points of the movie they just watched.

If it were anyone else, Dean would have made a move already. He's not used to sexual frustration. He's used to getting sex when he wants it, and he doesn't think he's ever really wanted it this bad before. But he can't and it has little to do with the fact that Castiel's a boy, and everything to do with the fact that for once in his life, Dean is terrified he'll be rejected. So he goes on living as he has for the past couple of weeks since he's arrived at Our Lady of the Stars only ten times more horny and a shitload more happy. And surprisingly, it's nice.