Dean's surprise was plastered all over his face. "I guess I shouldn't be so shocked. I was a ladies man myself," he admitted. "But wow, man."
"Yeah, imagine my surprise. I have that affect." Castiel teased. "It just happened so fast. And when it was over, I remember thinking, 'Wow, he must have done this before. Is he gay, too?' But he told me it could be our little secret, all of it. He told me he'd been with a few other guys, in secret like this, and that he didn't fit with any of them. He said he liked me. Only me. I thought he was finally mine, forever." Emotion rose in his throat and he held back a sob at the heart-breaking memory. It was like a raw wound he had just tossed salt into. He managed to compose himself with Dean rubbing his shoulder and murmuring gently in his ear. "I was such a child. I let him do anything he wanted with me; he liked inflicting pain. It was his thing. But I didn't care, I had him, and the sex was… rough, but good. I had bruises and cuts and scars, but…" He cleared his throat again. "Well, all year, we were together. I didn't ask about his love life with girls before that. I figured it was over – that he was as head-over-heels as I was – but of course, he was just my only real relationship.
"One summer day, he brought a girl with us camping. I was really shocked that he didn't want to do anything intimate, but I got over it. We had fun all day, like last time, and then that night he told me to make out with her." He shook his head in disbelief. "I refused, and he explained that we should three-some with her. That she liked me and wanted me to. But I really, really didn't want to – I was in love with him - I thought - and we didn't have any condoms or anything. It was like asking me to cheat on him with a partner I was adverse to – someone I could accidentally impregnate. At first he said he was ok with me not wanting to. He wasn't mad, or anything. But he told her to wait outside and took me in the tent and it was obvious he was angry. He did all sorts of things while we… we… He got so rough, I… I was terrified. I had to beat him off, finally, and I knocked him unconscious. Then I grabbed my clothes, and I ran.
"I had nothing except the money in my wallet and my phone. I'm not from a rich family, Dean. I couldn't even afford a hotel room. I wandered the streets alone, disheveled, beaten, heart-broken…" He rubbed his cheeks furiously, angry with himself for crying over this old memory.
Dean made him stop for a minute. Gentle hands pushed his own rough ones aside. Warm lips kissed the tears from his cheeks, and Cas felt his broken heart shattered into smaller pieces, the throb of emotion he felt for Dean's small gesture overwhelming. He stole a salty kiss from Dean and they sat gently macking for a few minutes before he was calmed down. Then Dean drew back. "What did you do?" He asked gently.
With a shrug, Cas ran his fingers through his hair. "I did what I could do. I went to the hospital, and got my wounds treated, then I called my mother bawling like a baby. My parents came to get me. They paid my hospital bills and brought all my stuff in from the beach, where Martius had left it, and drilled me with questions all the way home. I told them everything. They were appalled not only that I'd been beaten, but also that I was gay. But they agreed to leave it be. After all, I was their only remaining child. My sister Anna had died that year. We were all still fresh from that wound." He heaved a big sigh. "After that, Martius told everybody I was gay and that I tried to rape him, and that's why he beat me up. I lived my entire senior year fighting against the harassment in school and the courts indecision to believe some kid over the school's top lacrosse poster-boy and my parents walking on eggshells around my sexuality. I'm lucky I even made it out alive."
Looking over at Dean, his expression darkened with hopelessness. "I was going to kill myself, Dean. I went to do it so many times that I lost count." At the aback look on his face, Cas's darkness softened. He reached up and slowly slid his hands into Dean's hair, gripping him, pulling him close. "But I wouldn't. I couldn't. I knew out there somewhere, someone needed me. I knew they would find me, and I would finally be really in love, and we would truly be happy. So I rode it out. I fought it off."
"I need you," Dean said immediately, the truth clear on his face, "right now, and when I got here I needed you, Cas. Without you, I don't know what I would've done." Cas evidently felt something similar, because his already soft gaze melted further as he reached up to fit his hand perfectly at the back of Dean's neck, pulling him in for an oddly tender kiss.
Cas pulled back, drinking in the love in Dean's eyes. "I can't say yet whether we're forever, and I won't. That's too much pressure to put on anyone," he said gently. "But I made it out of that dark place, and I made it here. So I'm… I'm sorry if I ever shut down like that. It's not you, it's.. my head."