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“Fuck,” Dean says. And then again, with more emphasis, “Fuck. I don’t understand any of this.”
“What, your notes?” Sam leans over, squinting at the chickenscratch notes that Dean’s cobbled together over the course of their lecture. Sam is taking one of the same gen-eds as Dean is, because he’s a giant girl who’s worried about his brother. Oh, poor Dean, he’s an adult learner. Whatever.
“No.” Dean shuffles the papers around, hoping that, perhaps magically, they’ll start making sense. “No, it’s this…thing. This degree audit thing.”
“Oh, that. What about it?”
“I don’t know what any of this shit means.”
Sam reaches for the papers, snagging them from Dean’s loose grip and then peering at them. “You’re supposed to take them to your advisor, and they tell you what it means.”
“Screw that,” Dean says. “Your advisor hates you. I’m not risking it.”
“Mr. Adler doesn’t…” Sam pauses, perhaps reviewing what he was planning on saying, and then he sighs. “Yeah, okay, he hates me. But that guy is a douche, and you’ve got a totally different advisor. Look, I’ll ask Jess, maybe she knows him. Or knows someone else who does.”
“Fuck,” Dean says. It’s the only word he can think of that adequately encompasses how much he hates his life right now. And advisors. And college. Sam has a headstart on this shit, he’s a fucking junior, but Dean…Dean has no idea why he let Sam talk him into applying. He’d thought it would be a gag. He could collect the rejection letters and make a collage out of them, or something. His GED had always been good enough to get him whatever job he wanted; why would he need a college degree, too?
And yet here he is. Like some vengeful god had reached down and switched his collage of rejection letters with a single, pristine yes. Dean has no idea what the acceptance people are smoking. He doesn’t even think his SAT scores were that high. 2000 is like…average, isn’t it?
“What’s this little minus sign?” Dean demands, jabbing his finger at the paper that Sam is holding. There are a ton of little minus signs, but he shakes his head until Sam points out the one he means. The one that’s all by itself, way down at the bottom of the degree audit.
“Oh, dude.” Sam winces, and peers at Dean through his floppy bangs. “You didn’t take the first year seminar?”
“What’s the first year seminar?”
Sam runs his fingers back through his hair, leaving it wild and fluffed up. He looks like a confused baby chicken. Dean decides not to tell him. No reason to add insult to injury, and Sam’s hair is already awful enough.
“It’s this thing you’re supposed to take,” Sam explains. “That teaches you…how to use the library, how to take notes, that sort of thing. It’s a required course. You can’t graduate without it.”
Dean looks at the little minus symbol that Sam’s thumb is resting next to.
- FYS, it says. Mocking him.
“Fuck.”
~
Dean should have gone to see his advisor the first day, to…he isn’t sure. Plan out his future classes, or something. But he’s only going for a two-year degree, and he knows exactly what he has to take. Sam’s shown him how to register for classes, and Dean’s not exactly a genius when it comes to computers, but he’s managed to muddle through so far.
So, he never went. Partly because he’s worried his advisor will be a total dick, like Sam’s, but also because…because he’s a grown man. Because he shouldn’t need some other dude (or, you know, chick, whatever) to tell him what to do and how to do it. He’s got his instructions: take the right classes, attend them, get decent grades, graduate. He shouldn’t need much more than that.
But colleges, it seems, delight in making things more complicated than they should be.
He puts it off for a week. It’s the sort of thing that can wait, right? He’s got three semesters left after this one, he can take the class later. Can’t he?
“You have to take it next semester,” Sam says. “It’s called ‘first year seminar’, not ‘every year after your first’ seminar.”
Dean reaches over and smacks the back of Sam’s head, prompting a yelp. “Stop being a smartass and help me out!”
“I told you! Go see your advisor! He’ll get you signed up for the one in the Fall!”
Dean manages to keep himself from saying but I don’t want to, like some sort of whiny kid, but it’s a close call. He’s managed to avoid seeing any of the school-offered advisors or counselors so far; he’s doing just fine on his own. Fine. Why should he go and have to see them now? It’s their fault, after all, designing the scheduling system so that only they can read it. That’s a kind of suppression, isn’t it?
Dean cradles his head in his palms, letting his elbows rest on the table as Sam calmly finishes his chef salad.
~
Dean’s advisor is named Castiel Novak. Jessica pulls through, and informs Sam (and, through Sam, Dean) that Mister Novak is soft-spoken and intense, but well-liked despite that. Jessica provides them with several examples of people he’s helped – all of them are female, and all of them, as far as Dean can tell, have some serious issues. Bela is a kleptomaniac, and proud of it. Ruby’s a backstabbing, Satan-worshipping bitch. Becky has some sort of social anxiety disorder that makes it hard for her to talk to strangers. Madison has mood swings that wax and wane in time with the moon, and Anna’s religious fervor goes beyond “having faith” and enters well into the territory of “creepy”. By the third girl, Dean doesn’t even want to listen anymore, let alone visit this guy.
