FIC: Inferiority
Title: Inferiority
Author: wormstaches
Rating: PG-13
Genre and/or Pairing: Dean/Cas, mentions of Cas/Anna, Dean/Anna, and Dean/Lisa; High School!AU
Spoilers: none, it's AU
Warnings: references to oral sex and masturbation?
Word Count: ~3800
Summary: Cas was better than Dean at everything, except the important things.
When Cas gets his best friend to sign up for ceramics with him, all of their pent up feelings begin to come up.
It had been Cas’s idea to sign up for ceramics when he saw that both he and Dean had a free period on their schedules. Dean had smirked as Cas proposed the idea and said, “I’ll try anything once,” winking flirtatiously at Cas, who’d looked down at his hands, blushing. Dean’s comments, his overabundance of sexuality, made Cas uncomfortable, but he’d never say anything to Dean. Because then he’d have to explain, he’d have to-- “Shit,” he swore as his elbow slid on his knee and his bowl collapsed into a lumpy mess circling on the wheel before him. He heard a huff of laughter and looked up to see Dean smiling as he stared intently at his massive urn. He had one hand inside and the other outside as he brought up the sides, and hadn’t even needed to look at Cas to know he’d messed up. Again.
Cas had suggested ceramics because he’d never done it before and he tended to be good at everything. Tended to. Dean had agreed because really, what else was he going to do if his free period became suddenly Cas-less. Cas liked being the best at what he did, and he usually was. The last time Cas had been inferior to anyone was when he’d taken shop with Dean in eighth grade. He’d learned quickly that he could do little with woodworking, staring blankly at a jagged piece of wood, coughing softly from the sawdust that filled the air. He’d stare at Dean pleadingly until he’d look up from his chair or whatever the fuck masterpiece he’d be making, cross the shop and stand behind Cas, chin on his shoulder, and help him guide the piece through the saw. He’d tried engines the next semester and while Dean was busy driving the cars he fixed back to their owners, Cas was lying aimlessly on his back, daydreams of Dean’s strong, warm body against his, twisting into the mess of pipes, his hair even more unruly from the engine grease that inevitably got caught in it. Dean would slide under the car beside Cas, bumping his own trolley slightly, and show him what to loosen, what to tighten, where to twist and where to turn. They’d fiddle about together, elbows and feet bumping, as Dean gave Cas instructions, which Cas followed to the T.
He supposed that was when it started, when he was helpless for the first time in his life and Dean was there, helping him, rescuing him. Touching him. Cas liked to say it had nothing to do with the touching but really, it had everything to do with it. Dean was a hands on person. He couldn’t articulate instructions, so he had to demonstrate them. Cas would have barely asked for help before Dean was in his personal space, hands covering Cas’s thin ones, arms wrapping around his sides to help guide a tool. It became a habit, their lack of space. Never anything more, just a closeness, a constant physical comfort. Sure, they got shit for it at first, but when three years went by and no one caught them making out in Dean’s car or behind the bleachers, people gave up their hopes for a gay scandal. When Dean called him on a Friday night in their Sophomore year from a party, blabbering incoherently so Cas could only hear the words “Cas...Lisa...in the bathroom...lost my...” It was enough and Cas hung up without a word, forcing himself into the tiny print of his American History textbook, putting his own thoughts of a “gay scandal,” although he used far more romantic terms, to rest. At least that’s what he said he did.
When he started masturbating, forcing his thoughts upon his lab partner, Anna, a pretty redheaded girl (Chemistry was the only class he didn’t have with Dean. On the second day of school Dean has mysteriously ended up with different classes, all corresponding to Cas’s, and when Cas asked him if he’d change his schedule to be with him he’d looked at his hands and muttered something like, “‘F’course not, had two math classes so the whole thing was fucked.”), he’d find himself coming to the vision of the tangle of a car’s underside beneath his lids, a memory of creased green eyes and a warmth against his side, teeth gritted in a rounded consonant noise, not a smooth vowel gasp. He’d go into the bathroom and as he washed his hands he’d focus on his memory of crossing the parking lot to the Impala after school for his usual ride and finding Lisa going down on Dean in the front seat and Dean saying, “Sorry, not today, Cas,” without even bothering to stop Lisa. The “Sorry, not today”s turned into an every day occurrence and Cas would walk home, angrily stomping on leaves and kicking rocks, as Lisa climbed into the shotgun seat of the Impala. His shotgun seat.
