Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The rumors are terrible and cruel, but honey, most of them are true.

-New Romantics, Taylor Swift

Dean had been working at Dick’s Yummy Treats for two months, and he still hadn’t gotten his employee card.

Sunday.

Eight a.m.

In the rain.

He waited fifteen minutes for his coworker by the shut store doors until she finally appeared around the corner, glowering at him.

To be fair, he glowered first.

“I know I’m late,” she muttered. “Shut up about it.”

“I won’t,” he said. “I won’t shut up, Meg. It’s been sixty-four days. You could at least get here on time when you know I can’t open the store without an employee card.”

“You’re counting?” She put her card into the little machine, waited for the beep and pushed the doors open.

Inside the store, Dean turned on the lights and took off his coat. “Of course I’m counting.” Meg closed the doors back up and headed to the storage room to put away her things. “How else would I cultivate my grudge?”

“What’s with you today?” She said when she resurfaced from the back room.

“I’m pissed,” he said. He was pissed.

“Yeah, well, write a strongly worded letter to management. Smear some ranch on it and tell them it’s bird crap.”

“Yeah, I’m not gonna do that. My mom doesn’t like it when I get in trouble.”

“Aww, you listen to your mommy?”

“Have to,” he muttered to himself. If only his life here didn’t depend on it.

He’d write the fuck out of that strongly-worded letter.

Dean shook the rain off his hair and started taking chairs off tables while Meg handled the cash register. It was almost eight-thirty, which meant opening time, which meant getting ready to get yelled at by hangry customers who really needed a chocolate croissant right away or else.  

“Where’s Charlie?” He asked and opened the doors all the way through. He usually took the weekend shifts with Charlie and Meg, and it was always a pain when Charlie was late or missed a shift so that Meg and him were left alone at the store for hours and he had to pretend he wasn’t afraid of her.

Right across from them, on the other side of the street, was a lingerie store. He’d thought it was kind of cool at first, but it got old pretty fast when he spent all day watching all the creeps who roamed it holding a Dick’s Yummy Treats paper bag.

To its left was some snooty bookstore. It wasn’t anything about that particular shop that made it snooty; all book lovers were snooty, Dean reckoned, because books were for sophisticated, snobbish, boring people, and therefore, all bookshops were snooty. Including this one.

“She’ll be here at noon,” said Meg. Dean turned away from the bookstore to help her line up heat-sealed sandwiches in the display case.

“Great. So I’m stuck with you for the next four hours.”

“Three and a half,” Meg said dryly. “Delivery truck is here.” She nodded at a truck that was turning around the corner outside. They both knew the look of it by heart; it brought them fresh pastries every morning from an actual bakery a few blocks away. “Go open the back door for them.”

Strong thuds coming from the storage room coated her every word. The delivery guys were working on breaking down the back door one day at a time. “Why don’t you do it,” he muttered at Meg, less a question, more a complaint.

“Because I’m a meek and delicate woman,” she answered, slumping down into a chair and lifting her feet onto another. “Whose strength doesn’t hold a candle to your powerful man muscles.” She laid unimpressed eyes on his arms.

Dean didn’t find it within himself to argue with that. He knew there was no amount of glowering in her direction that could make Meg show up to work on time or not exhaust him into lifting the heavy boxes. He also knew that she never once turned her back on him when he needed help in the two months of his working at Dick’s, and that she would stand up for him in the face of any customer who so much as looked at him the wrong way.

Unpacking the boxes took some of the morning, and staring into air took most of the rest. Charlie arrived at noon, along with a fresh crowd of customers.

What’s the opposite of lost? Dean’s mind shot at him when he saw her. He would never tell her this – would never double-cross his own sense of privacy so viciously as to expose his feelings, any feelings, toward her, toward anyone – but she was, a little bit, his light at the end of the tunnel. She was smiley, and forgiving, and chatty, and all around very gay, and a lot of other things that Meg really wasn’t.

“What’s up?” Charlie asked and hopped up on the counter, swinging her feet. Meg gave her the death glare until she slid back off and leaned her elbows on it, looking past the few customers and out into the street. Her eyes fixed on something to the left.

“He’s back.”

“Who’s back?”

“Cas from Page Turner.”

Dean glanced outside at the snooty bookstore. He knew who she was talking about when he saw him; some guy from school, blue eyes, dark hair, tall. Almost as tall as Dean. He’d been mentioned between the three of them before, way before the schoolyear started and Dean came to know who he was. There wasn’t much to do at Dick’s during summer break beside gossip about the other employees they saw every day through the display window. Cas had stopped working around the beginning of summer break, which was right when Dean’s family showed up around here, and he’d gotten his job at Dick’s. He’d never said more than a hello to the other employees around the block, and still he knew all about them. This was the small, middle-of-nowhere kind of town, and no piece of information was left untalked about in it.

It made Dean nervous.

“Man, if I were straight.” Charlie leaned her head on her hands.

“You can’t say that,” said Dean and leaned against the counter beside her.

“I so can.”

“You can’t just know you’d be into someone if you’re not into them. You can’t…” he trailed off, turning around and taking a second look at the bookstore, really looking this time. “Man, if he was a chick.”

Meg glanced outside, her eyes resting on Cas wordlessly. 

Cas looked in their direction, then.

Dean looked away and shook his head. Charlie kept gazing outside.

“Do you think Richard didn’t realize how bad the name for this store was when he came up with it,” she asked after a minute, “Or was he the trickster type who pretended he had no idea what people were talking about when they said maybe he should change the name?”

“Which Richard?” Dean asked. He looked at the clock. One fifteen. Lunchtime. He could take a break soon.

“Dick. From Dick’s…” She motioned vaguely at the sign on the front of the shop. “Ugh. I can’t even say it.”

“I think he knew exactly what he was doing,” said Dean. He’d long stopped telling people where he worked when they asked.

When he looked back outside, he saw Cas leaning against his own counter with his head on his fist, and the look in his eyes as he stared at the pastries behind Dick’s display window was almost wistful.

“What’s he doing?” Dean asked.

“Dreaming about lunch.” Charlie let out a sigh. “I wish someone looked at me the way Cas looks at a chocolate soufflé.”

“Lunch,” Dean echoed. “Charlie, can I borrow your employee card?”

“You still haven’t gotten yours?”

“No! It’s been–”

“Don’t get him started,” Meg cut him off. Charlie dug a hand into her pocket and handed him her magnetic card.

“Don’t lose it,” she said. “It should be good for any food place on the street. Just show it to them and they’ll give you a fifteen percent discount.”

“Thank you kindly,” said Dean. “And thank your parents for the gender-ambiguous name.”

“You know you can get seventy percent off of lunch here,” said Meg.

Dean grabbed the card and whatever cash he could find in his wallet. “I’d rather eat at a restaurant run by rats controlling people by their hair as long as it isn’t named after a genital.”

Dean’s first week of senior year had been rough, no doubt, but no one had crashed right into him and made his phone fly out of his hand and onto the floor. That came at eight a.m. on the Monday of week number two.

To Charlie’s credit, she picked up his phone and made sure it was alright before placing it back in his hand. To her discredit, the crashing wasn’t exactly accidental.

“Come on,” was all she said, and grabbed his hand, dragging him down the hall.

“I don’t need babysitting, you know,” Dean said, letting her pull him away, if only because he had no idea how to get to his next class.

“I’m not your babysitter,” she said. “I’m your friend.”

“I don’t need friends.”

Charlie wasn’t in his homeroom class. She went out of her way to find him and drag him places in a school that she’d known for years and he was only starting to understand where the bathrooms of were stationed. And as much as she was… whatever he’d called it yesterday – his light at the end of the tunnel – at work, here she was probably just trying to make him feel better about being new, despite his having spent the past two months in town, and despite his blunt and extremely straightforward – as straightforward as he could express it – lack of desire in friends.

He didn’t like the idea of anyone butting into his life, on the off-chance that they found something they weren’t supposed to find, and his life would become torture.

Charlie didn’t care.

“And I don’t need guys to hit on me over a strawberry cupcake, but they still do,” she was saying as she dragged him up the stairs.

“Can’t say I’m following.”

“We don’t get what we need,” said Charlie. “We get what life thinks will make for a good joke.” She stopped walking and turned around to look at him. “Speaking of which. Please tell me you applied for the senior courses.”

“The what?” Dean asked.

“Senior courses. The list is up. You had to write your preferences so that they don’t put you in something really boring.”

His face went blank. “Charlie, at this point, you have to assume I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Alright, last year they asked us to fill this form and choose a class we wanted to take this year. It’s just extra credit, not an official subject, because it’s supposed to teach us about things we wouldn’t otherwise know and raise morale. So there’s, like, advanced origami, and…”

“Yeah,” Dean cut her off. The people pushing past them were getting kind of rough, and he kept walking. “Advanced origami. It’s coming back to me.”

“I figured they gave you the form when you signed up for school,” said Charlie. They were at the seniors floor now, and she led him toward a bulletin board.

“They did.” Dean felt his eyebrows furrow. It had been really confusing, trying to figure out what the hell these forms wanted from his life with no one to explain it to him. And he couldn’t say he cared much about school after what had happened in the months prior to his family moving here. “I think I wrote down comic art and architecture.” He didn’t remember putting anything in third place. Was that bad? He hoped they wouldn’t put him in advanced origami. “What did you write down?” he asked.

“Arrow dodgeball, cosplaying, and…” She stuck her finger against a page on the board, eyes bright. “Creative writing.” Her finger moved across the page to underline Dean’s name. “Look! You got into creative writing too,” she beamed at him. “We’re gonna be together.”

Dean’s eyes roamed the list, and his heart sank when he saw she was right. He didn’t ask for creative writing. He didn’t want it. In fact, the last thing he wanted was a class designed to fish his private thoughts out of his head. 

He wanted to kick the wall. He wanted to rip that list right off the board. He wanted to go up to whoever made the stupid choice to put him in a stupid class he had nothing to do with and yell at them.

Instead, he pressed his lips together and made way for another student who pushed past him to see the list.

He recognized the back of the student’s head. It was Cas. Dean glimpsed at the list – he got into a class called Ancient Languages: Latin and Enochian.

He walked away looking pretty happy with himself.

Dean couldn’t help but feel bitter, bitter, bitter, that everyone else seemed to get what they wanted, and he had to go about life being beaten down by it again and again, and hating every moment of it.

He figured he was allowed to have a bad day. He was allowed – he figured – to walk in the front door being in a shitty mood without his brother sending him a death glare, and his mother eyeing him like a hawk ready to dive for prey, and himself being left feeling like he didn’t deserve to have his own feelings anymore.

He was wrong.

He made a beeline for his room without bothering with hellos. All this crap his mother lectured him on, about being good and staying off the radar and not raising anyone’s suspicion – the act was over when he was home. No one pretended to be happy within these walls anymore.

Inside his room, finally, was a space where he didn’t have to care about anyone else. He was alone.

He dropped his backpack on the floor and kicked his shoes off. His room had somehow managed to take the shape of a seventeen year old boy’s bedroom over the summer: posters of horror movies and of pretty actresses on the walls; clothes thrown on the floor; headphone and charger cords everywhere. No books.

He scratched angrily at the back of his neck. Something had been bothering him there all day. He grabbed the back of his shirt and craned his neck to see the tag sewn into it. He dropped it and started opening his drawers looking for scissors.

Something glinted dimly in one of the drawers, and he paused to look at it. His amulet. He’d worn it for half a decade before he did what he did and Sam told him to take it off.

He shut the drawer and left his room.

In the kitchen, Sam successfully ignored him, and Dean successfully retrieved scissors. He went back into his room and cut the tag off his shirt.

 You don’t care he’s mad at you, he told himself. You don’t care. You don’t care, you don’t care, you don’t care.

There was a knock on the door, and his mother entered.

“How was school?” She asked and leaned against the doorframe.

“Fine.”

“In more than one word.”

Dean sat on his bed and rubbed his face with his hands. “Are you going to keep doing this every day until I graduate?”

“To make sure you don’t get in trouble? Absolutely.”

He lifted his head sharply and looked at her. “What trouble? What trouble could I possibly get into?” That I haven’t already? He wanted to add, but he didn’t dare.

Mary gave him a stern look.

Dean waved his hand in dismissal. “Do you really care, or are you just making sure you’ve still got me on a leash?”

“I care,” said Mary, and the look in her eyes softened.

“I got into some stupid class I shouldn’t be in,” Dean said.

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Yeah, well, it’s annoying.”

“You’re a big boy.” Mary crossed her arms over her chest. “You can handle being in a class you don’t want to be in.”

“I can.” Dean’s voice rose slightly. “But I don’t want to.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to.” He clenched his teeth. He was closer to snapping than he cared for.

“Well, tough luck. You have to.” His mother closed the door behind them and walked into the room, standing over him. Her voice wasn’t calm, now. It wasn’t patient. It was seething. “We moved towns. We did so many things for you to be able to erase your past and have a future.”

“I don't want to erase my past,” Dean spat out, glaring up at her.

“I don't care what you want, Dean. This isn't kindergarten playground anymore. This is the real world, and in the real world you have to fight to survive. So fight. Shut your mouth, put on a smile, nod your head, and do as you're told. This is what it's like to be an adult. You've made your adult choices, now it's time to face your adult consequences.”

Dean looked at her silently for a long moment. Then he forced on a smile, nodded his head, stood up, and walked away.

The next day was his first creative writing class, and Dean couldn’t give less shits. He spent the forty-five minutes glaring at his blank notebook and replaying his conversation with his mother. Then he recited this week’s shifts at Dick’s.

When the bell rang the classroom deflated, and the teacher walked over to Dean's table. She said something to Charlie that made her walk away – he didn’t know what; he still wasn’t listening. Then she turned to him.

“Why don’t you want to be in this class, Dean?” She asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. Calmly.

“You haven’t listened to a thing I’ve said in the past forty minutes.”

“What is it,” Dean leaned back in his chair. “My leather jacket? My haircut? Maybe I just don’t look like the type who would listen.”

“I’ll leave you alone if you tell me my name.”

Dean’s mouth fell open, waiting for his brain to catch up, and when it realized his brain was stumped, it jammed shut.

“Naomi,” the teacher provided. Dean huffed.

“I could know that.”

“But you didn’t.”

Naomi seemed to be waiting for a response. He shrugged.

“Why are you so angry, Dean?” She asked. It was quiet enough that there was no sting to it.

Why? He thought. About a million reasons.

Because I miss my dad?

Because all my mother does these days is disapprove of me?

Because my brother won’t even talk to me – won’t even look my way, that’s how much he hates me for what I did to him?

None of those seemed like acceptable answers.

Dean shrugged again. It felt like a good tactic: adults were helpless in the face of shrugging teenagers. They just didn’t know what to do with them. “I’ve got zero interest in writing about my feelings,” he said. “And I’ve got minus three billion interest in anyone seeing it. So, do the math.”

