Coincidence and Fate

(A/N)

This story is written for the Dean/Cas Reverse Bang 2022.
It's based on the song "Sk8er Boi" by Avril Lavigne. The story ends in a different way than the song.
The picture that was the inspiration for this story was created by the wonderful Tessa.
My thanks also go to her, as she also acted as my beta reader. Thank you so much, dear Tessa!

Here you can find Tessa and her art:
Tumblr: livingalonewithevilthoughts (Tessa Rose)


Chapter 1

It was a pleasant late summer evening. No longer too warm, but not cold either. Castiel rides his skateboard through the streets of New York. It is not the first time and often he is looked at strangely. A punk, not really grown up but not a child anymore, on a skateboard. Among the 'normal' citizens of New York, such a person tends to meet with rejection. Evil looks, whispers, wrinkled noses, Castiel knows all that by now and it has become unimportant to him. Let people think that he is an antisocial guy who does nothing all day long, only listens to loud music, drinks and takes drugs.

On this beautiful evening, he also passes by the School of American Ballet again. It's almost 8 p.m. and there's not much going on there at this hour. He is very glad about that, because the looks of the ballet dancers are the worst. Conceited and snobby, as if they are the most important. Castiel circles the building once and sees that all the windows are dark. Only one room still has a light on. He passes a second time and notices that it is a training room or something similar.

Now he stops in front of the room. Standing on the balcony, he looks in through the large windows. What he sees there takes his breath away. A young, beautiful and well-built dancer is spinning around the room. He is alone and seems to be trying out or practicing something. Spellbound, Castiel watches him. It looks so feathery how the dancer lifts his leg, spins or makes other movements. Even if he didn't like the dancers, he still found the ballet itself beautiful. Grace and elegance appealed to him very much.

Castiel watches the young dancer until he seems to be finished and moves towards the door to pick up his bag and water bottle. When the dancer turns around in the doorway, Castiel is terrified. He has been seen and in a moment the dancer would come at him and throw all sorts of nasty things at his head. However, the young man does none of this but simply turns off the light and leaves. So had he not seen him?

Castiel shakes his head and exhales in relief. He can do well without sneering comments and disapproving glances. He puts his skateboard down properly and rides off. Home, where he won't be missed anyway and where no one is waiting for him. His parents withdrew all support with immediate effect when Castiel came home at 14 and sat down at the table with purple hair and earrings. His mother had nearly fainted and his father had yelled at him and threatened to beat him out of the room if he didn't leave on his own. Castiel had expected it and had gone into the room without his dinner. Since then, his parents didn't care what he did, how he was doing, who he was seeing, or if he was getting ahead in school. Castiel was now 17 and he was crossing off days on the calendar until his 18th birthday. Then he would be able to leave without his parents being able to bring him back despite everything.

Arriving home, he found that he had forgotten his key. He wouldn't ring the doorbell, his parents would pretend not to have heard it anyway. So he drove once around the house, put down his skateboard at the basement stairs and climbed over the garbage can onto the small wall and got to his window that way. He left it open on purpose in case something like right now happened. His parents didn't enter his room anyway, because they thought it would look like a junkyard there. Which wasn't true at all, but he didn't need to explain that to them.

He lay down on the bed and thought about the dancer. Good he had really looked. Castiel knew he would have nice dreams tonight.

Dean was sitting in the car. He was a bit confused and was looking forward to taking a shower when he got home. The training had been exhausting, but he had to adjust to that. He was well on his way to getting one of the popular but few soloist spots. His ballet teacher had taken him aside a few weeks ago and told him that if he could keep up this training and pass the next performance, he would be allowed to spend one day with the soloists.

Dean had also turned 18 a few months ago. No one at the ballet school knew about his personal problems. He had sworn not to make himself vulnerable in any way. Late last year, he and his brother Sam had lost their father, years after their mother had also died. With no official relatives to take them in, Dean had chosen the only way he knew how. He had filed the forms and used them to ask to become Sam's legal guardian. No matter how hard it would be or how much it would cost, he would not stand by and watch his little brother be placed in a foster home or with foster parents.

The process had been lengthy, but the day before his birthday, Dean had received a letter that had immediately made him cry. Sam had come into the living room and really Dean should have been off to dance class a long time ago, but he had wanted to wait for the mail. He was officially Sam's legal guardian from that day forward. Sam had thrown herself into his arms and hadn't wanted to let him go at all. At some point, however, Dean had broken away and told Sam that he had to go now, because otherwise he would get into big trouble at work.

To the present day, Dean had not told Sam what his job was. He knew he was in no danger from his brother, yet he didn't dare say anything. Often enough he had been looked at strangely by classmates in the past and beaten up because he was interested in ballet. He had applied to two ballet schools when he was 16. Actually, it was just for fun, to see what would happen. The admission criteria were strict and it cost an insane amount of money to take classes at the ballet schools. But a few would be able to get scholarships, which reduced their costs significantly. Dean had applied to the San Francisco Ballet and the New York City Ballet. He had received a rejection from the former right away, but the New York ballet school had invited him to come by. Dean had been overwhelmed. For a week he had gone there for tryouts and auditions, then was told he would get an answer as soon as the school made up its mind. He had to wait a few weeks, then a letter came home. His father and brother had been shopping, which was why Dean was able to receive the letter in person. As much as he had cursed his father for moving to New York a few years ago, he thanked him even more now.

The letter had contained the promise of a scholarship and the School of American Ballet had welcomed him warmly. The contract was included and, since Dean was not yet of age, had to be signed by his father. Dean took advantage of the following evening, his father had returned slightly drunk from a meeting with his friends and asked him to sign it. When his father asked him what he was signing for now, Dean had replied that it was for a part-time job. His father had patted him on the back appreciatively and then turned to the television. A few days later, Dean stood in the training room with the other apprentices for the first time.

Now he unlocked the apartment door and immediately noticed that Sam was not there. There was a note stuck to the refrigerator door saying that Sam would be spending the night with friends. Dean knew he wouldn't have much influence on a 14 year old anymore, especially since he was also the brother and not the father, yet he had set some rules and so far Sam had always followed them. He pushed his bag into his room and went to the bathroom.
Freshly showered, he came out a few minutes later and went to the kitchen to make himself something small to eat. He had to watch his calories carefully. When he was done, he went to his room and lay down on the bed. As he lay there in the dark, he thought back to the moment earlier in the training room. He wasn't sure if he had just imagined it, but thought that there had been a young punk standing there. Only because he had been very tired anyway, he had not looked closer. Nevertheless, he could not forget this picture. At first sight, the boy had looked really nice and knowing that he would not be unpleasantly surprised in his dreams tonight, he fell asleep.