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“Fuck fuck fuck! ” Dean crumples his recent pre-calc test in his hand and throws it in the trash.
“That bad?” Charlie wonders, eyeing her own with distaste.
“I fucking failed .” Dean grumbles, trying and failing to keep the emotion out of his voice, “Again.”
“Yeah, I didn’t do too hot either. This class is tanking my GPA.”
“This class is bullshit.”
“I mean, it would help if we didn’t suck at math.”
Dean throws up his hands, “I’m gay, what am I supposed to do?”
“That has literally nothing to do with math.” Charlie snorts.
“Yeah, well, whatever. I’m still mad about it.”
Charlie leans against the row of lockers behind her and eyes him critically. “What you need is a tutor.”
“ You need a tutor!”
“Well, yeah,” She agrees, “That’s why I signed up for tutoring yesterday.”
“What the- without me? ”
“You were in the bathroom.”
“Ugh,” Dean slumps against the locker next to her, and is promptly shooed out of the way by the locker’s owner, “Who’d you get?”
“Jo Harvelle.”
“Is Jo good at math?”
Charlie shrugs, “Good enough to be a tutor, apparently.”
“Fuck me.” Dean sighs.
“No thanks.” Says Charlie.
Dean manages to catch Benny Lafitte at lunch, “Hey, are you still doing math tutoring?”
Benny gives him a slow up and down that makes him shift nervously. “All booked up, unfortunately. But maybe I can squeeze you in, if you… really want it.”
“Hah,” Dean swallows nervously, shoving his hands deep into his pockets, “No, uh, I mean- not that bad.”
Benny shrugs, “That’s cool. I don’t really have the time anyway, honestly. But, um, call me if you ever want to hang out, yeah?”
“Yeah- I um- okay.” Dean stammers, blushing furiously and backing away. It’s probably his own fault that Benny is so forward, after all Dean did give him a handy last year to repay him for help with algebra. But he’s trying not to say thanks with handjobs anymore.
“No way.” Dean protests, after conferring with Jo about his tutoring options, “I can’t.”
“He’s your only option,” Jo tells him, “And he’s good.”
“Then why isn’t he all booked up like everybody else?”
“Um…” Jo purses her lips, “He’s… intimidating.”
“Yeah, I know he’s intimidating, Jo, I’ve seen the guy.”
“But you need help with pre-calc, like, bad .”
“I’m aware!”
“So… get him to tutor you.”
“Um. That would mean talking to him, and that’s just not in my agenda, sorry.”
“Hey, you came to me for help. I’m helping you.”
Dean absolutely does not pout, but leans heavily against the library desk that Jo is parked at. “Can’t you ask him for me?”
“No.”
“But he scares me.”
“How much do you want to pass math?”
“Ugh, I don’t know .”
Jo raises an eyebrow, “So you’re willing to give Benny Lafitte a rub-off, but you can’t even talk to Castiel Collins?”
“Wha- how- how did you know about-”
“It’s not a secret, Dean.”
“ Oh my god.”
“Look, i’m just saying, you obviously wanted to pass math pretty bad last year. Where’s that drive now?”
Dean rubs frustratedly at his eyes, “Collins just makes me really nervous.”
“Yeah, he makes everybody nervous. Maybe you’d be less nervous if you gave him a handy.”
“God, I give one guy a handjob and I never hear the end of it!”
“Hmm, I heard it was more than one guy.”
“Shut up, Jo!” Dean shrieks.
Dean takes a deep breath, and then another. He’s been working up the nerve to talk to Castiel Collins for a week now, and only another, even more dismal test score has pushed him to finally do it. He catches Castiel after school, as the man strides through the parking lot on his long, long legs.
“Hey, Castiel!” He calls out.
Castiel stops and turns in one smooth motion, his tie flapping in the breeze like a streamer. The crisp lines of his button-down and khakis somehow manage to make him look very adult instead of.. lame. He’s wearing sturdy boots, a large black watch, and a disinterested facial expression.
