Archive of Our Own

He learns what being gay means when he’s eleven, and there’s a guy with the best eyebrows Dean’s ever seen on a dude behind one of the doors in an apartment building with a pretty serious ghost problem. It isn’t like he’s never heard of it, hasn’t seen it on TV when he’s looking after Sammy, but it doesn’t really mean anything, doesn’t really click, until Eyebrows is leaning an arm against the doorframe like it’s part of a stage, and his hip’s cocked out to the side, and he looks at John with a mixture of interest and impatience.

John walks away grumbling, a heavy hand on Dean’s shoulder as he directs him down the hall, points him to the elevator.

“Here’s hoping we don’t have to go into that apartment,” he mutters, and he punches the down button. Dean shuffles on his feet, uncomfortable in the wake of his dad’s disapproval, even when it’s not pointed at him.

“What do you mean?” he asks, because he has to know what’s wrong, so that he can avoid it. He’s already making mental notes. No eyebrow grooming.

John gives Dean a look that shrinks something inside him, and the elevator doors slide open.

“He plays for the wrong team, son.” He steps into the elevator and Dean follows. “He’s a fruit,” he adds, softer, but with more contempt.

Dean’s eyes are on the door down the hall as the doors shut in front of him, and he makes another note. Don’t be a fruit.

Dean and Sam have a month to spend at Bobby’s house, with Dean going to a local high school while Sammy goes to middle school, and Dean fucking hates it. He’s antsy, and he misses his dad, and Sammy’s frankly too far away, and there’s a part of him that’s way too overwhelmed by the society encased in those beige brick walls. Sammy takes to his school like water, even seems to enjoy being out from under his brother’s watch, but it’s just not Dean’s life. His life is classic cars and rock salt and the things that go bump in the night, and it isn’t shuffling through hallways with forty other kids, all of them scrambling to talk over one another and all of them speaking a kind of language that Dean’s never had the chance to learn.

It isn’t like he can tell anyone about it, but sometimes he feels like he’s suffocating. He’s stared down ghosts, he’s seen dead bodies, but something about bumping into crowds in small, humid hallways makes something tighten in his chest that he didn’t even know was there. Maybe he’s just around death so much that life seems unreachable, untouchable.

The thing is, gym should be his favorite class because he’s in better shape than most of the boys in his class, but the locker rooms are hot and crowded and he’s never been around this many guys changing before. There’s nothing intimate about it, and most of them are sweaty and gross after exhausting themselves on the basketball court, and yeah, they’re talking about boobs anyway, but it’s more skin than Dean’s seen up close in one place before.

He has one of those dreams about a locker room, about the closest thing to a friend Dean managed to make because they like to play horse together, and he isn’t anything at all like the fruit he saw when he was eleven because he’s an athlete, with broad shoulders and a loping walk. But in his dreams, he pushes Dean against a locker, and there’s skin-on-skin, hands touching hips.

Dean wakes up sweating, hands shaking, and he clenches his jaw, trying hard not to make too much noise, not to wake up Sammy, sleeping nearby. Nothing even happened in the dream, nothing beyond heat and staring and closeness, and he clings to that. Heat and bodies, that’s pretty generic, has nothing to do with the team you play for.

It’s just a dream, but Dean’s glad when his dad shows up two days later and carts them off to Illinois, and he promptly forgets that guy’s name.

His dad catches him watching porn exactly once, and thankfully Dean has enough time to put himself to rights before his dad walks into their hotel room; it’s just the TV that’s still on, and he artfully hides his boner while his dad lectures him about this kind of thing, especially with Sammy in the same room.

“Sammy’s always in the same room,” is Dean’s soft reply because he isn’t trying to give lip, not exactly. He also knows that that kind of thing would be enough to diffuse some of his dad’s anger, if he says it gently enough, and sure enough, the tension eases in his dad’s shoulders and he sighs.

“Well.” He shakes his head, and Dean can see the ghost of a smile creeping over his face as he looks away, trying to hide it from Dean. “Make sure he’s asleep, then. It’s a damn good thing he’s a heavy sleeper.”

