Archive of Our Own

“He’s so pretentious.”

“Who is?”

“Castiel.” Dean sneered as he said the name. “Look at him.” Dean glanced over the busy crowd, then reached into the belly of the bus and grabbed his duffel bag out from twenty others. When he stood straight and looked back again, his eyes locked onto a black knitted hat just as it bobbed out of sight behind a dozen other people. “He only brought one bag, and it’s tiny. And orange.”

“Maybe he doesn’t like carrying a lot of stuff,” Charlie said, shouldering her own rainbow-coloured weekender bag, leading Dean out of the crowd and towards the picnic benches. “Gifted-and-Talented Summer Camp is only four days. A change of clothes and a toothbrush, that’s all most people need.”

“What about when he sleeps? Doesn’t he at least need a pair of jammies? And that freaking nose ring. Seriously, he looks like a bull. I wonder if anyone’s ever told him.”

“Well, don’t make it your mission in life,” Charlie muttered, tossing her bag onto the picnic bench, then sitting on the mossy surface when Dean perched beside her. “Why are you complaining about his piercings, anyway? You were the one who wanted to know if nipple piercings would hurt.”

Dean huffed. “That’s different. I wouldn’t show that off to everyone who looked at me. But it’s like, he got the nose ring and then he thought, nah, that’s not pretentious enough. Oh, I know! I’ll add an eyebrow piercing too! And plugs. Jeez. What adult guardian authorised that, huh? We’re barely eighteen; I can already imagine all the regrets he’s going to have later in life. At least the other holes would heal up if he takes the rings out. He’s gonna have massive gaping vortices in his earlobes for all of forever.”

“Hm,” Charlie said, pulling her iPod from her jacket pocket and scrolling through a playlist. “Yeah, he can’t possibly be confident enough to wear plugs all his life. It’s a total quandary.”

Dean spotted Castiel through the crowd again. Dean watched his eyes skip from person to person, like he was looking for someone. Dean smirked. “Of course. Obviously.”

“What?” Charlie asked, tucking her red hair behind her ears.

“None of Castiel’s friends showed up. Because he’s the only smart one in his little wise-guy clique.”

“Why are you so bothered about him?” Charlie asked, pulling out one earphone to wait to Dean’s answer. “You never shared any classes with him, and you barely even saw the guy around school.” When Dean shot her a lukewarm glare, Charlie raised an eyebrow. “Seems like you’re determined to hate him even though you don’t know him.”

“Hey, I know him!” Dean insisted, folding his arms, aiming a disgruntled kick at the bench seat. “All his friends are assholes, remember? He takes AP calculus, chemistry and historic literature – practically every course he takes is an advanced placement class, now I think about it. He took my spot at Kevin’s Warhammer workshop when went to I get my ‘flu shot last year, and he plays water polo.” Dean thought back to the sight of Castiel leaping about in the school pool in his tight little swim trunks, and he gritted his teeth, still feeling the residual anger of a sore loser. “He’s good at water polo.”

“But you’re good at a shit-ton of stuff too,” Charlie said, narrowing her eyes. “I get that you want to be better than everyone else at everything, but just admit it. He has strengths you wish you had, and you’re bitter about it.”

Dean scoffed, eyes boring holes into that stupid floppy black hat from across the woodland quad. “I’m not bitter.”

“Sure. Whatever you say.” Charlie stuck her earphone back in.

Dean heard the organisers call for the students’ attention over by the entrance to the forest area. One of them was standing on a picnic bench so everyone knew where to line up.

“That’s our cue,” Dean said, slipping off the bench and tapping Charlie on the shoulder. “C’mon.”

Charlie lugged her stuff over a shoulder and followed Dean’s lead. She hesitated once when Dean changed course dramatically, cutting through a barrage of other teenagers and their hefty bags. “Where are you going?” Charlie asked, but Dean carried on without answering.

His heart beat harder as he neared Castiel, and he swallowed down the flutter that lifted to his tongue.

He knocked into Castiel on purpose as he passed, quirking an eyebrow and flicking his tongue out suggestively as he said, “Hey, sexy.”

For a split-second, Castiel stared, and time seemed to slow to a halt.

Then Dean carried on, swallowing twice more to calm the heartbeat in his throat.

Charlie met Dean by the edge of the crowd where he’d paused to collect himself, trying to act he wasn’t shaking with nerves.

“What the hell was that about?” Charlie asked, ignoring the organisers as they announced instructions for the rest of the day. “‘Hey sexy’?”

“It— It was what his asshole friends would’ve done,” Dean said, shrugging. “Pretend they like you but they’re actually mocking you?”

Charlie seemed unconvinced for about three seconds, but then her face hardened. She scoffed in agreement with Dean, then turned her eyes towards the adults. “Anna and her girlfriends told me she liked my skirt the other day.”

“Let me guess: then you turned around and you heard them giggling at you.”

“Yeah.” Charlie gulped, eyes darting to Dean, then away again. “I don’t get it. I guess something about our type is hilarious to them. As of yet, I don’t see it.”

Dean didn’t know what to say, so he nudged Charlie in the side. “It’ll be better once we get to college. No friends, no cliques, no problem.”

