"Ellen, where's the pancakes?" Dean asked as he shuffled into Jo's crowded kitchen. "Bacon?"
The group of people crowded around the dining room table had fallen silent as he entered the room and he figured he must look like hell to get that kind of reaction, his mouth tasted gritty, like dirt and sand and the stuff you find stuck on the bottom of ashtrays. He had found out a little too late to protest that Cassie was a smoker and now he felt like he reeked of tobacco and had spent the night in bed with the Marlboro Man. Though when Ash had woken him up with a sharp kick to the mattress he was laying on he never would've known that he had spent the night with anyone because the space next to him was empty.
He shrugged off the abandonment and tried not to let his face show how much it bothered him, which was surprisingly a lot less than it had bothered him when Cas had left to help with whatever it was that Anna and Gabriel had needed him for.
Dean could remember blurred images of hanging out with Cas in a laundry room and the phantom feeling of a broad hand on his chest, but that was about it. He had the distinct feeling that something important had been happening or about to happen, but then Cassie had pounced on him as soon as he had reentered the living room and he had drank until all he could remember was warm skin and dark hair and moans and the smell of minty perfume.
"We're eating kolaches and donuts," Ellen said from where she was pouring out cups of coffee into what looked like every mug in the house and then getting another batch started.
"Aww, mom." He said affectionately moving over to snag his favorite Batman mug and drop a kiss on Ellen's cheek. "You spoil us."
"Well, it wasn't me," the older woman said pushing Dean away with a wrinkled nose. "Cas and Meg went and got them for everyone before I was even awake. You stink, honey."
Dean frowned, not because his friend's mom told him he smelled, he was already pretty sure he stunk of all of the beer and whisky he had sweated out in his sleep wrapped up in mentholated cigarettes and stale body spray, but because Cas had come back. For Meg.
Now, he couldn't remember much of last night, but the parts that he did remember were predominately centered around Castiel and the other boy telling him that he would come back or at least try to so that he could hang out with Dean. When had Cas come back? It had to have been after he had gone to bed with Cassie because he would've noticed the boy's return otherwise, he had been waiting for him, refused to leave the living room for almost an hour so that he could watch the front door.
"Cas and…Meg?" Dean asked looking around the room to see if anyone else found the pairing as ridiculous as he did.
Jo's expression was stony and Ash's wasn't much better. Adam was giving him a sympathetic look, but kept glancing at the blonde next to him to see if she was going to notice. Garth was the only one who spoke up and what he had to say just made the bottom fall out of Dean's stomach.
"Yea, they were asleep in the hammock out back this morning."
"Is Cas still here?" he asked. Half of the room looked at him like it was the most inconsiderate question he could ever utter.
"I think they're on the back porch." Adam said grimacing when Jo dug an elbow sharply into his side. "OW!"
Dean walked quickly over to the back door and looked out through the screen; Castiel and Meg were sitting on the porch swing, backs leaned up against the armrests and talking to each other softly. Cas was smiling at something Meg was saying and when he replied the small woman reached out to give him a playful slap on the arm.
He pushed open the door and stepped out on to the porch, Meg's eyes widened when she saw him approach and he heard her say, "Here he comes."
So they had been talking about him, probably laughing about something stupid he did last night when he was drunk and god, didn't that thought just hurt Dean more than it should. He was always doing and saying dumb things at parties, why should it make any difference that Cas was laughing about it with some girl he had known for less than twenty four hours.
"Hey Cas," Dean managed to choke out as he stood in front of the porch swing, ignoring Meg and wishing his friend would look over at him instead of staring down at the chipped green mug in his hand like it held all of the fucking answers of the universe or something.
"Dean," Cas greeted him sounding different, harder and more brittle towards him than he usually did.
"Um," He searched for something to say, squinting out at the sunlit grass and rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "You came back."
Castiel nodded at his coffee cup and Dean could feel Meg's eyes burning into the side of his face. He glanced over at her and felt his blood run cold at the look she was giving him. Like she wanted to push him out of a very tall building and watch him fall onto a bunch of pointy things that would hurt him in sensitive places.
"I must have been asleep or something. I didn't know you were back." He said with a nervous chuckle. Dean saw a crease appear in between Castiel's eyebrows and when his friend spoke again it came out broken sounding.
"Yea, or something."
"Listen, Brett Farve can you leave us alone? We were kinda in the middle of a conversation." Meg said her voice sounding dangerous and laced with venom.
"I'll go if Cas wants me to go." Dean said giving her a nasty look, one fucking date and the girl was already being a jealous, possessive bitch.
There was silence for a second as both he and Meg looked at Castiel who was picking at his nails and biting on his bottom lip so hard that Dean was worried it would start bleeding if he didn't stop.
Please just look at me, he thought desperately. Just look at me so that I know that I didn't say something stupid to make you not want me around anymore and I'll leave you alone with your new girlfriend. Fucking look at me, Cas!
