Long car rides aren't exactly Dean's idea of fun. Even with the seemingly endless, beautiful scenery, Dean was still very near brain dead with boredom after six straight hours of luscious green trees and calm blue skies. Sammy looked more enthralled than a twelve year old had any right to in this situation, flitting excited looks between the window and the brochure in his hands.
"They have special classes just for concentration and power-control!" The kid exclaimed, holding the pamphlet out for Dean to see.
"And a swimming pool," he responded.
Sam took a short break from his excitement to flash Dean a disapproving frown. "You really should be more focused on academics," he scolded.
"Yes, Mom," Dean mumbled. He wasn't as happy about this school as his brother. In fact, he had viciously fought with his dad to stay at his normal school with his normal friends, but after Dean melted a table in the cafeteria, no amount of 'he called me a bitch dad' could justify the panic he had caused and so, they were sent to this 'special' school for 'special' kids. Not even his mom had wavered when he set his pleading eyes on her.
'It'll be good for you,' she had said. 'You'll learn to control your gifts there, and you can still come home for the Holidays.'
He had sighed and packed his things loudly and angrily.
So that's what had them all loaded into their Sedan way too freaking early in the morning for unbearable amounts of time.
"And Naomi Milton is the principal!" Sam rambled on beside him, looking positively star struck.
"Who?" Dean asked with a slightly furrowed brow.
Sam let out an exasperated sigh. "Only the most influential Alpha or our era. She is the founder and Head of the entire school." He explained as if the entire backstory of some Alpha principal was common knowledge and Dean was just dumb. "I heard she's an Elite, too," he continued, referring to the rare cases where an Alpha has more than one ability.
"You're such a super-nerd," Dean mocked lightly, rolling his eyes and turning his attention to the mind-numbingly repetitive landscape outside his window.
"We're here!" Mary Winchester shouted happily, startling Dean from his nap and sending Sam out of the car like an excited ball of energy. Dean mumbled incomprehensively and fumbled his way out, rubbing the last of the sleep from his eyes and groaning at the assaultive sunlight. "Pictures boys, c'mon give me smiles I won't see you until the fall!" Mary pleaded, tearing up at the thought.
Unwilling to further upset his mother, Dean slung an arm over Sam's shoulders and pulled him in close, stretching a mostly false smile on his face and looking into the lens of the camera Mary had pointed at them both. A few seconds later, the camera beeped and Dean retracted his arm and let the smile slide off his face, making way for the grumpy pout that he had wore (and denied wearing) all week.
"Oh, please be good. Mind your manners, and eat something other than hamburgers," Mary fretted, straightening the collar of Dean's leather jacket and then ensnaring him in a viper-like hug that he returned softly but reassuringly. She pulled back to go lecture Sam and viciously flatten his hair, going over a mental checklist of socks and underwear that she quadruple checked they hadn't forgotten.
John approached his oldest son sternly and laid a warm hand on his shoulder. "You know what the drill. Study first, party later, and watch out for Sammy," he told him. Dean nodded his acknowledgement and John gave him a quick, bracing hug. "And enjoy yourself a little. This could be great if you just gave it a chance," John stepped back and gave his oldest one more pat on the shoulder before scooping Sammy up and ignoring his whines of protest.
Dean unloaded his and Sam's bags from the back of their vehicle, handing Sam his and shouldering a duffle containing all he expected to need for the coming months. Mary gave them both one more round of tearful hugs that felt more like chokeholds and before they knew it, John was leading Mary to the vehicle with a supportive arm around her waist and their black Sedan was rolling down the road and out of sight.
Dean watched it go miserably until Sam tugged on his sleeve, whispering his name in awestruck tones. He spun around to face the school, expecting a redbrick building and maybe a jungle gym. What he wasn't expecting was the cobblestone mansion with black, wrought iron fencing all around the perimeter and tangled vines sporting purple flowers woven around the bars. Emerald ivy climbed up the tan walls of the school and an impressive clump of other odd plants were thriving outside one window in particular. Great oak trees made a sort of canopy, preventing him from seeing much else of the yard, but, if it was anything like the front, it was no doubt breathtaking.
"Sam and Dean Winchester?" A female voice called from the open gates of the school. They both looked down form the spectacle of a building and focused on the woman walking confidently down the pathway to them. "I'm Missouri Mosely, but you can call me Mrs. Mosely," a short, dark skinned woman greeted them warmly. "I'm the head of the front office here at Alpha Academy. I'll show you in."