“Yes?”
Dean scrambles to stop before running into Castiel, and only just succeeds.
“Uh, hi.” He struggles to catch his breath, “Um. Yeah. Okay, so. I was- uh, wondering if you could…” He trails off in the face of Castiel’s impassive gaze. His nerves are going wild, heart pounding, he can’t catch his breath.
“Are you… alright?” Castiel asks, head tilted and eyebrows furrowed with concern.
His gaze is clear and piercing.
“Uh…” Says Dean, mortification growing as he feels his hands begin to shake. “I’m sorry. I- don’t know- I don’t what’s wrong.”
“You’re hyperventilating.” Castiel says, his large hands guiding Dean to sit on the hood of a nearby car, “I need you to pace your breathing.”
His hand is on Dean’s chest, long fingers splayed out over Dean’s collarbone. “Breathe in, breathe out. There we go, keep that up. There we go.”
“Thanks.” Dean sighs as his breathing finally returns to normal. He’s humiliated and blushing furiously, but at least he has his breath.
“Are you alright, now?”
“I think so.”
“What did you need to ask me?”
“Oh,” Dean sighs, suddenly exhausted, “I, um. I was going to see if you would tutor me in pre-calc.”
Castiel looks at him seriously for a moment, “What parts are you having trouble with?”
“ All of it.”
“Alright.” Says Castiel, “I’ll tutor you, Dean.”
“You know my name?”
Castiel gives him a look, half amused, half confused, “We have four classes together, Dean.”
“Right. Yeah.”
“When would you like to start?”
“As soon as possible? I, uh, I need a lot of help.”
Dean’s house is quiet. He can hear the whir of the washing machine, the ticking of the clock over the mantel, and his own heartbeat. Castiel is considering the kitchen with the same sort of expression that one might wear when viewing a piece of art. He looks at the wallpaper, at the stove and the pictures on the refrigerator. He nods thoughtfully.
“I like your house.” He says.
Having Castiel in his house is terrifying, to say the least. He’s so put together, so smart, so adult , and here he is standing in Dean’s mediocre kitchen, looking at age-old macaroni art from when Dean was four.
“So,” Dean slumps down at the kitchen table, “Ready to find out how dumb I am?”
After a moment, Castiel sits down beside him, looking serious as always, “People learn differently, Dean, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid.”
“I guess. But i’ve had trouble with math my whole life. This is like, a last ditch effort. I just… want to warn you.”
Castiel just looks at him, which he’s done quite a bit so far. He taps the eraser of his pencil on the table, “So you have one bad subject, and you think that makes you stupid?”
“Look, I’m not really looking for a half-hearted pep talk, okay? I just need enough help to get a passing grade.”
To his great surprise, Castiel reaches out and grasps his wrist. “I’m serious, Dean. You’re not stupid just because you’re not great at every subject. Math isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay.”
“Are you giving up before we’ve even started?”
“What? No, no. I believe you’re completely capable of mastering pre-calculus. I just want you to know that not liking math doesn’t make you stupid.”
Dean says nothing, a little stunned and not sure if he should be embarrassed or not. The following silence is long, and more than a little awkward.
After a while, Castiel clears his throat. “Let's get started.”
Math sucks. It sucks a lot. But having Castiel as a tutor makes it suck a little less.
Yes, Dean is a nervous mess. Yes, Castiel gets to see Dean struggle over math. On the upside though, Castiel smells amazing. His cologne is something like pine and peppermint, and every time Castiel turns to talk to him, Dean gets a whiff of Juicy Fruit gum.
Castiel is by far the most patient tutor Dean has ever had, he makes it easy to say when he doesn’t understand a concept, when he needs further clarification. His voice is gentle, which surprises Dean because he’s always thought of Castiel as such a stern, no-nonsense guy. Turns out, Castiel isn’t really anything like Dean thought he was. He’d had this picture of Castiel in his mind, something like a larger-than-life robot, attractive but cold. Dean has never been more wrong about someone.
