Chapter Text
It was his final year at college. Officially a senior. He had no idea how he'd pulled through. You see, Dean Winchester had a learning disability. He was dyslexic. When he was younger, his mother would read to him. His favourite book had been 101 Dalmatians. He couldn't read the words but he knew the story. For him, the pictures told the tale more than the words did. As he got older, he had problems learning things. He was constantly frustrated at not being able to read the words in a book or when he wrote alphabets and numbers wrong. He tried his hardest and his mother helped him. She was patient when Dean would throw a tantrum about getting his math homework wrong or when he couldn't understand something in his textbook no matter how many times he studied it.
Sam on the other hand, was the star child. He had no problem learning and Dean envied that about him. The relationship was strained till Sam understood what exactly was wrong with Dean. Once he learned, Sam helped his big brother out with all his studies. Unfortunately because Dean's grades weren't that good, he had slipped a few grades and he and Sam were equals. Sam had taken Dean under his wing when it came to academics. He devised new ways to help him learn. If his older brother couldn't understand something textually, he'd help him visualise it or give him a comparison and Dean would understand it perfectly. As the brothers bonded and became closer than ever, Dean got better. It became easier to learn. He was always obsessed with cars and he loved his Hot Wheels and so, when the time came, John Winchester taught his eldest son about cars. Dean loved every minute of it. He would wait for weekends to learn something new from his dad. One day when John took him to the garage he owned, he instantly started fiddling around and tinkering. The most surprising thing, he fixed a Camaro his first day there. Sure it wasn't that big a job, the brake lines were worn and new ones were needed. But for Dean, it was more than that. He worked and worked and even tuned the car up good. The owner, whose son happened to be Dean's classmate, was surprised when he found out he'd been the one to fix it. He thanked the boy and gave him a special tip. That day when Dean got home, he ran up to Sammy's room to tell him and Sam listened patiently as he told his story. Sam couldn't be happier for him and was glad his big brother was happy.
It wasn't easy for him in school. Dean was bullied regularly. They called him "retard", "moron", "idiot" and every day Dean cried. The abuse led to him developing a stutter. If he got called on to answer a question or read something, his nerves would flare up and he would start stuttering. This added to his already torturous school life and his schoolmates made even more fun of him. No matter how many times Mary complained to the principal, it never helped. She was worried that Dean might start getting depressed so she made sure that he was taken care of and got a job at the school. She became the guidance counsellor there which made it easier for her to take care of him when Sam couldn't be there.
What was most frustrating was that Dean only had a learning disorder, he could still do things normal kids did and at times, he did it better than them. But everyone treated him like he had a disease and he was handicapped so he became a loner. He buried himself in fixing cars and schoolwork. When he finally graduated, the principal gave Dean a special mention. He'd mostly gotten A's and one A- and a B+. His grades were the highest they'd ever been and the entire Winchester family had cried when he got his diploma.
This wasn't even the best news. Two days before his graduation, he'd gotten his acceptance letter to college and what made his day even better had been the scholarship he'd gotten. He had burst into tears because he couldn't believe it.
He'd left for Colorado in August and everyone, including Uncle Bobby and Aunt Ellen and their daughter Jo had tagged along. Dean was nervous but the college administration had assured the family that he would be assigned a tutor to keep him up in all his classes. This was a big reason why Dean could go to college because he knew he'd have trouble keeping up. Since the college ran a special needs program, it had worked out perfectly.
He'd had a good three years with help from his tutor Michael. They'd become good friends and he'd made a few friends with his help and some with his own new found confidence. Kevin and Charlie were the closest to him other than Michael and they spent a lot of time together.
Trouble struck when he came back after summer vacation to his final year. He’d been called to the special needs’ office and he was heading over there. When he walked in, the lady at the desk Mrs. Cantor recognized him immediately. “Good morning, Dean!”, she said cheerfully. “How was your summer?”
“It was fine, great actually. I interned so, I didn’t get too much vacation time but it was good”, Dean said nervously as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I was told to come here? Is there a problem?”, he asked.
