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John Winchester was dead, the Impala was totaled, and Dean probably hadn’t slept in three days. Sam watched him talk in hushed tones with the lady from Social Services in the corner of the special room in the hospital for dealing with orphans and wondered where it was they were going to go now.
If John had just died out on a hunt, it would have been months before anyone noticed the two boys were on their own and, by then, Dean would be eighteen and there wouldn’t be much anyone could do to separate them.
But, of course, John got hit by a semi and died in the hospital. Even from the other side of the veil, John Winchester was being an absolute shitheel. Sam rolled his eyes and looked out of the window while Dean pleaded again with the caseworker to “just look the other way” or put off the paperwork for “just another few months”.
She wasn’t having it though. “Isn’t there somebody that could take you boys in?”
There wasn’t. Not really. Not anyone Sam knew. John was...well, private was the polite way to say it. He didn’t let many other people close to him or to his sons.
So, it surprised Sam when Dean’s face lit up suddenly.
“Robert Singer. Uncle Bobby. He lives in Sioux Falls. We’ve stayed with him before when my Dad— When my mom died.”
She looked over her glasses at his face and he smiled helpfully. After a moment more, she sighed and rifled through her paperwork.
“I suppose they don’t strictly have to be related by blood. I can do that much, Dean.” Dean let out a relieved chuckle and put his hand to his eyes as they welled up. Sam let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.
Until Dean had mentioned him, Sam had forgotten about Uncle Bobby. While they waited for him, Dean tried to jog his memory. The most Sam could conjure to mind was a man that looked a lot like Santa Claus and had a pleasant rumbling voice.
Dean told him that Bobby and their dad were always on rocky footing, mostly because Bobby thought that Dean and Sam deserved a normal life. After the fire, John had enlisted Bobby’s help in watching the young Winchesters until John had determined Dean was old enough to watch Sam on his own.
Sam was pretty sure this social worker would have had a bone to pick with John. If seventeen was too young to care for a Sam who was already considering what college he was going to, he was sure she’d have taken exception to an 8-year-old making sure dinner was on the table.
It only took a few hours for Bobby to get to the hospital, and the first thing he did when he saw the boys was hug them tightly. He didn’t say that he was sorry about what happened to John. They all sort of expected it. It was what happened when you chased ghost stories long enough.
Of course, the first words out of Dean’s mouth weren’t “thank you,” or “I’m glad you’re here”, but “do you know where they’re keeping my baby, Bobby?”
Sam scoffed and colored in embarrassment, but Bobby just kind of chuckled. He looked Dean over, probably noticing how absolutely careworn he was. You could see his smudgy, black under-eye bags from clear across the room.
“I’ll find out and have it brought to the garage. Meantime, let’s get you home and settled.”
Bobby’s house was in a quiet, mature neighborhood and each home and garden were tailored to fit who lived there. Some homes were manicured with simple statuaries and impressive flower beds while some were sweet looking with toys upended in the grass waiting for school to end. At the top of the street, Bobby pointed at his house. There was a large tree in the front that hid the massive two-story. The yard didn’t have grass but was instead covered with hard-pressed dirt. Bobby's house shared a driveway with the one next door, A large, white house with a well-kept yard and bright white fencing.
Sam watched as his brother jerked up suddenly and then tried to settle back into a nonchalant pose. It happened every time he saw an interesting road sign. He’d mention it as if he were just making conversation, even though it was rare that John could be persuaded off course for a tourist trap.
Dean took a second to compose himself before asking Bobby causally, “The Novaks still live next door?” Bobby's face softened into a smile as he glanced at Dean practically vibrating in his seat.
Outside of the white house, standing with a hose in his hand, was a boy about Dean's age. He looked rumpled, hair wildly sticking out in all directions. Slouched and shirtless, he balanced a cigarette between his lips as he sprayed some bushes along the fence. He heard the engine of the car and turned to see who was bounding up the street.
Bobby honked his horn. “I told that boy I was gonna ring his neck if I caught him smoking again.”
As if on cue, the boy threw his cigarette down, grimacing as he stamped it out with his clunky combat boot and started over to the car, dragging the hose behind him. Sam watched him stop and cock his head when he saw Bobby had passengers.
