Chapter Text
Summer 2003
Dean was sixteen and had just started his first job as a lifeguard. That was all well and good until it wasn’t.
The day things changed was the day his friend Benny came out to the pool to go swimming, since he knew Dean could get him in for free. Benny brought along his cousin, a football player from two towns over. Dean got them both in without the cover charge.
Things started to go down hill when Benny’s cousin—Dean thought his name was Cliff, but he wasn’t really sure—took off his shirt and shorts. Suddenly, Cliff-or-whatever was standing there in nothing but a Speedo.
For the first time he could remember, Dean felt the same way looking at a guy that he felt looking at a girl. He was terrified and confused and so he did the only logical thing he could think of. He faked getting sick and went home to talk to the smartest person he knew.
“Sammy, you know I like girls, right?”
Annoying little brother that he was—genius or not—Sammy snorted. “Duh, Dean, you’re kind gross about it. Why?”
“Do you think it’s possible to suddenly turn gay?”
All the teasing left Sammy’s face and Dean felt himself relax just a little.
“Dean, do you... like a boy?”
With his face flushed hot, Dean hurriedly explained what had happened at the pool. Sam just nodded through the whole thing, no judgment at all. He really was the best little brother, annoying as hell or not.
“Okay, don’t freak out, but... I think you might be bisexual.”
“That’s really a thing?” Dean asked in surprise. “I mean, on Sex and the City, they said—”
“Dude, the fact that you watch that show should have told you that you were at least a little bit gay, come on.”
Yeah, definitely still annoying.
“But, yes, Dean, bisexuality is really a thing.”
September 19, 2003
Dean was doing some last minute studying for his history test, lost in thought, when a deep, masculine voice broke his reverie to ask, “Excuse me, is this seat taken?”
Dean started a little and looked up, into eyes that were a billion shades of blue all at once.
Dean had more or less put the situation with being bisexual out of his mind, since Cliff-or-whatever had been the only guy so far to make him feel that way. That fact had just changed with the entrance of DeepVoice McBlueEyes.
“Um. Nope.” He swallowed thickly, around the strange emotions suddenly swirling inside him. “I’m Dean. You new?”
The boy smiled. “First day.” He held out a hand with long, graceful fingers. “I’m Castiel, but everyone calls me Cas.”
Dean smiled back and they shook hands. “Hey, Cas. Have a seat.”
And if Dean held onto Cas’s hand just a fraction of a moment too long, well, Cas didn’t seem to mind.
September 2003 - July 2005
Over the next several weeks, Dean and Cas became inseparable and they stayed that way for the next two years. They started out as friends, but it quickly evolved into more than that.
“Dean,” Cas said one night when they were about to share a bed for their first sleepover. “There’s something you should know.”
“Hey, man, you can tell me anything, you know that.”
Cas looked more worried than he had about anything since Dean had known him. Of course, he’d only known him about two months, but those two months had been intense.
“I’m gay,” Cas blurted, looking on the verge of tears as he waited for Dean’s response.
“Oh, thank God!” Dean said without thinking.
Cas looked adorably confused. “What?”
“Um, I’m bi,” Dean said, rubbing his neck with a sheepish grin. “And I’m kinda into you.”
They quickly turned into the kind of couple they write movies about. Every moment between them felt like pure joy distilled. Where they had previously raced each other through fields to wrestle at their destination, now they ran through the fields holding hands, to collapse on the grass with their heads together until one took the other in a kiss.
Kissing—which had begun at that very first sleepover—didn’t take long to evolve into making love. From there, there was no holding back the unbridled passion they felt for each other. They were young and in love and happier than they had ever been or expected to be.
By the end of 2004, they had the future planned already. They would go to the same college when they left high school. Get their degrees and their jobs and live happily ever after. There was nothing at all to stop them in their quest to be together forever.
Until suddenly there was.
Only weeks before they were to leave, Dean’s father was in a car accident that left him partially paralyzed. The other driver had been uninsured and John had only had liability on his car. With their mother having to provide full time care for the foreseeable future and no one else to work to pay the bills or care for Sammy, that left the role of primary breadwinner to Dean.
“Cas,” Dean sobbed into the phone. “Cas, I can’t go with you.”
