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History, ugh. Dean slumped down in his chair and doodled listlessly on his notepad, listening to the thunder rattle the windows outside. Ugh, History. The words had been playing around his mind for the last fifteen minutes or so, History being simultaneously the most wonderful and the most dreaded subject on his timetable. What had possessed him to take it he had no idea. He and the other students were waiting for Professor Novak to arrive, despite the generally agreed rule of thumb being that if the professor hadn’t arrived within the first fifteen minutes of the lecture the students were permitted to leave. Professor Novak, on the other hand - and he wilfully ignored anyone who addressed him by his first name - was well known for happily continuing with his lecture, teaching to an empty class and shrugging helplessly when students questioned him on the subjects when they turned up on their exams. He believed that they were paying enough money for a college education, and it was his responsibility to encourage them to actually show up for said education; the annoyance of knowing if a lecture was missed they might lose valuable information notwithstanding, it was a reasonable rule and one his students quickly learned to follow. Not that he was in the habit of being late, but extenuating circumstances happened to even the most well prepared of professors, as he said, and he would always let his students know if he was unable to make it in. Likewise he expected the same courtesy from them, and accepted almost any excuse for a missed lesson as long as there was one, even preferring a truthful I’m too hungover for school today to a I have a tummy ache and a sore throat accompanied by poorly faked coughs.
Dean quickly let himself get lost in daydreaming about Professor Novak - the reason behind his love/hate relationship with History class. See, it wasn’t that Dean didn’t find the subject fascinating - on the contrary. And it wasn’t that Novak wasn’t a good teacher, because he was, in his own unique way. It was just that… well… Professor Castiel Novak was ordinary. He wore a full suit at all times, jacket and all, and came to work on cold or wet days in the most reprehensible tan trench coat Dean had ever seen. He wasn’t exactly fashion conscious but even he could see the faux pas exuding from the garment, even if their professor couldn’t. Professor Novak talked like he had just crawled out of a period drama set in the 1800’s, and sounded like he’d eaten both a dictionary and a thesaurus for breakfast every day for each of his thirty-something years. Even though Dean appreciated his newly found vocabulary when picking up chicks in the bar - some girls liked a smart guy, after all - he didn’t appreciate having to look up half of his teacher’s lecture on his phone surreptitiously in class. The other reason Professor Castiel Novak was Dean’s living nightmare was because the man was utterly and completely gorgeous.
Picture, if you will, a six foot Adonis in tweed, dark brown hair constantly just this side of the just-fucked look due to its owner running his fingers through it every time he got remotely animated about a subject. And that was all the freakin’ time. The man’s voice was rough and gravelly, a deep baritone that had Dean’s stomach in knots halfway through their first lecture. Dean reckoned Professor Novak could sit and read the Bible to him and he’d listen, rapt, to that voice and it would still sound sexy. Never mind that half of the things he said were practically gibberish, as far as Dean was concerned, his voice was like sex made into sound and it was the cause of both distraction and frustration for him given that he was actually there to learn. The final nail in the coffin, the stake through his heart, the needle in his eye, was the man’s damn eyes. Dean knew if he’d been born a century earlier that the poems he learned in Classic Lit could easily have been about Castiel Novak’s eyes. They were blue, sure, but pick a blue! Some days they were a glorious cobalt, sparking with excitement as he discussed some particularly fascinating point. Other days they were dark and stormy, a deep ocean blue that Dean felt he could drown in and die happy. And, on rare occasions, he had seen them paler, like the blue of a clear winter’s day unhindered by snow-filled clouds. It wasn’t enough to describe them as ‘blue’, that seemed both completely inadequate and utterly untruthful.
So basically, Dean was fucked. And not even in the fun way. His teacher was so completely uninteresting, so utterly normal that it broke Dean’s heart that the man was the absolute picture of masculine perfection. He probably had a house with a white picket fence and two-point-five damn kids, and a wife that obviously would be the most gorgeous thing ever to grace the earth because life isn’t fair and the best ones are always straight and married to friggin’ supermodels. Sighing wistfully, he continued doodling on his notebook when the door opened with a loud slam and Professor Novak squelched in, his entire body - trench coat and all - absolutely dripping wet.
“Apologies for my tardiness, my car broke down and I was forced to walk the rest of the way to class. My thanks to you all for remaining in your seats to wait for me,” he said as he peeled off his trench coat and draped it over the portable whiteboard to dry, pulling off his sodden suit jacket right afterwards and draping it over the back of his chair. “Now,” he continued as if nothing was wrong, “if you will all please turn to chapter forty-five in your textbooks I believe last time we were discussing…”
The rest of his words were lost to the hushed whispering that flowed through the room like ripples, though that didn’t hold him back from continuing and he was soon turning his back to the class and beginning to write on the chalkboard behind him. Dean forcefully closed his mouth, but couldn’t tear his eyes away from his professor for even half a second, transfixed by the man like he never had been before. There, barely ten feet away from him, stood the most boring man on earth, and he was inked. And not just some small, poxy little anti-possession charm like Dean had, convinced to go under the needle by his kid brother, who insisted they both get the tattoo to symbolize some hippie, chick-flick crap that Dean tuned out. No way, Professor Castiel Novak, man of a million words, was covered in tattoos. He had magnificent wings across his back and shoulders, and Dean thought he could just about see them going down his arm. His forearms had sleeve tattoos that Dean could hardly make out, simply swirls of blue and red and green tracing their way up to his elbows. His chest and torso were also covered in some design, and Dean itched to jump up and tear the man’s shirt from his body just so he could see the artwork beneath. He restrained himself - barely - but his fingers twitched with the force of his restraint and he had to tear his eyes away before his mouth fell open again and he drooled on his classwork.
Castiel himself seemed completely unaware or unconcerned with the effect his tattoos were having on the class, going on with his teaching as if nothing was wrong. He would always offer students who asked for it additional help with anything they missed in class, so he expected them to either keep up or ask for assistance later - or ask him to slow down, if necessary - so he generally didn’t object to a little bit of murmuring during lessons. Dean said nothing, but his hands began to doodle again, marking down Professor Novak’s wings and moving on to guess at the rest of his art, spending the rest of the lesson sketching in the margins of his notes various options and jotting down their plausibility along with the occasional piece of information he actually picked up from the lesson.
He wasn’t sure he would be able to focus properly in class anymore, not now he knew what that jacket and coat hid, but at least he’d have an excuse to ask for a little extra assistance after class.