No idea why, but suddenly I couldn't get the image of Dean as a school teacher out of my head. But of course he particular brand of teaching might be different from the other members of the faculty…
LHisawesome4ever, Funnily enough I do have one coming up that deals a bit with Dean's past, but have plenty more ideas, either for this series or in a brand new story of meeting some people that Dean knew back when.
Minnie1015, Haha, I knew you would know what it was and is it sad that I was peering into the box of ducklings I instantly thought 'aha, new Dean idea?' Dean ideas are practically everywhere, but that had be one of the cutest ones though!
Wolfgirl2013, Aww, thanks.
Cherry619, Yep, aren't I being good to you? Dean and animals and now Dean and kids, except these are the horrible, teenage variety and Dean is not so keen on them...or at least not at first anyway for a very good reason!
Mandy, Oh no, the flu sucks, hope the symptoms have died down a little and I'm glad the last chapter picked you back up. More Dean playing (sort of, reluctant) daddy in this one, but with a bit more ass kicking for good measure too. Hope you like it!
Skovko, I tried keeping the ones we found at work, but the boss made us take them to a sanctuary...which was the right idea in hindsight. But trust, me, I knew totally how Dean was feeling. Ducklings are the literal best things in the world!
HannonsPen, As far as Dean was concerned, the babies being new was a very good argument, and he won't hear otherwise! Lol!
SkittlezLvr79, Oh no, sorry you're sick. Allow me to be the one to say it (because someone has to, its sickness law) *ahem* there's a lot of it going round. There, I feel better now. Hope you do too and from ducklings I now present you with children, for your viewing pleasure!
Rebel8954, Yep, Dean takes his parenting duties very seriously...but maybe more so for animals than kids. Frankly Seth should just be grateful that Dean rescued ducklings and not a den full of wolves or teeny tiny baby rattlesnakes. So he is still not as dangerous as Bo is on adopting things!
Back to school in 3, 2, 1...
The Shield Unscripted: Saved By The Bell
Because of the fact he had near perfect vision — which had ever been one of his few familial perks — Dean had never before had to wear spectacles and so therefore had never thought about them too much, or spent time wondering how his face might look in them or whether he could pull them off in terms of fashion and style.
It turned out could though.
He was freaking born to wear them –
They made him looked clever and in total control, which was probably the reason that the kids in his lessons sat and blinked enraptured as he basically made stuff up, or otherwise had it fed in from the van through the earpiece that he kept tucked beneath the newly slicked back head of hair which his littlest brother had insisted he switch up a little because the scruffy looking locks were not learned enough.
"Ugh – ,"
Dean blew the noise out as he filled up his thermos from the beaker of hot coffee kept topped up in the break room and then clunked it back into its holder pretty loudly before taking a long swig of the burning brown stuff.
He wasn't much used to the early school mornings and over the week it had started to show, in the heavy looking circles forming fast beneath his blue orbs and in the fact that his normal routine was fucked up so that his meal times were offset and so too were his sleep patterns, which was beginning to mess with his finely tuned head and was therefore the reason that he had completely forgotten breakfast which had then triggered the need for hot coffee instead.
Fuck he hated teaching.
Hated it fiercely and everybody in it because the whole lot of them were –
"Hello?"
Dean blinked and then mildly startled a little which slopped a wash of bean blend over his hand and made him bark back in instinctive reaction that shot out both loud and frustrated sounding,
"Fuck."
"Oops, I'm so sorry I thought you heard me coming,"
Dean spun back to let loose a barb and then instantly caught his lip and bit on it heavily because the person blinking back at him was blonde haired and blue eyed and that combination nearly always made his heart hitch, if only for a moment before he was able to push it back.
It wasn't her though because he knew it could never be and because had she been living she would never have been there. In a middle school on the expensive suburban outskirts of their city where the houses were super large and had heated swimming pools. His girl had been a nurse not a freaking teacher but then that counted for little because he was a cop and yet there he still was stood in a teachers' break room holding a pot of coffee and pretending he belonged.
His colleague bit her bottom lip,
"Did it burn you?"
"Huh?"
His blue eyes were fixed in on her mouth in their entirety because even though she wasn't his much loved fiancé there were no two ways about it, the mathematics teacher was hot and it made him lament on his own haggard tutor in whose lessons he had often found himself falling to sleep but the learning factor of which would have probably been sky high had the stunning blonde been strutting before the blackboard instead.
Hubba hubba.
