Chapter Text
The Journal of Dean Winchester:
Monday, January 7th, 2019.
My chemistry professor is hot.
I am definitely going to fail chemistry this quarter.
Sam will kill me because
This is all Sam’s fault, and, you know what? Fuck you, Sam, if you read this and then decide to bully me about it. It was you who told me to start documenting my thoughts or whatever - so don’t read and don’t judge. There. It’s really simple.
But anyways, here it is, my new year’s resolution in action -- y’know…being more in touch with my emotions and all that crap.
And also because I’m 110% sure this is going to be stuff I’ll probably spill to you, Sam, at some point, I’ll just get it over with.
This shit is so going to come and bite me in the ass.
But, anyway, the guy who teaches my Chemistry 20B class, Professor Novak, is something else.
I guess if I read this 20 years from now I’ll be like “who’s he?” So, future me, here’s some description to refresh your memory. In case you’re old and can’t remember shit.
Well, for starters, Professor Castiel Novak (what kinda first name is that, right?) wears a tan trench coat of all things. And looks like he just rolled out of bed. His hair is dark, kinda dark brown? And it sticks up in weird ways, and his voice sounds like he ate a tire, it’s so gravelly and deep, and his humor is also weird, and I laughed at his jokes, at least I think they were jokes, but I was the only one in the lecture who did…there’s 150 people in the class, and his eyes are blue, and I sat in the front row, but I swear he was staring right at me the whole class, and my God, I’m so going to hell.
I obviously don’t have a crush on a professor I just met, and he’s literally saying stuff that I have no idea what it means, and I passed Chem last quarter, but I didn’t know thermodynamics could be this complicated.
But, hey, it’s perfectly fine to have eyes. Dude’s hot. Big deal.
And, oh yeah, he’s my professor.
…Chemistry 20B is definitely going to fuck me up this quarter.
“You’re going to office hours?” Sam Winchester raises his eyebrows as he glances over at his brother. “Since when?”
“Since I just told you. Keep up, I thought you were the smart one,” Dean rolls his eyes. “I can see myself getting tripped up over thermodynamics, and this prof ain’t playing when it comes to the content.”
“I could tutor you?”
“Sam, the guy literally wrote his own fucking textbook and it has symbols that, if I didn’t know any better, I would say were demonic summoning sigils.”
Sam huffs a sigh. “Good thing we have a hunter for a dad then, huh?” He adjusts his backpack strap and shrugs. “You’re probably exaggerating, and you did just fine last quarter. It’s only been the first day of class.”
“All the professor reviews say my Chem prof is a demon, here wait,” Dean shifts to pull his phone out of his back pocket and quickly taps his phone screen a few times. “According to someone who took his class last year, this guy is, quote, the devil himself. Oh, and this person says he’s Satan and will rain hell on all students for eternity, and--”
“Okay, so just switch professors,” Sam suggests, leaning over to look at Dean’s phone.
“The other professors' sections are all filled. Novak is the only one left. And I’m fucking screwed. Here, listen to this,” Dean pulls his phone back towards him as he reads another professor review. “Someone who had him last quarter said he is ‘a prime example of pain and suffering, the devil created him from his own hands and then cried and ran away when he realized what he had done because Novak is worse than the devil and will make your life living hell and crush any hope of dreams or survival you have. Run now.’”
“Sounds like a real ray of sunshine. Definitely go to office hours. Offer him some Holy Water or something.”
“You think my chemistry professor is a legit demon?”
“I think you have a weird fixation on him otherwise.”
“His reviews say he is Satan, and you think I have a ‘weird fixation?’ Sam, this guy is already killing me. I don’t even know what happened in class today. He drew stuff on the board, and I think I had a stroke.”
Sam shakes his head, unimpressed. “Switch over to PoliSci with me then. We can be the Winchester Brothers Law Agency,” Sam offers.
Dean grimaces as he thinks about wearing a suit for the rest of his life and shuffling paperwork in an office. “Yeah, no. I’ll try my luck with chemistry. Dr. Winchester has a nice ring to it.”
“That’s only if you go to med school,” Sam points out with a raised eyebrow. “And that’s pretty tough work, Dean.”
“I’ll be the new Dr. Sexy, Sam, just wait and see.”
“And here I thought Novak was going to demolish you,” Sam quips, and Dean shoves him.
“Are you even on my side? I swear you’re just looking forward to seeing my brain melt, bitch.”
“Didn’t realize there was any brain left in you, jerk,” Sam shoots back, and Dean shoves him again.
“I’ve got to get to my Math class now, but this isn’t over, Sam, just you wait and see, I will either become a Chem God after this or…”
“Or become Novak’s newest victim.”
Dean crosses his arms and smirks. “Office hours, Sam, office hours will fix everything.”
Office hours, as it turns out, may have been a horrible idea. Novak had, simply adding to his demonic reputation, scheduled his office hours for every Friday at 5 PM.
The class itself was Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 10 AM to 10:50 AM, but his professor evidently didn’t have anything better to do than have his office hours be on a Friday evening.
