Dean walked out of the SAT feeling like a fucking superstar. Sure his hands were shaking and he wasn't entirely sure that he would be able to hold down the enormous breakfast that Gabriel had forced onto him and Cas before they headed over to the college where the test was being administered, but besides that he felt like he was on top of the world. Well, he was also still a little pissed that the uppity dude administering the test wouldn't let him sit next to Cas, said it was protocol or the rules or some stupid shit that everyone had to sit alphabetically and that Dean wasn't going to get the rules bent just for him.

Even that couldn't mess up the euphoric high that he was feeling as he and Castiel walked out to high car, hand in hand and enjoying the unseasonably warm Feburary weekend that had turned the gathered snow into slush that revealed the green offshoots of the grass that had been hidden underneath for the last couple of months. Because apart from a couple of really confusing Algebra problems and one badly written word association question, Dean was fairly confident that he had completely owed the SAT.

For the first time in a long time he was feeling optimistic about things that he had always thought were out of his reach, things like college and a stable relationship and actually growing up to have a job that people didn't look down on him for doing. He was good at fixing cars, better than even Bobby sometimes and he liked it, for a hobby, but did he want to do it for the rest of his life? He would never regret the things he had learned from his uncle, about doing an honest day's work for an honest wage , about the value of a dollar and how some people didn't really know how much it was worth because they had never really had to work for it. But no, working on cars was not the end game anymore; for once he thought he might be able to do something more than his dad had told him he could.

"So let's celebrate," Castiel said excitedly beside him, feeding off of Dean's energy as the larger boy took advantage of his boyfriend's good mood to press him up against the side of the Impala that had warmed in the afternoon sun. "No more studying, just regular school and then we're done. Then we can get past high school and move on with our lives."

"Are you sure this isn't you trying to make me forget that you're leaving for a week?" Dean asked, leaning in close to bury his face in Castiel's neck because a week was a really long time and Chicago might as well be on the moon and Cas was still pretending that he didn't have to face his dad in less than a week to give testimony that might put his father and oldest brother in jail for what they did to him.

Cas had been avoiding talking about it with Dean and more than once he had caught the other boy talking to his therapist on the phone over the last couple of weeks, getting the woman's help to talk himself down from the edge of a panic attack and kissing Dean like the world was ending as soon as he ended his calls. Their love making had taken on an air of desperation ever since his birthday, with Castiel clinging to him when he had to stumble out of bed to go pick up John from somewhere during the brief week that he was in town before taking off again leaving behind a note that said he wouldn't be back for a month.

It worried Dean just a little bit that his dad was taking jobs farther and farther away, but then again he had other things to worry about before today too. Like the SAT and those college application essays that he had told his boyfriend he would write while Cas was in Chicago and Cas, himself, who seemed reckless and restless, spending more and more time jogging and journaling even when he was with Dean in his redecorated bedroom stretched out on the bed like it was theirs along with the rest of the apartment and it was so domestic that it made Dean's heart feel heavy and happy and full.

"Maybe I just need a distraction, myself." Castiel replied lowly, wrapping his arms around Dean's neck and chuckling when the larger boy started humming Elvis songs into his ear. "Let's go out somewhere, its Saturday night. I feel like I have all this energy that I need to work off."

"I could help you with that," Dean said teasingly, kissing at the other boy's neck and groaning in annoyance when a part of the group of students that they had been testing with walked by talking fairly loudly about how gross gay couples were and why did they have to rub their disgusting behavior in everyone's faces.

"Ignore them," Cas muttered, giving the passing trio the finger behind Dean's head and sticking his tongue out at the shocked expression he got in return. "It doesn't matter what they think."

"I know, babe." Dean sighed, pulling back so that he could brush the hair out of the other boy's face earning a soft smile from Castiel. "I just keep wondering when it's going to stop bothering me so much. People shouldn't be allowed to just say shit like that, like I don't go around pointing out the things I don't like about everyone so why do they get to do it to us?"

"Because they want us to break," Castiel explained, prying himself out from underneath Dean's weight so that he could clamber into the Impala. "People like that have a hole in their lives, something they're trying to hide or fill by pointing out the flaws in other people, all of it is trying to take the attention off of the problems in their own lives because the last thing anyone wants is to be pitied."

