Chalk & Chainmail

Chapter 2

After their less-than-pleasant exchange on the first day of school, Dean was all too careful about not running into the other boy again. He ignored Castiel in the halls—which was easy considering Cas had never really paid him much attention in passing anyway—and in the two classes he had with Cas, he made it a point to sit on the other side of the classroom from him so as to avoid any more demeaning conversations. If Cas’s game was to act as if each didn’t know the other existed, then Dean could get on board with that, keeping any thoughts he had of Castiel tucked safely inside the confines of his own head. 

Things were going well for Dean in that he had found a comfortable pattern in which to live his life: attending school, doing enough homework to keeps his parent's off his back, and spending as much time as possible nerding out with Charlie on the weekends. And staying totally and completely away from Castiel Milton.

It wasn't until the fourth week of classes that Dean's contented way of living was interrupted. Having received mid-quarter progress reports that showed that Dean was failing chemistry, Dean’s parents sat him down and informed him that they had contacted the school and arranged for a peer tutor three days a week until Dean’s grade went up, and that until then, he was grounded from a numerous amount of very-important-to-Dean leisurely activities. Feeling a little betrayed, Dean tried to protest that he didn’t need a tutor and that he was doing just fine, but the glaring F on his mid-quarter progress report made all arguments invalid. Sam had offered to help when he'd heard about what was going on, but with soccer practice and homework of his own, John and Mary wanted him to concentrate on his own studies.

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean had told him. "Don't worry about me. You just keep your grades up."

So on the Monday following his unfortunate news, Dean reluctantly seated himself at a small table in the school library after school and waited for his peer tutor to show up to help him with his chemistry homework.

With his chemistry book and notebook already pulled out from his backpack, Dean felt no use in getting started when he didn't know what he was doing in the first place. Instead he pulled out a comic book and began flipping through the pages, scanning the pictures before delving in. He was so immersed in the reveal of the Red Hood's true identity that he didn't notice a figure looming over him until the clearing of a throat grated out above him.

"Hello, Dean."

Dean looked up and found himself staring into those sad blue eyes he'd been doing so well to avoid as of late.

"I assume it's you I'm here to tutor," Cas stated.

"How do you know I need to be tutored?" Dean asked defensively. 

"The fact that I was told to meet in the library and you're the only student here might have something to do with it. It could also be that the subject I'm here to tutor in and your textbook lying there on the table, unopened, coincide with one another."

"Okay, Cas. Damn," Dean said, flipping his comic book closed and sliding it off to the side. Castiel said nothing about the nickname, and Dean was grateful for it. "Yes, I'm flunking chemistry, okay?"

Cas took the seat across from Dean and began pulling his things from his bag and Dean slumped back into his chair. "It would be you," he muttered as he tried to look anywhere but across the table. 

"I'm sorry?" Castiel asked with one eyebrow quirked, his book halfway out of his bag. 

"Nothing." And Dean hated Castiel for the way he made him feel. He hated him for tying his stomach in knots and reducing him to a mess of nerves while simultaneously giving him the burning desire to just punch something. Or someone. Someone like Castiel.