"Hey Dean, keep focused this isn't a beauty pageant we're trying to run here,"
Harsh tones through the earpiece made him bump in shock suddenly which then slopped a second round of hot coffee over his hand, to the point where he felt like simply tossing the lot out or throwing the portion clean over his head since most of it was landing on his bare skin anyway, so why not freaking help it out a little bit?
"Mr. Moxley?"
Dean coughed at the woman blinking in front of him and then stowed his building fury, since killing his brother could wait, whereas his colleague and the woman who had been put in place as his mentor probably needed an immediate response.
Damn.
He smiled sheepishly at her,
"Uh sorry, m' not too bright in the mornings, is there like, somethin' I can help you with?"
Maybe like picking a book from the top shelf or twisting a cap loose or something manly like that, because even though the copper blonde was committed to one woman or at least the everlasting remembrance of one, the buxom teacher had stirred the latent teenager inside of him which was probably not professional in any way shape or form.
Blues eyes smiled back at him,
"The bell – ,"
"Uh, the what now?"
"The bell for lessons sounded five minutes back, you're supposed to be in English."
Dean blinked in response then and threw a brand new curse out, because the blonde stood in front of him was one hundred percent right while he was a moron whose classroom was probably being torn up, which may not have bothered him had he been a normal teacher but was far more problematic in his being a cop since the room had been tailored with hidden weapons and panic buttons which were potentially really bad if the kids found them.
Fuck.
His sprint from the room and then out into the squeaky hallway spilt the rest of the coffee onto his hand but he was far too busy panting breathlessly at his teammates to worry about the searing and hot bubbling of his skin, since the school was freaking huge and he frequently lost his way in it so and therefore needed instructions,
"Direct me."
"Take a right man – ,"
"Oh an' real nice work keepin' me up on my schedule."
"Huh?"
"How in the world could you miss the freakin' bell?"
"Stop barking at me man,"
"But – ,"
"Besides we're not in there so you're the one that missed the bell."
Seth had a point, but because the copper blonde was not prepared to own up to that or hunt for the words since he was running and out of breath, he simply continued to haul ass past the lockers and the long stretched out hallways which freaking all looked the same. Eventually though he landed on one that seemed familiar and a classroom which had lines from literature stuck up haphazardly with tape since the teacher who usually taught within the four walls had evidently been the type to favor a creative learning space.
He burst through the door,
"Right, everybody hold it, I'm here so you can stop freakin' tearin' up the place."
In response to the statement twenty four faces blinked back at him from the little seats behind the tables at which they were parked, but with blank faced expressions that totally threw him because honestly it looked pretty freaking bizarre and their silence chilled him.
Fuck.
Evidently in his absence the little crapholes had pulled something but since he had been late he had no idea what and so therefore sloped towards his own chair slowly on the balls of his toes like they had tipped out thumbtacks or potentially loosened up one of the floorboards or maybe hung a leaded weight high up above his head like some sort of cartoon plucked straight from Wile E Coyote.
He eyed them suspiciously and then rumbled,
"M' watchin' you."
But it wasn't until he plopped himself onto his swivel chair that the reason for their innocence let rip loud and clear as a long raspy noise parped from underneath his butt cheeks and then kept on rumbling as he tried to hurriedly stand back up.
Ppppprrrrrrrrrrtttt.
In a burst the children exploded in peals of laughter which nearly blew the fucking roof off but which turned the copper blonde pretty much maroon with fury as he finally launched back to his feet less than gracefully holding the offending whoopee cushion aloft but which then made the damned little hell hounds howl harder, because they were bastards.
Every single one of them.
Roman chuckled broadly in his ear canal,
"Aww, kids uce."
But the amusement hardly helped to better Dean's mood because the last thing the copper blonde undercover lawman needed was more freaking laughter and so to that end he heaved out a heavy sounding breath and then marched towards the windows while beating back the compulsion to maybe pull loose his police badge and throw them all into cells for being pinheads because that was a lesson he totally thought they would learn, but instead tossed the prank item hard through the opening which then failed when the thing managed to hook on the catch, whereupon it toppled back and flopped down beside his boot soles to further barks of laughter.
Fucking fuck this fucking shit.
"Detention for the next person that freakin' smiles funny."
It was pretty impressive how fast they shut up because even though they were law breaking brattish little hormones, they were each of them hoping to move onto better things like becoming snooty lawyers or else the bosses of hedge funds or maybe marrying into families that had more money than theirs had.
