Archive of Our Own

Dean was seventeen the last time he prayed to God. It also happened to be the first time he ever kissed a boy.

His name was Andrew. They had PE together, and English. Andrew was three months younger than him, which he liked to say made Dean old. Andrew whispered commentary on their Catcher in the Rye lesson under his breath to make Dean laugh. Andrew started bringing an extra pen with him after Dean asked to borrow one a few days in a row. Andrew didn't mind waiting the extra few minutes after the last bell for Dean to trudge over to the middle school and check on Sammy before finding his way back to him, even if it meant losing out on their first-choice smoking spot to someone faster.

Andrew was...pretty. Dean didn't know how to describe it in any other way. He stayed up late one night trying to think of a better word, getting caught up in his dimple (singular, just on the left) and his hair (dark, really dark) and his eyes (bright, really bright). Pretty wasn't the perfect word, and if he said it out loud it would probably sound more like an insult he had heard more than a few times. But Andrew wasn't handsome, or maybe he was, but saying it made Dean feel like he was a 50-something-year-old woman wiping away tears as she sent her son down the aisle. Andrew was beautiful. He was definitely beautiful. But saying that felt too heavy, too full. So pretty would do, at least for now.

He could hear Sammy breathing slowly a few feet away, spread-eagle on the other hideously patterned double bed. It was just the two of them and had been for some time. Their dad had decided that now that Dean was in high school, he could leave them alone for longer while he hunted. Months at a time. And it was shit, obviously it was shit, but Dean also knew it was something he could keep in his back pocket. Every day their dad forgot to call, every day he told Dean to stretch the money he gave him for another week or only came by the motel while they were at school, Dean imagined calling the cops and child services taking them far, far away. He knew it was a pipe dream, that he would never risk getting separated from Sammy, but sue him, it was something.

He'd been carrying that small piece of comfort he allowed himself for a while. Until Andrew. Somehow, this pretty boy had decided that Dean was worth spending time with, worth getting to know despite his shitty excuses for lies about where he was from, why he was here, who he was. Somehow, he still thought Dean was funny and interesting and good enough, all on his own.

Dean couldn't remember how long his dad had been gone. He wasn't sure he cared.

Dean dropped off his brother with a yawn and a half-hearted shove out of the car as he bounded off to some smart kid before school thing. It was a minor miracle that the gaudy red truck he "borrowed" from a few towns over hadn't been recognized yet, though maybe that was more to do with the forged plates Bobby had sent in the mail when he'd gotten too nervous driving around with the real ones.

Dean pulled around to the small clearing near school that he and Andrew preferred, half-concealed by the surrounding forest. It was quiet, a bit out of the way but not a crazy trek, and most importantly, out of the line of sight of all the places teachers were usually stationed. He pulled out a loose cigarette from his pocket and twirled it between his fingers before opening the window. He didn't care much for smoking, mostly just didn't have much of a reason to quit. Dean breathed in the morning air between pulls and tried to convince himself he wouldn't be disappointed if today was the day Andrew decided not to show.

But Andrew showed up a few minutes later, dimple deepening when he saw Dean. He shoved his backpack into the space below the dash and slid into the seat after it.

"It's too early," he said, patting his pants pockets before finding the dented box of cigarettes. He held one between his teeth as Dean lit it with his Zippo.

"You say that every day."

"And wouldn't you know it, it's too early every fucking day!" he knocked his elbow into Dean's and Dean did his best to look straight ahead.

"Dude, put down the window. You're gonna get sent to the office again if you reek of smoke that bad."

"Fuck 'em. Who cares," Andrew said, but rolled down his window anyway. "I do like your car, though, so I'll be nice."

Dean snorted. "Appreciate it."

"How's Sammy?" Andrew asked a few moments later.

"Good, yeah. He got an A on his history project, the one he was stressing about. He wanted me to read over it, make sure everything was right, you know, but I had no idea any of the shit he was writing about. Kid's too smart for me." Dean cleared his throat and tried not to make it obvious how much that had bothered him.

Andrew opened his mouth like he wanted to say something but stopped himself. Instead, he only said, barely audible, "you're plenty smart."

Dean looked out into the woods. "Thanks."

They talked for a while after that. Apparently, someone senior Andrew knew from middle school was hooking up with his best friend's girlfriend again. And the janitor may or may not be stealing used gym clothes from the locker room, which Dean pretended to gag at. And Andrew's parents had gotten mad at him for another D on his report card and grounded him.

