Chapter 2: Fingertip

The night of the dreaded party had arrived. Sam was in the kitchen preparing the last of the food, while Jess was busying herself with the drinks. Meanwhile, Dean was trying to steal appetizers, but Sam was watching him like a hawk. With his eyes on Dean, Sam missed Jessica swiping a few salmon thingies. She shoved them into Dean's general direction when Sam wasn't looking and Dean grinned. Thwarted by his own girlfriend; ha. It was only right. Dean was also a guest after all and the food was most likely the only thing he was going to enjoy tonight.

Sam's eyes narrowed with suspicion when he saw that Dean was chewing, but Dean shrugged innocently. The older Winchester then pretended to surreptitiously check his beeper. The gesture appeared to alarm Sam.

'You're not on duty, are you?' Sam said and Dean replied that he wasn't, but it hadn't rained in weeks, so you never knew. Fingers crossed, Dean held his hand up to his brother.

'Are you actually hoping that some happy camper or stupid kid will start a fire?' Sam asked with exasperation.

'If it gets me out of this party? You bet,' Dean answered. Of course he was lying. He never hoped for fires. On the other hand, this party would probably be a disaster, so he might as well get paid to attend another disaster. Though it was September and it should reasonably be cooling down, it was unseasonably hot. Plus, if it had to be any fire, Dean much preferred fires in nature to fires in residential building: less chance of people being in the fire. Even though he wasn't on duty officially; he could always be called upon in the case of a major fire, so Dean resolved not to drink. Maybe just one beer.

It was a bit of a dilemma, because if he did drink the party would be much more tolerable, but then if he got called he couldn't go. Yet, if he didn't drink there was the possibility that he would have to be sober the entire night and listen to Sam's friends be pretentious. Granted, they weren't all pretentious, but there were always one or two insufferable jerks in the mix at Sam's random parties.

Slowly, guests started to trickle in and before long the moment arrived for Sam to humiliate Dean. A rather attractive man entered the apartment and Dean gave him the once over. Looks: good, personality: remains to be seen. Sam immediately took the man by his arm and practically dragged him over to Dean.

'Richard, this is my brother Dean. Dean, this is Richard. We play squash together,' Sam said and his eyes bounced from on to the other. Richard looked at Dean as if he was an especially tasty treat. It was a look Dean was on the receiving end of quite frequently, so it didn't faze him anymore. Still, there was something deeply unpleasant about the unadulterated lust that emanated from Richard's gaze. Nonetheless, Dean bore the look with patience and he didn't even say anything about the squash thing. Sam played squash, the most snobbish of sports, aside from polo, golf, and – maybe - hockey: when did that happen?

Richard launched into a complicated talk, but really more of a lecture, about metaphysics. A little group formed around them and Sam deserted him. Now, Dean knew what meta was and he knew what physics were, but he had no idea what the hell metaphysics was. In the past, during Sam's parties, he would often nod and pretend he did know. However, this only made him feel more ridiculous and there was always someone who asked him something and then he had to either try to bluff his way out or fake a visit to the bathroom. So, nowadays he just came out and confessed he didn't know.

'I must have missed that class. Care to explain the basics?' Dean joked. His voice sounded a great deal more interested than he felt. The people grouped around them laughed. Most of them laughed genuinely, as if they knew that they were living in an academic bubble and they realised that it was arrogant to assume that everybody knew metaphysics. His potential date laughed too, but it was a reluctant snicker. It was a classic is this guy for real laugh. Douche, Dean thought, and he excused himself to go to the bathroom. Instead he slipped out through the balcony doors.

Out on the tiny balcony, he breathed deeply. Outside it was still warm, but the night air was less stifling than it had been inside. It was good that Sam wasn't gay, because his brother really had the worst taste in men. He was forever trying to hook Dean up with these self-important, judgemental fellow students. Then again, Dean had to admit that if Sam would introduce him to a guy who worked at the local supermarket or gas station he would feel a little insulted.

Feeling better, he leaned against the cool steel of the railing. It felt nice against his skin. He spread his fingers across the thick iron beam. It was always strange to suddenly become aware of the shorter index finger on his left hand. He turned the hand in question around, palm upward and looked at the finger with the missing fingertip. It had happened when he had only been a fireman for a couple of months and now he hardly noticed it anymore.

The guys he slept with did. There was usually an uncomfortable moment when they saw the deformity and they were either disappointed or relieved. It was as if they were on a hunt for physical perfection, and they had been raving about his muscles and hair and jaw line, and then they saw the missing fingertip and they fell silent. So, they either feared perfection or craved it. Not that Dean thought he was close to being perfect, nor did he want to be. Either way, it was strange, though relief was the better emotion. Those were the good ones, Dean thought; the ones who were relieved to notice the missing fingertip.

