Chapter Text
“Dean!”
It wasn’t until that moment at Platform 9 ¾ that Dean realized he had never heard Castiel shout before. When he turned around, he also realized that he had never seen him run, especially not toward him and definitely not at top speed.
He almost toppled over when Castiel collided with him, but Castiel wrapped his arms around Dean and held onto him, steadied him. The height gap between them had diminished considerably, and Castiel was more or less eye level with him now.
“Hey, Cas,” Dean chuckled and, finally, hugged him right back. He hadn’t realized how much he actually missed Castiel until just now. His arms tightened of their own volition, and for a minute Dean forgot where they were, forgot there was anyone but the two of them.
At least dad didn’t make a big stink about it until after. Once they split, Castiel’s mom called to him, and the moment he was out of earshot, dad gave him the look. That, nobody better ever catch you doing what I just saw you do look.
“What?” Dean somehow found the gall to ask.
“You know damn well what,” dad grunted. “We sending you off to school or sleep away camp, Deandra?”
A horrible ugliness opened up in the center of Dean’s chest. Maybe he had been a little dumb to think the way he and Cas were with each other was any brand of okay.
“That’s Castiel,” Dean still tried to defend himself, but it was a lost cause.
“Oh, that kid that was sending you damn love letters all summer,” dad nods. “Yeah, that’s great.”
“Castiel is cool,” Sam argued, his skinny arms folded over his chest. “And he’s Dean’s best friend, so leave him alone.”
“Sam,” Dean half-heartedly inserts, but he doesn’t get any further.
“I don’t wanna hear another word out of you.”
“You’re a jerk!”
“You watch it.”
“Guys, quit it!” Dean didn’t realize he had stepped in front of Sam until it was his arm in dad’s grip. Immediately, dad backed off, like he suddenly returned to earth from that same place Dean had gone when Cas had hugged him.
Dad let him go.
“Get on the train,” was all he said.
Dean frowned, and Sam protested, but dad repeated, “Get on the train, Dean.”
Before Dean knew it, he had his arms full of little brother, and that void inside him was getting wider and wider.
“Sam, come on,” dad said, and Dean knew that it was time to get on the train.
It was time to leave them behind, again.
He couldn’t cry in front of dad--not after he’d already gotten into some namby-pamby hug-a-thon in front of him.
The cabins were already filling up with familiar faces, as well as a broad swath of new faces Dean hadn’t seen before, and none of them the faces of the people that Dean wanted to see. He had to walk all the way to the back of the train, nearly, to find those faces.
When he entered this compartment, Castiel bombarded him again with another hug. Reciprocating should not have made Dean feel so uneasy, and yet there he was, uneased. When they pulled back from one another this time, Dean sneezed.
Excessively.
“Are you all right?” asked Cas.
“Yeah, fine,” Dean dropped his bag on the floor and sat. Gabriel was tucked up against the window, his robes draped over him like a blanket. The sun pouring into the compartment gave him a golden sort of glow, his sleeping face soft and relaxed, all Gabe was missing were the fluffy white wings. “What’s up with him? Someone knock him up with a horse tranquilizer?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Castiel frowned. Before he could say what was so obviously on his mind, the compartment door slid open to reveal Garth and Aaron. Garth had shot up nearly a foot, it looked like, though his body remained just as pointy and twiggy as it had always been. Aaron’s face had lost a lot of its baby fat over the summer, though his eyes were still buggy and he was still kind of short, he was almost… kinda cute.
Dean didn’t even get to shake the thought out of his head before Aaron jumped him, much in the same way Cas had.
“Boy, it’s good to see you,” Garth then patted him on the shoulder. “We were lookin’ all over for you on the platform, but Benny said he saw you come up here already.”
“Oh, yeah,” Dean grabbed his arm, covering all the places he could still feel dad’s fingers digging into. He hadn’t even grabbed Dean that hard, which only made him feel even worse that he was acting like such a baby over nothing.
Dean pulled away from Aaron and Garth, and sat across from Gabriel. As he looked out the window, the clock struck eleven, and the train started to move. There was no sign of Sam or dad on the platform.
Dean didn’t know why he allowed himself to be surprised.
