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John got home either very late or very early, depending on which way you looked at it. He peeked into his room, not at all surprised to see his son sleeping in there. Dean was very good about moving to the room he shared with Sam when he expected his dad to be home, but this time, he hadn’t given them any warning. He closed the door carefully and went to check on Sam. He was extremely surprised to find both beds occupied. Dean had better be able to give a good explanation. He went to the couch and lay down, sleeping lightly.
He woke up at the sound of someone moving around in the kitchen. He sat up, ready to call out to Dean, but stopped short at the sight of an unfamiliar boy. The boy looked like he was perfectly at home as he scrambled eggs and fried bacon, cut some melon and poured drinks. Three plates hit the table, and then the boy looked out. “Oh! Hello! Sam and Dean didn’t tell me you were coming home, sir. Would you like some breakfast?” The boy’s voice was surprisingly rough.
“Don’t bother about me,” John said.
“It’s no bother, eggs and bacon are quick enough to cook.” The boy already had the eggs back out, so John decided not to protest. He’d probably eaten worse, really.
Sam came out while John was pouring his coffee. “Mornin’ Cas, what’s… Dad?” Sam stopped short. “Hey, I didn’t think you’d be here till Friday.”
“Job wrapped up early, no reason to stay, and now I get a couple days with you boys before we all take off,” John said.
Dean was not far behind Sam. “Dad? Hey, good to see you! When did you get in?”
“About 2:30,” John said, leaning against the counter with his coffee cup. “Care to explain what I came home to?”
Dean looked blank for a minute. “What do you… oh! Right. Dad, this is Cas Godwin, our friend from school. Cas, John Winchester.” John stared incredulously at Dean. There was a strange boy sleeping in the same room as Sammy and Dean had to think about what his dad might find odd about that? That wasn’t the son he knew.
Cas put John’s plate on the table, which sparked everyone to move so they could actually eat their breakfast. “How’d you make friends with my boys, Cas?”
“Dean and I have several classes together. We found we work extremely well together in engineering – Dean has an excellent grasp of design, and I’m good with the math side. And then, once Dean decides to be your new best friend, it’s nearly impossible not to befriend Sam as well,” Cas said.
“Huh. Figured you for closer to Sammy’s age,” John said. The kid couldn’t be older than sixteen. Others might make that mistake, but John had seen enough hunters’ kids to know the look of someone who’d seen more shit than a short life should allow.
“I am. I’m sixteen. I started school early, because I have a September birthday, so I’m a junior, and I’m in advanced courses,” Cas explained.
“Sammy? Got anything to add here?” John asked.
Sam stared at his plate. He didn’t speak until he’d finished his melon slices. “Cas is awesome, and even the first time we hung out, he never treated me like his friend’s little brother who he has to play nice with. I’ve never had a friend like him.” That didn’t explain why Sam wouldn’t look up from his plate, or the worried glance Dean shot Cas. “And don’t call me Sammy. It’s Sam now.”
“Yeah, okay.” He’d try to remember. “Tell me about yourself, Cas.”
“I’m on the track team with Dean and Sam. I do pole vault and high jump, sometimes long jump or triple jump if the coach needs me to,” Cas said.
Sam finally looked up, breaking in. “You should see him pole vault. He practically flies.”
Cas chuckled. “I could say the same about you and Dean when you run. Their sprint relay is expected to win area, you know. I live with my uncle and cousin. Anna has a couple classes with Dean. I’m an artist, mostly drawing but I’ve done a lot of things. I’m sort of Catholic…”
“Sort of?” Dean interrupted. John was grateful. It meant he didn’t have to ask for that one to be explained.
It was Cas’s turn to stare at his plate. “I attend the Catholic church here in town, but I got kicked out of my Confirmation class, so things are currently rather awkward.”
Sam reached out and squeezed Cas’s hand, prompting a raised eyebrow from John. “Why’d they kick you out?”
Cas looked at their joined hands briefly. “Because I refuse to repent of my sinfulness and change my ways. Given the choice, I chose to leave the class.”