"Do you pity your dad?" Dean asked, glancing over at his boyfriend as he started the car, wondering if he had pushed to far again and if Castiel was going to shut him down by pulling up his phone and calling Rachel instead of talking to him when he was right here practically begging Cas to confide in him.

"I pity Raphael for being dumb enough to get used by my dad," the other boy replied, his voice sounding monotone like it only did when he was trying to hide his emotions and the fact that Dean knew that didn't really make him feel any better about his boyfriend hurting. "Can we go now?"

"Where are we going, babe?"

"Anywhere, just drive." Castiel said, slouching down in the passenger seat and flopping his hand into the space between him and Dean, palm up and asking for it to be held so they were probably okay.

Dean pulled out of the parking lot of the lecture hall that they had tested in, aiming the car for the apartment and wishing that there was something else he could do to let the other boy know that the trial was really the last test before they could move on with their lives, focus on the future and all of the potential that it held now that they were together. But he was patient, he could wait and he loved Castiel so really he could wait forever and be okay. Even if they were grumpy old men together by the time Cas finally was able to move past the betrayal of two of the people that he trusted most in the world, Dean could wait and promise himself that he would never let the same thing happen to the boy he loved ever again.


Castiel rubbed distractedly at the X's that had been put on the top of his hands with the thick black Sharpie that the bouncer had carried, wishing that he had had enough foresight to bring something to get it off with so that he could drink like everyone else was doing. Even Krissy had a fake id and she definitely could not pass for 21, but the bouncer had looked the other way because Meg had flirted with him much to Luc's eye-rolling displeasure and they had all made it into the club with only Castiel getting marked as underage.

When he had told Dean that he wanted to go out, he hadn't really expected his boyfriend to invite all of their friends along with them, but he figured it was his own damn fault for saying no to a movie and no to going to the diner and no to just sitting around at one of their houses where he could get lost in his head thinking about the trial all over again. Studying for the SATs had proved to be a distraction for a little bit, but really Dean was more than ready to take them despite him pouring over every study manual he could get his hands on and Castiel had been left watching his boyfriend freak over nothing for the last two weeks while his trial loomed ever closer.

But he hadn't wanted to burden Dean with it, the timing was just complete and utter shit, but there was nothing he could do about it. The date for the trial had been set months ago, over the summer before he knew about Dean Winchester and found something that he wanted more than the gift of dying forgiven that his father had offered him. Now more than anything he just wanted all of this to be over, so that he could move on with the rest of his life and he didn't want Dean to worry about him when he was already busy taking care of John who didn't even deserve the help that his oldest son was giving him.

So he had kept it all to himself, relying heavily on Rachel to keep him grounded even though after the trial he wasn't even sure if she was going to be his therapist anymore. Her job was done, evaluating him to determine what damage had been caused by Daniel and what had been caused by his father and being a witness at the trial to defend the parts of his sanity that he had managed to salvage after trying to kill himself. The therapist was just flying out for the day that she was giving testimony but Cas and his siblings were expected to be there for the entire time, the two days allotted for the criminal trial and then the third that their attorneys had said the custody hearing would take place on.

Gabriel was still pulling them out of school for the whole week though; apparently it was something that the older man had set up with the school back when he was registering Castiel and Anna for classes and they were flying out to Chicago on Monday morning. Dean had refused to let them take a taxi to the airport, saying it was the least he and Sam could do for the Novaks claiming that it wasn't really house sitting since Sam was already living there and eating them out of house and home.

But that was all that Dean had offered, besides asking leading questions that Castiel knew just proved the other boy loved him because no one worried that much over something they didn't care about. He had it figured out though, how Dean was so much better with gestures than words and maybe his boyfriend would never be able to say it, 'I Love You', but that didn't mean that he was bereft of emotions. Dean loved him, he knew that he loved him, but he was still more than a little worried that his trial fears would put the other boy off of them possibly living together one day. He was still a neurotic mess and the last thing he wanted was to be just another person that Dean had to take care of.

So instead of thinking, he was running or writing down all of his worries so that he wouldn't word vomit them all over his boyfriend. Castiel was just full of this nervous energy that he felt like he needed to work off or it would destroy him along with everything else in the immediate vicinity. Shooting practice with the ROTC helped, they were getting ready for their first big meet next week and Virgil was not exactly thrilled that he was going to miss it, but the older man understood that he had other things to take care of that were bigger than an after school club.

