Castiel gets a phone call at 2:11am. He blinks a few times, feeling disorientated and unable to find his cell phone in the dark. His hands scramble under his pillow and eventually wrap around the phone. He lays his head back on the pillow.
"Hello?" He mumbles, praying it isn't his mother with bad news. No one ever calls at 2am with good news.
"Caaaaaaas!" It's Anna, and she's obviously very intoxicated. He can hear Crowley talking in the background and it sounds like she's in a pub.
"Hi, Anna." Castiel answers with a sigh. He really doesn't need this right now; he's tired and he wants to go back to sleep. "Are you okay?"
"No." Anna says, but the giddy tone suggests otherwise. Castiel can't work out if she's joking or not. "I did something bad, and I'm drunk, and I know it's not an excuse but please don't hate me." Castiel rolls his eyes and pulls the duvet over his face. He figures she's probably had an argument with Crowley or something, or she spilt a drink over someone and got herself thrown out. Anna doesn't have a bad bone in her body, so he knows it's not going to be anything serious.
"Did you fight with Crowley?" He asks, his tone implying that he's not going to be angry with her if she did. He doesn't want to talk it through with her right now, but he figures he can give her a minute or two to explain.
"Dean is here." Anna says, trying to change the conversation. Castiel smiles to himself because if Anna can't even bring herself to mention Crowley then they obviously had a fight. And then he takes in what she's just said. Dean is there.
"What?"
"Dean is here. He was asking after you, you should have come out." Anna says loudly. "He was asking all these things about you and he asked me if you had a girlfriend... and I'm so sorry Cassie, I just- I said that..." Castiel swallows the lump in his throat, is she saying what he thinks she's saying? She told Dean that her and Castiel were together? She told Dean that Cas has a girlfriend? This leads on to a whole new realm of questions. Why did Anna even say that in the first place, does she actually, after all this time, have a secret crush on Castiel? And what did Crowley say- "Cassie? Are you there?"
"Yeah." Castiel whispers, closing his eyes in despair. He really doesn't want to hear this. "What happened, Anna?"
"I told Dean you don't have a girlfriend…" Anna says apologetically, and Castiel is very, very confused. "…Because you're gay."
"You… you told him?" Castiel repeats, his voice catching in his throat. Anna starts saying something but Castiel feels a sudden sense of fear and hangs up the phone. This cannot be happening, not again. People finding out that Castiel is gay has never ever lead to good things, it's lead to bullying and humiliation and depression, and Castiel cannot go through that again. So he turns his cell onto silent and closes his eyes and pretends that all of this is a dream, that Anna did not just betray him and his one secret that he's still very insecure about. Because yes, he may act like he's totally self-accepting and cool with it, but he's really not. He still worries about his future and how his family will react; he's worried about never being able to have children, or never finding a partner. Most of all, he's worried about people finding out, because then he gets judged. And Dean Winchester was the first guy that Castiel has ever felt he might have a slither of a chance with, and now that's ruined, because Anna got drunk and told Dean and now Dean is probably never going to talk to him again. So yeah, Anna has ruined everything.
The next time Castiel wakes up, someone is banging on his front door. His room is still bathed in darkness, and he can see between the crack of his curtains that it's still the middle of the night. This is when his stomach flips and his first conscious thought is Dean Winchester is at my door. He flies out of bed and throws on his navy blue dressing gown, rushing downstairs to the door and pulling it open even though he doesn't have the slightest idea what he's actually going to say. All he knows is this is Dean Winchester and-
It's not Dean Winchester. It's Anna, and her expression is very, very annoyed. She's breathes heavily and presses both hands against the door frame. Castiel stares at her in shock. "I know I shouldn't have told him, and I'm really sorry, but you didn't have to hang up on me, we're supposed to be best fucking friends Castiel." No one else is with her, so Castiel pulls her into the apartment and shuts the door behind her. The moment he turns around she's in his face. "I told Dean okay, but so what, it's not like it's a secret, he held your fucking hand obviously there's feelings between you so why am I the bad guy for just confirming that you're gay?"
"Anna." Castiel interrupts, sighing. "You're drunk, just go home." Anna inhales and gives Castiel her most angry glare.
"I've just walked all the way across campus because I'm pissed off with you; don't tell me to go home, why don't you go home!"
"Why are you pissed off with me?" Castiel asks, clearly surprised and a little bit annoyed because unless something happened in his sleep, he's pretty sure Anna is the one who should be apologising after what she did. "You're the one who told Dean even though I didn't want him to know yet!"
"Why not?" Anna asks with a spiteful laugh. "You're like a child, just grow some fucking balls." Castiel tries not to let it show, but he takes it like a kick in the teeth.
"I think you should go." He says, turning back to open the door for her, but Anna storms into the living room, pulling off her heels and throwing them on the sofa. Castiel reluctantly follows her, dreading what verbal abuse she's got lined up for him. In the whole year and a half they've been friends, he's never once experienced this side of her, and it makes him question whether he really knows her as well as he thinks he does.