Seth mumbled back at him through the earpiece,
"Take it easy man,"
But then that was a pretty simple thing for him to say, because his brothers were sat back kicking their feet up in the surveillance van whereas he was there busting his hump before the kids and probably would be until their stupid case was over, which looked totally set to last into another week. Dean let his blue eyes roam over the tweeners that were blinking back at him looking hopelessly trite and then wondered very briefly if the cane was still legal if used for the right reasons?
Hmmm.
He figured probably not but was still sort of honing in on the back of the classroom when one of the hateful teenagers loosely cleared their damn throat and at which point he realized that they were all looking at him blankly like they were waiting for instructions their fake teacher in no way had.
Crap and triple crap.
"Uh – ,"
"Tell them to write an essay on the meaning of remorse," Roman boomed in over the line and in such heavy tones that the copper blonde beamed brightly because his brother was letting his parental instincts run wild in a way that explained why his own tiny princess was such a well behaved and thoughtful little kid, since her father obviously balanced loving her totally with keeping her manners and people skills in check.
Dean smirked broadly.
Payback could be beautiful.
"I need five hundred long ones on why prankin' is bad an' I need 'em turned in by end of this period or m' keepin' you here through recess an' lunch, an' I want like proper spellin' an' full sentences an' that crap so no half assin' this because trust me I'll know."
Gasp.
Baleful tween eyes blinked back at him in horror but then slowly began to lower in towards their books to begin the task they only had themselves to blame for and that the copper blonde therefore felt totally happy handing out.
Possibly he shouldn't have said the word crap though.
Crap.
But to hell with that part because he was in charge and besides which the whole thing was so totally crazy that he was basically trying to hold on in any way he could since the last thing he needed was to become a freaking laughing stock who couldn't take control of a handful of snot-nosed kids, when theoretically he was supposed to be a teacher with a wealth of experience.
Fuck.
He hated their case –
Not that it even was a case, because in reality it was more a favor bundled their way by the mayor purely because his wife sat on the board of the school and because the pretentious academy with its uniforms and privilege had been evidently receiving threats from a former employee.
Evidently the poor fucker had lost his shit some twelve months previous when he had begun tearing things up in the middle of class and he blamed the bratty students for his loss of mental faculties and then further blamed the principal for not supporting him enough and both of which honestly were totally valid pointers that the copper blonde could certainly see his take on now he was there.
Because the students were unbearable little bastards –
But threatening to blow them up was a step way too far and was why their mayor had come cap in hand to them and pleaded with them to solve things the way only they knew best and was why they had come up with the brilliant solution that he become a teacher so that they could then keep an eye on things.
Ugh.
Dean was not cut out for shaping young minds.
But he stepped back to the chair and then blew out a breath before pausing beside it and then looking it over for possible hints of some other genius prank, like maybe an air horn strapped to the mechanism or loose bolts from where they had pulled out a crucial part, but instead it seemed normal and so he lowered himself carefully waiting for tragedy.
Nope.
It seemed absolutely fine.
He blinked up sharply at a titter of buried laughter from the handful of kids who had been watching his seat based nerves and who clearly thought the whole thing was hilarious. He barked at them sharply in harsh tones,
"Eyes on your work."
"Geez man, kinda sound like the real thing when you say that."
"Freakin' tell me about it," Dean hissed back and then leaned into his chair and picked a heavy book up which was one of the ones the pretty blonde had passed across and was supposed to be a composite on making plans for lessons but might as well have been written in Dutch for all he understood.
His brothers meanwhile filled him in on their research through the lifesaving earpiece.
"So we checked out the guy's home," Roman started evenly, "Looks like he hasn't been there for a while now, which means that he's probably trying to lie low somewhere."
"Figure he probably knows we're onto him," Seth took over, "So he's found himself a place he can hole up and make his bomb, if this isn't some weird hoax call for help or something because honestly I'm so not on board with him being a real threat, I mean come on, we've all seen him."
Dean knew what that meant.
Because in terms of hardened criminals their suspect was not one.
In fact he looked pretty much the opposite of that, in that he looked like the teacher of a bunch of thankless bratigans, with his slicked back brown wavy hair and his pointed features and the tiny wisp of chin fluff that was likely meant to be a beard and the look of which was finished by a pinstriped shirt and waistcoat combo, not to mention skinny pants which made his legs look like lollipop sticks.
Brad Maddox.
He was fucked up sure, but an expert bombmaker? It seemed pretty unlikely but then the threats had been real enough and thanks to the infinite bounties of the internet it was possible to find instructions to make pretty much anything and so therefore their team wasn't taking any chances.