“You have to,” Sam says. And then, “Go and see him or I’ll hide all your cassette tapes.”
So, because Sam is freakishly good at hiding things, Dean goes. He makes an appointment on Sam’s laptop, and, that Friday, he shoulders his bag after classes are over and he heads down to the administration building. The place is maze-like, and the advisor’s offices are located in the basement, where visitors to the campus are less likely to wander. The only thing that keeps Dean from getting lost is the small signs scotch-taped to the walls, with arrows pointing right or left, and the words “STUDENT ADVISING” written in rainbow marker. Someone down here, Dean thinks, has a bizarre sense of humor.
He follows the trail of rainbows and arrows until he comes to what can only really be described as a cubicle forest. Rows of the things crowd together, down here in the basement, and Dean stands at the start of them like he’s preparing to enter a labyrinth, except he doesn’t have a ball of string to help him find his way back.
He picks his way through the path that winds through the cubicles, passing disaffected looking men and women, some of them fiddling with their phones or their computers, some of them doing paperwork, and one of them happily munching his way through a bag of Halloween candy (it’s November) and a deck of playing cards laid out on his desk. Solitaire.
“You look lost, buddy,” the guy calls out, seeing Dean paused, unsure, in the middle of the narrow path. “Help ya?”
Asking for directions is almost as stupid as needing an advisor’s help to get him signed up for this class, but Dean swallows his pride and says, “Yeah, I’m looking for Mr. Novak’s, uh.” He’d expected an office. Zachariah got an office, if Sam was to be believed. “…cubicle.”
“You’re in luck,” Candy Guy says, pushing away from his tiny desk and springing to his feet. He shoves his hand into his bag of candy and comes back up with a handful, which he offers to Dean. “Castiel just came back from lunch. Follow me.”
Dean cautiously takes a Tootsie Roll, and then follows the guy back out into the mess of cubicles – now, whenever they pass one that’s occupied, they’re examined like rats winding their way through a maze, and at the end they’re going to have to push a button, except one will shock them and one will give them booze and hookers, and everyone in the advising center is excited to find out which button they choose. Dean hunches his shoulders without thinking about it, and then mentally scolds himself for doing so; he pulls himself up straight as they pass row after row of tiny, three-walled rooms, wondering if these people will remember him, that obvious adult learner who needed help finding his way through the labyrinth in the basement.
“We kept asking for actual, individual offices,” the guy says. He sounds annoyed, but in a way that suggests irony, rather than true anger. “We got the basement complex. Consequences of a small campus, I guess. All the money goes to the tech people. Computers are a priority.”
“Sam would agree with that,” Dean says vaguely, and then adds, “He’s my brother.” They come to a stop in front of a cubicle that’s bare of the ornamentation that all the other advisors seem to have surrounded themselves with – no cartoons cut out from newspapers, no quotes from prominent authors or scientists, no pictures hanging on the thin walls of the cubicle itself. The man sitting at the desk inside has his back turned towards them, busily writing something down.
“Your brother,” Dean’s guide repeats. “Well, if he ever wants to defend that position, have him swing by here, I’ll give him a run for his money. Tell him to look for Gabriel.” And then he leans forward, balls up his fist and bangs on the side of the cubicle. The walls shake. “Castiel! You got a visitor!”
The man straightens up, neatly setting down his pen, and then swings his swivel chair around to face them. Dean stares, and Gabriel gives him a thumbs up.
“I’ll let you two get down to business,” he says, and then, with one last crinkle of his bag of candy, he disappears back into the maze.
Castiel Novak is nothing like what Dean had expected. He’s seen Zachariah before, and he’d been thinking that pretty much all advisors would be like that – pushing fifty-five, balding, having a permanent mid-life crisis and taking it out on everyone around them. Angered by the lack of prestige in their job.
Mr. Novak isn’t like that at all. Well, at least physically. He’s long and lanky, and he’s wearing, not a suit, but a dark blue argyle sweater-vest over a black shirt. There’s a pair of glasses folded neatly on the desk behind him. He can’t be much older than Dean is, maybe in his early thirties, and his hair is dark, mussed like he’s just gotten out of bed.
His eyes are blue. A clear, bright shade of blue, like the sky in October, just after the leaves have started to turn, so that the sky looks that much brighter against the foreground of reds and oranges and browns. Dean’s never seen anyone with eyes like that, before.
“May I help you?”