Sitting still in the SAT testing room had been horrible, first with Dean making that huge scene with the testing administrator about them not being able to sit next to each other, which he knew the other boy was trying to get just as much for Cas as he was himself and then with him finishing almost every single section with enough time to spare for him to start freaking out about the trial again. His nails were completely bitten off, his lips felt raw and chapped and not in a good way like they did after he and Dean made out, and he was pretty sure his scratch paper that he turned in with his test looked like the ravings of a lunatic.

That's why he had wanted to do something, go out, run, have sex, drink, maybe even just drive around with Dean and the air whipping in the Impala's windows as music blared loud enough to drown out his thoughts. But they had ended up at some club called the Replay Lounge and he had been the only one to get cornered by the bouncer and marked as designated driver by default. Even Luc was drinking though he was by far the oldest of the people in their group and had ended up talking to some older man in a tweed jacket at the bar who Castiel assumed was a work colleague of his from the college. But not Cas, it was like the world wanted his head to explode or something.

"Bro," Ash drawled, clinking a handful of bottles down on the table and before shoving his hand into Krissy's purse and rifling around.

Castiel watched while the girl weakly protested the other boy's invasion of privacy before grabbing a beer and looking off to where Meg and Jo were dancing out in the middle of the open space that served as a dance floor in front of the stage that the DJ had set up on. Ash pulled out a travel sized bottle of hand sanitizer and tossed it in Cas's direction, making a motion towards the back of his hands that the smaller boy should use it there.

"Rubbing alcohol," Ash shout-talked in his direction over the thumping music that was playing the background. "Gets Sharpie right off."

"Who's going to drive?" Castiel asked, pausing before he popped the top of the bottle and doused his hands with it.

"Krissy and I can handle it," the other boy replied, smiling up at the girl in question when she plopped down into his lap almost immediately after he sat down in one of the chairs that was huddled around the small round table that they had managed to snag. "You need to relax, man. You've been hella stressed."

"Am I that obvious?"

"Dude, yes." Krissy sighed. "Thank god you and Dean are done with that test, if I had to sit through one more 'study lunch' with you guys I was going to kill you all. This graduation shit is seriously bumming me out, what am I going to do when you all leave?"

"We've got months, dollface." Ash said, kissing her arm and tilting his head in Dean's direction when they saw the other boy reappear from where he had gone off to the bathroom. "There's your man, take him a beer, dance or something. Just freaking act like a teenager for a bit Cas, you don't have to be so serious all the time. Being happy is not going to kill you."

"Y'know, that is excellent advice," Castiel said, getting up and heading in Dean's direction, grabbing two of the beers off of the table as he went. "You should be a doctor or something, Ash."

"I am," he replied, punching lightly at Castiel's arm as he passed. "Doctor Badass, remember?"

He politely excused his way through the crowd, keeping Dean in his eyeline as he shuffled through the crush of college students and townies who worked in or around the university. The other boy had stopped to talk to Jo, leaning down so that she could wrap an arm around his neck and speak directly into his ear. His boyfriend was smiling and shrugging, probably blushing too but the weird lighting of the club was making Dean looked washed out, but Castiel could tell by the goofy grin that the other boy had that they were either talking about how the test went today, Sam, or him.

When he saw Jo's eyes lock onto his and her smile widen, he knew that they were talking about him. Meg had told their friend how Cas had reacted to the news of her and Luc's engagement, squealing like a girl and getting all teary; just like he had expected, Jo had been teasing him about it non-stop, saying that he and Dean should run off to Vermont and get married and open a bed and breakfast for cats. He had just bit his tongue about it all because if he told Jo about the necklace that Adam had gotten her for Valentine's Day then the other boy would never forgive him, but the first time he saw Jo wearing it Cas knew that his teasing would reach Winchester level proportions.

