Note: I haven't finished writing a story in what feels like a lifetime. Life hasn't been easy on me, and after suffering from a miscarriage this year, I needed to find myself again. Every since I thought of this story, I have been swept up in creating it. I am proud to report that this is now a completed work! So if you are like me, and find yourself invested in these characters- there is no abandonment here. I have finished the entire story and am now in the editing process. There will be regular, biweekly updates and when I can, I will post multiple chapter's at a time. I was reading Slammed by Colleen Hoover and found inspiration for Feel Me Now. To clarify my vision here- Dean is young; a fresh 21 years old, while Cas is 18. If you need a vision for what a young Cas looks like in my mind, look up "They Don't Need to Understand" by Andy Black. He is basically a young Andy Biersack. Cas is a bit of a nerd here, so you can slap the OOC label on him, but since 80% of his personality is being in love with Dean, I am hoping it all evens out.

This is not your classic high school love story. There will be no romantic trysts in the bathroom, behind the school or in the school parking lot. Most of this story does not feel good- it's angst and learning how to live without. But just stick with me if you are into it. Also, apologies for the quality of writing. It's been years since i wrote something and stuck with it.


Chapter One: I Fucking Love Kansas

Thursday, August 18th, 2004

Est Arrival: 3 hours and 45 minutes

I adjust my GPS suctioned to the dash of the large U-Haul as the midday sun bounces off the screen. Feeling blindly above myself for several minutes, I finally find my aviators and adjust them on my face. I glance behind me at the 1992 Honda Civic Hatchback, puke green. Gabriel is sitting close to the dash, boxes blocking the entire back window as our mother guns the motor to keep up with the U-Haul's steady handling of the speed limit . Steam is visibly beginning to curl up from beneath the hood and I take a deep breath, letting my head fall back against the headrest.

"Fuck me," I muttered under my breath as I flip on the turning signal and take the nearest exit to a station in Hannibal Missouri. Thankfully, there were a few stations scattered around the interstate exits so it took no time for me to pull into a pump. Hopping down from the truck, I sigh and lean against the door, stretching my legs as I wait for Mom and Gabriel to catch up.

I hear the car before I see it. The unique clanking sounds as if parts of the car's undercarriage should be scattered down the interstate. The sound of a vehicle makes onlookers stop pumping their gas and glance over their glasses at the car scooting next to my pump. And by scooting, I truly mean scooting. Listening to the gears grind as Mom makes her best successful attempt yet to put my car in park makes me wince, but at least she hadn't had to roll down the window and screech across the parking lot that she couldn't figure the parking thing out again.

I begged Mom to let me drive during the move, as she had only ever driven a manual transmission twice in her entire life. It didn't help that my car was a bit of what you could call a fixer-upper. It has a bit of a problem holding water and it was well overdue for a pit stop. Crossing over to the Honda, I open the hood of the car and reach in through the open passenger window to grab the empty gallon jugs from beneath Gabe's feet.

"Hey Cas! Hey Cas" he shouts, all but leaping out of the car as I move toward the stations' bathrooms. "How many more stops do you think the clunker needs before we make it to Kansas? Mom says at least two more but I am betting six."

"Gabe, go with Mom inside the store and get gas for both vehicles please," I ask, my tone strained from irritation. My request naturally falls on deaf ears as Gabe bounces along behind me. Truth be told, at this point in my day I am blocking out his chatter and he hardly notices. Gabe carries a better conversation with himself than I can contribute at any rate.

The station's public bathrooms are located outside to to the right of the main building, and I hold my breath as I open the door. It's a single stall, thank heavens, but if there is anything I have learned so far today, it is that the outdoor bathrooms are always the worst. The smell smacks me in the face and my eyes begin to water. Looking behind me, I point Gabe toward the car, not daring to open my mouth. Whether it was my gestures or the smell that got through to him, I am not entirely sure but if I was a betting man, I would say the smell. Gabriel sped off back toward the U-Haul where Mom was diligently attempting to fill both vehicles on her own. From the distance, I can hear him shouting about nasty ass bathrooms and something about peeing in a bottle. I snort against my better judgment and gag at the smell. It takes a few minutes longer than I would like to fill the jugs as half of the sink's water pressure is steadily dripping into the pans placed beneath it, but it gets the job done and I all but sprint back to the car.