Andrew frequently complained about his parents, something he had only recently started doing again. He had stopped for a while when Dean told him his mother was dead over a stolen bottle of vodka. Dean had reassured him that he didn't mind, that he liked hearing about Andrew's family, even if it wasn't always good. He didn't say that he liked hearing about a family that wasn't just a little brother, a motel paid for in advance, and a dad thousands of miles away in some way or another. Andrew got the message, though.

"You know Amy from second period?" Andrew offered up without segue.

Dean ashed his cigarette in the cup holder. "The hot blonde? With the braces?"

"Yeah, her."

"I guess." He flicked the spent cigarette butt out the window.

"I was gonna ask her to prom."

Dean turned back a bit too quickly. Andrew looked at him like he was expecting a response. The best he could come up with was, "Prom?"

Andrew laughed a bit awkwardly. "Yeah, dude. You know, prom? That whole dance thing? Juniors are allowed to go, too."

That wasn't exactly the hangup Dean had, but he latched onto it anyway. "Oh yeah, I forgot. I didn't know you were into her."

"Well, she's pretty, isn't she?" he looked sideways back at Dean.

"I guess." Dean said again. He suddenly felt an overwhelming need to get out of the car. "We should get going. Don't want Mrs. Peters to write me up again."

"Dean."

"I mean, I don't know what's wrong with that woman but she's got it out for me."

"Dean."

"Maybe it's because I never write the date at the top of my paper but in my defense, I always forget--"

Andrew had put his hand on Dean's knee to get him to stop. It worked.

"Dean, I'm not going to prom with Amy."

"You're not?" Dean found his voice a bit higher than normal.

Andrew shook his head.

"Oh," Dean said.

"Do I seem like the kind of guy that wants to do shitty slow dancing in a school gym on a Saturday night?"

"Not really," Dean said slowly.

"There you go."

"Then why did you say you're going to ask her?" Dean asked before he could stop himself.

Andrew looked like he was half hoping Dean wouldn't ask that.

"Just wanted to see," Andrew said slowly, his eyebrows scrunched together in careful concentration.

"See what?"

He sighed and put out his cigarette in the same spot. "You're an idiot, Dean Winchester."

Andrew steeled himself and leaned over from the passenger seat, grabbing Dean's face before he could think to react. And suddenly they were kissing.

Kissing Andrew was unlike anything Dean had ever experienced. He'd kissed two girls before: Anne in a tiny suburb outside Toledo and Caroline somewhere in Arkansas, though he couldn't remember exactly where. They were nice. Cute, too. They'd blushed when he'd pecked them on the lips and didn't seem too upset when he told them he had to leave town. He'd told his dad about them when he'd asked, a couple beers in and looking for reassurance that his oldest son was a real man.

He felt like a man now. His hand wrapped around Andrew's neck and found a tiny knob of a scar that he knew was from where he'd fallen off a swing at age five. Andrew had smashed their faces together and was only now just holding him a little less tightly. Dean opened his mouth slightly and pulled him back in, hand in Andrew's curly hair. Their noses rammed into each other, their teeth and tongues moving imperfectly. But all of it, all of it was so good, so overwhelmingly good, and Dean didn't know how he had lived without it for so long.

They pulled apart eventually, one of Andrew's hands having found its way under Dean's t-shirt, the other still cradling his face. Andrew was breathing heavily, and Dean found some giddy excitement in the back of his mind as he realized that he knew what those lips tasted like, like cigarette smoke and the early morning. His face was tinted pink and red, pupils wide and black.

"Jesus Christ," Dean said as some sort of reply.

"Nope, just me," Andrew said with a shit-eating grin, and Dean could see how nervous he had been before, how uncertain. He was himself now, all the smiles and projected confidence a newly 17-year-old could muster.

"Yeah, just you," Dean said, still dazed.

Andrew got that furrowed look in his face again. "Was I...I mean, was that okay? With you?"

"You're really pretty," Dean said, and before he could take it back, Andrew had that look on his face. Shiny, Dean supposed, was the best way to describe it. He clamped down all the words threatening to spill from his tongue, all the excuses prepared for his own protection. He wouldn't do anything to take that look off his face.

"Well, thank you very much, Mr. Winchester," Andrew drawled, and through the sarcasm Dean could see how happy he was. Pretty, Dean's brain reminded him again, echoing like a mantra. Pretty.