He chimed in every once in a while while everyone started to recount the fun things they’d done over the summer. Garth had gone camping with his family up in Yosemite, while Aaron had spent nearly the whole summer lazing outside by his swimming pool.
“And going to Hebrew school,” he added. “Can’t forget Hebrew school.”
“What’s that?” asked Castiel, which only led to a detailed explanation of Jewish coming-of-age rites of passage. For once, Dean wished Gabriel would wake up, so he would have someone to talk to who wasn’t so genuinely fascinated by every other word, or who wasn’t so bubbly and eager to share.
About an hour into the trip, there was a knock on the compartment door right before it slid open. Benny LaFitte was a fifth year Hufflepuff, and, if the badge pinned to his robes was any indication, a newly-appointed prefect. He also played for their house quidditch team as a beater. In typical Hufflepuff fashion, he too was a disgustingly kind person.
“Hey, boys, sorry to bother you,” his smooth Louisiana drawl poured into the cabin. “Dean, could I talk to you for a minute?”
Dean didn’t miss the worried look Castiel gave him on the way out, but it did nothing to help his sudden anxiety. Benny walked him all the way back to the last compartment of the train, where a small group of first years had gathered.
“Would you mind if we used the compartment?” Benny asked and then motioned to his pin. “Prefect business and all. You’ll get it back in a few minutes.”
The first years quickly dispersed, and Benny shut the compartment door behind them, chuckling.
“Man, this thing works like a charm,” he said, then looked at Dean with this unfailingly sympathetic face.
Uh-oh.
“Listen, I don’t wanna cause any trouble,” Benny began. “But I saw what happened on the platform with… was that your dad?”
Dean’s eyes went wide, but every part of him that wanted to run somehow also kept him frozen in place.
“No, I’m not sayin’ it like that,” Benny shook his head. “I just wanted to know if you were all right.”
Dean’s eyebrows fell in a flat line.
“If you saw, then you should know,” he shot back.
“Dean--”
“I don’t wanna talk about it!” Dean exclaimed. He reached for the door, but a quick charm and the door was locked shut. “Let me out!”
“I just wanted to help,” Benny explained.
“It’s none of your business!” Dean shouted back. “Now let me out!”
His demand punctuated by a loud crack, Dean turned to see that the wood around the compartment handle had blown out, and the door could open freely once more. The red hot shame that crept up on his face was nothing compared to the utter contempt he had brewing in his gut. Rather than return to his compartment, Dean shut himself in the tiny train bathroom, pulled his knees up to his chest, and finally--finally--let himself cry.
oo
So, he had started another year of school by crying. Dean didn't know whether to be grateful or offended that his friends seemed to be giving him a wide berth. He sat with his friends, ate with his friends, hung out with his friends, but he didn’t talk. Thankfully, nobody made him. Even Castiel seemed to be keeping his distance, though Dean suspected that was more Gabriel’s intervention than of his own volition.
It wasn’t until the Saturday after their first school week, after Aaron would not shut up about that afternoon’s Quidditch tryouts, that Dean spoke.
“Are you gonna go?”
Everyone--Garth, Aaron, Castiel and Gabe--all looked at him as though he was speaking English for the first time.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Aaron shook his head. “I don’t know if I wanna go or not.”
“You’ve been talkin’ about it all week,” said Garth. “Even if you don’t get it, you’ll never know if you don’t try.”
“I know, but,” Aaron stared down at his toast. “I’m not even good.”
“You’re decent,” Castiel commented lightly. “Better than most, in fact.”
“Yeah, you should see how some of those clowns in the big league fly around,” Gabriel muttered, at which Castiel frowned.
“You cannot still be bitter about the Finches game,” he concluded. “That happened nearly three years ago.”
“The what?” Garth asked.
Before Castiel could answer, Gabriel smacked his hands on the table, “It was The Feint! How does a professional athlete fall for a Wronski Feint!”
“Gabriel, calm down,” Cas sighed.
“I will not!” Gabriel insisted. “Those Moose Jaw mooks were ours, we had them right there. But oh no, Brankovitch decides to stick his head up his ass for the last half of the game because we can’t lose--”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Aaron’s eyes went more buggy than normal.
