Chapter Text
This couldn’t be happening.
Several men walked into their dorm room uninvited. Campus police. Cas pulled away from the sofa where Ralph was still sitting, his legs spread wide and bliss fading fast from his expression. The big man Cas usually waved to, firmly but not unkindly, pulled his hands behind him and helped him to his feet.
“I need you to come with us, son.”
This had to be a dream.
The man’s words made no sense, but his hands felt real enough. The way his body struggled to comply, still dazed from the interruption and off balance, felt real enough. The cold of the handcuffs against his wrists chilled him to the bone the way no dream ever had.
Castiel’s eyes darted to where Ralph was also being pulled to his feet, his pants still open and falling off his hips. Another officer, less kind, was shoving his pants up into place and securing the belt, not bothering with the zipper. There was a lot of talking, but he couldn’t find enough focus to walk and listen at the same time, so he focused on keeping his feet under him.
His parents were going to kill him.
Castiel’s family was highly regarded for their devotion to their extremely puritanical church. Over the years they had laid out god’s plan for Castiel many times. The plan included a business degree and a wife. It did not include being arrested with a dick in his mouth.
He got into the back seat of the cruiser, and now that his feet didn’t need to move, he made himself assess the situation. Ralph was crying as he was dropped into the seat next to Cas. The words he’d not been listening to started to claim his attention. There was “under arrest”, and “crimes against nature”, and surely that couldn’t mean what he thought it meant.
It was 2001, officially the 21st century, and there was no way this was happening. It had to be one of his anxiety dreams, surely. Somewhere between setting out candles for Ralph’s 19th birthday dinner and his actual arrival, Castiel must have fallen asleep. It was the only thing that made sense.
The next few hours exist only in snapshots. Cas being transferred into another cruiser, alone. Cas being searched, fingerprinted, booked. The face of the man who told him any sexual activity between two people of the same sex was a crime in this state, unless it was in private space. The same face as he explained that dorm rooms, like school lockers and locker rooms, are not technically private space. His mother’s face through the bars of the cell they have him in as she told him that this was his punishment for straying from god’s plan. She’d bail him out if he agreed to go to therapy. Conversion therapy, of course. But those words would require his mother to acknowledge who he is under the mask, and she won’t do that.
He should have known then, and later when he was more rational he’d realize that he did know. But in the moment, it seemed like another staggering impossibility.
Ralph, also talking to his family. They were just as strict as Castiel’s. It was what they first bonded over. It was what made him a suitable room mate, as far as his family was concerned. It was the only reason he’d been allowed to live in the dorm instead of commuting, he suspected. Ralph, leaving him behind, bailed out by his family.
The door closed behind Ralph, then behind his mother, then it was just Cas, and the bright lights all around him. They were inescapable. They forced him to face some hard truths.
He was on his own. He never should have let his parents control his life to this extent. He was 18, a man by any definition, and he’d allowed his parents to tell him where to go and what to do with his life. He should have gone away to college like he wanted to. He should have gotten a job. He knew, all along, what his parents would do if the truth came out. And if he couldn’t take control of his own life, he should have at least had enough self-control not to fall for the first guy that smiled at him suggestively. He never should have allowed himself a hookup, nevermind a boyfriend. He should have known - he should have known -
It didn’t matter what he should have known, what he should have done, he settled on. Only what he was going to do now.
oOo
He lost track of time, at some point. It had been months, that was all he really knew of the world outside. He didn’t know if he was still enrolled at the university. Or what had happened to his things, left behind at the dorm. The public defender he finally met didn’t have any answers yet, but she’d find out.
In that time, Cas had undergone a transformation. No, that wasn't right. It wasn't so much that he'd changed but that he'd figured out who he was. It turned out that, even behind bars, there was freedom in being so utterly forgotten.
For something to do, he’d worked out, and his nerdy bookworm body had hardened and filled out. More to the point, his resolve had hardened more than his muscles. He wasn’t sure yet what options would still be open to him after all was said and done. But he knew he was done with his family. He knew he was done with this state. And he knew he was done with god’s plans. He was his own person now. He'd make his own plans.
He felt, for the first time ever, as though he had a life to live. And he couldn’t wait to get out of there and start living it.
“Just get me out,” he’d told her. “As soon as possible. Just- get me out.”
oOo
Cas sat next to his lawyer as the judge explained the terms of the plea deal. He'd already heard it from his lawyer. He'd considered it. It was a good deal. He got to leave today and never look back.
It should have probably made more of an impression that both the lawyer and the judge insisted that waiting for a full trial might be better in the long run. He couldn't do it. He couldn't face going back to the bars and the relentless light, and the restless sleep. Not when there was another choice. He needed to be out now, no matter what it cost him.
He didn't really understand the cost. He wouldn't, not for years to come. On that day, it seemed to him it was barely more than an inconvenience. A burdensome chore, but one he could manage. Nothing worth going back to jail for.
The sound of the gavel signaled his conviction. He was sentenced to time served.
And for the rest of his life, he'd have to register as a sex offender.