“It's not mandatory to share your materials in class,” Naomi said, “Only to hand them in so that I can grade them and give the yearly honorary mention to the student who gets to the top of the class.”

Dean grimaced at his desk. “Why couldn't I be picked for architecture or something,” he muttered.

Naomi sighed. “You can switch classes if you insist.” She went back to her desk and grabbed a few papers stapled together, flipping through them. “The classes still available are balloon animal twisting, flower arranging and tambourine.”

Dean thought this over. He thought it over real hard. And of course, he came to the conclusion that creative writing was the most logical choice.

He stood up, looked at his teacher, and clenched his teeth.

“I’ll take flower arranging,” he said, and before he could regret it, he grabbed his bag and left the classroom.

He slung his bag on one shoulder and hurried down the empty hall. The next period must have started already without him noticing.

Someone walked past him – snooty bookstore Cas, he realized when he looked up, his blue eyes boring into Dean’s. He nodded as they passed each other.

Dean kept walking, and didn’t nod back.

If this guy was any kind of popular around here then he just somersaulted right into a social suicide.

He didn’t care.

Chapter Text

The next Sunday Dean woke up at 7 a.m., pulled on a clean shirt and practically skipped his way to work. After a week of maneuvering between a constantly bitter and resentful household, tedious schoolwork and – God help him – flower arranging classes, he’d almost managed to forget all his grievances toward Dick’s.

That was, until he got to the shop, and was forcefully reminded.

Locked. Again. Of course.

He reached for the handle, just to make sure, although if the door opened, he – and more so, whoever had taken last night’s shift – would be in deep trouble.

Still, he pulled.

Locked – to his annoyance, and tremendous relief.

“Forgot your key?” Someone said behind him. He turned around to see Charlie’s preferred bookstore employee. It took Dean aback for half a second – he’d never heard the guy’s voice before. It was lower than he’d expected. Not just that, but grounded. Combined with his weirdly intense eyes, this voice could hold you down, it felt, by sheer will rather than by the help of gravity.

“Haven’t gotten my card yet,” Dean answered, letting carelessness into his voice, coloring it with nonchalance, a perfect antithesis to Cas’ gravelly, grounded sound.

“Really?” Cas looked him up and down. Dean wasn’t sure whether it made him uncomfortable, or insecure. He fought the urge to look down and remember what he was wearing. Whatever it was, this guy was looking better than him. Though maybe it was the way he carried himself rather than his outfit. “I got my card on the day of my first shift.”

“Of course you did,” Dean grumbled. Damned snobbish bookstore probably handed their employees silver tiaras with their holiday cards. He waited until Cas turned away to make a face.

“I see you’re making friends,” said a voice behind him. He spun around, startled. Why did everyone jump on him today?

It was Meg, and she looked as scornful as ever.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he replied. Meg nodded as she opened the door to Dick’s.

“Not sure that’s the right person to be making friends with,” she said. Dean didn’t ask what she meant. She was a couple of years older than him, and convinced that living life was best if you were rude to every single person you encountered. It seemed to be working out for her. Dean didn’t secretly wish he had the courage to live like that. Not even a little bit.

“You’re late,” he said. “Again.”

“And I can keep being late.”

He started to protest as they got inside, but she turned and held up an envelope. It had his name on it. He snatched it from her hand, scowling at her for good measure as he tore it open.

“Thanks, Meg,” she muttered to herself. “I hate you, Meg. If you weren’t older and much more intimidating than me, I’d have gotten into a fist fight with you. And I still would’ve lost.”

Dean was barely listening to her mediocre-at-best imitation of him. He looked into the envelope, and there it was – his long-awaited employee card.

Tucked behind it was a page listing the uses and benefits of the card. Entrance to the shop, discount on meals in any of the street’s restaurants and cafés and a variety of discounts in other stores on the street, including Page Turner. He scoffed. As if he’d ever need a discount for a bookstore.

He tucked the envelope into his pocket. Charlie joined them soon after, helping take the chairs off the tables and unpack eclairs and strawberry cakes. They settled behind the counter as customers trickled in and out of the shop.

“So how’s flower arranging?” Charlie asked halfway through the morning, one eyebrow raised in what seemed to be very poorly veiled skepticism.

Meg almost spit her coffee all over the display case. She managed to keep it in, but it took half a minute of coughing before she could speak.

“Flower arranging?”

“Great,” Dean said, looking out into the street and ignoring them both. Flower arranging was dreadfully boring with a dash of embarrassing on top. It was the mildest, blandest, mellowest form of sheer torture Naomi could have thrown at him. “It’s great.”

He knew he’d chosen it. But still.

Outside the shop, to his left, he had a clear view on the inside of Page Turner. Cas was leaning against a counter in his bookstore, and when Dean looked his way he noticed the guy had been staring. His blue eyes were damn piercing even from this distance.

Dean scowled back. Let him stare.

“Someone barfed on table six,” Meg said somewhere around him.

“Not it!” Charlie called.

There was a hand on his shoulder. “You’re it.”

He tore his eyes away from Cas and turned to look at Meg. She shrugged.

“Sorry, man.”

By the time he cleaned the barf and returned to his spot behind the cash register, it was past noon, and Cas was nowhere to be seen. Shame. Dean really felt like scowling at someone some more, and he secretly worried that if he so much as thought of grimacing in Meg’s direction she would pull a knife out of her boot and put it against his throat.

He turned around to make sure the back counter was empty of stray pastries and clean of stains; Dick was very strict when it came to keeping his pastry shop clean. Not that Dean had ever seen the guy, but he always got a sense of this omnipresent being when he was here, as if the man could see any wrong move he would make – whether it was by way of security cameras, or if he was an actual supernatural creature with invisibility powers.

“Hello,” someone said behind him at the very moment he thought this, and Dean started and dropped whatever he’d been holding. It hit the floor with a dull thump, but he didn’t look down to check whether it was fragile, and if it was, whether it broke. He whirled around to face the owner of the voice.

It wasn’t a supernatural being, or an invisible Dick.

It was Cas.

“Hello,” Dean said back, looking him over with suspicion. He thought about scowling, or even simply walking away without another word. Something about this guy brought out in him the urge to be exasperating. But he didn’t want to be making enemies in town so soon. His mother would be furious.

No, he didn’t want that.

He definitely didn’t.

“Hello,” Cas said a second time, sounding less sure of his greeting than before. His gaze wasn’t any less intense from up close. It made Dean irritable.

“What can I get you?” he asked.

“Uh…” Cas scanned their selection of sandwiches behind the display case. It gave Dean a moment to look at him freely from a short distance for the first time. His dark hair was short and still somewhat disheveled. His shoulders were squared, straight and proud, as if he made a point of not caring what anyone else thought about him – or maybe as if he were waiting for an arrow to pierce through his back.

He looked up, then, and Dean’s eyes shot to the counter.

“Do you have a recommendation?”

“Oh,” Dean let out. This he knew how to do. “Our omelet sandwich is decent, if you don’t mind white cheese. We’ve also got PB&J. Other than that, I’d recommend a toast. Everything’s better when it’s a toast.”

Cas looked up at him, and there was the flicker of a smile in his eyes.

What do you know. Maybe they could get along after all.

“I’ll take the PB&J,” said Cas.

“Great.” Dean snatched a sandwich from the case and put it in a paper bag. Cas watched him. The next words he spoke were quiet, meant for no one to hear but Dean.

“Why do you always frown?”

Dean’s hands froze, clutching the bag. “What?”

Cas watched him.

“You don't know what you're talking about,” said Dean. He’d taken special care to only frown at the guy when he was turning away. Well, almost only then.

“You do, though.”

“No, I don't.”

 “You do when no one's looking.”

Dean looked up at him. Why in burning hell has he been looking at Dean when he wasn’t looking?

“Fine,” Dean threw his hands in the air.

“Why, then?”

“About a million reasons,” Dean muttered. “None of your business.”

Cas watched him for another moment. Then he plastered on a fake smile that uncannily contradicted his naturally-sober expression. “I'll just have my sandwich and leave.”

He handed Dean the money and showed him an employee card. “I work at the bookstore.”

Dean took the money and punched in the discount code.

“It’s right out–”

“I don’t care about books,” Dean cut him off.

Cas’ eyebrows pulled down.

For a split second, Dean wanted to erase the frown off the other boy’s face. Hated that he’d caused another person unhappiness, even for a breath. Absolutely hated it.

His brain hurried to amend.

Good, he thought, pulling the ends of his lips down to match Cas’. The guy could frown for the rest of his life for all Dean cared. He didn’t care how other people felt, and he didn’t consider their feelings. No matter how his mother tried to mask it or pretty it up – he was the bad guy. Neither of them could change that.

“I don’t either,” Cas was saying. Dean refocused on the change and receipt shifting hands between them.

“You have to care about books to be a book seller,” he argued.

“Well, I don't.”

“Then you must be bad at your job,” Dean said, looking him right in the eye, and handed him his sandwich. Cas’ lips tightened in a brief, delightful display of irritation.

“You work at a pastry shop,” he retorted. “Do you care about pastries?”

Dean’s chin lifted a touch. “Actually, I do.” Here was one thing no one could take from him: he knew his way around his yummy treats. “I can list you every kind of pie to ever exist. Alphabetically.”

“Then you must be a nerd,” said Cas, and left.

“Today we’re going to learn how to step up our flower arrangement game, and make a dinner party bouquet.”

Dean wanted to smack his head against his desk. He watched his teacher with the small amount of patience he managed to muster.

“First we’re going to choose the flowers.” She indicated at a few vases at the center of the joint tables the class was sitting around. “Pick your flowers in threes: large flowers, medium flowers and small flowers. Now, you want to buy your flowers the day before, because sometimes they aren’t open all the way, and soaking them in water overnight will open them up a little more.”

The students around Dean scrambled to get to the best flowers first, all sighing and gasping in anticipation. He almost admired their passion for something so utterly useless.

He swallowed his pride and grabbed a few gardenias. He could be sitting in a different classroom right now, learning about architecture, or comic books.

Or writing. That would be dreadful.

“When creating any flower arrangement,” the teacher went on, “But especially a dinner party one, you don’t want it to be too high, because then guests can’t see each other.”

Dean’s urge to smack his head against the table multiplied by twenty-three.

This was it. He knew it. He felt it in his bones – he couldn’t take one more second of this class.

He learned his lesson – the one his mother and Naomi were trying to teach him. Shut your mouth, put on a smile, and do as you're told. Otherwise, things just get worse.

Never trying to rebel again, he muttered within his own thoughts, as if his mother could hear him. I swear.

He stood up, excused himself to the teacher, and left the classroom.

He barreled through the long corridor, trying not to think too hard about his decision. Not to allow himself to change his mind. When he found the right door, he knocked on it, slid it open, and stepped inside.

On the other side, Naomi’s hawkish glare was on him in an instant, as though she’d been waiting for this moment since Dean had walked out of the room almost two weeks ago.

“Sorry,” Dean mumbled, meaning to manifest an actual sentence, but it got swallowed in his throat. He walked in and picked the closest chair to the door, as if he was securing an emergency exit, just in case.

Naomi stopped talking and watched Dean settle in his seat.

“Will someone catch him up?” she asked curtly.

For a moment, the class was silent, and Dean worried that none of these people would agree to help him. Then, on the other side of the room, Charlie grabbed her notebook and moved to his table.

Naomi kept talking. Dean blocked her out to listen to his friend whisper updates over her notebook.

“So there’s one assignment each week,” Charlie whispered. “And you gotta have a journal where you write everything. We hand in the journal every week to get graded and reviewed and then we get it back for the next assignment.” Charlie paused, grinning up at him. “Got sick of flowers, huh?”

Dean grunted noncommittally.

“We already did the first assignment, so I guess you’ll have to hand in two next week. You just need to write a poem.”

“What about?” Dean asked.

“Whatever you want.”

“That’s it?” No guidance? No help in how to bullshit his way through?

“Yep. Easy, right?” Charlie looked at him, eyes bright.

“Sure,” he said weakly. “Easy.”

Charlie shifted to look at the whiteboard, taking notes. Dean tried to concentrate on his teacher’s words. He had no idea what she was saying – he didn’t know whether that was because he’d missed two weeks’ worth of classes or because this class required an interest in literature that he just lacked.

“One way to add texture to your writing,” Naomi was saying; what the hell did that even mean? “Is to describe the type of object, rather than mentioning the object itself. For example, instead of using the word ‘floor’, I’ll say linoleum, tiles or asphalt. But you can’t apply this technique to everything. Writing is about the right words, in the right moments.”

Someone tapped Dean’s shoulder, and he turned around.

The girl leaning forward behind him was blond, and wore a red jacket. Dean had heard people call her Ruby in the halls. She tilted her head at another student. “Gordon wants to know if it’s true.”

Something in his chest froze at her words.

“What?” he asked, putting on a blank expression, and preparing himself for the worst.

“That your dad’s in prison,” Ruby said.

“Tell Gordon it‘s none of his business.” He turned around.

A moment passed, and he felt another tap on his shoulder.

“Is he, though?”

Dean considered his options. He could say yes, and own up to it. He could lie and say no.

He didn’t feel like doing either.

He turned around wordlessly.

“…To describe the result rather than describing the action,” Naomi was saying. “For example, instead of saying, ‘I touched his face’, I’ll say, ‘his face was warm underneath my fingers’. Which brings me to our next assignment.”

It was strange hearing such intimate words coming out of the teacher’s mouth, made flat and cold by her voice. Dean’s shoulders were still rigid at Ruby’s words, as if he was waiting for the next blow in a fist fight.

Not like you didn’t see it coming, he shot at himself.

“This week, we’ll be working on senses,” Naomi said. “For this assignment, you’ll need to be blindfolded. I’d recommend that you get a volunteer, a family member or a friend who will be your guide, or your guinea pig. Your only instruction is to take advantage of your other senses in order to experience whatever’s around you without using your sight.”

A volunteer. Great. Where was he going to get a volunteer? His brother hated him with a passion at the moment, and he doubted his mother would do him any favors. He looked sideways at Charlie, but she was already mouthing something at a fairy-like girl sitting across the room from them.

The bell sounded, and the class dissolved into a stream of students heading toward the exit. As Dean grabbed his bag, he caught a glimpse of Ruby whispering with the friend she’d pointed at before. A few students leaned in to listen around them.

When Dean stood up, Ruby’s friend – Gordon – made a beeline for the exit, shouldering him roughly on his way out.

“Crime baby,” he said, calm and quiet enough for only the people around them to hear. Someone snorted. Everyone else just watched.

Gordon left. Dean looked after him with clenched teeth.

So this was how it was going to be. People pushing him around. Testing his patience. And him letting them.

Well, he thought, holding himself back from reacting; let them see how long his patience lasted. They wouldn’t want to be there when it ran thin.

Chapter Text

Dean spent the next afternoon making an effort to write a beautiful poem.