Mom is finishing filling up the Civic with fuel as I begin filling the car up with water. Thankfully, the leak isn't so bad yet to make the car undrivable, but I had my doubts about it making the seven-hour trek from Pontiac to Lawrence, Kansas. I have an awful feeling that I will have a bit more work to do on the car after my mom's terrific driving experience behind the wheel, but I say nothing and climb back into the U-Haul. She looks at me after she buckles and opens her mouth as if to say something, but decides against it and smiles, gesturing to me to pull out first. I nod and pull out of the station, exiting back onto the highway.

It takes four more stops total before we make it into the city limits of Lawrence, Kansas, population 84,037. Nearly 8 times the size of Pontiac, Illinois.

The move is not something I have been exactly enthusiastic about. I understand it. But that doesn't mean I like it. Most people my age wouldn't like moving right before the start of their Senior Year in high school. The friendships alone would be enough for them to protest– but it's not like friends were a contributing factor in my case. It's not like I am a popular guy. While I generally didn't get picked on, I usually avoided social interaction at nearly any cost–preferring the companionship that books can give to the company of my peers.

And while Dad's death was shocking, moving seven hours away from the family burial ground where his remains were laid to rest was not something I am exactly crushed about. While I have never understood the reasoning behind talking to the dirt– it's hard to feel bad about moving away from the man who tried to beat the gay out of you since you were seven.

To be honest, If you asked me why I didn't want to move, I couldn't give you any real answer besides the fact that I have difficulty adjusting to change. Change in general makes me anxious. When Mom decided to change the drapes in the living room from maroon to blue, it made me anxious. What was wrong with the old drapes? Wasn't the color sufficient enough? Why were the blue ones considered superior drapes? When my favorite television show at the age of twelve changed actors for a minor character I stopped watching the show altogether. Why couldn't they adjust the schedule around the actors' conflicts to keep the visual narrative smooth?

So when mom brought Gabe and me into the living room and said she had made the financial decision following our father's heart attack to move back to her hometown of Lawrence, Kansas for a better-paying position at the local school system I was shaken to my core. I walked up to my room and didn't speak to her for three days. How could I live in a different town? On a different street? In a different house, without these same cream-yellow walls that had been that color since my room was Winnie the Pooh-themed when I was six.

Gabe had taken it upon himself to come up with that answer for me. " I know you don't like change Cas . But maybe this change will be good . Maybe you won't be reminded of when Dad came home from drinking and hit you . Maybe different doesn't have to be bad ."

Until that moment I didn't even know that Gabe was aware that Dad abused me. Gabe was sat on a pedestal by Dad. He called him his second chance , and even though Gabe didn't understand what that meant at the time , I did . After all, Gabe and I were born 9 years apart . Gabe was the accident that Dad had prayed for . A second chance at having a real son.

His words, not mine. He never cared to mince words about me.

From the moment I was born, Mom said she knew I was different. She says as I grew up, it was hard not to know I was gay, and while she loved me regardless, Dad didn't feel the same. Being the pastor of the largest Methodist church in Pontiac, having a gay son wasn't a good look and he never failed to remind me of it. Like it was a choice I consciously made.

I tried well into my teens to date girls. I tried out for football and track. I even studied books about mechanics from the local library, and beyond learning how to change oil myself at the age of eleven, it didn't change who I was.

I tried and failed miserably at that.

His death six months ago was like a breath of fresh air. I could finally just be. I could learn to like myself and live as who I am without the constant vigilance of praying the gay away. My father's tyrannical conservative beliefs had covered me in a blanket of self-doubt my entire life; and with the blanket dead I could just— be.

It didn't take away the depression or the self-loathing. Immediately following his death Mom enrolled me in therapy, and while I will never quite understand why my mother decided to stay with my father until his death, I can at least thank her for taking the steps to undo his damage.

That was until the move.

Or maybe, the move is part of that process. To pry the living memory of him off of our family.

While the stops dragged the seven-hour drive into a nine-hour drive, I couldn't help but let out a breath of relief when we turned onto our new street. While I don't enjoy change, I am more than ready to park the U-Haul and settle into my new reality. A new reality that didn't have slurs painted onto its walls by my memories.