Dean took a steadying breath as he got out of the car. “Well, fuck me,” he said with a wide grin, “it’s Castiel Novak.”
The kid jerked like he had been electrocuted, nearly dropping the hose. “Dean? Wh-what are you doing here?”
Dean held up his duffle bag, his grin turning into a smirk. “I live here.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.” When Dean’s smirk became an impish leer, Castiel threw his hands up in the air and he started back toward his house.
“Awe com’mon, Cas.” Dean called out after him, trying to smother his glee. “You aren’t gonna roll out the welcome wagon?”
“I’m moving!” Cas called out over the yard. “This neighborhood isn’t big enough for the both of us, Dean Winchester.” He wrenched his front door open and slammed it closed behind him.
Dean watched the Novak house for a second more before giving Sam a wink and heading towards Bobby’s front door with a spring in his step.
Bobby gave a fondly annoyed grunt before opening Sam’s car door for him. “That’s our neighbor, Castiel Novak. I’m not sure if ya remember, but he and your brother were attached at the hip when you all were here last.” Sam felt a little guilty for being surprised his brother ever had a friend, let alone one that he was close enough to be “attached at the hip.”
He asked politely, “they were friends?”
“Of sorts.” Bobby took Sam’s box of books. “You ever seen Tom and Jerry?”
Sam pleaded for Dean to calm down. "You guys are stupid. You're going to burn down the whole neighborhood."
"That dick, Cas, started it," Dean said, putting the box of old fireworks on the splintering picnic table in the backyard.
Cas wasn’t a dick and as much as both boys grumbled and shouted at each other, Sam got the feeling that they actually enjoyed their little war. It was never anything crazy; a well-placed whoopie cushion when Cas sat down in class, Cas would try to spray Dean’s pants with the hose to make it look like he peed his pants, and several impromptu wrestling matches.
Lately, though, things had escalated. Dean had had to stamp out a bag of dog poop on the porch last night. Cas didn't own a dog. And now there were explosives involved.
Sam should have known something was up when he had seen his brother and Ash with their heads bent in the parking lot after school that afternoon. Everyone knew if you wanted to blow something up, you went to see “Dr. Badass”. He had worked the fireworks stand every year since he was 10 and kept his dad’s bomb shelter stocked with them year-round.
The rumor was they had put Ash on a government watch list, but Sam thought that had nothing to do with the fireworks.
Dean pulled explosives out of the box, tossing a few haphazardly onto the table with a sigh. "Are you gonna help me with these or not?"
Sam folded his arms "No."
"Well, fine. Fuck you, then."
Sam picked up a twig, snapping it thoughtfully. “You still haven't told me what he did, Dean." Dean stilled and Sam thought he saw the tips of his ears go pink as he fished the matches out of his back pocket.
Sam tried to pinpoint when it was that he remembered seeing his brother and Cas acting like themselves last. It felt a lot like trying to retrace your steps to find your keys but not knowing where exactly it was to start. He vaguely remembered Cas hitching a ride with them to the homecoming game. When he thought more about it, he didn’t remember Cas riding back with them.
Sam said, thinking out loud, "you guys were fine, well normal, until the homecoming game."
Dean's hands slipped and he dropped the matches.
Busted. Sam remembered the twitchy look of Dean when he got into the car. He had chalked it up to school spirit since the Football team had won the game with a film-worthy Hail Mary pass. He should have known better. Dean wasn’t all that into sports. "Something happened at the game! Didn't it?!"
Dean tried to come up with something to throw Sam off the scent. But it turned out he didn’t need to. Cas called out in a booming voice from the other side of the shared fence: “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”
A beer bottle sailed over the fence and into the yard in a perfect, lofty arc. Inside the bottle was a piece of an old tee-shirt. It was a Molotov beer bottle. Dean leapt out of the way, pulling Sam back with him. The Molotov slammed into the table and set the fireworks off in a din of shrieks and crackles and a spray of sparks. Sam hurried to grab the hose before the old table caught fire.
Cas popped his head over the fence with a wicked smirk, blue eyes hidden behind aviator sunglasses.
"Eat shit, Dean Winchester."