“Yeah, but no friends,” Charlie said, then sighed. “I’m gonna miss you, you know.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Dean hung an arm over Charlie’s shoulder and squeezed, making her laugh.

“Shh,” she said, brushing him away. “Come on. We should probably listen.”

Dean bumped Charlie’s side in a friendly way. He smiled once more, then started to pay attention.

Yellow mid-morning light eased in through grimy windows, doing almost nothing to brighten the room. Dark ceiling rafters loomed over the hall of lunch tables, each table seating ten chatting students. The whole place smelled like pine sap.

Dean plucked at his lettuce with a fork, eyes not on his own plate, but another plate halfway across the hall.

“Are you going to eat that?” Charlie asked with her mouth half-full, dragging Dean’s focus back to his own burger. “Because I could eat another one if you’re not up to it.”

“Back off, I’m eating it,” Dean said, cramming another bite into his mouth. His eyes drifted back to Castiel, and he chewed while staring. “Did y’ noticsh he’s sittin’ alone again?”

“Who?” Charlie looked up, then followed Dean’s gaze. “Castiel?”

Dean swallowed. “He ate breakfast by himself this morning. I figured it was because it was five a.m and nobody can be fucked making conversation at five a.m., right? But then he did the falconry thing alone and then he walked back alone and now he’s eating alone again.”

“So what?” Charlie said. “I thought you hated him, why do you care if he’s lonely?”

Dean blinked, remembering himself. “I don’t,” he said, looking back to his burger and taking a huge bite. He chewed and chewed until he could swallow, then he checked on Castiel again. “But don’t you think it’s weird? In school he’s like this... I don’t know - the senior year equivalent of a sex god. Girls all around him, competing to be his girlfriend; guys all around him, bragging when he acknowledges them. People poke fun at us when we do something unexpected, but when he does the same thing, suddenly it’s the newest trend. Then he comes to summer camp and it’s like Superman just put his shirt back on.”

“So you’re saying he seems almost human now?” Charlie wore a smirk.

“No,” Dean said, picking up a fry and dipping it into Charlie’s ketchup. “I’m just... concerned.”

“About him?”

“About what he could be planning. I bet he’s organising, like, a public humiliation. As soon as he pulls out his camera, run as fast as you can in the other direction. I’ll bet anything he’ll take bad photos that highlight our acne and have his buddy Rachel post them in next year’s school newsletter.”

Charlie laughed uneasily, but then her laugh became a genuine chuckle. “From what I saw of his photos in the newsletter, he’s incapable of taking a bad photo.”

Dean scowled and threw another fry into his mouth. “Ugh. God. Don’t remind me.”

“You started it.”

“Just... shut up,” Dean said, defeated. Charlie went on smirking, but Dean looked away. By chance (or by design, who could tell?), his eyes went straight to Castiel. He was still wearing the oversized black hoodie and the saggy black hat he’d arrived in yesterday, and his shoulders were set in a slight hunch. It was the easygoing type of hunch, not the I-have-bad-posture type of hunch that Dean adopted whenever he wasn’t paying attention. Castiel looked good all the time, and wasn’t fair.

Dean watched Castiel pack up his empty lunch tray and carry it over to the trash, eyes not straying from wherever he planned to put his feet. There was no smile on his face. Upon examining that observation, Dean realised he had never seen the guy smile. He was not unlike the Mona Lisa, that way. He oozed coolness. And like anything that oozed, it was sickening.

Dean took his responsibilities seriously. He’d volunteered as the water safety guy, which meant he wasn’t allowed in the water unless someone was drowning. He was okay with that. Granted, it had less to do with wanting to save lives as it did with wanting to avoid the water. The kayaking pond was a slimy, grungy green, and it spat bubbles on occasion. Still, he made his way down to the shed with the kayaks, instructed to check none of them had holes in. He had fifteen minutes until the first group arrived for their kayaking session.

Dean set his mp3 player on a playlist with a good, steady beat, clapped his padded headphones over his ears, then he grinned, ready to get to work.

He carried on without pause until he’d flipped over the third kayak and dragged it to the sandy ramp at the shore of the pond. When it was lined up neatly beside the other two, he stood up and set his hands in his lower back to ease the unexpected ache. He sighed.

A shadow approached from between the trees, and Dean jumped. He popped one headphone off to rest behind his ear, eyes darting from one side of the clearing to the other. “Who’s there?” he called. “Mr. Turner?”

The figure who appeared was not Dean’s instructor, but Castiel.

“Shit, you scared me,” Dean said. Then his eyes widened. “I mean, the Slenderman kind of scared, not the... the other kind of scared.”

Castiel’s thick eyebrows came together as he hopped off a log and strode onto the hard-packed sand. “What other kind of scared is there?”

Dean huffed. “I dunno— Look, what are you doing here?”

“I was informed someone was working by the water alone, and Miss Blake asked for a volunteer to supervise.”

“So you volunteered?”

“Well, I do have a good knowledge of water safety,” Castiel said blandly, one eyebrow rising by a fraction of an inch. “Unless I’m mistaking you for someone else, you take water polo at the same time as I do. Tuesday and Friday afternoons. At least, you did, before school ended.”

“Yeah,” Dean snorted, tossing a kayak rope around the mooring stump. “It’s only been three years, it’s not like you’d know my name or anything.”