“I don’t get it.” Dean sighs, frustrated, “I’m sorry, Cas. I just- I just don’t get it.”
“That’s okay.” Castiel assures him, “Would you like me to go over it again?”
“Can we stop for now? I think my brain is turning to mush.”
Castiel smiles, showing off rows of straight white teeth, dimples in his cheeks. “Sure.”
“I’m starving anyway, you want something to eat?”
“I could eat.” Castiel admits, “You want Pizza Shack?”
“Oh, uh, I don’t have any money. Or a car. I was just gonna… make spaghetti or something.”
“I’ll drive,” Says Castiel, “And I’ll pay.”
“Oh. Um. I mean, I guess.”
Dean has never seen Castiel as relaxed as he is at the Pizza Shack. He’s so… smiley. He’s laughing .
“Hey, um. This is probably going to sound weird, but i’ve never seen you smile before.”
Castiel doesn’t look offended, in fact, he nods. “I tend to be very serious at school. And I… have a hard time talking to people.”
“You seem fine talking to me.” Dean points out.
“You’re easy to talk to.”
“Thanks. So are you. You’re… really different than I thought you were.”
Castiel takes a big bite out of his slice of pizza and shrugs. “I never really feel like I can be myself at school.”
“You always dress like you’re going to a meeting.”
Castiel shrugs again. “Maybe I am.”
Dean snorts, “Yeah, alright.”
“I like to dress nice sometimes. Sometimes I don’t.”
This piques Dean’s interest. “When do you not?”
“When I’m at home. Usually when I go out.”
“What do you like to do when you’re not tutoring dummies?”
“You’ve got to stop calling yourself dumb, Dean.”
Dean ignores him, “When you’re not tutoring.”
Castiel looks at him for a moment, then drops it. “I go to a lot of shows, local bands and stuff, you know?”
For some reason, this revelation surprises Dean more than anything else. “ Really ?”
“Is it really so hard to believe that i’m not serious all the time?” Castiel asks.
“You just keep surprising me.”
“I’m going to a show this weekend. You want to come?”
Dean blinks. “Can I just do that? Don’t I need like, a ticket or something?”
“Ah, no. They’re not really those kinds of shows.”
Dean hesitates. He’s not really the kind of guy who goes to shows. He’s the kind of guy who stays home and has sleepovers with Charlie where they watch old sci-fi movies and drink too much Mountain Dew. God, Castiel is so much cooler than him.
“Okay.” His mouth says, way before his brain has had time to process everything, “Yeah I’ll- I’ll go to a show with you.”
Castiel grins. “Cool.”
When Castiel comes to pick Dean up on Friday night, his mother opens the door.
“Oh, hello dear!” Mary Winchester says gleefully, “You must be Dean’s friend. Come on in! Come on!”
Castiel grins and follows her into the house. Dean is coming down the stairs and almost trips over his own feet when he sees Castiel in casual clothes. He’s never seen the guy in anything besides button-downs and khakis, so seeing him in a band t-shirt and hip-hugging jeans is startling. He looks really really good.
“Hey, Cas! Hi. Uh. You ready?”
“I’m ready.” Castiel says, “It was good meeting you, Mrs. Winchester.”
“Good to meet you too, dear. You boys be safe tonight, okay?”
“Do you want Dean back by a certain time?” Castiel asks, politely.
Mary looks between them fondly. “Just have fun and be safe, okay? And if you come in late, try not to wake your brother.”
“What, really?” Dean asks, flabbergasted. He’s never gone out to something like this before, so he’s never had to ask his mother about curfew, but this is more lenience than he’d expected.
“Yep.” Mary leans forward and kisses him on the cheek, “Now get out of here before I get emotional about you growing up.”
“Let's go!” Says Dean.