That was how things were. How they were meant to be. It was this memory that drove Cas to ask Anna out. They went to a movie and Anna had jumped on him halfway through. He couldn’t remember what had happened in the B-list movie for the life of him, because all he could recall from that night was how soft her hair was and how she tasted like lemonade and cinnamon. When he’d collapsed into his bed, grinning, he found he could finally understand why Dean liked girls so much. They were soft and rounded and no hard edges. When he bumped against Anna’s side, there were no harsh angles or firm, muscled flesh.
Cas had himself convinced he was straight for awhile, making out with Anna while they pretended to study for Chem tests. It all fell apart at homecoming, though. He’d driven with Anna and Dean, who was meeting up with Lisa there. Dean had pulled out a flask of whiskey he’d stolen from his dad and while Cas made halfhearted protests, he and Anna had split it between the two of them. They entered the dance stumbling slightly, but not enough for anyone to notice. Cas couldn’t help but think they were smiling at each other too much. Smiling around him. He’d put it out of his mind when Anna began grinding against him, a teenage stereotype he’d though vulgar and immature until that night, but when he’d gone looking for Anna after she’d been to the bathroom for far too long, and found her pressed flush against Dean in the water fountain alcove, one hand snaked down his pants. He’d run out, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes as he raced to the bus stop. The whole ride home the image played on repeat in the reflection of the windows, but whenever it would begin the loop again, the punch to Cas’s gut came when he thought of Dean kissing someone else, not of Anna kissing someone else, even though she was, for all intents and purposes, his girlfriend.
Cas had said nothing to either of them the next day, or any other day after that. They smiled awkwardly at each other for awhile but he guessed they both cared about him enough to not hook up behind his back. Anna switched lab partners when he stopped kissing her back and spilled acid on her new dress, the one she’d excitedly asked him if it was “Dean’s style.” She must have figured out that he knew about her and Dean when he stopped answering her calls and changed his voicemail to, “If it’s Anna, don’t leave a voicemail. Just go back to giving my best friend handjobs.” He supposed it wasn’t the most mature thing to do, but Anna stopped bothering him and most importantly, she stopped bothering Dean. Word must have got out about it, because Lisa broke up with Dean as well, and Cas couldn’t help but smile. It was just the two of them again.
That was what was important, Cas told himself, scowling at his simple bowl while the teacher praised the elegant vase Dean was sliding onto a clean board. It didn’t matter that Dean had started hooking up with some girl named Jo he’d been friends with in elementary, before Cas moved into town. Or that Cas had a B- in this class, the first B- he’d gotten since shop. Cas liked being the best at school, because Dean wasn’t, and he already knew Dean was better at everything else. At making friends, at getting drunk (he never, ever, tried to take his pants off in front of hot guys, or girls, he supposed for Dean’s case), at being straight. Cas cringed at the last one. He’d added that to the list of things Dean was better at in the last six months because he knew it was true and it was time to stop kidding himself. Cas hadn’t said anything to Dean about his revelation because as Cas liked to insist, Dean had nothing to do with it. Bart (short for Balthazar, a sophomore he had Calculus with who sold weed behind a ficus in the cafeteria at lunch) was the one giving the hickeys Dean was so fond of making fun of, and so what if Cas had accidentally said Dean’s name once or twice when Bart went down on him. Okay, maybe a few dozen times, but what was the difference when it was just a hook up?
Despite the fact that the class was ruining his pristine GPA, Cas looked forward to days when he had ceramics. He might not be producing anything remarkable, but he got to watch Dean, who sat at the wheel across from him. The way his fingers slid over the slick surface of the clay, his calm, focused expression as he applied gentle pressure in all the right places, something Cas was never good at. He pushed too hard and his bowls would slide off center, twirling crookedly on the wheel. Cas was all frowns and furrowed brows and clay stuck in his hair and clumping on his t-shirt and Dean would wash his hands without so much as a speck of dust on his jeans.
By the last week of the grading period, Cas’s grade had slipped to a C+ and he had made a desperate deal with his teacher to raise his grade to an A-. He needed to make a tea set and he had one cup and a slightly off center saucer (although he hoped the teacher wouldn’t notice). It was five o’clock and Cas was dumping his third failed teapot into the recycle bin, when he heard the sound of the studio door closing. He looked up to see Dean dropping his gym bag next to Cas’s own messenger bag.
“What are you doing here?” Cas asked, crossing to the wedge table and aggressively slicing off another hunk of clay with the wire tool.
“Practice got off early and I thought you might need some help,” Dean answered, shrugging and coming to stand beside Cas, overlapping their shoulders slightly. Cas wanted to move away, prickling in discomfort at their proximity for the first time he could remember, but if Dean hadn’t figured out his crush (maybe, possibly, a bit of an understatement) yet, he definitely would at that “irregular” behavior. Cas, as Dean always liked to point out, had some serious personal space issues, except with people he used for “jerk-off fodder” as Dean liked to call Cas’s crushes. Again, with his complete lack of consideration for other people’s reservations or insecurities.