"Can you go, Dean?" Cas asked softly still not meeting Dean's eyes as he looked off past him somewhere out in the yard. "Meg and I were talking."
"Fine," he spat and stormed off the porch, tossing his Batman mug out into the tall grass at the edge of Jo's yard and hoping it broke into a million fucking pieces.
He slammed angrily into the Impala and peeled out of Jo's driveway, gravel spitting up behind him and pinging off the side of the house and the cars that were still parked around the front yard. Dean pulled out his phone and dialed Sam's number; he needed to see if his little brother had made it home last night. Focus on something that would take his mind off of the empty feeling in his chest.
"Heeey brother,"Sam crowed at him through the phone. "What's up?"
"Gabe get you home alright?"
He heard the sharp intake of breath over the sound of his car's rumbling engine and immediately knew something was up. "Actually, um…I'm over at his house right now. Do you think you can come and get me? I need to talk to you."
"Yea, what's the address."
Sam rattled off the address and Dean knew it was near Stonegate Park on the opposite side from where Garth's house was so he headed in that direction and kept his eye out for the street name that his younger brother had told him.
He pulled up to a nice looking two story house, it was painted a off-whiteish cream color with cheery looking blue shutters and a novelty mailbox of a mermaid next to the walk leading up to the front door. It wasn't really what he had imagined when he had been trying to think of what Castiel's house would look like, maybe he had been hoping it wouldn't be so homey and inviting looking.
Dean parked the Impala on the street and walked up to the front porch, noticing that there were several hummingbird feeders hanging up and a muddy pair of running shoes that could only belong to Cas sitting by the front door. He rang the bell, expecting Sam to just come out and meet him and they would talk in the car on the way home. So he was kinda surprised when Anna greeted him at the doorway and invited him in.
"Take your shoes off, "She said pointing at a shoe rack near the doorway. "Gabe likes to think that we keep an Asian household."
"Whatever that means," Dean muttered toeing off his boots and stacking them next to a pair of shoes that he recognized as Sam's.
"I know," Anna said rolling her eyes affectionately as she led him into the living room.
Dean looked around the space noticing that there were a lot of family pictures. Most of them seemed pretty recent, one on the mantle above the fireplace that caught his attention showing a wan looking Cas standing in front of the house with Anna and Gabriel on either side holding a realtor sign that said 'SOLD' in big black letters on it. There were a couple more, grainy older ones that looked like they had been printed off from a computer showing Anna at a ballet recital and Gabriel wearing a birthday party hat tipped at a roughish angle and Cas in his ROTC uniform, smiling widely and holding a large trophy.
"Do you want something to drink or anything?" Anna asked picking up a book off of the coffee table and moving towards the doorway. "Sam'll be down in just a minute. I think he was getting dressed or something."
Why the hell was Sammy running around the Novak house undressed? He couldn't possibly be hooking up with Anna and he was way too big to fit into Cas's or Gabe's clothes if he borrowed something to sleep in.
"Um, bathroom?" Dean asked feeling weird about just being left alone in the living room to wait on Sam.
"Upstairs, to the right. Across from Castiel's room, it's the one with the big Elvis poster on the door. You can't miss it." Anna replied already cracking her book back open as she wandered away.
Dean waved a hand at her in thanks even though the younger girl wasn't paying attention to him anymore and made his way up the stairs. He stopped when he saw the black and white poster covered doorway and managed to hesitate for a couple of seconds before his curiosity won him over and he cracked the door to his friend's bedroom with a furtive glance around the hallway.
He was immediately hit with the clean, spearminty scent that always seemed to hover around his friend and he leaned into the room as his eyes adjusted to the dim light that managed to make its way around the edges of the thick dark curtains that hung over the widow. Dean could make out an unmade bed, a decently sized stereo sitting next to a mountainous pile of haphazardly stacked CDs on a desk, posters for bands on the walls, and clothes scattered around on the floor.
In short, it pretty much looked like every other teenage boy's room that Dean had ever seen, but this was Cas's room and he just knew that somewhere in the space lurked the answer to why he thought his new friend was so awesome, so different from anyone else he had met before.
Castiel didn't pretend to like things just to make other people happy; he was genuine to the point of bluntness in regards to his opinions. But he was still willing to try anything once, he ate the mystery surprise meal that the cafeteria dished out once a week and declared it 'not bad'. Cas got Dean's cheesy jokes and looked at him with this serious deadpan expression when he thought Dean was being a jerk. He called everyone on their bullshit, but was just so nice about it that no one could bother with getting mad.
And he liked Meg.
Where the hell had that come from? Dean thought he knew enough about Cas to be able to pick the kind of person his friend would like, but did he really? He never would've put Meg and Cas together, but based on what he had seen on the porch earlier it seemed to be working out. He would ask his friend what he saw in the girl, but Cas was mad at him and Dean just wished he could remember what he did to drive his friend away.
"Dean, what are you doing?"
