Cas is late. First day back at school and he's running late. He half walks, half jogs down the street. He turns a corner and when the school comes into view, he lets out a sigh of relief at seeing students still huddled outside. Crossing the road, Cas hears the bell ring and picks up his pace again. He forgoes putting his books in his locker, he doesn't have time.

Peeking into the classroom Cas sees that a total of five students have already arrived. The heaviness in his chest dissipates a little.

Taking a seat in the back of the classroom, Cas pulls out his books while the rest of the class files in. Five minutes after the warning bell rings there's still no teacher and Cas is starting to bitterly regret skipping breakfast.

Suddenly the door clicks open and the class quiets down, watching as a new face walks in. The man looks to be no older than in his early twenties, with sandy blond hair, and a strong, symmetrical jaw. He's slim and well toned with broad shoulders. Cas can understand why half the girls in his class are leaning forward in their seats.

"Sorry I'm late, I got lost and ended up in the cafeteria where I found-" He lifts up a plate of pie "-this little slice of heaven" He puts the plate down, instead picking up a piece of paper and turning to the board scribbling equations "Tell you what, whoever finishes these first and gets them all right, I'll let have a slice of my pie. Sound good?" He turns back around to address the class.

There's a murmur of agreement before several of the girls and a couple of boys start scribbling away like their life depends on it. Cas squints at the equations on the board, trying to decipher them but truthfully, Cas doesn't know where to begin.

It's not that Cas is necessarily bad at Maths, he just finds the subject hard to grasp. Cas transferred to this school two years ago to find the material being taught was alot further a head than his last school. He spent a year struggling to catch up but eventually he did with the exception of Maths. The Maths teacher Cas had the first year he arrived here, took a job at another school and since then Cas' class has been switching between substitute teachers, neither of them that great at teaching Maths.

Cas flicks through his text book and writes down the formula example. For 5 minutes Cas attempts and re-attempts to apply the equations on the board to the formula given.

"Castiel?" His name being called finally registers in his mind, he glances up to see most of the class looking at him, a couple of them snickering. It takes him a minute to realise the teacher is doing roll call.

"...yes" Cas feels heat filling his cheeks and ducks his head to look back at his almost blank paper.

"Hannah Nathans?" The teacher moves on to the next name on the list.

Once the teacher is finished with roll call, he claps his hands gaining the attention of the class. Cas sees him holding several pieces of paper and a green pen.

"The winner of this delicious piece of pie is...April Lawson" He wraps a slice of pie in some tissue and hands it to April as she stands to receive it.

"By the way, I'm Mr Winchester...but I hate that so you have to call me Dean. Unless there's another teacher around, then I'm Mr Winchester, got it?"

There's a chorus of "Yes Dean" and a few giggles tact on the end. Then Dean passes out some worksheets.

"I'd like you to complete the problems on the sheets being passed 'round. If you don't get somethin', put your hand up and I'll go through it with you" some girl's start to giggle and whisper, Cas thinks they'll probably 'need help' and sighs.

"I'm just testin' to see what you already know" Dean continues "Don't get worked up about it and don't ask for help unless you really need it." He gives the group of giggling girls a pointed look "I want you to give it your best shot."

Cas takes a sheet from the pile handed to him and passes the pile along. Staring down at the sheet Cas spots two out of the twenty questions that he can actually do, he decides to do them first.

Dean walks down aisles between the desks looking around for anyone he thinks might be struggling, that and he's avoiding the pile of paperwork he has already, stacked on his desk.

Cas frowns down at the paper and scribbles out his working out once again. It's useless, Cas either hasn't been taught the formulas or hasn't understood them. He moves on to the next question, which doesn't look much better. A hand presses down on the edge of his desk and another on the back of his chair.

"You alright?" Cas glances up as Dean's voice rumbles in his ear. Dean's peering down at his paper full of scribbles.

"Um yes I..." Cas falters "I'm having difficulty" he sighs.

"That's alright, whatcha stuck on?" Dean picks up the problem sheet and then Cas' paper and skims through it.

Cas hesitates "...all of it?"

Dean looks back up at that. "Okay..." Dean clicks his tongue in thought "how about I go through these with you" he points to several problems on the sheet then pulls out his pen and circles them "and we'll go over the rest after school at some point?" Dean looks back at Cas questioningly.

Cas nods "Okay."

"Alright, Well this one..." Dean points to one of the problems and proceeds to explain it. Checking every so often to make sure Cas is following and having Cas work out parts of it for himself.

Once Cas gets the hang of it Dean leaves him to complete the last couple of (the circled) problems, and tends to two other students.

By the time the bell rings, Cas is quite proud with the amount of problems he's managed to solve. As he passes Dean's desk, Dean calls Cas over.

Cas comes to stand by the desk while Dean waits for the last student to leave the classroom "Right, I've got another student in need of after school tutoring but I'm givin' you first pick." He pulls out a pen and pad "What day's best for you? I'm free all week at the moment."

Cas thinks about this for a moment. Wednesdays he works at the library after school. The rest of the week he's free...but Friday his father gets home early from work.

"Friday" Cas decides.