The venue is an abandoned warehouse, which makes Dean a little nervous, but Castiel’s hand is on the small of his back. Castiel gets their cover charge and they both gets red stamps on the back of their hands, and the night begins.
The warehouse is crowded, and loud, but everyone is jumping and dancing and the music is good . Dean can’t stop smiling, and Castiel is pressed close to him by the throngs of other people. His hands on Dean’s hips are probably unnecessary, but Dean isn’t complaining. At one point, Castiel wants to get closer to the stage, so he takes Dean by the hand and tugs him along, and then he just doesn’t let go.
By the end of the night, Dean feels… well, it’s hard to tell exactly how he feels. He feels changed, he feels like he might of dreamed the whole thing.
“That was amazing !” Dean gushes on the way back to Castiel’s car, “I can’t believe i’ve never done that before, it was so cool!”
“I’m glad you liked it.” Says Castiel, who has been smiling all night.
“God, you’re so cool!”
Castiel laughs, “So are you, Dean.”
Their hands brush, and Dean, drunk on excitement, grabs Castiel’s without a second thought. Their hands part when they reach the car, but Dean can still feel the ghost of Castiel’s fingers in his. They roll down the windows and Castiel turns up the music, and they sing loudly and badly into the night. The cold wind rolling into the car makes Dean feel wild, like he could do absolutely anything.
There’s a moment, when they reach Dean’s house, right before he gets out of the car, when he’s sure that Castiel is going to kiss him. There’s electricity in the air, Castiel leans forward, but it’s only to thumb an eyelash off of Dean’s cheek, although he does look particularly reverent about it. But no, no kiss comes that night, to Dean’s disappointment. He can’t really be too disappointed though, because the night has been… such an experience.
Going to school on Monday is a little odd, because now he has Castiel’s phone number, and the memory of holding his hand and dancing with him in a crowded warehouse. Now he knows that the button-downs and ties are easily traded for band tees, and he’s not entirely sure what to do with this information.
Their tutoring continues, to Dean’s combined delight and despair. He loves the touch of their knees beneath the table, and the smell of cologne as Castiel leans close to explain a problem, but the math still gives him fits. Nevertheless, the grade on his next test is actually passing.
“I passed!” Dean shouts at Charlie, by her locker, who screams her approval.
“I passed!” He shouts at Kevin, in the library, who looks to be having a heart attack.
“I passed !” He shouts at Castiel, out in the parking lot, who beams and opens his arms to embrace Dean in an unexpected but entirely welcome hug.
“You passed!”
“ I passed !”
“I knew you could.”
“ I didn’t. I thought i’d be stuck in high school forever! Suck it, math!”
“We have to celebrate!” Castiel announces.
“We do?”
“We do!”
“Okay! What do you want to do?”
Castiel laughs, “It’s your celebration.”
“And I want you to do all the work.”
“Right, right. Because teaching you wasn’t enough work. I’m just kidding!” He insists when Dean frowns, “I actually already have something planned.”
“No you do not!” Dean laughs.
“‘Course I do.”
“What is it?”
“A surprise.” Castiel teases, eyes alight with mirth.
“Fuck you.” Says Dean.
“You’ll like it. This weekend, pack a pair of pajamas and a change of clothes. What do you say?” Castiel’s tone is confident, but his hands are in his pockets and his expression is one that almost seems to expect rejection.
Dean gasps, “Are we having a sleepover?”
If Castiel’s grin wasn’t answer enough, his next words are a confession, “It’s not too lame, is it? It’s totally middle school, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s good!” Dean assures him, “I love it! We’ll have a sleepover.”
“Alright, well. It’s gonna be good. So… get ready.”
“Oh, I’m ready.”
Dean is not ready. In no way is he ready to spend the night with his math tutor, who he finds absolutely unbearably attractive, and on whom he has a crush that could easily be described as mammoth . On top of this, he knows nothing about the rest of Castiel’s plans. Will there be other people there? Is it just going to be the two of them? What will they be doing?
