Chapter Text
“Uh, dude...what is this?”
Sammy’s voice barely registers over the music Dean’s got on full blast, some Icelandic rock band one of his students turned him onto a few weeks ago. Dean purses his lips and hell, nobody’s around, so he adds a little hip-shake in for good measure as he digs through the cabinets, looking for more salt.
“Gonna have to be more specific there, Sammy!” he yells. He finally finds the fucking salt shaker, grabs a pinch, and slides in his socked feet over to the pot of boiling water on the stove, tossing it in with a flick of his wrist.
“Bon appetit, motherfuckers,” he mutters to himself, bringing the tips of his fingers together against his lips before blowing a chef’s kiss. The pasta’s next; he grabs that and dumps the entire box into the water, then spins on his heel to grab the garlic bread—
—only to wind up face to face with his little brother holding his sketchpad. He scrambles to grab it out of Sam’s hands, but his socks fuck him over this time and he stumbles, almost crashing into the tiny kitchen table.
All that was missing from the whole scene was a fucking record scratch.
“Where’d you find that?” he demands, grabbing his phone and pausing the music.
Sam laughs that stupid laugh of his, and goddamn it if Dean doesn’t feel like the little brother as his actual little brother turns away from him and hunches protectively over the sketchbook.
“Out on the coffee table. You didn’t exactly make it hard to find.”
“Sam, I swear to God—”
Sam laughs again and swats at Dean with the book. He’s still studying the page as he does so, asking, “What even is this? Who’s Cas?” But it’s the head tilt and long, drawn-out, “Oh, wait ” a few seconds later that has Dean knowing he’s fucked.
He tries again to grab the book out of his stupid idiot brother’s massive hands before this gets any worse. Sam stares at him, his face slowly breaking into a smile. “That’s his name, isn’t it?” he asks, the delight getting more and more evident. “The history teacher.”
“His name is None of Your Goddamn Business,” Dean snaps, making another grab for the book.
Sam purses his lips, then smirks. “Is that his name, or a directive for me to mind—”
“Both, you fucking moron,” Dean says, snatching the sketchbook out of his hands. He can feel Sam’s eyes on him as he runs his hand gently over the page, making sure everything is still in place.
“Is that a real UNO card?” Sam asks from behind him.
Dean glares at him over his shoulder. “Mixed media,” he says, snapping the cover shut and making a beeline for his room to tuck the thing into the relative safety of his messenger bag.
“That better not have come from my deck!” Sam calls after him. Dean just flips him off.
Sam may be pushy, but he’s also not a goddamn idiot, and he gets the hint; Dean’s sketchbook isn’t mentioned for the rest of the evening. After dinner, they sit through a few episodes of Sam’s latest reality obsession with Dean casually researching lockable sketchbooks on his phone before finally begging off, claiming he’s got to work on his lesson plans for tomorrow (not to mention wallow in at least a little bit of self-pity).
Once his bedroom door is closed, Dean grabs his sketchbook and opens it back up to the drawing his brother had found earlier. He’s still got some work to do, but it’s more than enough for him to be embarrassed by already.
The page is divided into two panels. The first one’s just got one of those fill-in-the-blank UNO cards—yeah, he thought it’d be cool to use a real card, and fuck it, it is cool—glued down in the middle with a hastily sketched hand holding it up, and the other’s a sketch of Dean himself, sitting at a table with a beer in front of him. He’s got one hand resting on his knee while the other is holding up exactly 25 UNO cards, his face looking more or less exactly how he feels right now.
The card’s starting to pull away from the page, so Dean digs through his desk drawer for a glue stick and gently lifts up the loose end of the card, reapplies some glue, and presses his palm over the entire card to set it.
When he moves his hand away, that stupid note, the finishing touch, the piece de resistante he’d thought was so goddamn clever when he’d thought of it during last period the other day, is still there, looking him right in the face.
Ask Cas out on a goddamn date or draw 25
“Fuck,” Dean breathes. Leave it to his past self to call his future self the fuck out about his romantic ineptitude. Scrubbing a hand down his face, he closes the sketchbook and reaches for his laptop.
