Anonymous

Chapter 15

Castiel goes to school in mostly the same clothes as usual, except instead of his typical dress shirt, he had a plain white tee from Dean. The car ride is awkward, mostly because he's bad at conversations that aren't strictly one on one, but fortunately, they're not too far from the school.

The conversations by the door seem to cease when Castiel enters, although he might just be imagining it. He can't deny that he's been paranoid about this all day.

But things go even further downhill when Gabriel pops out of nowhere. "Heya, Cassie, can we talk?"

"I have to... do... a thing..." Castiel says awkwardly. "So..."

"It'll just take a minute," Gabriel says, then takes his arm and starts to drag him away. Castiel could probably stop him, but his grip is so tight, he's afraid it might cost him an arm.

"Good luck," Charlie mouths.

Castiel just offers her a small, grateful smile before following his brother down the hall.

Once they're alone, Gabriel drops his arm and his friendly facade at once. "Where the hell have you been?"

"With a friend," Castiel says vaguely. "Look, you can yell at me later, but right now, I have a class to get to."

Gabriel grabs his arm again before he can walk away. "I'm not going to yell at you," he says gently, as if he didn't just whisper-yell a few seconds earlier. "I just — I have to ask. Yesterday, when I saw you in the hall, you just left really suddenly because you were flustered, right? Social anxiety and all that? You're not actually...?"

And that's the opportunity Castiel had been waiting for. A chance to lie, to say that it's all just a big misunderstanding and that he's actually straight. But the way Gabriel phrases it, like being gay is so horrible that he can't even say the word, just pisses Castiel off way too much.

"No, I'm not gay," Castiel says, and he sees a look of what looks almost like relief wash over his brother's face. "I'm pansexual. I like girls, guys, and everything in between. And thank you very much for outing me like that. I can't wait to suffer through another year with these people now that I'm that 'one gay kid.'"

Gabriel just stares at him for a moment, speechless for what's likely the first time in his life. "So you're really..."

"You can say it," Castiel says. "Don't worry. You won't go to hell for just using the word, so I probably won't see you there."

"You're not going to hell," Gabriel says. "Not necessarily."

"What do you mean?" Castiel asks. "It's in the Bible. If you believe in God, you believe I'm going to hell. That's how this whole thing works."

"Not if you stop," Gabriel says. "There's got to be some way —"

"There's not," Castiel interrupts. "Believe me, I've looked. Are we done here? I have a class to get to."

Gabriel doesn't say anything at first, and Castiel takes it as a sign that he can leave.

Just before he's out of earshot, Gabriel says, "And, for the record, Dad doesn't know."

Castiel glances back at him just for a moment, then keeps walking. So, that didn't go as well as he had hoped.