So, while literally everyone else is starting their weekend, Dean is shuffling through the chemistry building, trying to locate his professor’s office.
According to the directory, his professor's office -- Room 304B, should be on the 3rd floor. However, Dean has walked all across the third floor twice, and the numbers jump from 300 to 301 to 302 to 306 and then onwards. Rooms 303 to 305 are simply nonexistent.
He takes a steadying breath and reminds himself that 1) he is 15 minutes early and 2) he has killed literal monsters before. Finding a room should not be as daunting as his rapidly beating heart is making it out to be.
He trudges back to the directory, scanning it carefully. 304B is indeed on the 3rd floor, the directory confirms. But, for some reason, the directory has rooms 303 to 305 kind of sticking out from the otherwise uniform hallway of the 300s.
So, if they were sticking out, did that mean they were in some stairwell he didn’t know about? Or maybe another room opened to those rooms?
“Fuck,” Dean swears under his breath, rubbing a hand over his face.
“I suppose you’re looking for Room 304B?” a gravelly voice asks from behind him, and Dean jumps, whipping around to come face-to-face with none other than Novak himself.
“Wha-uh, I-” Dean stutters, his heart hammering in his chest. His dad would kill him if he saw how easily a civilian had crept up on him. Unless Novak actually was a demon like the professor reviews said…then that would be a whole hell of a lot more complicated.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Novak continues, seemingly unbothered by Dean’s inability to speak. “I have considered putting up a sticky note on the directory to explain where to find my office, but I haven’t yet.”
“Oh,” Dean says dumbly, and Novak just sighs.
“I guess I haven’t because I mentioned during my first lecture how to find my office and also have it on my syllabus, but, as my colleagues like to tell me, students need frequent reminders,” Novak shrugs and begins walking down the hall.
“You’re right, I am looking for your office, I’m here for office hours, Professor Novak, I’m in your--”
“Chemistry 20B section this quarter, yes, I recognize you from the front row where you sit. I usually think that those who sit in the front row are those who pay the most attention, but you’re an exception to that rule, I see.”
Dean’s eyes widen at the slight insult as he follows Novak’s brisk pace, nearly slamming into him when Novak abruptly stops before Room 302.
“But, then again, the exceptions to the rule are what make chemistry interesting,” Novak comments, and Dean’s poor heart nearly bursts out of his chest.
He just grunts in acknowledgment like a stupid beast, and dear God, Novak probably thinks he’s an idiot who can’t even string two words together.
Novak just keeps talking as if he’s giving a separate lecture just for Dean’s benefit. “For future reference, just step right through Room 302, and you’ll find my office,” he pauses, opening the door to a room with a large conference table and two doors beyond it.
“Or, if you want a more literal explanation, you will find the common area first, and then, just beyond this conference table, you will find two doors. Mine is the one labeled 304B…it also says Dr. Novak on it, if that helps.”
Dean blinks, assessing the room around him. Novak stands in front of him, as if waiting for him to say something.
“Where are the rest of the rooms?” Dean asks, and cringes as Novak frowns. What a stupid question to ask, he scolds himself.
“You mean Rooms 303 and 305?”
“Yes?”
“Were you looking for those rooms?”
“No,” Dean answers, and now this is awkward. Much more than it had been initially.
“Just curious, then?”
“Yes?”
“They’re through Room 301.”
“Oh.”
Novak sighs and pushes on the door handle of his office, the door swinging open to reveal a small room. The lights are off, so Dean can barely see anything other than the window with the closed blinds -- lightly weakly streams through but does nothing to illuminate the office.
“The building design doesn’t make much sense, but, then again, we’re not here to discuss building layouts, are we?”
Dean is silent for a moment, still trying to look inside the room, brain slow on processing that Novak is asking him a question. Novak just watches him in that weird way, his blue eyes boring into Dean, as if staring at him will magically make Dean answer.
“Huh? Oh, no, no, definitely not, ha. Here for some chemistry, I mean for your chemistry…meaning your class, your 20B class, I’m a student there, for office hours--” Dean trails off, Novak’s unamused look more than delivering the message that Novak does indeed think he’s stupid as fuck.
“Yes. We’ve established that.” Novak says without emotion, and then turns around and steps inside his office, flicking the lights on inside his office. The small room is bathed in light, and Dean is able to see that Novak is what Sam would call a “wild genius.”
The room is in chaos, papers stacked every which way, books on the floor, and wild scribbles on the whiteboard hanging on the wall.
“Have a seat,” Novak tells him, gesturing to one of the two wooden chairs with red lining that are placed before his desk. “Office hours won’t begin for another 5 minutes, and I want to make sure any other stragglers know where to go. I will be outside,” Novak turns to walk out and then hesitates, turning back to Dean. “Don’t touch anything,” he adds and then walks out, leaving Dean to sit in his office alone.
“Don’t touch anything,” Dean repeats to himself with a sigh. As if he is a naughty kid who doesn’t know his right from wrong. Which, if one is to take an argument of morality on the hunting side of Dean’s life, then he supposes that could be said.
But he is an undergrad at Stanford. Studying chemistry, for crying out loud. And his attractive professor has just left him in his office. Alone.
