The whole school lets out a collective exhale as the bell rings at the end of the day, a great sigh sweeping the grounds that makes the desks clatter and the respectful hum of conversation rise to a din.

Dean sits on the floor with his back to the wall, his eyes gone numb by the glint of the penknife in his hand. He turns it over and over, attracting the occasional curious look from the flood of students. The corridor's overrun by the time the classroom he's sitting outside lets out as well.

"Carpe diem, gentlemen, and that right quickly," the form master of 3N says, in a dry tone, and the laughter at that is swallowed in the rising tide of noise that comes from the class. Dean hears it all, and has a sense of being invisible.

A voice says, unexpectedly near, "Mr. Winchester, I presume," and Dean looks up, half-startled. Mr. Novak is standing directly above him, pulling on a trench coat. He stands irritatingly in the shadow of the pillar, and Dean has to squint and cock his head slightly to pick out his features.

Novak's got blue eyes that glimmer with a sort of generalized good humor, the irony hidden carefully beneath. He's got an angled tilt to his mouth that seems maliciously amused, like he knows about all of Dean's failings and finds them somewhat hilarious.

Castiel Novak, B.A., looks like the kind of man who can hurt Dean very, very badly.

So naturally, Dean says, "Yeah, that's me. Aren't you glad you found out?"

A twist to his mouth, like the nick of a knife against skin, a clean, quick cut. He doesn't seem surprised; his blue eyes still hold on to that hint of irony and amusement.

"On your feet. The trophies may wait but whatever plans you made for a Friday night won't." With that, he's heading away, his coat whipping a path in the air as it hangs familiarly around his shoulders.

Dean follows him to the Deputy Headmaster's office where the school trophies are kept on display, a stalwart line of bluntly gleaming figurines for the First XI and tennis medals from decades ago. The Head himself is heading out of the room as they arrive, and smiles blandly at Novak.

"Detention," Novak explains as if volunteering the information rather than answering the older man's silent question. It's well known that Headmaster Zachariah is wary of Novak, because of his Oxford background and intense popularity with the students. "We'll be polishing the trophies."

Zachariah smiles, exposing blunt canine teeth. "Excellent." Then, a sideway's glance at Dean, sly and unexpected, shrewd. "Winchester's not one of yours."

Novak shakes his head, his smile easy, but Dean can see his shoulders tense. "I'm filling in for Bobby."

Zachariah smiles even wider. His eyes, Dean notices, are a shade of washed out blue, like old denim. Their contrast to his blond hair is somewhat disconcerting, like a badly photo-shopped picture of the ideal headmaster. "Excellent," he says again.

There's a moment of silence, thick and uncomfortable. Finally, Novak breaks it by moving significantly towards the room.

"Ah, yes. Carpe diem and all that." In the Head's distinct Midlands accent, the school motto sounds like the slogan of a bad cartoon. "Take care not to get in further trouble." He makes it clear that he means both of them.

Castiel's smile shows the slightest strain, the corners of his eyes hard. "We'll do our best." His words momentarily draw him and Dean together, soldiers on enemy territory.

Dean smiles at Zachariah, a full, curving grin that makes the man blink slowly. "Care to join us, sir?"

Zachariah's eyes flood with fury for a split second before the colorlessness resumes. He smiles another fanged grimace, and sidesteps Novak delicately.

Novak is chuckling quietly, shaking his head. "You may find it beneficial, in the future, to rethink taunting him." He nods at the direction the Head went down. His voice contains no actual chastisement; he sounds like he means it.

Dean rolls his shoulders, relaxed and somehow restless at the same time. He goes into the room and stands framed by the window for a second, dying sunlight slanting towards him, and when he turns back, he finds Castiel staring at him, looking profoundly surprised.

Dean smiles.

(break)

"Dean, you say," Ellen Harvelle-Campbell's voice sounds dubious, rolling his name around her mouth like a candy whose flavor she wasn't yet sure of.