I slow to a near halt and I count down the numbers until I find the address. An older gentleman, whom I can only presume is our landlord, is outside on the porch waving at me in a purple cardigan. I give an awkward wave back as I roll past the driveway and back the U-Haul in. I sit in the van fiddling with the few CDs I brought with me for the drive to avoid social interaction with a stranger until I hear the car coming down the road.

She is beat, to be perfectly honest; the Civic is beginning to backfire when mom brings it into the driveway at a crawl, the brakes, and motor squealing simultaneously as she puts it in park. Letting out loud cheers after the engine cuts off, the car bounces slightly as Mom and Gabe exit the car, a visible sigh of relief that the journey is done. I climb down from the van as Gabe is patting on the hood, telling it to " rest easy girl " like he was burying a family pet.

I elbow him in the ribs, muttering, "It's a perfectly fine vehicle. It made it, didn't it?"

He begins to hum a slow funeral march as he salutes the car and deftly dodges me as I try to grab him.

"Kids!" Mom yells at us from the porch, "Would you like to meet the landlord and start unpacking the van?"

Gabe and I give equally awkward greetings to our new landlord, Mr. Harold Edwards, who lives two blocks away. He exchanges contact information with Mom and gives her the keys while I gesture Gabe to the van to start unloading. Much to my surprise he doesn't protest, handling the boxes while I begin to carry in the most pertinent pieces of furniture we put in the U-Haul. Even in the late afternoon, it was a warm 87 degrees in Lawrence today, making it feel like 110 in the back of the van, so we didn't dally with unloading. It isn't until mom forces us to break, handing hot water bottles from the car that I even lean against the van and look at our new home.

It's much smaller than our home in Pontiac. While the small square-shaped home appeared to have a basement, that is probably the most impressive feature it can boast. Even the yard is smaller— but I can't be picky at this point. It was expected after all— when you are moving due to financial strain, you don't expect to move up in the world. But even with its small size, I don't seem to mind it. It feels homey if anything, but I don't dwell on the fact that it may have more to do with the death of my father than the size of the home.

Tossing the empty water bottle into the back of the van, I raise my white shirt and try to mop the sweat off my forehead. Even though it's 6 in the afternoon, we have a good two hours of daylight left before I have to pack in boxes by porch light— a concept I both dread and look forward to. After the 9-hour drive in the large van, I am beyond exhausted but I can't say the idea of it being cooler is a bad one.

Gabe has been chattering for a while now as he loafs around the driveway. He put in a good hour of work before he deemed his weight of contribution to the move to be complete. Chatting to himself was nothing abnormal, so it wasn't until I heard someone chattering back that alarm bells went off in my mind and I jumped down from the back of the van.

A tall boy with long brown hair and light brown eyes stands a few feet from Gabe, an arm hooked around what appeared to be a school textbook. After some squinting, I make out the words Algebra, Grade Four on the spine. Gabe looks over his shoulder as I approach them, a grin breaking out across his face. He bounds up to me and grabs my hand, dragging me toward the boy.

"Hey Cas! This is Sam! He's our neighbor! He's nine like me! Can we hang out while you unpack?" He belts out without pausing to take a breath. I give Gabe a nod and open my mouth to respond until I see a figure out of the corner of my eye approaching us from the street.

"I'm sure he doesn't mind, but he would probably appreciate our help more, don't you think Sammy," the figure calls out as he crosses into our new yard. The low timber of his voice vibrates in my chest.

I turn toward him, raising an awkward hand in greeting to who I can only assume is a relative of my brother's newfound friend and immediately stop, my hand hanging in the air like someone hit the pause button on my brain.

The low timber belongs to a gorgeous man.

His sandy brown is a bit lighter than Sam's— I would describe it as sunkissed— and styled shorter in the kind of disarray that can only be intentional. His skin is tan, his angular face dusted with freckles across his high cheekbones and nose. His eyes are the brightest color green that I have ever seen and for a moment I find myself lost in them. I can't quite put a finger on how old he is, but he cannot be much older than me. The man smiles for just a moment, a cocky grin that shocks my brain into being caught enough that I manage to run my hands back through my short black hair and pray the movement seems intentional.

He walks up to the younger boy and claps his hand on his shoulder before moving closer to me, holding out a hand to shake in greeting. "I'm Dean. This is my little brother Sam. Seems like we are your new neighbors."

"Cas," I somehow stutter out as I return the handshake, taking note of how rough his palms feel in that brief moment. "Castiel. This is my brother Gabriel. I think he's kidnapped your brother into being his friend. My apologies."