“Dean Winchester,” Castiel said. “Your team secured second place in last year’s water polo championship. You personally scored the most goals, despite your team’s loss.” He reached forward and removed the second mooring rope from between Dean’s stiff fingers, and he looped it around the stump himself. “I’ll admit,” Castiel went on, “I felt a fair amount of...” he crouched, searching for a word in the murky waters of the pond, “A sense of rivalry, let’s say.”

“But you won,” Dean said. “You’re literally captain of the winning team – consecutive wins; home games and away games. I haven’t got shit on you.”

Castiel looked up, blue eyes alight with afternoon sun. There was no smile on his face but there was a smile in his eyes; Dean couldn’t believe he’d never noticed before.

“Dean,” Castiel said – god, it was strange, hearing him say his name – “I would rather have something that makes me distinctive than something that marks me as... the head of a pack.” The smile left his eyes, and he looked down, tightening the rope’s knot. “I’m no leader.”

“What? But you’re good at it,” Dean said awkwardly, shifting on his feet. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, staring at Castiel’s well-mussed hair, where it swept over his eyes and made him look mysterious.

When Castiel looked back up, he didn’t look mysterious at all. He looked like Dean’s younger brother did sometimes, whenever he was upset but too stubborn to say what the problem was.

Castiel took a breath with his mouth open, and he stood up, brushing sand from the artfully-frayed knees of his jeans. “I’m good at a lot of things,” he said, eyes down. “I’ve heard the odd claim that I’m good at everything.”

“And you’re saying that’s not true?” Dean grinned. “Look, man, not to be rude or anything, but I think you’re utterly full of it. The minute you add ‘humble’ to the list of your qualities, I might actually punch you.”

Castiel sucked on the inside of his cheeks, gazing at Dean with intelligent consideration. “What I am good at is learning,” he said quietly.

Dean’s quiet hope that he might get to throw a punch settled, and despite himself, he became curious about what Castiel wanted to say.

“I could go to college,” Castiel said on, turning away and heading towards the kayak shed, stepping through beams of dappled sunlight on the way. “I already have a scholarship. Several, in fact. Harvard was always my first choice.”

Dean felt a sinking feeling. He himself had scraped through an acceptance to Ohio Technical College, and he’d managed to secure third place on the waiting list for Toledo – fingers crossed someone would drop out. Like Castiel, Sam was set to get a free ride to Harvard, but apparently Dean’s own gems weren’t hewn from the same sort of rock.

“So what’s the problem, exactly?” Dean asked, following Castiel into the shed and helping him shove another kayak off the rack. They carried one end each, taking it down to the shore with Castiel bringing up the rear.

“I don’t know what I want to study,” Castiel said.

Dean laughed. “Oh! Oh, right! I should’ve guessed. You’re so smart and so good at everything that you have too many options. Christ. Forget what I said about you being humble. You’re the worst kind of privileged dickwad. You should try shutting up for ten seconds, maybe someone else might say something smart.”

“You have yet to say something smart yourself, Dean,” Castiel said, deadpan.

Dean wished he had a good comeback but he didn’t. “Yeah? Yeah— Well!” He huffed, ignoring the wave of heat in his face.

His boot snagged on a tree root, and he dropped the kayak, stumbling towards the bank of the pond. “Gah!” He swung his arms madly, trying to keep his balance and not fall into the water. A moment later he felt a hand take his shoulder and wrench him backwards, and instead he fell into Castiel’s arms.

Dean shoved Castiel’s strong grip off him. “Let go of me.”

“Dean, careful—”

Dean stumbled again, and this time he really did fall. He watched the world topple sideways, the boughs of the trees lurching higher in his vision until he was falling... falling... God, it seemed to take forever. Water touched his arm, cold.

He felt a yank, his shoulder wrenched hard, and then he felt hard ground under his knees.

Dean panted roughly, realising he’d been rescued for a second time. He curled his fingers into the sand, then reached up and slapped his headphones off his neck so they wouldn’t constrict him so much. The tinny sound of music still escaped, as distant in Dean’s senses as Castiel’s voice.

Awareness of Castiel came more quickly than Dean would have liked; he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Dean, are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Dean panted. No thanks to you, said the part of him that wanted to hate Castiel. You hurt my arm, you dick.

“Nobody else saw,” Castiel said gently. “I think you might be spared any further humiliation.”

Dean looked up, quickly pulling back into a half-kneel so he didn’t look like he was begging at Castiel’s feet. “Why would you care if I’m humiliated, huh?” He got to his feet, touching his strained shoulder as he rolled it backwards. “I thought you made a point of instigating said humiliation.”

Castiel bit his lip, and for a split second, Dean wondered what it would be like to kiss someone with a lip ring. Castiel didn’t have a lip ring – yet – but the thought nevertheless crossed Dean’s mind and startled him with its randomness.

“Dean... I’ve been wanting to ask... Did— Did you really mean what you said, the other day?” Castiel asked, a softness in his eyes now.

“Which other day?” Dean asked, frowning.

“When you bumped into me,” Castiel said. His eyeline dipped to the ground, and he bent at the waist to retrieve Dean’s headphones. He examined the skull-and-crossbones design on either earpiece, then he handed the headphones to Dean. “You said I was sexy. Did you mean it?”