“Fitchburg Finches,” Dean explained, poking at his eggs with his fork. “They’re a Quidditch team up in their neck of the woods. You want my opinion? Sweetwater All-Stars are way better.”
“Those blatching star-spangled shits?” Gabriel scoffed.
“It’s called being aggressive,” Dean snapped back. “Not that your guys would understand that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You guys are ancient!” Dean exclaimed. “For god’s sake, they’re older than the friggin’ state they play for! All-Stars fought their way tooth and nail into the national league, and we made it through to International level, what, a decade after your guys?”
Castiel groaned and rested his forehead on the table, as Charlie chose that moment to pop up and demand, “Who’s talkin’ smack about my All-Stars?”
“Oh, great,” Castiel grumbled.
At Castiel’s open displeasure at the topic of conversation, Dean changed course, “You goin’ to Quidditch tryouts today?”
“Hell yes!” Charlie straddled the bench on Aaron’s other side, facing the entirety of the group. “Gryffindor needs a chaser and a beater.”
“You’re auditioning for Lucifer?” Castiel asked, which left Dean with a palm smacked against his forehead.
“Auditioning is for performing, you nincompoop,” Gabriel sighed. “You tryout for sports.”
“Oh.”
“Are you guys trying out?” asked Charlie.
“Man, what would they even want with a bunch of second years?” Aaron continued to discourage himself.
“Actually, Anna told me that they’re more likely to put you on a team young so they can train you,” said Charlie, and she looked at Cas. “Your sister is pretty cool.”
“Yeah, what happened to you?” Gabriel leered at Cas, and earned a--
“Did you just flip me the fuckin’ bird?” Gabriel’s face mirrored the utter delight each one of them felt. Even Garth thought it was great, and he tended to counteract negativity with positivity at every turn.
Castiel turned to Dean and asked, “Did I do it wrong?”
Dean slung his arm over Castiel’s shoulder and rested their heads together, “You did it just right, buddy.”
While Castiel had not intended to try out for Ravenclaw’s Quidditch team, he had agreed to join Garth and Dean in walking Aaron down to the Quidditch field for moral support.
“What if I make a total dick of myself?” Aaron’s voice shook.
“Then you’ll be a dick that tried,” said Garth. Yet, despite Garth’s encouragement, Aaron still stopped cold just shy of entering the stadium.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Garth sighed and hooked an arm under Aaron’s. “Dean, will you help me out here?”
“Gladly,” Dean grabbed Aaron’s other arm, and together he and Garth dragged Aaron the rest of the way into the stadium.
“You guys are assholes!”
“Quit your belly achin’,” Garth shook his head. Castiel jogged to catch up with them, only to stop short at a group of Hufflepuffs.
“Hey, boys,” greeted Benny. He wore his Hufflepuff Quidditch robes and a very displeased look on his face. “It’s gonna be a while; Ravenclaw was s’posed to be done half an hour ago, but Slytherin took their sweet-ass time this morning, so here we are.”
He looked past his housemates, right at Castiel, and said, “You can go right ahead. Sorry we’re blockin’ the way.”
Dean, Garth, and Aaron all three looked back at him. Seeing the anxiety on Aaron’s face, Castiel could tell he was about three seconds away from giving into fight or flight. So, he squared his shoulders and looked Aaron dead in the face.
“If I do it, you have to do it.”
He saw Dean’s eyebrows go up, saw the smile on Garth’s face, and, most importantly, saw at least some of Aaron’s muscles un-tense.
“All right, then,” Castiel nodded definitively, and then looked to Benny. “Could he watch me if he wanted?”
“Uh, I don’t see why not,” Benny shrugged. “Go on, now, before they finish up.”
Castiel made his way through the throng of Hufflepuffs and jogged out to the field where, already starting to bring it in, the Ravenclaw team gathered.
“Wait!” he called and sprinted over at top speed. He stopped just short of running into the team’s captain, a fifth year named Sarah Blake, which also happened to be quick enough that he slipped on a patch of still dewy grass. As if falling flat on his back was not embarrassing enough, Castiel could hear the scornful laughter of onlookers.