"Sonofabitch!" Dean said jumping about a foot in the air when he heard his little brother's voice behind him. He turned around guiltily to face the other boy, letting Castiel's bedroom door swing shut behind him. "When did you get so stealth, Sammy?"
His brother was giving him a weird look and Dean started running through excuses he could give for why he was trying to sneak into his friend's bedroom when the other boy wasn't home.
"I-I uh was just looking for the bathroom. No toilet here."
"Whatever," Sam said, running a hand through his shaggy brown hair. "Can we talk now? It's kinda important."
"Yea, let's head home. I need some coffee and Captain Crunch is sounding pretty good right about now," Dean wrapped an arm around his little brother's shoulders, having to reach up slightly to do so and started to head towards the stairs.
"Actually, there's coffee here. C'mon Gabs is making french toast."
"Who the fuck is Gabs?"
"Oh, uh..that's my nickname for Gabriel because y'know, he talks so much."
"Quiet, moose!" Gabriel snapped from where he was setting out plates for three and on the dining room table that was already piled high with breakfast foods.
Anna meandered past with her own full plate balanced on her book and holding a glass of orange juice heading back in the direction of the living room. She gave Dean an encouraging smile as she passed and he really wished Cas was here because all of this felt really Twilight Zoney and foreign to him.
"This is awesome Gabriel," Dean said sitting down with wide eyes and snatching up a bowl of cinnamon sugar that he was planning to use entirely on his own stack of French toast.
He looked up at the older man and noticed for the first time the large dark purple bruise that was on the older man's jaw and the angry red cut that was on his eyebrow.
"What happened to you, dude? Sammy been hitting you. That's domestic violence right there, you should leave him." Dean laughed at his own joke and went back to building the perfect log cabin out of cut up pieces of the breakfast Gabriel had made.
"So you didn't hear about what happened?" Sam asked brushing the hair out of his eyes, revealing his own gash on his forehead near his hairline.
"You guys get in a fight or something?" Dean asked gesturing between the two men with his fork.
Gabriel gave Sam a loaded look and Dean felt like there was a silent conversation going on between the pair. He shrugged and kept eating, this was one of the best home cooked breakfasts he had ever had.
"Not…with each other," Gabriel supplied. "There were these guys at the party last night. They kind of jumped us, Anna went all causal pepper spray cop on them and Castiel brought us back here so that we could get cleaned up."
"Why did they jump you?" Dean asked suspiciously, he knew Sam wasn't the type who went out picking fights and Gabe didn't seem like the kind of person who boxed in his spare time so something else must be going on.
Sam cleared his throat and drew idle circles in the puddle of syrup pooled on his plate with his fork. "Have you ever heard of the Kinsey scale, Dean?"
The older Winchester shook his head and tried to figure out what was going on.
"Well, it's this scale um…" Sam was blushing like crazy and looking anywhere but at his older brother. "It um…measures a person's degree of um….bicurushnish."
"What?" Dean asked.
"Oh for fuck's sake," Gabriel said slapping his fork down with a loud clatter and giving Sam an annoyed look. "We're all big boys here. It measures how much interest a person has in the same sex. Like homosexuality."
"And what does this have to do with you two getting beaten up?"
"On the scale," Sam continued looking between Gabriel and Dean. "Zero means you're like one-hundred percent hetero. The thought of being with someone of the same sex has never even remotely cross your mind. Six means…"
"Six means you're singing show tunes and camping out in a line to buy tickets to a Streisand concert. You have matching poodles and go to equality rallies and stuff. Yea, I think I get it, Sammy. What does this have to do with you getting in a fight with some of Jo's douche bag party guests?"
"I'm like a four, Dean." Sam said looking at his brother steadily and then glancing over at Gabe with a small smile on his face. "Maybe a four point five."
Dean let out a heavy breath and leaned back in his chair. He looked between the two guys in front of him and tried to reconcile the image he had of his younger brother with this new, overwhelming information.
"So, you two…" He said gesturing between Sam and Gabriel and rubbing a hand over his jaw. "Are like together?"
Sam nodded and Gabriel reached over and grabbed his hand in an affectionate way. He watched how the two of them looked at each other and something inside of him melted a little bit. Dean had never seen his little brother look at anyone that way, hell he didn't think he had ever looked at anyone that way.
Dean nodded slowly and reached for the carafe of orange juice on the table, topping off his glass and taking a slow drink to finally wash away that acrid taste of tobacco that had been lingering in his mouth all morning.
"How old are you, Gabe?" he watched the older man squirm under his scrutinizing gaze.
"Twenty," Gabriel said defensively. "Listen, I'm not some pervy old man scoping out jail bait, okay? This just kinda…happened, but I'm glad it did because your brother makes me happier than anyone else ever has and I'm not going to let you make him feel bad about this. He is still the same person."
Dean smirked at the other man's speech. Nothing like that had been going through his head, he had just wanted to make sure that Gabriel wasn't going to getting Sam wasted all of the time when the younger man should be focusing on school.