Not when there were kids at risk anyhow.
Really really bratty little hell kids.
Dean cleared his throat and then looked over at the students who had their heads lowered in towards their reluctantly scribbled work and then turned himself towards the screen of his computer before hushing his voice to little more than mumbled tones,
"Anything outside?"
He meant on their surveillance feeds and in response he heard their tech man briefly tapping at the keys, like he was flicking between them rapidly,
"Nope."
"So how long are we meant to sit here?"
"For as long as it takes babe, because that's how we work."
Damn.
Roman was right and besides which for the most part playing the long con was nothing that bothered him too much, but there was something about the school that was rubbing him up wrong and which was likely because he was surrounded by tweens who might as well have been a new species for him.
Particularly since he had never been the type of person to feel the need to fit in with his peers and had never needed or wanted to be traditionally popular like everyone else in existence clearly had and so therefore meant that he hadn't understood teens even back when he had been one.
He had no freaking hope now.
Besides which his own education had been patchy and his school career was nothing that he looked back fondly on, since in spite of his brains his teachers had flaked out and figured that thanks to the holes in his sneakers and his thrift store clothing that he was another lost cause and so teen Dean had been forced to work a hell of a lot harder and had been beaten up a hell of a lot more as a result.
Fuck school man.
Fuck his teachers because he had become something –
He had brothers and a career.
But hell if being back in a classroom environment wasn't playing some sort of merry hell with his head and in response to it he lifted his hand up without knowing it and began to scratch his nails hard over the back of his neck.
"Babe?"
"Huh?"
"Is that your hand I can hear with the scratching?"
Dean let it fall away swiftly,
"Nope."
"Sure."
Beyond him in the room there was little to pick up on but the sound of contentedly scratching expensive ballpoint pens and looking up over the kids revealed tongues poked out in focus and handwritten pages that were fast filling up, as the pack of stunted brats worked away pretty hard for him and which briefly made him feel a stab of pride for them.
Crap.
Maybe they weren't such horrible things after all.
Pushing himself away from the screen of the computer that he had spent nearly a week pretending he knew how to use, he moved to stand up and cancel their harsh punishment because it seemed like the reasonable and mature path to take — and besides which he figured they had maybe learnt their lesson that he was a hard ass that would keep them in check — but instead however of the wheels propelling him backwards across the thinly laid floor, the back of his chair broke suddenly loose and he somersaulted over with his legs up vertical and then thudded into the wall to screams of laughter.
Bastards.
Every damn one of them.
"Dean? Hey man, are you okay, what just happened?"
Dean clambered back onto his feet holding his cranium, which had bounced off the brickwork so was thumping pretty hard but which matched in neatly with his pulsating heartbeat which was honestly about to blow clean from his chest and explode in furious blood splatters over them all.
He spluttered in fury at then,
"You took out the screws?"
"Shit."
"Did you hurt yourself babe?"
In normal situations where someone beneath him was pushing their luck he would have pulled loose his gun and then used the carefully trained point of its barrel to underline the message that he was the one in charge, but since he was supposed to be a middle school teacher and was staring at thirteen year olds that option had been lost.
Right?
His fingers twitched at his waistband all the same though and not for the first time he spared their poor suspect a thought, because it was no fucking wonder that the feller had turned psychotic having to work with such a heinous pack of brats and who had probably tipped over and sat his ass on more fart cushions than was humanly possible.
Dean was on his side and was less than three seconds from bellowing his sentiments over the laughter still bubbling loud in the room when suddenly the lot of them were starkly interrupted by the high pitched screaming of the fire bell.
What the fuck?
Instantly he could the keyboard tapping through the earpiece as the littlest of his brothers pulled the many camera feeds up and then used his prowess to track the location,
"Shit, the button was triggered in the lunchroom."
"Okay, so plan here?"
"Get the kids out and we'll look into it."
"But – ,"
"Dean, take those children and get the hell outta there."
In the background the copper blonde could hear the creak of the van hinges as his teammates took their handguns and hurriedly piled out, which meant that the both of them were away from their tech equipment and so therefore had left him out of contact and on his own.
He huffed out a breath of borderline sullenness at having to skip the potential guns and action part, but then blinked in surprise as he suddenly realized that twenty four faces were peering back his way but looking a little bit frightened by the sirens like maybe they were nervous.
Fuck.
