Castiel's POV
Dean can drive; at least, Cas thinks so. He's never been in a vehicle before, but he doesn't feel like he's going to die in it with Dean driving.
"Where are we going?" He asks again. He doesn't recognize any of his surroundings, but him and Gabriel haven't been anywhere in Lawrence except the alley, and school. "Dean?"
"Wait and see, would you?"
"I don't like surprises."
"It's not a surprise." Dean looks in the mirror that hangs from the top of the vehicle, and turns the corner. He pulls the vehicle to a stop after a minute or two of driving straight. "Look." He points outside the window. Cas sees a fence with yellow plastic shaped like a funny square.
"What is it?"
"You've never seen a baseball diamond before?" Cas shakes his head. "Really?" Cas nods. "Get out, I'll show you." Dean gets out of the car, Castiel follows him to the back of the car. "Left or right?" He shrugs. "Which hand do you write with?"
"This one." Cas raises a hand and Dean puts a glove in it. "Now what?"
"Now we play ball."
"Why?" Dean takes a metal log and a ball out of the car and closes it. He runs ahead. Cas struggles to keep up. "How?"
"I'll show you." Dean runs into the fenced area, the diamond, as he called it. Cas follows him They stop running on a small square in front of the largest piece of fencing. "Take the ball and throw it at me, like this." Dean swings his hand under, nice and slow. "Aim for the bat." When he sees the confusion on Cas' face he lifts up the metal log. "This thing." Cas nods. Dean backs up a little and waits. "Go."
"I don't want to hit you."
"You won't." Cas shakes his head, afraid. Humans are so fragile. He couldn't throw something at them. "It won't hurt."
"I can't." His hand falls to his side.
"I can throw it at you then. Can you swing a bat?" Dean swings the bat over his shoulder. "Like this?"
"You're going to throw this at me?"
"Yeah. I won't miss the bat, promise." Castiel shakes his head. "Come on, it's fun." He keeps shaking his head. There's no way he's letting anybody get hurt. "Pass me the ball," Cas rolls the ball over to him, refusing to throw it. "Go sit on those bleachers, watch." Cas listens and leaves the diamond, going to sit on the bleachers just on the other side of the fence. "Are you watching?"
"Yes!" Cas calls over. He watches closely. Dean throws his hand up in the air, not letting go of the bat. Then he throws his arm up and lets go. The ball flies up into the air. Dean quickly swings the bat and hits the ball with an ear shattering crash. The ball flies across the field, landing in the grass some feet away. "Cool!"
"It's not dangerous," Dean tells him. "I know how to play. Come on, I'll throw it to you." Dean gestures for him to come over and look for the ball. Cas runs down and over to him. As they walk across the field he thinks about something that has made Dean change in the past week. What could it be?
"Why are you being nice to me?" Cas asks, looking at anything but Dean. At first it seems like Dean ignores the question. He keeps quiet and doesn't say a word, but when Cas it about to ass again he answers. "Why -"
"Because. . ." He stops, as if trying to find the right words. "I'm tired of being the guy everybody laughs at, that nobody takes seriously, that's nothing to anybody but a dealer or a sex machine. . . " He trails off. Cas only understands some of this. He doesn't understand what a dealer is, or what a sex machine is, though he's not sure he wants to know. He waits quietly for Dean to finish his thoughts. "I. . ."
"You don't have to explain anything to me." Cas finally looks at him. "Not if you don't want to."
"No, I want to, I just don't know how to say it. I told you, I'm not the smart one. That's Sam."
"You're still smart." Cas gestures to the bat that Dean's carrying. "You know what baseball is, and I didn't until you showed me."
"Thanks. . ." He trails off again and looks at his feet. "You wore me down, man. I thought I could ignore you, but you kept going. You wore me down. I give up. I surrender. You want me to be a friend, I'll be your friend. I give up trying to be that guy."
"What guy, Dean?"
"I don't know. I'm just tired of everything." He looks at his feet again, clearly thinking about something else, but not wanting to speak about it. "Hey, here's the ball." He leans down and picks it up. "You want to hit it?"
"Yeah." Cas happily takes the bat from Dean's hands and runs to the place where Dean his the ball. Dean chases after him, keeping up pretty well. They throw the ball around for a time, asking each other random questions, like who's the cutest girl, or what the best game is, or they're favourite books.
"Okay, okay, now what's your favourite book?"
"I don't know. I'm liking that one I have read for English about the whale."
"Moby Dick?"
"Yeah! That's it." Dean tosses the ball the Cas, who is actually able to catch it. Cas tosses it back. "You?"
"I don't have any favourites right now, actually," He pauses.
"What?" Cas drops the ball and chases after it a little. When he turns back to Dean he throws the ball.
"It's just. . . I'm reading something right now called 'Giovanni's Room'. It's different but still pretty good."
"Is that on the school reading list?"
"No, I'm kind of reading it for my own curiosity."
"I'll put it on my list."
Dean catches the ball and looks over at the car sitting some ways away. "We should head back to school."
"Yeah." Cas picks up the bat and the glove he used and starts walking back. Today has been a weird day. Dean, who he thought would never talk to him, showed him how to play baseball today. He honestly thought that Dean wasn't going to listen, or work with him, and that he would have a friend, or whatever this is between them. "This was fun, dude."
"Dude is so not your thing, Cas."
"What?"
"Just, don't say it, alright? It sounds weird coming from you."
"Alright?" Cas looks over at Dean, surprised to see him smiling. "We should do this again some time."
"Yeah, I agree." As they come up to the car Dean turns and faces Cas. Their lack of personal space is evident, though neither of them do anything to fix it.
"Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"What do normal guys our age do?"
"What do you mean?" Dean's brows form a line over his eyes.
"I move around a lot, so I've never really made any friends. . . What do normal friends our age do?" Dean laughs. "What?"
"Nothing, get in." He takes the bat and glove from Cas and throws them in the back of the car. Cas goes and sits in the passenger seat, Dean joins in behind the wheel in a second. He's still laughing.
"What? Seriously, Dean, what's so funny?"
"Nothing, Cas, nothing."
