I made my way up to the ISS room, and smiled at the teacher when I entered and I sat down in front of Dean.
"Hey!" I said as I began unloading my bag. Dean looked up, and his eyes were sad. "What's the matter Dean?"
"Why are you here?" He asked sadly.
"I'm here to teach you."
"None of my other teachers do. What? Did you draw the short straw or something?" I was taken aback. Had so few done things for him just to do them that he was suspicious of anyone who tried.
"No. I didn't draw the short straw." I shrugged. "It's my job. And you are so far behind as it is, you can't afford to lose any time. And we are supposed to meet after school and you haven't been coming, so I figured I'd come to you." I said as spread out my materials on the desk in front of me.
"You want to be here?" I nodded as I searched for the book I wanted in my book bag. "You aren't getting like hazard pay for this?" he asked.
I laughed. "No. No hazard pay. Just wanted to get you all caught up." He looked at me with something akin to disbelief and sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. "You mentioned that you love a good horror movie."
"So?"
"Wondered what you thought of the movie "It"?" He looked up me through his long lashes and thought about his answer.
"Yeah. So?"
"I found the book yesterday. And I thought we could read it together and talk about it." I pushed the book in front of him and his eyes grew exponentially at the size of the book.
"Come on. I can't read that. You know that! Are you trying to make fun of me too?"
"Nope." I said calmly.
"Right." He said and leaned back against the chair again. "Just leave me alone."
"Dean…"
"I said leave me alone! Do you have a hearing problem or something. Get out of my face!!" He screamed. The ISS teacher stood, I put a hand up and stopped her.
"Okay Dean. I'll come back tomorrow—"
"Don't bother."
"I'll come back tomorrow. I'll read chapter one. I hope you do the same."
"Whatever." Dean said and avoided my eyes. He was mad, humiliated, and I wished to high heaven there was something I could do, the most I could do was hope.
***
"Uncle Bobby?" Sam asked as they were sitting in the living room reading a book on the various kinds of ghosts and the best way to eliminate them.
"Yeah, kid?"
"Why haven't you gone out to the garage and worked on fixing cars with Dean?"
"What?"
"Well, I was thinking. When Dad told us that we would be staying with you for the rest of the school year, Dean was so excited, he talked and talked about getting to spend time with you and the cars. I think that's why Dean likes coming here."
"This just hit you today? What did he say?"
"Dean didn't say anything."
"Sam you aren't a good liar." Sam huffed and glared at Bobby.
"He didn't say anything. I was just thinking today. And that's what I thought. I think he thinks you are the only person who likes him, and since we've gotten here you haven't spent any time with him, so maybe he thinks that you don't like him anymore.
"Well that ain't true."
"I bet that's what he thinks. Maybe that's why he's tryin' so hard in school, maybe he wants you to spend time with him like you do me…." And right there was the core of it. Now I feel like pond scum.