He looks at Dean again, with a wistfulness that he isn’t exactly used to having turned on him, and it makes him feel more shameful than actually being caught.

“Guess you’re at that age, huh?” he says, wondering, a little sad, a little amused. “Jesus.”

He turns away and heads for the shower, mercifully putting some space between them, because Dean needs some time to shrink into these cushions and feel the weight of his dad’s paternal realization that his son’s growing up, that he’s doing something as embarrassing as masturbating in the same room as his little brother, and Dean needs to feel grateful.

Not grateful that his dad wasn’t upset, because he never really thought he would be, but grateful that he didn’t do what he thought about doing and ordering the gay porn—just to see, just to see if watching two dudes is the same as watching a dude and a girl, since half the time he winds up watching the dude just as much as the chick.

He doesn’t think his dad would be as amused about that.

It’s not that dark out, not in the middle of summer, and there’s an arcade game in the lobby. He calls to his dad that he’ll be back later and leaves before his dad can argue, eager to put the TV and his dad behind him.

They’re looking at months at a school this time, and even though Dean keeps telling himself any day now, any day now—his dad practically flat out told him to park it for a while and get used to it, so he’s actually given up expecting to hear the Impala rumble up in the school parking lot. It’s Dean’s senior year, and he has to figure that has something to do with it, that his dad somehow thinks dumping him somewhere to give Dean some last high school hurrah is a good parenting move, but mostly it just reeks of abandonment and painful reminders that Dean doesn’t belong in this world, and never will.

Normally he’d drown himself in girls, but he isn’t exactly excited about having to hang around bitter exes for what might be six whole months, the last half of the school year. Sammy finds one though, pretty and not as shy as Dean would’ve thought Sam would go for. She’s older too, by a year, and she’s actually got a smart mouth, which is good, because the two of them can rile Sammy up enough that he doesn’t like to be alone with them. That works out, actually, because her parents don’t like her going out with some strange boy, and so her brother gets chaperone duty.

Chris is tall and lean, warms a bench for the basketball team, and has freckles across the bridge of his nose. He plays guitar, listens to Pink Floyd, and likes riling Sammy up as much as his sister Carly. Neither of them like too much actually raining on their siblings’ hormone parade, though, so Dean and Chris spend a lot of time kicking around outside Carly’s car, slouching their shoulders and arguing about music.

When Sam’s at Carly’s house, Dean’s there too, and it stops being much of a chore after too long. He finds out, to his surprise, that Chris lacks in any kind of significant friends. The boys on the basketball team aren’t fond of him—he cracks under pressure at every jump shot—and it turns out appreciation of decent music runs thin at this school. He tells Dean once, when they’re leaning against the truck of the car, shoulder to shoulder, that Dean’s the best guy friend he’s ever had.

Dean said he’d agree, if it weren’t for Sammy.

Something in Dean nags at him, tells him that this is dangerous, that this is a warning sign to run, but Sammy doesn’t notice anything weird about how Dean and Chris fall in together. He’s even glad that Dean has someone else to hang out with, and Dean appreciates having someone not his brother around too, though he’s not that happy about admitting it.

It’s been five months of this foursome thing, and a month and four days since they saw their dad, who swung into town for a week and promptly bailed, but he met Carly anyway, and approved.

Graduation looms, and one afternoon at Carly’s house, they’re breaking the chaperone rules. Both of them are in Chris’s room with Sammy and Carly the next one over, after they heard Carly’s door click shut softly but they didn’t do anything about it, other than exchange looks. It’s even Chris who stands up and puts ACDC on, and he and Dean sit on his bed with their backs to the headboard, trying not to think about their siblings maybe getting lucky in the next room.

Their conversation is casual but cursory. Dean’s mind isn’t in it, but neither is Chris’s, and a slow, heavy kind of tension rolls in between them that isn’t too unfamiliar at this point. All Dean can think is, well, Chris isn’t a fruit—he isn’t gay, so this thing must just be normal between two guy friends, because it isn’t like Dean’s ever really had a close friend he could compare this to.