“You’re wedging it wrong,” Dean said softly, leaning closer and overlapping their hands as he changed the kneading pattern, fingers digging into the soft, gray clay. “There’s too many air bubbles if you just squish it like that.” Cas straightened up, moving his hands stiffly in time with Dean’s.
“You okay, Cas?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Y-You can let go now, I think I’ve got the hang of it.” He pulled his hands and the wedge away and began another. Dean followed suit and they stood like that in silence, shaping the clay into lumpy cylinders. Cas shifted his gaze to his right, to look at Dean’s wedge for a guide because really, he barely got the difference in what Dean had showed him, and saw that his hands were still. Glancing up he caught Dean’s eyes focused intently on his own hands, fingers buried up to the second knuckle in the clay. Cas’s hands stilled and Dean looked up, meeting his eyes. Cas coughed and they began working again. “Sorry, it’s the dust, you know how my asthma is.”
“I thought your asthma faded awhile ago, Cas.”
Cas froze, caught for a moment in his lie. “Well, it didn’t,” he snapped defensively.
Cas piled his wedges onto a board and walked hurriedly over to a wheel, turning it on and sitting down. He slammed the clay onto the bat and wet his hands quickly, pressing the pedal down as he squeezed the clay, trying to center quickly and block Dean out of his head. He rubbed his face on his shoulder and heard Dean chuckle as he sat down and took one of Cas’s wedges from his board, placing it on the wheel next to him.
“What are you doing?” Cas asked, not looking up.
“I’m helping you out. What Mr. Edlund doesn’t know won’t hurt him. You have to make a tea set, right? I’ll make some of the cups.”
“I don’t need your help, Dean,” Cas snapped. “Believe it or not, I can actually throw. It’s just that you’re always distracting me.”
Dean’s hands stilled on his clay. “How do I distract you?”
“You just do, okay.” Cas closed his eyes and let out a soft, pissy sigh of exasperation as a chunk of clay came off in his hands. He dropped it onto the area before him and rubbed his face on his shoulder again. Dean chuckled and Cas snapped his head towards him.
“Why do you keep laughing? Did I get clay on my face again?”
Dean was fighting to suppress another laugh. “No, it’s just the massive hickey you aren’t even trying to hide. Who’s the lucky girl?”
“No one you would know,” Cas muttered, beginning to open up his piece.
“Come on, I won’t tell, Cas, I’m your best friend. I tell you who I hook up with, you can tell me who you hook up with. At least let me know what classes you have with her, so I can narrow down the guessing pool.”
Cas said nothing. Bart was a sophomore. He was a he.
“Have I fucked her? Is that why you’re not saying anything?”
Cas’s hands jerked and the rim of his bowl collapsed. He’d had it with Dean and his confidence and his arrogance and his constant, overall betterness.
“What makes you think it’s a girl, assbutt?” he snapped.
Dean stared at him in shock for a second, before falling over the teacup, laughing hysterically. When his wheezing subsided, he looked at Cas, eyes shining and said, “I don’t know whether I should laugh harder that you just used assbutt as an insult or that you’re such a fucking girl about relationships you’d rather have me think you were gay than tell me who you’re hooking up with.”
Cas tried to fix his ruined cup in vain and said nothing. There was no way he’d finish the tea set in time to raise his grade. Even with Dean helping. Dean finished the cup and began another and still Cas said nothing, hands resting limply on either side of the splash guard, watching the decimated bowl circle round and round.
“Wait, Cas, you’re not really...are you?”
“Of course not,” Cas laughed harshly, the words sticking in his throat. He added being a dick to the list of things Dean was better at than he was.
“Okay. Because you know, I wouldn’t mind, like, if you were.”
“If I was what, Dean?”
“You know...like...gay.” Dean lingered on the word, hesitating on the long a sound, almost hopeful.
“Thanks,” Cas replied between gritted teeth. If Dean knew he was gay for him, he was sure he wouldn’t be so forthcoming with his acceptance.
It was awkward for a few minutes until Cas screwed up yet another piece and Dean slid onto the bench beside him when he began to center again. His hands joined Cas’s on the clay and together they shifted it into an even, domed cylinder.
“There you go,” Dean said softly, and Cas could feel the smile in his voice. “You just needed to relax.”