Dean turned around and smiled at him, making Castiel stop in his tracks just like it always did and try to catch his breath back. He hoped that there would never be a day that seeing Dean wouldn't make his heart beat faster and his breath catch in his chest, he hoped that they would never be one of those couples who got bored of each other and stayed together out of a sense of duty or fear that they wouldn't be able to find someone else. Cas hoped that when Dean eventually come to his senses, that he would be able to pick himself back up afterwards, stronger because of the relationship with the other boy even if it meant being alone again.

"Brought you a beer," he managed to choke out, grinning when Dean leaned in and wrapped an arm around his waist, tugging him close enough that their chests collided as the larger boy reached out to take one of the drinks out of his hand.

"Thanks, babe." Dean said, green eyes roving over his face searchingly as he took a long drink of the beer and pulled him over to where Meg and Jo were dancing and laughing, clinging together and acting silly.

"Cas!" Meg exclaimed, falling into his arms and forcing Dean to step away from his so that he could catch her. "You're going to give me away."

"To charity?" Castiel asked, earning a shrieking laugh from Jo as Meg's mouth fell open in protest.

"NO! At my wedding, buttface." Meg explained, her speech sounding stunted and slowed by the long island iced teas she had been inhaling since walking into the club.

"Isn't that something that a father does?" he scream-talked into the other girl's hair, watching Dean as Jo pulled him farther onto the dance floor and started to bounce around him as his boyfriend laughed.

"Fathers schamathers," Meg slurred, making a face that looked like she had just tasted something sour. "Who needs 'em, eh? Not you, not me, and not boy wonder and supergirl over there. I'd rather have someone who cares about me give away my virtue to Luc."

"It's really gross when you put it that way," Castiel joked, giving her a kiss on the cheek and a nod before turning her around in the direction of the bar and beginning to steer her towards Luc. "Let's go find him, maybe switch you to water."

"You're gonna come back, right?" Meg pouted, leaning heavily into his side as he half carried her to perch on the stool next to Luc who was now standing with Adam looking off over the crowd, presumably for the other boy's girlfriend. "From Chicago? Don't go up there and decide we're all yokels and never come back."

"That's ridiculous," Castiel muttered, rolling his eyes at Meg before pointing Adam in the direction where he had left Dean and Jo. "Of course I'm going to come back, my entire life is here."

"Dean thinks you miss it," Meg said, crossing her arms on the bar and laying her head down on them. "The big city, that's why you've been so antsy and not talking to him about it. He thinks you're going to go back to Chicago and realize how shitty it is here and end up wanting to go to school there instead."

"He told you all that?" Cas asked concernedly, the only schools he had any intention of applying to were ones where Dean Winchester would be enrolled, if his boyfriend ended up deciding college wasn't for him and wanted to run off to join the circus or something, Castiel planned on being right there next to him walking the tightrope or taming lions until Dean told him to leave.

"A girl just knows, Cas." Meg mumbled, shutting her eyes with a sleepy sigh and leaning into Luc who just wrapped an arm around her as he shook his head.

"Go on, Cas." Luc said, pushing Meg's hair behind her ear lovingly before he hefted the smaller woman up into his arms, bridal carry style. "I'm gonna take her home, she's been going crazy about the wedding and we haven't even set a date yet. Oh, did she ask you about the whole giving away thing?"

"Well it wasn't so much her asking me to do it as her telling me that I was going to do it." He explained, smirking when Meg flailed a bit and ended up hitting Luc in the face softly with the back of her hand.

"That's my girl," Luc groaned, shaking her hand out of his face and moving towards the door. "Have fun, Cas. And thanks for everything."

"You're okay to drive right?" Castiel asked, trailing behind the other man and keeping his beer down low by his side when they got closer to the bouncer who he was pretty sure would remember him since Meg had made a point to be pretty unforgettable when she was trying to get them all in so they could drink.

Luc waved him off, nodding back in the direction of the dance floor and saying goodbye one last time before heading out the door of the club.


Cas may have hated dancing once upon a time, but apparently the right combination of stress and alcohol and cajoling by both Jo and Krissy was enough to make his boyfriend loosen up enough that he let Dean pull him around the dance floor until the larger boy got impatient enough to drag Cas outside to the Impala where they collapsed in a tangle of jumbled limbs and messy kisses that had Dean rethinking his whole stance on having sex in cars.