I don’t want your help, he thinks. Just your number. Except that’s wildly inappropriate, so he tucks the thought away somewhere in the back of his mind, to be examined later. Dean’s not the kind of guy who usually swings that way, but there have been a few occasions…a few guys who’ve caught his interest. But it’s been so long – there hasn’t been anyone new since his father died.
“I’m Dean Winchester,” he says, and is gratified to hear that his voice isn’t shaky. “I made an appointment for two o’clock?”
“Ah, yes.” Mr. Novak swings his chair back around and begins bringing up windows on his computer. “Please, come in and have a seat. I apologize for the lack of space.”
The “lack of space” means that, when Dean sits down in the only other chair in the cubicle, his knee almost bumps against Mr. Novak’s. He watches the man pluck up his folded glasses his hands narrow, elegant, and then slide them across the bridge of his nose as he peers at the computer screen.
“Dean Winchester,” he says. “First semester, adult learner, undeclared major…Looks like you’re doing well in your general education requirements. Planning on going into psychology?”
Dean tears his gaze away from Mr. Novak’s hands. “What?”
“You’re signed up for Biological Science ten and Psychology one-hundred. The Bi Sci fills one of your science requirements. So, are you interested in psychology?”
“I…guess.” He hasn’t really thought about it. He still has like, a year and a half to figure out his major, doesn’t he? Is he supposed to start thinking now? “I mean, it’s more my brother’s thing. He’s taking that class, too.”
“Ah. Going to college with your siblings can be…difficult, but also rewarding.”
“You sound like you’ve got firsthand experience. Uh, sir.”
Mr. Novak nods solemnly. “I went to college with three of my brothers, and now I work with one of them, and one of my cousins. Our family has always worked in academia, one way or another. While it was happenstance we ended up at the same college, I cannot say that I regret it.”
He pauses, and then turns his chair to face Dean more fully. Somehow, the glasses don’t detract from the intensity of his gaze, but rather enhance it, like a magnifying glass. “But, you’re not here to listen to my life story, Mr. Winchester. I assume that you’ve come with a specific concern in mind?”
“Yeah, actually. I was trying to read my degree audit, and…”
“We generally advise against that sort of thing. Older students…seniors and juniors, they may have a grasp on how to read their own files, but freshmen don’t. You should have been given my name, office, and hours when you attended your freshman orientation meeting.”
“I didn’t go,” Dean says, and Mr. Novak’s eyes narrow.
“Excuse me?”
“I didn’t go. I enrolled late. The orientation thing was in the summer, and I enrolled after it was over.”
“Then your first year seminar…”
“Yeah, I didn’t go to that, either. I didn’t know I had to.”
Mr. Novak sighs, but Dean gets the feeling that it isn’t directed at him. Still, the urge to just get up and walk out is rising, and never mind how attractive this guy is, Dean just wants out.
After a long moment, Mr. Novak says, “I apologize. So many of our services are geared towards students who are coming directly out of high school. Often, the system in place for adult learners such as yourself is…flawed, and you are not given nearly so much attention as your younger counterparts. But, it is good that you’ve come to see me. There is still plenty of time for you to take your first year seminar.”
Mr. Novak swivels his chair back around, and begins typing things into his computer – Dean can’t see what. “I will send you an email with an attachment containing instructions on how to register for your Spring courses, and which ones I would advise you to take. I will include the course number for the first year seminar, and – “
“Actually,” Dean interrupts, “can you write all that down, instead?” Mr. Novak glances at him, and Dean ducks his head, feeling unaccountably nervous. “My brother is the tech geek, not me. I barely know how to do a Google search, let alone…dealing with attachments, or whatever.”
Mr. Novak stares at him.
“I know it’s weird,” Dean says, feeling like he’s trying to justify something, but unsure what, or how. “It’s just not something I ever got into.”
“I see.”
Slowly, Mr. Novak turns away from his computer, and instead reaches into one of his desk’s drawers. There very little inside – only a stack of printer paper, and a handful of pens and pencils, and a stapler. Mr. Novak takes a sheet of paper and a pen, and then lays it out flat on his desk, and begins to slowly write down a list of steps, each neatly bulleted, several of them marked with their due-by dates. His penmanship is…well. Dean’s handwriting has always teetered on that line between “legible” and “illegible”, probably because he learned how to write from his father, rather than a school, but even to Dean’s admittedly untrained eye Mr. Novak’s penmanship is beautiful, full of curlicues and loops, and elegant arches. It’s like cursive on steroids.
“Wow,” he says, unable to stop himself, and when Mr. Novak glances up he points, almost defensively, at the man’s pen, at the sheet of paper he has written on. “Your handwriting is really fancy.”
“I attended a private school as a child.” He finishes writing the last sentence, and then folds the piece of paper in half and offers it to Dean. “It was very strict, and very expensive. Good penmanship was viewed as a window into the soul. Consequently, many people cannot read my handwriting. Please let me know if you require clarification on any of these points.”