Dean clapped his hands,
"Okay then, so listen up here hell spawn we need to take this nice an' easy y' hear? So no freakin' out or bawlin' an' that shit because probably somebody knocked the alarm by mistake here is all, but until we know for sure we have to pull our freakin' socks up, so I need a straight line in three seconds startin' like, now."
Bang.
Crash.
In response to his instructions chairs were scraped back at a million miles an hour and thrown into the tables in front of them and behind them as the kids scrambled hastily to form a neat queue, before blinking up at him with such a wealth of expectation that he was suddenly reminded that they were babies after all and that when their world became suddenly unexpected they still needed reassurance.
He felt protective of them.
Crap.
"Nice, real nice people, lookin' pretty freakin' straight there, so now how 'bout we blow this joint for a little bit, huh? But nice an' easy though, we're not a bunch 'a animals so we're not shovin' an' pushin' an' that means you at the freakin' back."
Leading them from the room he turned in the hallway and then momentarily lost his bearings a little bit, because he had never worked out how to traverse the endless floor tiles without becoming pretty hopelessly lost, only this time he had thirty kids trapped behind him and no teammates in his earhole to help successfully lead him round.
Hell.
Dean stepped off in the way he thought felt right and was rewarded by the sounds of noises up in front which he figured had to be more classes ahead of them and so he sped up to catch them hoping to trail them fully out. He turned his head as he increased the pace a little, making sure that his kids were still trotting behind and then rapidly counted to make sure he hadn't lost one since that would have been a pretty poor freaking start.
Luckily however all twenty four were following.
He was the best teacher ever.
Not that he needed to be because he was ninety percent sure that the fire bell was a fluke thing, since his teammates had been watching the cameras the whole time and so for their potential bombmaker to have slipped onto the premises he must have been pretty phenomenally fast and besides which why would he have set the alarms off?
Nope.
It was a fluke.
It freaking had to be a fluke.
"Keep up pipsqueaks, m' not turnin' this ship around y' hear?"
Dean took a corner beside a brace of tall red lockers but then pretty instantly skidded to a halt, because a wave of heat and noise hit him bodily and made him both swear and skitter back barking fuck. He piled into the first few students trying to match pace with him, who then also stopped and created a teenager backlog but which the copper blonde barely noticed since he was looking at the fire.
By which he meant the freaking inferno which was throwing out heat like they were stood on a beach which happened to be beneath a molten volcano, because the temperature was so hot his face was starting to burn, but in spite of which he could not look away from because the scene was too bizarre.
It was intentional.
He knew that much
Partly because the licking and cracking flame wall only seemed to be burning in a line across the hall, like someone had purposefully cut off their escape route and which was further underlined by what he could smell, since the tang of fuel was hung thick in the corridor and so had probably been poured there before being set alight.
Beyond him there were students and classes rushing for safety but he and his kids were trapped like that had been the point and the knowledge of it fed a bolt of sudden purpose clean through him and triggered his police officer responses hard, because shit had officially hit the fan in a big way and so therefore it was his role to keep everyone safe.
Right.
He spun back towards the students bunched up behind him who were beginning to scream and predictably freak out as they blundered round the corner and into the inferno which was cutting off the path between themselves and the outside world.
He bellowed above them,
Whoa, hey now take it easy, m' a need you all to back now 'kay – back it up – nothin' to worry 'bout, we just need a new exit but we're totally fine."
Dean rapidly scanned his brain and tried to think back to his bewildering first morning when the beautiful blonde teacher had been showing him around and when, because he was a pervert had had been hanging two steps behind her watching her ass move in her pencil thin skirt and then looking to the heavens in apology to his fiancé but at the same time knowing she would have totally understood.
Hell yeah man, she's a beautiful looking woman.
He remembered her having said something like that to him before, when some long leggy brunette had run by them in the park once and he had looked and then felt like a total freaking hound, but which she had shrugged off with a flap of her manicure.
Fuck he missed her.
Focus –
Fucking fire.
Distantly he remembered his orientation having taken them past the hall which let out to the basketball courts and so was therefore their best chance at finding a way out. Dean turned on his heel and then pushed back through the children who were crying in horror or half rooted to the spot and who he had to bellow at over the fire wall which was crackling and hissing surprisingly loud.
"Everyone behind me, c' mon, keep together."
He felt some tiny fingers slip into his hand and looked round to find himself being clung to by a tweener who had long black hair and thick spectacles on, which were starting to steam from her terrified crying and who he instantly helped soothe by sweeping back her bangs.
Roman had seemingly rubbed off on him totally,
"Hey, take it easy."