The other boy was in his lap, straddling his hips like he had on New Year's Eve and so many times over the past couple of months when they had fogged up the windows of the Impala, kissing after movie night or not wanting to let each other go. It wasn't even about sex most of the time, this time it was, but most of the time it wasn't. This time it was about Dean wanting to give Cas something to remember him by, something that would make him want to come back home to Lawrence and all of the boring, small-town homophobia that they had to put up with that in all likelihood wasn't as bad in Chicago.

"I'm going to come back, Dean." Castiel muttered into his ear, kissing and nibbling at his neck, rolling his hips down against Dean's as he went causing the larger boy to groan softly and run the flat of his palm up Cas's back to press between his shoulder blades. "I won't leave unless you want me to."

"Well, that's never going to happen," Dean scoffed, pulling back to press his forehead against Castiel's breathing heavily into the space between them as his hips canted upwards, seeking friction against the only person he could imagine dying for. "I'd have to be pretty stupid to give you up."

"Guess we'll just have to wait on the test results then," the smaller boy replied teasingly, pulling down the collar of Dean's shirt and ducking his head to bite softly at the base of his throat.

"Asshole," Dean murmured, moving his other hand off of Castiel's hip to slide it into the back of the smaller boy's jeans, digging his nails into the skin beneath the thin fabric of his boyfriend's boxers urging him to move against him faster, harder, rougher.

"You love me," Castiel said, smiling against his throat and tugging on the back of Dean's hair so that he could kiss him desperate and deep, exactly how Dean liked him to. "I know that you love me, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to come back from this trial and we don't ever have to be apart again."

"I do," Dean breathed, thinking of all of the nights he had spent teaching himself guitar so that he could play Love Me Tender for the other boy as his Valentine's Day present and how his dad probably wouldn't even notice if he and Cas got their own place together as long as he still had a lift home from the bars when he was in town. "I'll be here, waiting for you to come home."

He still wanted it, all of it; the house, the dog, the half cherry half apple pie life with the picket fence that he had always imagined for himself and Sammy once they got the hell out of Lawrence and found nice girls to settle down with. This wasn't how he had imagined his senior year going, but he would be a damned liar if he said that being with Cas hadn't made him a better, happier person and losing that peace that he had found with the other boy scared him senseless.

But he needed to stop letting fear dominate his life, the fear of everyone leaving him alone and defenseless against the looming, angry voiced shadows that had told him all life that nothing he did was good enough. The fear that his dad would never again be the person that he had worked on the Impala with as a kid, before his mom left and everything turned to complete shit that he couldn't protect anyone from, least of all himself. The fear that he would eventually be the same and there was nothing and no one that could save him from that. But then there was Cas and everything else melted away until the only thing he was afraid of was losing the one thing that made him fearless about the rest of it.

Castiel nodded above him, fumbling between them at Dean's belt until he could get the fastenings open and reach a hand inside the denim to palm the larger boy's erection without the cumbersome material separating them. Dean groaned when Cas started stroking him, arching his back against the seat and biting his lip in concentration while he fought to free the other boy from his own clothing. The pair let out a simultaneous moan when their members slid together, Dean licking a stripe on the palm of his hand in order to provide lubricant for the impromptu turn that their heated kissing had taken.

He was so close, thrusting and grinding against the other boy and promising himself that when Cas got back from Chicago he would make the rest of their lives one that people talked about until the end of time, the kind of relationship that people aspired to and envied and prayed that they would be lucky enough to find someday. They were going to be Romeo and Juliet, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, Lancelot and Guinevere; Dean could write the story of their love. Chuck and Cas had both always said he was a pretty good writer.

"Dean," Castiel moaned, catching the lager boy's lower lip between his teeth for a second before burying his face in Dean's neck, panting against the skin as their hands moved together between them spreading precome and saliva down their lengths. "I want you so bad, want you forever."

"Forever," Dean whispered, dipping his hand lower into Castiel's jeans and pressing a dry finger against the other boy's entrance.

The other boy hissed in surprise before nodding briskly against Dean's neck and pushing back into the intrusion with whimpering sigh. Dean watched his boyfriend's face as the pained expression turned to one of pleasure as Castiel timed his thrusts against Dean with how the larger boy was brushing against his prostate, wishing that he knew how to let Cas know that he was ready for this, that he wanted to feel the other boy inside of him in whatever way he could get. But how did he even begin to ask for something like that?