With that, she turned, walking back into the school with the boys following. "Now, we have a dorm sectioning based on gender and age. You will be given a list of students that are eligible and you can meet them today before deciding who to room with," she continued, leading them to a small office veiled form the rest of the school with a clear glass door.
She opened it to a small, interesting office filled with physic knickknacks and a desk made of dark wood. "These are a list of names and pictures of the students who have open space for a roommate, I'll leave it up to you to meet them all. And here is a map of the school and your schedules." She handed them each small stacks of paper and Sam was practically vibrating with contained excitement. "First period has already started, so I'll send you with Pamela to show you the way, you can just leave your bags here until you've decided on a roommate, which will need to be done before the end of the day."
She finished her splurge of information by opening a door to the side of her office just as a tall woman with dark brown curls and tinted sunglasses walked through. "Hello, I'm Ms. Barnes, but you can call me Pam if you stay on my good side," she said with a friendly smile. "Follow me, I'll lead you to your classes."
The boys dropped their bags and trailed after Pam down the twisting hallways. Dean felt raw, happy anticipation bubbling in his chest and he sent a glare at Sam. "Stop that," he hissed quietly.
"Sorry," Sam said, not sounding it at all. But he retracted his power none the less, letting Dean resume his skulking. Sam was an empath, meaning he could feel other people's emotions. Sam was a higher class of empath though, actually being able to project his emotions onto someone else if they were close enough.
The walk through the school was quiet and when Pam stopped at one door, telling Sam that this was his stop, the brothers didn't exchange words, just looked at each other and Dean nodding comfortingly at a quivering Sam. Sam gave him a wavering smile before opening the door and walking through.
"Okie dokie, now to your class." Pam chirped. "Alpha History and Government, right?"
"Uh- uh, yeah," Dean stuttered out, jumping to catch up as she marched down another hallways with a call of; 'This way!'.
They arrived at a door marked Mr. Rufus Turner: Alpha History and Government and Pamela gave Dean a reassuring pat on the shoulder before she wished him luck and whisked off down the confusing hallways unwaveringly.
Dean took a deep breath and knocked on the door briefly before opening it and walking in just enough to close it behind himself. The first thing he noticed was a tall, black man standing at the front of the class and yelling at a student in the back row for talking. "I've got super-hearing, Boy, did you really think you could pull one over on me?!"
The boy in question held his head high and looked unrepentant, but relief washed over his face when Mr. Turner's attention was directed away from him by Dean's arrival. "You must be the new student," Mr. Turner greeted brashly. Dean nodded vigorously, skittish around this loud and somewhat seemingly strict teacher. "Well, go ahead and introduce yourself, tell us your power and where you're from," he said, gesturing for him to stand more in front of the class.
Dean strode over and attempted to slip into the cocky attitude that was his default. "I'm Dean," he started and immediately, that plan was shot all to hell as his voice wavered slightly and he decided to just aim for nonchalance. "I do stuff with fire and heat, and I moved here from Lawrence Kansas," he finished, glancing back to the teacher for further instruction.
"You can go sit back by Jo. Jo raise your hand," he commanded offhandedly, going back to the board to write something.
A small, pretty blonde waved her hand in the air at him and he half ran over to sit. "Hi, I'm Jo," she greeted unnecessarily, holding out her hand to shake his.
He took it and smiled back, "Dean,"
"How come she gets to talk?" A kid behind them mumbled disgruntledly, in a voice so quiet, Dean almost didn't catch it.
"Because I like her better, Gabe," Mr. Turner called out, not turning to face him as he continued his work at the board. The kid-Gabe-flicked a forked tongue out at him petulantly.
"That's Gabriel Novak, he's a shapeshifter of sorts, he can take on animal properties, but he can't fully shift," Jo explained quietly. "This is his last year here, he's just finishing up his classes that aren't power-based." Dean nodded, trying to remember everyone's names and abilities.
After a few more classes that were-admittedly-more interesting than the classes he took at home, it was lunch time.
At Alpha Academy, the food they served was unlike any school lunch Dean had ever had. It was actually edible. He piled his plate with a cheeseburger, fries, and-under pressing guilt of blatantly disregarding his mom-a few carrots. Jo called him over to a table occupied by a small group including a guy with a mullet and a stoner-esque feel to him, a petite redhead who was positively glowing with happy energy, a mild looking blond with his napkin in his lap and everything, and a gawky looking kid with the goofiest looking smile Dean had ever seen.