“Oh yes! Well, not the problem part. You’ve been assigned a new tutor since Michael Milton graduated”, she said. “I was supposed to give you details on your new tutor.” After shuffling through a few papers around her, she retrieved a file. Dean knew he’d be getting a new tutor but that didn’t mean he wasn’t crazy nervous about it. He didn’t do well when new people were introduced to him and they tended to look at him differently for his disability. The only way he’d made friends with Charlie and Kevin is because they came up to him asking him answers to questions from an assignment. After that, they’d learned they had similar interests and stuck around each other. They also helped him with his work when Michael wasn’t around which helped him immensely.
“Don’t be nervous sweetie, as far as I know, the student is really nice and hard working”, Mrs. Cantor said in an effort to console Dean so that he wouldn’t feel too apprehensive and nervous. He tried to give her a smile but it was more of a grimace so he settled for a more reserved look.
“Okay. It says here his name’s Castiel Novak, he’s majoring in art and is in your year. He happened to take most of your classes and he transferred in from CU. He works in the same program that we have here. He requested to be here”, she said. Dean was surprised. Asked to be here? Why would anyone do that?, he thought.
“He’ll be in here in the next couple of days. You can show him around while he tutors you. You think you will be comfortable with that?”, Mrs. Cantor asked. Dean swallowed and nodded. She smiled at him kindly and handed him the folder with Castiel’s details in it. He took and walked out, heading toward his dorm room to look over to get to know what his new tutor was like, academically at least.
When he walked in, Kevin was busy screaming obscenities at creatures trying to kill him in some new video game he’d been waiting to play. He walked up to him just as he was defeating a some ugly ass creature and tapped him on his shoulder causing him to spaz out and drop his controller.
“DEAN! What the HELL?!”, he yelled while Dean laughed his ass off at his roommate’s expression.
“Your… face!”, he managed to wheeze out. Kevin grabbed a cushion and threw it at Dean which hit him squarely in the back. “Asshole”, he said and turned back to his game while Dean stuck his tongue out at him.
He sat up properly on his bed and opened the folder up. All his transcripts and history of academics and extra curriculars were in it. He was a swimmer, ran track and marathons, volunteered at the library, worked with students and young children with special needs, had straight A’s, had a weird combination of subjects ranging from philosophy to art to sociology to freaking computer science (nerd) and was an advocate for homeless animals.
Wow, he sounds like an angel sent from the heavens, Dean thought as he looked through the folder again. He looked at the schedule that the school had drawn up for him to find that they had a few classes together. Looking at it and comparing his schedule with it, he started planning what kind of tutoring plan he wanted. Every day would be too much and even though he’d had that arrangement with Michael but he hadn’t minded and had actually suggested that in the first place. He didn’t know if Castiel would have time to tutor him at the end of each day so he thought that they could pick days when they could work together. Maybe they could meet every two days at the library or something.
Before the boys realized, it was time for dinner. When they came back, Dean decided he’d try to search for Castiel on social networking sites. The most obvious would be facebook but he never made one coz he thought it was too pretentious and created a twitter instead.
He still searched but couldn’t find him anywhere. Weird. No social network, he thought. His curiosity was at its peak now coz this was one way to figure out what he looked like but now, he was going in blind.
“Just a few more days and my prayers are gonna be answered. All I have to do is be patient”, Dean sighed and turned off his laptop to get ready for the next day.
Dean got through his first day of senior classes pretty easily. Everything that had been discussed or talked about was within his grasp and he had no trouble retaining it. All in all, it was good.
The next few days passed like that. He had a couple of assignments and had attempted them to see how well he had understood things. Except for a few questions, he’d been fine. It was always the questions with twists or out of the box thinking that got him frustrated. He would get the answer eventually, he knew that. But he wanted to understand the ease with which everyone else could answer or solve the question. It wasn’t as though he was incompetent; he was better at grasping and solving certain things than the others and those set him apart. All he wanted now was to understand the secret key that everyone else was aware about except him.
It was the weekend now and he was halfway through his Friday classes when he got a text from an unknown number. He was sitting in class almost done so he decided he’d ignore it for now.
As soon as it ended and he got his things together, he grabbed his phone out. Unknown number?, he was puzzled. He slid across the notification to see what it said.