He’s got a lesson to plan for tomorrow—he wasn’t bullshitting about that—and apparently 25 cards to draw.
Sometimes Dean wishes he had a whiteboard.
All the other classrooms at Thompson High are right at home in the 21st century, whiteboards and smartboards and a shit-ton more boards than they generally need, but due to “aesthetics”—which, Dean’s not a fucking idiot, he knows that’s code for “budget cuts”—his room has been left in the dust, literally.
The nice thing about budget cut chic, though, is that no one gives a shit about him or his basement studio classroom, so Dean’s got free reign to do whatever the hell he wants to the four walls of room 617.
He’d had plans for the place when he first arrived—murals and mini galleries and other Dean Winchester originals—but after forcing Sammy to help him lug ten different paint cans and three duffels full of supplies into his new classroom on a Sunday afternoon, he realized that the space isn’t his, and he shouldn’t be decorating it as such.
So instead of throwing his own art up, he’d kept the walls blank and the cans ready and waiting for his students. Give ‘em something to enjoy on their first few days back, and that’s how room 617 became a place for them to have a break. A place where seniors looking to fill an elective or two have just as much attention and room to breathe as kids with prestigious art schools in their futures.
Dean had decided early on that, more than anything, he wanted his kids to feel comfortable being themselves, artistically or otherwise. He’d wanted them taking risks and experimenting in new styles, making something that’s their own while being themselves.
As Dean takes a few seconds to look around at all the artwork—murals and graffiti splashed across desktops, comic strips spanning entire walls, portraits with actual Victorian frames hung around them (the best yard sale find Dean’s ever stumbled upon)—he’s pretty sure he succeeded.
He runs his hand across one of the walls, straightening the frame around the portrait Jesse Turner had painted of his dog a few weeks back, as he heads to his own desk at the front of the room.
He drops his things off onto the desk, writes himself a quick reminder about the faculty budget meeting later that week, then starts dragging the eraser across the board in one huge swipe after another to prepare for his first class of the day. Just as he starts thinking about how he needs to clean these goddamn things, his nose twitches, and he buries his face in the crook of his arm just in time to muffle his sneeze.
“Bless you,” a voice says quietly behind him, and Dean freezes. He knows that voice, but more important, he knows the person behind that voice, the exact person (and voice, if he’s being totally honest) who’s been on his mind since not only the fucking trainwreck that was last night, but his first day here. He presses his lips together into a thin line before tapping the eraser on the board in subtle defeat and slowly turning around.
Castiel Novak. Not only Thompson High’s resident history nerd, but the hottest piece of ass in the entire Berensville school district, according to an expert panel made up of one (1) Dean Winchester. He teaches history two floors up, but as far as Dean’s concerned, he’s more than qualified to teach art, considering he may as well be hanging in a museum himself.
There’s no reason for him and Dean to cross paths, well, ever, but for some reason the dude still came to introduce himself on Dean’s first day, all sharp blue eyes and firm handshakes and starched white button-downs with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, which are all good in and of themselves, but throw ‘em all together and you’ve got Dean’s kryptonite.
And if Dean’s tried on more than one occasion to mix a color that matches the blue of Cas’ eyes ever since that first meeting, that’s no one’s business but his own.
“Hey, man,” Dean says. He’s halfway done running his hand through his hair when he remembers it’s covered in chalk. Fuck. He drops the hand onto his desk and tries to cover up the entire thing with a grin, and if Cas notices anything off, he doesn’t acknowledge it.
Small mercies.
“I hope I’m not interrupting, the door was open—”
Dean waves him off. “Just settin’ up for the day. So, uh—” he waves his hand awkwardly, “—did you—”
He blinks like Dean’s just shaken him out of a dream, which, Dean knows from experience, he very well could’ve. That’s the thing about Cas. The guy’s not just stunning, but he’s also a little weird, stilted and awkward and overly earnest.
Dean can’t get enough of it.
“Right, yes, of course,” Cas finally says. “I was hoping you had some art supplies.”
Dean blinks. Is this a trap? This is probably a trap. “Art supplies?”