“I doubt I will.” Dean takes the paper, pockets it, feels it shifting against his hip and imagines the ink smearing. “My handwriting is sort of the opposite, but…same result, really. Sam used to try and tease me about it, when we were younger.”
“I presume that Sam is your brother?”
“Yeah.” Dean smiles. “He’s gonna be brilliant. Studying to be a lawyer. I’m real proud of him.”
“As are your parents, I imagine.”
Dean freezes, and then, just as quickly, tries to get a hold of himself. He clears his throat, then shoulders his backpack and stands.
“Yeah,” he says, “I’m sure they would be. Listen, I have to go, but thank you for the instructions, and…” Not telling me that this was all my fault. Maybe some of it is, but some of it is the school’s, too, and that makes me feel a hundred times better. “Just…thanks, Mr. Novak.”
“Please.” And Mr. Novak reaches up, pulling off his glasses and holding them loosely in his hand as he studies Dean. There’s something simultaneously distant and close about him, like he’s putting one whole part of himself forward, but holding everything else back. “Call me Castiel. I am one of the few who believe that a façade of academic authority is not necessary between college students and their advisors. You are an adult, and I trust that you will be able to interact with me in an adult manner.”
I’d like to do some interacting all right, Dean thinks fuzzily, and nods. “Sure. Castiel. I’ll just…” He gestures towards the cubicle’s tiny entrance, and then, with Castiel watching him, he ducks back out into the hallway, and flees.
~
Sam examines the piece of paper that Castiel had given Dean. “What the hell is all this?”
“Instructions,” Dean says shortly. Blue eyes. It’s been a long time since he couldn’t stop thinking about someone. “For registering for classes.”
“I can’t read any of this.”
“Really? Twenty-two years and you still can’t read my handwriting?”
“Maybe if I’d started studying it in utero, but no, Dean, I can’t read your handwriting, and I can’t read this.”
“But it’s all neat. And fancy.” What was it that Castiel had told him? People couldn’t read his handwriting because…because his school had made it out like penmanship was a window to the soul?
“It’s got…spirals and weird dots everywhere, Dean. Come here and read this out to me, and I’ll help you register.”
Dean doesn’t want to move from his comfortable place on the couch, but, with a groan, he heaves himself up off the soft cushions and shuffles over to where Sam is huddled over the desktop, like some sort of hideous gremlin that’s found a shiny piece of trash to covet.
“You look like that goddamn monkey thing. From that movie,” Dean says, and Sam wrinkles his nose at him.
“Okay, a little more specificity would be nice. You know, if you’re going to insult me.”
Dean thinks, trying to remember. Sam had wanted to see the movie in theatre, and Dean had fallen asleep, and…“The one that likes fish. And rings.”
“I look like Gollum?”
“Yeah.” Dean tries to make a rough approximation of the sound the thing had made, a croaking, awful thing, and Sam flings his arm out and smacks Dean in the chest.
“Knock it off, asshole. Read this out loud.” And then he grabs the piece of paper and shoves it at Dean – Dean barely manages to restrain himself from saying be careful with that, because seriously? It’s a piece of fucking paper. Sure, the writing is pretty, and Castiel is hot, but…
He smoothes out the edges of the paper as best he can, and then reads out, “Log on to the university Portal website.”
“I’ve already done that.”
Dean pauses. “You know my password?”
“You wrote it on a post-it note and stuck it to the side of the desk, Dean. You’re just lucky you don’t have a Facebook or anything, otherwise I would have…”
“Yeah, yeah, ruined my life with the internet, I get it. Log on to the Portal website, and then select ‘course registration’ from the sidebar. Select ‘Spring’. And then put in the numbers four, five, seven, eight, four, and three. Oh hey, by the way, I met this guy in the advising center.”
“Did he tell you your eyes were pretty and then give you his number?”
“Bitch. I told him you’re a massive computer nerd, and he said to drop by sometime and…I don’t know, debate with him or something. Said his name was Gabriel.”
“Was he an advisor?”
“I think so, he had his own cubicle. Maybe you can start going to see him instead of Adler.”
“Maybe,” Sam murmurs, and then hits a few keys. He presses the enter key, and then leans back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach.
“Congratulations,” he says. “You’re signed up for the basic first year seminar. You meet in Willard on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and your instructor is…huh.”
“What? What is it?”
“Nothing bad,” Sam reassures him. “Your instructor is your advisor. Castiel Novak.”
“Oh,” Dean says faintly.
Blue eyes. Dark hair. God, that mouth. And the way he’d cradled that pen, like he’d been afraid of pouring too much of himself onto the paper…
He is screwed.