976-555-2732- Hey. Is this Dean Winchester? Mrs. Cantor gave me your number. I wanted to ask if you ’ d like to meet up today? I just got here and I thought we could use the time to get to know each other a little better- Castiel Novak
Dean was surprised he hadn’t realized sooner. After slapping himself mentally and saving his number, he replied.
Dean- Hi! Yeah it ’ s Dean. Yeah sure I ’ d love to. My classes get over at 3 which means I have one more left so, how about I see you at the fountain? If you get lost, ask someone and they ’ ll tell you. It ’ s pretty close to the library.
Castiel- Cool! I ’ ve seen it so I doubt I ’ m gonna get lost. See you then : )
Dean slipped his phone back into his pocket and walked toward his final class of the day. He was tired, he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before because he’d been too busy cracking codes from a book he’d bought over the summer. He’d solved about half of it but last night’s puzzle had taken hours to crack which cut his hours of sleeping from 10 hours to 6. He loved to sleep. It always made him happy to take a nap or wake up from a good night’s sleep. For him, he felt that sleeping was a gift and should be enjoyed and treasured.
The class had droned on and he had tried his hardest to pay attention. It was already difficult what with the people around him talking about stupid and mundane things that would have absolutely no consequence or significance in their future except maybe impact his grades and he was getting frustrated. He didn’t like being distracted by others especially when he found it so hard to focus.
He tried to tune them out and grasp something from the class regardless of his sleepy state and eventually managed to imagine them as white noise. Before he knew it his class had ended and he was making his way toward the fountain to meet Castiel Novak.
On his way to the fountain, he was assaulted by his other best friend Charlie. Her classes had just started today and they hadn’t had the time to meet. She knew about Michael leaving and was concerned about the new tutor that Dean was going to be assigned.
“Have you met your tutor?”, she asked. “No, I’m on my way to meet him now. He has a crazy CV let me tell you. Insane subject choices. I mean, who takes Intro to Philosophy and Operating systems along with Intro to Social Theories? That’s crazy right? Not to mention, he actually has most of my subjects. Either he’s got too much time on his hands or he hasn’t made up his mind”, Dean said. Charlie frowned up at him and said, “I remember a certain boy having the feelsies for my subjects when he met me and was dying to get his hands on my course books. You can’t judge someone just because of their weird subject choices because you did the same. Now, where is this guy? I wanna meet him too.”
Dean scowled before telling her he was waiting for him at the fountain. Arm in arm, they made their way toward it and stopped to find Castiel when they reached their destination. Not finding anyone standing out, Dean whipped out his phone and sent a text to Castiel asking him where he was.
Castiel- I ’ m wearing a grey tshirt with ripped jeans and a hoodie. Sitting under this tree
Along with it was the attachment of the tree and Dean recognized it immediately. They found the old tree and found a person wearing said clothes under it. The person moved when he saw the pair approaching and stood up. Dean couldn’t make out any features yet but as they got closer, he started taking in his appearance.
Ruffled black hair, skinny physique, he assumed graceful because of the way he stood up and when they finally reached him, he saw his eyes. It was a prism for all shades of blue that nature could conjure and he was immediately fascinated. If he could, he’d like to conduct a genetic study on it to see how his chromosomes combined to create that color and if he had someone in his genetic line that could have contributed to his eye color.
“Hey. Um, I’m Castiel. You’re Dean right?”, Castiel said. Hm, deep voice, Dean thought. “Yeah, and this is my friend Charlie.”
“Hi”, Charlie greeted him and stuck her hand out which Castiel shook with a smile on his face. “Glad to meet you”, he said.
They stood awkwardly before Charlie’s phone started ringing and she had to excuse herself to answer it. “So uh, how do you like Colorado?”, Dean asked tentatively. “It’s really nice. It’s very different from California but I like it.” Castiel smiled at Dean. He could see the other boy was nervous what with the way his hands kept twitching so he tried to make him as comfortable as possible. “Why don’t we sit down?”, he suggest and sat down, patting the ground beside him for Dean to sit.
Dean sat down and hugged his backpack and looked at him sideways. “So uhh, your tutor left huh? He graduated?”, Castiel started. Dean only nodded. He was busy trying to figure this person he was sitting next to out. So far, he hadn’t gotten any vibe that would suggest that he was unfriendly or rude. All he got was calm and friendship.