"And you're sure about this, Sammy?" he asked turning back to his french toast and deciding that it needed another layer of cinnamon sugar.
"So fucking sure," Sam replied not tearing his eyes off of the man sitting next to him.
"Okay, then. Welcome to the family, man." He offered Gabriel a hand across the table and the two shook hands amicably. "Just uh…maybe you shouldn't tell dad, Sam. Not for a while. We'll have to get him used to the idea. And, no making out on my bed! Or the couch! I will burn it, I swear."
"You're being really cool about this, Dean." Sam said wonderingly, looking at his brother with something that resembled astonished amusement.
"Yea, Dean-o." Gabriel said his eyes twinkling mischievously. "Maybe you're not a total zero yourself. Where do you think ol' Kinsey would rank you?"
"No, I'm a zero." Dean said quickly, feeling his stomach do a weird little flip as he tried not to think about the comforting smell of mint, and blue eyes that changed color as often as the summer sky, and shy smiles in darkened classrooms.
"A mixtape?" Meg asked as she drove them over to the apartment she shared with her boyfriend over near the U of K campus. "Who are you? Lloyd Dobbler? This isn't a freaking 80s movie, Cas. This is your love life. Why don't you just go up to Dean and kiss him and see what he says?"
It was Thursday night after his therapy appointment with Rachel and for the first time he had ducked out of dinner with Gabriel to allow his older brother some time to spend with Sam. Apparently the pair had told Dean about their relationship and the older Winchester hadn't freaked out about the whole thing.
He had gone all week saying as little as possible to Dean, even managed to convince Becky to switch seats with him in English class for a while so that he could avoid having to sit next to his friend. Every time he was near the other boy his mind would start circulating through images of them in the laundry room together, how Dean's mouth had been right up against his neck and he had been right, the stubble was so fucking hot, before it went straight back to painful scenarios of Dean wrapped up in that cheerleader, kissing her and calling her gorgeous. It didn't help that come Monday, Dean was still sporting a faint hickey that was vaguely shaped like West Virginia.
Cas had kept a buffer between him and the other boy as much as possible, usually Jo or Garth once he even got Kevin to help him avoid Dean when he had been cornered at his locker by making up a story about a last minute ROTC meeting Virgil had called that the freshman had corroborated. He knew that he owed Dean an explanation for why he was acting the way he was, but he was hoping that the tape he was planning on making would be enough to make it clear to the other boy why he was upset.
"Because I don't want to get punched in the face," Castiel said pulling his feet down from where he had them propped up on the dash as they pulled into the parking lot. Meg's apartment was right near the diner so it hadn't taken them very long to get there after she picked him up from his therapy appointment.
"What if he doesn't punch you?" Meg asked putting the car in park and hopping out with her friend trudging along behind her. "What if you're just psyching yourself out and Dean's like secretly, madly in love with you?"
"Yea, right." He muttered.
Meg and her boyfriend lived on the second floor so instead of waiting for the elevator they opted for the stairs and Cas tried to steer the topic to something other than Dean. He felt like his pointless crush was all the girl wanted to talk about sometimes.
"So, your boyfriend. What's he like?" he asked as her keys jangled while she unlocked her front door.
"Oh, you'll love him. Luc should be home around seven, his last class is over at six thirty and he rides his bike to and from campus to avoid all of the traffic."
"How did you two meet?" Cas asked as Meg pulled out a large stack of take out menus and started shuffling through them, making faces at some of them and putting others in front of the younger man for him to look at.
"It's kind of funny actually," Meg said a small smile alighting on her face. "Lucy was my TA my first year at U of K. It was a religious studies class; he was actually thinking about going into seminary school before we met. I guess I sorta threw a spanner into those plans."
"He's Catholic?"
"Yea, his mom was like super religious, named him after an angel. That's how I knew what your name meant, Clarence. He was a bit obsessed with like angel lore and stuff when we first met, now he's thinking of doing political science." Meg shrugged. "I think we should do Chinese. I'm craving eggrolls."
"Wait," Castiel said trying to suppress the giggles that he could feel coming on. "Luc. Lucy. Your boyfriend's name is Lucifer isn't it? Your boyfriend is the devil!"
"Don't make a big deal out of it," Meg said slapping him on the hand. "It's a bit of a sore subject, just call him Luc. I didn't make fun of you for saying Dean had a cute butt!"
"I told you that under duress," Castiel said laughing to himself as he watched his friend place an order for a delivery of Chinese food. He waited until she was off of the phone to continue their conversation. "Why doesn't everyone know you have a boyfriend? Are you guys like, swingers or something?"
"Eww, no." Meg wrinkled her nose in distaste and went to sit on the couch; legs pulled up to her chest and patted the seat next to her. "He's just older and some people think it's weird we met when he was basically my assistant professor. It's not strictly against the rules for us to be dating, but it is frowned upon by some of the bigwigs on campus, so we keep it on the DL."