Sarah, however, merely stood over him and asked, “Would you like some help up?”
Her vibrant blue robes ruffled in the breeze and brushed very barely over Castiel’s cheek.
Still looking up from his spot on the grass, he said, “I would like to aud--try out,” he corrected, “I would like to try out for the team please.”
“Well, you need to get back on your feet before you do that,” she held out a hand and Castiel took it, now understanding the gesture to be friendly. He tried not to feel like he was on display as Sarah got a good look at him. “You’ve got a good build for a seeker, I’ll give you that.”
Castiel paled at the mention of the position. A lot rode on seekers. Couldn’t he be a chaser, or a beater or something? Maybe even the keeper. Being responsible for the snitch seemed… very exhausting.
But, he told Aaron that he would try out, and so that’s what he would do. He accepted an ancient Nimbus 1000 from Atrapos, a rather sinister-looking blonde fourth year, and one of the chasers on the team. Sarah then took a yellow ball about the size of a grapefruit out of her pocket and, without warning, chucked it as hard as she could.
And, as a chaser, she could chuck it very, very hard.
But Castiel was also a fairly decent flyer, and was able to catch up with the ball without worry, and caught it with both hands.
“All right, that was pretty good!” he heard Sarah call. “Now bring it back here and let’s try again.”
Castiel did just that. He watched Sarah shrink the ball, now about the size of an orange, and repeated her test.
Castiel proved to be just as adept at catching the smaller ball, his eyes laser-focused on catching up to the yellow blot yet again.
From orange to lemon, from lemon to lime, from lime to tangerine, Castiel caught each with, even to him, surprising dexterity.
Sarah watched him closely, and upon returning with the smallest yellow ball, she nodded.
“All right, Novak,” she crouched to open up the ball trunk. She pulled the little snitch from its little imprint and tossed it up. Instantly its wings sprouted and it shot off. Admittedly, it was a little trickier to see the gold than it was the yellow, but Castiel thought he managed to keep a pretty good eye on the little guy. It took some more effort, but he eventually caught the thing, and touched down at Sarah’s signal.
“All right, I’ll say it,” Sarah accepted the snitch back from him. “Color me impressed. The team roster will be posted in the common room tonight.”
And then, for some strange reason, she winked at him before she returned to her team.
When he returned to his friends, the three of them could not stop staring at him.
“What?”
“Were you ever gonna tell us you could fly like that?” asked Aaron, genuinely gobsmacked.
“I didn’t think it was relevant,” Castiel shrugged. He felt good, better than he did even when rereading a favorite book, or finally wrapping his head around a new concept. Or, maybe this wasn’t better, so much as it was a whole different kind of good.
Either way, he felt good enough to play the cool guy and sling and arm around Dean’s shoulder. He asked, “Now, would you like us to spectate from here, or up in the stands, in preparation for when you have real fans.”
“Fans who aren’t your friends,” Garth corrected, and Castiel conceded a nod. At Aaron’s helpless, hopeless realization that, crap, he actually had to follow through, Garth did something drastic.
He held out his arms and swallowed Aaron in a tight hug.
“For luck,” Garth explained. And while there was no magic or science (that Castiel knew of, anyway, as his knowledge of muggle scientific fact and theory was very limited) that hugs had been proven to bring forth good luck, Castiel joined anyway.
“Guys, what the hell?” Dean groaned.
“C’mon,” Garth tossed his head. “You know you want to.”
“I don’t, actually,” Dean stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
“All right,” Garth shrugged. “Well, at least we’ll know why he didn’t make the cut.”
Just as Aaron tensed again, Dean rolled his eyes and shuffled over as though walking his last ten steps to the guillotine. He flopped his arms up, one on Castiel and one on Garth, and grumbled, “This is so gay.”
“What?” Castiel asked.
“Shush, Dean, you’re just a big cuddly teddy bear and we all know it,” Garth gave him a whap on the back of the head anyway, and they drew back.
“I agree, that was super gay,” said Aaron, though he couldn’t hide the gratitude from his face. “So, I’ll see you guys in the stands after, right?”
“Why was it necessary to point out the gaiety of that moment?” Castiel asked as he fell into step with Garth and Dean.