He started simple:

Awake and cold

I lie at night

And…

He tried to concentrate.

And…

He’d never written a poem before.

He looked around the shop. It was quiet this early in the morning, allowing him to focus on his homework for a few moments.

He wished someone would come in already.

He didn’t even know how to go about it. What was the point of poems when you didn’t want to say anything? He didn’t want to say anything. He grimaced and kept writing.

Awake and cold

I lie at night,

Think, fuck it all

And fuck my life.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Meg approaching his table.

He shut his notebook and straightened up, trying not to look too excited at the distraction.

“What are you doing here?” Meg asked, crossing her arms over her chest and looking down at him. “It’s a weekday.”

“Didn’t really wanna be home,” he answered.

Meg’s expression softened a touch. “Need a place to stay?” She asked curtly.

Dean stared at her for a second, before smoothing his expression. “Nope.”

He was pretty sure she lived alone, but still… He hadn’t imagined she would go so far out of her way for someone else with such little prompting. He supposed he shouldn’t’ve been so quick to make assumptions.

“I’m just hanging out here until I finish my homework,” he said.

“Well, if you’re gonna lurk in here and take up a table, you’ll have to order something.”

He glanced at the empty shop around him, and back at Meg’s face.

“I’m kidding,” she said before Dean’s expression could transition from worried to frightened.

She didn’t look like she was kidding.

“Is Charlie here?” Dean asked miserably.

“I’ll call her,” Meg said and walked back to the counter.

Dean exhaled and reopened his notebook, staring at the paint peeling from the table for a few moments before adding to his shitty poem.

I hate this town and hate its people

That's very clear, and very simple.

He assessed his handiwork and wondered if he meant it.

Well, he meant it. But he wasn’t sure just how much he meant it.

He supposed time would tell.

Meg’s out-of-the-blue offer had taken him aback. He’d thought he knew what she was like – mean, and critical, and then mean some more.

He thought of Gordon pushing him in class, and couldn’t help wonder whether she might still stand by him if things got worse.

It would probably be a while before things got worse.

He was procrastinating.

He looked down at his notebook.

This poem's dumb, and pointless too.

I'd rather mate with a kazoo.

See how his teacher liked that. He wasn’t breaking any rule.

My li-

Charlie waved at him from across the room, and he shut his notebook a second time.

She walked up to his table, looking over his shoulder.  “What are you doing?”

“Homework.”

“Writing?” she asked. “Already?”

Dean hated to erase the somewhat-impressed expression off her face. “It’s just the poem,” he said, thinking of Naomi’s blindfolding essay, and shrugged helplessly. “I don't even know where I'd find someone for the other essay.”

“Family?” Charlie suggested.

“Nope.”

“Someone from school?”

He didn’t bother uttering something more than a snort.

Charlie shook her head and took a seat beside him. “Forget about that. You’ve got almost a week. How’s the poem going?”

“Shit.”

“Aren’t we a ray of sunshine today.”

Dean cracked a smile. “I just don’t even know how to go about it. I’ve never done this before.”

Charlie grabbed his notebook and took a look.

“Beautiful,” she said with a wrinkled nose. “Maybe you should start by consuming.”

“Meg already said it’s okay that I’m taking up a table without getting anything,” Dean hurried to say. Not exactly how that conversation went, but close enough.

“I mean read,” said Charlie. “You’re sitting ten feet away from a bookstore. Get your ass off the chair and read some poetry. There’s no better way to learn how to do it yourself.”

“I’m not reading poetry,” he replied quickly, almost automatically.

“Then read anything,” Charlie begged. “When was the last time you opened a book?”

Dean made a dismissive motion, as if her words were a fly he was trying to bat away. “I don’t like your questions.”

Charlie pouted at him. He didn’t budge. Finally, she got up and left to help other customers, patting his shoulder as she went.

Dean went back to staring at his notebook. Maybe he needed to read in order to write like Charlie did, or like Naomi wanted him to, but not for this poem. He gripped his pen harder, trying not to get distracted.

The bookstore was ten feet away. And the cashier was getting passionately scolded at by an old man.

Cas.

The cashier. Not the old man. And he was looking to be in a murderous mood. The perfect person to aggravate right now. Dean touched his pen to paper, instantly motivated to finish his homework and move on to more important things.

My life's a shit show as it is, he wrote.

There's nothing you can make me do.

So save your breath, I won't appease,

I'd just give up if I were you.

He shut his notebook and stood up.

Cas was nowhere in sight when he approached the bookstore. Instead, a brown-haired girl looked him up and down from behind the register.

“Looking for something?” she asked dryly. He must’ve looked lost. He wasn’t sure what one did in a bookstore.

“Actually,” he said. “Is Cas around?”

“He’s opening deliveries in the back,” said the girl. “I’ll go get him.”

She turned away, then paused and took another scrutinizing look at Dean. “You’re friends?”

“No,” said Dean. “But he’ll know who I am. Just tell him I’m the asshole from Dick’s.”

“I’m Hannah.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. “Hi.”

She leaned closer. “You know the deal with him, right?”

“What do you mean?”

Hannah came so close to him that he almost leaned back. Her voice dropped to the soft volume only secrets were spoken in. “He killed his brother.”

Dean worked to keep his face impassive, but his brain was going a hundred miles per hour. He gave Hannah a closer look. What was she trying to do? Warn him? Hurt her coworker?

“I’ll find him,” he said, pushing past Hannah. “Thanks.”

Whatever her motive was, it was none of Dean’s business.

Didn't mean he wasn't curious. 

He hovered by the door to the storage room.

He killed his brother.

Whether this was just a rumor and whether it wasn’t, he should at least hear it from the guy himself and not from gossips and bullies.

He took a step around the corner into the storage room – and bumped into a pile of books. Some slid onto the floor with a thump.

“Sorry,” said the pile in Cas’ voice. A few more books fell when he moved, and now Dean could see his face. “Oh. It’s you.”

“It’s me,” Dean grinned. His brain was still playing out Hannah’s words, but he pushed them away. “I need a book recommendation.”

“I thought you didn’t care about books.” Cas’ eyes narrowed at him as Dean knelt down to pick up the books from the floor and balanced them back on top of the pile. He didn’t seem to be struggling with the weight. Dean swallowed.

“Yeah, well, I changed my mind. I don’t have to tell you why.”

“Alright.” Cas walked to the counter and put the books down. “What are you looking for?”

No pushback so far. Dean would have to up his annoyance game.

“Shortest book you’ve got,” he said. “And not a boring one. I want action.”

“We have children's books,” Cas said tiredly, with just a hint of teasing in his voice.

“Perfect.”

Cas eyed him. He returned a leveled stare.

“Excuse me?” someone said behind them. Cas directed Dean to the children’s shelves and turned to help the customer.

The children’s books were not nearly as interesting without the guy he was trying to annoy being there for him to annoy.

The covers were pretty, though. He picked one with a red dragon on the front and started reading. Its lines rhymed, and it had a moral and everything. It wasn’t as stupid as he thought it would be – it wasn’t stupid at all. He picked up another book; if all children’s books were beautiful and insightful and not-boring, then maybe…

He looked up at Cas, and caught him sneaking a glance back at him. His customer was a middle-aged man in clothes that were way too fancy for any possible position in this godforsaken town. He was gradually raising his voice, complaining about the prices with passionate hand gestures. Cas didn’t seem particularly impressed.

If nothing else, Dean could respect him for that. He was always a little terrified when someone started yelling at him at Dick’s, even if he took it with just as much composure as Cas did.

He ran a finger across his throat behind the guy’s back, and Cas’ lips tightened, though not with the usual irritation. He was holding back a smile.

Dean stared.

He was about to come to Cas’ aid with some made-up story – or, well, maybe he was stalling coming to his aid just a bit, because the man did look quite intimidating – when the customer barked out an “I’ll make sure your boss will be hearing about this” and left. Dean approached hesitantly.

“So…” he said, clapping his palms together awkwardly, and grasped for a sarcastic comment. The tightness in Cas’ lips had no residue of that momentary spark of amusement it had before.

“Not today,” he said, and Dean stopped in his tracks.

“What?”

“Whatever you were about to say. Just not today. I’ve been yelled at once too many.”

“Oh.” Dean shuffled his feet on the floor. “Sorry. I thought we were still doing this.”

“Being rude to each other?” Cas let out a faint exhale, as if he had stepped on a sprained ankle and tried not to let it show quite how much it hurt. “Would you believe me if I said you're the nicest person I've met today?”

“I want to say no, but working in retail is the worst.”

“Someone came in looking for Jurassic Park,” Cas started, “And when I said we don’t have it, she started yelling at me that the bookstore two blocks over has it, and how come we don’t have it, it’s unacceptable – if the other bookstore has it, just go buy it there and leave me alone, lady.”

“Back up,” Dean stopped him.  “You still sell DVDs?”

Cas looked at him blankly. “What?”

“Jurassic Park.”

“No. It’s a book.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Really?”

Cas nodded slowly. “Did you think it was… a movie?”

“It is a movie.”

“Oh.”

“Did you not know that? Where do you live, under a rock?”

Cas’ face settled into a grimace.

Right. Not today.

“So what did you do?”

“Nothing. She just left. And after all that, guess what I found half an hour later.” He walked over to the Sci-Fi section and drew a book out of one of the shelves, seemingly at random.

Jurassic Park.

“Whoa.” Dean took a few steps closer. “Can I see?”

Cas handed him the book, watching as he flipped through the first pages. Then he spoke in his quiet voice, the one that wasn’t meant to be mean or offensive – or, well, maybe just a little bit offensive. “You really are a nerd, aren’t you?”

Dean tried to ignore him. He flipped through the pages of the book almost reverently. Cas shuffled his feet in front of him.

“I want it,” Dean said finally.

“I thought you didn’t care about books.”

“Recent developments might not have left me with much choice.” Dean pouted at the book. It was beautiful, with texture like scales and a big black dinosaur skeleton on the cover. Dean patted his pockets for his wallet.

“Aw, crap. I don’t have cash.” He handed Cas the book. “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting to actually get anything.”

Cas looked at the book. Then he looked at Dean. “I’ll buy it for you on my break,” he said. “You can pay me back.”

“Why would you do that?”

Cas shrugged. “You just looked so excited, I don’t want to see you leave without it. Not many people get this excited about books.”

“I don’t care about books,” came Dean’s automatic reply. He studied Cas’ face for a sign of scorn, but there was none. He really didn’t mind paying 14.99 for a practical stranger just because they’d looked excited. Meg and Hannah and everyone who seemed to try their damnest to stay away from him…

How could anyone think this guy was trouble when they looked into his eyes?

“Yeah, alright.” Cas eyed him skeptically. “It’ll be thirty percent off with my employee’s discount, anyway.”

He looked at Dean expectantly, as if waiting for him to just say, sounds great! and walk away.

Dean shuffled his feet. He didn’t like the idea of someone paying for his stuff. It should have felt like leverage.

It felt plain nice.

No one’s done something nice for him in a while. Except, it wouldn’t take him long to pay Cas back. Between school and work, they did spend about sixty percent of their lives less than a hundred feet away from one another.

“Okay,” he said. “Um. Thanks.”

Cas nodded and turned to help another customer, Jurassic in hand.

For a few moments, Dean stood in place and watched him pick books off shelves like apples from a tree. Just the sight made his chest a little warmer.

When he went back to Dick’s, he walked straight to the counter. His notebook was right where he left it on one of the tables, untouched. That’s how many people shopped at Dick’s.

Not that losing it would be a tragedy. Maybe he’d have an excuse to skip the second essay he had to write this week. It wouldn’t be embarrassing if someone found it, since he still smartly refused to write anything private in it. Maybe he should just leave it there on the table…

“Did you go?” Charlie asked.

He shook himself out of his schoolwork-avoiding fantasy. “Yeah.”

“How’d it go?”

“I got a book.”

Meg’s eyes rose from her phone to look him over, narrowing.

“Where is it?” Charlie asked, looking up and down his empty-handed self.

“I don’t got it,” he said. He looked behind him and stepped closer, his voice dropping in volume. “Say, that thing about Cas killing his brother… Is it true?”

Meg’s stare turned ice cold. “Talking like this about people won’t get you far.”

Charlie glanced at her hesitantly, then looked back at Dean. “He has a right to his privacy.” Her tone was much more forgiving than Meg’s. “This kind of people have already got the whole town on their back. They don't need another person to judge them without knowing the facts.”

“Right.” Dean made an awkward finger-guns-like motion. “My bad.”

But in his mind, he mulled it over.

Maybe this kind of people – people like Cas – didn’t have to go at it alone.

Maybe… he thought, and dared to let a shred of hope into his chest. Maybe Charlie and Meg would stand by him if they ever found out what he’d done.

Meg’s eyes shot back to her phone. Charlie’s mouth shut, and she looked past him.

When he turned around, he saw Cas entering Dick’s holding a Page Turner bag.

Cas’ eyes rested on his face for just a moment too long before dropping to the floor and then looking back up. He handed Dean the bag.

“There you go.”

“Thanks,” Dean said.

Thanks? He sounded stupid. He sounded stupid, didn’t he? Maybe it wasn’t the thanks. Maybe it was his voice. Or the way he stood. He squared his shoulders and cleared his throat.

“I’ll pay you back.”

“No problem,” said Cas. He stood there, hesitant, as though he wanted to go and wanted to stay at the same time. They looked at one another. Dean’s knuckles were white around his bag. Was he taller than Cas? He was taller, wasn’t he? He straightened his back. Yeah, he was definitely taller.

He wasn’t sure who he was trying to impress. The only people around were his very lesbian friend and a girl who repeatedly threatened to annihilate him at arm-wrestling.

“Hey, Cas,” said Charlie, leaning over the counter. “You free this weekend?”

“Um.” Cas glanced around the store, as if to make sure this wasn’t some practical joke. He looked pretty uncomfortable. He must not be asked that often. If at all. “I guess.”

Charlie brightened up. “We have this writing assignment for next week, and Dean’s missing a partner.”

Dean tore his eyes from Cas to glare at her.

“I’m free on Saturday,” said Cas and looked at him, waiting for an answer.

“You don’t want to do this,” said Dean.

“I don’t mind,” he said.

“Uh…” Dean’s eyes wandered over to Charlie again. She glared back. “Yeah. Okay. I’m working Saturday, so maybe in the morning?”

“Sounds good,” said Cas. “I’ll give you my phone number, so you can text me an address.”

Dean handed him his phone wordlessly. His mouth felt dry. He wanted to kill Charlie for embarrassing him.

“See you Saturday,” Cas said as he gave his phone back.

Dean waved weakly as he turned around and left. Then he turned on his heel to face Charlie.

“What in hell was that?” He hissed.

“I thought it would be nice for him to have someone to hang out with,” Charlie said. “You seemed like you were getting along. I didn’t think you’d mind.” She raised her hands, palms facing forward in defense.