"Here I was thinking only queers had to hide their love in the closet." Castiel said mostly to himself. "And he's okay with you going to parties and flirting with people?"
The woman waved a hand at him dismissively, "I thought I was doing you a favor and besides that's how relationships work. He doesn't ask me about the parties, it's not like I'm a cheater or anything so he doesn't really have to worry, and I don't ask him about his plans for world domination. Don't get me started about that."
They were quiet for a couple of minutes and Cas took the time to think about relationships and what he would give up knowing about or needing from another person in order to make something work. He gave up a lot for Daniel, but the other boy hadn't been willing to make any sacrifices for him in return. Would Dean give up anything for him if Castiel asked him to or was that a conversation that you just didn't have with your friends?
"So," Meg started innocently, picking up the remote and idly flipping through the channels on the television even though the volume was pretty much nonexistent. "The tape. You're just going to ignore Dean for a week and then give it to him, that's going to work out real well."
"I'm not ignoring him." Castiel snapped causing Meg to arch a shrewd eyebrow at him.
"What happened during movie night with the Scooby gang again?"
Oh god, movie night. It had been horrible. Cas had skipped his shower after ROTC practice to run out his frustration on the way to Garth's house. It also meant he could avoid an awkward, silent car ride alone with Dean because the other boy had been texting him and trying to talk to him all week and he just couldn't, if he said more than three words to his friend he felt like he was going to break down and start spewing all kinds of love-struck word vomit and embarrass the hell out of himself.
Dean had slammed down the stairs to Garth's basement, looking just as ragged and sweaty as Castiel knew he probably did himself, threw a copy of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon down on the coffee table, and collapsed onto the crouch as far away from him as possible asking Garth if he had something stronger than Pepsi to drink.
Castiel had tried to make himself as small as possible in the armchair, hiding behind Dean's favorite throw pillow that smelled faintly like the Old Spice body wash his friend kept in his gym locker at school and hoping no one saw him crying when Chow Yun-Fat confessed his love for his fellow assassin.
When he left, squeezed in between Jo and Ash in the cab of the girl's truck, Dean hadn't even tried to talk to him. It seemed like his friend was giving up on trying to apologize for something that he shouldn't have to feel bad about. Castiel shouldn't be being so petty, it wasn't Dean's fault that Cas had a crush on him and that he couldn't reciprocate. Jo had held his hand and let him lean against her as Dean stood arms crossed by the Impala frowning and watching them as they left.
"Exactly," Meg said to his silence settling on some reality show and turning the volume up slightly so that Castiel could hear the participants arguing over who threw the best shade and doing amazing transformations into beautiful, glamorous women. "You two are going to have to talk or better yet kiss and make up. Then you can make him a million mixtapes and it probably will actually get played, not tossed under his front seat or something."
"Maybe you're right," he conceded. Snatching up the remote when she went to answer the door a couple of minutes later to collect their dinner and changing the channel to something that didn't make him feel like he was growing ovaries.
Dean was done. In fact, he was more than done. This day had sucked, this entire fucking week had sucked and the only thing he could attribute it to was the fact that Cas wouldn't talk to him, would barely even look at him and seemed to be spending a lot of time trying to get as far away from him as possible.
He knew that he and Meg had never really seen eye to eye, but he didn't think that even she would stoop so low as to dictate who Cas could and couldn't be friends with. That had to be the only explanation for how his friend was acting because Dean thought that they had been close before Jo's party, was even starting to think of Castiel in terms of best friend and wanting to talk to him about his dad and his mom and maybe feel like he could trust him enough to drop the whole macho aloof guy act for the first time in pretty much his whole life.
But y'know what, Cas wanted to act like he didn't exist or that he had ran over his kitten or something and Dean was fucking done.
He had decided while he was shucking off his shoulder pads in the visitor's locker room at Lawrence Free State that he was going to make Cas talk to him. The team had just had their asses handed to them so badly that no one on the team could even make eye contact with each other. Coach Uriel called them Neanderthals that didn't deserve to set foot on the same field as the marching band and they were all feeling pretty horrible.
Dean made his way towards his assigned bus and kept a sharp eye out for Adam. The boys in the ROTC rode to away games with the football team since there were only six of them, but Uriel liked to split the team up between two buses with the first half of the alphabet, A-N on one and O-Z on another and the rifle, toting team wasn't exempt from that. That meant he was stuck in a rolling torture chamber with Alistair and Azazel with only Kevin Tran to talk to. He liked the kid and all, but Dean could only feign enthusiasm for cellos and pre-SAT classes for so long.
He spotted the blonde hair of Jo's boyfriend loading rifles into the trailer that the band used to cart their instruments around and rushed over to him, feeling way too much like a nervous eighth grader than he was comfortable with.
"Adam, hey man." Dean looked around for Cas, hoping that he could pull this off without getting caught by the other boy. "Can you like, switch buses with me?"
"Why?" the other boy asked giving Dean and appraising look.