Dean fiddled with his headphones, making sure he was frowning hard enough to cover what felt like another blush. What the hell was he meant to say? He didn’t even know what he’d meant when he said that. He hung his headphones over the back of his neck and looked Castiel in the eye. “Yea-huh, sure. The whole punk-meets-gothic-hipster thing really gets me fired up, if ya know what I mean.” His sarcasm was on point, as per usual.

Castiel gulped. “Oh.”

Dean blinked. “It’s a joke. You get that, right?” He grinned, shaking his head. How did this guy even get to have friends? He was just so...

So...

So something.

Castiel breathed out through his mouth, pink lips pressing in a line as his breath ran out. He didn’t look like he appreciated the joke. While that was the point, Dean felt kinda bad for him all of a sudden.

“It’s just,” Castiel started, taking a quick look around the clearing, then lowering his gaze to his fidgeting hands. Whatever confidence he usually had didn’t seem so obvious now. “When people flatter me like that, I always wonder... Do they mean it, or do they say it to tease?” He met Dean’s eyes now, and for the first time Dean saw a smallness in Castiel that made his pedestal of privileged dickwaddery crumble in an instant. He wasn’t unstoppable, he wasn’t friends with the whole world. He wasn’t insufferably perfect. He was just a different kind of outsider.

Dean took an unsettled breath. “I, um. When I said that... I didn’t... Uh.”

He lost his train of thought, since the carriage containing said thought had switched tracks in his mind. Was he really any better than the other kids who teased and harassed him and Charlie the whole time? Dean and Charlie had their fandoms and their geekery, and they wore those obsessions proudly on their sleeves, sometimes in the literal sense. Wasn’t a septum piercing or an oversized sweater just another passion that nobody else could understand?

Plus... Looking at Castiel now, those sparkly blue eyes and the steady set of his shoulders, the way his scent was starting to infiltrate Dean’s nostrils and didn’t exactly smell bad... The opposite, even...

Maybe calling him sexy hadn’t been a joke. Maybe Dean hadn’t hated him in the first place.

Dean had waited too long to speak. Shit.

Castiel tilted his head. “Dean...?”

“S- So what?” Dean said. He swallowed so hard it hurt his throat. “So what if I do think you’re attractive or sexy or whatever. You gonna tease me about that, too?”

Castiel’s lips parted, but Dean couldn’t bear to watch him any more, so looked away and turned around to pace.

Shit.

Just, shit. Why was this his life? This was madness, why was he saying crap like this aloud? Did he mean it, was he attracted? Did liking someone’s smell and kind of-perhaps-maybe wanting to stroke their face fluff mean he wanted them? Was he even into guys?

“Dean,” Castiel said, far too calmly, “I think you may be under some misapprehension about my feelings towards you.”

“What?” Dean spun around. “Wait, are you saying...? You’re saying you’ve got a weird, confusing guy-crush on me too?”

Castiel seemed taken aback. “N... No, I mean... I don’t hate you, Dean. I’ve never intentionally done anything to hurt you.”

“The fuck are you talking about, man? I’ve seen you with your friends when they’re busy cutting the straps on my bag or tossing my lunch out the window. Uriel locked me in the basement – I saw you then, too!”

“I know that’s what you think of me, I know you think I’m nothing more than a bully, but it’s... it’s not true. It’s not.” Castiel looked mildly grief-stricken, his expression harried and his hands half-clenched.

“Yeah,” Dean sneered. “Maybe you just don’t want to believe it. Maybe—” He took a deep breath, then let it out. He spoke more softly, feeling guilt bleed into his words. “Maybe we do stupid things, say stupid things when we don’t know how to deal with new crap. All these feelings and shit.”

Dean shut his eyes, covering his face with both hands. He let go immediately; the sleeve of his jacket was wet from the pond, and it stank horribly. Without paying any attention to Castiel, Dean removed his jacket.

He heard Castiel take a breath in. At first Dean didn’t care to know why the guy was so affected by seeing Dean in a tatty old henley and a hoodie, but when Castiel’s hand moved into view, Dean paused, jacket slumping to drag on the floor.

Castiel reached for the Star Trek communicator badge pinned to Dean’s hoodie. “I’ve always wanted one of these,” he said under his breath.

Dean glanced up. “You’re a Trekkie?”

Castiel’s mouth twitched nervously; it was nearly a smile. “I didn’t know there was a word for...”

“Fans of Star Trek,” Dean said, smirking. “Wow. You’re... You’re a closet fanboy, aren’t you?”

“Am I?”

Dean began to grin, shaking his jacket off the rest of the way. “What’s better, Star Trek or Star Wars?”

“No comparison; I don’t even understand the feud,” Castiel said without thought. He blinked. “Is this a test?”

“Yeah, it’s a test,” Dean said, patting Castiel on the arm and leading him closer to the kayak shed. “How about Doctor Who?”

“The doctor who what?” When Dean laughed, Castiel shook his head. “I don’t know?”

“You’ve never heard of Doctor Who?!” Dean gawped. “Google it when we get back in cellphone range, man. You’re in for a week-long marathon. Three weeks if you go for the stuff made in the 60s.”