"Thank god somebody did," he laughs and I feel my damn heart skip beats.

That's not normal. Hearts don't skip beats. I need to find a physician.

All I can manage is a nod while I watch his broad shoulders shake when he laughs and how his bowed legs quickly move as he dodges his brother's punch. A "Hey! That's not funny Dean!" is whined out somewhere, but it sounds distant with how loud my heart is beating.

"Mind if we help you get unloaded?" Dean asks, snapping me back to reality. "It's going to be a weekly high tomorrow—97 degrees and I doubt you want to be moving in that."

"Yeah," I managed to breathe out with a nod. I think I may have slipped a thanks in there somewhere but to be honest I'm not sure.

After exchanging civil greetings with Mom, Sam and Dean get our lives out of the van and my car and into our home with an efficiency that speaks volumes about their moving experience. With their hands, it only takes another hour to completely unload all of our belongings into our new home. The sun is just beginning to dip lower in the sky, painting the gray siding of our new home in a beautiful light as the Winchester boys exit with Mom's promises of dinner when we are settled . Gabe has followed Sam to the end of the driveway, both of them holding an animated discussion about anime— a topic about which I know next to nothing. And while I tell myself that I followed along to make sure Gabe doesn't try to move into the house across the road, I can't help but feel like I am being pulled bodily down the driveway after Dean.

Dean walks with me in comfortable silence, focused on the boys in front of us. If he has any thoughts on their newfound friendship, he doesn't speak them. It isn't until he reaches the end of the driveway, a few feet behind Gabe and Sam, that he stops. Shoving his hands into his ripped jeans, he turns toward me. I feel my heart stutter to a stop as he fixes his bright green eyes on me, a soft smile on his face. He breaks eye contact after a moment and fixes his gaze on the ground, kicking his work boots against the driveway. "So," he starts slow, dragging the word out as he lets out a breath. "I'm sure your girlfriend must be devastated by your move."

My brain tries to work through all the reasons why Dean would ask about a girlfriend without jumping immediately to gauge my interest in the male species. Perhaps he just wants to know what kind of person his brother could potentially be around. While he didn't seem homophobic, that's not a trait you can gauge while moving a bed frame with someone. For a moment— a brief moment— my instincts kick in and I begin to formulate an answer— an answer my father had beat into me. But I promised myself– I promised that this move would mean something to me beyond the financial. It would mean I would start over. I could be me.

"No girlfriend," I say as I rub the back of my neck, my anxiety warming my cheeks. "Girls aren't my type."

There is a pause before Dean glances up and his eyes meet mine. My heart is beating out of my fucking chest. Can he hear it ? I mean shit can the neighbors down the road hear it ? A knowing smile warms his face and he takes a hand out of his pocket and rubs the back of his neck, mirroring my gesture.

"So how about you," I rush out, somehow finding the courage in my gut to ask. I have to know. "Will I get to meet your girlfriend soon?"

Dean laughs— that pretty fucking laugh again that shakes his body . " Nope . No girlfriend, " he says with a shake of his head . " Don't get me wrong girls are hot, but uh, " he stops and looks to the ground again breaking eye contact . For a moment my heart stops beating altogether and it sinks into my feet . My gorgeous neighbor is straight , what fucking luck is this.

"… it feels kind of limiting, you know?"

His words snap my train of thought in half. I mean, runs the damn thing right off the tracks. "Pardon?" I ask, cocking my head.

Dean coughs, training his vision anywhere but me. After a few moments, he seems to summon some kind of courage and looks at me with that cocky smile on his face. "Why limit yourself to half the population?

With that he turns, calling for his brother, and gives Gabe a wave as he crosses the street. I stand transfixed, staring at him as he crosses into his yard. He only looks back once when he reaches his front door and he holds a hand up, waving at me. I can see his grin from here.

I wave back and turn and damn near sprint back into the house.

My hot neighbor is bisexual.

My hot neighbor is bi?

I think I'm going to fucking love Kansas.


Preview of Chapter Two

"Go out with me tonight."

"Where?" I don't know why I am asking such a dumb fucking question. The man could literally tell me he was taking me to help him bury something and I would probably thank him for the opportunity to be near him and ask for pointers in burial techniques. Oh you want me to get in the hole? Oh no problem, let me take off my shoes.