Jo led him over there, pointing out to each person in turn as they took their seats.
"Ash, mathekinesis, which sounds super lame, but he can do some amazing shit with just an equation, Charlie, technokinesis, can hack anything and if it's electronic, she has full reign over it. Adam, healing. And Garth, super speed. As you know, I'm Jo and I have like, super agility. Think ninja, gymnast with fifty years of training, but blonder." Jo rattled off with ease. "Everyone, this is Dean, and he has pyrokinesis, so don't go lighting any matches," she joked lightly
Ash gave him a nod of acknowledgement, Charlie stuck a hand out and beamed her way through a conversation, Adam gave him a polite smile, and Garth put a hand on his shoulder, smiling in a weird, but completely genuine way.
Maybe this school wasn't half bad.
"So, Dean, I take it you haven't picked out a roommate yet," Jo piped up after a while.
"Um- no, not yet," Dean responded, in truth, he had completely forgotten about the whole roommate situation.
"Here, let me help," she said, grabbing his papers and rifling through them. "Urgh, not Gordon Walker. He's a total jerk…Ok, don't even talk to Castiel Novak, he's not good company to keep…Ah, Victor Henrickson. He's not too bad, a bit too by-the-book sometimes, but he's a nice enough guy." The members of the table paying attention muttered in agreement and Dean shrugged.
"Well that settles that," he said, collecting the papers and standing up. "I'm gonna take these up to the office, to tell them I've decided," he called as he jogged off.
Dean was lost, almost unbelievingly so. The halls all looked the same and everything was so perfect in the décor, that every trashcan and wall ornament was in the exact same place every time he made a turn.
It was around his twenty-third wrong turn that he found a group of people harassing a boy with dark, messy hair. The boy was walking down the hall with his head up, as if he didn't see the two people crowding around him, calling out exaggeratedly devastated claims about how hurt they were that he was ignoring them. They were punking on him. Dean had seen it a thousand times in the hallways of his old school every day. Apparently even in a school of freaks, people can still find someone to single out.
Dean was fully prepared to just keep on walking. The kid looked like he was handling it just fine, and assuming it didn't escalate, Dean could just go to the office and file for his nice, normal roommate to kick off his quiet year at Alpha Academy.
But where's the fun in that?
So, of course, one of the guys he recognized from his papers-Gordon Walker-shoved the kid forward hard enough to send him skidding to the ground. When the kid attempted to calmly pick himself up, another person shoved his shoe into the kid's side, tipping him over more forcefully this time.
"Wait just a second, Cassie, we have a question," the one who had kicked him over said in a nasally voice that made Dean cringe internally. "What is your power? Do you even have one?" Then, he bent in close to the boy's averted face and grabbed it, forcing him to look him in the eyes. "And is it true you killed your parents?" His last words dropped like stones off a building in the silence, disrupting it with a sharp crash when they hit.
The boy went very still for a moment before he sprung forward, punching his taunter solidly in the nose. It spurted blood all down his front and onto the sparkling tiles of the floor. Gordon instantly grabbed the kid and yanked him back, tossing him into the ground before rounding on him and connecting his fist to his face with a sickening smack.
"Hey!" Dean shouted, racing down to stop the unevenly matched beat down that was about to occur as the other guy picked himself up off the floor, holding his nose.
"Oh, piss off, New Kid," the guy with the broken nose all but whined. "This is really none of your business. Just move along," he finished, sweeping his arms in a wide gesture to leave.
Dean squared his shoulders and opened his mouth, angry retort on the tip of his tongue, when they heard the clicking of heels coming down the hallway. The broken nose kid and Gordon cleared out in a flash, and the kid they left behind jumped up and grabbed Dean's sleeve, pulling him down a few bends until he deemed them safe.
The kid stopped and looked around panicked before he calmed down slightly. That was when Dean got his first good look at him.
It was Castiel Novak.
The same Castiel Novak Jo had specifically warned him to stay away from.
Castiel turned his blue gaze on him and Dean was floored. Sure, he knew the kid had some kick ass blue eyes from looking at his picture, but in person, they were so much…more.
There was about five seconds of awkward silence and eye avoidance before Castiel spun on his heel and started to walk off.
"Wait!" Dean called, jumping to catch up. Castiel didn't wait, but he didn't speed up when Dean matched his pace either. "Are you- I mean- are you ok? I saw that Gordan guy got a good punch in…" Dean trailed off, craning slightly to see the bruise that had blossomed across his cheekbone, startling in the contrast of his pale skin.