Cas smiled and nodded as he tugged the piece open and began bringing the walls up. Oddly enough, with Dean close like this, helping him the way he always did, Cas was relaxed. He wondered if he could still be close with Dean like this, even if part of him did want to rip all his clothes off and kiss him breathless in the backseat of the Impala. They were still best friends, after all, and no one said you couldn’t love someone in a you’re-my-best-friend-way and like them in a we-should-get-naked way. It felt wrong for Cas to put walls up around Dean, to move away when they forgot about personal space.
As Dean’s fingers brushed over his own, helping him compress the jagged rim, Cas shifted closer to Dean, chin resting slightly on his shoulder as he tried to see better. Dean jerked and the cup went flying.
“Shit, man, I’m sorry. You just startled me.” He leapt up to get the mop and Cas noticed his face was flushed.
“It’s quite alright, Dean,” Cas replied, turning off his wheel. “You have helped me immeasurably. We can call it a day and I will complete the tea set tomorrow. I have two days and you’ve helped me solve the problems I’ve been having.”
“Great. Cool. If you need any help with anything, just let me know,” Dean was already at the sink, scrubbing the bats, his face sharp with concentration.
You could help me with my penis. Cas didn’t have time to stop the silent, snarky reply, and he blushed, hoping Dean wasn’t also better at mind reading than he was. Dean seemed unfazed, though, so Cas gathered up his tools and bats and joined Dean at the sink. They were silent except for the slosh of water and their quiet breathing, so when Dean’s fingers momentarily entwined with Cas’s in the washing basin, Cas’s hitch in breath was audible. He glanced at Dean, but saw no visible reaction in the boy’s features, and, finding his fingers alone in the water, gripping his sponge tightly in one hand and a needle tool hanging limply in the other, he told himself he’d imagined it. He glanced at Dean again, and noticed a smudge of clay on his cheek. Without even thinking about it, he grabbed Dean’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning his head to face him, and stroked his thumb across Dean’s cheek.
“You have some clay...”
Dean froze and Cas suddenly realized what he was doing. He had just groomed Dean. Even with their lower boundaries, they never fussed with each other like that.
“You’re turning into me,” Cas forced the joke. Everyone knew Cas was the messiest thrower in the class. He waited for Dean to laugh because Cas doing stupid things was Dean’s favorite thing to laugh at, but Dean said nothing. A jolt like touching a doorknob after dragging your feet along a carpet shot down Cas’s spine as Dean’s palm brushed the side of his face as his fingers tangled in his hair, tugging slightly. His hand rose between them, holding up a small chunk of clay, and Dean smiled, “You have some clay in your hair.”
Cas told himself later it was an involuntary reaction when he grabbed Dean by the belt loops and pulled him close in an awkward kiss, leaving wet clay spots on his clean jeans. His lips were dry and he tasted a little like clay and a lot like the smell of the Impala’s leather seats in the summer, something Cas never thought would turn him on because he always grimaced at the car’s excessive macho-ness. Dean had his hands in Cas’s hair, tugging the bits of clay out, and Cas had never been more glad at his inability to do ceramics neatly. Just as Cas was placing his hands on either side of Dean’s face, leaving sticky beige fingerprints along his neck, it was over.
“You’re a liar,” Dean said as he rested his forehead against Cas’s, far too loud for a moment Cas considered so intimate. Dean kissed people all the time, though, so maybe he didn’t count it as one. Maybe Cas was just the latest on a long list of quick kisses when Dean got bored. He suppressed the thought before it could upset him.
“What?” he finally asked in response to Dean.
“You said you weren’t gay.”
“You said you didn’t care.”
“I said I didn’t mind.” Cas wondered when Dean had wrapped an arm around his waist, but he wasn’t going to start complaining now.
“Same thing.”
“No, not same thing.” Dean kissed him quickly, looking over Cas’s shoulder quickly, blushing for the second time that day. The second time Cas had ever seen him blush.
Cas just tilted his head slightly to the side, not understanding what Dean was trying to say. He was about to ask just that, when Dean let out an amused snort. “I don’t mind that you’re gay, because I cared that you said you weren’t. Since you made me sign up for this fucking stupid-ass class all I’ve wanted to do is squash your pieces because watching you throw is really hot for some reason and I’m pretty sure it’s weird to want to make out with your best friend.”
“Uh...”
Dean looked sheepish. “What can I say, you fucking up is really adorable, especially when you get clay everywhere, like in your hair, which is already insane.” He tugged another piece of clay from Cas’s hair and Cas bit his lips to fight a smile. “I mean, like, you’re actually always really adorable, I just noticed it for the first time in this class.”
And Cas had no choice but to kiss Dean again, an action which quickly goes out of his control. As Dean pushed him up against the sink, Cas added kissing to the list of things Dean is better than him at, right after being a dick. And for some reason, even though he liked being the best, Cas didn’t mind.