"Mister Moxley we're trapped."
"Nah, c' mon kid, plenty 'a ways outta here, what's important right now is keepin' good an' calm 'kay?"
"Uh huh."
"That's it kiddo."
Dean tapped on his earpiece as he shot her a fake but hopefully reassuring smile, because he needed his brothers to be back on their surveillance tech helping to led his freaking kids out, but which fuelled his worry further because instead there was silence and it made his stomach turn because what had they found and what had happened when they had hit the cafeteria and why had they not bust in to find him and help him out?
Looking over his shoulder to check his class was still with him, he led them through the slowly smoke thickening hall and tried to forget how much they were coughing, but which probably wasn't helped by how terrified they were.
He barked at them,
"Keep low, the smoke will rise up first, an' breathe through your noses."
Dean turned the corner of the hall which then took them into a similar length of floor tiles but ones that he remembered from his earlier tour and that he knew for a fact turned a couple more left handers before leading them towards the exit he striking out for and which made him blow a long and hugely thankful breath out.
Finally his luck was turning –
But then something hit him on the head. From behind and from practically right out of nowhere, which battered his skull and sent him onto his kneecaps.
Crack.
He crashed into a locker with his blue eyes blinking blackness peppered at the sides by collections of bright stars and backed up by the sudden loud thumping that had taken up residence like a mariachi band. It tapered off rapidly into the sounds of shrill screaming and crying and bawling which wasn't so rhythmic.
Huh?
Dean looked up and then promptly wished he hadn't –
Brad Maddox was stood before him bearing his teeth wildly and with a look in his eyes that came with a total break, but which was honestly about the freaking least of his problems, because in shoving the copper blonde man into the lockers he had snatched up the black-haired bespectacled kid and then pulled her back towards him with a knife to her clavicle.
Fuck.
Maddox smelt powerfully of petroleum and burnt fibres with a hint of mental breakdown thrown in for a little spice, but the perfume of which made the copper blonde stumble upright while pulling loose his weapon in a single practised move,
"Let her go fucker."
He was nothing if not eloquent, but then briefly forgot the twenty three remaining kids stood behind who began to scream and suck in breaths for multiple reasons, from the cussing to the sudden firearm to their poor pinioned friend, who was being held hostage by a man that some months earlier had been teaching them passive phrases and boring synonyms.
Maddox blinked,
"Wha – ,"
"I'm a cop an' a pretty freakin' pissed one at this point, so when I say let her go you better know I mean it man."
Roar.
Dean had been using his best badass police tones which practically spilt from his mouth as a hiss and tended to make those he was levelling commands at think twice about the poor life choices they had made and so therefore was expecting a similar reaction from the teacher stood nervously holding the blade.
But instead however the screw loose man merely snorted like he couldn't believe his recent run of bad luck and then shook his head so that his lush brown waves bounced lightly, but not a whole lot since they had been smothered in heavy mousse and so therefore represented the only stable thing about him with the hopeful exception of maybe his hand.
Maddox frowned,
"Hold on, I send the school a bomb threat and they only post one of you?"
"Uh – ,"
"Do they still not take me seriously?"
"Look man – ,"
"This place broke me and I need them to see that."
He pressed the knife in a little bit closer and the poor nerdy kid who was held in his clutches hauled in a breath which was so panicky it freaking squeaked and made her wide eyes blink through the thick bottle cap lenses as she looked tearfully to the copper blonde for salvation.
Kid wanted out.
Behind them the fire was beginning to creep closer, which he could tell by the intensifying barrage of heat and the sounds of crashing as the lockers began to buckle and then loudly fall flat and every last noise of which made the students cry harder because with each passing second that they were caught in the standoff, the flames were creeping in and their exits were closing fast.
He needed to act –
He needed to act quickly and so to that end held his weapon up and then tried a new approach, because honestly his options were pretty freaking limited and so too was their time and their resources and clean air.
"Listen man, there's not one of me okay, there's three of us – ,"
"Is that it?"
Brad Maddox concertinaed up his face like instead he had hoped for an entire phalanx of lawman as bodily proof that his words had been heard and that his breakdown and the implosion of his life and his future had sent shockwaves through the faculty and also city hall, because no longer was the psychopath prepared to be forgotten.
Dean could help on that one,
"Hey, there might only be three of us, but we're the freakin' best man – ,"
"Is that so?"
"Damn straight pal, because we're the fuckin' Shield."
"What's that?"