After the thing with the fireworks, things got pretty ugly. For one, Cas and Dean got into an actual fistfight with Bobby and Cas’s older brother Gabriel having to pull them apart. Dean had taken exception for Cas “roping Sam into it”. Sam reminded Dean later, while he was icing his black eye with a bag of frozen peas, that Dean had tried to get him to help with the fireworks only a few minutes before Cas’s pre-emptive strike.
Dean’s witty retort got swallowed up by a lecture from Bobby about illegal fireworks and not using the brains God gave him. “I know they work, Son. I’ve seen your report card.” Dean looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die. He had always looked so patient and resigned when John chewed him out for something, but Bobby had a way of mixing a gentle touch and tough love that seemed to unnerve Dean.
Dean promised not to buy any more fireworks.
But next came the DeanCas Cold War. While Cas apologized to Sam for the Molotov and made a point to ask how he was doing when they passed each other in the hallways or when taking out the trash, he pointedly ignored Dean. Dean returned the favor and the two of them bore holes in each other, making everyone around them feel sucked into their conflict.
It took Sam dragging Cas over to Bobby’s house every day after school for a whole week of tutoring for the two of them to form some kind of truce, and over the winter holidays; they seemed to work up to a fragile friendship.
Of course, when classes started back up, things changed again. Dean, ever the obnoxious prankster, decided it would be a great idea to pants Cas on their way to the locker rooms after gym class. Neither boy had thought much of it at the time outside of what it meant for resuming their silly little war games until the rumors started. They ranged from pinky sworn accounts of two boys having sex in the locker room, to Cas having a giant dick to Dean being a homophobe.
Dean had almost gotten suspended for fighting over the last one. The only thing Bobby had said to that was a grumbled “Idjit” to which Dean grunted in agreement.
With the hope of returning to his and Cas’s little skirmishes gone, Dean skulked around the school hardly saying two words to anyone but Sam. He wasn’t ignoring Cas, but he was trying to keep his distance. Even so, Cas seemed to grow increasingly annoyed. Sam could practically feel the crackle in the air whenever they were around each other and figured it was only a matter of time before something happened.
One afternoon while Sam was sitting by his window doing his assigned reading, he heard his brother swear down in the drive below. Sam put the book down and leaned against the screen to get a better look.
Dean had his hands folded in front of him, jaw set, and he started hollering up at Cas’s window that also looked out over the driveway.
"Cas! Cas, you son of a bitch, get down here!"
Sam watched Cas open his window and lean out a bit. "What?"
Dean was nearly vibrating in anger. "Did you do this to my car?"
Cas looked puzzled. "No."
"Cas."
"No, Dean, I'd never touch your car." Cas scrambled out of the window and onto the roof of his garage. He jumped down carefully and jogged over what it was Dean was looking at.
Suddenly Cas looked very angry, his whole body springing as if ready to fight.
Dean relaxed. "So, you didn't do this."
"Of course not. How could you ever think I would?"
Dean shrugged, “you’ve been pretty mad at me lately.”
Cas waved him off, “The whole world doesn’t revolve around you, Dean. I had other things on my mind.” He looked at the car wincing, “It’s like someone drawing a sharpie mustache on the Mona Lisa. What kind of monster would do such a thing?”
“Beats the hell out of me.” Something caught Dean’s eye and he stepped over towards Cas’s Lincoln and pointed toward the trunk. “Looks like whoever it was got you too.” Dean scrubbed his face with his hands, groaning. "Fuck me."
Cas snorted. "Apparently I already have. Dean, this is my fault. Let me pay to have it fixed."
Dean shook his head. "I have what I need to fix it at Bobby’s. Can't fix yours though without ordering paint.”
Cas shrugged and after a moment of staring at his bumper said, "don't bother. I sort of like it." He pulled a knife out of his back pocket and bent down behind the car about where Sam remembered Cas’s Pride Flag sticker being.
Sam could hear the scrape of metal on metal and when he was finished, Cas stood and announced proudly, “There. Circle A makes it perfect. I’ve reclaimed it."
Dean chuckled, shaking his head. He looked back at the Impala and held out his hand to Cas, "Hey gimme that knife real quick."
"Are you gonna stab me with it? "
"Ha-ha. Give." Cas handed it over. Sam could hardly believe it when Dean went over to the Impala, Dean’s precious Baby, and started scraping at her trunk.
He stepped back and Cas read "half..." He crossed his arms over his chest, but the smile was undeniable "Dean I’m not sure that's entirely accurate."
