A/N: Sorry for the super-long wait, folks. I had to take the GRE last weekend, so I've been doing basically nothing but study for weeks. But I'm back, and should be writing and updating on a regular basis again, yay!

For this chapter, I'm gonna stick a warning in up here regarding language - there be tossing about of homophobic slurs (f-bomb included) ahead. Also, I just realized I should've been warning all along for discussion of substance abuse problems and for underage drug and alcohol use for Cas. I'm sorry! I'm still new to actually posting the things I write, so thanks for bearing with me.

And also the traditional disclaimer, I own nothing etc etc, the idea of intellectual property is severely flawed to begin with but I don't intend any copyright infringement, etc etc.

When the world came crashing down around Dean's ears, it was completely and totally the fault of one Joanna Beth Harvelle. Okay, maybe he was being melodramatic. It was just some stupid, offhand remark. She didn't even mean anything by it, Dean knew, but then, as far as he was concerned, that did not excuse her.

They were hanging out at the Roadhouse – Jo, him and Sam – because it was a summer afternoon and it was raining and it was friggin Lawrence and there was nothing better to do. Normally, Dean worked over at Bobby's salvage yard-slash-auto repair place, but when he'd shown up this morning, Bela Talbot had been there and Bobby had sent him packing. Dean didn't mind the day off, but the only place to go was the Roadhouse, and Bela being in town put Ellen in a foul mood.

Bela Talbot was this (super hot) British traveling sales lady (and that was the absolute least sketchy way to describe whatever her job was) who came through town every once in a while. She spent her days flirting with and buying from the locals and her nights were spent – more often than not – at Bobby's place instead of her hotel. Dean tried very, very hard not to think about this, because Bobby was like a foster dad or something and it just wasn't right, okay? Also, Bobby and Ellen had this whole on-again-off-again thing going on that they liked to pretend no one else knew about, so Ellen kinda hated Bela a little bit. Even though Dean knew for a fact that she and Bobby were off-again at the moment and had been for a while, but maybe that just made it worse. To be fair, here was also the matter of Bela being incredibly sketchy and also an enormous bitch, but that didn't really lessen her appeal to Dean at all. Or Sam. Or Jo. (Sometimes he wondered about Jo.)

So Ellen was pissed because Bela was in town and Bobby didn't tell her Bela was in town and she had to find out through Dean and also Ash apparently blew something up earlier that may or may not have had to do with a power surge which may or may not have had to do with that pile of electronics that he insisted was some kind of homemade computer in the backroom. (It really wasn't all too clear whether it was actually a computer or some kind of doomsday device, and no one seemed willing to investigate too closely. Ash could be intense for a fourteen-year-old.) So a change of topic was in order, and Dean tried to provide it by asking after Cas.

He and Cas had this system that Ellen was a grudging participant in, necessary because Dean couldn't go over to Cas' or even call the house without Michael throwing a damn temper tantrum. But, for whatever reason, Michael respected Ellen (the reverse was not even a little bit true), and also Cas tutored Jo in math during the school year, so he was basically allowed to hang out at the Roadhouse whenever he wanted. Unless he was grounded. Which was pretty often. Generally for talking to Dean. Anyway, the system worked like this: Cas'd come around the Roadhouse, and if Dean wasn't there, he'd leave a message with Ellen or Jo to tell Dean when he next thought he'd be able to get out, and Dean would do the same. It was frustrating and shitty, but it worked. Ellen didn't like sneaking around behind anyone's back, but she didn't like Michael, and she did like Dean and Cas, so they won out in the end.

"Any word from Cas today, Ellen?" Dean asked over the sound of Jo and Sam bickering about some television show. Ellen looked up from where she sat at the bar, bent over an accounting book with a frown and a calculator.

"No, honey, not today. Didn't you just see him last night? I told him you'd be around."

"Yeah, yeah, no we hung out last night," Dean said hurriedly, actively trying to block from his mind that he may have, in fact, held hands with another person last night. And that that other person may have been friggin Cas of all people. "I just hate not knowing what's up with him, you know? 'Sweird not seeing him everyday."