“Your dad coming to graduation?”

“Dunno,” Dean answers, shrugging, and he stares at their feet, trying to act like he really doesn’t care, even though he’s pretty sure he and Chris have managed to get past that, somewhere in the past few months.

“You and Sam want to come to dinner with us?”

Chris phrases it like a question even though he knows that Dean and Sam have few other alternatives—it’s just them this time, since John deems them (Dean) old enough to take care of themselves. Something swells in him that he names friendship as he looks over at Chris and nods, still clinging to casual nonchalance.

“Sure, yeah. Sam’d probably throw a fit if I said no, anyway.”

They share a moment of brotherly commiseration, and silence stretches out between them, but Dean doesn’t break it, doesn’t find it awkward—just charged with that thing that he can only suspect isn’t exactly normal. Chris’s leg moves, his knee brushing Dean’s thigh, and Dean only watches, swallowing down something thick in his throat.

“Wish you didn’t have to leave,” Chris says with a kind of soft vulnerability that makes Dean think about bolting.

“Yeah, well.” Truth is, Dean’s gotten less antsy about being here, but he doesn’t want to admit that to anyone, least of all himself. He misses his dad, misses the road. Maybe he doesn’t miss the hunt, but he does miss the connection, the feeling of family that comes from spending hours cramped in a car together, even through all the bickering.

Personal space’s kind of gotten lost between Dean and Chris in these past few months, and maybe that should alarm Dean, but there’s a comfort in it. When Chris leans closer, presses his side against Dean’s, he doesn’t fight it but accepts the warmth for what it is, files it away as something that comes from having a guy friend.

“Dean.”

Chris’s voice is low, but firmer than it had been a minute ago, like he’s made a decision. Their eyes meet and Dean lifts an eyebrow.

“I’m gay.”

Dean’s first impulse is to tell Chris no, of course he’s not, because he doesn’t look anything like any of the gay men Dean’s seen on TV or up close, but there’s that conviction in Chris’s eyes, and Dean’s suddenly extremely aware of how close they’re sitting, of how close they’ve been sitting for ages now, and of that nameless thing that he’s been assuming was just friendship.

“Dean,” Chris says again, a little more pleading, because Dean’s slipping away from him, pulling physically away as sickness coils low in his gut.

“No,” Dean mutters, shaking his head, and he turns to get off the bed. “No.” He shrugs off the hand on his shoulder and stands up, rubbing his hands over his hair.

“Dean—it’s not just me, is it?”

Any argument Dean’s ever made to himself about this whatever between himself and Chris disappears like he threw rock salt at it, and he rubs his hand over his face, wanting to run, just fucking run, because he can’t do this—this isn’t okay, and could never be okay, even though his whole body is thrumming and has been thrumming with eagerness for it.

There’s a hand on his shoulder, like Chris has interpreted Dean’s silence, but Dean jerks away and backs up, his eyes wide and accusing.

“Fuck you,” he says quietly, and while there’s no venom, there’s definitely a finality.

He collects his jacket and bangs on the door to Carly’s room, collects a pissed off Sam, and makes tracks from the house. He doesn’t answer Sam’s questions about what happened, but Carly must tell him later because he and Sam get into a shouting match and Sam calls Dean homophobic, and Dean’s almost happy about letting his brother think that.

There are a few weeks left in the semester, but Dean doesn’t care about that; exams and papers and diplomas are pretty fucking meaningless in his world of credit card scams and wendigos, so it’s easy to tell Sam that he’s leaving—he’s just fucking leaving—and Sam can either ride out the rest of the semester or stay with Carly. Their dad will be pissed, but he’ll tell Dean where he is, or Dean can go to Bobby’s, but he can’t stay here—not a second longer.

Sam chooses Carly and sulks in his room for three hours, before he comes out with his bag packed and something like annoyed apology in his eyes.

“Let’s go,” he says, and they do.