"Make'em shut up wouldn't it."
As they stood there together in the driveway looking at their handy work, Sam could feel the chaotic energy leaching out of them. Cas turned to Dean with an open, friendly expression, his perpetual squint softened by the moment they were sharing. “You want a bumper sticker?”
“You gonna make me buy one,” Dean asked playfully.
“I’m the Club President, Dean, I think I’m entitled.”
“Alright then. Figure I might as well. There’s not gonna be any use hiding That,” he waved in the general area of the Impala’s trunk.
They traded amused chuckles before Cas nodded toward his house. “Alright, come inside and i’ll grab you one then.”
"Thanks, man."
When Sam took the trash out that night, he took out his phone and flashed it at the Impala. On the top right corner of her back side was etched the 6 letter F word.
Sam nearly dropped the trash bag. His heart hammered away in his chest and he nearly forgot to breathe until he saw, etched carefully by Dean just above the slur, the word "HALF" with two large Bisexual Pride Stickers flanking either side.
Sam smiled. “Good for him.”
The next day, Bobby fixed the boys cars and left the bumper stickers where they were.
Sam came home from school to find Cas and Dean bickering in Bobby’s office.
Now that they were 18, both boys had managed to needle Bobby into giving them work; Dean in the garage doing oil changes and Cas Sorting and cataloging Bobby’s extensive collection of monster mythos onto the computer.
Cas hadn’t been a very difficult sell on the whole “monsters are real” thing. In fact, he had been so unsurprised by it that Sam wondered if he even believed a word of it. Bobby pointed out that Cas was a smart kid and had lived next door to a hunter his whole life.
Dean had taken it upon himself to quiz Cas. Sam was sure that it had started out as Dean trying to show off, but once Cas started taking the subject seriously, he and Dean would argue about the best way to take down whatever monster Cas was scanning into Bobby’s computer that day.
Sam thought that their squabbling was probably another one of those supernatural pissing matches and so he listened outside, peeking in occasionally from in the hallway rather than going into the office to join them. As he listened though, he realized that they weren’t talking shop at all.
“What are you, scared,” Dean taunted. Sam could see Cas roll his eyes at the desk.
“No. But I’m also not going to be your show pony, Dean. I’d like to think I have some dignity.” He frowned at the computer screen. “Why don’t you just ask Suzie. She’d go with you, I'm sure.”
Sam leaned a little further in to see Dean pick up a book from the stack and start flipping through it. Sam saw Cas look up at him with a sparkle in his eye and a faint blush. Just before Dean looked up from the book, frowning, Cas hurried to look away.
“In any case,” Cas continued, “you weren’t exactly ostracized after your whole ‘coming out’. If it’s not Suzie, I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding a date for prom.” it sounded like a reasonable suggestion even Sam would have believed Cas’s casual attitude if he hadn’t just seen the way he looked at Dean not a minute ago.
Dean closed the book loudly. “I’m not asking a girl to prom, Cas. They get, I don't know, weird about it.”
“Dean.” Cas warned with a glare.
“Fine,” Dean amended, tossing the book back on the stack, “Nice girls like Suzie expect Prom to be romantic. Something couples do. It would be the same to her as asking her to be my girlfriend.”
Cas turned back to the computer, “Suzie’s nice, she’d make a wonderful girlfriend.”
Dean looked as if Cas had smacked him. “I don’t want to be anybody’s boyfriend,” he barked.
Both Cas and Dean froze.
Sam winced. They’re in love. They’re idiots and in love. He found this new knowledge almost painfully obvious in retrospect.
Cas looked up from the computer slowly. “I’m not going, Dean. I’m with Suzie on this one Prom is for romance.”
Dean was moping. Ever since their dad died, he had taken to tuning up and detailing the Impala whenever he was upset.
Sam leaned up against the car, handing Dean a soda. “What crawled up your butt and died? You’ve been skulking around the house lately. I figure I'd ask you before you worry Bobby.”
Dean put the soda on the driveway. He looked at Sam like meant to brush him off but surprised them both by saying, “I asked Cas to Prom.”
Sam pretended as best he could to be surprised. It fooled Dean but only because Dean was wrapped in his own angst. “He say no?”