“Oh.” Dean’s anger deflated. She wasn’t trying to embarrass him. She was just trying to be nice. “Yeah. I guess I don’t mind.”

“Good.” Charlie eyed him cautiously. “Everyone else stays away from him like he’s gonna sting them if they get close.”

“Or push them from a balcony,” Meg added.

Charlie ignored her and looked at Dean pleadingly. “Just be nice to him.”

When he got home, Dean placed his new book at the center of his desk; he wasn’t sure where else to put books that would be respectful to them. Wouldn’t offend some dead author’s ghost that would come back to haunt him. Jurassic was hardcover, and by far, the fanciest thing he owned that had a title. Though he supposed he could just assign a title to one of his pocketknives, or to the suit his dad had passed down to him a couple of years ago.

He brushed his teeth, changed into sweats, and shut the light.

It was hard to keep everything that had happened today out of his mind while he tried to fall asleep. He frowned absentmindedly, staring at the dark ceiling, and made an effort to think about anything but Charlie’s words. This kind of people.

Another person to judge them without knowing the facts.

He blinked at the ceiling.

Dinosaurs. Books. Guys in T-shirts showing you books about dinosaurs. Think about anything else.

Cas was still a mystery to him, but if nothing else, Dean understood him a little better now.

He wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

Meg had warned him to stay away. If his mother knew anything about Cas, she would probably lock Dean up in a tower and make him grow his hair out to be able to pull her up through the window.

Okay. He was exaggerating. But so was his mother, following every step he took.

Getting closer to this one random guy seemed like the thing that would make his life the most unnecessarily complicated right now. But somehow, as dangerous as everyone presented him to be, no place in this town felt as safe as being around Cas did to him.

Thursday morning, he was running laps in the gymnasium surrounded by stinky classmates when someone pushed past him from behind, making him stumble to the side while the rest of the students ran past him.

“Crime baby,” Gordon called as he passed by running. Dean hissed a curse and switched to walking. For a moment, he wasn’t in the school gym anymore. He was in a much smaller, darker room. He fought the smell of blood rising to the surface in his mind and refocused on his surroundings.

Sneakers squeaked against the linoleum beneath the runners’ feet. From the other side of the hall, the coach shouted for him to keep running. He ignored the ringing of Sam’s shouts in his ears.

Couldn’t let stupid Gordon be the thing that broke him. He shook his head and started running again, gaining momentum, stretching his muscles.

The coach shouted something again, and Dean followed the students who crowded her. Everyone was breathing heavy. The air smelled stuffy and sweaty. Dean wiped moisture from his forehead with the edge of his shirt and tried to ignore the heat that flooded his face. A bucket of ice would be welcome right about now.

He glanced around and caught Cas’ eyes over a few heads of hair, looking at him reluctantly, lingering on the sweat trickling from Dean’s jaw to his neck almost regretfully, as if he’d been glancing against his own will. He looked away quickly, and Dean’s eyes jumped back to their teacher. He felt all the more disgusting, sinking in the smell of other people’s smelly feet, his face red from the heat, now that he was aware someone’s been looking at him.

The coach clapped her hands together, and everyone filed into the locker room. Dean peeled his shirt off and shoved it into his backpack, putting on a fresh one. A couple of guys murmured something behind him. He hauled his bag onto one shoulder, catching a glimpse of Cas tugging his shirt off and letting it fall onto the bench. He looked pretty good. Dean’s mind flashed back to the first week of school, when he’d looked at Cas through the window of Dick’s with his coworkers, and he felt another surge of insecurity. He couldn’t tell why, out of a room full of half-naked guys he didn’t spare a second thought, this person always made him feel so self-conscious.

Cas pulled a clean shirt on and Dean’s eyes slid away. The trail of a sentence someone had mumbled behind him snaked into his brain.

“…Cousin’s step-mom told me he killed someone last year.”

More gossip. He had his own share of the rumors, but he didn’t envy Cas for being pegged as a killer.

Really, really didn’t envy him.

He almost made for the exit, but the next words he overheard over locker-room chatter made his limbs freeze and his heart race.

“I thought he’s the guy whose dad is in prison.”

“Yeah. Same guy. They found blood all over the carpet…”

He pushed the vivid memory of colors and nauseating smell out of his mind and tried to decide whether to shoulder his way toward the door or to pretend to lace his shoes and keep eavesdropping.

How did they find out? His thoughts spun in his head. Old newspapers? Or had he just not moved far enough away to leave this story behind him?

Someone jabbed their shoulder hard at his back when they passed him. “Killer,” they coughed. His ego didn’t bother feeling bruised. He gripped the strap of his bag tighter, watching Cas across the room. Nobody touched him. Were they… afraid of him?

He wondered what Cas had done to earn this fear; or whether his classmates were simply too interested in picking on the new guy to pay him any attention. If Cas was really this intimidating, it became more and more apparent that Dean didn’t need to keep his distance.

He needed to watch and learn.

Chapter Text

Dean thought the local botanical garden would be lame – lame enough to be an appropriate place to meet your classmate who was also working across the road from you who was also a stranger.

It wasn’t.

It was a proper garden, full of flowers and narrow paths that led into the trees, and even though it was a free entrance, there seemed to be no one around.

And it was intimate. Somehow, the vast, empty space packed with vibrant vegetation felt private.

“So what’s the assignment?” Cas asked. He didn’t seem very impressed with their surroundings. Maybe he’d been here before. Maybe he went here every weekend. It would just be him and the birds. He’d probably like that; he seemed like a weirdo, even though he kept looking at Dean like he was the weirdo, with a tilted head or a narrow squint.

“I… uh, I wrote it down,” Dean said, searching his pockets. He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and straightened it. “I need to have my eyes closed, and, uh…” He looked at the paper. “Sense the air or something. Feel the wind on my face.” He grimaced. “I’m not sure. I just joined this class a week ago." He looked up at Cas and realized he wasn’t really listening. His lips pursed in one of his not-quite-a-smile expressions at something clutched in Dean’s hand. Dean almost expected him to burst out laughing, but he didn’t.

“Is that your mother’s?” he asked at the pink flamingo-print sleep mask.

“Stole it from my brother,” said Dean. “He’d kill me if he knew I know he has it.” He glanced around nervously, just to have somewhere else to look. “It’s gonna be a shame not to be able to see this place while being here.”

“You haven’t been here before?”

Dean shook his head.

“It’s quiet,” said Cas.

“I’ve noticed.”

There was an awkward silence.

“So…” Dean said finally.

Cas glanced at the sleep mask again and his eyebrows furrowed, as though he was still trying to hold back a smile at the sight of it.

“I’ll show you around,” he said, his eyes flicking up Dean’s face with their typical intensity. “Figuratively.”

Dean nodded rigidly and covered his eyes.

The world turned black, and warm around the edges. The sound of leaves swaying nearby became more defined, the scent of green freshness more acute.

The calm was so vast around him that for a moment he felt lost, adrift with the wind like a stray leaf.

Then he felt a hand in his own.

The sensation was so alarmingly intimate that Dean fought the urge to flinch away, even after they’d been standing there motionlessly for five seconds.

He felt like an idiot. His face colored slightly pink. Cas’ hand was warm; not uncomfortably so, but just to the amount that made Dean hold on tighter.

Cas tugged at his hand, then, and pulled him into motion. It felt so completely foreign – trusting someone else blindly. Cas seemed to understand; he walked slowly. He held Dean’s hand firmly. When he spoke, the darkness surrounding Dean felt comforting rather than scary. 

“I see it, you know.”

“What?”

“When they bother you at school.”

Alright. So maybe Dean thought he was going to say something a bit more comforting.

“Right.” The ground let out a soft thudding sound when their feet hit it. Cas’ grip didn’t loosen any by the harshness in Dean’s tone.

“Why do you let them do it?” Cas asked.

“Not like I asked for it.”

“If you stand your ground, they’ll stop.”

I knew it, Dean thought. They were scared of him. He could barely imagine what this boy who held his hand and led him carefully through a garden might do to make anyone afraid of him. To make anyone feel unsafe around him.

Barely; but he could. He could imagine Cas losing his cool. Being as dangerous as people made him out to be – to the people who were dangerous to him.

“That’s not it,” Dean said. He tripped over a root in the ground. Cas’ grip tightened. “If I wanted to beat them up, I know I could do it. I know I could seriously hurt them.”

“You know how to fight?” Cas’ voice rose a little with intrigue.

“I’ve had my training.” He didn’t elaborate.

Cas slowed down to walk by his side, lowering his voice and letting passion seep into it at the same time. “Then why don’t you teach them a lesson once, and they won’t ever touch you again?”

Dean couldn’t see shit behind his mask, but he swore he felt the guy’s eyes on his face. He could almost feel Cas breathe, that’s how close he’d gotten. If they weren’t alone, surrounded only by vegetation, Dean would have wished he’d step back.

“My mom will be mad if I pull anything like that,” he replied. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the air around them darkened. Trees? He could hear a stream bubbling somewhere nearby. He could care a little more about his school assignment at this point; this pitch-black conversation with the stranger whom he’d taken to be mysterious and dangerous, and who was turning out to be more straightforward and transparent than anyone in this town could bear, currently had all his attention.

“So?” Cas asked. The soil beneath them changed to gravel, but the way Cas moved indicated they were still walking on a path.

“I dunno,” Dean said. “We don’t exactly like each other at the moment. But I do what she says.”

“You could probably get away with a few punches without her knowing.”

Dean shrugged. “I don’t really feel like hurting anyone,” he said. “I don’t see how that helps anything.”

“There it is.” Cas said, with the hint of being pleased with himself in his voice.

“What?”

“The rumors,” he said, “Being disproved.”

Dean felt the edge of his lip rise. “Gotta love the rumors.” He rolled his shoulders. He felt like his hand was sweating, but maybe that was just his nerves. What’s the opposite of wishful thinking? “What have they been saying?”

“That you’re dangerous,” Cas answered, as if it were a normal thing to say to a seventeen-year-old. Maybe it wasn’t a normal thing to say in another town, to another boy. A town that didn’t spread rumors about kids being killers.

It was perfectly normal here.

“They’ve been saying that about you, too,” Dean said, almost a challenge.

“And yet, here you are.”

"You seem about as dangerous as an otter right now." 

“Well.” Cas paused. “You are letting me lead you blindfolded through the trees in a remote location.” His voice wasn’t taunting, or even vaguely thoughtful. He sounded almost nervous. Like he was the one trying to impress, wanting to be liked, and not the other way around, the way Dean had felt it was from the moment they met.

“You’re gonna have to try a little harder if you wanna intimidate me, buddy.”

Cas didn’t answer. He just pulled Dean forward. A few moments later, he spoke again, quiet.

“Stream.” Dean could hear the water gurgle. “I think you’ll have to take your flamingo mask off now.”

Dean raised an eyebrow, though he wasn’t sure the gesture was visible behind the pink. “Is that a challenge?”

“No. It’s a safety measure, so that you don’t end up on your bottom in the water.”

Dean shaped his face into a smirk. “Challenge accepted.”

Maybe he didn’t want this moment to be over. Maybe it was his turn to impress. Maybe every day in this town was building up inside of him, and he just needed to do something ridiculously stupid before he blew up. On all accounts, this was the least stupidest stupid thing he could choose to do.

Cas let out a sigh. “You’re an idiot.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“There’s flat rocks you can step on. Just take one-foot steps at a time, slowly, and don’t let go.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He could feel Cas’ pulse against his fingers.

They crossed the stream step by step, tightened nerves unwinding with each movement.

One step on the other side of the stream and Dean pulled his hand free automatically, wiped it on his pants, walked straight into Cas, got flustered at the contact, lost his balance, skidded on the slippery mud and smacked his ass into it.

From above him came an involuntary snort.

He yanked the mask off his eyes and reached up a hand. “Help me up.”

Cas’ eyes narrowed at him. “You’ll pull me down with you.”

“I won’t,” said Dean, and shook his empty hand expectantly. Reluctantly, suspiciously, Cas placed a hand in his. Dean's fingers tightened around it.

Cas’ shoulders relaxed, the caution slipping out of his expression.

Dean pulled.

He barely looked surprised when he landed on the ground. Dean was beginning to learn it was a side effect of living as an outcast in this town; you’re never surprised at what people throw at you. Or what they throw you into.

Beside him, Cas wiggled his foot in the mud, assessing the damage. “I trusted you,” he shot at Dean.

“Shouldn’t’ve,” Dean grinned.

Cas looked sideways at him. Tried not to smile.

Almost failed.

Then the focus in his eyes shifted. His head tilted to one side. Dean opened his mouth, but Cas put a hand against his chest.

His throat dried in one moment.

Cas looked back in the direction they’d come from. “I hear something.”

Dean watched his face, just a few inches away. Felt his hand against his lungs.

“Truce,” Cas said. Dean just stared. Couldn’t do anything but.

Then Cas’ eyes shifted back to him, saw the look in his eyes, and it happened. The point of no return.

He saw it in Cas' eyes. And by the way Cas was looking at him, he could see it in Dean's eyes, too.

The thing one of them wasn’t able to hide any longer, and the other wasn’t able to ignore.

Dean’s heartbeat quickened under the palm pressed to his chest. Not in naive anticipation, not in the hopeful question mark he might have imagined in Cas’ eyes, but rather in a moment’s concern that was rapidly snowballing into full-on panic.

And all he could think about was Naomi, scolding him for handing in a shitty essay. Because his head was elsewhere the entire time. Even before he realized, it was never about the essay.

Dean grasped for an excuse, moved away, just as Cas spoke again.

“Someone’s coming.”

This time Dean could hear it. Footsteps in the mud. Cas’ fingers clutched his shirt and pulled him swiftly behind a tree.

“Why are we hiding?” Dean asked, though he asked it in a low voice.

“We’re covered in mud,” said Cas. Dean was pretty sure if he turned his head to face him their faces would touch. So he only got as far as their knees, pressed together on the ground, pants covered in dirt.

“So?”

“So they’ll judge us.”

“They already do.”

Cas stretched his neck to peek around the tree. “I don’t usually mind,” he said. His shoulder pressed harder against Dean’s in this position. Dean concentrated on the knees. “But I try to spend my weekends without accusatory stares, if I can.”

He didn’t explain. Maybe he figured the rumors had to have reached Dean by now. Maybe he hoped they hadn’t. He must have known Dean knew something, after what he’d said earlier.

Shit. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to go back and stop himself from ever calling Cas dangerous to his face, or whether he wanted to go back and tell him everything he knew.

For a moment, he let himself get lost in the fantasy; someone looking him in the eye and telling him everything they’d been saying behind his back. Everything they’d been whispering in the halls, not quite low enough for him not to be able to make the words out. They say your father’s in prison. They say you killed a girl. They say something about the case was strange, but they just couldn’t put their finger on what. They warn to stay away from you. They describe you a hundred different ways – stranger, suspect, psycho, killer, monster – but they never just call you some guy.