Dean blinked in horror because how in the world could he not know who they were or not read about their exploits and bravery in the papers since both the mayor and the commissioner liked to keep them in the press, albeit in blurred photos and with secret identities but the team at least the bastard should have known.
In response to the pretty wounding cluelessness however the copper blonde simply bit hard on his lip and then centred back the barrel of his trusted nine millimetre at a point on the nose underneath the brown hair, which he probably could have taken and made a near perfect shot of but which he no way wanted his frightened students to have to watch.
Damn it.
"Let her go man or I swear to fuckin' betsy – ,"
But he was halted by tall flames starting to lick around the bend and the heat of which then warped the wide open classrooms to the point where the glass in the windows burst out, in a brutal explosion of fragments and embers which brought terrified screams and made banks of lockers collapse.
Boom.
Crash.
Brad Maddox looked round in startlement and the copper blonde took that split moment to make his move, which he started with a headfirst tackle towards the psychopath that propelled both the teacher and the spectacled kid back, but which he then followed up by snatching a hand out and latching it firm to the knife-holding wrist which he forced from the throat and then hard into the brickwork in a repeated thumping motion to loosen up the fist.
In response to being freed the little nerd kid stumbled back from them, probably hoping to be reunited with her friends but all of whom were busy choking on the smoke fumes or else were too horrified to even much move. The copper blonde needed to hustle them to safety, but he couldn't because he was tussling with a pinstriped loon who in spite of not matching him in height or in muscle mass was working on insanity which made him freakishly strong.
Maddox planted a kneecap right up into his ballsack –
"Fuck."
Dean blew the barked word out super hard and then felt himself bend forward in instinct as he battled to keep his hand pinning back the raised up knife and his eyes on the flames that were beating a path closer as they blitzed through the school and towards his freaking kids.
He needed a plan.
But then a voice bellowed out at him nasally and beautiful above the burning sounds,
"Dean."
Blue orbs looked up from beneath his sweaty hairline and towards the far end of the smoke filled tiled hall, where two bulky figures were pounding towards him followed by the slower but similarly purposeful hot mathematics blonde who had obviously volunteered to head up the search party and who burst towards the students with a gasp of pure relief.
His brothers meanwhile were honed in on him entirely and on seeing him caught in the middle of a fistfight they instantly moved to pull their firearms loose, but were stopped by the copper blonde bellowing at them in tones that broke out over the inferno,
"Get the kids."
"Uce – ,"
"I'm fine, but they need outta here, so take 'em already."
Dean lifted his knee and then rose it high into the stomach of the teacher who had caused both the blaze and his testicular pain, which succeeded in blowing the breath bodily out of Maddox as the copper blonde kept repeatedly smashing back the hand, pounding it over and over into the brickwork until the knuckles looked bloodied and the fingers sprang back which finally sent the knife thudding to the floor tiles with a happy little clatter that the lawman thanked fuck for.
Maddox bellowed at him,
"No, no they ruined everything, they took my career from me – ,"
"They're freakin' kids man."
Brad was throwing up his hands in frustration and then windmilling them hard so that they struck him on the back and which meant that while the teacher was by no means a trained brawler, by throwing so many punches he was successfully making hits. Dean was actually being forced into protection mode as he held the man back while the students were hustled past, by both of his brothers and the blonde maths hottie who swept them towards her with motherly love.
Dean waited a beat and then threw his own punch out which he loaded with fury.
It connected –
Freaking hard.
Propelled by the knuckles of the well trained lawman, the brown hair of coiffed hair blasted violently back and then bounced off the brickwork and the corner of a locker which made the wild eyes roll up then snap shut as consciousness faded from the paranoid psychopath whose limp body then promptly slid towards the earth,
"Whoa – ,"
Dean bent low and swooped in beneath the armpits before fastening over the waistcoat covered breast, because even though the man was a total fucking lunatic he was not prepared to leave him to be burnt to a crisp since he needed to stand trial then find a padded cell somewhere if the copper blonde could even manage successfully haul him out.
In the course of their brawling the fire had moved closer to the point that it was practically nibbling their feet and the heat of which was so freaking unbearable that Dean's sweat soaked shirt had basically moulded to his flesh, as had his pants in a sticky cloying tangle that made moving problematic and uncomfortable as hell.
Dean began reversing.
Ridiculously slowly and maybe too slowly because the windows on either side of him were starting to blow. He lowered his head into his collar instinctively and then barked as the shards fell in over them both, forcing him to clamp his blue orbs shut protectively but which then hindered their escape because he bumped into shit.