“I like the old stuff,” Castiel said, an actual smile on his face now. Dean picked up another kayak, but couldn’t take his eyes off Castiel’s mouth. “The original Star Trek is my favourite.”

“I’m a Voyager guy myself,” Dean said, taking the lead as they hauled the fifth kayak down to the bank. He was careful of tree roots this time. “The original... I guess you’d like that if you were into watching William Shatner rolling around on the floor a lot.”

“I thought that was the entire appeal,” Castiel said, a lilt of amusement in his voice. “Do you like Harry Potter?”

“The character or the series?” Dean roped the kayak to the stump, his attention set on Castiel the whole time. When Castiel shrugged, Dean chuckled. “Yeah, I like it. Tolkien’s works are lore, though. Unbeatable.”

“I take your Tolkien and I raise you one Arthur Conan Doyle,” Castiel said.

Dean smirked, eyes on Castiel’s septum piercing as it caught the light. “Stan Lee,” Dean said.

Castiel opened his mouth to offer a dealbreaker, but his mouth spread into a grin instead, and he cocked his head in a halfway shake. “Bisexual Steve Rogers.”

Dean’s smile slipped away. “Huh?”

Castiel’s smile only got wider. “Google it when you get back into cellphone range,” he said with a semi-squint that was perhaps meant to be a wink. “I believe you may be in for an education.”

The road went on and on, and every pebble that hit the underside of the bus ripped Dean from a cosy doze. Each time he woke, he leaned into the central aisle and checked the clock over the driver’s seat. Groaning, Dean rolled back to his seat.

“What’s up?” Charlie asked, typing another number into her electronic sudoku-type game. She was on level 245.

“Still another three hours to go,” Dean mumbled. “I’m getting hungry.”

“I can’t recommend eating the cookies I made in the lab, they’re probably sentient by now.”

“Don’t worry, I have no intention of eating those things. Your mom’s gonna be thrilled, though. She’ll probably freeze them.”

Charlie snorted. “Ten years from now someone will find them and we’ll have the start of a superhero origin story. Or a villain origin story.”

“Mm, those cookies did look evil,” Dean smiled, closing his eyes. Sleep nudged at his consciousness again, but he didn’t want to slip away again. Before too long, Charlie would be on her way to Massachusetts to prepare for college. Everything was happening too fast, and Dean didn’t feel like he’d prepared enough. Or at all.

Anxiety took hold, and Dean stared at the air conditioning block above his head, wishing the cool air could blow away all the difficult things he would have to face in the next few weeks.

“Dean,” came a whisper.

Dean looked around but didn’t see anyone looking at him, and the sound of the other students chattering between themselves drowned out any further whispers.

He settled back down, chewing on his tongue.

“Dean,” came the whisper again. Someone poked the back of his seat.

Dean spun around and peered behind his seat, surprised to see Castiel back there.

Castiel smiled, shy but still bold, like Dean had always suspected him to be. “Do you want one of my snack things?” Castiel asked, quietly enough that nobody else would hear and demand he share the rest. “They’re cheese and crackers.”

“If you got one going free,” Dean grinned. He watched Castiel reach for that orange backpack he carried everywhere, and he accepted the snack pack when Castiel handed it over. Dean smiled. “Pepper cheese. My favourite.”

Castiel’s tongue poked out from between his lips, still smiling. Dean fiddled with the snack pack, then returned to face the front of the bus and put it on his lap. His stomach gurgled, but he felt another kind of dissatisfaction more pressing than the need to eat. He glanced towards Charlie, patting her thigh. “‘scuse me,” he said, then unbuckled his safety belt.

“Where are you going?” Charlie asked, but Dean had already snuck away.

Dean stood in the aisle and waggled his fingers at Castiel, urging him to move closer to the window. Castiel did, and Dean sat in his still-warm seat, not bothering to plug in the belt. “So,” Dean said, bracing his feet against the back of his own seat, “About this college thing.”

“Oh, don’t remind me,” Castiel said darkly, glaring out of the window at the endless country fields whooshing past. “As soon as I get back home, my foster parents are going to be all ‘so did you decide on a major yet?’ and ‘if not, why not?’. I’m sick of it.”

“I know the feeling,” Dean murmured, pulling a breadstick from the snack pack and dipping it in the cheese. “You know what I wanna be when I grow up?”

“What?” Castiel asked, intrigued.

“A rock star,” Dean said, snapping off a bite of his breadstick.

“You can’t sing,” Charlie said from in front, her eyes peering back through the gap in the seats.

“Shut your face, Charlie,” Dean said. “That’s what auto-tune is for.”

“I’m glad you know what you want,” Castiel said, choosing his words with discernible care.

Dean shook his head. “I can’t be a rock star. Not being able to sing is one thing, but I’m musically illiterate as a whole. I just really love music, that’s about it. If you took Taylor Swift and had her sing songs by Led Zeppelin, that’s what I want. It’s like... classic rock meets sparkle punk. But you can’t base a career off of loving something.”

“You’d be surprised,” Charlie said. “I used to hack websites and pretty them up for a hobby, now I get to learn to do it properly.”

“You’re lucky, then.” Castiel folded his arms, squeezing himself. “What are you meant to do when you hate everything and you’re bored by everything and you just do things so people will stop yelling at you?”