What a blessed relief it would be, to hear this straight and to the point. Almost a report. Not a whisper.

He looked at Cas from the corner of his eye. For a moment, he considered asking.

Cas turned back. “We’re clear.”

Dean’s math turned out to have been right. Facing each other, their faces came dangerously close to touching. And the last intention Cas seemed to have was backing away.

Weren’t dangerous boys supposed to do dangerous things?

By the time Cas’ eyes slid down his face, Dean was looking away, pulling his knee from the one it was leaning against.

“I’ve got a shift,” he mumbled.

The snowball was almost to Panictown, and he desperately wanted to be the only one around when it crashed.

“Me too,” Cas replied, watching him get up and wipe dirt off his jeans. His eyes moved across Dean’s face as if they might be able to find a grip and make him stay.

By the time he found the voice to say, “We could go together,” Dean was already walking away. If Cas could see his expression he would have seen in it every feeling Dean couldn’t hide anymore, couldn’t ignore. So he didn’t look back.

Dean’s mind didn’t even bother registering whether there was anyone in the house as the door swung open and then closed behind him. He went straight into his room and shut the door behind him, leaning against it. Closing his eyes. Breathing in the scent of dust and slightly used clothes. Listening for any sound that’ll take him off the spiral. Make the snowball slow down. He could use a mask right now, to take his sight and calm his mind and let his other senses take over.

Shit. Sam’s mask. He had no idea where it was.

Another thing for his brother to hold against him. He had no time to go back and take it now.

He tore a page from a notebook and flattened it on the floor, writing as fast as he could. Barely taking in the shapes his own pen was drawing on the paper. When he got halfway through the page he stopped. Pushed himself up. He had no idea whether he was late to work, or maybe early. It didn’t matter. He collected his things in a storm. Left the room with his bag in one hand and the paper clutched in the other. Left the pen on the floor.

He got to Dick’s fifteen minutes early. He unlocked the door and got to work at a pace that calmed his mind, not bothering to switch the light on. He wished Charlie were there. She would know what to say. She had to, because who else…?

She had to.

When Charlie arrived, she found him sitting by a table with a crumpled piece of paper in his hand. The lights were still off, as if he were trying to avoid someone seeing him inside. 

Specifically someone who worked across the street and was starting his own shift right about now.

“What’s up, Dracula?” She asked and switched the lights on. When she saw Dean’s expression, she sat down carefully beside him.

“You look like someone put mustard on your dog and shoved it in a bun.”

“Thanks,” Dean muttered. He inhaled and clutched his paper harder. “Listen, I need your advice.”

“Okay,” she said slowly.

“By ‘advice’ I mean, tell me this is a bad idea.”

“What?”

With effort, he let go of the crumpled paper. Charlie picked it up from the table and tried to flatten it.

It was too wrinkled, the ink too smudged for her to read it all, but fractions of sentences were still readable.

i feel his skin under my fingers like i feel my heart beating in my chest. faint, fluttering. you can barely feel that it's there-

-and he's got the most beautiful eyes i've ever seen, but i can't write that, can i? well, with my eyes closed, his eyes are just eyes, but i can feel them on my face, and i think he might almost be- well, that's just wishful thinking.

i can hear him breathe-

somehow he smells like home in the middle of this sea of flowers and green.

i don’t dare use taste-

She got the idea.

“I’m kind of freaking out,” Dean managed in a strained voice when she looked up.

“Rewind,” said Charlie. If she was taken aback by what she’d read, she didn’t show it. “Tell me what you did.”

“We went to the botanical garden.”

“You went on a date with him?” Now she sounded taken aback. “Dean, I wanted you to make friends with him, not make out with him behind a bush.”

“It wasn’t a date,” Dean hissed, lowering his voice although there was no one around. “It was a stupid school assignment.” He looked at the paper miserably. “What do I do?”

“I don’t know,” said Charlie. “I’ve never gone to the botanical garden with someone I didn’t know I had a crush on.” She eyed him deliberately, as if the botanical garden was the issue here. “First time I realized I liked girls was when one of them stuck her tongue in my mouth.”

Dean ignored the way her words stung his chest and pretended it wasn’t jealousy.

Someone pounded on the door, and they both jumped in their seats. Meg waved at them from outside. She made a circling motion with her finger.

“What’s she saying?” Dean asked.

“She’ll be back later.”

She made another motion. This one was clear enough. Get off your asses and get to work.

Dean let out an exhale as they stood up. “I can’t avoid him forever.”

“That would be hard, considering you’re always ten steps away from him at most.”

Dean grabbed a cleaning cloth and wiped the counter. “So, um. How… how does this work?”

Charlie eyed him. He watched the counter. If she was judging him, he couldn’t see it, therefore she wasn’t judging him.

“I have no idea, Dean. I’m a lesbian. I know nothing about guys.”

 “Okay.”

“What do you know about guys?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, I mean, you are one. So not nothing.”

“Right,” he said.

“It’s probably not too complicated. You just ask them out like normal people.”

Dean let out a groan. Charlie watched his face; he tried to look a little less defeated, to very little success.

“…A lot of people are gay, you know,” she said finally.

“I don't care about that,” Dean said, although he didn’t like the label. It wasn’t like he suddenly stopped liking girls. Or started liking guys who didn’t call him a nerd and held his hand through the trees in a remote location. He shook his head. “It's Cas. It's Cas, Charlie. This is bad.”

“It's not bad,” she said, and she clearly tried to hide it, but she looked a little relieved when he said he didn’t care. It felt like a punch in the gut. He wouldn’t be surprised if she expected judgment on her personal life from people in this town, same as Dean did, but the realization she was scared of it coming from her friend, someone she defended and who would defend her too with all he had – it hurt. Partly because he didn’t understand it, and partly because he did. Her and Meg and Cas were the only friends he had in here, and he would go for them the same distance they went for him. But, at the same time, the thought that they secretly judged him the same as everyone else did was something he often couldn’t shake off.

Charlie looked at him from the corner of her eye. “You think you have a chance?”

“A chance?" he said. "That's not an option. I don't need people calling me more names.”

“Alright,” said Charlie. “Alright. On a scale of one to ten, how much you like him? One being ‘I guess I'd go on a date if he asked’ and ten being ‘marry me and have my children’.”

Dean considered this. “What's five?”

“Five is like, ‘I get lost in his eyes but no sinful thoughts yet’.”

“Ew .”

“Answer the question,” she insisted.

Dean leaned his elbows on the counter and put his head in his hands. “six, I guess.”

“Okay,” said Charlie. “…This is bad.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll admit your choice in crushes isn’t great.”

“Yeah,” Dean grumbled. “Choice.”

“I mean, not that he doesn’t seem like a good guy, but what they say about him, and, you know…”

“What they say about me,” Dean offered dryly.

“Go together just a little too well,” she said gently.

“I’m not–” he started, and cut himself off abruptly. “Oh.”

Charlie followed his eyes outside and saw Meg approaching. Dean managed to stuff the paper into his pocket before she walked in.

“Any customers?”

“Nope,” Charlie answered.

“You must be scaring them away with your murderly expressions.” Her eyes slid toward Dean almost apologetically, as if she wasn’t supposed to use that word around him. Then she looked away. “Perk up,” she added in a tone a nightclub bouncer might use when he’s kicking you out for drinking too much and taking your top off after climbing onto the bar.

Dean thought he heard Charlie mutter, “Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

“What’s up with you two today?” Meg asked, squinting. “You look like someone brought two headstones to life and gave them genders.” She looked at Dean, who looked at Charlie, who looked outside the store and tensed up. The door opened, then closed, and in came a boy whose fresh clothes and clean, mud-less hands couldn’t quite wipe out the earlier events of the morning from his eyes when they found Dean’s.

“Hey,” he said nervously.

“Hey,” Charlie said, taking over smoothly, and Dean had never been more grateful for her than in this moment. “What are you doing here?”

“Early lunch break,” Cas said, evidently making an effort to sound casual.

“It’s ten a.m.,” Charlie pointed out. Dean tried to read Meg’s expression from the corner of his eye; he didn’t like how intently she was watching the conversation.

“Very early lunch break,” Cas said with growing restlessness, still looking at Dean. “Can we talk for a moment?”

Dean tried to coordinate staring at him helplessly and mentally kicking his brain into producing some kind of answer.

“Dean is busy,” Charlie stammered after eight seconds of silence. “…Counting croissants.”

“Okay,” Cas said reluctantly. “I’ll just… come back later.”

“Tomorrow might work out better,” said Charlie. “This is going to take a while.”

The moment Cas was gone, Meg turned to face them with her hands folded across her chest. “What's going on?”

“I thought we could rearrange the croissants today,” Charlie answered innocently. Dean had to admire the composure she maintained under Meg’s death glare.

“No, you didn’t. What’s Page Turner got to do with this?”

Charlie sighed. “I've got a crush on Cas.”

Meg’s eyes narrowed.

“Big old crush,” said Charlie. “Love that guy and his... man muscles.”

“You’re a lesbian.” Slowly, deliberately, Meg’s eyes shifted to Dean, and narrowed even further. “Really?”

“I’m not accepting judgment from someone whose outfit looks like a human crow costume.”

“Your taste in crushes is less than ideal,” she replied.

But a few minutes later, after Charlie left to adjust chairs around the shop, Meg’s expression softened.

“You know what people around here think doesn’t really make a difference,” she said in the kindest tone Dean had ever heard her use. “In less than a year you’ll graduate, and then you can move wherever you want.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dean said, without really meaning it. It wasn’t as simple as that, but he couldn’t bring himself to contradict her. He didn’t have it in him to dismiss one of the only nice things she’s ever said to him.

When his shift ended, Dean took his things and left without another glance at the bookstore. He stopped by a trash can and took the paper out of his pocket. He couldn’t write another one by Monday; he just didn’t have whatever it was that enabled you to be a good writer. Or any kind of writer. He could turn in this crumpled paper and deal with the consequences of his teacher seeing this far into his heart, or he could start bracing himself for his mother’s reproach when he failed the assignment.

He threw the paper in the can and walked away.

Chapter Text

The nightmares were nothing to worry about.

He's gotten used to them, but on most nights, that didn’t make them any less scary.

He'd been dreaming about salt guns and vampire bites since he was four years old. Now he dreamed about scrubbing blood off a carpet.

This time, his dad was there, helping him clean the blood.

“It won’t come off, dad,” Dean said, on the verge of desperation.

“Don’t worry. I pre-heated the lasagna,” John answered, right before Dean woke up.

He hated dreams.

There was a faint light outside his door. He rolled off bed and dragged his half-asleep body into the kitchen for a glass of water.

Everything was so quiet in the middle of the night, it almost felt like the rest of the world didn’t exist.

Everything but his little brother.

He knocked quietly on Sam’s open door, squinting at the light coming from his desk lamp. “You know, I’ve heard that if teenage boys spend too long with an indoor light they start believing it’s the sun and become sleep deprived waiting for it to set.”

He wished Sam would jump into argument like he used to. Throw a shoe at him. Anything.

He just kept reading at his desk.

The sigh Dean let out was genuine, although its volume might’ve been a little exaggerated. “Come on, man. I’ve apologized twenty times already. And I’m not gonna stop.” He was more awake than not-awake now, working himself up into the argument. No way to know when would be the next time Sam would indulge him with a verbal answer.

“Sorry won’t bring her back.”

“Being mad at me for the rest of your life won’t bring her back, either.”

Sam turned around to face him at the words. “Alright, then. If you could bring her back, would you?”

Dean looked at him helplessly.

Sometimes his guilt about tearing his family apart was so strong that he had to remind himself he didn’t regret what he’d done.

“Thought so,” his brother muttered, and turned back to his desk.

“She was a monster, Sam. If I wouldn’t’ve done it, the next hunter coming into town would’ve.”

“She was my friend, and she was good.”

“There's no such thing as good monsters,” Dean snapped. “Some creatures are just meant to kill, and good intentions won’t change that. It’s in their DNA.”

“Yeah.” Sam turned and looked him dead in the eye. “You're right.”

Dean swallowed a lump in his throat as he made his way back into his room.

He almost missed his brother too much to remember why he ever had to do something that would make Sam hate him this much.

A few days earlier, Meg had shoved a piece of paper in front of him at the end of a shift.

“Party this Friday,” she said. “This address.”

“I doubt I’m invited,” Dean said without looking up from his phone.

“It’s my party,” Meg said. “You’re coming. Bring your least embarrassing outfit.”

Now, he was standing in front of her door, trying to gather the energy to care. About anything; his outfit, what other people thought when they saw him, being civil enough for it to be considered polite.

Autumn had come and gone without change. It was past Christmas, past the New Year, and he was still letting bullies pick on him to avoid attracting attention, doing his homework to avoid getting a yelling from his mother, begging Mary for a word from his father to avoid going out of his mind, but whenever he asked about John the most he got was a halfhearted answer and a silent treatment. He couldn’t really blame her when he was the reason her husband was in prison.

A group of teenagers pushed past him and burst through the door, and he got sucked into the room among them. Inside was loud, poorly lit and smelling of perfume and sweat and beer. Basically hell. Everyone pushed each other around trying to get to the bar or to the bathroom.

He could see how it was Meg’s party.

Dean stuck to a corner and looked for someone he knew, prepared to disappear if he saw them.

He spotted Cas on the other end of the crowd and ducked his head to hide behind a junior girl in heels. They’d spoken a few times in the past months, but Dean had been careful to keep his distance. Gym classes have become nearly unbearable. He didn’t need any more trouble in his life than he already had; they could keep being outcasts on different sides of the room.

The junior moved, and revealed a shorter brunette two feet away from Dean. He barely managed to dive for cover.

“Still not over him?” The junior asked the girl.

“Not until I get him,” Hannah sighed.

In spite of himself, Dean sent a glance their way and confirmed he knew who they were talking about.

“You don't want to be involved with a killer, though,” said the junior. “Do you?”

“You don't really believe that rumor,” Hannah said in a way that would have made Dean feel stupid.

The naivety in the junior’s voice revealed that she interpreted Hannah’s tone just the same way Dean did. “You think it's not true?”

Dean felt himself frown. Hannah was the one who told him the rumor about Cas in the first place. Did she really think it wasn't true? Did she know it wasn't? Or was she just playing-

“I work with him. I know him better than anyone at school.”

“Sure,” the junior said, losing interest. Dean squeezed between her and the wall and wandered off, trying not to wonder how well Hannah really knew Cas. And whether there were at least two feet between them when she acquired that knowledge.

He spotted a fire escape outside a window to his right. A few guys Meg’s age were climbing in from outside.

Dean stepped closer, poked his head out. The metal stairs led to the roof.

He slipped out through the window with as much grace and dignity as possible for a grown teenage boy in a one-by-one-foot space. Outside the sun was sinking through the sky, leaving an excess of sweetly colored clouds behind. Dean climbed up onto the empty roof and sat down on the edge, his feet dangling. It was a three or four stories fall if his asscheek slipped. Not ideal, but worth the quiet. The air felt plenty fresh, too, after the crammy apartment.