If they could handle physical imperfection, then they would also be able to handle everything else less than perfect about Dean. Naturally, Dean never aimed to find out, because he rarely fucked a man twice. That way the attraction remained physical and didn't become anything else. His body was all they were interested in anyway. Man, he needed a drink. He opened the balcony doors a bit and peered inside. What he really wanted was to grab a beer and be back on the balcony before anyone noticed.

Vaguely nodding to people, he made his way across the room, until he got to the fridge. When he opened it, the chilly cold on his face felt so good, but he resisted the temptation to linger. Quickly, he took a bottle and shut the door again. That was when he saw him. Dean sidled up to Sam and rudely pulled his brother out of a conversation.

'Sorry people, sidebar,' Dean announced and guided Sam into a dark corner. Sidebar, Dean wondered, and then realised that Sam's legal talk was rubbing off on him.

'How did you find him?' he whispered to Sam. There was something in his voice that he didn't like. Excitement. Why should he be excited? Slippery slope, Dean, he warned himself. For the moment, however, he didn't listen and didn't care.

'Find who?' Sam whispered back, glancing around in confusion, 'Why are we whispering?'

'The guy I told you about. That's him,' Dean said and he pointed towards the door. The man was still standing there, in the doorway. He was looking a bit hesitant, as if he thought he might have made a mistake in coming here.

'What guy?' Sam asked, trying to follow the direction of Dean's finger, but people kept getting in the way.

'Sombre-looking, trench coat. He's standing right there,' Dean hissed, while he pointed again. The man was gorgeous. How could he not have noticed that before? The man's eyes were wandering around the room, looking for someone it seemed, but the man stayed in place, not appearing to recognise anyone. Sam's face brightened when he finally saw who Dean meant.

'That's my new favourite professor. Wow, I didn't think he'd come. I've told you about him,' Sam said and he wanted to approach the man, but Dean pulled him back.

'Yeah, it's a little hard to keep up with your crushes,' Dean casually said and grinned when he noticed Sam's annoyed expression from his peripheral vision. Dean couldn't tear his gaze away from the man; there was an air of discomfort surrounding him. It cloaked him as effectively as that familiar light brown trench coat. What a weird thing to wear when it was so hot.

'He's not... Are you sure it's him?' Sam asked and Dean rolled his eyes.

'Yes, it's him and he fits my description perfectly. How could you not know?'

'Because your description was crappy.'

'Sombre-looking, wearing a trench coat; that's pretty clear,' Dean insisted and this elicited a frustrated sigh from his brother. Dean was still gripping Sam's arm tightly with his right hand. The beer in his other hand felt reassuring. The younger Winchester pushed away Dean's fingers and faced him with an amused smile.

'I don't know what to tell you, Dean. Usually he smiles more and he doesn't as a rule wear a trench coat during lectures,' Sam explained. It wasn't much of an explanation, Dean thought. Then he realised something he hadn't properly heard before.

'Wait, he's a professor? But he's young. He can't be a professor,' Dean asserted and this earned him another weary sigh from Sam.

'I've explained this before. Most of my professors are barely older than me. They're not all old geezers in tweed jackets like you keep picturing them. In fact, the smarter they are the younger they become professor and he,' Sam stressed, nodding at the man, 'is a genius. Now I'm going to welcome him. You want me to introduce you two?'

'No!' Dean said, a little louder than was strictly necessary. A few heads turned their way, but luckily the man still hadn't spotted them. Sam turned towards Dean with a baffled expression on his face.

'Why not?'

'Because you'll embarrass me.'

'Why, thank you,' Sam said drily, but Dean was already halfway across the room. Closing the doors of the balcony behind him, he heaved a sigh of relief. Dean took a slow sip from his first and only beer of the evening and put it down on the edge of the railing. That didn't taste quite as good as he had expected it to taste. Instead, he dug into the pocket of his jeans, peeled the wrapper of some gum and popped that into his mouth. For a while, he had smoked, but that had seemed ridiculous. He was out almost every day fighting fires, so it was stupid to let a little fire slowly kill him from the inside. Now, he always had some chewing gum with him, for the rare moments that he felt like smoking.

The truth was he didn't want to meet the man. Like Sam had said, the guy was a genius and Dean decidedly was not. Also, the bad beer had been disappointment enough for one evening. What if the man turned out to be even more of a douche than Richard? No, thank you; Dean liked to keep a few of his illusions intact.