“Gaiety?” Dean’s eyebrows went up as they started the laborious climb up into the stands.
“You said that moment was gay,” Castiel informed him, though he felt Dean should already know.
“Oh, not ‘gay’ like happy,” said Garth. “And it doesn’t mean it how Dean used it either.”
He jabbed a finger into Dean’s side, another punishment.
“How did he use it?” Castiel asked.
“Christ, you guys don’t have gay people in the wizarding world?”
At the blank look on Castiel’s face, Dean supplemented, “Dudes that like dudes? Chicks that like chicks?”
It took Castiel another moment to connect the dots before it clicked.
“Well, what’s the wizard term for them?”
“I think we usually just say homosexual,” Castiel shrugged. “It’s not something people often speak of, at least not in my family. ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’, to put it in idiomatic terms.”
“You’re an idiomatic,” Dean muttered.
“Does the subject make you uncomfortable?” Castiel focused in, tried to get a better read on Dean.
“No, man, it’s cool or whatever,” Dean practically shouted. “I just don’t wanna think about gay people right now, okay?”
Something in that outburst made Garth smirk and ask, “Right now?”
“Ugh, right ever!” Dean pushed past the both of them and ran the rest of the stairs by himself.
“Don’t mind him,” Garth whispered. “See, where we’re from, a lot of folks aren’t so hot on it, and people are real vocal about it. Hell, my family’s sweet as pecan pie, but even they’ve got their hangups. Dean’s family? I don’t even wanna think about it. So, if you see him gettin’ touchy, he’s just workin’ out the gunk that got pumped into him over summer. He’ll be right as rain soon enough.”
Castiel nodded back, “Thank you, Garth. That was very insightful.”
It was, in fact, one of the very first signs of emotional intelligence that Castiel had ever see, and he did it all with a smile on his face.
“No problemo, amigo,” Garth cuffed Castiel on the shoulder, and then tugged him along so that they could catch up with Dean.
oo
It was well known amongst the Milton children: if you had any dastardly deeds that needed doing, you went to Lucifer. He had the bravado of a Gryffindor, the strategic mind of a Ravenclaw, and the moral ambiguity of a Slytherin. Castiel also would argue that he had the caring nature of a Hufflepuff; it was just that Lucifer cared very much about very strange things, and very little about very common things, and that often came off as heartless.
He had nearly hexed some children that had been tearing branches off a tree once. Instead, he had just pulled out some of their hair and shouted, “How do you like it!?” before Michael had needed to intervene.
So, when, the night after Quidditch tryouts, Castiel saw Lucifer studying on his own in the library, a plan started to blick-block into place in his mind. He sat down right across from his cousin and waited patiently for him to look up.
When he didn’t, Castiel cleared his throat.
Lucifer looked up from his N.E.W.T work for Herbology, dark circles under his eyes, and offered Castiel a cool grin and a, “What’s up, squirt?”
“Um--”
“Quidditch captains had a meeting after tryouts today,” Lucifer stretched now, and dissolved into a yawn. “Sarah said you were pretty good.”
“She did?” Castiel asked.
“You could say that,” Lucifer nodded. “I’m guessing you didn’t come over here to talk about Quidditch, though.”
“You are correct in that assumption,” Castiel sat up straight. “I wanted to ask you for a favor.”
Lucifer’s eyes went from foggy and sleepy to sharp and focused in a frighteningly short amount of time. He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.
“Interesting,” he mused. “Very, very interesting. Doesn’t anyone ever just want to stop and chat anymore?”
“What would we chat about?” Castiel asked. “I don’t know that we have a whole lot in common.”
“How would we know?” Lucifer shrugged. “We’ve never chatted before.”
At Castiel’s lack of response, he continued, “You do know I don’t do favors for nothing, right?”
“Well, then isn’t it technically not a favor?” Castiel cocked his head, and Lucifer let out a tired sigh.
“What do you want, Castiel?”
“I was wondering if you knew of any books in the restricted that might have to do with sexuality,” Castiel replied quite frankly.
This definitely threw Lucifer off, so much so that he dropped his smarmy facade for a moment to ask, “Run that by me again?”
