Chapter Text
Part One:
“Jess, it’s dinnertime. Go wash your hands.”
She shuffled her small, socked feet as slowly as she could to the bathroom where she lingered with her hands under the water until tiny wrinkles started to form at the tips of her fingers. She could still hear her parents’ voices.
“They’re a little young to have a kid that age,” she hears her mother say. Her father only grunts.
“I mean, that girl can’t be more than 22! And that little boy looks about six, same as Jess. She would’ve had to have had him at…” the tall blonde, still clad in a neat business suit does the mental math. “God, she’d have been sixteen when she got pregnant!” The indignation is clear in her tone.
“Mind your business Liza. You haven’t even met them yet; don’t go judging a situation you know nothing about,” the father’s voice says in a detached sort of way. Jess knows he’s flipping through the TV guide to see if there’s a game on tonight.
Jess shuts off the water then and makes her way to the kitchen table. On her placemat is already a plastic plate with a slice of last night’s leftover pizza. Jess sighs and decides that this summer she’s going to make friends with the boy next door. It sounds like the kind of thing her mother wouldn’t approve of, and Jess has been making a habit lately of doing all sorts of things her mother doesn’t like.
~
Jessica Lee Moore is six years old going on thirty. She lives in Palo Alto, California and is the only child of Liza and Peter Moore, both of which still think her favorite color is pink, though her favorite color has been green for as long as she can remember. And she doesn’t need a reason to knock on the new neighbors’ door at nine o’clock in the morning.
A red-headed young woman answers the door with a distracted look on her face.
“Castiel please,” she pleads. “You have to eat something. Whatever you want, Michael will make it, but you have to eat!”
The red-headed woman turns to the open door and takes a startled step backwards.
“Oh! Hey there sweetie, can I help you with something?”
“Hi! I’m Jessica. I live next door. I heard my parents talking about your son and that he was about my age and I figured he’d probably need a friend. This neighborhood is really boring and I’m really nice and my friends all think I’m fun. So can I meet him?”
Anna almost laughs out loud, but she bites her cheek instead. She doesn’t want to upset a potential friend of Cas’s. God knows the kid needs someone his own age to play with.
The woman smiles brilliantly and in the back of her head Jess hopes she’ll grow up to be more like this woman than like her mom.
“Well Jessica that is incredibly sweet of you. I’m Anna. I’m sure Castiel will be very excited to meet you! Why don’t you come in and I’ll introduce you?”
Jess smiles toothily and steps over the threshold. “You can call me Jess. Nobody calls me Jessica…unless I’m in trouble,” she furrows her eyebrows for a second but then turns to look around the house. It’s still mostly stuff in boxes and furniture wrapped in protective plastic, so she moves on quickly to the kitchen, where she can see a little boy in spider man pajamas sitting with a bowl of soggy cereal in front of him. It’s obvious he isn’t interested in eating it. Anna follows behind her.
“Castiel, this is Jess. She lives next door and she wants to be your friend! Isn’t that nice?”
The little boy doesn’t even look at either of them. Anna shuffles her feet awkwardly. “I’m gonna go tell Michael I’m leaving for work. Please Castiel, try today? For me?” And then she’s gone up the stairs, presumably to find this Michael person she keeps mentioning.
Jess takes the seat next to Castiel and stares at him for a few seconds. He has messy brown hair that Jess doubts ever sits flat on his head and blue eyes that rival her own. But he was looking off into space, as if she wasn’t there.
“I like Spiderman too,” she says after a minute.
He starts, like he actually forgot she was there, and frowns. “Who?”
“Spiderman? He’s on your shirt.”
“Oh. I don’t really know what that is. Michael bought these for me ‘cause I didn’t have anything else.”
“Why not?”
“Fire.”
“Oh.”
They sit there silently for several more minutes.
“Is Michael your dad?”
“No.”
“Brother?”
“N-…well I guess when he marries Anna he will be. I think.”
“Anna isn’t your mom?”
“No. She’s my sister.”
“How can she be your sister? She’s a grown up.”
“We had the same dad, but different moms.”
“Where is he?”
