Archive of Our Own

The front door slams open, accompanied by loud, bickering voices. To her very great credit, Mary Winchester puts her book down on the coffee table without an accompanying sigh.

The boys are home.

***

“Traitor! Turncoat! Jackass!”

“Dean, c’mon-“ Sam pleads, only to be cut off by a very dramatic hand gesture from his brother.

“I can’t hear you, Benedict Arnold. My ears don’t have time for traitors.”

“Oh my god, Dean.” Sam’s eye roll can probably be heard down the street.

Mary enters the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe.

“Ah, the dulcet cries of children’s voices,” Mary sighs dreamily, her crossed arms belying her fluttery tone.

The bickering stops for a moment. “Hi, mom,” Sam and Dean say in unison, Dean monotone, Sam chipper.

“Is this something that needs to be mediated?” Mary raises a brow. “You two can either have it out in the backyard, or figure it out before you leave the kitchen, because you aren’t bringing it any further into the house.”

Dean perks up at the opening to get his mother on his side.

“Mom, go on and guess what this little…” he trails off at the look Mary gives him, “… scamp, did today.”

Mary looks to Sam.

“First day of high school and you managed to ruin your brother’s life already?” Her sarcasm is noted by the wince Dean gives.

“I just joined a club!” Sam defends himself, toeing off his shoes. “I mean, c’mon, it’s not my fault my brother is some weird, territorial nerd who doesn’t like the trivia team.”

Dean looks like he just swallowed a lemon, and Sam was the one who gave it to him and told him it was candy.

“Sam, you don’t even know. That fucking trivia team is the reason the robotics club keeps losing people. Seriously, who likes trivia better than robots?? They have laser eyes, man!” Dean looks up, like he’s pleading with a higher being, who knows for a fact that robots are, in fact, superior.

“Says the one who corrects us when we call Doctor Who by the wrong name.”

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his forefinger, like this subject is something that pains him to his very core.

“It’s The Doctor, mom. We’ve been over this.”

Mary’s eyes are twinkling, proving that she very well knows.

Dean collects himself enough to whine, “And why are you taking his side?” gesturing to an overly smug Sam who’s going to get his underwear in the freezer tonight if he keeps this shit up.

Mary scoffs and pushes herself off the doorframe.

“It’s his first day of high school, Dean, c’mon,” she scolds as she grabs a glass out of the cupboard and pours herself a glass of tap water. She directs her attention to Sam. “Sam, I’m really glad you found a club already, despite what your brother seems to think. Tell me about it.”

“No, please, let me,” Dean interrupts before Sam can even open his mouth. Sam glares. “You see, the trivia team is run by the biggest douchebag in the history of douchebags. The smarmiest motherfu-” Dean catches himself in time, “-smarmiest jerkoff in the world, who thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread. Not only that, but he keeps stealing members of the robotics team, leaving me with Ash and freakin’ Andy, who does nothing but smoke and blow it out the classroom window during meetings.” He considers for a moment, “And Jo,” he tacks on, “though all she ever does is chew gum and criticize my work.”

Mary looks unimpressed.

“Thank you, Dean.”

Sam is extremely offended.

“He’s actually really nice, Dean! You only think he’s a douchebag because his team is better than yours.”

Dean rounds on Sam.

“Did you just say you think Castiel Novak’s team is better than mine?” He throws his hands up in the air. “That’s it. I’m done. I’m out.”

He never even got the chance to take his shoes off, but he turns around and is back out the door in three seconds flat.

In the moment after the screen door shuts, Mary looks after her eldest son with equal parts annoyance and fondness in her eyes.

“Did anyone ever tell you that your brother is possibly the most dramatic person on the planet?” she directs at Sam, who grins toothily in agreement.

“Castiel fucking Novak!” they hear through the open kitchen window from somewhere in the vicinity of the driveway.

It’s mostly annoyance in Mary’s eyes after that. She eyes Sam.

“You better never talk like that,” she warns him.

Hand over his heart, Sam promises.

***

“I fucking hate him,” Dean seethes, pacing back and forth in front of a bored looking Jo Harvelle.

“Yeah, you said that already,” Jo informs him, stretched out lazily on her basement stairs. She cracks her gum, eyes on the ceiling, looking for anything to entertain her.

“But he’s such a prick,” Dean explains, hands taut in front of him like he’s about to wring someone’s neck.  “He’s a smarmy fuck who once wore a sweater vest.”

“You wear Star Trek t shirts,” Jo reminds him. “A lot more often than once.”

“Star Trek is awesome,” Dean defends himself, spinning back towards her, pointing an accusing finger. “You like Star Trek.”

“Sure,” Jo replies, pulling a pocketknife out of her jeans. She starts playing with it, twirling it in her fingers. Dean begrudgingly stops his ranting and pacing to direct a baleful look at her.

“Can you not do that? You’re gonna chop your finger off or something.”

Jo actually laughs out loud. She tosses it in the air and, before Dean can even move, catches it between her teeth.

“You’re cute,” is all she says, before resuming the knife play.

Dean, ever the mother hen, argues internally for a moment, before deciding to leave things be.

“I really hate Castiel Novak.” he says again, without as much vigor this time.

“I really hate Kiss,” Jo says blandly, “If he really gets on your nerves, just kill the bastard. It’s a lot easier than murdering the members of a famous ‘rock’ band.”  She twists the knife in between her hands in some sort of fancy move to accentuate her point.

“The sad thing is, I don’t even know if you’re kidding.”

Jo grins, and they go out for ice cream.

***

Day two of Sam’s high school career, and Dean is determined to be a better big brother today. He even lets Sam choose the music, and doesn’t make fun of the selection.