Author: wormstaches
Rating: PG-13
Genre and/or Pairing: Dean/Cas, mentions of Cas/Anna, Dean/Anna, and Dean/Lisa; High School!AU
Spoilers: none, it's AU
Warnings: references to oral sex and masturbation?
Word Count: ~3800
Summary: Cas was better than Dean at everything, except the important things.
When Cas gets his best friend to sign up for ceramics with him, all of their pent up feelings begin to come up.
It had been Cas’s idea to sign up for ceramics when he saw that both he and Dean had a free period on their schedules. Dean had smirked as Cas proposed the idea and said, “I’ll try anything once,” winking flirtatiously at Cas, who’d looked down at his hands, blushing. Dean’s comments, his overabundance of sexuality, made Cas uncomfortable, but he’d never say anything to Dean. Because then he’d have to explain, he’d have to-- “Shit,” he swore as his elbow slid on his knee and his bowl collapsed into a lumpy mess circling on the wheel before him. He heard a huff of laughter and looked up to see Dean smiling as he stared intently at his massive urn. He had one hand inside and the other outside as he brought up the sides, and hadn’t even needed to look at Cas to know he’d messed up. Again.
Cas had suggested ceramics because he’d never done it before and he tended to be good at everything. Tended to. Dean had agreed because really, what else was he going to do if his free period became suddenly Cas-less. Cas liked being the best at what he did, and he usually was. The last time Cas had been inferior to anyone was when he’d taken shop with Dean in eighth grade. He’d learned quickly that he could do little with woodworking, staring blankly at a jagged piece of wood, coughing softly from the sawdust that filled the air. He’d stare at Dean pleadingly until he’d look up from his chair or whatever the fuck masterpiece he’d be making, cross the shop and stand behind Cas, chin on his shoulder, and help him guide the piece through the saw. He’d tried engines the next semester and while Dean was busy driving the cars he fixed back to their owners, Cas was lying aimlessly on his back, daydreams of Dean’s strong, warm body against his, twisting into the mess of pipes, his hair even more unruly from the engine grease that inevitably got caught in it. Dean would slide under the car beside Cas, bumping his own trolley slightly, and show him what to loosen, what to tighten, where to twist and where to turn. They’d fiddle about together, elbows and feet bumping, as Dean gave Cas instructions, which Cas followed to the T.
He supposed that was when it started, when he was helpless for the first time in his life and Dean was there, helping him, rescuing him. Touching him. Cas liked to say it had nothing to do with the touching but really, it had everything to do with it. Dean was a hands on person. He couldn’t articulate instructions, so he had to demonstrate them. Cas would have barely asked for help before Dean was in his personal space, hands covering Cas’s thin ones, arms wrapping around his sides to help guide a tool. It became a habit, their lack of space. Never anything more, just a closeness, a constant physical comfort. Sure, they got shit for it at first, but when three years went by and no one caught them making out in Dean’s car or behind the bleachers, people gave up their hopes for a gay scandal. When Dean called him on a Friday night in their Sophomore year from a party, blabbering incoherently so Cas could only hear the words “Cas...Lisa...in the bathroom...lost my...” It was enough and Cas hung up without a word, forcing himself into the tiny print of his American History textbook, putting his own thoughts of a “gay scandal,” although he used far more romantic terms, to rest. At least that’s what he said he did.
When he started masturbating, forcing his thoughts upon his lab partner, Anna, a pretty redheaded girl (Chemistry was the only class he didn’t have with Dean. On the second day of school Dean has mysteriously ended up with different classes, all corresponding to Cas’s, and when Cas asked him if he’d change his schedule to be with him he’d looked at his hands and muttered something like, “‘F’course not, had two math classes so the whole thing was fucked.”), he’d find himself coming to the vision of the tangle of a car’s underside beneath his lids, a memory of creased green eyes and a warmth against his side, teeth gritted in a rounded consonant noise, not a smooth vowel gasp. He’d go into the bathroom and as he washed his hands he’d focus on his memory of crossing the parking lot to the Impala after school for his usual ride and finding Lisa going down on Dean in the front seat and Dean saying, “Sorry, not today, Cas,” without even bothering to stop Lisa. The “Sorry, not today”s turned into an every day occurrence and Cas would walk home, angrily stomping on leaves and kicking rocks, as Lisa climbed into the shotgun seat of the Impala. His shotgun seat.