"I'm fine," he replied shortly, continuing his march to who-knows-where. "Now can you please leave me alone? I'm very busy."
Dean was taken aback by his cold, short responses. "What, no 'thank you for helping me out back there'?" Dean asked only half-jokingly.
"You didn't help. You shouted. And then Naomi's approach scared them off." He replied.
"Naomi? The principal? How do you know it was her?" Dean asked suspiciously.
"Alistair's ability is tracking. He could sense her, and only Mrs. Milton could have frightened him off so quickly."
"Oh, um- well, I'm Dean, Dean Winchester. I've got pyrokinesis…I'm new here…" he trailed off awkwardly.
"Nice to meet you," Castiel said in a tone that threatened the sincerity of his statement.
"You're Castiel," Dean continued, feeling like an idiot, but too curious to care.
"As far as I know, yes."
"Oh- um- yeah…what's your ability?" He pressed.
"Elementumkinesis," he said without explanation.
"Elementu-what?" Dean asked, face pinched in annoyance at Castiel's unnecessary complication of things.
"Elementumkinesis," he repeated. "I means to have the ability to manipulate the elemental forces of the universe."
"Oh, cool, which one do you do?"
Castiel sent him a wary, side-eyed glance. "Why do you want to know?" He asked.
"I dunno man, just making conversation. You don't have to tell me."
Castiel went silent for a moment. "Water," he mumbled.
Dean didn't respond for a few seconds, surprised that Castiel had said anything. "Oh, oh that's cool, like just control it or…?" He trailed off, not really sure where he was going with it, but not wanting the conversation to end.
"Here," Castiel stopped walking suddenly, leaving Dean to jerk to a halt. He closed his eyes in concentration, and he raised his hand, curling his fingers slowly. All of a sudden, the air around them got a lot dryer, and a small ball of water materialized in between them. Castiel opened his eyes and they lit up when he saw the water, looking as if he didn't expect it to work.
"That is so cool," Dean whispered, awe-struck. "Can I?" He asked, raising his hand hesitantly. Castiel nodded, so Dean cupped his hand around the ball of water and sent blistering heat waves coursing through it.
Within seconds, it had evaporated, and Castiel was smiling like a little kid, in a way that had his blue eyes absolutely exploding with light. "Amazing," he whispered. Dean's face flushed slightly and he withdrew his hand from the now empty space between them to rub the back of his neck.
"Yeah, it's a bitch to control though," he responded quietly. " 'Speacilly when I lose my temper." He lifted his gaze to meet Castiel's warily and saw understanding and sympathy in his eyes.
"That happens to me a lot," Castiel said, his confession sounding much more dire than Dean's. "I can help you though, I've been working with Crowley, and he says I've been making good progress, so maybe we could work on it together sometime," he offered quickly. "I mean, if you want to. It's ok if you can't or you don't want to sacrifice any hope of a respectable social standing," he went on only a bit sadly.
Dean shook his head, huffing a small laugh. "No, no, I would love to train with you, whenever you want," he said. Castiel nodded with a small smile before he seemed to remember himself and dropped it, expression going blank.
"Well, I'll see you around, Dean," he said crisply before turning and walking down the hall.
"Wait!" Dean shouted impulsively. Castiel jumped and turned cautiously, giving him a suspicious look but not walking away. "Would you mind if- I mean, I saw on the papers they gave me that you didn't have a roommate, and I was wondering if- Well, would it be ok with you if we roomed together? It would make it a lot easier to practice and-um-you don't seem to bad." He said in a stumbling rush, eyes jumping between the floor and Castiel's face, trying to gauge the reaction on his blank face.
"Sure- I- yeah, that would be fine," he responded, voice betraying the disbelief his face wouldn't show.
"Great, uh- I'll just go then, and turn in the papers," Dean said, whirling and walking down a random hall opposite Castiel's direction.
"Um, Dean," Castiel called uncertainly.
"Yeah?" He asked spinning to face him fully.
"That way," Castiel said shortly, pointing down the hall to Dean's left.
"Yeah- um-," Dean cleared his throat awkwardly, moving to walk down the directed hall. "Thanks."
Castiel nodded before turning back and walking away.
Dean sighed at himself and marched onwards, determined not to let Heaven or Hell deter him from his destination this time.