These questions plague him through the rest of the week, while he’s packing and telling his mother about his plans. Mary is ecstatic that Dean is going out more and making friends, and lets him go without more than a kiss on the cheek and a promise to behave.
Castiel picks Dean up in the afternoon, and Dean realizes within minutes that they’re not headed toward Castiel’s house.
“Uh…” Says Dean, “Where’s this sleepover?”
“I think maybe you need tutoring in English too,” Castiel says with feigned thoughtfulness, “because you don’t seem to know the meaning of the word ‘surprise’.”
“Shut up.” Dean slaps half-heartedly at Castiel’s leg, “I’m just trying to make sure you’re not taking me into the woods to murder me.”
“You think I’d kill you after all the hard work I put into helping you with pre-calc?”
“You think you’re so funny , don’t you?”
“You think i’m funny.”
Dean glares. “I admit nothing.”
They drive out of the city, and Dean tries again, with no avail, to get Castiel to tell him where they’re going. Finally, after about forty-five minutes of driving through the middle of nowhere, they turn down a road that winds through the woods. Another ten minutes, another turn, and finally they’re pulling into a clearing with a small cabin in the middle of it.
Dean squints suspiciously, “Did you just drive us into a horror movie?”
Castiel laughs and opens the passenger side door, unconcerned. “My older brothers built this. It’s just a getaway spot, anyone in the family can use it. I thought we could watch scary movies, I’ll make a pizza, we can get drunk.”
Dean grins and climbs out of the car, finally convinced, “You got booze?”
“Yep.” Castiel confirms, hauling a crate full of various alcohol out of his trunk, “Courtesy of my brother Gabriel.”
The inside of the cabin in much nicer than Dean thought it would be. He’d been expecting the bare minimum, and is happily surprised. The cabin has power, a big kitchen with new appliances, a flat screen television and an enormous leather couch.
"Alright, lets get started on this pizza."
"Wait." Dean says, "You mean make make pizza?"
“Yeah.”
"Like, from scratch?"
"Totally. With whatever you want on there."
“Alright,” Dean says, falling backward onto the couch, “Lets see it.”
“Do you want to help?” Castiel asks fondly.
“I guess .” Says Dean.
And so, Castiel begins his preparation of a from scratch pizza, and Dean stands nearby being generally unhelpful. It takes less time than Dean thought it would, and soon the pizza is in the oven and Castiel is lugging his crate of booze into the living room.
“That's a lot.” Dean asks, unable to keep the awe out of his voice.
Castiel huffs, the crate thunks down next to the coffee table, “Gabriel is a big advocate of underage drinking.”
Dean leans over to peer into the depths, “So what have we got.”
“Whatever you like. We’ve got beer, wine, whisky, vodka. I, personally, am going to try out this Blue Raspberry vodka.”
“Can I get some of that?”
“Absolutely.”
They’re trashed. Way past tipsy, into spilling all your secrets and trying to make out with a desk lamp territory.
They’re in a heap on the couch, limbs tangled until neither can tell what belongs to whom. The remnants of the greedily devoured pizza lays scattered on the coffee table, along with the now half-empty bottle of Blue Raspberry vodka which was, in Dean’s opinion, a truly magnificent idea. The big flatscreen tv blasts Kurt Russell in all his eighties glory, fighting a shapeshifting alien in antarctica.
“God, I love this movie.” Dean says, head lolling lazily onto Castiel’s lap, “I love Kurt Russell.”
Castiel’s hand is carding gently through Dean’s hair, “Do you? I didn’t know that.”
“I had my first sex dream about him.”
Castiel tips back his head and laughs, a big, happy sound. “Mine was Patrick Dempsey.”
“Dempsey?”
“That hair . God, I thought he was so dreamy.”
Dean turns over so that he can look up at Castiel, who has a sort of dazed look on his face. “Do you like my hair?”
Castiel grins loosely and brushes a bit of hair back from Dean’s forehead, “Yeah, I love your hair.”