A few minutes passed, and he heard steps behind him. Then Hannah sat by his side.

“Hi,” she said.

For a moment Dean imagined himself shushing her.

Are you shushing me?

I’d rather listen to nothing than listen to you.

But he was his mother’s good little boy.

So he said, “Hi.”

He wondered where he would be in five years. He must be in a better place. Or at least a place where no high school student bothered him. Somewhere where he didn’t have to be a good little boy. Somewhere he could wash the pretenses off himself like dirt and say what he really wanted to say, be what he really wanted to be.

An asshole.

“What are you doing up here?”

“Escaping humans.”

Hannah smiled, and although she didn’t get the message, Dean couldn’t stop a smile from tearing through his defenses.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

Before she answered Dean heard metal creak behind them, and someone slumped down on Hannah’s other side, adding another pair of feet dangling off the edge of the building.

Dean’s heartbeat quickened. He looked off into the distance, watching the view and pretending to see it.

The three of them sat in silence for a few moments. Then Cas said,

“Meg sure knows how to throw an awful party.”

Hannah waved her hand. “Alcohol and cigarette smoke in a tiny space? Pretty sure that’s her definition for an ass-kicking party.”

“One woman’s ass-kicking party is another man’s hell.”

Dean shot a glace to his right from the corner of his eye. He thought he saw Cas shooting a glance back. Smiling.

He definitely imagined that. Cas only smiled once in, like, four blue moons.

Hannah embarked on some story from Page Turner that happened while Cas wasn’t there. He nodded politely with an amount of patience Dean didn’t understand until she changed the subject and talked to him about a physics exam.

Sometimes it was hard not to be nice to someone, even if they assumed the worst in you.

Especially if you’d have no way of avoiding them if you told them they were boring to their face.

Well– alright. He didn’t really think Hannah was that boring. But he was itching to say it to her anyway when she pushed her leg against her coworker’s and batted her eyelids at him coyly.

It might’ve been half an hour before Hannah pulled her legs off the ledge and said, “I’m going to go back to the hell room.” She stood up and looked at Cas expectantly. Cas looked at Dean.

Dean looked at the view.

“Think I’m gonna stay here and try to spot people litter the streets.”

“Go ahead,” Cas told her hesitantly. When Hannah left, he shimmied closer to Dean. “So…”

“Yeah.”

“I never asked how did it go with the essay.”

“Um…”

The memories from that Saturday morning in the botanical garden resurfaced in Dean’s mind. The sound of Cas breathing into the quiet that had surrounded them. The paper he’d shown Charlie. The next writing class, Naomi telling him everyone writes about personal things when he came in empty handed. The feeling of Cas' fingertips on his chest fluttering in his mind; doubting other students' writing got that personal.

“Okay,” he said finally, with some effort.

“Do you need help with any more of them?” Cas asked. He almost sounded hopeful. Darkness was surrounding them, and Cas was close enough, now, for Dean to feel a little warmer. He thought about Hannah pushing her leg against Cas’ and kept his own legs motionless.

“Next week’s the last lesson, anyway,” he answered. “After the assembly.”

Cas made the noncommittal grunting sound that every student was obligated to make when entire-school assemblies were mentioned.

“I already turned in my final assignment.”

The sheer volume of his mother’s yelling after he threw his assignment in the garbage instead of handing it in was motivation enough to do the rest of his assignments silently, obediently, and for the love of God, without any bookstore cashiers to cloud his judgement. In fact, it was motivation enough that when the time finally came to hand in the last essay, no matter how personal it might’ve gotten, he handed it in. It’s been a week and nothing happened. Naomi kept their journals for the general evaluation after next week’s class, but she did grade them, and he scored a higher grade than he could afford to dream of in his other subjects.

Now that it was nearing the end of January, the end of his first semester as a senior, he couldn’t feel more relieved that he’ll finally be done with it. Another step toward freedom, and no more creative writing classes for the rest of his life.

They looked down at the street quietly, a few floors below them. It wasn’t the comfortable sort of silence.

“So…” Cas said and looked at him in the dark. “You've been hearing my share of rumors.”

Straight and to the point. He remembered wishing for this months ago.

“And I guess you've been hearing mine,” he replied. “Man, this town is ruthless.”

Cas shifted in place. “Would you mind if I asked... Are any of them true?”

Dean kept his tone impassive. “Every single one.”

Cas’ eyes on him turned all the more intense.

“Tell you mine if you tell me yours,” Dean said, squeezing humor into his words. He didn’t really care what Cas did. Didn’t think it was his business. But he just wished…

He just wished, for one night, to be able to understand someone like no one else did, and to be understood without judgment in return. He couldn’t imagine a better person who could give him that.

Cas looked at him another moment.

“I have a lot of siblings,” he said, then. “Most of whom I don’t get along with particularly well, but I used to have the worst fights with my oldest brother. He used to snap at me for hanging out with the wrong people. Bringing shame to the family. That sort of thing.”

“Wow. Intense.”

“I used to hang out with Meg a lot,” he explained.

“Oh.”

“He was trying to learn from experience. This wasn’t the first time someone was about to be shunned from the family.”

“Your family’s…”

“Crazy?” Cas offered.

“I was aiming for strange,” Dean said.

“My siblings can be impulsive since my father left. We had a fight once on the second floor balcony–”

“You have a second floor balcony?”

“Used to,” he said. “It was a proper fight, yelling so loud the neighbors could hear, punching and everything. Michael slammed me against the wall and started his whole ‘I could kill you right now, you never did us any good’ thing. I asked, ‘do you think I'm afraid of you?’”

“You’re really not afraid of anything, are you?” Dean looked at him with wonder.

“I’m not afraid of people,” said Cas. “They’re just people. The stronger they want you to think they are, the weaker they actually are.”

“Did he threaten to kill you a lot?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“And you still weren’t afraid of him?”

Cas shrugged. “I tried to get him off me. I pushed him too hard. He fell off the balcony and hit his head. My brother Gabriel saw everything from inside. He saw the look on my face. He saw I hadn’t meant it. He told my family Michael tripped and that I had nothing to do with his death. So I moved into my brother Luci’s house instead of going into prison. It should’ve felt like a lighter sentence.” Cas swallowed. “It didn’t. Living with that particular brother was what made it clear to people that what they were hearing about me wasn’t just rumors. He’s got his own history with my siblings. His own reasons for living on his own. And I know it’s a horribly privileged thing to say, but… escaping the punishment I know I deserve isn’t the easiest thing to live with. Some nights I think about driving down to the nearest police station.”

Dean could feel every word in his chest.

“I know.”

He hesitated, then his hand moved to rest on top of Cas’.

Cas looked at him as if no one had ever said those words to him and meant them before. Then he looked away and cleared his throat. “Your turn.”

“Okay. Um... Do you believe in things that are maybe… not natural?”

“Like what?”

“Monsters and stuff?”

“No,” Cas said simply. Not that Dean expected a different answer. But it was worth asking.

Alright. This might be hard to explain. “What I did… let’s say it looked a lot like I killed a girl. But I didn’t.”

“Did you kill someone else?” Cas asked.

“No,” Dean said. “Yes… it’s hard to explain. What you did, it was out of self defense, right?” Cas nodded. “What I did, I did to defend other people.”

“Who?”

“Anyone. My brother, first and foremost. And now he won’t forgive me, and everyone else looks at me like… well, you’ve seen. It’s ironic, but the only person who doesn’t resent me is my dad.”

“Ironic?” Cas asked. Dean could feel his eyes on him, bright as the moonlight.

“He’s in prison.” He paused. Cas watched him, puzzled. “…Instead of me.”

He watched it sink in on Cas’ face. His expression shifted from blank shock to well-disguised dread and back to smooth composure. Sometimes Dean wished he could wipe the neutral colors off this face. Make him feel something too strong to be tucked away behind careful composure.

“He took the blame for you?”

“He wanted me to have a chance at a normal life.”

Cas paused, weighed the words in his mind before saying them. “I can’t imagine living with that.”

“I keep waiting for this feeling that I’m a horrible person to go away.” Dean’s voice was barely audible. “It never does.”

Cas’ grip tightened around his hand. After a few silent moments, he said,

“Did you have a close relationship with your brother before it happened?”

“The closest.” Dean smiled faintly. “We always had each other’s back.”

Cas nodded. “You’ll make it work, then.”

“Were you not close with yours?”

He looked out into the street, his face as impassive as ever. “Not enough to survive this, apparently.”

Dean pulled his hand away and scratched an imaginary itch on his shoulder. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

He tried to figure out what to say next. Cas’ eyes sparkled in the moonlight. If he only moved his right knee an inch, it would touch the knee beside it.

“Are you ever afraid of just… exploding?” Cas asked. “As if the next person who touches you, you might snap and do something to them that you’re going to regret?”

Dean let out a deep sigh. Didn’t answer for a few seconds. Then, with some effort,

“No.”

He knew Cas could tell it meant every single day.

Cas turned to look at him, and Dean became very aware of how close they were. As close as they had been three months ago, sitting in the mud behind a tree. Closer. Their breaths were mixing together. And the look in Cas’ eyes…

“What are you thinking about?” Dean asked, barely audible.

“Hannah.”

“Not the answer I was hoping for,” he huffed out with a smile.

Cas' eyes skipped to his lips. “This town talks. If someone finds out… It doesn't take long to go from one person talking to everyone talking.”

Dean knew it was true. He’d lived through it. He knew the consequences.

He didn’t care.

Chapter Text

Dean couldn’t look away if he wanted to.

It was everywhere in his mind, everywhere in his body – the way Cas looked at him was magnetizing, ocean eyes aflame.

“No one has to know,” he whispered. Judging by the way Cas’ fingers wrapped around his shirt collar and pulled him in until their mouths met, it was the right thing to say.

“Bad idea,” Cas breathed when they parted.

“Yeah.”

He knew it was. He knew this was the worst possible thing he could do in order to stay under the radar. If he was once afraid of what his mother would say if he made Cas his enemy, he couldn't imagine what she would say if she saw them like this.

“I'm all out of good ideas, though.”

Mary was reading a paper in the kitchen when Dean walked through the front door.

“Where have you been?” she asked without looking up. All the lights were off except for the small, exposed bulb above the dining table.

“Party at a friend’s house.” His head was so full of someone else he could barely hear her.

“Your curfew’s eleven,” Mary said.

“I know.”

“It’s a quarter past two.”

“I know,” he said, and then he heard a ting from his pocket, and it was all he could do not to escape into his room without another glance at his mother and check his messages. And probably drive himself crazy when he found it wasn’t who he wished it was.

“I hope you had fun,” said Mary, “Because you’re grounded for the next five days.”

“I did have fun.”

It couldn’t be Cas. Could it? He’d left Meg’s house half an hour ago. It felt like half a week.

Finally, Mary looked up from the paper. “You’re in a good mood.”

One sharp-eyed stare from her, and all thoughts of Meg’s rooftop drained from Dean’s mind. Nothing could slide past this woman.

“No, I’m not.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I’m… no. I’m no.”

Mary’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Have you been drinking?”

Dean nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he lied.

“Ten days,” she said, and refocused on her newspaper.

Dean slipped into his room wordlessly and kicked off his shoes. Collapsed onto his bed and rolled onto his back in the dark.

Only then did he allow himself to smile.

He couldn’t make his face stop doing that. He couldn’t remember his chest ever squeezing so wonderfully.

He checked his phone.

You still haven’t paid me back for the book.

I’ll let it slide, though.

huh, he typed. it’s that easy to get 10 bucks out of you?

You can be so convincing.

i'll pay you back monday. though maybe next time i'll ask you to buy a first edition for me and then not pay you back.

You’ll have to try a lot harder to convince me to give you that.

i'll make sure to try harder.

He was the luckiest guy in the world.

Dean studied the room from the corner of his eye. The slumped shoulders and head of dark hair he was looking for were at the front of the class. Dean couldn't tell from behind whether he was dispirited or relaxed.

He slid off his chair and walked to the front.

"Hey," he said, and leaned against a table nonchalantly with his hands in his pockets. It definitely looked as cool as it felt in his mind.

The perfectly expressionless line of Cas' mouth didn't move, but his eyes took on a focused interest when they landed on Dean's face, as though Dean's "Hey" was the only thing in the room worth his attention.

“Think I’m gonna fall asleep on my desk today.”

Cas looked his face over like his mere being there posed a challenge. Dean just wasn’t sure what challenge. “I’ll pay attention in this class so you can sleep," he said, "If you listen in the assembly next period so I can do my homework for tomorrow.”

“It’s a deal,” Dean said with a smile. “If you can tell me what ‘this class’ is.”

“The class that’s happening in-” Cas glanced at his phone- “Three minutes.”

Dean crossed his arms over his chest. “What subject?”

Cas thought about it for a few moments. Then, deliberately, he said, “Uhhh,” as if he were thinking about it for a few moments.

“Right,” Dean said, trying not to sound too victorious. “I’ll take my own notes. See you around, tough guy.”

“See you around,” Cas said dryly to his back. “Nerd.”

Dean left his first period classroom not knowing his day was about to get food poisoning, then throw up all over the floor.

He headed down the hall to put his books in his locker, glancing at Gordon and his little pack pass by without saying a word.

Apparently, his eyes lingered a second too long.

Gordon stopped abruptly in the middle of the hall, making a chain of three people walk into each other behind him. “You got a problem?”

“Nope,” said Dean. Then, under his breath, “You got a problem?”

“I don’t have a problem. Do you have a problem?”

“Kinda sounds like you do.”

Gordon stood still, staring at him with dark eyes. Dean returned him an even look. Lifted his chin up a little. Started walking away.

Then he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, whirling him back so fast he almost stumbled. And then Gordon’s fist hit his face.

His head shot back at the impact. His nose tingled, and he sent a hand up to feel it. No blood.

“That’s right,” Gordon said. “Go cry to daddy. Oh, right. You can’t.”

“It’s cute that you think an eight year old’s insult will hurt my feelings.” Pointedly, nonchalantly, Dean raised his hand and plucked a piece of lint off the shoulder of Gordon’s shirt. “To be honest, the most offensive thing here is how weak your punches are.”

The second one was twice as painful. The third one he saw coming, but he took the blow anyway. Dean felt his face again, and this time his fingers came up warm and wet. Every nerve in his fingertips was itching to fight, to do the damage, to get the work done.

He did nothing.

Gordon clutched his shirt collar and slammed him against the lockers. One of the locks jabbed his shoulder blade hard. He brought his face close to Dean’s and whispered, “Call me weak again.”

“Barely felt it.” Dean shrugged and ignored the pain when the lock pressed deep into his back. “You might wanna hit the gym before you try to make someone afraid of you.”

Gordon’s fist crashed into his face again. The impact slammed the back of his head against the lockers.