Castiel shrugs. He only has vague memories of a tan man with a beard and a windbreaker.
“And your mom?”
Castiel gasps and drops his gaze, which had finally landed on Jess for a few moments, to the floor. “Fire,” he mumbles.
“Oh.” Jess sits, thinking hard for several minutes. Then she says, “When I cried at Grammy’s funeral, my Auntie Tina told me that she was safe and happy and that she’d want me to be happy too. Probably it’s the same for you mom.”
Castiel nods and opens his mouth, but at that moment a very tall man with very large arms enters the kitchen and smiles at Jess. She notices an intricate sword tattoo on his upper arm.
“Hey Jess, I think your poor babysitter is at our door freaking out cause you’re missing. I told her I’d send you out.”
“Oh that’s just my cousin Sarah. Mom says she’s a drama queen. Anyway,” she hops off the chair and puts a hand on Castiel’s shoulder. “It was nice to meet you Castiel. I’ll come by sometime and we can play outside or something.” Then she heads towards the door.
“You can call me Cas,” Castiel calls after her. When she turns to look at him, one corner of his mouth is hitched up in an almost half smile. “It’s what my mom used to call me,” he shrugs.
Jess smiles radiantly at him and waves and she sprints out of the house.
~
Castiel Novak has never met anyone his own age who he can understand, much less relate to. He’s five years old, he reads at a middle school level, and has a basic understanding of algebra. When he started school his mother consented to allow him to skip kindergarten but was firm about him going through the school system at a regular pace. He was her pride and joy, her special miracle baby, but she also knew how hard the world can be for anybody who strayed from the norm. She wanted him to feel as normal as possible.
Castiel hadn’t felt normal a day in his life. Until the day he’d met Jess.
“Cas it’s so sunny! Can’t we go ride bikes or something? Pleeeeaaaaassseee?”
Cas groans. “Jess there’s a show on Japanese Samurais starting in ten minutes! Who doesn’t want to watch that?”
“Me,” she pouts.
“C’mon Jess,” he nudges her with his shoulder as they settle into the couch. “If you watch this with me, I promise to ask Anna if we can go to the zoo this weekend?”
“But you hate the zoo,” her eyes go wide.
“I know, but you like it,” he shrugs. She throws her arms around his neck and kisses him on the cheek. His face turns the color of a cherry tomato.
“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had Cas,” she says as she pulls away.
“We just met three weeks ago Jess. How can you know that?” One corner of his mouth goes up in his signature not-a-smile. Jess spends hours at a time trying to think of ways to make him smile for real.
“And?” she challenges him. “I think we’re gonna be friends forever,” she says, as if hers is the final word on the matter.
~
“Look at his hair,” one of the boys calls loudly. “Hey Castiel, ain’t you ever heard of a comb?” The group of them laughs and Cas continues to walk by, hugging his books to his chest tighter. One of them extends a foot that sends Cas sprawling across the floor, his books scattering in several directions on the asphalt of the playground.
He huffs and gets to his knees, gathering the books. Suddenly there is a hand on his back and a voice in his ear.
“You okay Cas?” Jess asks. He nods.
“Oooh look who it is! Cassie’s little girlfriend come to save the day.”
“First of all, Tony, I’m not Castiel’s girlfriend. Second of all, you better get out of here before I go call Mrs. Hampton.”
“What’s the school nurse gonna do to me?”
“Well,” she says, taking a few steps towards the bully. “You’re gonna need a nurse if you don’t leave Castiel alone.” She aims a swift kick directly at the kid’s knee cap before turning on her heels, helping Cas up, and walking away with him.
“You didn’t have to Jess. You’re gonna get in trouble for that.”
“Of course I had to, you’re my best friend. Besides, Tony Paulson has had it coming all year. Plus, what are they gonna do to me, Cas? It’s the last week of fifth grade. We’re gonna be middle schoolers soon!”
Cas huffs out a little laugh. “I doubt that’ll be any better than this. But at least we’ll still be together.”
~
Jess swallows her tears long enough to hear his voice coming from downstairs.
“Hey Mrs. Moore. Can I go upstairs?”
“Sure sweetie. She’s in her room. Door open!”