“So, I’ve been thinking about it,” Dean says, about five minutes into the drive.

Sam looks up from the textbook he’d been nosing through.

“Thinking about what?”

“This trivia team thing.”

“Oh. Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Dean swallows. “I guess it’s okay if you join.”

Sam looks like he’s trying very hard to bite back laughter, and not entirely succeeding.

“Did mom talk to you?” he asks.

A muscle in Dean’s jaw twitches.

“Thanks for the blessing, Dean.”

Dean turns the music up.

***

It’s their first robotics meeting of the year, and it’s an excellent turn out.

Basically, Ash and Andy came back.

Jo brought donuts.

After the initial pleasantries, which aren’t really needed since they’d all hung out over the summer, Dean claps his hands and they get to work. Their teacher supervisor, Zachariah Adler, drinks coffee behind a newspaper with his feet up on his desk. It’s no secret that he’s only here because every teacher, with the recent cutbacks, needs to admin at least one student group. Sam is at his first real trivia meeting.

Ash cracks his knuckles and sighs.

“So it’s really just the three of us, then?” he asks, disappointed.

Jo clears her throat pointedly.

“Four of us?” Ash corrects.

Dean nods, resigned.

“Blame Castiel.” He bites out, bitter.

Jo rolls her eyes.

“Dean has a hate boner for the captain of our rivals, the trivia team.” She explains. Zachariah ruffles his paper extra loudly, just as a reminder.

Ash nods like it makes sense. Andy doesn’t look up from where he’s rolling a joint out of Zachariah’s sightline.

“So… not that I’m questioning authority, but why do we hate Castiel?” Ash asks, eyeing Dean through a hole in a bolt he just picked out of the toolbox.

“Because he’s an asshole.” Dean says, like it’s an axiom of the universe that Castiel Novak is an asshole, and nothing can change that.

Ash nods again, and doesn’t question his fearless leader’s authority anymore.

“Let’s build some robots,” he says, instead.

They turn on the radio, Zachariah is annoyed, and Jo eats a donut.

And robots are built.

***

Castiel Novak hates him, too. Dean knows this just as well as he knows that he hates Castiel with every fibre of his being.

He doesn’t know why, exactly, but he just assumes Castiel hates him for the same reasons.

Which is wrong, actually.

Castiel Novak hates Dean Winchester because Dean Winchester is loud, obnoxious, and rude. Even worse, he’s smart. And charismatic. And charming, when he wants to be.

Which means that Castiel wants Dean Winchester on his trivia team.

Which makes Castiel hate Dean Winchester.

***

“Have you hatesterbated to him yet?” Jo asks non-chalantly, about a week after school has officially started. They’re in the cafeteria, and Dean stops mid chew.

“What.”

“Hatesterbated.” Jo repeats.

“What.”

“You hate him so much that you jerked off thinking about him,” she clarifies.

Dean raises an eyebrow.

“Two things. One, I’m not into dudes. Two, this isn’t some tension fueled romcom where the leads only pretend to hate each other. I really do hate Castiel Novak. With the passion of a thousand fiery burning suns,” he insists, looking over at the table where the stupid blue-eyed fucker always sits.

Jo shrugs.

“If you find the One, gender doesn’t matter,” she says, like she knows from experience.

Dean feels this conversation veering wildly. It must show on his face, because Jo rolls her eyes.

“See that redhead?” she points at a girl sitting a couple people down from Castiel. “I’d go gay for her in a second.”

Dean goggles.

“That’s- that’s Anna!” he exclaims, completely forgetting about the half-chewed burger in his mouth and subsequently spitting it all over the table. Jo looks on in well learned neutrality. “Castiel’s—sister!” he manages to get out, saying it like it’s the most scandalous thing he’s ever heard.

Dean chokes on the bit of burger he accidentally inhaled when he gasped at Jo’s choice in people, and she slowly gets out of her seat and moves over to Dean’s side to pound him on the back.

“Get it all out,” she instructs, hitting him mechanically, perhaps a little harder than necessary.

Dean waves her off and shoos her back to her side of the table. After coughing it out and taking a long swig of Coke, he lays down the law.

“Choose any other girl,” he begs. “Choose any other girl to be the One. It can’t be Anna.”

“You fucking pig,” Jo answers good-naturedly. “I don’t want any other girl. I want Anna.”

“You didn’t even know her name until two seconds ago!” Dean blusters.

“You don’t know the name of some of the girls you’ve slept with,” Jo snipes right back. “Doesn’t stop you from jerking off to thoughts of them.” She smirks, “which brings us back to the hatesterbation discussion.”

“I’ve never jerked off to the thought of Castiel Novak,” Dean says, too loudly for a crowded cafeteria that contains the person he’s most definitely not hatesterbating to the thought of.

Jo puts her hands up in a placating gesture.

“Whatever you say.”

The thought niggles at him the rest of the day.

***

That night, Dean hatesterbates to images of Castiel Novak with flushed cheeks and heavily lidded eyes, and comes harder than he has in months.

He has to remember to stick gum in Jo’s hair at some point in the near future.

***

Dean and Castiel are in the same advanced physics class. Dean is very good at physics. Castiel is not.

When Mr. Henrickson asks Dean, as one of the top students in the class, to help out someone else who’s struggling, Dean agrees without a second thought.

When he realizes that it’s Castiel he has to help, he has third, fourth, and fifth thoughts. His sixth thought is for the pair of semen-encrusted boxers at the bottom of his hamper that basically have Castiel’s name on them.

They just stare at each other for a moment, Castiel’s eyes wide and blue, and then Castiel says, “… Oh. Hi.”

Dean coughs, abruptly gruff.

“What do you need help with?” he grounds out, regretting every single decision that’s led to this interaction, including being born.