Cas nods. “We’re studying the impact of art and culture on the 1960s, and I thought the students would enjoy something a bit more relaxed to end class before the weekend.”
“Well, y’know.” Dean leans on his desk and grins. “Who’s more reliable for art supplies than the art teacher?”
Cas smiles, and goddamn does Dean wish he’d smile with teeth more. “It’s what I was hoping,” he says simply.
“Happy to help. And, hey, an art project in history? Shit, if you were my teacher I might’ve actually tried in class.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but Cas doesn’t laugh and Dean wants to crawl under his desk, ideally to spontaneously combust. Instead, he clears his throat and turns on his heel toward the supply closet.
His terrible attempt at flirting—if he could even call it that—hangs in the air as Cas refuses to make any kind of small talk, and Dean’s too embarrassed to try anything else, so he just focuses on grabbing as much as he can so Cas will leave and he can be alone to lick his wounds.
He grabs one more box of markers before closing the closet door. He turns around, expecting to see Cas still standing in the doorway, but instead, he’s moved over to one of the murals on the wall, painted intricately around the sink and lightbox table.
The entire wall is black, a deep underwater scene dotted with the creepiest sons of bitches Dean’s ever seen: dragonfish and goblin sharks and gulper eels and at least three different types of squid. Cas looks awestruck, just staring at everything in front of him as if he’s looking at the actual ocean itself.
Dean gets it; it’s one of his favorites too.
“I haven’t seen your space since your first day here,” Cas says quietly, reaching out and tracing the lines of an anglerfish (complete with glow-in-the-dark paint accents) with his fingers—and goddamn, those fingers. “This is incredible.”
Dean grins. “They’re talented kids,” he says. “Proud of ‘em.”
And damn, the way Cas spins around, it’s as if Dean had just professed his love right then and there. “Students did this?”
“Sure did. They do everything here.”
“None of this is yours?”
“Nope.” Dean sets the markers down on a nearby desk and hops up onto the long sketching table running along the length of the wall. He gestures at everything behind him with a wave of his hand. “Last year’s seniors started it, but a few kids have added their own touches over time.” He taps the latest addition, a Japanese spider crab. “You have Krissy Chambers in any of your classes?”
Cas’ eyes go wide. “She did this?”
“Impressive, right?”
“I’m not sure that’s the word I would use.”
Yeah, Dean’s partial to describing it as sick as fuck, but he’s almost certain Cas has something different in mind. “And that would be?”
Cas pauses for less than a second before answering, “‘Terrifying.’”
Dean chuckles. “She’s always had a flair for the dramatics.”
Cas nods, turning his attention back to the rest of Dean’s classroom. “I’ve got to come here more often,” he murmurs.
And yeah, Dean’s pretty inclined to agree.
They spend the next few minutes in silence, Cas studying the art and Dean studying Cas, until Cas glances down at his watch and scrubs a hand over his mouth. “Almost time for first bell,” he mutters. He turns around to face Dean and smiles apologetically as he scoops up the art supplies. “I’m sorry to, uh, gawk and run.”
Dean’s sorry to see it end too, but he nods, pulling his legs up and arranging them so that he’s sitting cross-legged on the table. “Come back whenever, y’know.” He curls his middle, pointer, and ring fingers down toward his palm and twists his wrist back and forth between himself and the wall. “We’re not goin’ anywhere.”
It’s a ballsy move, ballsier than he’d been anticipating, but Cas is showing no signs of calling HR on his ass, so he considers it a win. He looks down at the art supplies in his arms and offers up one last smile. “Thank you, Dean.”
“Sure thing.” Dean waits until Cas is almost out the door before throwing out a tiny little salute that has Cas smiling again.
Dean waits until Cas is out of eye- and earshot before lying down on the table, draping his forearm over his eyes with a frustrated groan. This shouldn’t be hard, it shouldn’t. He’s been flirting since before he could walk, but for some reason, Cas just fucks him up—and not, much to the bane of his goddamn existence, literally.