Sam looked like he’d just watched someone kick a puppy. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Cas looked over at John briefly. “Can we do this later?”
“Yeah, no problem,” Sam said, letting go of Cas’s hand and scooting back in his chair.
“What else would you like to know, sir?” Cas asked as he settled back himself.
The first thing that popped into John’s head was that he wanted to know what that little exchange was all about, but he had a feeling the boys wouldn’t tell him. “Right now, I’m just trying to figure out why my boys let you get this close. It’s not like them.”
“I can’t answer that,” Cas said. “I’m just grateful they have.”
“I got no idea,” Dean added. “Hadn’t known him two weeks before I invited him over. What I do know is he’s here more often than not, and when he’s not, it feels like something’s missing. The other day my girl called me out on saying I was taking my brothers to a movie. Took her three tries to make me realize what I’d said wrong.”
Well, that was quite the endorsement. “Sammy? You feel the same?”
Once again, Sam wouldn’t meet his eyes as he took forever to answer. “Not exactly. It feels just as weird to me to have him gone as it does for Dean, but I don’t think of him as a brother.”
Dean snorted. “Not the way I heard it.”
Sam was up and out of his chair, halfway to the door before John had finished rolling his eyes enough to realize Dean was still at the table calmly sipping his coffee. On the other hand, Cas had gone after Sam. “You gonna…”
“Nah, Cas’ll get it,” Dean said.
John very carefully set his coffee down. “All right. What are you and what have you done with my son?”
“Huh?” Dean once again looked utterly thrown by a simple question.
“My son Dean would go take care of Sam, no matter what, when he’s upset like that. He sure as hell wouldn’t let someone else do it,” John said, wondering why the hell he had to explain that. Unless this really was a shifter or something.
Dean’s response was the last thing John would have ever expected. “I wouldn’t let ‘someone else’ take care of Sammy if he got a freakin’ paper cut. Cas, I trust with Sam. Full stop. No reservations. And for this? Cas’ll do a better job than I could.”
Cas let Sam get outside before he called out. “Sam, wait.” Sam slowed, but didn’t stop until he was around the corner, under the window to his bedroom. Cas caught up and wrapped him up in a hug. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d feel responsible, and it has nothing to do with you. I didn’t choose you over Confirmation, I chose being true to myself and my God over Confirmation. I can do it later, and I will if I find a church that will let me.”
“But I’m the reason people around here found out. You were… no one knew,” Sam said.
Cas held Sam a little tighter. “Because there was no reason for them to. Nobody ever asked. If they had, I wouldn’t have lied. I would have lied if you weren’t comfortable being together openly, and I still will, but not on my own behalf.”
Much to his relief, Cas felt Sam’s arms come up around him. “Cas, I’m not hiding from Dad because I’m ashamed or anything. You get that, right? He’s just… he was already one wrong word from kicking you out, and I haven’t said anything to him about…”
“Your dad, your call,” Cas said. “If you were ashamed, you wouldn’t be going out of your way to not lie. ‘Don’t think of him as a brother’ indeed. Until Dean shot off his mouth, I was literally biting my tongue so I wouldn’t laugh.”
Sam chuckled. “You know, for once I’m kind of grateful he did? It gave us a chance to talk and gave him a chance to show Dad just how strongly we feel that you’re a part of this family.”
“Your brother’s diabolical sometimes,” Cas said. “Did he ever tell you that it wasn’t Bela that kept him so late, the first time I came over? Well, not just her. He thought I’d be good for you – although he didn’t know exactly what he was setting in motion, he just thought you could use a friend and that you and I would get along.”
“Sounds like Dean. Were you in on it?” Sam asked.
“No, he only told me a few days ago,” Cas said. “Love me anyway?”
“You know I do,” Sam said as he pulled back just far enough to kiss Cas. “Come on, I have something I need to tell Dad.”
“See? Cas had it,” Dean said, and John turned to look. Sure enough, Cas had his arm around Sam, and Sam looked happy. Very happy.