Dean tries to feel like he’s putting miles between himself and Chris once they get in the car and drive, but he doesn’t quite succeed.

It’s worse, way worse, when it’s just him and Sam while his brother’s finishing high school, and all Dean has to do is work in Bobby’s garage. He tries to hunt solo, but Bobby won’t let him, and Sam keeps talking about college and leaving and the thought of their family actually splitting leaves Dean’s head ringing.

He’s a regular at this one bar, drinking away his inactivity and frustration at being left behind again, though he knows it’s necessary. It’s necessary for Sammy, as he’s told Dean countless times, and Dean can accept that. It doesn’t mean that he won’t still feel like he’s going crazy, and it doesn’t make him feel any less far away from his father.

This time, the friendship sneaks up on him far slower than it had before with Chris. That had been almost instant. This is more gradual, coming from half conversations, interrupted all evening by drunks. Patrick’s Irish, bartending here on some kind of an exchange program, and Dean mimics his accent while Patrick stumbles through an American one, and they laugh over beer and crappy music. Patrick doesn’t bartend every night, but Dean starts looking forward to the nights he does, and somehow they wind up going to a different one on the nights Patrick has off.

Though the friendship sneaks up on him, the chemistry hits him over the head one day like a fucking hammer. All it takes is for Patrick to turn to him one night, keys in his hand as he turns to close up the bar. Dean stayed around to help him close up since he has the day off tomorrow, and he’s started enjoying this company in a way he has been hesitant to admit to.

He still feels guilty about Chris, usually only at night when he’s trying to sleep and every shitty thing he’s ever done floats in front of his eyes until he feels sick and has to get up and walk around Bobby’s house until his nerves settle. He’s buried himself in more girls than he can actually recall, but he hasn’t buried that thing—his eyes drift over the guys in porn often enough, and he’s had thoughts, dreams. Maybe even a regret or two, especially about Chris, regrets that aren’t just tied up in not crushing someone he cared about.

When Patrick looks up at him, his green eyes glinting in the harsh light of the streetlamp, and asks if Dean wants to head back to his place for a bit, Dean feels a flash of panic, of fear, and then it’s gone.

He isn’t gay—he knows that. But in the past four years, he’s grown into his body, and he’s gotten farther away from that kid in the hallway wanting desperately to please his dad. He won’t be that gay guy with the eyebrows and the pride parade, but he can just be this—someone who gives into desire, so long as the guy isn’t one of the pride types, either. His dad doesn’t have to know, even though Dean can’t shake the feeling that somehow his dad would just be able to look at him and see.

But that’s not possible, and his dad isn’t here, and Dean maybe won’t even see him for weeks.

He doesn’t tell Patrick it’s his first time with a guy, but maybe Patrick knows; anyway, he lets Dean take the lead, moans and writhes under him, throws his head back and grips Dean’s shoulders and grins his way through Dean grinding into him until he crests, and Dean never thought he’d call a guy beautiful—especially not a guy like Patrick, who’s handsome in a rugged kind of way—but there it is.

They find their way to Patrick’s bed a few more times, only occasionally, and only when Dean hangs around until closing time. It’s unspoken that this isn’t meant to be anything more than friendship and sex, and that makes it palatable for Dean.

Their last night together is Sam’s graduation night, with the realization that Sammy’s leaving him soon weighing heavily on his shoulders. It’s different that night—slower, gentler, an unspoken acknowledgment of the goodbye. When they leave, Dean knows he isn’t really leaving something significant behind, but it feels like it anyway.

Whatever he and Castiel have, it’s fucking electric in a big way, and he doesn’t really know how to deal with it.

He’s fallen into another guy’s bed here and there since Patrick, but there hasn’t been another friendship like that; he’s been careful about staying in one place too long, more careful still about letting another thing like that creep up on him. He’s used to locking eyes with someone and giving into the chemistry now, just for a night, and if it’s just him, then he doesn’t pay much thought to it being a guy or a girl. But feelings, comfort—he avoids that like the plague.