When Castiel did, Lucifer rubbed his forehead, “That kinda stuff doesn’t come in books, it comes in magazines. It’s called porn.”
“Pornography?” Castiel balked. Gabriel had showed him some raunchy photos before, if only for shock value, but no that was definitely not what he was looking for. “No, I mean an actual book on the subject of human sexuality.”
Lucifer plunged deeper into confusion, “Why? It’s not some weird nerd thing where you whack it to medical terms like ‘vulva’ and ‘intercourse’ is it?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Castiel parroted from so many of his conversations with Dean and Aaron.
“Holy fuck, who are you?” Lucifer let out a laugh, still in disbelief. “What the hell is it that you want to know, exactly?”
“The nature of human sexuality,” Castiel tried to rephrase it, to narrow the search, “Specifically, sexual attraction.”
A look of realization.
Wait, what had Lucifer just realized?
“Hey, I know I’m kind of a self-righteous dick a lot of the time,” Lucifer leaned forward.
“It’s all right.”
“I’m not apologizing,” Lucifer said. “But look, if you ever have those kinds of questions, you know you can ask me, right? The rest of the family might be nuts, but this kind of thing is important.”
“Oh,” Castiel was not accustomed to getting his credible information from a human source, but he supposed that he could give it a shot. “I suppose I was just wondering about homosexuality.”
Lucifer’s lips pursed, then he looked at his homework and sighed.
“Another time,” he muttered and grabbed a fresh roll of parchment out of his bag. “Okay, kid, let’s talk sexualities.”
Before Castiel could protest, Lucifer scribed in neat lettering, the words ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’, then underneath wrote ‘straight’ and ‘gay’ respectively.
“So, a lot of people are gonna tell you that sexuality is a binary,” he explained. “This one is attracted to a different sex or gender, and this one is attracted to people of the same gender. With me so far?”
Castiel nodded, though still couldn’t riddle through what was puzzling him.
“What if you aren’t attracted to anybody?”
“Why, Castiel, I’m so glad you asked,” Lucifer grinned and wrote the word, ‘asexual’.
“Okay, so like ‘atheist’,” Castiel looked up, checking that he was correct.
“Hot damn, I knew I liked you,” Lucifer chuckled.
“So, if you like both, that would be… disexual?” Castiel concluded.
“Close,” Lucifer’s voice took on a mocking edge as he wrote ‘bisexual’, but Castiel ignored it. That was just Lucifer being Lucifer, and this really was very educational. “See? You don’t even need a book, you’re so smart.”
“But bi- is Latin,” Castiel frowned. “Homeo- and hetero- and a- are Greek.”
“Don’t be such a nerd,” Lucifer groaned.
“But I--”
“Now, keeping in mind this is all a rough overview,” Lucifer stifled another yawn against his wrist. “You also have attraction to all sexes and genders, and that’s when you get,” he scratched out the word ‘pansexual’.
Castiel stared at the parchment, taking it all in.
“What’s up?” Lucifer asked.
“I’m not seeing why anybody should care,” said Castiel.
“They shouldn’t.”
“So why do they?” Castiel cocked his head.
“Short answer?” Lucifer leaned back once again, thoughtful. “Because people don’t like when something, or in this case, someone, is different from what they know. It freaks ‘em out.”
“That’s stupid,” Castiel frowned.
“Tell me about it,” Lucifer nodded. “What can I tell you? People don’t like weird, and for whatever reason, all of this?” He gestures to the parchment. “Weird.”
Castiel turned his pondering look on Lucifer. He appeared to be speaking frankly, which Castiel realized was something Lucifer always did. If one thing could be said for Lucifer, at the very least, it was that he would never lie to you.
“I’m weird,” Castiel concluded then.
Lucifer’s lips quirked into a smile.
“Me too.”
Another moment passed before Lucifer righted himself and rolled up the parchment. He pushed it across the table to Castiel.
“Here, take this and scram, kid,” he said, now turning his attention back to his Herbology homework. “I got big boy shit to do.”
“Thank you,” Castiel accepted the parchment.
“Don’t say I never did anything for you.”