That was how things were. How they were meant to be. It was this memory that drove Cas to ask Anna out. They went to a movie and Anna had jumped on him halfway through. He couldn’t remember what had happened in the B-list movie for the life of him, because all he could recall from that night was how soft her hair was and how she tasted like lemonade and cinnamon. When he’d collapsed into his bed, grinning, he found he could finally understand why Dean liked girls so much. They were soft and rounded and no hard edges. When he bumped against Anna’s side, there were no harsh angles or firm, muscled flesh.
Cas had himself convinced he was straight for awhile, making out with Anna while they pretended to study for Chem tests. It all fell apart at homecoming, though. He’d driven with Anna and Dean, who was meeting up with Lisa there. Dean had pulled out a flask of whiskey he’d stolen from his dad and while Cas made halfhearted protests, he and Anna had split it between the two of them. They entered the dance stumbling slightly, but not enough for anyone to notice. Cas couldn’t help but think they were smiling at each other too much. Smiling around him. He’d put it out of his mind when Anna began grinding against him, a teenage stereotype he’d though vulgar and immature until that night, but when he’d gone looking for Anna after she’d been to the bathroom for far too long, and found her pressed flush against Dean in the water fountain alcove, one hand snaked down his pants. He’d run out, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes as he raced to the bus stop. The whole ride home the image played on repeat in the reflection of the windows, but whenever it would begin the loop again, the punch to Cas’s gut came when he thought of Dean kissing someone else, not of Anna kissing someone else, even though she was, for all intents and purposes, his girlfriend.
Cas had said nothing to either of them the next day, or any other day after that. They smiled awkwardly at each other for awhile but he guessed they both cared about him enough to not hook up behind his back. Anna switched lab partners when he stopped kissing her back and spilled acid on her new dress, the one she’d excitedly asked him if it was “Dean’s style.” She must have figured out that he knew about her and Dean when he stopped answering her calls and changed his voicemail to, “If it’s Anna, don’t leave a voicemail. Just go back to giving my best friend handjobs.” He supposed it wasn’t the most mature thing to do, but Anna stopped bothering him and most importantly, she stopped bothering Dean. Word must have got out about it, because Lisa broke up with Dean as well, and Cas couldn’t help but smile. It was just the two of them again.
That was what was important, Cas told himself, scowling at his simple bowl while the teacher praised the elegant vase Dean was sliding onto a clean board. It didn’t matter that Dean had started hooking up with some girl named Jo he’d been friends with in elementary, before Cas moved into town. Or that Cas had a B- in this class, the first B- he’d gotten since shop. Cas liked being the best at school, because Dean wasn’t, and he already knew Dean was better at everything else. At making friends, at getting drunk (he never, ever, tried to take his pants off in front of hot guys, or girls, he supposed for Dean’s case), at being straight. Cas cringed at the last one. He’d added that to the list of things Dean was better at in the last six months because he knew it was true and it was time to stop kidding himself. Cas hadn’t said anything to Dean about his revelation because as Cas liked to insist, Dean had nothing to do with it. Bart (short for Balthazar, a sophomore he had Calculus with who sold weed behind a ficus in the cafeteria at lunch) was the one giving the hickeys Dean was so fond of making fun of, and so what if Cas had accidentally said Dean’s name once or twice when Bart went down on him. Okay, maybe a few dozen times, but what was the difference when it was just a hook up?
Despite the fact that the class was ruining his pristine GPA, Cas looked forward to days when he had ceramics. He might not be producing anything remarkable, but he got to watch Dean, who sat at the wheel across from him. The way his fingers slid over the slick surface of the clay, his calm, focused expression as he applied gentle pressure in all the right places, something Cas was never good at. He pushed too hard and his bowls would slide off center, twirling crookedly on the wheel. Cas was all frowns and furrowed brows and clay stuck in his hair and clumping on his t-shirt and Dean would wash his hands without so much as a speck of dust on his jeans.
By the last week of the grading period, Cas’s grade had slipped to a C+ and he had made a desperate deal with his teacher to raise his grade to an A-. He needed to make a tea set and he had one cup and a slightly off center saucer (although he hoped the teacher wouldn’t notice). It was five o’clock and Cas was dumping his third failed teapot into the recycle bin, when he heard the sound of the studio door closing. He looked up to see Dean dropping his gym bag next to Cas’s own messenger bag.
“What are you doing here?” Cas asked, crossing to the wedge table and aggressively slicing off another hunk of clay with the wire tool.
“Practice got off early and I thought you might need some help,” Dean answered, shrugging and coming to stand beside Cas, overlapping their shoulders slightly. Cas wanted to move away, prickling in discomfort at their proximity for the first time he could remember, but if Dean hadn’t figured out his crush (maybe, possibly, a bit of an understatement) yet, he definitely would at that “irregular” behavior. Cas, as Dean always liked to point out, had some serious personal space issues, except with people he used for “jerk-off fodder” as Dean liked to call Cas’s crushes. Again, with his complete lack of consideration for other people’s reservations or insecurities.