Dean nods, Sam's fingers long and vice-like around his wrist, hissing under his breath come on, but Dean holds his ground.

Sam's stepmother is a formidable woman with an aggressive tilt of her (unlipsticked) mouth as if perpetually judging the worth of her surroundings. Dean can tell that the only exception to this unflinching criticism is Joanna, Sam's legendary golden-haired, terminally ill stepsister whose existence Dean half-doubted till he saw the pictures lining the hallway at the Campbell residence. Sam, too, features in these photos occasionally, awkward and a head above everyone else in the most recent, and dwarfed in the older ones.

"Yes, ma'am." Dean smiles out of habit, charming and ingratiating, the kind of smile that makes these upper-crust billionaire wives melt. Ellen seems miles away from melting, but Dean expected that. No hard feelings. If anything, he's impressed-amused. "Dean Winchester."

That gets a reaction. "Any relation to John Winchester?" she asks, head cocked.

Her curiosity unsettles Dean. Normally accustomed to cocked ears at the mention of his dad's name, her expression is different from the others' when she asks. "He's my father."

Sam's fingers are still on the cuff of his sleeve. Ellen's frowning, eyes narrowed at Dean. "What is it?" Sam asks, his unease plain.

She shakes her head. "Someone mentioned Dean's surname to me, not too long ago. Just trying to place it." She shakes her head again. Her nails, clenched convulsively around the cushion of the sofa, are unpolished, and cut to a reasonable length. She really is the last thing Dean expected. "Anyway, you must be impatient, so go, do whatever you normally do." Her eyes rest coolly on Sam. "No trouble."

"No trouble," Sam repeats in a sweet, honeyed tone that's meant to fool no one.

Ellen looks at Dean once more. He's getting used to the weight of her gaze, the metallic, judgmental quality of it. "Dean Winchester," she repeats.

Sam drags him out without further urging. Once outside, he begins apologizing for her. "She's like that all the time, so fucking weird." His eyes catch on Dean's, bright and huge once more. "What are we gonna do today?"

Dean stares over his shoulder at the glimpse of the road exposed by the strategically placed oaks, beyond the tended gravel path to Sam's house. A red Porsche zips by, leaving the quiet echo of a dream behind. "Have you ever seen how useful empty beer bottles are?"

(break)

The escape from the police car leads them to the forest near the Winchester residence, and Sam and Dean lean against the massive trees, breathless and laughing.

Tears are streaming from Sam's eyes, his face fatally flushed. He doubles over as a fresh round of laughter overcomes him, wheezing and gasping for breath in the filtered sunlight.

Dean leans his head back, the skin of his neck scraping against the coarse bark of the tree, and breathes heavily, a grin still clinging on to the edges of his mouth like an evil thought.

Eventually they stop laughing and Dean watches Sam watching him, fall-colored eyes lidded, hidden.

"Chucking beer bottles from an overpass, fucking genius, you are," and Sam's voice sounds raw, the private-school polish scraped off from his syllables by the alcohol. Dean's almost certain Sam just had his first taste of supermarket beer -not to mention actual vandalism- today. "Seriously. The people here, they. They don't even know, so fucking useless, like being dead. They're all dead."

Dean shakes his head, kind of completely amused as Sam hunts around for words, his hands gesturing wildly, bright-eyed and earnest. "You're not like that. You're...different. Fireworks, Dean," he says, with sudden urgency. "You're like fireworks. And...and pancakes with lots of syrup."

Dean laughs outright, and Sam's face brightens with confused joy. "These are a few of my favorite things, huh, Sammy?"

He nods vigorously. "Yep. You're my favorite thing."

And then he gets that look- blank eyed, starring at Dean's mouth. Dean licks his lips and it's only half deliberate. He takes a step forward, only a bit unsteady, away from the proscribed boundary of the tree he's leaning against. Dean watches him.