He gives himself another fifteen seconds of wallowing before hauling himself to his feet, running a hand through his hair and straightening his shirt. He’s gotta pull himself together before his kids show up. The last thing they need to see is a lovesick art teacher flopped over their drawing tables; he’d never hear the end of it.
“Today’s topic,” Dean says, turning his back to the class as he writes on the chalkboard in quick, uneven strokes, “memes.”
Resident smartass, Japanese spider crab enthusiast, and, if Dean’s being honest, one of his favorite students (unless someone’s asking him if he’s got favorites; in that case, he loves all his kids equally) Krissy Chambers clears her throat and considers him. “Don’t you mean meh-mays?”
He rolls his eyes. “Good try, Chambers, but I’m not that much of a moron.”
Another one of Dean’s favorites, a kid named Ben Braeden, raises his hand, but doesn’t wait to be called on before asking skeptically, “What do memes have to do with art?”
“Easy. First rule of art,” Dean says, leaning back against his desk, arms folded across his chest, “this shit’s subjective. To some people, art’s just Monet and van Gogh, but to others, it’s whoever the hell is responsible for Success Kid. And what I want you to do is create your own.”
He tosses some uninspired jazz hands in there too, just for good measure, and his kids groan. “Hey, hey, hey,” he says, clapping his hands before pointing his chalk menacingly at them, “get it together, y’all, and quit acting like I asked you to get a tattoo of Conspiracy Keanu.”
“That would’ve been better!” Lilith McCormick, an outspoken senior who’s only there to fulfill an elective before graduation, calls from the back row.
“Be my guest, Lilith,” he says. “Lemme know if you need a recommendation for a good artist. I know a guy.” She’s got nothing to say to that, and Dean turns his attention back to the rest of the class, waving his chalk around like a wand. “Now, the rest of you—gimme some of your favorites.”
It only takes a minute or two before the chalkboard is full of the best memes the internet’s got to offer: Kermit sipping tea, bomboclaat, Grumpy Cat, Ok Boomer (“Bonus points for anyone who can put together a decent spinoff of this one,” Dean had offered quickly), Good Guy Greg and Scumbag Steve in quick succession. Shit, Dean hasn’t heard of some of these in years, and he’s simultaneously impressed and terrified by how deep his kids’ online knowledge goes.
“Okay, okay, you get the idea,” he finally says, dropping the chalk back onto its tray and wiping his hand on his pants. “Memes are funny, they’re stupid, they make points, and most of all, they’re proof that art doesn’t need to be pretty to mean something. So use that, huh? Go with your gut on these, have fun, make it your own. You’ve got the rest of class to get started. Final drafts are due at the end of the week.”
Despite a few minutes of grumbling that Dean’s become surprisingly used to, his kids pull out their sketchpads or tablets and start toying around with different ideas. Dean grabs a record at random and turns the volume down low, making the mood a little more “indie art show” rather than “high school art class.”
Dropping back into his chair, Dean leans back and kicks his feet up on his desk, the eraser tip of his pencil held between his teeth as he takes in the blank page in front of him. He doesn’t need to draw a meme, he’s not one of his students, but before he can really think about it, he starts sketching.
The little butterfly’s first, up in the right-hand corner of the page. Dean doesn’t have any colors handy, but even if he did, the wings wouldn’t be yellow; he’d change ‘em to a deep, not-subtle-at-all blue.
He’s next, or at least a cartoon version of him, looking stupid and awestruck with his hand held up toward the butterfly, like he’s waiting for it to land in his palm. It’s not his best work, but it gets the point across to his audience of one (and Dean’s gonna make sure it stays that way; there’s no way Sam’s getting his mitts on this one).
After a few quick adjustments—he likes to think he’s got a good jawline, but it’s not a fucking triangle—he leans back in his chair a little and takes in the drawing. His eyes dart up quickly to make sure none of his students are peeking, and then he quickly scrawls Dean fucking Winchester across the forehead of his cartoon doppleganger. Next up is underneath the butterfly: Cas Novak visiting my classroom making polite smalltalk.
He’s just about finished adding a caption at the bottom of the drawing—Is this true love?—when the bell rings, startling him out of whatever the fuck this thing is supposed to be. He drops his feet down to the floor and flips his sketchbook facedown, standing up as his kids gather their things.