"I just can't handle Tran talking my ear off about honors classes and junk anymore," Dean said the excuse being only half of the reason for why he wanted on to be on the other bus so badly.
Adam crossed his arms and started to slowly shake his head.
"Okay, listen." He said desperately, holding up his hands at the other boy. "I need to talk to Cas alright. He's avoiding me and I just…I need to talk to him, okay?"
The sophomore gave him an appraising look, his mouth turning into a slow, teasing smile. He pointed a stern finger at Dean and the larger boy felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. "Fine, but you owe me."
"Anything, man. God, you're like saving my life right now." That sounded a little dramatic, but Christ, was it ever the truth.
Dean practically skipped to the bus allocated for the front half of the alphabet and searched amongst the bodies inside for a glimpse of that familiar dark messy bed-head of his friend.
Cas was sitting about halfway back on the bus, wearing a big pair of noise-canceling headphones and bent over a small journal, writing in that messy scrawl of his that Dean could probably read upside down and blindfolded he was so used to seeing it in Chuck's classroom. His stomach felt all burblely when he saw it, he missed talking to Cas in Chuck's class. Their notes having become something that Dean was ready to dedicate a whole spiral to just so he could hold on to some of the funny, quirky things that Castiel said about music or in response to a one of Dean's bad puns. And Becky wanting to talk about Will Wheaton all the time was really not the same.
He plopped down heavily in the seat next to Cas, smiling widely at the startled little jump that the other boy did and how he looked adorable as he fumbled with his headphones and his journal and his backpack, getting all tangled up and banging his elbow hard into the window next to him as he went.
"Fuck," Cas muttered rubbing absently at his elbow and then glancing up at Dean from under his eyelashes. "What are you doing, Dean? You're on the wrong bus."
"Nah-uh," Dean said shaking his head and giving Castiel a long look like he hadn't seen him in years, letting the gravely voice of the other boy wash over him and ease all of the tension he had been carrying all week out of his muscles. "Adam and I switched, he is me. Just call me Milligan."
"Oh, that's okay I guess." Cas said noncommittally, shutting his journal away in his backpack and stowing it under the seat in front of them. He fiddled with his iPod for a minute, glancing up at Dean a couple of times. "Dean, I need to apologize to you."
"What?" he asked, he was watching the way that Cas's mouth moved when he talked and wondered to himself what his friend could possibly need to apologize for, he was perfect.
"I've been avoiding you since um…since Jo's party. I thought we were…that you might…well, um…I'm sorry okay. I was being ridiculous, still friends?" His friend was looking up at him with those wide, innocent blue eyes and Dean felt like he would agree to anything, hell murder someone, if it meant that Cas would keep looking at him just like that forever.
"Of course man," Dean said pulling his friend in for a one-armed hug. "And here I was, thinking I had done something to make you mad."
"I could never stay mad at you, Dean." Castiel replied softly, twisting the cord for his headphones around and around his index finger.
The pair was silent for a while, oblivious to the raucous boys surrounding them and barely noticing as the bus rumbled to life and began the trip back to Lawrence High.
"I'm sorry I don't have my other headphones with me," Castiel said looking over at him apologetically and gesturing towards the bulky professional looking headphones looped around his neck. "If I did, we could listen to music or something."
"That's ok, Cas." Dean said slumping down in the seat and putting his head on his friend's shoulder. "I can hear it like this, play something."
He heard Castiel clear his throat above him and felt him shift uncomfortably in the seat, okay maybe he was pushing it a bit, but after having been apart from the other boy for most of the week, Dean needed this, this closeness with his friend.
They listened to some things that Dean was familiar with, more that he wasn't. Some of it he recognized, but the music was wrong, too slow or too fast or completely different with just lyrics that he thought he knew. Castiel listened to a lot of cover songs.
He was listening to a feminine version of Pearl Jam's 'Don't Wanna Miss a Thing' and Castiel was looking out the window at the passing streetlamps and buildings.
"Why do you like cover songs so much?" Dean asked, fiddling with the edge of the ROTC uniform top Cas was wearing unbuttoned over a plain white undershirt as it laid in the small space between them.
"They're different," Castiel said looking down at the larger man beside him for a moment before his gaze returned back to the blurry dark skyline outside the window.
"Well, duh. I mean, do you like them more than the original versions?"
"Not more," his friend said, wiggling his shoulder until Dean looked up at him. "I think hearing a cover song is sorta like when you see something you look at every day, something you might take for granted, from a different angle and suddenly it's like this whole new thing, it's completely changed and it has this new meaning that you never thought of before. You may like it more because of the new angle or you might completely hate it, but you can't help but think of what else you may not know about it. It makes you want to look at it deeper. Look at yourself deeper. Here, let me show you."
Castiel fiddled with his iPod until that annoyingly catchy Carly Rae Jepsen song came over his headphones. Dean groaned and tried to snatch the device out of his friend's hand to change the song, it was going to be stuck in his head all day if it got to the chorus.