Castiel rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Um… I’ve kind of fallen behind recently, so maybe all the stuff in the past month?” he hesitates, coughs, mirroring Dean, and runs his tongue over his teeth nervously. Dean tries to ignore it, and sits down across from Castiel.

“The trivia team has kept me… pretty busy,” Castiel admits, dropping the bomb with all the subtlety of a Dane Cook joke.

Dean tenses up, ready to tell Castiel to fuck off back to his little team and let him figure out the goddamned physics on his own, but then Castiel has to go and mention Sam.

“There are a lot of new members, so I’m just trying to keep up with everybody. Your brother is better than most of the seniors, you know.” Castiel tells him, tapping a long index finger on the cover of his textbook. Dean tries not to focus on that.

Dean bites back what he’s sure was going to be a snappy retort, and dials it back to rolling his eyes.

“So, basically, you need me to go over everything since the beginning of the year,” he clarifies, shuffling through is backpack for his notebook.

Castiel nods.

“Well then let’s get fucking rolling,” Dean slams his own textbook down onto the desk, and Castiel grimaces.

“I hate physics,” he admits.

The fact that Castiel hates Dean, Dean hates Castiel, and Castiel hates physics has a sort of symmetry to it that makes Dean bite back a smile.  Not only does he get to watch his nemesis become increasingly frustrated by what he considers easy work, but he also gets to point out every little thing he did wrong.

If he wasn’t set on having such a terrible time doing this, he could almost swear he’s having fun.

***

Castiel hates Dean, but at least he’s polite about it.

***

 It’s been an hour, and Castiel has his hand fisted in his hair, tugging it methodically.

“I don’t understand,” he complains for about the forty-eighth time, eyes half-crazed and looking ridiculously disheveled.

Dean’s equal parts hiding a boner and laughing at Castiel’s distress, so he’s kind of in an awkward position.

“You’ve just got to follow the formulas,” he explains again. “Follow the formula, and it’s easy shit.”

“I’ve tried,” Castiel bites out, cheeks flushing. “I’ve done the same fucking question over and over, and I keep getting the same answer, and it’s always wrong!” he sits back in his chair and crosses his arms, chest heaving. “Just… give me a minute.”

Dean swallows hard and doesn’t say anything. The sight of Castiel (who he hates, his brain reminds him helpfully) mouth open and slack and eyes trained on the ceiling, gives him reason to shift his weight slightly behind the desk. He even crosses his legs, which isn’t exactly the Dean Winchester way. It doesn’t help that Castiel is sitting right beside him, the second text book gone long ago. The two of them opted to just share one instead, meaning they’ve been getting incrementally closer, Dean’s knee almost brushing against Castiel’s thigh under the desk, as the minutes roll on.

Castiel closes his eyes for a moment, and collects himself. Dean is actually a very good teacher. The only problem is that he is not a very good student.

“I think we should call it a day,” Castiel admits. “I couldn’t tell you the difference between a scalar and vector quantity at the moment.”

Dean clucks his tongue. “Whatever you say,”

Castiel tips all his books into his backpack and stands up. He deliberates for a moment.

“Thanks,” he eventually manages to coax out of his mouth.

“Sure.”

Castiel makes his way to the door, then turns back when he realizes Dean isn’t following.

“Are you coming?” he asks, hand on the doorknob.

Unbidden, images of walking Castiel Novak home from school, (maybe even carrying his books, god help him) pop up in Dean’s head, and he’s pretty sure he feels a conniption coming on.

“I’ve got some work of my own to do,” Dean says instead, making a show of re-opening his own notebook.

“Right. Okay. Um. Bye,” Castiel blusters, and leaves the room.

When he’s sure Castiel is out of hearing range, Dean drops his forehead onto the desk with a muffled thump, and groans loudly.

He waits in a haze of blue balls for his fucking hard on to subside, and then briefly considers constructing a robot to kill Castiel in his sleep.

The thought is tempting.

***

Ash has built some sort of mechanical salt and pepper shaker, and they’re currently testing which one will run out of spice first. Dean and Jo have money on salt, while Andy and Ash are cheering on pepper. Zachariah reads the business section of the newspaper, and secretly hopes someone gets pepper in the eye so they can cut today’s meeting short.

Right before it looks like salt is going to kick pepper’s ass, Sam walks into the room, looking understandably hesitant, since Dean promised him a prompt ass whooping and possible toss out the window if he ever showed up to a robotics meeting without actually bothering to sign up.  (Alternatively, if Sam actually wanted to join the robotics club, Dean would be happy to comply, and even happier if Sam quit the trivia team as well, bringing him a bottle of Castiel’s tears as entrance fee.)

Salt wins, but no one notices. Everyone is staring at Sam.

“Um. Hi.” Sam says, and gives a sheepish little wave.

“If you’re not in the club, you shouldn’t be here,” Zachariah announces from behind his paper in a bored voice, but doesn’t even bother putting it down. He’s ignored. He’s fairly sure he’s not liable if the kid who falls out of the window isn’t actually in the robotics club.

“Yo little Winchester,” Jo greets, and offers Sam a powdered donut. Sam declines politely. Jo shrugs and eats the donut destined for Sam.

“What’s up, Sam?” Dean asks, obviously not interested in making good on his window threat, Jamie Lannister style.

“Um.” Sam wrings his hands. “So I was just going to the bathroom, and Cas actually asked me to stop in on the way back.” At the mention of Castiel’s name, Dean tenses, and Ash leans forward, ready for something dramatic to happen.

“And?” Dean asks, maybe a little too aggressively. Jo bites into another donut, and contemplates smacking Dean upside the head.

“He was just wondering if you were free after your meeting to study more physics,” Sam hurries out.