Castiel left the library a little wiser that evening. His head reeled all the way back up to his dorm, sorting everything and trying to adjust it so that, when the time came, he could tell Dean that there was nothing to worry about. The more he thought about it, though, the more he wanted to rush down to the Hufflepuff common room and wait for Dean to emerge, so he could help ease his mind as soon as possible.
Because the more Castiel thought on it, the more he started to wonder.
Where in Lucifer’s web of sexuality did he fall? And if he fell somewhere that made Dean uncomfortable, would he stop being his friend? Castiel didn’t think that he would, but his reaction to the topic today, which they barely even skirted, gave him pause.
How was he supposed to know where he fell? He barely even noticed other people, let alone whether or not he was attracted to them. And what exactly was attraction? He knew it was feeling that someone was very beautiful, but Castiel assumed it was something more than just an aesthetic.
Attraction was what happened when two entities were drawn toward one another.
Castiel didn’t think he’d ever felt attracted to anyone, in that case, except for Dean. Dean also happened to be a very beautiful person.
… oh, dear.
Did that mean Castiel was attracted to Dean?
Logically, he supposed that meant he was.
This did not bode well, Castiel realized. He was so distracted that, by the time he got to the common room door, he had to wait until Maggie Zeddmore, a first year, came to solve to riddle and let him into the common room.
He didn’t even get to entertain the idea of going straight to bed, as it became abundantly clear the moment that Sarah Blake shoved a set of blue robes into his arms that he was now a member of the Ravenclaw house Quidditch team.
“Congratulations,” she smiled. “First practice is Tuesday night after dinner. Don’t be late.”
Well, then.
oo
The next morning at breakfast, Castiel’s stomach soured as soon as he saw Dean sitting alone at the Hufflepuff table.
He didn’t look any different than normal, nor did he appear to be acting any differently than he had for the past week, and yet Castiel’s breath wouldn’t quite come to him. He knew that it was only a result of the previous night’s impromptu lesson with Lucifer, logically knew that nothing had changed.
Still, the moment he sat down across from Dean, anxiety twisted at his guts.
Dean looked up.
His eyes were quite pretty, weren’t they?
“Hey,” was all Dean offered.
“Good morning,” Castiel rasped.
“What’s wrong with your voice?”
Castiel cleared his throat, “Nothing.”
It didn’t look like Dean believed him, though, but he didn’t say anything. He just started eating his eggs again. So Castiel redirected, “I made the Quidditch team.”
Dean’s head snapped up, his eyes wide, “Really?”
“Really,” Castiel nodded, smiling because now Dean was smiling too. “I’m the new Ravenclaw seeker.”
“Dude, that’s friggin’ awesome!” Dean held up a hand for what Castiel had come to learn was called a ‘high-five’,
Dean smacked his palm extra hard against Castiel’s, and Castiel felt his face heat up.
"When did you find out?"
"Oh, last night after I got back from the library," Castiel's heart hammered in his throat, recalling just what his library visit had entailed. "Dean, you understand that there is nothing inherently wrong with differing sexual orientations, right?"
Dean choked on a mouthful of pumpkin juice.
"What the hell, Cas?" He croaked.
But before the conversation could progress any further, the doors to the great hall swung open and Aaron bolted in with Garth trailing behind him.
“I made the team!” he shouted, gaining the attention of everybody in the hall. That didn’t stop Aaron from running right up to Dean and giving him a great big hug.
A foreign white-hot something shot through Castiel’s middle, but he tamped it down as soon as Aaron’s words registered.
He’d made the team.
“Dude, that’s great, but can you not?”
“Fuck you, I’m the new motherfuckin’ Hufflepuff chaser, bitches!”
“And to think,” Garth took the seat beside Castiel. “You were about to turn right back around. Good thing Cas stepped up to the plate, huh?”
“Man,” Aaron looked to Cas. “Thank you.”
“Cas made the team too,” said Dean, the abject horror from a few minutes earlier now completely gone.
Aaron’s eyes went big, “Really?”
Castiel nodded, “Seeker.”
“Well, howddya like that!” Garth slapped Castiel on the back. “Congratulations, Cas.”
“Thank you,” Castiel’s lips curled upward, though he couldn’t really call it a smile until he looked across from him to find Dean smiling back.