“You’re wedging it wrong,” Dean said softly, leaning closer and overlapping their hands as he changed the kneading pattern, fingers digging into the soft, gray clay. “There’s too many air bubbles if you just squish it like that.” Cas straightened up, moving his hands stiffly in time with Dean’s.
“You okay, Cas?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Y-You can let go now, I think I’ve got the hang of it.” He pulled his hands and the wedge away and began another. Dean followed suit and they stood like that in silence, shaping the clay into lumpy cylinders. Cas shifted his gaze to his right, to look at Dean’s wedge for a guide because really, he barely got the difference in what Dean had showed him, and saw that his hands were still. Glancing up he caught Dean’s eyes focused intently on his own hands, fingers buried up to the second knuckle in the clay. Cas’s hands stilled and Dean looked up, meeting his eyes. Cas coughed and they began working again. “Sorry, it’s the dust, you know how my asthma is.”
“I thought your asthma faded awhile ago, Cas.”
Cas froze, caught for a moment in his lie. “Well, it didn’t,” he snapped defensively.
Cas piled his wedges onto a board and walked hurriedly over to a wheel, turning it on and sitting down. He slammed the clay onto the bat and wet his hands quickly, pressing the pedal down as he squeezed the clay, trying to center quickly and block Dean out of his head. He rubbed his face on his shoulder and heard Dean chuckle as he sat down and took one of Cas’s wedges from his board, placing it on the wheel next to him.
“What are you doing?” Cas asked, not looking up.
“I’m helping you out. What Mr. Edlund doesn’t know won’t hurt him. You have to make a tea set, right? I’ll make some of the cups.”
“I don’t need your help, Dean,” Cas snapped. “Believe it or not, I can actually throw. It’s just that you’re always distracting me.”
Dean’s hands stilled on his clay. “How do I distract you?”
“You just do, okay.” Cas closed his eyes and let out a soft, pissy sigh of exasperation as a chunk of clay came off in his hands. He dropped it onto the area before him and rubbed his face on his shoulder again. Dean chuckled and Cas snapped his head towards him.
“Why do you keep laughing? Did I get clay on my face again?”
Dean was fighting to suppress another laugh. “No, it’s just the massive hickey you aren’t even trying to hide. Who’s the lucky girl?”
“No one you would know,” Cas muttered, beginning to open up his piece.
“Come on, I won’t tell, Cas, I’m your best friend. I tell you who I hook up with, you can tell me who you hook up with. At least let me know what classes you have with her, so I can narrow down the guessing pool.”
Cas said nothing. Bart was a sophomore. He was a he.
“Have I fucked her? Is that why you’re not saying anything?”
Cas’s hands jerked and the rim of his bowl collapsed. He’d had it with Dean and his confidence and his arrogance and his constant, overall betterness.
“What makes you think it’s a girl, assbutt?” he snapped.
Dean stared at him in shock for a second, before falling over the teacup, laughing hysterically. When his wheezing subsided, he looked at Cas, eyes shining and said, “I don’t know whether I should laugh harder that you just used assbutt as an insult or that you’re such a fucking girl about relationships you’d rather have me think you were gay than tell me who you’re hooking up with.”
Cas tried to fix his ruined cup in vain and said nothing. There was no way he’d finish the tea set in time to raise his grade. Even with Dean helping. Dean finished the cup and began another and still Cas said nothing, hands resting limply on either side of the splash guard, watching the decimated bowl circle round and round.
“Wait, Cas, you’re not really...are you?”
“Of course not,” Cas laughed harshly, the words sticking in his throat. He added being a dick to the list of things Dean was better at than he was.
“Okay. Because you know, I wouldn’t mind, like, if you were.”
“If I was what, Dean?”
“You know...like...gay.” Dean lingered on the word, hesitating on the long a sound, almost hopeful.
“Thanks,” Cas replied between gritted teeth. If Dean knew he was gay for him, he was sure he wouldn’t be so forthcoming with his acceptance.
It was awkward for a few minutes until Cas screwed up yet another piece and Dean slid onto the bench beside him when he began to center again. His hands joined Cas’s on the clay and together they shifted it into an even, domed cylinder.
“There you go,” Dean said softly, and Cas could feel the smile in his voice. “You just needed to relax.”
