A/N:

The United States Supreme Court will decide this week if a California ban on Same Sex marriage (Prop 8) and whether the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA) that prohibits the Federal government from recognizing Same Sex Marriages will be Constitutional or not.

It may be hubris on my part to suggest my writing is worthy of it, but still.. I dedicate this chapter to the hope of Marriage Equality.

Chapter 5

Cas remembered a time when he would do anything to please Michael. In some ways, his oldest brother's approval had meant more to him growing up than even his parents' had. He wondered if whatever he was doing at any given time would be rewarded with a statement of praise or a look of compliment when Michael found out. Castiel was always quiet growing up and when Michael was at home, he would hide behind the furniture to study his oldest brother. He remembered a time that Michael was home for several weeks when Cas was in elementary school. He remembered that he couldn't have been older than ten or eleven. He hid behind the sofa to watch his brother speaking on the phone to someone from college. He had just started law school at the time. Cas remembers looking from behind the furniture at his brother who stood so tall and straight. His hands were large and his frame was strong. Cas had been fascinated with Greek and Roman mythology since hearing about them in school and he remembered thinking how much like Hercules his brother seemed.

Michael seemed invincible. He was an untouchable force. Cas realized as they stood out on the patio just how far his brother was falling in his estimation.

"I looked up to you since I was very small." Cas began in a soft almost reverential whisper. "I aspired to something like what I imagined you were."

"What happened to make you fall so short?" Michael asked in the self-assured voice Cas always used to stand up to listen when he heard. It made his body shake.

"I didn't, brother… you did."

Michael stopped and turned to look at Cas. Cas stood tall and strong. He held his hands at his side and he knew. He needed to do this. He needed to be the creature in his imagination that he had believed his brother to be. His chin lifted just shy of belligerence. His eyes speared his brother in place. Michael's eyes assessed his little brother in the way he did everything. Cas wasn't worried about being found lacking. He took heart in the scene he had walked in on earlier this evening. There was a room full of people willing to stand up to Michael for him. But, what he really needed to do was stand up for himself. He had grown in confidence over the course of the months since he went off to school. He gained even more since he and Dean came out and joined together.

"Oh?" Michael asked in a way Cas assumed helped him win cases. He was waiting for a criminal to incriminate himself. He waited for Cas to skewer himself against Michael's argument, whatever it would be.

Cas remained quiet for a long time. Neither man shuffled or shifted. They remained still and straight and tall. Michael finally broke the silence. "You don't think that what you are doing is a fall from grace, Castiel?"

Cas smiled. "I am loved, Michael. I have the love of our parents, of our aunt and uncle… I have the love of friends and of Gabriel… I have the love of a good man and his brothers… I think that makes me soar, brother. That love gives me wings."

Michael remained silent for several moments before he commented, "Very poetic." Michael moved from where he stood in the middle of the patio and leaned against the post by the steps down into the garden. "Still… you are in error."

"In whose estimation?"

"God's"

Cas considered this for a moment. "So… you have God on your speed dial, do you?" Cas quipped.

"This is not a joke, Castiel. You will damn your eternal soul."

Cas shook his head. "I know it's not a joke, Michael. I wish it were. It's so interesting to me that the brother I looked up to as a kid could be replaced in my estimation by the one who rarely took anything seriously. It isn't a joke to think that the one who fights for what's right is the very one who would condemn me for the way I love or for whom I love while the one who set pipe bombs in the boys' bathroom at school in order to get out of a test for which he never studied is the one ready to stand in my defense." Cas looked with a sad heart at his brother. "You were the one I thought would slay all the demons who might hurt me, Michael. You were the epitome of all that I believed to be good and just. Now, I'm not sure if you're just a bigot or if I should give you time to re-evaluate your position…"

Michael stared at Cas in the growing darkness and his eyes glinted from the splinter of light streaming from the nearby window. Cas was fully illuminated as he stood near the door to the kitchen, it's full window glowing in the fluorescence of the kitchen lights. Cas was sure of himself. He reached into himself and pulled all the memories that led to his coming out to his family and friends. He pulled the anxiety he had felt as well as the triumph and elation that filled him when he and Dean sat on the dirt in front of the Impala looking out over the city from the Bluff. He let the warmth of his brother, Gabriel, teasing him about Chihuahuas and twisty-twined brotherly behaviors. The laughter of Jo and Andy when Dean and he had gone with their friends to dinner that first night filled him with the assurance that he didn't need Michael's approval. He radiated that confidence at his brother. He infused his whole being with purpose so his brother would read it in every movement, every turn, every glance.

Michael huffed. "It's wrong, Castiel."

Cas shrugged. "It's wrong for you, Michael. It has been nothing but right for Dean and I." He moved closer. "I'm not asking for your approval, brother. I'm not even asking for your acceptance. Frankly, I don't care if I never get either. You are who you are and you live far enough away that I won't have to deal with it very often, if at all. I can afford to be choosy here. It will hurt, of course… you're my brother by blood and I do love you, no matter what else… but, I can stand to not have people in my life who will hurt me or the ones I love. I can choose to add people who don't share our blood but who do share their love with me into my family and I can cast out those who don't really want me anyway."

Castiel turned to open the door behind him. "It really, then, becomes your choice, brother. You can keep a civil tongue and keep your scathing intolerance to yourself while you're visiting, you can choose to not visit when you know I'll be here, or you can choose to end up with a fist in your face… Make no mistake… there are people in that room who don't give a rat's ass who you are or what you're capable of doing to them in the courts, who would happily put their fists down your throat and pull out your still beating heart. Luckily," Cas turned to flash him a grin, "Luckily for you, they love me so much that they won't until they can't stand your rudeness any longer. Maybe, you could sit down with John, you know, when he's not ready to kill you with his stare, and ask him what turned him around."

Michael was silent for only a beat before Cas opened the door. "Dean has been a bad influence on you, Castiel. You were never so discourteous or brazen…"

"Dean Winchester saved me."

With that, Castiel walked through the opened door, closing it behind him, leaving his brother in the dark.