“Dad? I need to finish what I was saying earlier before Dean had his temporary fit of insanity. I can’t think of Cas as my brother, because Cas is my boyfriend,” Sam said.
Once again, John set his coffee down very carefully. Not that he gave a crap, but since when was Sam gay? Isn’t that the sort of thing he should’ve been told? Dean didn’t look surprised, though; just relieved. “Run that by me again.”
“Cas and I have been dating for about a month and a half,” Sam said, leaning just a little bit more into Cas.
John tried to steady himself before he started shouting. “Dean? Mind explaining a few things here?”
“What’s to explain?” Dean asked, and John shot him an incredulous glare. “I don’t think I can say it any clearer than Sam just did.”
“I saw whose room Cas slept in last night,” John said.
“Easy enough, that’s the room with the second bed,” Dean said, still not getting why this was a problem for John. “The first time Cas slept over, he and Sam weren’t dating yet, hell I didn’t even know for sure that was something that was on the table. So no one thought anything of Cas taking the bed that would’ve been empty if he weren’t here.”
John was trying, he was. But this was his youngest son, the one he’d been able to shield from the worst of the corruptive influences of their lifestyle, and Dean was just letting this happen. “How do you know there’s nothing…”
“Oh, come on, Dad. Did you miss the part where it’s Sam? And Cas is pretty much the same way. They’re taking things at their own pace,” Dean said. It wasn’t exactly reassuring. “Couple weeks ago, I don’t remember exactly what Cas did, but it made Sam uncomfortable. Sam let Cas know that and Cas backed right off, no arguments or excuses, just an apology and a promise not to do it again until Sam said he could. So, yeah, I don’t know what they’re doing when they go to bed. But I do know that they’re both on board with it, and I stay out of that part of their relationship as much as I can.”
“He’s fourteen,” John spat.
“And Cas is sixteen. The way birthdays fall it’s not even a full two years. Whatever magical benefit those extra twenty months have given Cas, Sam makes up for by having had an older brother all his life,” Dean said, completely missing John’s point.
So John clarified. Or tried to. “He’s not old enough…”
“Seriously?” Dean demanded. “I was thirteen when I came home from a date and you could tell that I wasn’t a virgin anymore. You gave me a high-five.” Yeah, well, that was different. At thirteen, Dean had been given responsibilities that most twenty-year-olds couldn’t handle.
He had just opened his mouth to explain that when Sam cut him off. “Dad, we’re not…” he started. He stopped for a bit and restarted with, “Not that it’s any of your business, but Cas and I haven’t gone that far yet. I don’t feel ready, and if Cas does, he hasn’t said anything to me because he knows where I am.”
Somewhat reassuring, John had to admit. But… “You’re my son. How the hell is it not any of my business?”
“It could be, if, say, you knew anything about my relationship with Cas. Or people in general. If you hadn’t always left that kind of thing to Dean to take care of. If Dean’s okay with things, then you should figure out a way to get there,” Sam said.
John knew that Sam had some resentment toward the life, toward his dad for being gone all the time. This was the first time that he’d actually seen just how deep that went, and he didn’t like it at all. But there wasn’t much he could do to fix things right now, so he focused on the issue at hand. “What happens in June?”
“We say goodbye, it hurts like hell, I hate you for weeks, and once I’m over the anger and the rawest of the pain, I have four months of great memories. We’re both willing to take the bet that the high will be worth the pain.” That was not the answer John had expected, but he had to admit it was a good one. Sam wasn’t living in some delusion that John would let them stay because he thought he was in love.
Dean looked like he had some other thoughts about it. “What is it, boy?” John asked.
“Nothing I’m willing to talk about where they can hear us, at least not until after Spring Break,” Dean said. A thought hit him then. “Oh crap! Cas, I’ve been meaning to ask you for like a week. Ever since I got my license, Sam and I have done a week-long road trip for Spring Break. I talked to Gabriel and he doesn’t see any reason you shouldn’t come with us if you’d like. Don’t need an answer…”
“Yes. If you and Sam don’t mind me intruding on ‘brother time’,” Cas said quickly.