"I know, hon." Ellen's smile was a little too sympathetic for Dean's taste, but he ignored it in favor of nursing his root beer. Sam and Jo were both giving him looks.

"What?" he said, when it finally got too much. Wrong answer, apparently, because Jo broke out into this sharkish grin that was way too scary for a thirteen-year-old face that still had baby fat.

"Jo and I were just wondering how Cas was last night," Sam said, a mite too quickly, and Dean glared at him suspiciously over his bottle.

"Yeah, Dean-o," Jo added. "How'd your date go?"

Dean choked on his drink in surprise, and he was pretty sure he could feel his face heat up in spite of himself. He should've known right then that the world was over, but he didn't. Not right away. "It wasn't a date!" he managed after coughing for like a minute straight, but Sam's grin was turning into a chuckle and Jo looked like she was about to have a damn field day.

"Oooooh, look, he's blushing! I bet that means it went good, don'tcha think, Sam?" And Sam, the traitorous bastard, was laughing it up, whereas Dean could feel nothing but panic creeping up his throat and throttling all further brain function. "Did you hold hands? Did you kiiiiiss?" Jo drew out the word like a friggin' third-grader or something, and continued in a sing-song, "Dean and Cas sittin' in a tree, K- I – S –"

"It was not a friggin date, Jo, what do you think I am, some kind of faggot?" Dean snapped, and he didn't mean to, he really didn't, but he did.

The bar went silent. Jo's smirk ran off her face like water, and Sam, laughter cut off mid-breath, was staring like he didn't know his own brother. The panic closed tighter around Dean, and he looked to Ellen desperately for help, but she was staring at Dean with the most disappointed look her had ever seen on her face (possibly excluding the time she found out he had left Sam home alone with a drunk John just because Sammy was being annoying and Dean wanted to get out of the house). Abruptly, Ellen stood, marched over to Dean, and smacked him upside the back of his head. It stung like a bitch, but it was nothing next to the tone of her voice when she spoke next.

"Dean Winchester, I do not give a rat's ass what kind of language you hear your father use, but I know for damn sure that Bobby and I raised you better than that."

Dean swallowed, shame swooping in to drown out the panic. Jo and Sam were still staring, and Dean was starting to feel like he just murdered someone's puppy or something. "Yes, ma'am," he said quietly, eyes falling to the floor.

"Get in back and wash some dishes, Ash got soot all over 'em before. Make yourself useful."

Dean nodded and, without a word to the others, went to do just that. He could hear Sam and Jo resume conversation behind him, but they spoke in serious whispers now, and he knew it was about him. Fuck. Just fuck everything.

Standing alone in the kitchen, up to his elbows in soapy water, Dean had nothing better to do but think. About what Ellen had said, about what he had said. About what Jo had said.

Because it wasn't that Dean hated the idea of Cas being something other than a friend; that wasn't what had freaked him out so bad. Dean wasn't stupid. He'd known for a while now that the way he felt about Cas wasn't friggin normal, wasn't friendly. It didn't take a Sammy-level intellect to figure out that occasionally having the urge to wrap an arm around Cas or, worse, to just lean over and kiss him wasn't exactly covered in the best friends territory. Hell, if Dean was being honest with himself (something he generally tried to avoid at all costs), he knew that it wasn't even like Cas was the first guy he thought was hot. He was just the first one that mattered.

So no. That wasn't what bothered him. What bothered him – what fucking terrified him, actually – was that other people might know. Might know he liked guys and girls (a part of his brain told him he was bi; the rest of it screamed that labeling himself would make it more real). Might know he liked Cas. It was one thing for Jo and even Sam to joke about it, but what if they weren't it? What happened if kids at school found out? The guys on the team? His father? Jesus fuck, what if John found out?