“Dean, what’s happened? What are you talking about?”
“My dad... Since he can’t walk. Mom’s going to have to stay home and take care of him. I can’t... I can’t go to college with you.”
They talked it over for hours, until Dean finally fell into an exhausted sleep. By the time the call ended, nothing had changed.
Cas had been ready to transfer to the local university, so that they could still be close, even though Dean told him he didn’t want Cas to give up his dreams for him. Cas’s family made the decision for him, however. They’d never approved of the relationship between them and now that Dean was unable to go to college, they told Cas if he didn’t go where he’d planned, they wouldn’t pay for his education.
Fall 2005
The two of them tried long distance for a while, but it was never right and they knew it. The differences between them were growing and they’d started fighting more often than not. They were not the infrequent spats of two people who cared but occasionally got tired or irritable. They were the arguments between two people who wanted desperately to hang on but knew it probably wasn’t good for the other one if they did.
The financial burden that had been placed on Dean’s shoulders was making him bitter. Listening to Cas talk about all the things he was experiencing at the college where they’d both been meant to be together made Dean burn with jealousy. Cas, sensing how Dean was withdrawing from him, felt guilt over getting to live out their dream alone and lashed out at Dean to push him further away.
December 2005
Eventually, they got together for winter break and they both knew it was time to stop, before they destroyed each other. The love was still there, in spades, and they could both feel it, beneath everything. They could also both feel it wasn’t enough to overcome the miles—both literal and figurative—that were between them.
They made love once more and parted tearfully, but as friends.
“Cas, promise me,” Dean said as they held each other one last time. “Always remember me.”
“My sweet joy,” Cas whispered brokenly, kissing his face. “Always.”
December 2008
It would be years before they saw each other again, but they never managed to avoid each other entirely, even though they lived in different states.
The first time, Dean was on a date with his girlfriend Cassie, standing in line outside a restaurant, when Cas showed up with his boyfriend Inias. The boys were both twenty-one now and desperate to show the other how blissfully happy they were in their current relationship.
“Hey, Cas!” Dean slid his arm around Cassie’s waist as he said it, pulling her close to him. “This is my girlfriend, Cassie.” He looked deeply into her eyes to show just how in love they were—even though he was really wishing her eyes were blue and she was Cas and Inias was dead.
He kept up that behavior for the rest of the night, playing up his feelings for Cassie and treating her like she hung the moon. It was, he knew, unlike how he had once treated Cas for real, but he tried to shove that to the back of his mind.
Cas, for his part, was no better. He treated Inias much the same way, petting and giving longing looks and generally acting completely the opposite from how he normally was on their dates.
The end result of the evening was that Dean and Cas remained apart, Cassie realized how Dean would be acting if they were really in love and dumped him the very next day, and Inias, being more naïve, thought he’d finally gotten through to Cas and they held out for another six months before Cas couldn’t take it anymore.
June 2010
When they met up again eighteen months later, Dean was in a not-relationship with Benny and Cas was on a first date.
Now that they were both older and more mature, they scrapped the “Oh, look how happy I am with someone else” acts and just tried to be nice to each other. Dean invited Cas and his date to join them. They got to talking about Cas’s classes and Dean’s job and had a much better time than their previous reunion.
They were having such a good time in fact, that they ended up talking to each other more than their dates—and their dates left with each other. They both went home alone. This time when they said their goodbyes, they promised to call, but neither did, both too afraid to risk their hearts again.
April 2011
It was only eight months after that when they saw each other again, at yet another bar. Dean had just gone through a bad break up and Cas was home for his father’s funeral. They ended up having frantic sex in Dean’s new apartment. It lacked all the sweetness they used to share because they both kept themselves locked up tight, too afraid to feel. Still, the level of attraction between them had only grown, so the sex was more satisfying than either had had in a long time.
When Dean woke up, Cas was gone and there was a note on the pillow that just said, “I’m sorry.” Dean cried harder over that than the breakup that had led to it. Cas numbed his own memories in alcohol and grueling family functions. They started exchanging Christmas and birthday cards after that. Both of them wanting to say something to the other, but neither able to make it be more than “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Birthday.”