Dean paused with a breadstick lodged in the cheese so it stayed standing by itself. “You love TV, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but I can’t just go out and make a TV show,” Castiel said. “No matter how much I’d love to change the world like that, I’m still...” He shook his head. “I’m still just a kid with a camera, I can’t succeed with that going for me and nothing else. I don’t have the drive to get myself through college without someone kicking me into gear every step of the way. I enjoy giving up, Dean. It makes me feel better.”

Dean folded the crumpled lid of the snack pack down, putting it on his lap to finish later. He shifted his right hand to Castiel’s crossed arms, and he wormed his way under that tight grip. Castiel loosened his arms, startled. “What are you doing?”

“Shut up,” Dean said, slipping his fingers into Castiel’s. “Just... don’t talk. Don’t say anything.”

He blushed hot, furiously hot. Scientifically he knew hormones were raging through his adolescent system, but all he could truly focus on was the tingly blur in his chest and the tight squish in his gut and the swollen pulsation between his legs. Plus, the feeling of Castiel’s fingers between his own, their slightly sweaty hands causing a vacuum to form between their palms.

Castiel stared at the side of Dean’s face, breath coming a little quicker than before.

“Dean,” he said.

“I said shut up,” Dean snapped, sinking down into his seat.

“What’s going on back there?” Charlie asked.

“Nothing,” Dean said, rubbing his fingers through Castiel’s and causing a bizarre flash of bliss to flood his system. Words coming out breathy and shaky, he whispered, “Absolutely nothing.”

There was a pause, then Charlie said, “Okay. Here’s guessing I don’t wanna know.”

Dean bit his lips and closed his eyes, sure his cheeks were bright red. He squeezed on Castiel’s hand, his body overtaken by another surge of delight as Castiel slid his right hand on top of Dean’s, sandwiching his hand in human warmth. If this was what sex was like, then Dean supposed he might be willing to try it someday.

Dean’s eyes opened when he felt Castiel’s face snuggle down onto his shoulder. Dean glanced at him, and his breath was stolen from him; Castiel had closed his eyes, and was now using Dean as a pillow. His eyebrow piercing shone in the light from the window – admittedly the ring did cover up a pimple, but it looked oddly beautiful to Dean. The ring, not the pimple. Obviously.

Dean hesitated, then shifted his face closer and nudged his cheek against Castiel’s hair. He smiled and shut his eyes. Cas was warm, and despite him wearing the same clothes for four days straight, he smelled really damn good. And his hat was soft as anything.

The bus rumbled on its journey, heading straight for the students’ home town. For some, it wouldn’t be home for long. But with Castiel snuggled up against him, it wasn’t a huge challenge for Dean to put the worrisome future out of his mind.

The three of them stepped off the bus along in single file, hustling their way to the peripheral edge of the crowd.

“So you’re going to Harvard too, huh?” Castiel smiled, slinging his orange backpack over his shoulder. He stepped out of the shadow of the school building and into the light of the sunset, golden light illuminating his hair, which Dean had previously thought was black. It was dark brown, in fact. Blonde in the light. Whatever colour it was, it was gorgeous.

“Yeah,” Charlie said, smacking on a fresh stick of bubblegum. “I’m half excited, half completely and utterly mortified.”

“God, please, can we talk about something other that college?” Dean lounged against the nearest brick wall, eyes on the sunset, then on the group of other students who had attended Gifted-and-Talented Summer Camp. “I wanna bask in the fact that right now, we’re still kids. Fuck responsibility and fuck the future, I just wanna be a kid for five more minutes. I’m gonna miss the hell out of you, Charlie.”

“Hey, it’s not goodbye,” Charlie said, reaching to grip Dean’s shoulder. “We can email each other all day, every day if we’re both slacking off.”

Dean grinned, but his heart wasn’t in it. “I don’t wanna grow up. Look at me, I’m not ready. I’m not—” He had to look away, too aware his eyes had filled with tears. He sensed Charlie look over at Castiel, then both of them turn their concern on Dean.

Dean swallowed, taking a guess to say unless he got this out now, he might never get a chance to. “You two are both smart as hell, okay. You’ve got your crazy illegal hobbies, Charlie... Cas, you’ve got the fact you’re good at learning, or whatever you wanna call it. You might not enjoy it, but you’ve got it. Me... I don’t know. I still feel like I tripped the system when they invited me to Gifted-‘n-Talented Camp. Like, I’m just that Winchester kid that rarely hands any work in, you know? People just think I’m smart because I find the easiest and quickest way to get things over and done with.”

Castiel took a breath, and Dean let him interrupt. “You do realise, Dean, by saying that, you have just defined yourself as the smartest of the three of us?”

Dean squinted, blinking away unshed tears. “What?”

“Take the newest innovations in technology, for example. What are they, more often than not?” Castiel smiled, leaning into Dean’s space and poking his chest. “They’re faster, more efficient ways of doing the exact same things we were doing before. Humans are lazy by nature. Say you’re in a maze – someone finds a shortcut and everyone else takes that route. Only the old people and the sticklers bother to do it the traditional way afterwards. You may not be a trendsetter now,” Castiel glanced down at his shoes as he spoke, uncomfortable about mentioning his own place in the students’ hierarchy, “but you will be. Nobody is who they want to be in high school. Nobody.”

