You look different today... good different

Part One

Cas:

BEEP BEEP BEEP

Cas rolled over and slapped his alarm clock. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and glanced at the time, 7:30. On any normal day he would have let himself sleep another ten minutes and dealt with the fact that it would doom him to a rushed morning, but this morning he figured he should at least try to make an effort. It was his first day of senior year of high school.

Nothing he could say would adequately express how excited he was to escape the hell that had trapped him for the past three years. It wasn't that he particularly hated school, in fact, he actually quite enjoyed learning and generally did quite well in school. It wasn't even that he hated the people in his class (he was quite fond of one green-eyed boy in particular). It was more that he had been stuck with the same faces for far too long, they knew too much about him. Oh yes, and then there was Crowley. He was something Cas would not miss in the slightest. A bully through and through, this kid had tortured Castiel since the day they met in freshman biology and were forced to dissect a toad together. He stalked the halls with a different pair of lackeys every week.

Cas rolled out of bed with a reluctant groan and pulled on a pair of black skinny jeans, a white button- down, tied a dark blue tie around his neck, and shoved his glasses on his nose. He regarded his reflection. His unkempt hair, his blue eyes (hidden behind a thick pair of glasses), his lanky frame, his outfit—one that he hadn't changed since 5th grade, and sighed. He looked different from the boy that had looked in that same mirror three years ago at the beginning of high school, his face was thinner, he looked more tired, his cheek-bones and jaw were more defined and he noticed a shadow of scruff growing around his chin.

"Castiel? You need to be ready, you need to start walking soon!"

His mother's screech from sown the hall tore Cas from his musings about his appearance, This is just how it's going to be, there is nothing I can do about it now. He grabbed his back-pack from its perch on the bed and darted down the hall.

"Thanks Mom, have a good day," he said as he dashed by her taking the breakfast she handed to him as he went.

Cas ran up the steps to the school and took a deep breath as he plunged into what he knew would be utter chaos. He was right, of course, the halls were a disaster, people were yelling and reuniting after a long three moths apart, bullies were stalking along scanning the freshman for new meat and don't even get started on the couples. Cas decided the best plan would be to keep his head down and get to his locker without attracting too much attention.

He made it to his locker without incident, however, when trying to put his textbooks away in said locker he heard a familiar British accent sarcastically say,

"Cassie! You forgot to say 'hi'. It's been all summer, I'm offended."

"Hi, Crowley." Cas said without turing around.

"It's rude not to look people in they eye when they are talking to you, don't you know that Cassie?" Crowley retorted as he grabbed Cas by the back of his shirt and forced him to turn around, slamming Cas' back into the edge of the locker behind him. Cas winced at the pain. He opened his eyes to look at his assailant.

Crowley sneered, "See you in first period biology! Come on boys." Crowley waived at his body guards to follow him. One of them was a girl with short blonde hair and a red leather jacket, she kicked Cas' back pack down the hall as she passed. The other—Cas almost gasped out loud when he recognized him—was a certain gorgeous, green-eyed, boy wearing a perfectly too-tight t-shirt who, Cas was certain, avoided making eye contact with him as he passed.

Cas' world was turing upside down, I knew that Dean was a jock, but I always thought he was the exception to the "all jocks are dicks" rule. What is he doing? Why? I thought he was different.

Cas was still reeling as he collected his books and made his way through the linoleum labyrinth to biology. He plopped his stuff down on one of the many wooden desks and slid into the chair accompanying it. About .03 seconds after sitting down he felt a rolled up wad of paper make contact with the back of his head followed by obnoxious laughter. Not wanting to give Crowley the attention he was looking for, he elected to ignore him and continue organizing his things for the start of class as if nothing had happened. But, moments later he felt another thump on the back of his head followed but still more giggling. Then he heard whispering and Crowley saying something along the lines of "Okay! Geez!" And that was the end of the paper missiles, for now.

Dean:

What was he thinking? Standing by as Crowley bullied the single most attractive guy in the high school was certainly not one of Dean's finer moments. He was wearing this blue tie that brought out every shade in his amazing blue eyes, and was loose enough to awaken thoughts in Dean that made him blush, but the look in those beautiful blue eyes when he looked at Dean, made him wish that the ground could just swallow him up. Watching Crowley hurt him made Dean's blood boil, he wanted nothing better than to give Crowley what he deserved, a solid punch in the face. But, he managed to restrain himself even when he slammed his head into the locker and made Castiel wince in pain. Later, in bio when Crowley decided to throw paper at the kid Dean knew he had to step in.

"Dude, that's enough. Lighten up." In response, Crowley wadded up another projectile and launched it, laughing with Meg and the rest of his gang.

"I'm serious. Stop!"

"What are you going to do about it?" challenged Crowley. Dean lost it and grabbed the jerk by his ear pulling him closer, he said,

"I will only say this one more time: leave. him. alone."

"Okay! Geez!" replied Crowley rubbing his ear, "What's your deal?" Dean pretended not to have heard this as he turned to face the front of the class room.

At the end of class Dean tried to stall his friends to give Cas time to get to his next class without running into them. He succeeded for the most part, except for Crowley yelling a rude name after him down the hall. Dean survived most of the day without thinking about Castiel and his sinfully tight jeans. Until last period when his world crashed down around him.

Cas:
 After rushing out of first period with little incident other than Crowley yelling, "fag" after him as he left, Castiel made it through the day without running into Crowley and his gang. Mostly because Cas was in all AP classes while Crowley, was lucky to have passed freshman bio. His last class was AP Literature, and as he took his seat and gazed around the room at his peers, he was surprised to meet the piercing green eyes of Dean Winchester. He knew that Dean was smarter than the rest of the jocks but he was somehow stunned to see him in his class. He took his seat and carefully avoided looking at the gorgeous boy behind him. That was until the teacher walked in and announced that they would be doing a project on their summer reading, "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" a collection of short stories by Sherman Alexie about life and the effects of life on an Indian Reservation.

"I will pair you up and you will write three two page analyzing one of the major themes throughout the book, I expect good writing and quotes to support your assertions. Now, I will read off the list of partners."

At this point Cas zoned out. Seriously? Six pages on the first day of school? He knew that Mrs.Van Allen had a reputation for being overly hard on her AP students but he had no idea that it would be this bad.

"Castiel Novak," Time to say attention,"and Dean Winchester."