“Yeah, no, Sam and I told Dad just a few minutes ago that we both think of you as an important part of the family, you’re not intruding,” Dean said. “The other thing, I asked where Michael and his goons live so we can plan on going nowhere near there…”
“Michael and his goons? Who the hell is Michael?” John asked.
“The man who impregnated my mother seventeen years ago,” Cas explained. “Thank you, Dean.”
“Gabriel suggested that we set something up for you to get spotted somewhere several states away from here,” Dean continued. “If you don’t want to risk it, we won’t, but it could buy you a month or two of peace. But I remember how terrified you were when you nearly ran into Michael a few days ago…”
John couldn’t explain how Sam and Cas were standing differently, but instead of Cas supporting and comforting Sam, now it was the other way around. “We’ll be there, you know we’ll never let Michael take you,” Sam whispered.
“I know, it’s just… I don’t think I can. I’ve only got one more year before I leave for college, and I’m already terrified of the month between leaving for college and turning eighteen,” Cas said.
Dean shrugged. “Not a problem, Cas. This way we don’t have to worry about being anywhere in particular at a specific time, except that we need to be back here in time to get you nerds to bed on time Sunday night.”
“Dean? What the hell is going on?” John asked, his irritation bleeding through.
Cas answered before Dean could. “Michael – my father – turned abusive when I told him I’m gay. I ran away rather than submit. My uncle, Gabriel, has enough influence in this town that no one here is willing to give me up, no matter how many times Michael or another relative comes looking.”
Dean jumped in then. “You make it so Cas has to run from here, I’m going with him, and we’re taking Sammy.”
This boy just kept getting more and more interesting. And worrying, though John would never say anything in front of him. He was going to have a word with Dean before he took off again; this boy had a scary amount of power over his sons that they couldn’t explain at all. “Speaking of telling dads you’re gay… Sam?” He almost said Sammy, but caught himself just in time.
“Still not sure I am,” Sam said with a shrug. “For all I know Cas could be an exception to a general preference for girls. My plan all along was to tell you about Cas the next time I saw you, this was something I wanted to do in person so I could properly introduce Cas. It’s not my fault that didn’t happen for two months and then you showed up without warning.”
Fair enough, John had to admit. So he turned his attention to Dean. “I’m surprised at you, son. You set your brother up for the worst pain of his life, and you’re encouraging him to make it worse? You and your girls are different, you forget their names a week after you’re gone. It won’t be like that for Sammy.”
“I know,” Dean said heavily. “But Sam’s not the only one living in the now and dealing with the pain when it comes. You don’t think it’s gonna hurt like hell when I lose a friend I consider a brother? When I set them up to be friends, I didn’t know where it would end up, and then we all figured it was a teenage crush and it would run its course and fizzle. When it became more, I made sure Sam knew what he was in for, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him to end things. I think it’d do more harm than good, honestly.”
“You always going to be this involved in your brother’s relationships?” John asked, somewhat concerned by this.
“Depends on if Sam keeps picking people like Cas. He was my friend first,” Dean said defensively.
“Dean gives us all the space we want, in fact, there are times when he decides to get out of our way that we’d actually be happier to have him with us,” Cas said. “If we’re not on a date, I actually prefer to have Dean with us.”
“Me too,” Sam said. “Just like it doesn’t feel quite right to me or Dean when Cas is gone, it doesn’t feel quite right to me or Cas to just hang out together without Dean.”
“Well, then,” John said, trying to process this. Aside from his qualms about Cas in general, this actually sounded like a good life experience for both of his boys. “I don’t wanna hear moping when we leave, from either of you, but I guess enjoy it while you have it isn’t the worst life philosophy. Cas, it safe to assume Dean explained the consequences of hurting my boy?”
“Yes, sir,” Cas said.
“Sam, too,” Dean said. “Well, you know. The consequences of hurting Cas. Aside from the big one in June.”