Dean cast him a withering glance as if to say, “what do you think?”
Sam racked his brain for a way to talk about Dean’s “Man Pain” without letting him know he watched him get rejected in real-time. “Cas seems like the kind of dude that doesn’t really go to things like that in the first place. Like you have to really give him a good reason.”
“Me asking isn’t a good reason,” Dean asked, wiping his hands on a shop cloth.
Sam shrugged. “Honestly, Dean? If you wanna go hang out somewhere you could hang out in the backyard and you’d both probably have a good time.” Dean was turning that over in his head, so Sam added, “If you want to take him somewhere, he’d probably have more fun bumming around downtown or going to Biggerson’s or the arcade or something.”
Dean nodded but he didn’t look satisfied. “I know that. I just… wanted to go.”
“You can still go Dean, you don’t even need a date to get into prom.”
“It won’t be as fun.”
“Not having a date or not having Cas there,” Sam asked. Dean kept quiet, tucking the shop cloth into his back pocket. Sam rolled his eyes. “Dean, Do you want Cas to go because you wanna hang or because you like him?”
“Fuck off,” Dean turned his head to hide the beginnings of blush with a scowl.
“Because if you like him, and tell him, he might decide to go.”
“Dammit Sam.” Dean tried to get away from him by ducking around the car, but Sam followed.
“And even if he didn’t want to go to prom, it’s Cas. I’m sure you can think of something better to do.”
Dean’s hands stilled in his aggressive scrubbing. He nodded once and said, “Thanks Sam.”
One Saturday, Sam was putting away sheets for Bobby up in his room when he heard running water coming from outside. Curious, Sam went to the window to check it out. Cas was in the Novak garden, watering the plants.
Cas had mentioned to Sam that yard work was the only chore he took seriously and that was mostly because he had hoped if he put in the effort his parents would let him install a beehive.
They didn’t but he found the work relaxing and kept at it.
He was smoking again. He had stopped for a little while, Sam thought Dean must have talked (or more than likely teased) him into quitting. He didn’t look happy but, rather, at peace in his garden. Sam was about to leave him to it when he heard the clack of the gate outside. Cas fumbled the cigarette, burning his hand. He let it drop to the ground and sprayed it with the hose in just enough time for Dean to come into the yard.
He looked around gesturing to Cas's work. Whatever he was saying got covered by someone starting a lawnmower up a few houses over and the splash of the hose. It must have been a compliment though because Cas looked over everything too.
Dean scratched the back of his neck. He was starting to get antsy. As he was talking Cas turned away from him, his whole body guarded. Dean rambled on long enough to where whoever it was running the lawnmower packed it up. He could almost make out his brother and Cas’s voices over the sound of Cas very likely drowning the same three flower bushes he kept spraying.
Suddenly Cas whipped around to face Dean and ended up spraying him with the hose. He crimped it closed and Sam could hear them now Sputter to apologize.
Dean shook himself out and Cas asked, “Do you mean that?”
Dean nodded, and then remembering to use his words, said, “Yeah, Cas. Why do you think I picked on you so much when we were kids?”
“Because you’re an incorrigible ass,” Cas said plainly. Sam quietly agreed.
Dean put his hands in his pocket, “Well, whatever. I do. So…”
“Well, It’s obvious that I--”
“Obvious?!”
“Yes, at the homecoming game--”
Dean pointed his finger at him, “You were the one that said that didn’t count!”
“You looked like you were going to throw yourself off a cliff!” Cas said, throwing his hands up in the air.
“That’s because-!” Dean dropped his voice down low and Cas laughed the loudest Sam had ever heard him laugh.
“From just a kiss?!” Dean lunged for the hose, but Cas held it out of reach. “No! I’m not apologizing for your erection, Dean.” Sam scrunched up his face.
Cas unkinked the hose and sprayed at Dean, making him jump back. He didn’t jump far enough though, Cas got him with the hose anyway. Dean, soaked, grabbed it from him. Without looking away from Cas, he tossed it off to the side. Cas stepped forward, pulling Dean in for a kiss by the base of his neck.
A cheek-busting grin sprang from somewhere inside Sam and he fought the urge to pump his fist in the sky like a middle schooler.
Then, of course, wet clothes started coming off and Sam hurried away from the window before he scarred himself for life.