"Oh yeah," Sam mumbles, now mere inches from Dean, who has his fingers splayed across the wood of the tree trunk. "You're pretty perfect."

Sam looms over him, taller than Dean remembers him being back at the overpass, cheeks red with joy. This Sam looks focused, steady. Older.

Slowly, not breaking eye contact, Sam bites the underside of Dean's jaw, and Dean hisses. Sam's tongue flicks out and tastes the bruised flesh, and Dean shivers, tangling a hand in Sam's brown hair. He yanks his head up and kisses him roughly, the angle all wrong, bringing their teeth together.

Sam tastes of beer and candy, the front of his teeth slick. Dean feels his hands roaming, the sudden warmth of a hand slipping up his school shirt. Sam's got big hands, long fingers that Dean noticed earlier, that brazenly swipe across his nipples. Dean arches into him, shirt snagging on the uneven wood. He tastes his name on Sam's lips, and later, when he kneels, intimate thwack of kneecap against fallen leaves, Sam looks at him like he's the very center of the universe.

(break)

Novak's marking assignments, red pen vigilantly scrawling and ticking, and Dean is bored beyond comprehension. There's an itch at the back of his throat that he attributes to the layer of chalk that lies over everything like the residue of a vague nightmare. He flicks a finger against a trophy, making it echo shallowly, a faint ting.

Earlier, in the restrooms, he had slipped a hand inside Sam's trousers and stroked, Sam's mouth a hot, wet brand on his neck. Sam was glowing after, grinning unguarded and crazy, thumbs hooking experimentally on Dean's empty belt loops. He strenuously objected to Dean's having to go for detention, and Dean had laughed, saying look at you, full-out rebel now, huh?

Sam had huffed and flushed, eyes cast slyly downwards. "Whatever. You're only going because you fancy Novak."

Dean shakes his head now, half-smiling. As if sensing the tangent of his thoughts, Novak looks up.

"More polishing, less dreaming," he says, with that enigmatic slant of a smile.

"Yes sir," Dean says, smiling back for what it's worth.

It works. Castiel Novak's eyes trace the curve of his bottom lip, and quickly duck away. Dean feels his interest lingering on his lips, a comfortable touch of blue eyes.

"Interesting homework, sir?" he asks casually.

The corners of Castiel's lips curve, though his eyes don't leave the papers. "You'd think they'd arrive to official adolescence knowing how to spell."

"Hmm." For some reason, Dean thinks of Sam, who is considered the brightest in Novak's grade. Sam can probably spell. "Maybe they're protesting against the conventions of writing."

Castiel snorts. "That's possible, of course."

(new paragraph)

Dean shrugs. "They've a democratic right to spell anything the way they want to."

Castiel looks up, finally. His eyes are bright with interest. "You genuinely believe in a land of no convention, don't you?" He leans back in the deputy's ornate mahogany armchair, pen falling slack on to the stack of papers on the table. "A sort of modern-day Peter Pan."

He's captivated now, Dean can tell. The guise of preoccupation has been dropped; his eyes are unflinching and curious on Dean's. "Tell me, Winchester," he says, and Dean flinches involuntarily at the tone, so eerily reminiscent of his dad's. "What do you expect to grow up to be?"

Dean shrugs. "Que sera disease,I guess. I'm going to cross that bridge when I get to it."

Castiel Novak exhales, a tiny smile on his lips. "I must admit, it's a relief to hear an exception to the doctor-scientist-engineer monotone, however vague." He smiles wider at Dean, co-conspirators. Dean wonders how much of this charm is genuine. It's hard to tell, and the fullness of Novak's lips and shoulders is distracting Dean very badly.

"Well, sir, I've always been exceptional," Dean says mild, but not attempting to disguise it as anything other than a pass at his teacher.

Castiel smirks. "And so modest, too."

Nothing more is said on the subject, and the evening wears on, comfortable silence and a million implications underneath.