"I just mean yeah, that's okay. Dick." Dean's face finally caught up to his heart and he was grinning too.

"You're an idiot," he said again.

"Hmm. I heard I was pretty damn smart."

Andrew flicked him in the shoulder. He snaked his arm around to the side of Dean's neck, his thumb resting on his pulse.

"Now what kind of idiot would tell you that?" Andrew said, and pulled him in again.

Eventually, the warning bell rang, still audible from where they were hidden in the trees. Dean untangled himself from Andrew's gangly limbs and checked his neck in the side mirror. They made their way through the path etched into the weeds, the pattern somehow visible already despite having only seen a few weeks of true spring so far that year. Andrew's hand kept knocking into his. His other hand was flailing around as he reenacted some story Dean was trying hard to take in with everything else.

The double doors of the school's entrance within view, Andrew ghosted his finger across Dean's palm. He inhaled sharply. Andrew gave a small smile and a told him he would see him in second period before turning to head inside. Second period, Dean thought, absently. He could do that.

When Dean was called to the office not thirty-two minutes after the first bell, he wasn't surprised. And when he saw his dad and Sam standing at the secretary's desk, his brother giddy with anticipation of diner meals instead of microwave ones, he still wasn't surprised. He let his dad ruffle his hair before signing their withdrawal papers and they were on their way.

From the passenger seat of the Impala, he wondered if anyone ever told Andrew where he went. If he had to ask their English teacher, if she had even known he was gone, if he had to work his way up until someone knew the answer. He wondered, in a more unpleasant way, if Andrew would even care to ask anyone at all. Maybe, Dean thought, he would walk past the red truck with the fake license plates and the cigarette ash in the cup holder and the time and the care and the kissing and not turn for a second look.

Maybe, if Dean was more of a man, he would have stopped by the room where he knew Andrew would be and told him where he was going, given him Bobby's address to write to, promised to call, something. If Dean was more of a man, he'd have kissed him, right there in the hall, in front of everyone and everything. But then, maybe if he was more of a man, he'd have run away years ago. Maybe, maybe.  

Dean prayed. Then, there, face turned away to the window so his dad can't see his eyelids fluttering closed. He thought for a moment about asking God to make him not..not something he can look at directly just yet, but then he thought of the revelation that was the time he had with Andrew and couldn't do it. He did still ask God for a few things. To make sure Andrew's safe. To make sure he's happy. To make sure Dean's dad never finds out, not ever. He asked God what to do, how to live, how to be a man. He didn't receive an answer. Dean opened his red-rimmed eyes and settled back into the seat.

Dean doesn't see Andrew again.

"Cas, where the hell is the remote?" Dean called out, his arm shoved between the cushions of the couch. Cas walked over to the TV console and pulled it out of some drawer Dean was pretty sure had never seen the light of day.

"It's where I always leave it. You and Jack have the same problem. No object permanence."

"Wouldn't be such a problem if the objects would stay permanent," Dean grumbled, and neither of them really knew what he meant. Dean patted the empty cushion next to him. "Sit."

Cas obeyed. Dean studied him for a moment, eyes up and down. He blinked, eyes closed for a moment too long.

"Can I ask you something?" Dean said.

"Yes, I remember." Cas replied, as if Dean had said aloud the question he was thinking, the one that had burned circles into his mind after all these years.

"You--you what?"

"I watched you long before I was assigned to pull you from Hell, Dean. I listened to your prayers, even as a child." Cas continued, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Dean's heart fluttered. "And?" he said, hoarse.

"He is safe, Dean. And happy."

Dean made a noise in the back of his throat. "He has a husband and two kids," Cas said. "They live in a blue house with daffodils that bloom in the springtime."

Cas hesitated for a moment, but kept speaking. "After you left, he wished you would come back so fiercely I heard it like a prayer."

Dean was crying now. He did that a lot lately. Cas took both hands and wiped away the tears from under his eyes. Their knees knocked together.

"I can tell you where he is, if you would like."

"No, no, that's okay," Dean said, and he was sure.

Cas kissed him lightly on the tip of his cheekbone and then the corner of his mouth. He liked to do that, kiss him in odd places. Dean just kissed him back on the mouth, sweet and with all the meaning he could muster, every word he couldn't say.

"I love you," he said without the consternation that would have accompanied it a few years ago.

"I love you too" Cas replied easily. And it was true.