“Friday due date, don’t forget,” he calls over the stampede currently going on in his classroom. He starts erasing the chalkboard to get ready for his next class, then spins around and adds, “And I better not find any of you planking on my desk and calling it homework!”
“Pizza’s on!”
Dean grins in spite of himself at the stupid little phrase their mom would say whenever she’d come home from work with pizza, a Tuesday night tradition from when they were kids that’s lasted long into their adult lives.
“You go to Cain’s?”
“Obviously, dude, come on.” Sam sets the pizza boxes onto the coffee table and grabs some plates. “He says hey, by the way.”
“Mhmm.”
The two of them settle on the couch, as usual, clink their bottles together, as usual, and throw on a random episode of The Simpsons, as usual. Dean would never let Sam know how much he treasures this, but it’s one of the highlights of his week, every week.
“So,” Sam says, folding his pizza slice in half and angling it so as much of the melting cheese lands in his mouth as possible, “any more art for the fridge?”
“Fuck you, Sam.”
The next few days pass in a blur of nothing but work, art, and Sam, something he considers both a blessing and a curse. Sure, he doesn’t run the risk of coming across as a goddamn idiot to Cas, but he also doesn’t get to see or interact with Cas.
Honestly, he can’t decide which one is worse.
During lunch early the next week, he decides to try and take his mind off things by sketching out something Sam actually can put on the fridge: a drawing of the two of them and their Tuesday night pizza. He’s just starting in on Sam’s ridiculous mane of hair when Rowena MacLeod practically floats her way into the breakroom like some kind of pixie. She’s been at Thompson for two years, but climbed to the top of the chemistry department after only three semesters. She’s another one Dean never really works with directly, but he won’t let that sweet Scottish accent fool him: he’s heard enough stories about her ferocity to last a lifetime.
Dean wouldn’t fuck with her, that’s for sure.
“Hello, dear,” she says, smiling sweetly at him. His mouth full of food, Dean tilts his chin up in acknowledgement as she sits down at another table. The—if he’s being honest, fucking disgusting—smell of whatever she’s brought for lunch saturates the entire room the second she cracks the lid off the Tupperware, and Dean takes a long swig of his seltzer to try and hide his gag.
The door opens again, but Dean’s got to get the angle of Sam’s jaw right, so he spends a few seconds finishing it up. He looks up just in time to see Cas’ eyes dart away from him. Cas glances down at the oversized brown paper bag in his hands and doesn’t look at Dean again before sitting down next to Rowena.
Well. Fuck.
Dean raises his eyebrows, blinks a few times to try and register the fact that apparently, Cas would rather sit next to whatever the fuck that smell is than Dean, and he feels like he’s been punched in the gut.
The second Cas pulls a salad and bottle out of the bag, making it clear that he won’t be switching seats anytime soon, Dean feels himself thrown face-first into a feeling he hasn’t experienced since his own high school days—he’s fucking jealous. Rowena’s close enough to touch Cas, smell his musk, grab him by that stupid backwards tie—why the fuck isn’t anyone telling him it’s backwards—and kiss him so hard and for so long that they lose track of time until the afternoon bell rings and the kids are gone for the day.
She doesn’t know how lucky she is, just fucking sitting there, making fucking smalltalk as if she’s not in the presence of someone who probably inadvertently causes traffic accidents in his spare time just by walking down the goddamn street.
There are seats right next to him, even across from him if Cas wants some personal space. But for some godforsaken reason, reheated fish is a better lunch date than him.
And Dean doesn’t even have to think about it after that, not really. Before he knows it, he’s flipped to a fresh page and is already sketching out the basics. Stupid Cas and his stupid salads. Stupid Cas who can’t read a goddamn room. Stupid Cas and his stupid too-blue eyes that Dean will never be able to get right, no matter how hard he tries.
He spends the rest of his lunch break sketching furiously. He ignores the bell ringing and only stops working when a hand with perfectly manicured fingers slaps down onto his pad.
“What the hell—” His head shoots up and he glares at Rowena, who’s smiling at him primly.