“Call me weak again,” he growled.

“Weak,” Dean breathed.

Again.

“Again.”

Dean’s head throbbed, and he felt dizzy. The blood trickling from his nose onto his teeth was making him nauseated. He just managed to suck in a breath without wanting to throw up and said, “I don’t have to say ‘weak’ if it makes you feel insecure.” Another shaky breath. “If you prefer, I can say ‘definitely not strong’.”

Again.

“Too pussy to fight back?”

“Do I look scared?” Dean slurred. His fingers were itching to clench into fists. He had to force his limbs to stay limp. Useless. He waited for the next blow – almost anticipated it – but it didn’t come.

Glaring at someone to his left, Gordon let go of Dean’s shirt and backed off.

By the time Dean’s eyes regained focus, the hall was empty of Gordons.

“Are you okay?”

Dean looked to his right.

“I’m good.” He wiped blood off his nose. His voice sounded funny with his nose blocked. “What’s with the laser eyes?”

Cas’ eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

“You scared ‘em off without lifting a finger.”

Cas shrugged. “Let’s go.” He grabbed Dean’s arm, and they walked down the hall. Cas’ lips were pursed into a tight line. Dean glanced at him from the corner of his eye, and immediately regretted it. His head was ringing without making a sound.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“Apart from your face? Nothing.”

“Alright,” Dean muttered. They entered the boys’ bathrooms silently.

“Why didn’t you fight back?” Cas snapped.

“There it is.”

“Why do you let everyone push you around?”

“Wow. You’re legitimately upset. It could’ve been sweet if you words weren’t hurtful.” He zipped his bag open and took a spare gym shirt out to clean his face. “I’m a pushover.”

“You’re not, though.”

Dean focused on his hand wiping his nose in the mirror. He didn’t want to tell Cas what he really thought. That he didn’t mind the stinging in his lip and the burning up his nose. That he wanted this fight. That it gave him a few moments’ control over his life. That it gave him a choice.

Or maybe he just liked the violence.

He wasn’t sure.

Either way, he couldn’t say that to a person whose worst misstep in life was an honest mistake. Dean’s Kitsune was a well thought-out execution. It might’ve been a monster, but he sure did mean to kill her.

Throughout the silence, Cas’ demeanor shifted. He turned from angry, lips pursed and eyebrows knotted together, to defeated – shoulders slumped, worry in his eyes – and then back around to his carefully crafted blank expression. Dean had started to recognize those as the unusual moments when he was feeling something intensely and was trying not to let it show.

"I've got your back, you know," Cas said quietly. Dean’s eyes slid across the mirror to meet the reflection of his. He almost looked nervous; it took Dean all the way back to walking down a pathway in a garden months ago, when Cas had seemed nervous being around him instead of it being the other way around.

“I’ve got yours too,” Dean whispered. He put his stained gym shirt down and turned around to face Cas. “No matter what.”

He offered his hand. They shook on it.

Cas’ eyes roamed his face, darts of concern shooting through the expressionless line of defense. He raised his hand and brought it to Dean’s face.

“It’s not broken,” he observed. “Otherwise you’d scream.”

“Sure,” Dean frowned. “I’d scream. No, it’s not broken. I’m fine.”

“Well, your lip is kind of swollen. And you sound sort of funny with your nose blocked-”

“Alright. Let’s get out of here.” Dean grabbed his hand to get it away from his face. “The smell in here is so bad it's giving me a headache.”

“It's probably the punch in the face,” Cas offered.

“Nope. It's the smell.”

He dragged Cas out of the bathroom, leaving his bloody shirt behind. He hoped whoever found it would be seriously grossed out.

When they reached the school gymnasium they parted instinctively, naturally, like magnets turning and repelling one another once there were people around. The entire school was already there, every seat taken, the assembly about to start. Dean caught Charlie’s eye amidst the sea of heads and noise and she waved him over. She somehow managed to save him a seat. He saw Cas elbow his way into a vacant seat on the other side of the hall.

Dean’s nose still throbbed, but Charlie didn’t pay him a second glance after he sat down. It must have looked alright. Tomorrow he would probably forget about the whole thing. Gordon's punches really were only so-so. 

The principal approached the microphone, clearing his throat into it and damaging a bunch of people’s hearing. He spoke of the winter, of the semester ending in three days and of the new year that started three weeks ago. He spoke of the seniors finishing school in half a year, and Dean could almost get a whiff of that freedom in the air. He might find a college that would take him. He might find an apartment to share with a roommate in a different town – Cas or Charlie or a stranger who didn’t know anything about him, get a job at a pastry shop or a bookstore and hunt at nights. Maybe, if Cas really stuck with him, Dean could tell him about monsters one day, and maybe Cas would love him enough to believe him.

He watched the principal wrap it up and clear the stage for another teacher to name a few honor roll students, feeling a new sort of hope, almost a prayer, that everything might just be alright.

Faith. Not in a god; but in himself.

At that moment, Naomi came on stage. She examined the crowd, then spoke into the microphone.

“Writing is not an easy job." Her voice echoed. "Whether it’s a story, a letter, an article, a school assignment. Whether you’re telling a tale or reporting an event or laying down your heart on the page for everyone to see.” Charlie sighed beside him, and he glanced at her. She was listening intently, her back straight, as if anticipating something. Personally, Dean was anticipating a murderous unicorn-dragon hybrid to fall from the ceiling and rid him from this speech. “Some students are naturally good at it, some don’t try hard enough to earn the skill. But this year we witnessed something truly special.” Naomi’s eyes skidded across the crowd, searching for someone. “This year came along a student who had the talent all along, had the dedication, put in the work, but forced himself to swim against the flow instead of with it, produce the most spiteful and angry works he could. Until he didn’t.”

Her eyes landed on Dean.

“And that’s where his true colors came out. His skill. His talent. His hard work paid off when his attitude changed and he took this class seriously. And his final assignment won him the school’s yearly Page Turner award.” There was a round of strong applause from the teachers and much weaker applause from the students. When it faded, she added more quietly, “No relation to the local bookstore.”

Dean squirmed in his chair. Naomi’s eyes on him made him uncomfortable. He didn’t know what she was getting at, but if she meant him, he didn’t like it. The things she was saying were too personal. All he’s ever tried to do in this school was stay out of the spotlight, and her words and her look were attracting attention to him. He didn’t care if she was saying nice stuff – even if she meant it. He wished she’d stop.

She didn’t. She just said four more words.

“Come on up, Dean.”

Dean froze in his chair. Charlie looked at him reluctantly, as if she wanted to say, this is good news, but was afraid to. Naomi didn’t have much patience.

“Come on up,” She repeated in a tone that was slightly more intimidating.

Slowly, reluctantly, almost resentfully, Dean stood up. He took step after step until he was on the edge of the stage, facing his teacher. She shoved a paper into his hand.

“I’m not doing this,” he said.

“Yes, you are,” Naomi growled.

“I didn’t sign up for this.”

“I talked about it at the beginning of the year.”

“Then how come I didn't know anything about it?”

“You were busy arranging flowers,” Naomi hissed. “Snap out of it and go up there before I change my mind about your grade.”

He clenched his teeth. Shut your mouth, he heard his mother say. Put on a smile. He walked over to the microphone and looked at the page he was holding. Nod your head.

It was his own writing.

Do as you're told.

He took a breath.

“In the beginning we were strangers.”

His voice didn’t shake, but it was weak. Small. Smaller than it had ever sounded before. He took another breath and went on. “Though, I suppose, everyone is strangers at the beginning. We weren't any different, and I'm not sure we're any different now. I think you could tell me, if only you read this – you're the one who's good at making sense in things. I'm the one who's good at messing up.” He looked up, and it only took him a second to find Cas’ eyes. There were hundreds of faces in the room looking bored, annoyed, pitying, tired, mildly interested. No eyes half as intense as his. It felt like a plate had shattered on the floor between them. They both pretended it was a plate, but it wasn’t. It had been before. Now it was just shattered pieces of something they had to clean up.

When he spoke again, his voice sounded even smaller.

“But you won't ever read this. I won't let you know. You've already taken so much of my heart that I never had any intention of giving – it's all I can do to hold on to what's left. Imagine if you leaned all your weight on one person, and that person decided to leave.”

Someone yelled ‘Gay ’. A teacher shushed them. Dean couldn’t tell whether they’d seen something or whether they caught the way he and Cas were looking at each other. Most likely, neither. Not like it was an uncommon insult for guys who said things like this. It didn’t matter; people were paying more attention now, looking between him and Cas, looking between him and other people, and all Dean could do was indulge them.

“I can practically feel every bone in my body breaking from that fall.” He stopped to swallow. His throat was dry. His head hurt, his nose burned, but his heart was beating so forcefully in his chest that he barely felt any of it. “That's the kind of fall you don't get up from.” Gordon looked at him like he was taking mental notes. “So I hold on. I don't let you into the spaces in between my fingers or to the thoughts that push their way into my head between the night and the day. But it's no fucking use, because I can't stop you from filling the cracks in my heart. And I can't stop myself from hoping that I do the same for you.” There was a stifled laughter from one end of the room, and it prompted a few more giggles. Someone said “I feel bad for the guy he wrote this for”, and it echoed just loud enough for Dean to hear. He looked up. Someone caught his eye that he hadn’t realized was there, and he lost his voice.

Sam.

For the first time in months, his brother didn’t look angry, didn’t pretend Dean didn’t exist. He looked sad.

It took Dean a few moments to pull himself together.

“You make sense in everything to me. I will never say this to your face. This – whatever we have – it lives where the shadows don't reach. And if I still deserve to wish for something, I only wish that we'll become strangers soon again. Because I know I can't keep a good thing, and I know every moment I've still got you will make the moments after you a hundred times worse. But right now…”

He stared down at the page. His love letter. Not just to Cas – but to everything between them, everything that was and wasn’t said, everything that might or might not happen. Everything that reading it right now in front of hundreds of students was effectively ruining. His eyes skimmed over the last sentence.

You make me feel like I'm safe, and I'm good, and there's nothing wrong in my very core. That's exactly the opposite of what everyone else makes me feel.

He didn’t read it. He wouldn’t – and he felt the anger bubbling in his stomach now – even if Naomi got up on the stage and forced him to. She could expose his life, his most private thoughts; she had the power to. But she couldn’t take this feeling away from him. The safety of this privacy she’s already stolen from them and displayed for all to see.

No. Not she. He did this to himself. He played every bit the obedient kid who didn’t trust himself to know good from bad so he put his decisions in other people’s hands. And he was still doing it while thinking about doing it.

Maybe it was time to take responsibility.

Maybe it was time to raise hell.

He couldn’t decide which one.

So he went off script.

“Right now’s all I’ve got.” He locked eyes with Cas and ignored everyone else. He made his voice calm. Even. Dead. “It’s all I’ve ever had, and I think they really want me to regret it, so I don’t.”

He stepped back, the paper already crumpled in his clenched fist. His heartrate settled just a little bit, and the absence of the strong beating in his chest left dread to fill the empty space like water filling the cracks in a fractured glass. Tentative applause rose from the audience. A few guys whistled in a way that made his stomach twist. 

He walked off the stage, the double doors at the end of the hall tempting him to burst through them.

But he didn’t. He walked to his chair, rigidly, obediently, and sat down, fists clenched. Charlie put a comforting hand on his forearm, but he was so angry he barely felt it. He felt like everyone in the room was watching him, though no one was actually looking his way. The visual arts teacher came on and named her own honor roll student, and then the principal said a few last words before dismissing the students. As soon as the first person was on their feet, Dean rose and scanned the audience for Cas.

“It’s not as bad as you think,” Charlie tried, but he cut her off with a “Don’t lie to me.”

She didn’t say anything after that.

“I have to find him,” Dean said. She squeezed his hand before he disappeared into the crowd.

Outside the gym, in the hallway leading to the front door of the building, he caught up to Cas.

“Hey, listen, I’m sorry about–”

“It’s okay.” Cas shrugged him off and kept walking.

“Honestly,” he said, his voice almost pleading. “I didn’t mean…”

"So far for keeping things private." It was only a mutter under the breath, but Dean still heard it. And all at once, his temper flipped.

“You don't have the right to be angry.” And of course he regretted saying it the moment it came out of his mouth, because it was a dumb, unreasonable thing to say, but just like Cas’ words did their damage, his words did theirs.

“I don't have the right?” Cas halted abruptly, forcing Dean to stop and turn to face him – not out of a sense of commitment, but out of a burning, spiteful need to fight. To explode. To push back.

“I was just made to go on a stage and read my most private thoughts in front of the whole school.” Students were flowing toward the exit around them, and they didn’t quite have to yell in order to hear one another, but they both liked to pretend that they did.

“You’re so busy doing and saying and thinking what other people want you to that you don’t even realize you’re the one who put yourself in this position. If you don’t want people to push you around like this then maybe don’t let them.”

“You think I don’t know this is all my fault?” Dean heard his voice getting louder, saw more people turn to look at them, but he didn’t care. All this time his mother was spending worrying about him not being able to keep his head down, attracting unwanted attention, making a scene? Yeah, she was right. And man, did self-righteous self loathing felt good. He ought to scream at the people he cared about most in a hallway full of people more often. “Have you ever considered the possibility that I did try to do things my way and that’s what landed me in this situation in the first place? You think I don’t feel guilty about every fucking thing I do?”

“Then don’t,” Cas snapped. “Stop feeling guilty. Have you tried that?”

“You know, you forget your promises pretty quick, ‘cause I don’t really feel like you’ve got my back in this particular moment.”

Cas’ fierce, seething stance seemed to falter at that. His temperament changed in an instant. “Come on.” His voice became unbearably soft, his eyes betraying just a hint of the pain he was holding inside of him. “We knew it wouldn’t end well from the moment we started it.”

“You’re right,” Dean said flatly, and he sounded like himself again – bitter, and defeated.

He left the hall without a glance at the teenagers staring at him, and Cas didn’t take one step to stop him.

Today, of all days, Mary lifted her head from the paper when Dean walked in the front door.

He wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. He crossed the kitchen toward his room with quick determination, his muscles tense, but Mary spoke before he could get to his room.

“Happy birthday.”

He didn’t stop walking.

When he got to his room, Sam was sitting on the bed, waiting.

“Save the lecture for another day,” Dean grumbled and threw his bag on the floor. He kicked off his shoes, avoiding his brother’s eyes. “I’ve had a rough one.”

“I know.” Sam’s tone was matter-of-factly. “I was there.”

“Then you know this isn’t a good time to tell me what a horrible person I am.” He stopped, then, his back to his brother, and let out a sigh. He felt like a balloon deflating. In that moment, he gave up.

“I’m sorry,” he said, turning around. “I don’t know what I should’ve done about your friend. It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t worth any of this.” He looked into Sam’s eyes and swallowed the lump in his throat. “It wasn’t worth losing my dad and my baby brother.”

