Chapter Text
Dean’s day started off strong, for a Monday. He had managed to get through his morning physics quiz without doing too much damage to his GPA and was headed into his literature class armed with killer discussion questions on Vonnegut (Dean was still in disbelief that the university let him fill his core requirement with a class on sci-fi, but he wasn’t complaining) when he got the text from Charlie.
It started off badly—texts that start with “I don’t know how to tell you this” rarely end well—and got worse when the picture loaded.
His boyfriend, sitting on a bench on the eastern side of campus, kissing a woman who was beautiful, and blonde, and most importantly not Dean.
Dean blinked at it, staring at his phone just steps in front of his classroom, and he could feel the blood rushing in his ears as his vision turned red—to match his face, he was sure. But if there was anything Dean took seriously, it was Kurt Vonnegut, so he forced his eyes closed, turned his phone off, and shoved it deep into his backpack. He had plans to meet Castiel after class, anyway, and would confront him about it then. If he argued just a little more aggressively in class than usual…well, he could use the participation points.
An hour and a half (and some intense debate that Dean totally won) later, he was marching across campus towards the cafe on the north side—one particular table, the same table they had first met at last semester when there were no other seats, Dean had an exam to cram for, and the other guy at the table seemed nice enough, if distractingly attractive.
Which, admittedly, hurt his grade on that exam, but Dean had never minded that. It had been worth it, he told himself, and he believed it until…
The memory of the photo floated into Dean’s vision and he swallowed hard, pausing to shake his head. He was angry, he reminded himself. And—and hurt. And no soft memories of late-night study sessions that turned into post-study drinks that turned into even more were going to change that.
Castiel looked up when Dean approached, immediately greeting him with the wide smile he had come to know and love, but Dean fought off the warm fuzzies and kept his face tight, unforgiving. The smile faded and Cas began to stand, but before he could, Dean slammed himself into the seat across from him and fixed his boyfriend with an icy stare.
Cas moved back a bit, consternation written across his face, and he fixed Dean with a look that said he knew something was deeply wrong, but he had no idea what. “Dean, wha—” he began, but Dean cut him off with a snap. “Don’t play dumb, Cas. You know what you did.” His boyfriend blinked, and then frowned, concern replaced with deep confusion, tinged with a fear that almost made Dean feel guilty. Almost. “Truly, I don’t.”
Dean sighed. So they were going to play it that way. Sure. He angrily dug his phone out of the bottom of his backpack, where he had been trying to ignore it as if it was the device’s fault he felt like this. They both watched the loading screen as his phone turned on in the most sickly tense few seconds of their relationship before Dean navigated to his messages, pulled up The Photo, and slid his phone across the table to Castiel.
“That,” he spat out, “is what you did. What the fuck, man?”
Cas didn’t move for a long second. He just stared at the phone, and some evil part of Dean felt triumphant. Ha, he thought. Let’s see how you like getting caught. But Castiel just sighed and picked up the phone, zooming in for closer inspection. Dean stared at him, closely, as the expression on his face shifted from confusion, to recognition, to something like…grief?
Finally, he looked up to meet Dean’s eyes, and he saw plenty of sadness there, but no guilt. Something inside Dean ached. Did he care so little that he didn’t even feel guilty?
Cas swallowed thickly, pushed the phone back across the table, and didn’t meet his gaze. It was silent for another long, terrible second before he spoke.
“That’s not me.”
Dean raised his eyebrows and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. Out of all the ways he expected this to go down, this wasn’t it. He expected his boyfriend to be smarter than that. He scoffed. “Really, dude? You ran through all your options and you’re going with ‘that’s not me?’ Come on, Cas.” This was ridiculous. He deserved better than some half-assed excuse. That’s not me. Dean glowered.
Across the table, Castiel mirrored his movements, leaning back in his own chair and crossing his own arms in a gesture that seemed more self-soothing than angry. He sighed again. “I know this is hard to believe—”
“Yeah, it fucking is,” Dean interrupted him harshly, and Cas shot him a look, and Dean shut up.
“It’s hard to believe,” he started again, angrier, “but that’s not me.” A pause, as if he was trying to figure out how to continue. “That’s, um. That’s my brother.” Another pause. “My twin brother. James.” Cas stopped there and dropped both hands to his lap, staring down at them, any anger or frustration gone. The sadness was back.
Dean stared at him, mouth open slightly. Cas was really sticking to this story, and even though it was ridiculous, and Dean should be furious that his boyfriend thought he was this gullible, Cas was being so sincere that Dean was at a loss.
“I’ve met your brothers,” he argued back, because it seemed the most obvious fallacy. Gabriel lived close enough that they saw him somewhat regularly, and he’d met Michael over an incredibly uncomfortable dinner while he was in town for business. Neither of them had mentioned a mysterious twin.