Ash’s mouth falls open. Jo chokes on a bite of donut.

“Dean, you sly dog!” A lazy grin breaks out on Ash’s face. “You were just telling us all that shit about Castiel so we’d all stay away from him and you could have him to yourself!”

Dean blanches.

“What? What! I’m his tutor, you morons!” Dean glances at Jo, who looks like she’s been sniffing crack all night. “You have powder all over your face, moron.”

“Yeah, and you have egg all over yours,” Jo manages, in between coughing up sugar.

“Okay, it’s nothing like that,” Dean clarifies, giving Sam the look that means he’s going to wake up with a spider on his face more than once in the coming weeks.  “Henrickson asked me to tutor him, okay? Jesus Christ. It’s no big deal.”

“First comes tutoring, then comes marriage, then comes super smart genetically gifted babies in the baby carriage,” Jo quips.

“Okay. This meeting is officially over.” Dean announces, and starts shoving Sam out of the room. “You owe me twenty bucks, by the way,” he says to Ash and Andy, pointing to the shaker machine. “See you later, fuckers,”

Behind his newspaper, Zachariah smiles. The meeting ended early after all. Maybe he should send this Castiel kid a fruit basket.

***

Dean waits outside the trivia club’s meeting room. He refuses to go in on principle.

About ten minutes later, the team files out for the day, casting Dean looks ranging from curious to couldn’t give less of a fuck. Dean glares at them all.

Castiel stumbles out a couple moments later, looking more debauched than usual. He’s wearing black rimmed glasses today, and his hair is sticking out in every direction. Dean literally has to put a hand on the wall to steady himself, and possibly to hold himself back from doing something that would earn him a very stern talking to from the principal.

“I’ve been summoned, apparently,” Dean says, trying to talk around the erection he feels welling up at the image of Castiel looking that wrecked, but in a lot less clothes.

Castiel shakes his head, and rubs his eyes, knocking his glasses askew.

“Sorry,” he apologizes, adjusting his glasses as he does so, “I didn’t mean for you to come down here. I just needed an answer from Sam.” He yawns, and Dean sees the bags under his eyes.

“Look,” Dean says, “You don’t exactly look up to learning advanced physics today. Why don’t we just reschedule?”

Castiel’s eyes go wide.

“No! There’s a test on Friday, and I’m going to fail if I don’t catch up.” He has a grip on Dean’s sleeve, and they both look down at it in silence. Castiel hastily pulls back.

“Sorry,” he apologizes again. “I’m not used to... failing.” he half-whispers, like it’s a bad word.

Dean snorts. “I’ve done my fair share of failing. It builds character.”

“I can’t fail,” Castiel says, and it’s a fact.

Dean rolls his eyes.

There. Now he has a concrete reason to hate Castiel Novak that isn’t completely petty.

He’s an insufferable goody goody.

“Take a nap, dude,” Dean advises him. “Let me know when you aren’t about to crash, and we’ll figure it out from there.”

As he’s walking away, Dean sees Castiel deflate like a punctured balloon. It feels good.

It’s only once he gets home that he realizes that by telling Castiel to take it easy, he was actually kind of doing the guy a favor.

Dean is not pleased with himself.

***

“Son, I hear you have a bug up your ass,” John Winchester claims at dinner that night.

Both Sam and Dean look up from their meatloaf, but John’s gaze is directed at Dean. Sam cheers a silent cry of victory, and dumps his forkful of meat shaped loaf into the ocean of ketchup on his plate as a reward for escaping John’s specific brand of fathering for the moment.

“I don’t have anything up my ass,” Dean claims, thoughts immediately drifting to Castiel and internally wincing at the choice of words.

John takes a sip of beer and regards Dean with the, don’t bullshit me, boy, I was in the navy eyes.

“Are you being bullied?” John asks, frank, and Dean almost chokes on his broccoli. Sam snorts into his milk. Mary looks worried.

“I’m not being bullied,” Dean says carefully, neutrally.

“Are you doing the bullying?” John returns, bulldozing ahead in the conversation in his typical way.

“Yes,” Sam says at the same time Dean says a vehement, “No!”

He glares at Sam.

“Who am I supposed to be bullying?”

“Castiel,”

John looks between the two, but before he can say anything, Mary jumps into the conversation.

“Is Castiel the boy who runs the trivia club?” She asks, eyes big, “Dean, are you still having problems with him?”

 There’s a math problem in here somewhere. If problems with Castiel are equal to amount of times jacking off to the thought of his ridiculous mouth wrapped around Dean’s cock, then Dean seems to be having many, many problems with Castiel.

“No,” Dean says.

“Yes,” Sam contradicts. “I hear Dean complaining about him to his friends all the time.” He puts down his cutlery with a clatter, and fully turns in his chair to face Dean. “I don’t understand your problem with him, Dean. He’s really nice, he’s super smart, and honestly, he’s probably the coolest guy I know. If I didn’t know how much you hated him, I’d think you two could be friends.”

Dean sputters.

“Friends?” He repeats, scornful. “You want me to be friends with Castiel Novak?”

“You just need to not hate him,” Sam pleads. “I don’t understand,”

If this were a couple months ago, Dean could have explained in simple enough terms why he hates Castiel Novak.

But now, things are tied up with semen count and sweaty palms and Dean’s not so sure how to respond to Sam’s statement.

“I just do,” is Dean’s brilliant retort.

Mary sits at the head of the table with a small, secret smile that no one notices.

“Don’t waste your energy on people like that,” John advises.

“It’s kind of hard not to when I’m tutoring him in physics,” Dean complains, and immediately regrets saying it.

John stops with a bite halfway to his mouth, and it falls back to his plate with a soft splat. The fork stays in the air.