“How’d your classes go? Were they good?”, Castiel went on to keep the conversation going.
Dean shrugged, “They were okay. In my last class these idiot mud monkeys wouldn’t shut up so I had a problem concentrating and I also hatched a plan to murder them.”
Castiel didn’t look shocked, he just smiled. “How’d you plan to kill these mud monkeys?”
“Oh you know, Dexter style. Individually kidnap them and slice and dice em and then take them somewhere remote in the forests and bury them. Or if I find a lake, I chuck them in that and watch the currents carry them away.”
“That’s cool. So you like Dexter too huh? Not many people do”, Castiel said. “What else do you like?”
This got him nervous. Not everyone was welcoming of people with overenthusiasm for shows and movies; especially if they weren’t socially acceptable and labelled as ‘geek shows’ or any other offensive stereotype.
“What do you like?”, Dean counter-questioned. If he talked the language of geeks, he would tell him. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t tell him his real passions, just pastime shows.
“Oh man, where do I start? Well, I’m hooked to Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings, I love Star Wars, I read graphic novels, I adore Marvel and DC and I love Neil Gaiman.; he writes crazy awesome- What? What’s wrong?”
He spoke the language. He didn’t just speak the language, he spoke Dean’s language. He had named everything he lived for and the first to mention his love for Gaiman. So far, he’d introduced people to it and had never met anyone who was already in love. Fanboy that he was, his eyes went wide and his jaw dropped.
“What Dean? Why’re you looking at me like I’m an octopus with Hydra’s face on it?”, Castiel asked. Dean smiled before replying, “Because I love everything that you just mentioned and you’re the first person I’ve met who loved Neil Gaiman without me introducing you to it.” He grinned even more broadly till he was smiling completely.
Castiel gave him a big smile. “So am I acceptable to you now that I speak the language?”, he asked.
“More than, good sir. One last question, do you like cosplaying or LARPing?”, Dean asked. Not everyone was into it but based on what Castiel had told him, he was willing to bet his Lego Deathstar that he was more than into it.
“Oh yeah! I was big into it in California. I didn’t know about the scene here so I was going to keep it on the down low until I felt comfortable to do it”, he said.
He’s awesome, Dean concluded. This had been enough for him and he was more comfortable with him now than before.
“How do you want to schedule our sessions, Castiel?”, Dean asked with a smile. He was hoping Castiel would get added to his small but important list of friends.
“Well, how about we do it alternate days? That way, you get a day to yourself where you aren’t studying. They don’t have to be long but if it does take long, that’s no problem. I’ll be there to help for anything and everything. But I have two rules”, Castiel said.
“What would those be?”, Dean asked curious. Michael had never had any rules and this was completely new territory for him.
“First, this is not a formal relationship, preferably I want us to be friends. It helps make the tutorings feel less like tutorings and more like study group. You know, something that you would do with your friends. With me so far?”, Castiel asked.
“Okay. Yeah. What’s the second part?”, Dean questioned.
“Secondly, if there’s something on your mind or there’s something that’s bothering you that’s impeding your studying or anything else, you tell me. You don’t have to give me details if you feel like you don’t trust me enough but if you just make me aware of it, even give me a ballpark description, I’ll do my best to help you. Is this acceptable to you?”, he finished.
Dean squinted at him. Yeah they made sense and everyone has their own way in which they work. He nodded once before telling him he was comfortable with his rules.
“Good. Shake on it?”, Castiel twisted and held his hand out to Dean. Hesitantly, Dean reached out and grasped Castiel’s hand. Both smiled and shook once before letting go and standing up.
“Well, I’m beat. How about we meet up tomorrow at 11 in the coffee place and I’ll have a look at all your work and curriculum and we can discuss it. Cool?”, Castiel asked Dean.
“Yeah cool. See you tomorrow”, Dean said and they both walked off in their own directions.
For a reason he couldn’t pinpoint, Dean was very interested in Castiel. He wanted to learn everything about the boy and build his image of him.
Who he is, only time will tell, Dean thought as he walked off to his dorm.