Cas smiled and nodded as he tugged the piece open and began bringing the walls up. Oddly enough, with Dean close like this, helping him the way he always did, Cas was relaxed. He wondered if he could still be close with Dean like this, even if part of him did want to rip all his clothes off and kiss him breathless in the backseat of the Impala. They were still best friends, after all, and no one said you couldn’t love someone in a you’re-my-best-friend-way and like them in a we-should-get-naked way. It felt wrong for Cas to put walls up around Dean, to move away when they forgot about personal space.
As Dean’s fingers brushed over his own, helping him compress the jagged rim, Cas shifted closer to Dean, chin resting slightly on his shoulder as he tried to see better. Dean jerked and the cup went flying.
“Shit, man, I’m sorry. You just startled me.” He leapt up to get the mop and Cas noticed his face was flushed.
“It’s quite alright, Dean,” Cas replied, turning off his wheel. “You have helped me immeasurably. We can call it a day and I will complete the tea set tomorrow. I have two days and you’ve helped me solve the problems I’ve been having.”
“Great. Cool. If you need any help with anything, just let me know,” Dean was already at the sink, scrubbing the bats, his face sharp with concentration.
You could help me with my penis. Cas didn’t have time to stop the silent, snarky reply, and he blushed, hoping Dean wasn’t also better at mind reading than he was. Dean seemed unfazed, though, so Cas gathered up his tools and bats and joined Dean at the sink. They were silent except for the slosh of water and their quiet breathing, so when Dean’s fingers momentarily entwined with Cas’s in the washing basin, Cas’s hitch in breath was audible. He glanced at Dean, but saw no visible reaction in the boy’s features, and, finding his fingers alone in the water, gripping his sponge tightly in one hand and a needle tool hanging limply in the other, he told himself he’d imagined it. He glanced at Dean again, and noticed a smudge of clay on his cheek. Without even thinking about it, he grabbed Dean’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning his head to face him, and stroked his thumb across Dean’s cheek.
“You have some clay...”
Dean froze and Cas suddenly realized what he was doing. He had just groomed Dean. Even with their lower boundaries, they never fussed with each other like that.
“You’re turning into me,” Cas forced the joke. Everyone knew Cas was the messiest thrower in the class. He waited for Dean to laugh because Cas doing stupid things was Dean’s favorite thing to laugh at, but Dean said nothing. A jolt like touching a doorknob after dragging your feet along a carpet shot down Cas’s spine as Dean’s palm brushed the side of his face as his fingers tangled in his hair, tugging slightly. His hand rose between them, holding up a small chunk of clay, and Dean smiled, “You have some clay in your hair.”
Cas told himself later it was an involuntary reaction when he grabbed Dean by the belt loops and pulled him close in an awkward kiss, leaving wet clay spots on his clean jeans. His lips were dry and he tasted a little like clay and a lot like the smell of the Impala’s leather seats in the summer, something Cas never thought would turn him on because he always grimaced at the car’s excessive macho-ness. Dean had his hands in Cas’s hair, tugging the bits of clay out, and Cas had never been more glad at his inability to do ceramics neatly. Just as Cas was placing his hands on either side of Dean’s face, leaving sticky beige fingerprints along his neck, it was over.
“You’re a liar,” Dean said as he rested his forehead against Cas’s, far too loud for a moment Cas considered so intimate. Dean kissed people all the time, though, so maybe he didn’t count it as one. Maybe Cas was just the latest on a long list of quick kisses when Dean got bored. He suppressed the thought before it could upset him.
“What?” he finally asked in response to Dean.
“You said you weren’t gay.”
“You said you didn’t care.”
“I said I didn’t mind.” Cas wondered when Dean had wrapped an arm around his waist, but he wasn’t going to start complaining now.
“Same thing.”
“No, not same thing.” Dean kissed him quickly, looking over Cas’s shoulder quickly, blushing for the second time that day. The second time Cas had ever seen him blush.
Cas just tilted his head slightly to the side, not understanding what Dean was trying to say. He was about to ask just that, when Dean let out an amused snort. “I don’t mind that you’re gay, because I cared that you said you weren’t. Since you made me sign up for this fucking stupid-ass class all I’ve wanted to do is squash your pieces because watching you throw is really hot for some reason and I’m pretty sure it’s weird to want to make out with your best friend.”
“Uh...”
Dean looked sheepish. “What can I say, you fucking up is really adorable, especially when you get clay everywhere, like in your hair, which is already insane.” He tugged another piece of clay from Cas’s hair and Cas bit his lips to fight a smile. “I mean, like, you’re actually always really adorable, I just noticed it for the first time in this class.”
And Cas had no choice but to kiss Dean again, an action which quickly goes out of his control. As Dean pushed him up against the sink, Cas added kissing to the list of things Dean is better than him at, right after being a dick. And for some reason, even though he liked being the best, Cas didn’t mind.