“Mr. Winchester,” she says, leaning against the edge of the table. “As much as I’m sure your students would love having a delay in their classes because of your ineptitude, I’m assuming that’s not something you’d want Principal Turner finding out about. Am I right?”
Dean stares at her, lips parted dumbly and feeling like he can’t do anything but, well, stare. Rowena repeats herself, and, like he’s broken out of some kind of invisible hold, he finally forces himself to nod.
She smiles again, unsurprised, and leans over so she’s eye-to-eye with Dean, who awkwardly closes his sketchbook without breaking eye contact. “All right, then.” She taps him lightly on the nose before adding, “Get out of that lovestruck haze you’re doing an absolutely abominable job of hiding, and get going.”
Oh, no the fuck she didn’t. There’s no way Dean’s that obvious; he’s just pissed off, he’s not fawning, there’s no fucking way —
“I—I don’t, I’m not—”
She’s already heading for the exit, but stops to flash him a brilliant white smile that probably is supposed to be reassuring, but only strikes Dean as creepy.
“You’re welcome, sweetie!” she calls over her shoulder.
The door shuts behind her, and as Dean shoves his supplies into his bag, he makes a note to absolutely stay away from Rowena goddamn MacLeod.
After the stupid fucking afternoon he’s had, the last thing Dean wants to deal with is talking to, well, anyone, but the second he steps foot in the apartment after work, it’s clear that Sam’s got other plans.
“You tell Cas yet?” Sam calls over his shoulder. He’s ass-deep in a game of Fortnite, something Dean introduced into the apartment last year and something Sam’s only grown more fond of as more and more of Dean’s kids abandon it.
“Nothing to tell,” Dean mumbles, tossing his bag onto the table and rummaging through the fridge for a beer.
There’s a frantic clicking of controller buttons and Sam lets out this panicked, “To your left, Garth! No, your left!” that has Dean smirking around the bottle against his lips. Less than a minute later and Sam groans, tossing the controller onto the couch and digging the heels of his palms against his eyes.
“Too bad, so sad,” Dean says, smacking the side of his brother’s head lightly as he drops down onto the couch next to him.
“You’re one to talk.”
Dean crosses his ankles on top of the coffee table and leans back, shaking his head and taking another sip of his beer as he tries to forget whatever the fuck happened over his lunch break. “Yeah, yeah.”
“Just remember…” Sam turns to face him and taps his own temple with a knowing smirk that makes Dean want to flip a table. “It’s not true love if only one person knows about it.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Fuck you, Sam.”
“You not wanting to admit it doesn’t make it any less true.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t make it any more of your business, either, asshole.”
Sam just laughs.
Dean’s always been a completionist. Even though he’s calmed down considerably from this afternoon, he’s still got a half-inked, half-colored drawing that needs his attention, so after dinner, he holes himself up at his desk and gets to work.
An hour later and Dean’s got the entire thing colored in: he's left white space as a border to separate between the two panels, Cas sitting in front of his salad in the panel on the right. He looks absolutely fucking mortified, like he wishes he could just slink down out of his chair, under the table, and into a black hole of nothingness.
Dean glances over to the panel on the left, and he sees why.
This illustrated version of himself is pissed, so he can only imagine what his actual self must have looked like. He’s yelling and jabbing a finger toward Cas, and somehow his subconscious must have known that Rowena’d call him out, because she’s in the corner as well, looking on as Dean tears Cas a new one.
Suddenly, his head is filled with Sam’s teasing and Rowena’s accusations, as well as his own thoughts and comments from that afternoon. Stupid Cas, stupid Cas, stupid Cas...
“Stupid Cas who can’t read Dean’s goddamn mind,” Dean mutters to himself. He’s left a small bit of the page at the top blank for captions, and uncaps his pen without thinking twice, captioning the panel of himself first, then the one of Cas.
Me yelling at Cas for not reacting to my flirting:
Cas, having no flirtations to react to:
Once the last colon’s in place, Dean drops his pen with a sigh and a goal to start giving Cas some flirtations to react to.
Well, one.
At least one.
One’s good.