Sam’s eyes slid sideways. “Don’t call me a baby.” The curve of his mouth was almost amused. Not resentful. Not angry.

Dean shook his head. “When did it stop being you and me against the world, man?”

“It didn’t,” said Sam, and his expression softened just a bit. He held up an envelope. “You’ve got mail.”

It had Dean’s name and his address. On the other side, the address of the local prison.

A letter from John.

Dean took it and sat by his brother on the bed.

“Not the best birthday,” Sam concluded into the silence.

“No,” Dean agreed. “It wasn’t all bad, though.” He smiled at his baby brother.

“Happy birthday,” Sam said, smiling back, and stood up. Dean waited for him to leave the room before he opened the envelope.

Dean,

Mom told me you’ve been a pain in the ass lately. So I thought I’d say thanks for picking up where I left off.

Actually, she was hoping for me to step in and tell you to get in line, but I ain’t sitting here for you to be getting straight A’s and getting home before curfew on your birthday.

I know your mother’s been giving you a rough time, and she's probably right to be, but I know you’re doing your best.

I’m proud of you, son. Couldn’t be prouder. I only wish I could be there on your eighteenth.

Go raise some hell. Party hard. And don’t tell her I said that.

I’ll see you around.

Dad

“Dad,” Dean mumbled at the paper. “He signed it ‘Dad’. Who else would it be?”

He stood up and placed the letter next to his copy of Jurassic Park on the otherwise empty desk. It was way, way before curfew. The sun was only beginning to set. He crawled into his bed and pulled the covers up.

He didn’t know when he would have it in him to get back up.

Chapter Text

After the assembly the bullying simmered down, while the rumors soared. Everywhere around school he heard things about Cas and him that had never really happened. That they’d been dating for months. That they did it in the supply closet. That they hated one another. That they loved one another.

Dean preferred the bullying.

In his final creative writing class they were assigned with writing haikus – a simple task way below their learning level meant to nudge their GPA upwards. When Naomi saw that he wasn’t writing anything, she made her way to his table.

“I upset you at the assembly, didn’t I?”

He stared ahead and didn’t reply.

“No need to give me the silent treatment, Dean.”

“I just don’t want anything I say to be used against me later.”

“Well, I don’t want to burst your bubble, but school assignments aren’t optional. I need this for your grade.”

“Then fail me,” he said simply, and it was a little frightening and a little liberating how naturally that came out. “I’m not writing anything.”

Naomi lowered her voice. “I know you want everyone to think you’re a tough guy, but I’ve seen how hard you work. I’ve seen how much you care. And I know you’ll do yourself a favor and write this assignment, whether you like it or not.” She said that and walked off with her chin raised.

Dean glared at his notebook for a few more moments, and then picked up a pen.

I have self respect

I’m not writing anything

You can go to hell.

There. He wrote his name at the top of the page, walked over to the front of the class, and handed his teacher the paper with the fakest smile he had.

When the bell finally rang, he walked out of the room, leaving this class behind him forever. He walked through the halls decisively, confidently, almost proudly. He wasn’t going to let anyone know he hated every moment of it.

On his way to his locker he ran into Gordon. He fought the urge to send a hand up and rub his nose, although it stopped hurting days ago.

“What’s up, Gaychester?” Gordon smirked at him. His friends surrounded him like birds of prey following their leader when they’d just spotted a rotting carcass.

Dean didn’t stop walking. “Come on. Even you can do better.”

“Where are you going?” Gordon asked. “I’m not done kicking your ass.”

The words pulled him to a stop. He felt detached. Cold. Calculating. Not hotheaded and angry like he’s been feeling for so long. He turned around to face Gordon.

“Gimme what you got.”

Right before the first punch hit his nose, he looked past Gordon, down the hall. Cas was standing at the far end, unaware of the lines of worry furrowing his forehead as he watched from afar.

Then the pain hit Dean’s face, and he came to his senses. Gordon’s next punch was laid-back, effortless, and to say it was satisfying to see the bewilderment spreading across his face when Dean dodged it swiftly was an understatement. He ducked to dodge the next punch, and retaliated with one of his own. It was so forceful that Gordon’s head shot backwards. Finally Dean’s buzzing fingers, his itch to fight, were being put into good use.

Gordon backed up into his group of friends, clearly smart enough to know a punching hand he didn’t want to mess with when he felt one. His friends weren’t.

One by one, they advanced on Dean with their most forceful hits – then two by two, then three by three. He dodged when he should have dodged. Feinted when he should’ve feinted. Took blows to give his opponents a false sense of confidence, then stroke with intention, so deliberate that they fell back and gave up. He didn’t know how many there were, but they were bigger than him, stronger, and many, many more than him. And still, he was faster. He was calculating, calm, and much more experienced with violence than they were. Every punch he didn’t throw in the past five months came out at the exact right time as if he were dancing, red swirling around him out of noses and mouths.

Then, in one moment, time seemed to slow down. At first Dean didn’t realize why. Then he glanced to his left.

A teacher he didn’t know by name was standing in the hall, a horrified look on her face. Around Dean, ten or fifteen guys were trying to stop blood from streaming out of their face holes.

“Principal’s office,” the teacher said with taut lips. “Now.”

Dean followed her down the stairs with half the seniors class trailing behind him, holding their faces and groaning in pain.

He was the first one to get into the principal’s office. A small plaque on the wide desk read Mr. Metatron. No last name. Or maybe no first name. Dean had never been able to figure out which one it was. Maybe his name was Metatron Metatron.

“Sit down.” The man gestured at a padded chair and leaned back in his own. “You know, I had some doubts about you when we accepted you into school this year. An unruly kid with a bad GPA and a very recent run with the law. But your mother promised me you’ll be on your best behavior. And just when I started trusting her word…” He picked up a page from his desk and read from it. “You write your teacher a poem telling her to go to hell–”

“T’was a haiku,” Dean corrected quietly.

“Immediately before leaving the classroom and taking down our entire football team.”

“Your football team needs to work on its punches,” Dean pointed out. Maybe they forgot the space and it was first name Meta, last name Tron.

“You’re suspended for ten days,” said Mr. Tron. “I should have kicked you out, but my secretary made the point that it wouldn’t look very good after we just declared you an excelling student. She’s talking to your mother on the phone right now.”

“I’ll see myself out,” Dean muttered and stood up. His chair dragged across the floor and made a horrible screech.

“Ah,” said Metatron before Dean could turn around. “I’m watching you, Winchester. One wrong move, now, and you’re out.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” said Dean. “I’m gonna ignore that judgy tone, though.”

When he walked out, fifteen hostile, vengeful pairs of eyes rose to his face.

“See you next time you find me in an abandoned classroom,” he said, working to keep his voice level. “I’ll bring a knife, just in case your punching skills get better.”

He almost looked forward to the next fight.

When he got home Mary didn’t even yell, that’s how mad she was. She grounded him for a month and sent him to his room. Dean wasn’t sure why she cared when he stopped caring long ago. His mother was right about him – it was only a matter of time until he would snap; and now that he did, there was no rising back from that fall.

To say he hit rock bottom wasn’t accurate; rock bottom hit him.

The good thing about being suspended was that you could hear someone throwing rocks at your neighbor's window at nine a.m. as if they were in some cheesy romantic comedy. The other good thing was that without his computer, all Dean had to do all day was lie on his floor and stare at the ceiling.

Rock bottom was surprisingly peaceful.

Every once in a while he glanced at Jurassic Park, but he couldn't bring himself to open it.

Lying on the floor and listening to the stones come closer and closer to shattering the glass one floor below him, he heard his phone buzz.

That was odd. No one texted him anymore. No one except Charlie and Meg and...

Cas.

Am I in the wrong address or are you ignoring me?

what?

Look outside your window.

Oh, God.

Oh, sweet Jesus.

He scrambled to his feet and looked out through the open window. Sure enough, on the sidewalk under a tree, Cas was standing with a rock in his hand. When he saw Dean he looked down one floor below him, then back up at him, and gave an awkward wave.

The window below Dean's slid open and his neighbor poked her head out. "Fuck off," she yelled and pulled out a running shoe threateningly. Cas hurried inside the building.

“I hope I'm not getting you into trouble,” he said a minute later at Dean's doorstep.

“It's alright. My mom and Sam are out. Though I think it's a little too late to patch things up with the neighbor.” He scratched his head awkwardly. “You could've called, you know.”

“You haven't been answering my texts.”

“Right. Okay. It's not you. I'm just not the biggest fan of human beings at the moment. It's not like I don't...”

Miss you.

Cas' eyes skipped across his face. "I'm sorry. That's all I wanted to say."

“You shouldn't be. I was an asshole,” Dean said. "Not my proudest moment."

"No, mine neither."

Dean moved from the door. “You wanna...?”

And a few moments later he was lying on the floor of his bedroom next to Cas. The silence stretched for minutes. Dean didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to fix this.

Finally, Cas nervously twisted a loose string in his shirt and said, “The things I said were uncalled for. You know I'd stick with you no matter what happens.”

Dean turned to look at him, resting his head on his elbow. “Why?”

Cas shrugged. “Because you see me as I really am,” he said. “No judgement. And I see you as you are. And what I see is beautiful.”

“I wish I hadn't yelled at you in front of half the school.”

“That's alright,” Cas said. “I yelled back. What are first fights worth if they don't have the most embarrassing timing?”

“You've got a point.” He moved his hand to intertwine his fingers with Cas' and felt Cas tighten his grip.

“What are you going to do when school is over?”

He let his head roll off his elbow. “Can't really imagine myself doing something. Maybe I'll pick up flower arranging.”

He saw Cas smile at the ceiling from the corner of his eye.

“What do you think you'll do?”

“I was thinking of taking a trip,” Cas said. “Driving somewhere and not looking back.”

“Sounds fun.” It came out a little bleaker than he meant. “I'll miss you.”

Cas shifted to look at him, and his voice took on the sort of passion that made Dean's heart beat a little faster. "Come with me. We can forget about this place."

“Are you serious?”

Cas didn't answer. Just looked at him with the intensity Dean was convinced no one in the world could say no to.

He really almost said yes.

Slowly, he sat up, brushing dust off his shirt, and Cas followed. “Did you... Did you really mean it about sticking with me?”

“I did,” Cas said. "If you stick with me, too."

“You know your life would be easier if you didn't,” Dean said.

“I know.”

Dean sighed as deep as he could, but it still didn't make him feel any lighter. "Then you're gonna be the one person who's on my side in this."

When he looked into Cas' eyes, Dean could tell he understood.

"I'm liking this trip idea. But there's something I need to do first."

Hey, dad.

Thanks for the birthday letter. I’m not sure if mom caught you up, but she’s a lot angrier at me now than she was a couple of weeks ago. And she’s gonna get much angrier after this gets around to her.

I’m sorry for everything you had to go through for me.

What I'm gonna do you might never forgive me for. Mom might never forgive me for. But I've gotta do it. For Sam, and for you, and mostly for myself. I'm sorry, but I have to fix this.

I'm going to make sure that you're getting out of there.

And I'm getting in.

Chapter Text

Visiting hours had almost ended when Dean got his visitor. He sat down hard on the metal chair and picked up the receiver.

"Thought you might've gotten sick of–" he started, but Cas cut him off.

"I didn't."

"Alright. Straight to business." He looked at Cas through the glass and pressed his lips together to stop himself from smiling. He didn't have a lot to look forward to except for Cas' visits these days. It was good to see his face. "What's new?"

“Your parents had a rat infestation. They took care of it.”

Code for a vampire nest. “Mhm.”

Cas' eyes roamed his face gently, savoring the moment. They'd gotten into the habit of not saying private things in the prison's visiting booth - too many eyes around them to feel comfortable - but man, the way Cas looked at him. Sometimes it said it all.

He was actually quite proud of himself for managing to understand the messages his brother and Cas would try to signal him when they visited – about the hunts they went on, about hunter news, about trying to get him out – without them explicitly saying anything.

Cas and Sam never stopped trying to find a way to get him out of prison – even when his parents gave up; even when all the legal options ran out. Even when Dean’s family updated Cas on the full, monstrous details of exactly what had happened that night with the Kitsune. But the more they searched, the less they found. Dean dreaded his brother and Cas doing something that would get them in trouble, that would get them hurt.

“They doing alright?”

“Yes, they’re good.”

He watched the table, waiting for Cas to say something more. Sometimes he worried these visits were weighing down on Cas, that he was weighing down on Cas, even if Cas never missed a chance to see him. Never let go of the idea that they’d get to be high school boys lying on the bedroom floor again someday.

There was a pause. Dean thought he felt the air between them thicken. He thought he felt Cas pulling away. Then–

"Dean, you've been here for five years.”

His eyes focused on Cas' face in an instant. They both knew that; why did he feel the need to mention it?

“You know, I wish we met more often,” Cas went on. He looked at Dean deliberately, didn’t let eye contact slip, and Dean realized a moment too late that it was a code.

Five years. Every fifth word. He struggled to count while Cas kept talking.

“We are here, though,” Cas said.

We. Are.

"Sam is getting restless up at Stanford."

Getting.

"You know he misses you."

You.

"I miss him too," Dean said distractedly, but he was getting nervous. He had an idea of where this was going, and he didn't like it one bit. “Cas, listen, I don’t think this is-”

“Out,” Cas cut him off, leaning in, dangerously close to dropping pretenses.

We are getting you out.

“Cas, um. Remember that pie you brought me last week?”

Cas' mouth twitched. “What about it?” He picked up on codes faster. There was no pie. 

“I think it was a bad idea.”

Cas’ lips tightened. “I spent a long time working on that pie.”

“I don’t deserve the pie,” said Dean.

“You’ve paid more than enough for the pie.”

“I’m still paying for it.”

Cas glanced at the people around them. To his credit, he spoke in an even, unaffected voice that made his words sound a little less of what they were – extremely suspicious. “This isn’t up for discussion. Sam and I are sending you a fresh pie next week.” He started dragging his chair back.

“Cas, wait.”

Dean hesitated.

For five years they didn’t give up, and he doubted they would now, not with the burning intensity in Cas' eyes. They would only push harder if he pushed back. They would get reckless. They would blow their cover easier. Whatever their plan was, he worried things would go a lot smoother if he just went along with it.

Besides... he did miss the little things. Like picking his own clothes, or a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Love you guys,” he said finally, looking at the other man’s face, and Cas’ expression softened.

“Does that mean you’ll eat the damn pie?”

Dean sighed. “If I have to.”

“Good.”

“Just make sure you break the eggs carefully,” he said. The edge of Cas’ lip rose with the hint of a self-assured smile.

“Don’t worry. No one will hear them leave their shells.”

Five years.

It was about time to eat a homecooked meal. It was about time to drive his car. It was about time to hug the people he loved. The people who never gave up on him.

He took a deep breath and let it out. “Alright, then.” He nodded.

“Alright, then.” Cas nodded back formally.

“See you next week.”