“So who do you want to be?” Dean asked, catching Castiel’s eye as his gaze rose up.

Castiel grew more confident under Dean’s scrutiny. “A kinder person,” he said. “Less easily swayed by my peers.”

Dean smirked. “Good. I appreciate that.”

Charlie cleared her throat. “Hi,” she said, when Dean and Castiel looked at her. “Dean’s best friend here, requesting permission to talk to him alone?”

Castiel cleared his throat, then nodded and backed away. Only then did Dean realise he had been standing close enough to share body heat.

Dean watched Castiel skirt the crowd of students, where most waited for their parents to collect them.

“You’re going to get your heart broken,” Charlie said, snapping her fingers in Dean’s face to draw his attention back to her. “You may have forgiven him for years of competitive, testosterone-fuelled high school shenanigans, but the minute his foster mom gets here to pick him up, one of two things will happen. One, you forget he even existed. Believe me, that’s best for everyone. Two, you blink and the next twenty years have gone by. You’re married with four kids, and you realise you never resolved that crush you had back in senior year. Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!”

“Listen, I get it,” Dean said, waving Charlie’s flapping hands away. “I mean, first off, four kids? I get that you think I’m virile and a total stud, but—” He laughed, backing away from Charlie’s slap. “No, no, quit it. Honestly... Don’t you think it could be more than that? It’s not like either of us will let our friendship die out while you’re in Massachusetts, so why wouldn’t it be the same for me and Cas?”

“You just met him, Dean,” Charlie said dully. “It’s high school.”

Dean sighed, mouth easing closed. The sun glinted in his eyes, sinking closer to the horizon. It seemed to act as a countdown; soon the light would be gone and the fun would be over. The life of a responsible adult awaited.

“You’re saying I should end it,” Dean said. “Charlie, I’ve never even—” he lowered his voice, murmuring, “I’ve never kissed a guy before. I’ve never kissed him. You seriously think it should be over before it starts?”

“Yes,” Charlie said. “As your best friend with a more observant eye when it comes to relationships, yes, I urge you to end it before you start feeling more for him than you already do.”

Dean felt that sinking, anxious feeling start to claw at him again. “I guess it’s your prerogative as best friend to give me honest advice.”

“Take particular note of the fact I might not see you for months after today, and I’m using this time to talk about you getting hung up on a pretentious douchebag with a nose ring.”

Dean blew a raspberry. “God. Fine. You win. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Attaboy,” Charlie chirped, patting Dean’s back as he pushed away from the wall.

Taking a deep breath, Dean approached Castiel, tapping him on the shoulder. “Hey,” he said, as Castiel’s gaze swung to meet his.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel smiled. That smile was radiant; Dean could only imagine it was a special smile just for him. Probably a naïve thought, but it was a pleasant thought regardless.

“C’mere,” Dean said, taking the loose sleeve of Castiel’s hoodie, dragging him away from the crowd. Charlie watched them, but they were out of earshot.

“So, I wanted to say something,” Dean said, looking at his hands, then his bag, which was decorated with half a dozen fandom-related iron-on patches. “Well, no,” he corrected, “I don’t really want to say it. But it’s probably for the best if I say it.”

“This sounds suspiciously like a breakup speech,” Castiel said, a smile around his words.

But then Dean looked up and Castiel’s smile slid off his face. “Oh,” he said. “Dean, we’re not even... We’re not even together. I know you said you have a... a crush...” Castiel’s cheeks coloured. “Please, I— I think I like you too, Dean. I don’t know – it’s so strange. I’ve never felt like this before. I don’t want to turn you down like I do with everyone else. At first I thought I was just a late starter, but then I found out I might be aromantic...” He caught sight of Dean’s brief frown, and explained, “It means I don’t feel romantic love.” He gulped. “But it’s... you...”

Dean watched in awe as Castiel got choked up, bowing his head. Dean had never suspected someone who always seemed so tough could look so vulnerable.

“These past few days have been a whirlwind of new experiences for me,” Castiel said, the strength back in his voice. “Not just the camp, but the things I shared with you and Charlie. I had friends before, but I don’t think I realised what friendship really meant. None of them ever made me laugh or want to share my things.”

“Your friends are assholes,” Dean said bluntly.

“I know,” Castiel said, frowning at himself rather than Dean. He sighed. “I know, I get that now.”

Castiel then dragged in a deep breath, turning his eyes towards the sunset. Light was already fading, the orb sinking behind distant houses. “What I mean to say is, I think I would be... upset, if what I found in you was severed so soon after this friendship was forged.”

Dean smiled softly. “This was exactly what Charlie just warned me about. Except she thought it would happen to me, not you.”

Castiel chuckled, eyes drifting towards the road, which was streaked with purpling shadows. “Let me give you my email address,” Castiel said, pulling a pen from his pocket so hurriedly that Dean realised he’d seen an approaching car. “Hold out your arm!”

Dean rolled up the sleeve of his leather jacket, and let Castiel hold his hand as he wrote an email address on his forearm in Sharpie.

“Email me tonight, I’ll send you my home address. I have a few weeks before I leave for college, wherever that happens to be.”

“Gotcha,” Dean said. A second later he got caught up in the rush; Castiel capped his pen and started towards the car idling by the sidewalk. “Cas— Cas, wait.”