“How the hell did that happen?”

Dean waves a hand dismissively. “I’m good at physics and Castiel isn’t. I dunno, Henrickson likes me and asked me to do him a favor.”

“It’s great, actually!” Sam butts in, eager to talk about his new bff. “I mean, Dean, don’t you see? This is an opportunity. You and Cas can talk it over, feel each other out! You’ll learn that he’s just as great as I say, and then you don’t have to be a dick about it all the time.”

“Sam,” Mary says reproachfully, as Dean sits in silence and contemplates the phrase, feel each other out.

“Sorry mom.”

“Dean,” Mary says, her no-nonsense-parental tone on full display, “from what Sam’s said, I think this Castiel sounds like a great boy. You’re smart, and you can help him. You should keep tutoring him, and, god forbid, if you actually like him, feel free to become friends.”

“What if I hate him even more?” Dean asks, just because.

“Then at least you tried.” Mary says simply.

And that’s the end of that conversation.

***

The next day, Castiel seems at least like a typical high school student. That is the say, he’s tired as fuck, but not near as tired as yesterday.

Dean takes pity on him, and agrees to go over some test subjects at lunch.

***

“Aww, a study date?” Jo coos as she walks with him to the library, smirk too pronounced for Dean’s liking.

“Shut up.”

“Do you need some boy advice? An emergency phone call halfway through just in case it goes south? A condom?”

Dean glares at her.

“I’m being a good person, Jo. I know it’s a foreign concept to you.”

Jo puts a hand over her heart, mock offended.

“Dean, I carry a knife around with me 24/7, and have never stabbed someone. I think that makes me a very good person.” Her smirk comes back full force. “Especially since I spend most of my time with you.”

Dean opens the door to the library, and points an accusing finger at Jo.

“Watch your mouth, or I might buy a knife of my own.”

He can still hear Jo laughing after she’s turned the corner at the end of the hallway.

***

 Dean is a smart guy. He knows he’s smart.

He’s a physics whiz, builds robots, can strip a car and rebuild it no problem. He reads constantly, likes to tinker with electronics and build his own appliances, and knows his way around a kitchen pretty well.

Not that it has anything to do with anything, but he’s also extremely good looking. It’s fair to say he’s got a lot going for him.

So with all his smarts, and all his well roundedness, and all his charm and wit, he still isn’t particularly good with people.

He’s good at people. Not so good with them.

So when he sits down with Castiel at lunch time, and Castiel grins at him, relieved that he showed up, like he’s actually genuinely glad Dean is there, (and not just because he’s helping him pass a test), and everything after that is so effortless and so easy, Dean is, rightly, a little dumbfounded.

He’s trying to follow Mary’s and Sam’s advice. He’s trying to just chill out on the whole burning hatred thing, because, unsurprisingly, holding a grudge- especially one that has such little, petty meaning- wears on the nerves eventually.

When he makes a physics joke about what he just taught Castiel, and Castiel actually laughs, Dean feels a twinge right in the gut that either means he’s just eaten a bad burrito, or he’s gone and done something very stupid, and started to fall in love with Castiel Novak.

And he hasn’t eaten any burritos recently.

***

Meanwhile in the cafeteria, Jo asks if the seat next to Anna Novak is taken.

***

Dean finds himself in a very strange position. Not in the kind of position that allows for fun, sexy shenanigans, but more in the vicinity of a moral quandary.

Because as far as he’s concerned, Castiel is still the dick who stole some robotics team members for his own selfish gain (i.e. the trivia team, which is school run and funded by the school, but Castiel is the captain, damn it, and therefore it is his fault).

Castiel is also slightly neurotic and even more of a goody goody. And he wore that sweater vest that one time. He sits in the front of every class, and raises his hand constantly, often engaging in discussions that end up with the teacher saying something along the lines of, “What a very interesting question, Castiel. Class, why don’t you all do a little research on the subject tonight?”

On the other hand, Castiel is so goddam genuine that it makes Dean’s chest constrict, like that bad burrito got stuck somewhere halfway down his throat. (Dean’s been craving burritos lately, and it tends to color his thoughts.)

On the other other hand, Dean was (is?) fairly certain he isn’t attracted to dudes.

But when he jacks himself off and imagines it’s Castiel’s hand instead, he has no problem finishing hard enough to see stars.

So he throws that hand out of the equation entirely. Who needs three hands, anyways?

***

Castiel aces his physics test. Dean almost claps him on the back, but settles for an upper arm grip instead.

Later, he thinks it was probably the more intimate of the two gestures, and tries not to think of the implications.

***

Based on Dean’s upper arm grip (because that’s more intimate than a slap on the back, right?) Castiel considers popping the question.

The big, will you join the trivia team request that’s been burning on the tip of his tongue since the first moment he laid eyes on one of the robots Dean had built last year for fun. (The robot that was painted a shockingly bright blue and made to look like an old police call box. It made a horrible noise when it moved, but Castiel had been impressed regardless.)

He doesn’t really hate Dean. He never did.

It’s more of a burning-jealousy-and-unbridled-lust tag team combo, and it’s kicking Castiel’s ass six ways from Sunday.

Speaking of asses and Sundays; during mass this week (his family’s idea, not his) he thinks about fucking Dean senseless over the altar, and hopes god has other, less depraved minds to read this morning.

***

Meanwhile, down the pew, Anna wonders if it would be weird to invite Jo to church.

***

On Monday morning, Cas is sitting at his desk in physics before class starts, minding his own business, when Dean strides over, and slides into the chair beside him.

“So,” Dean starts meaningfully, and puts an elbow on the desk, staring intently at Cas.

