Thanks for the reviews and whatever else. And, yeah. Supernatural. Home of the strange AUs. But I love it. 3 Again, any grammatical errors are mine, and I am not the owner of Supernatural. I wish, don't I?

Obviously, considering the fact that he only taught one class, and it would be stupid to have the same class more than once in one day, Dean didn't see Castiel for the rest of that day. Of course, that was probably a good thing, since he needed to be away from him with his new realization of what had happened to him, of why his numbers had suddenly stopped their endless ticking toward the moment that would change his life forever.

He hid his fear from his little brother when he took Sam home from school later that day, and just stayed at home for the rest of the night. He had few friends, and they were all involved in things. Or had family matters that they dealt with. So Sam and Dean just stayed where they were, working on their homework. Well, Sam was doing his homework, and Dean was staring at his.

His thoughts, understandably, were elsewhere. He hadn't told Sam what he had learned about his soul mate, he was humiliated just thinking about it. No one else in all of school had as stupid a problem with this as he did! But it made sense, he didn't know who else it could be.

The older stared down at his English homework, looking at the pages in front of him. It was nothing that hard to do. He just had to read a poem, and understand what it meant. Which was easier than Dean had expected from anything that he had heard. Most of the other students seemed to be raving about how hard Mr. Novak's class was, and how ('despite Castiel being a total hottie') he was a hard teacher and many of the students were regretting their placement in his class.

It was only the second day. It was going to be a long year for everyone, but for Dean Winchester, that day was going to be long for a completely different reason. It wasn't because the class was hard (it wasn't impossible, but it sure wasn't easy), it was because he had met his soul mate on the first day of school, and that soul mate turned out to be his teacher in the one class that he had thought he might have a possibility of passing.

Now, Dean didn't even want to go to class, since he knew that it meant facing Mr. Novak (Castiel), and that was something that would mean a very awkward time between the two of them. Because, believe it or not, once one knew who his soul mate was, he tended to feel like he should know more about that person. That he should fall in love. That they should end up living happily ever after together. That wasn't going to go down well if a person's soul mate turned out to be his standoffish seeming English teacher.

But it wasn't like anyone got a choice over who their soul mate was. No, once the soul mate was chosen, there was no going back. Dean couldn't act like his time hadn't stopped, couldn't pick up anyone else and act like they were the one. Castiel may never know who his soul mate even was. Fate had done its job and brought them together once, there was no rule saying that now they had to know who they were and fall into a happily ever.

Because if this ended with a happily ever after, it would be a fairy tale, and Dean's life had always been pretty far from a fairy tale.

It started when he was young, and he was still living with both of his parents. Mary and John were happy together – they had a four year old boy and another on the way. Nothing could make this bad for them. That was, nothing that they could have ever foreseen. But who looks ahead and imagines what might happen after your baby who's barely even been conceived is born, and is six months old? Who looks ahead to see only tragedy?

Mary and John probably wished that they had looked ahead while they still had the chance. Because Dean's happy normal childhood had ended abruptly when his little brother turned six months old. Mary and John had just gone to bed when she heard a strange sound on the monitor in Sam's room. There had been a problem with one of the light fixtures on his mobile – there was nothing that anyone could have done. Dean rushed out of the house with Sam still held in his arms while John frantically called for the police, the fire department, for anyone!

While Dean and Sam were rushing from the house, a board that had held up the youngest Winchester's door crashed to the ground below where it had been and, flaming, blocked the path of anyone in or out of the room. It took five minutes for the fire department to arrive, but at that point? It was too late.

Mary had been trapped inside the room with the worst of the fire, and no one could have gotten her out if they tried – not before the fire department showed up. She had screamed and cried at John to get out of the house – to protect her babies. She would be fine. She would be just fine.

Just under a week later, Dean, Sam, and John Winchester were dressed in their best clothes for a funeral. While Dean and Sam didn't quite understand what was going on – they had an idea. At least Dean did. His mom was gone. They were leaving the house that he had lived in for all of his life. There was no going back.

He had refused to talk for a year. He only started when Sam started trying to answer.

After that, Dean had always been a little bit behind, wanting his brother to take all of the spotlights, wanting Sam to be the one that everyone knew and loved. Because Sam had never even had that little glimpse of a fairy tale that Dean had had.

Sam had the chance, once he and Jess were older.

Sam and Dean didn't know it yet, but Sam never would have the chance for his perfect fairy tale.

Dean dragged his feet against the ground as he walked in the direction of his classroom, staring at it as though it was offending him for even being there. He didn't want to go to class. Sure, it was no new feeling, but the intensity in which he was feeling it was what was completely new. He didn't want to go to class – he couldn't go to class. He couldn't face Castiel, knowing what he knew, but knowing that Castiel didn't have a clue of what was going on.

He couldn't do it.

But he had to.

The boy breathed in deeply before opening up the door and stepping into the room, keeping his head down. When he finally raised his head to see where there was an open seat (in the back, he couldn't sit in the front), he saw that the only seat was in the front row. Right in front of Mr. Novak's desk, where the teacher looked flustered and irritated, and where it was pretty obvious that he had no patience for people that were Dean's age. The Winchester stood where he was for a moment until he saw the people in the back whispering and laughing.

They knew what they had done. They knew how he was, they knew his habits. And they knew exactly how to torment him when Mr. Novak couldn't possibly have any idea that he was being tormented. The teenager stared at the seat before clenching his teeth, biting them harder together, and walking to the seat, sitting down there and pulling his books out of his bag, the boy behind him kicking his seat and saying hello, but in a manner that Dean knew was not friendly.

He stared down at his papers until the bell rang, and when he looked back up, he could feel Mr. Novak's gaze burning through his face, and he could see something flash across his face before he stood up, staring right at Dean for a second before looking back over the rest of his class.

"Discuss the reading from last night. When I return, I want each of you to know what this poem means backwards and forwards. If you don't, I will be sure to add more homework to ensure that you understand next time."

While his voice had been steely and collected yesterday, it was rushed through these words. Someone in the back called out if he was going to do attendance, but they just got a grunt asking one of them to do it before the teacher opened the door of the classroom and breezed through it, not looking at any of his students.

It was going to be a long year for all of them.