His skin was prickling.
His throat was feeling scratchy and the air was too thin.
"Babe?"
Hands landed on his waist and he started in surprise before turning towards the features that had blossomed from the smoke to hang in close to his own. They were thick and square set but totally welcome because his older of his ever present brothers was there,
"Ro – ,"
He coughed and instantly the bigger man swept past him to heft the legs of their knocked out patient up, so that between them his limp form was easier to carry and which took some of the pressure from the weary copper blonde. Dean was beginning to feel a little weak in the knee area but he powered on through because it was no time to pass out and to make that even clearer Roman then boomed at him,
"Got him babe, come on now, couple more turns and we're out of here."
Right.
Between them they hustled in a clumsy run from the inferno and past the warping lockers to the end of the hall where the billowing smoke seemed to clear a very little and from where familiar tones were barking frantically at them and beckoning them in through a high vaulted area that the undercover man noted blearily was the gym, which meant that the bright piercing light somewhere beyond them where their brother was calling from was therefore probably the outside.
Dean burst out into the sunlight backwards and then crumpled to his knees.
He was coughing up a storm.
Brad Maddox toppled and fell back hard onto his shoulders as the bodily hold was largely whipped away, but luckily the man was still out from the head knock and so beyond a potential migraine he was never to know and besides which the copper blonde was spluttering and wheezing badly and frankly couldn't have held him a moment longer if he'd tried.
Fresh air.
Fuck.
Fresh air was so beautiful.
Hands fell on top of his shoulder blades and held him before pulling him back up and onto his feet, in a way that implied his little brother was behind him, trying to hustle him further back from the smoke plumes which were floating like clouds from inside the blazing school. Seth chose to lead his ministering with a bellow which he issued way too loudly,
"Hey man, are you alright?"
Dean nodded back,
"Yeah."
His tones sounded scratchy but then for the most part they usually were and so neither of them freaked out too wildly about that part even though the smaller man continued to fuss,
"How much did you inhale?"
"M' fine."
"Babe – ," Roman slipped in too looking a little fire smudged but otherwise intact and much like his teammate moving instantly into worry mode which the copper blonde then too felt lance through his bones, because where in the hell were his bratty little students and were they all out and were they all safe? Especially the one who had been held at knifepoint?
He spun on his heel suddenly and then blew out a breath.
"Huh."
Behind him on the lush verge sloping off towards the field track, the twenty four kids were stood clustered in a ball, which was filled with the sounds of hysterical teenage weeping and looked blackened with ash and soot but was together and out and so therefore meant that the mission was completed with no real tragedies. Well, with the exception of school which Dean was pretty sure would benefit in no time from a fundraiser thrown by the mayor and his super wealthy wife.
"Whoa — ,"
He let himself slump and was caught by their tech man who moved in pretty swiftly to straighten him back up but was still in the process of trying to make happen when a tiny little black haired kid split away from the class and sprinted towards him with a shriek of elation beneath misted up spectacles,
"Mister Moxley's out – ,"
In a flash the whole class was pelting over the concrete in a sea of blazers and happy little barks which threatened to wash over the copper blonde and completely, but instead simply enveloped him in a bundled student hug which made his brothers step back with wry sounding chuckles as children moved in to the fill in their spots and wrapped tiny thankful little arms around their teacher who wasn't a teacher but instead was a cop.
Each of them was speaking at once,
"That was so cool – ,"
"Have you had a gun in the school this whole time?"
"Can you teach me how to knock someone unconscious?"
"I'm sorry we put a whoopee cushion in your seat and took out screws."
"Uh – ,"
Dean blinked back in response to the bombardment because he honestly had no clue how to respond or what to say, or what the official school guidelines had to say about a madman had trying kill them and blow the place up.
Nuzzled in closest was the spectacle wearer who had her little cheek pressed in flat to the front of his shirt and instinctively he moved to smooth her long frazzled hair back, which then warmed him to the bundle a little more than he would have liked, because rough tough type policeman were not supposed to be huggers and especially not with snot nosed kids.
He cleared his throat,
"Hey, come on now, back it up a little."
But each of them stayed resolutely where they were and when he blinked up at his two smiling brothers it was hard to hide his own relieved looking beam, because not only had things turned out semi successfully but he had also managed to cement his hero status which he figured was by no means a terrible thing.
It even made him puff himself up with pride a little.
But best of all –
Dean Ambrose would never have to teach again.
Next week Dean stops to help a damsel in distress, which works out super well, or, yeah, maybe not...