What the Righteous Man Wanted (1 of 3)

Chapter Two

The years pass just like that. Dean splits his time between his house and Cas', laughing and crying and telling everything to Cas, watching out for Sammy. Twelve years later finds them much in the same place. A few differences, of course. Dean's hair is darker, leveling out at a light brown, sandy blonde if you squint. Cas' hair is darkest, coming in at a shocking coal, chocolate brown in just the right light. Anna turned out hot, thin and curved and porcelain. Sam turned out tall, what he lacks in muscle made up for in his ever growing height. Cas turned out gay, trusting only Dean with the fact. Dean is in the drama club, but none of that matters. The only thing that matters is the silence falling around them.

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Dean says, his eyes shining in the darkness. The collective breaths from the audience are nothing but a whir from the other side of the curtain. His best friend grins.

"You were made for this," Cas says, straightening the tie on Dean's neck.

"I was made for greasy cheese burgers and short-skirted cheerleaders. A play about a gay prince, made for, I was not." Dean worms away from the make-up brush Cas is trying to force on him.

"Okay, you're playing an army lieutenant, not Yoda."

"Remind me never to befriend another president of the GSA," Dean says with a roll of his eyes. He's nervous. He's never done a play where his love interest is another dude, but as a drama club senior veteran, Dean Winchester considers himself a professional. Professionals don't let a little thing like sexuality get in the way of their characters.

"Please," Cas snorts, pushing back the curtain a bit to see the crowd of students waiting for the play to begin. "I'm the only kid dumb enough to take on being the president of the GSA."

"True." They both stare out at the audience. A quiet hum runs through them, half of the students waiting to tear the play apart and the other to put it in the pile with the rest of the school's greatest.

"You nervous?" Cas asks, still grazing his eyes over the crowd.

"No," Dean lies smoothly. "Are you?"

"Well," Cas starts, running a hand through his hair, leaving it in further disarray. "The play I spent the better half of my high school career writing and editing and making adequate is about to showcase. The audience is mostly straight, meaning they probably won't feel it like they should." Cas lets out a long breath. Dean can feel the tension radiating off him. "I'm not nervous at all." Dean smiles at his best friend.

"Cas, you wrote an amazing play. I mean, you're a helluva nerd for writing a play about Frederick William II." Dean sways gently into Cas' shoulder, teasing him softly. "But regardless of sexual orientation, people will feel this play. It will destroy them." Cas laughs.

"As a writer, that's all I can ask for," Cas replies with a grin.

"Good," Dean says, even though he knows Cas is still nervous. "Because your best friend, i.e., me, has got this play in the palm of his hands."

"Thank God," Cas says with a roll of his eyes and half a grin.

"Castiel, curtain in two," says Balthazar, a snarky British exchange student with a headset much too small for his huge ego.

"Okay, thanks," Cas says, and Balthazar disappears back into the folds of the curtains. Cas breathes in a deep breath before turning back to Dean. "Break a leg out there."

"Back at ya," Dean says, and goes to take his place upstage. In the moments as he stands on his mark, his mind tumbles over his every line. When Cas first showed him the play, it was in its first stages and shined like nothing he'd ever read before. Granted, Dean only read SparkNotes of his assigned reading and maybe a Dr. Seuss or two, but still. He could tell that Cas had put everything into this play, so when he asked if Dean would play the lead's love interest, Dean was shocked. He was flattered, and some part of him couldn't help but think he could never do his best friend's play justice. Still, he glides seamlessly through his lines, all the while thanking God that Cas wrote the tale of the eighteenth-century love story in modern English.