Cas matches Dean’s posture, and almost misses the desk completely with his elbow.

“So,” he replies.

Dean blinks, and opens his mouth, and nothing comes out. For a second, Cas thinks he’s caught up in the real life version of a lag, but then Dean seems to come to his senses and starts talking.

“So you aced the physics test,” Dean says, like he’s got a point to make.

“Thanks to you,” Cas replies sincerely.

Dean ignores the compliment, and barges on.

“So you don’t need a tutor anymore,” he concludes.

“Uh. No. I guess not,” Cas realizes. He hadn’t really thought about it.

“Good. Perfect. Okay,” Dean says, and he’s out of the desk before Cas can say anything else.

Dean returns to his seat on the other side of the room, and doesn’t look at Cas once for the rest of class.

Cas chews on his pen so much during class that he accidentally swallows the cap and has to go to the nurse’s office.

As he’s sitting on the chair with the crinkly brown paper and drinking a cup of water while the nurse lectures him on swallowing solid objects, he’s not entirely certain that he doesn’t hate Dean Winchester in that moment.

***

“Why so gloomy, Samsquatch?” Dean asks one day, plopping down on the couch next to his sulking baby brother, who has his chin in his hands.

Sam eyes him, but says nothing.

“Oh, c’mon,” Dean wheedles, nudging Sam’s shoulder with his own. “Tell me what’s up.”

Sam sighs and leans back, staring at nothing.

“Something’s up with Cas,” he confesses.

Dean’s ears simultaneously perk up and clamp down, and it’s a somewhat jarring sensation. He doesn’t care about Castiel, his brain keeps telling him. He tutored the guy for like, two seconds, and that’s it. Plus, he totally hates his guts.

Totally.

Completely.

And yet, here he is, ready to listen to Castiel’s problems via Sam’s problems re: Castiel.

It’s convoluted, and yet Dean recalls that nothing about this whole stupid drama has been easy.

When Sam doesn’t say anything else, Dean nudges his brother again.

“And? Don’t leave me in suspense, what’s up with Castiel?”

Sam does a double take.

“What? I was just expecting you to groan and leave when I mentioned Cas.”

Dean tries to do his best to play it off and rolls his eyes. “Please. The chance to hear about Saint Castiel and his Saintly problems is like a trip to Disneyland for me.”

“God, Dean, you’re such a jerk.”

“Yeah, I know. Now talk to me.”

“Ugh.” Sam flops back against the couch again.

“Well, it’s just that Cas has been… really bad at trivia lately.”

Dean raises an eyebrow.

“Wow. What a terrible issue for him to have to deal with.” In a happy coincidence, there’s a box of Kleenex sitting on the table, and Dean gets to flex his prop comedy skills. “Tissue?” he offers, delicately dropping one into Sam’s lap.

Sam balls it up and throws it ineffectively back at Dean. (It is a tissue, after all.)

“Shut up.”

Dean chuckles, but then sobers up enough to say, “really, though, why is this an issue? I’m sure everyone has bad smart guy days.”

Sam shakes his head.

“I’ve told you before, Dean, he’s smart. Really smart. He knows, like, everything.”

One day, Dean will have to check Castiel’s ass for a tan, because he’s fairly sure his brother thinks the sun shines out of it.

“Go on,” Dean says, in his best non-judgemental big brother voice.

“It’s just that, he’s been missing questions. Maybe he’s distracted? Or sad, or going through something, I dunno.” Sam shrugs his shoulders meekly. “Maybe he broke up with someone.”

Dean snorts.

“Yeah, his right hand, maybe.”

“Dean.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Dean leans back against the arm of the couch. “I dunno man, everyone goes through their shit. Maybe he just needs time to work it out.”

Sam bites his bottom lip.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Or maybe he’s just tired of your face,” Dean continues, smirking at Sam. “And it messes him up so bad that he can’t even answer trivia questions anymore.”

Sam smacks Dean upside the head with a pillow.

***

Dean’s glib remark was actually fairly close to the mark, however. He was in the right family, he just chose the wrong sibling.

That is to say, Castiel was very tired of a certain Winchester’s face.

It just wasn’t Sam’s.

***

Castiel never actually stole any member of the robotics team.

In his more mature moments, Dean realizes this. Every member of the robotics team who left for the trivia team left of their own accord, and not because Castiel grew a twirly mustache and started wearing a sinister top hat because he decided to cast himself as the villain in the showtime drama that is Dean Winchester’s life.

Mostly, they just left because the trivia team gets to study a much wider range of subjects than the robotics team, which is, fairly, mostly contained to just robotics, and the two teams happen to meet on the same days.

The simplest solution to this problem, is- and always has been- to just switch the days the clubs meet on. Unfortunately, dealing with the administration and teacher advisors on the two teams has proved more difficult than figuring out if Zachariah’s bitterness directly correlates with the amount of hair he’s lost over the years.

But admitting something like this means that Dean might have to admit to other things. Other, more distressing things.

And he figures, if denial is good enough for the Egyptians, then it’s good enough for him. (Though that metaphor doesn’t extend far enough to stop him from getting worried about abnormally low sperm count because of all the jerking off he’s been doing lately.)

***

Castiel considers, albeit very briefly, the idea of bombing his next physics test so that Henrickson will ask Dean to help him again.

But then he remembers the time he watched Mean Girls with Anna, and he comes to his senses.

***

Dean and Cas are in some weird, quantum locked state of both wanting to kill and kiss each other, and the only problem with it-among many others, honestly- is the fact that they don’t cross paths anymore. They only share the one physics class, and mix with very different crowds.

It would take a romcom worthy trope to get them together in any capacity.