Castiel paused, head turning between the car and Dean, torn between leaving and staying. Dean sucked in a quick breath, then let it go. “Come back here for a sec. I want to give you something.”

Castiel approached hesitantly, still glancing back to the car. Dean reached inside his leather jacket and unpinned his Star Trek badge from his hoodie, re-pinning it once both halves were in his hand. He held it out to Castiel, who touched it with careful fingers.

The sun set completely, and the road immediately washed over with purple. Despite the new gloom, Castiel’s piercings still gleamed as he met Dean’s eye. “Thank you,” he uttered, fingers curling to hold Dean’s hand for a moment.

A breath was taken, a breath was released.

Another breath was taken, then Castiel kissed Dean.

Dean squeaked in surprise, his lips open, his breath escaping into Castiel’s mouth. But Castiel closed his lips for him, and the next exhale was his, gushing over Dean’s unshaven muzzle. Dean could feel his nose ring nudging at the bit between his nose and his mouth, not cold, but not warm either. Castiel trapped Dean’s cheeks between his hands and tilted his head to renew the kiss, and Dean felt part of him melting – his heart, his knees, the unpredictable idiot between his legs – God only knew.

As suddenly as it had begun, it ended. Dean gazed at Castiel, so glad he was still holding his face, else he might’ve dropped to the floor in a heap of dazed anime twinkles.

Castiel smiled, a slow smirk that crawled up one side of his face before it was mirrored by the other side. “Live long and prosper, Dean,” he whispered, then let Dean’s face go.

Dean found the strength to stay upright, but he suspected he looked a little frail now. He waved with a floppy hand, watching Castiel get into his foster parents’ car, do up his safety belt, then disappear behind the parked bus as the car pulled out into the road.

Dean’s mind was emblazoned with the image of Castiel looking back at him through the passenger-side window, a smug look on his handsome, pretentious face.

“Um, Dean,” Charlie said, approaching from behind, “I think you just did the exact opposite of breaking up with him.”

“Yeah.” Dean smacked his lips together, then turned his eyes to Charlie, fresh hope and happiness joining forces to put a grin on his face. “But you know what? ...I get the feeling that’s not a mistake I’m gonna regret.”

So, here’s what happened afterwards.

Five years, and three somewhat commendable degrees between them (serving as a testament to the efficiency of human laziness, as Dean liked to tell people), Dean and Castiel emerged into the job industry as clueless, helpless adults, only semi-employable and with no real-world skills to speak of.

They did, however, have a guinea pig. And a stack of envelopes sitting in a box on Dean’s bureau, which they sometimes read together when they needed a kick up the backside to get things done. Five years of hard study was a long time to struggle through alone, which was why those envelopes were so precious.

Twice a week they had written to each other. Get that paper done or ELSE, was the gist of it. Well, there was the occasional If you get it done on time, I’ll Skype with you with my shirt off, which was oftentimes more effective motivation.

Castiel won $30 in the lottery, mere weeks after they moved in together. He framed the winning ticket, and he took Dean out to the movies to celebrate. Though the final bill cost him $50, it seemed inconsequential given the night of enthusiastic and unapologetically geeky foreplay that ensued thereafter. Then it was just straight up play... and then again the next morning.

Cas never fell in love, but that was okay. Dean loved Cas with all his heart, and Cas loved him back, just not in the same way. They slept together at night and they messed around when they were in the mood, and to those who didn’t know what they were to each other, they came across as the closest of friends. Charlie maintained Dean’s ‘best friend’ status, however - according to her.

In the sometimes difficult, sometimes comfortable years that followed, Castiel tried his hand at directing a handful of TV shows, nearly all of which were decently successful. As it turned out, the difference between feeling hopeless and not feeling hopeless was simply believing he already had the ability and the talents to achieve what he wanted to achieve. And if he didn’t have them yet, he went out and acquired those abilities or those talents. Granted, that didn’t always work, but some of the time it did.

All the positive thinking pissed him off a bit, quite frankly. But then again, so did life itself. Dean was most affectionate when Castiel was grumpy, so Castiel could never stay grumpy for long.

Since getting qualification-relevant jobs only got harder as time went on, they each turned to other means to make money. Both their business cards said ‘Entrepreneur’, and that was about as accurate as a job description could get. Sometimes they travelled, occasionally putting roots down only to tear the roots away later. Sure, they argued about when to stay and when to go, but they always came to a logical pro-versus-con decision together, and cuddled afterwards. Neither of them could really take issue with this process.

They weren’t always together, though. Jobs summoned them abroad – Dean was once stationed in Sweden for six months, which wasn’t the most fun he’d ever had. Sam went to join him when the whole automotive engineering career got the better of him, which made the loneliness side of things miles easier for Dean to deal with.

Life went uphill from there. Children happened, but that’s another story.

Dean and Cas, though...

Some would call what they had a long-distance relationship. But Dean and Cas, they just called it a relationship. If being apart taught them anything, it was that they could be certain their most beloved friend would be there waiting when they got back. And, if the companionship they shared during the following decades was anything to go by, then they could be assured that the person who was family would be there forever and always. To infinity and beyond. There and back again—

...Yeah. Profound bond.

You get the picture.