Cas had been testing and teasing against his limits and so far Dean had just ignored the probing, cautious digits that the other boy used to touch him when they were fooling around, but his curiosity was rapidly getting the better of him. His fantasies had become ones of Cas pining him down, talking to him in that authoritative, deep voice that he used to bark out orders during ROTC practice, and fucking him until he was begging to come for the other boy; imagining how it would feel to have nothing separating him or Cas from each other even though he knew how important protection was.

He just wanted to know how much it would hurt first, not that he was scared of the pain because he was pretty sure some of his football injuries could compare with how his first time bottoming would measure up, he just wanted to know and asking Cas in the middle of sex felt all kinds of wrong. But he had already decided that if the other boy seriously followed through with his leading lingerie jokes that the thought of getting fucked by a guy in thigh high stockings did not bother him in the slightest, in fact as long as it was Cas it was sure to be the most mind blowing experience of his life.

Thinking of Cas in stockings and a corset and god, maybe even some heels or something that would put the other boy taller than him for once made him groan, thrusting with a renewed vigor against Castiel who was muttering and moaning into his neck, pausing every so often to kiss him breathless or run his hand down Dean's chest.

"Close," Dean groaned out, hauling the other boy as close as he could manage, close enough that he could feel Castiel's heart beating against his chest and the other boy clenching spasmodically around the finger that he was using to apply a steady, insistent pressure against his prostate. "Cas, babe. Oh fuck, you're so sexy, so beautiful. Need to feel you, want to see you come."

Castiel arched his back, biting his lip to stifle the low groans that were still managing to tear their way out of his throat. He griped Dean's bicep like it was the only thing anchoring him to the moment before swooping down and dominating Dean's mouth, tongue fucking him in a way that just made the larger boy's mind race with the possibilities of what else that mouth could do to him, what his mouth could do to Cas, what he had been wanting to do to Cas.

And then he was gone, seeing only beautiful blue and sparks as he came shaking apart under the tight grip that Castiel had around their throbbing cocks while they both thrust shallowly through their orgasms against each other. The other boy stroked them until their erections started to deflate, sighing into Dean's neck when the larger boy gingerly withdrew the digit that he had pressed into Castiel. Dean didn't know when he had let go of the other boy to grip the passenger side armrest of the Impala, but there was a Titanic worthy handprint smearing the fog that their breath had created, revealing the slushy parking lot of the club and the distant, hazy streetlights that dimly lit the space.

"It's just a week, Dean." Castiel murmured, looking disapprovingly at the mess they had made of their clothing and shrugging in a defeated sort of way. "This time, next week I'll be back and it'll all be finished. I am going to come back. What was it you said?"

"Stuck for life," Dean replied, smiling ruefully at the other boy and struggling out of his over shirt so they could have something at all to clean up with, so much for not having sex in the car.

"No, it was you're going to hate me by the time I'm done with you I think," Castiel said, smirking as Dean struggled to clean them both up without making it worse than it already was.

"Like I could ever hate you," the larger boy said under his breath, laughing when Castiel pushed him back hard against the seat, crushing their lips together again before clambering out of his lap with a triumphant grin.

"Like I could ever be done with you," his boyfriend retorted, yelping in surprise when Dean climbed on top of him, pushing him down on the seat until he was trapped comfortably under the weight of the larger boy.

"I guess you're right about that," Dean murmured, kissing the other boy's jaw one last time before sitting up briskly and starting the Impala, thankful that seeing Castiel stress-free and smiling had replaced the appeal of alcohol for him almost completely before steering them towards the apartment which felt more like home than any of the other ones he had lived in. As long as Cas was with him, anywhere could be home.


Author Note: Snow day smut! Literally its like driving on an ice-rink where I live and I have only left my house to get the mail, mail-people are officially my heroes, btw. One more chapter guys, which I've already started and hope to have up early so that waiting for the first chapter of the sequel (Nomad By Fate, guys look for it) won't take forever. But if you're jonesin' for other stuff to read my other two fics are going to update and there is probs (def) going to be a punk!Cas AU that I will be starting also. I'm the worst or crazy, either way I'm sorry for all of the suspense my loveys.