So naturally, Castiel switches lockers about halfway through November, because someone thought it would be more environmentally friendly to leave a tuna sandwich in their locker rather than the green bin, and half the third floor has to be temporarily evacuated after a particularly warm weekend.

Of course, Cas’ locker is now located right on top of Dean’s. (He tries very hard not to think of that as a possible metaphor for any sort of sexy shenanigans that will never take place between him and Dean, but it proves extremely difficult when he comes back to his locker, only to see Dean, bent, bowlegged knees and all, bending down to grab his books for his next class, with his shirt riding up just a little at the back.)

As it turns out, Castiel’s new locker (as detested as the proximity to Dean’s locker is, because Castiel’s mind can’t often keep up with his dick- woe are the trials and tribulations of a high school senior) is a much better fit in regards to where his classes are, so he opts to stay for the rest of the year.

It’s not like Dean has a bunch of pictures of Cas in his locker or anything that embarrassing. (He has some skin mags, but he’s had enough mishaps with those over the years that he barely even registers them anymore.) But he is a teensy bit territorial, and a lot annoyed, when Cas drops his third fat textbook on his head in the past week.

“Dude!” Dean complains, standing up to start berating Cas, only to slam his head on the bottom of Cas’ locker.

“God--! Fuck!” Dean exclaims, one hand on his head and one dragging his backpack along with him. His locker sits openly, looking forlorn.

Cas stares at him with big eyes.

“Dean, I’m so sorry-” he starts, stepping forward, like he wants to check Dean for damages.

Dean takes his hand off his head and points at Cas dramatically.

“You stay there,” he orders, and Cas stops in his tracks.  “I am going to class, and when I come back, we are fucking taking numbers, or turns, or playing rock paper scissors to see who gets to open their locker first, because I’ve already got one textbook shaped dent in my head. I don’t need another one.”

And he stomps off.

Cas, who may have dropped the first textbook on Dean’s head on purpose, actually feels bad. (The next couple text books were accidents, he swears.)

Cas leaves for his own class, and the bell rings, with the two locker neighbors on either side of the building.

***

Sometime in the next hour, Dean’s little open green locker basically radiating “rifle through me, please” vibes, is, unsurprisingly, rifled through.

***

Someone is yelling on the other side of the school, and Sam goes to investigate.

He has a couple minutes before he has to meet Dean at the Impala, so he figures he’ll follow the angry voices and see what’s going on.

He regrets this decision very, very much.

***

Dean is all flailing arms and completely unrestrained macho peacocking, whereas Cas is stock still and puce colored, looking like he’s about to rearrange Dean’s face as soon as it stops spewing shit long enough so that Cas won’t get his knuckles dirty.

“Four times, Cas! Four fucking times!” Dean is yelling.

Luckily, the hallways are mostly clear, since it’s not exactly a common trait in high school students to stick around after the final bell. Sam, Dean, and Cas are some of the only students who never seemed to get that message.

When Sam rounds the corner and realizes who’s doing the shouting, he immediately beelines for the Impala.

“You offered for me to go first,” Cas retorts, eyes flashing.

Dean drags his hand down his face.

“I said, ‘wait, hold up a minute,’ as I bent under you!” He throws his hand in the air. “Obviously that wasn’t clear enough for your fucking astronomical IQ!”

“What did you even need to look at? You weren’t going to open your locker when you clearly invited me to go first,” Cas accuses, crossing his arms and pushing his glasses up his nose.

Dean gestures wildly at his locker.

“Someone went through my locker, dumbass. I was gonna check it over before your fucking Ayn Rand practically knocked me out.”

Cas holds up the offending book, leaning against the lockers. “It’s a softcover, Dean. I think you’ll survive.”

“A fucking thousand page thick softcover!”

Cas rolls his eyes and puts up his hands.

“Okay, then, feel free to physically move me whenever you feel the need, because apparently that’s the only way I’m getting out of this conversation.”

Cas didn’t think the threat through well enough, because he suddenly finds himself crowded against the lockers by a very fight flushed Dean, who puts a hand firmly on the book Cas is holding.

“I’m not above braining a brain with a book,” he says, possibly seriously. (He’s been taking lessons from Jo on how to remain vaguely threatening.)

Dean’s face is very close to his, and Cas feels the fabric of Dean’s shirt brush against his own when he inhales.

“Well then you’d better hope my brain never falls on you either,” Cas responds, the first thing that pops into his head coming out, whether it makes sense or not.

That very strange statement seems to break Dean out of his mood, and suddenly the tension between them dissolves away in embarrassed little eddies. Dean realizes how close he’s been standing to Cas, and moves back with a swift cough.

“Just read lighter books, dude,” Dean advises, unfluffing his metaphorical feathers.

Cas walks away.

Dean pulls open his locker, and realizes someone stole his skin mags.

Sam hears the curse all the way out at the Impala.

***

Jo walks into school one day hand in hand with Anna Novak.

Dean goggles harder than a nearsighted deep sea diver.

***

Things are fairly quiet between Dean and Cas for the next couple weeks. Only one book is dropped on Dean’s head during that time, and he finds an apologetic looking playboy stuffed into his locker at the end of the day.

It makes him chuckle to think which seedy corner store Cas had to venture to at lunch to find it, and once he realizes he’s chuckling at something Cas did, he blanches and walks around in a daze for the rest of the day.

***

Things remain quiet, that is, until Cas finally pops the question.

Things have been somewhat tense between the two of them since the blow up in the hallway, though they’ve managed to exchange some inconsequential small talk during the down period. Unfortunately for Cas, that just makes him want Dean on the trivia team all the more.

His earlier assumption about Dean had been wrong.

Dean isn’t just smart. Dean is incredibly smart. And if Cas can figure that out just from a few minutes of small talk, then he can hardly imagine what he can find out from, god forbid, a discussion. (Or even better, a heated discussion.)

