I own nothing.

Assignment

Home Economics was a stupid subject Dean decided after the first class.

Sure, some of these seniors in his class might one day have to sew up a shirt without calling home to their mothers, sisters, cousins, whoever first but it wasn't that hard to pick up, honestly.

And the cooking! That was just pathetic. What college student was ever going to have to money to buy ginger, lemons out of season and chicken thighs just to make a meal for one person for one night. There weren't even leftovers from half the recipes they were given.

So in the sewing class Dean ignored the instructors and practiced his medical stitch. His decorative pillow ended up somewhat military looking, but who cares. He also sewed Joanna Clew's pencil case to Jeremy Southland's.

Though that was to cause a major distraction when Joanna discovered it and started an all-out screaming match with Jeremy who she blamed for it, so Dean could sneak out and give Sammy the lunch money he'd forgotten to give to him at the start of the day.

Some of the recipes from the cooking part could be used, as long as they were heavily modified so as to actually be cheap, at least semi-healthy and be big enough to feed three growing males with leftovers for at least another two nights.

What ingredients he didn't use in the Dean-version of the meals, he used to make desserts when he could. Which he then promised to girls in order to have some fun. The girls never actually got the desserts. Dean would take them home for Sammy whenever he could.

But the last assignment was beyond pointless according to Dean.

He had taken Home Economics because he needed the credits to graduate and it seemed like a nice easy cruising subject. He knew how to do everything they were trying to teach him. Most of the time better than the instructors themselves. He could a top mark easy. Then he could graduate this year, leave school for good and start helping Dad out with hunts full-time.

The last assignment though. Look after the fake baby for a week. Turn a key in it's back when it cries. Let it cry for more than thirty seconds and you committed neglect and your fake baby will die then take you to court and you'll fail the subject.

Dean could have done it easy. But the week of the assignment Dad had been closing in on the coven of witches that had brought them to this crap region in the first place. Sammy had two major assignments due, one for physics and another for biology. Dean still wasn't sure why he'd picked both sciences in one semester. Then he had an English essay due two weeks after and Sammy hated Shakespeare.

So instead of turning a key every two hours for a week, Dean proved he was awesome at shop and pulled out the noise box as soon as he got home from school with it.

Then he helped Sammy with his assignments, cooked dinners, cleaned the house, helped Dad with his research, did some reconnaissance watching he coven's meeting place and very carefully ignored the fake baby shoved under his bed.

Then, on the day it was due back, he shoved the noise box back in and handed it to the teacher with his usual charming grin, absolutely positive he was going to fail, not be allowed to graduate and would somehow have to hide it from his Dad.

The weekend before the grades were meant to be handed back he and Dad hit the coven. They took them out fairly cleanly, but not before Dean took a slashing spell aimed at his Dad. So he woke up around 1 on Monday with seventeen stitches in his calf, six in his thigh, a raging headache from blood loss and a note from Sammy saying Dad had dropped him at school, was working at the part time job he'd picked up and would be home late while Sammy would walk home so would be a little later home than usual.

When Sammy came home with Dean's home eco assignment, Dean wasn't sure he should look at it. So he didn't. He set it fire instead. Sammy laughed at him and told him the teacher said he'd passed … just, and he had to turn up to all remaining classes and get at least 70 on the supplementary exam. Then he gave him a timetable he'd drawn up so they could share the chores while Dean's leg was recovering and then so Dean could get to all the home eco classes.

Dean didn't know how he'd passed a class he'd done less than half the work in but he was sure it was probably something Sammy had done. Sammy was the best little brother.