“Thanks,” Dean reaches up to run his finger along the bridge of Castiel’s nose.
Castiel is leaning closer now, breath sweet and tangy with fruity alcohol, the promise of a kiss lingering on his lips.
“Hell.” He mutters, and sits back up.
“What?” Dean asks, feeling more than a little put out, “What’s wrong?”
“Sorry, nothing.”
“Cas, come on .”
Castiel leans his head back against the couch and huffs out a breath. He swallows, and again. “I, uh.” He says, “I was… kind of hoping that getting drunk would give me the courage to kiss you. But you’re also drunk, and I realize now that it makes me kind of a jerk.”
“Huh?” Dean frowns. He’d heard the word kiss and lost the train of the conversation.
“Nothing.” Castiel shakes his head, “I’ll fall asleep soon anyway.”
Dean wakes covered in sweat, with cotton mouth and a pounding headache. He rolls his head and meets with cloth and flesh, but his eyes refuse to open.
“Cas?” He croaks.
“Hmm?” Grumbles the cloth under his face.
“Are we dead?”
“Uh... I think so.”
“I have to pee.” The fabric of Castiel’s shirt gets stuck on Dean’s tongue, and he shakes his head to get loose.
“Quit licking me.”
“‘M not licking you.” Says Dean.
Castiel sighs, “If you get off of me, i’ll make you breakfast.”
“But i’m dead.”
“I’ll make you pancakes.”
Dean groans unhappily, but rolls off of Castiel, and the couch. From the floor, he groans again. He hears Castiel get up and walk unsteadily to the kitchen, but, facedown on the floor, he falls quickly back asleep.
“Dean, wake up.” Castiel’s voice comes from above him, “I made pancakes.”
This time, waking up is a little easier, despite the fact that he’s drooled all over the carpet. The sweet smell of breakfast soothes some of the fire in his skull. Dean gets to his feet slowly, through a truly impressive series of contortions and poses, more fit for an acrobat than a teenage boy, and when he’s finally up he views the entire world through a haze of distaste.
“I’m still dead.” He guesses.
“Come on.” Castiel grabs him by the arm and drags him into the kitchen, where pancakes and orange juice wait on the little kitchen table.
Dean falls upon them like he’s starving, which he is.
“Jesus christ,” He says, mouth full, “this is amazing. You’re amazing.”
Castiel sits across from him, eating his own pancakes at much more sedate pace, and watching Dean fondly.
After breakfast, they make their way to the front porch. There’s a swing and a light breeze, and birds singing cheerfully nearby. They sit together on the swing and Castiel leans back and looks at Dean.
“What?” Dean wonders, secretly very pleased to be the object of such single-minded attention.
“Dean, uh.” Castiel wets his lips and looks away, “I, uh, i’ve really liked hanging out with you. And um, getting to know you. And I just- I really like you, you know?”
Dean laughs, “Yeah, I like you too, man.” He says. He has an inkling where this is going, but he tries not to hope prematurely in case he’s wrong. He fails miserably.
“You’ve… kinda become my best friend. And I also, um,” Castiel wets his lips again, “really want to kiss you.” He takes a deep breath and talks very quickly now, “And if that’s a problem I mean whatever I get it, I’ll shut up about it and we’ll never talk about it again I swear to god but I- I just wanted you to know. I guess.”
“Okay.” Says Dean, already leaning forward eagerly.
“Huh?”
“I like you, too. You should, uh, kiss me. If you want.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Castiel smiles, and keeps smiling as he leans forward and meets Dean’s lips with his own. Dean smiles back, and breathes a long sigh of relief.
“This doesn’t mean you can stop teaching me math, though.” He says, pulling back for a moment.
“Obviously.” Castiel agrees.
Dean remembers for a moment his trepidation at first asking Castiel to help him with pre-calc, and wishes he could have known then what was in store. He would have worn a cooler shirt.