Cas laughed and moved his hand out of Dean's reach. "Okay, see you hate this song. But listen to it now."
He clicked a button and there it was again, but it was just like Castiel said. Different, with a male voice singing and a violin or something playing in the background. It sounded less poppy, and childish and superficial. It sounded like a song being sung by someone who was nervous about approaching a person they liked and giving them their number. Like they were putting all they had on the line for this one person who they were inexplicably drawn to for no other reason besides some crazy gut feeling they were having.
Dean turned his face into Castiel's chest when it got to the part with heavy chords where the man was singing about being chased by other people and tried to calm the way his heart was beating. He felt like everything about this song was so familiar, like the person singing it was the same as him, being perused by everyone but only having interest in one person, someone they couldn't have, who may not want them back. The song ended with notes that sounded unfinished, like the rest of the story was waiting to unfold, the singer may not know what was going to happen, but he had put himself out there and had to trust that the other person would reply.
"See?" Cas asked softly.
Dean took a steadying breath and sat back up, pulling away from Castiel slightly so that he could look at him. His friend's face just looked so open and trusting and Dean knew that if he said what he was thinking that it would just ruin everything. Because he had started remembering what had been going on with him and Cas at Jo's party and those little things that had gone through his head that night that he thought he would forget about were becoming really hard to ignore.
"It's good, Cas. I see why you like it."
He thought he saw the other boy's face fall a little bit, but the expression was replaced with that curious look that Cas got sometimes and Dean just couldn't help but smile at how he would for the rest of his life associate that gesture with his friend.
"I'll make you a mixtape," The boy said seriously.
"You don't have to do that, Cas. Baby, doesn't play CDs so I could only listen to it at home and I spend more time in my car or at Bobby's garage, he just has a tape player in the shop."
"No, I mean a tape mixtape."
"Oh, cool." Dean said, nudging the smaller boy with his shoulder when a thought struck him. A way he could make up for lost time with Cas without seeming super creepy or taking him away from Meg too much. "Hey, can I come running with you one morning? Uriel said I was dragging ass out there tonight and I guess I could stand to do some extra training."
"I don't know," the other boy said reaching over to poke Dean teasingly in the side. "Think you could keep up with me? The way you eat, I'll end up having to drag your chubby ass around."
"I'm not chubby!" Dean said feeling the bus's air breaks release beneath them and noticing that they were almost back at the school. He pulled his arms close into his sides so that Cas would stop poking him, he didn't need the entire football team knowing he was ticklish. "I can go on Sunday, I'll get all my work done at the shop tomorrow so that Bobby doesn't need me to come in that morning."
"Ok," Castiel said pulling his bag back out stowing away his head phones. "Um…meet me at the nature park at like 6. There's something I want to show you."
"Six in the morning?!" Dean complained, getting to his feet and letting Cas out into the aisle of the bus ahead of him as they shuffled towards the exit. "Is the sun even up that early?"
"Do you want to go or not?" Castiel asked adjusting his messenger bag on his shoulder once they were off and moving towards where Gabriel was waiting for him in the convertible at the front of the parking lot.
"I'll be there with bells on," Dean said sounding less than enthusiastic, giving a parting wave to his friend and telling himself he couldn't look back, don't look back, as he got into his own car and peeled out of the parking lot.
"If you need me to slow down, Dean, just say so," Castiel said worriedly as he looked at the other boy who was leaning against a tree trying to catch his breath. "I can't resuscitate you if you faint; you're the one who knows CPR, not me."
"I'm fine," Dean gasped holding onto his knees and waving the smaller boy away. "Just need a second…or maybe a minute."
Cas chuckled slightly and pulled his leg up behind him in a stretch, looking around at the trees and bushes that bordered the inclining path they were on. He didn't go running at the nature park very often, usually it was way too humid, but now that they were midway through September it had finally cooled down enough to make it comfortable to go hiking on the steep paths if you went early enough.
He was barely even breaking a sweat, having to go at about half of his normal pace to keep Dean from falling too far behind. The other boy had already sweated through his white shirt and his legs were trembling in the black basketball shorts he was wearing. Castiel figured they could walk the rest of the trail, they were almost to the top anyway, they just had to beat the sun.
"You good to go?" Cas asked trying not to sound impatient, he hadn't brought anyone else out here before and he wanted Dean to see the view when it was the best.
"Yea," Dean replied groaning a bit as he straightened back up and moving to walk beside Castiel, their arms brushing as they moved along the narrow path.
The climbed the last several hundred feet in silence, Dean's heavy breathing and the rustle of the leaves around them being the only sounds to break the stillness of the morning. Castiel stepped out on the plateau at the top of the path and walked to the edge of the limestone outcropping, marveling again at how Lawrence was spread out before him like a map.
"Wow," he heard from beside him and looked over to see Dean standing near him with his hands on his hips. "This is great."
"Give it ten minutes," Cas said settling down on the edge of the naturally made ledge and letting his legs dangle off of the sides. He patted the spot beside him and Dean collapsed heavily on to the ground, leaning back a bit on his hands as his breathing evened out.