Cas looked up and shrugged slightly. “You’ve met two of them.” And as that was Dean’s only real rebuttal, he was at a loss again.
“You’re telling me that you have a secret, identical twin brother, who you haven’t mentioned to me in our entire six months of dating, who your brothers also haven’t mentioned. Sounds real likely.” He said dryly, hoping it would sound less absurd out loud. It didn’t.
If Cas caught the sarcasm, he didn’t show it. Instead, he nodded, some relief creeping into his eyes at Dean’s faux understanding. “Yes. That’s correct. We don’t, um. Speak. Our brothers respect our wishes to not discuss each other.” The relief was gone, replaced with a frown, and he reached out for Dean’s phone, unlocking it so he could once again see the photo on the screen. It was an intimate action, and Dean remembered the day he’d let Cas program his fingerprint into his phone—they’d been about to go on a road trip, and Cas only needed to be able to text Sam back while Dean was driving, but he had seemed so honored by the gesture that Dean had kept it.
Now, more than anything, the memory made Dean hope that somehow this story wasn’t just an elaborate ruse.
“I’m glad he’s doing well,” Dean tuned back in at the sound of Cas’ voice, and he looked up to see his boyfriend smiling softly at the phone. He looked back up at Dean and held his gaze, smile faltering.
“I apologize for not telling you. I…you weren’t supposed to find out this way. It’s difficult to talk about, and I admit that I thought this campus was large enough that it wouldn’t become a problem just yet. The only reason we’re both here is that our mother thought it would force us into getting along. As you can see, that didn’t happen.” He stopped there but didn’t break eye contact, searching Dean’s face for a reaction.
Dean sighed, as the last bit of doubt faded away. It was unbelievable, but a lot of things about Cas and his life were. And, honestly, so were a lot of things about Dean’s. He opened his mouth to—what, tell his boyfriend he believed him? Apologize for his anger?—but Castiel’s phone buzzed before he could say anything.
Cas smiled as he reached for it. “I wasn’t sure if you’d believe me, and I have no pictures of the two of us, so I texted Gabriel—” he opened a message before turning the phone to show Dean, obviously trying not to look at the photo too hard himself. “This was our sixteenth birthday.”
Dean stared down at the picture. In the middle, a man easily identifiable as Gabriel, if six years younger, with his arms around not one, but two young Castiels. Or, Dean corrected himself, one Cas and one…what name had he said? Jake? James? Dean made a note to ask later. And also ask how one of them got named Castiel and the other got James. Or Jake. Or whatever.
In the photo they were both laughing, happy, looking towards the camera but completely at ease in each other’s company. Dean wanted to ask what had happened, but Cas had made it very clear he didn’t want to talk about it so Dean shoved that question down for later, too. Instead, he scanned their faces, looking for any differences. The two boys in the picture were remarkably identical, even for identical twins, but there was something different about one of them; how he held the photographer’s gaze, piercing and steady, even through the smile and the happiness in his eyes.
“You’re on the right,” Dean said, instead of any of the other things he could have, and when he looked up, Cas was gaping at him. “Yes,” he replied simply. “Yes, I am. But, Dean, nobody has ever been…”
He trailed off there, and something warm and comforting bloomed in Dean’s chest. He slid Castiel’s phone back across the table towards him, then left his hand there, open, inviting. Cas slid his own hand in without a second thought, and he linked their fingers together.
“Hey,” Dean started, softly. They hadn’t said the words yet, but they were there, he knew. He’d put money on Cas knowing it, too. But even if he had managed to fight his way through the commitment issues, emotionally unavailable, afraid-of-love bullshit Charlie had been lecturing him on for years, now wasn’t the time. “I’m sorry I was angry,” Dean said instead, and Cas smiled at him, and he knew it was over and everything was okay.
“It’s alright. I understand the confusion. Although,” Cas tilted his head, frowning a bit. “Dean. You do know I’m gay, right?”
Dean flushed and pulled back. “I know, but—” he started. “Listen, man, that was like, step two, okay? What was I supposed—” He realized that Castiel was laughing, and had chased Dean’s hand across the table to hold it in his own again.
“Dean. Dean. It’s fine. I know. I love you.”
Dean froze, staring back at his boyfriend, who seemed blissfully unaware of what he had just done. A split second later, before he could really even process it, he was pulling Cas across the table to kiss him, and nothing else mattered.
Neither of them noticed a young woman, across the lounge, surreptitiously snap a photo and send it off to her best friend.
Neither of them had any idea when, in a windowless lecture hall, in the middle of her economics class, Amelia got a panicked text message accompanying the worst photo she had ever seen. Well, she thought, her good mood souring, it had been a good Monday.