Dean knew exactly what John Winchester thought of guys who were…with other guys; Ellen wasn't wrong about where he'd picked up the word he'd dropped just now. Gay dudes were fags, they were sissies, they were – and it wasn't like Dean didn't know better, Ellen was right about that, too. But he'd panicked and it all came back to his dad, who, when Dean was in the eighth grade, had said he thought that Castiel kid was probably going to turn out to be a faggot, and Dean had told him not to talk about Cas like that, and John had turned steady, sober eyes on his son and asked if Dean was some kind of faggot, too. No, sir.

If Ellen's intention in making Dean wash dishes was to give him time to clear his head, it didn't work. Two hours later, the Roadhouse dishes were all sparkling clean, not a trace of soot or ash or exploded maybe-computer anywhere on them, but Dean's brain was a worse mess than before. If Ellen's intention was to punish him by letting him stew in his own juices and make him realize what an utter fucking horrible cowardly idiot asshole he was, well, success on that front, then.

Sam didn't talk to him again the whole way home, whether because he was pissed or because he could sense his older brother's bad mood, Dean didn't know or care. It was only way later, after Dad had gone upstairs and passed out, that Sam spoke again. He sat himself down at the kitchen table, next to where Dean was re-reading a Vonnegut book. Well, looking at the book. He hadn't turned a page for at least ten minutes and he couldn't even remember which one it was; he was too busy brooding.

"Dean, earlier today…"

Dean looked up with a sigh. "What, Sam?"

"What the hell was that about?" It would be easier, Dean thought, if Sam sounded angry or, hell, even disappointed. Instead, his stupid little brother had his stupid talk-about-feelings look on his stupid face on and sounded like he was seriously worried or something. Dean groaned. This conversation was gonna be a bitch, he could tell already.

"I'm sorry, okay? I said something awful and stupid, can we please move on?"

"Dean."

"Sam," Dean growled.

"You don't usually just lash out at Jo like that." Aaaaand here it comes, Dean thought. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, Sammy, I just – she shouldn't have said that about me and Cas." Not like that was a legitimate excuse but maybe it would get Sammy off his case.

"She was just joking…" Okay, yeah, apparently not. Dammit.

"I know, okay, just drop it." He didn't mean to snap, but it seemed to shut Sam up for the moment. He was just starting to feel bad about it when Sam ruined it all by speaking up again, quieter and gentler than before, like Dean was a scared wild animal or some shit.

"Dean, are you and Cas – ? I mean, I wouldn't care if you were, I just wondered –"

"What, no," Dean said, a little too quickly, finding himself sputtering over the idea for the second time that day. Which really, really, really was not fair. "Jesus, no," he continued in (what he hoped was) a more normal tone. "We're friends, he's my best friend, he doesn't think about me like that."

Sam's eyes bugged out a little, and Dean winced, realizing too late what he'd said. Great. Just friggin peachy.

"But you think of Cas like that?" Sam talked like he was walking on thin ice, which Dean had to admit, the kid kinda was.

"Sam, we are so not talking about this." Especially not when Dean had to deal with it constantly on his own time. His great big stupid unrequited crush on his best friend took enough energy to repress on its own, thank you very much, and the last thing he needed was Sammy poking at the fragile wall of denial he'd built up. Damn thing had already take quite the beating today.

"Dean, come on –"

"Sam!"

"Fine!" Sam pulled a bitchface – Dean had thought the kid was growing out of the habit, but apparently not – and sighed. "Fine, just – like I said, I don't care, I just want you to be happy, okay?"

"Oh, please, no chick flick moments, come on," Dean groaned, standing up. Time for the tried-and-true stand-by of getting out of emotional conversations with Sam: run away. Sam even seemed like he was gonna let Dean go, but no, course not, that'd be too easy.

"Dean, wait –"

"For god's sake, Sam, what?" Dean turned on the spot, leveling an exasperated glare at his little brother.

"For the record," Sam said with a shrug, "I'm pretty sure Cas does think of you, ya know. Like that."

And Dean so did not need to know that. That was it, his life was actually over. Things would've been so much easier if Jo had never said anything.