They watched the first rays of sunlight break over the horizon and Castiel heard Dean's soft gasp as the sunlight glittered off of some of the taller buildings in the city beneath them. From where they were sitting, Castiel could pick out the U of K football stadium even though he had never been to a game himself, from there he could almost see Meg's apartment building and thought back for a moment of his dinner with his new friend and her boyfriend, Luc, who was way more charming than his name led people to believe. He knew the general area where his house was, but it bled into a suburban sprawl that made it impossible to pinpoint where his brother and sister were still probably asleep in their beds.
"Amazing," Dean muttered under his breath and Castiel felt like maybe he should just do what Meg had said and kiss the other boy to see what would happen.
But, no. He had a plan and it didn't involve spontaneous displays of affection that might get him pushed of a cliff. Granted it was a small cliff, but Cas was still pretty sure it would hurt if he fell into the brambles that were about thirty feet below them.
"So, imagine you jumped off of here," Castiel asked suddenly, needing a distraction from where his thoughts were going. He decided to play a game that he and Gabriel used to play when they were younger and the jungle gym at the playground seemed a lot taller and scarier.
"Why would I do that?" Dean asked leaning over and looking at the open space below their feet.
"Um…your car breaks down, diner's stop serving pie," Castiel searched his mind for something horrible enough that would make Dean do something dangerous and drastic.
"The Beatles break up." His friend said solemnly.
"That already happened, Dean."
His friend held up a hand at him and shook his head a bit, "Too soon, Cas. I just meant I knew where you were going."
"The Beatles? Really?"
Dean nodded at his friend seriously.
"Whatever. We'll talk about that later. Anyway, you jump and you're falling. Which way would you want to be facing? Up or down?"
"Why does it matter?" Dean asked his brow furrowing in confusion.
"Because if you're facing down you know exactly when it's going to happen, when you're going to hit the ground and everything cuts to black. Face up you're just looking at the sky, enjoying the ride and unaware of what's coming."
"I think you'd be aware, Cas. People don't just jump off of cliffs and think they won't get hurt."
"Answer the question, Dean."
"Ok…up."
"Face up?" Cas asked feeling like this answered a lot of questions he had about his friend. It explained why Dean just seemed comfortable with letting other people define him and why he just went along with what other people expected of him most of the time. Let himself come across as that stereotypical, womanizing jock when he was really so much more. He nodded a bit and looked down at where Dean's hand was sitting next to his.
"Yea. What about you?" Dean asked.
"Down, I think." Castiel said nodding his head and moving his hands back into his lap. "Yea, I'd want to know what's coming."
What he meant was that he was finally ready to start taking control of his life, ready to stop letting people define him by who he liked or what he did.
That's why he was giving Dean a deadline. A month with the tape. More than enough time to figure out what he was trying to tell him. Enough time to decide what he wanted to do, if he wanted to do anything and if those things he wanted to do involved Castiel being something more to him than a friend.
It also gave Castiel a month to start tying up his own loose ends, so that if things worked out how he was hoping they would he would be able to tell Dean about everything in his past without it being such a big deal.
They sat for a little while longer, long enough for the sun to fully rise and reflect off the rocks around them, causing the temperature to rise steadily and Cas's shirt to start sticking to his back.
"C'mon," he said climbling to his feet and offering Dean a hand up. His heart fluttered, like it always did when he was around the other boy when Dean took it and pulled himself to his feet, stumbling slightly and bumping into Castiel. "I've got your tape in the car."
"Really?" Dean said dusting off his hands on his shorts and following Cas back down the path which seemed a lot less grueling now that they were going downhill. "That was quick man."
It wasn't really. Castiel had spent the entire day on Saturday dubbing songs over onto a recycled tape using Gabriel's old tape deck and his enormous CD collection. He even had to go online a couple of times to download songs and then burn them onto a blank disc so that he could transfer them over. It was tedious and time-consuming, but he felt like it would be worth it.
He had gotten Meg to come over and help him for a bit, bringing in burgers and fries with her and he had sat by as she carefully wrote out the track listing for the first side of the tape in neat, bubbly handwriting. It was full of covers of songs that he thought Dean would like mostly classic and hard rock. On the B-side he had her write that Dean should ask him if he wanted to know about any of the artists, he figured that would be a good way to start the conversation. That side was full of different songs, ones that couldn't be misread as having another meaning. Either way, his friend was going to know how he felt.
Face down meant he was going into this with no preconceived notions. Castiel knew how badly this could go for him, but the fact that he knew that helped. And he was ready for the fall.
Author Note:
OMFG. I never thought I would finish this chapter. I know you're all getting antsy for some fluff and all, but seriously? How clueless were you in high school about stuff like this. I was pretty clueless so now you know why this is taking so long.
Anyway, I appreciate all of the love and review and such. You guys are the bestest. Keep rocking my ankle socks right off, guys.