Dean’s searching for something in his locker, and a dull clang tells Cas that he just hit his head on something. He doesn’t let Dean’s subsequent cursing scare him off though.

He takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders.

“Dean.”

There’s a thud this time, and it sounds like he hit something quite a bit more solid.

Muttering blackly, Dean backs out of his locker and stands up, staring at Cas balefully.

“What?” he asks, inexplicably rubbing grease off his face.

Cas decides it would be better not to ask, refrains from wiping away the grease himself, and gives himself a quick mental pep talk.

“Dean,” he starts, with the sound of a prepared speech, (even though the “Dean” part is all Cas ever managed to prepare) “I’ve been thinking about it…” And he trails off, losing steam.

Dean rubs harder at the elusive grease, and quirks an eyebrow.

“About what?” he asks again, exasperated.

Cas dithers for a moment, watching Dean fight with the grease. Eventually, the grease is smeared all over Dean’s cheek, and Cas, without thinking- or perhaps thinking with the wrong organ- reaches out to claim some of it. The twitchiness of Dean’s movements had been getting to him, anyway. This conversation is too uncomfortable already for more than one of them to be jittery.

However, Cas’ impromptu caress seems to have left both of them steeped in uncomfortableness, seeing as Dean’s eyes go wide as saucers, and a flush works its way up his neck faster than the blood can make its way down south.

“Um, you’ve been thinking about my face?” Dean eventually ventures, doing his very best to diffuse the situation.

Cas rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Er… I was just…” Cas takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a moment. “Look,” he finally levels, “You’re just… really smart, okay? Like, really smart. And I’m sure we can work something out if you’re interested, we can bribe Mr. Adler to change the days or something, but um, yeah, just talking to you this year, and even last year, when you had that bright blue robot that made the horrible noise?” Cas admits, like he doesn’t expect Dean to remember his vast list of accomplishments, “yeah, um, I mean, if you wanted to, you could, um, join the trivia team?” he finally manages to get out somewhat coherently, even though he’s not sure his dignity survived the ordeal.

The look of shock that crosses Dean’s face at the invitation couldn’t be more stunned, even if Cas had decided to propose the idea naked and on one knee.

“…buh?” he finally responds, and Cas is quietly gratified to know he isn’t the only one having trouble with speech today.

“Just, um… if you want,” he clarifies, like it needed to be made clear.

The bell rings, and neither of them move. The just stare at each other.

Dean still has the ridiculous grease smear on his cheek.

“You hate me,” Dean says eventually.

Cas blinks.

“That’s… kind of hard to explain,” he says.

A beat passes.

“Why?” Dean asks, utterly dumbfounded.

Cas chews on his answer, and all he can really come up with is, “because you’re you.”

The hallway is completely empty now.

Dean gazes at Cas for a moment, like he doesn’t really know how to respond. He’s utterly still, not even a twitch.

Cas opens his mouth to say something, and like an innocent victim (or perhaps not so innocent in this case, since Cas was most definitely the initiator) of a dastardly shaken up pop can, Dean explodes all at once and gets the mess everywhere.

“I’m supposed to fucking hate you!” he shouts, and Cas recoils. Dean runs both hands through his hair, like he’s aggressively getting ready to look especially dishevelled. “You’re so… you!” he splutters, gesturing at Cas, groping around blindly for a solid reason to hold desperately onto his hatred.

Dean doesn’t like change. He’s discovering that about himself.

“You- you-” he’s not accusing Cas of anything yet, but it sure sounds like he is. He walks around in little circles, hands still in his hair. “You wore a sweater vest!” he gasps out, pointing. “A freakin’ sweater vest! To school!”

He continues to pace, rubbing one hand all over his face in some sort of stress reaction. The grease smear is getting bigger, though Cas can still see the lighter patch where his own thumb intruded.

“You steal our team members!” Dean comes back with, after Cas just stands silently and stares at the current hot mess Dean is becoming. “There’s only three of us left, because your stupid smartass team with its stupid smartass jackets keeps luring our guys away. I’m left with Ash and freakin’ Andy,” he complains.

“And Jo,” he tacks on hastily, because he can feel the phantom of the swat upside the head she’d give him if she were here, even in his current distress.

“It’s just--!” Dean pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut. “You’re so you,” he finishes just as lamely as he started.

Cas shuffles from foot to foot, and they stand in that awkward bubble that always seems to appear at the end of dramatic speeches.

“So… is that a yes?” Cas pops the bubble by asking.

Dean groans loudly and huffs out a husky laugh. He steps forward and fits his hands to Cas’ waist.

“I’ll join your stupid team,” he decides, leaning his forehead against Cas’,  “but only if you tell everyone you had to beg me,”

Cas puts one hand on Dean’s shoulder, and reaches the other up to swipe at the grease again.

“We’ll see,” he allows cheekily.

Dean laughs, and closes the distance between their mouths, eyes sparkling.

The hand that was trying to wipe the grease away gets stuck between their mouths, so their first kiss mostly consists of Dean making out with Cas’ palm.

It’s awkward, but then again, Cas’ glasses are half falling off, and Dean has a ketchup stain on his shirt from lunch, and they’re two of the smartest students in the school.

“Lawrence High’s best and brightest,” Dean smirks, before leaning in to kiss Cas properly this time.

Cas wants to say something clever back, but he’s a little preoccupied with Dean’s tongue in his mouth, and he figures, what the hell.

Lawrence High’s best and brightest students are off to find Lawrence High’s worst and dimmest janitor’s closet, and they’re going to be learning a lot about jiggle physics in the sexy closet shenanigans to come.