“Yes ma’am,” he calls, already mounting the stairs.
She waits for the knock on her bedroom door to come.
“Come in,” she says meekly.
Cas comes in looking equal parts apprehensive and guilty. “Jess. Please don’t be mad. I just…he’s not a good guy and I didn’t trust him. I had to do something. You’re my best friend.”
She gives him a watery smile. “I know Cas. He was a jerk. He tried to put his hand up my shirt after I said no. I just thought it was cool…you know, for a tenth grader to be interested in me, a lowly eighth grader.”
“There’s nothing lowly about you Jessica Lee Moore.”
“Shut up Cas,” she smiles again.
“His nose was too big for his face anyway,” Cas deadpans.
“Yeah, and that was before you punched him in it.” Jess giggles and Cas joins her and they spend the rest of the night eating king sized Hershey’s bars and watching When Harry Met Sally.
~
They were hanging out in Cas’s bedroom. Jess was sprawled on the bed with her chemistry notes and textbook open in front of her. Cas was sitting at the desk, writing a paper on whether or not Reagan’s trickle-down theory hurt more than it helped.
“Hey Jess,” Cas says, suddenly spinning in his chair.
“Yeah Cas?” she doesn’t look up from her notes.
“I’m gay.”
Jess snaps her head up from her work and examines his face for a few seconds.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Cas breathes out.
Then she smiles that same smile she’d given him on the first day they’d met and turns back to her work.
“That’s cool Cas.”
Cas thought she wasn’t looking anymore so he smiles wide and genuinely before turning back to his paper. “Yeah. Yeah it is.”
~
“Cas…Stanford isn’t even Ivy. You could go anywhere in the country. You don’t have to stay here because Stanford’s always been my dream. We’d be okay. I’d be okay, if you wanted to go to Princeton. Anna told me you got the acceptance letter ages ago.”
“Yeah well Anna should mind her own business. And what the hell would I do on the east coast? I can’t leave California, Jess. Not yet. Someday, probably, but not yet. Anna and Michael would go out of their minds with the twins without me around. So shut up and let’s open these letters at the same time.”
Jess rolls her eyes at him and they both hold them up, tearing them open at the same time. Cas pulls his out and beams, turning to her.
“Accepted. You?”
Jess turns to him with tears in her eyes. “I got in too.”
Suddenly she’s jumping up and down on the bed screaming and he is jumping with her.
“We’re going to Stanford!” he shouts, hugging her.
~
“This is stupid Jess,” he says, putting down her last box on her desk. “I’m gay. It makes more sense for me to room with a girl than a guy. I don’t want to live with some random guy from God knows where. I want to live with you.”
“Cas it doesn’t work that way. Besides, imagine you and me living together in this small space? We’d kill each other. Remember that summer we bunked together at camp? That was a disaster!”
A girl with dark wavy hair and a round face walks in then, glances at both of them, and puts her stuff on the other bed without a word. Jess makes a face at Cas, who stifles a laugh.
“Hey, you must be Megan. I’m Jess, this is my friend Cas.”
“Yeah, call me Meg. Your friend is cute,” she winks at Cas. His face goes bright red and he opens and closes his mouth several times before Jessica comes to the rescue.
“Yeah he is. It’s really too bad he plays for the other team.”
Meg lets out an exasperated sigh. “All the cute ones do these days. See you later,” and then she’s gone.
Jess bursts out in giggles. “I think I like her.”
“Oh God, Jess,” he puts his hands over his face. “I can’t interact with people. This was a bad idea. I think I’ll just go back home and take classes online and never leave again.”
“Relax. You’ll be fine, okay? This semester we have all the same classes so I’ll be with you all the time. You’ll get used to it. You’re gonna make plenty of friends; you’re great!”
“In case you haven’t noticed Jess, you’ve been my only friend for thirteen years. People don’t like me, and I don’t like people.”
“That’s because you always look crabby and superior. Try changing your face.”
Cas grabs the nearest hard object and flings it at her. It misses miserably.
“You throw like a girl,” she laughs. “C’mon, I’m done here. Let’s go do your room.”