Anna is standing in the middle of his living room, her fiery hair bouncing across her shoulders in an angry mess. "So this how it's going to be is it? Every time I say the wrong thing in front of Dean you're going to hang up on me and pretend I don't exist anymore? I called you back seven times. It's obvious were your priorities lie, but I really didn't think you'd show it this soon, I mean you're not even with the guy, and I'm supposed to be your best friend!" Anna's breath catches in a hiccup, and Castiel doesn't know if she's going to continue to shout at him, or fall to her knees and cry. For some reason, he doesn't care.
"You are my best friend!" Castiel replies, getting more irritated by the second. "Stop trying to turn this round to make me look like the bad guy, you told Dean, and I didn't want you to. You may think you know everything about my sexuality, but you don't. If I wanted Dean to know, I would have told him, it's as simple as that. But I didn't want him to know, not yet, and you took that right from me. So yes, I was angry and I hung up on you, so what." Castiel answers sharply, completely surprising himself with his own reaction. Anna laughs and narrows her eyes at him.
"You held his hand in the cinema!" She replies emphatically, "I think he knows you're gay, and I think he's okay with that. You're being over-dramatic." Castiel just wants to stop shouting, and he wants to stop arguing because this is Anna and he loves Anna, but he can't handle her when she's drunk and he knows that he's going to regret everything he says by the morning. Yet he still can't help himself responding, because he's been so used to just letting people walk all over him that he can't do that anymore. He physically finds himself moving forward defensively, because he is 21 years old and he will not be bullied again.
"I'm the one being over-dramatic?" Castiel repeats with a laugh, "You walked across campus to shout at me, just because I hung up on you." Anna puts her hands on her hips.
"I tried calling you back, like seven times! You ignored me every time, and I hadn't even done anything wrong! Dean already knew, he must have done, I just accidentally confirmed it, and if you were a real friend, you would have told me it was fine."
"I guess I'm not a real friend then." Castiel bites back, sitting on the arm of his sofa.
"You prioritize what Dean might think of you over what I might think of you, and that's wrong, and it fucking hurts." Anna says, bringing down the tone of her voice with a sigh. Castiel doesn't bite the bait, and he already has a comeback before she's finished speaking.
"You prioritise Crowley; you left me at the Halloween party by myself. What if Dean wasn't there? I would have been standing on my own the whole time you were down Crowley's throat. And then you left early because of a stupid argument you had with him, in case you've forgotten, you went to the party with me, not Crowley." Anna groans into her hands.
"Why are you even bringing Crowley into this? This isn't about him, it's about us, it's about you saying and doing two different things, like when we first met-" Anna's voice goes quiet on the last part, and Castiel can tell she's said something that she didn't want to say. As much as he wants this to be over, he knows he can't stop now, and he needs to know what she's getting at.
"When we first met?" Castiel repeats, "What are you talking about?" Anna looks down at the floor and crosses her arms across her chest.
"You know what I'm talking about. When I had a crush on you, you took me out on a date. You took me to the cinema, gave me your coat on the way home, and then told me you weren't interested because you like guys. You lead me on, Cas. And the worst part is that you criticise me for liking Crowley, I can see it in your eyes when you look at me, like you're ashamed of what I've become. Well guess what, you turned me down, and Crowley never."
"Anna..." Castiel says softly, but Anna cuts him off, tears running down her face.
"Crowley likes me the way I am, he likes that I'm strong-willed and he doesn't mind that sometimes I'm a little bit arrogant and I have mood swings. You're my best friend, you're my only friend, the only one who I can tell everything to, you're the one I trust with my life, and you totally let me down tonight. I'm sorry I told Dean, I am, but you've never gotten angry at me like that before, and now that you have Dean, you obviously don't feel as bad just shoving me to one side." Anna covers her face with her hands and before Castiel knows what's happening, he's pulling her into a hug and she's crying on his shoulder.
"I didn't mean to make you feel like that." Castiel says, gently rubbing her back. "You're like a sister to me, and I love you so much and I hate it when we argue. I'm sorry, Anna." Anna nods into his shoulder.
"I'm sorry too." She mumbles. "I'm a horrible drunk." Castiel laughs a little, resting their heads together.
"Do you want to stay here tonight?" He asks.
"That would nice; I don't have money for a cab." Anna wipes the mascara from her cheeks and tries to calm her breathing while Castiel locks the front door. "I have a headache now." She says when Castiel comes back into the room. He gives her some Ibuprofen and takes her upstairs, letting her sleep on the wall side of the bed even though that's his side.
Within half an hour she's fast asleep. Castiel stares up at the ceiling through the darkness, worrying about the things that were said between them, and if it will affect their friendship. He worries about Dean too, and he realises that because of all the arguing, he never got a chance to ask Anna what Dean's reaction was to finding out about Castiel. He figures he's just going to have to wait and find out.