So he should be avoiding Castiel, should be fucking booking it away from this nerdy and sometimes terrifying, all the time frustrating pain in the ass with his gravelly voice and knowing looks. But for some fucking reason he seeks Castiel out like a moth to a flame, and damned if he doesn’t feel warmer just standing near to him.

There was never any room for doubt, though he’s made room for denial, told himself that it’s because he needs Castiel’s help or because they shared a thing when Castiel pulled him out of the pit and brought him back to life. A guy touches your soul, burns a hand print on you, it’s not something you really forget.

And Castiel’s an angel, right? And angels don’t do this kind of thing.

Except when Dean drags Castiel to that hooker and drops him in her lap, he doesn’t have many forceful arguments, and half of Dean’s giddiness when they walk out that joint is from the knowledge that maybe angels aren’t all that chaste after all.

There are half a dozen times when it could happen after that, when they stare at each other and whatever they’re arguing about shifts, just a little, and their look is about so much more than angels and demons and the end of the world.

It’s near the end, though, when it finally happens, and Dean always thought it’d be a big moment, maybe after one of their fights, and maybe it is big, but it doesn’t feel that way. The world’s ending and Dean’s going all in, but right now he’s just sitting on a couch with a semi-angel and a semi-buzz, and the TV flickers light at them. Castiel’s just holding a beer in one hand, not drinking it, and sitting inside Dean’s bubble, though Dean can’t remember who was the last one to sit down and burst that bubble.

When he feels Castiel’s gaze burning into him, he looks up, meeting those electric eyes and swallowing thickly. He’s said his goodbyes—embraced the fact that he’s on his way out, that the world is approaching the final countdown and he’s got to be on board to finish it. The idea of leaving behind unfinished business makes him feel uncomfortable, like he isn’t doing the job right, and he can almost hear his dad rattling around in his brain, telling him that the job’s not worth doing if you don’t put the time in to finish it properly.

His dad would never be okay with this, not once, not ever, but maybe he could get behind Dean tying off all his loose ends.

Castiel’s head is tilted at him like he’s waiting for Dean to come to this conclusion, and hell, maybe he is—maybe he has been for a while. He stays stock still as Dean leans in to kiss him with the passion that quietly hums in the background of their conversations only starting to surface. Dean sits back and Castiel’s still like a fucking puppy, his head tilted and his lips parted, wetter.

“Why did you do that?” he asks, and Dean’s starting to regret it already.

“Because it seems like we’ve been gearing up for that since you stalked into that shack the first night I saw you,” he answers casually, shrugging, and he turns back to the TV, only he doesn’t get to fully settle before Castiel grabs his shirtfront and kisses him hard—harder than Dean’s ready for, really, and harder than he thought Castiel had in him. This one they don’t surface from for a while, though Dean thinks about it, tries to; Castiel just pulls him back in, and there’s nothing but Dean’s ragged breath and Castiel’s ragged stubble until Dean’s lungs are burning for a proper breath.

“Cas,” Dean gasps, his hand clutching at Castiel’s side. “Damn.” It’s the best he can come up with, and he notices the ghost of smile touching the corners of Castiel’s mouth, chasing away that cautious look that had taken root once Dean finally half-shoved him away.

There’s something wrong in that their first time is already almost half a goodbye, because the apocalypse isn’t actually always the best time for some hot sex. There isn’t a second time, though there are touches, hands brushing and lips meeting in stolen moments. The fucked up thing is, Dean could be happy with this, could find something in those deep blue eyes, something lasting.

Instead, the world doesn’t end, except it sort of does for Dean, because he made a promise to his little brother, and Castiel has his obligations to his family too, a family that doesn’t understand him maybe as much as Sam couldn’t understand why Dean wouldn’t want to turn up on Lisa’s doorstep and lock up the Impala’s trunk for good.

As hard as it is to rip himself out of his life and settle into that same stream of normalcy that nearly choked him in high school, like sliding into comfortable but unfamiliar sheets, what’s worse is that this time it’s Dean’s turn to watch Castiel slip away, disappear off to Heaven, and not look back once.