Maybe it would be just the two of them, Dean thinks. That would be awkward. Or maybe it would be great…like a first date…shut up, shut up, he tells himself cringing internally.
He has known the guy all of three days, this is NOT the time to be thinking about him romantically. He has nine more weeks of this quarter and then finals to get through. He has to get his head in the game.
He focuses on familiarizing himself with his surroundings. Because this would be the last time he would be showing his godforsaken face for office hours. He has fucked this up so badly already, him being so awkward.
He contemplates this for a moment before promptly throwing this thought out. Who is he kidding? He is so coming back.
He shakes his head and refocuses on examining Novak’s office.
Bookcases that reach all the way up to the ceiling line the entire right side of the room. Several volumes of books on physics and chemistry occupy the shelves. Some books seem to be parts of a set. “Quantum Mechanics” reads one such work, its yellow spine taunting him from its place up high on the bookshelf behind Novak’s desk.
The whiteboard to the left of Novak’s desk is a mess. Nonsensical scribbles cover its entire space. Strange squiggles and shapes are on it. This is not chemistry. Not physics. Just utter nonsense. Different colors. Of bent lines and crosses and work that looks as if someone just tried to cover the white of the board. The scribbles look old. Someone tried to erase some of them, their attempt embedded in history with the smudges of some of the lines. However the work has already set in, and the eraser must have given up.
The right part of the board, nearest to the window, is filled with some equations and graphs. Once again, this work appears aged. This board has seen much better days. Papers surround Novak’s desk, piled high and in disarray. If Novak has a system of organization, then it is one that is only known to him.
His desk is cluttered, and a mostly-eaten small red apple lies next to Novak’s Apple laptop. His car keys lie near the apple, just a black plastic rectangle with several buttons on it.
A printer is closest to the window, positioned against the whiteboard. A mini fridge is behind him, to the right of the window, pushed against the wall just before the tall bookshelves begin. The wall to Dean’s left has more items pinned on it.
A note catches his eye. It is a drawing/card from a young child. He looks closer at it. “Je voir avec yeux d’amour.”
Dean’s French is mediocre at best, but he guesses it means “I see with eyes of love.” A pair of eyes are drawn on it. The entire message is in crayon. The childlike handwriting chastises him, reminding him of the life Novak must lead outside of the university.
His gaze drops, and he sees another book. “Statistique Physique” the book reads, its grey cover facing upwards. It is French. The book is in French. The child’s note is in French. He must speak French to his family, Dean thinks dazedly. As if this guy couldn’t get any hotter…one of the languages of love, and this guy knows how to read damn Physics books in it.
He sees a green flower drawn on another whiteboard that is partially obscured by the door. Another work of a child? A paper with Chemistry and Biochemistry Department phone numbers and names, basically a list of contacts, is stapled to the wall under the child’s note.
If anything, this office has clear signs of life. Novak must spend countless hours here, his brain conjuring up wild hypotheses, hands flying across papers to jot down ideas. No wonder he wrote his own textbook. Wild genius to the core.
“We’ll be meeting in the main room,” Novak’s voice interrupts his thoughts, and Dean turns to see Novak (still in that tan trench coat he has been wearing all week) standing in the doorway. Three other students are sitting in the main conference area, and Dean is embarrassed that he failed to hear the other students come in.
How long has Novak been watching Dean survey his office? Way to go, Winchester, he berates himself as he stumbles to his feet and yanks his backpack up from the floor, lumbering into the main room where the other students wait.
He recognizes them -- one is the blonde Russian who Dean doesn’t know the name of and who had sat two rows behind Dean in Novak’s lecture. The kid had kept raising his hand to ask Novak clarifying questions. Though, if Dean was being honest, the Russian’s so-called clarifying questions were beyond Dean’s basic level of understanding of what was happening.
The other student, a girl, had been in his chemistry class last quarter. She had bright red hair and was named Charlie, as he remembered. They hadn’t talked much, but she seemed friendly enough (and a total tech wizard -- he still remembered how she had helped their professor get his lecture recording software started even though campus tech support couldn’t). The last student was her friend, Kevin. He was also a genius -- Dean had seen first-hand that the kid couldn’t get any grade below a 95%, difficult midterms included.
In other words, Dean is a fucking dumbass in comparison to these three. And what better way to impress Novak than prove that he is truly out of his depth here.
Hell, he had gone into chemistry because he thought he was decent enough at fixing up Baby, his 1967 Chevrolet Impala -- it required some knowledge of fuel cells and mixtures of different chemicals to keep her running, and he had been better in chemistry than other subjects (History and Fitness excluded) in high school.
And, as he had told Sam, being Dr. Winchester had its appeal. If Dr. Sexy could do it, then so could he. God knew he spent enough time patching up their dad from hunting. It only seemed logical to go into medicine. Saw would do law, and there, both of them would be out of the hunting world.
Not that their dad wasn’t upset about that…quite the contrary, in fact. John Winchester had been pissed when, upon graduating high school, Sam had convinced Dean, who had been, at the time, four years out of high school, to apply to college with him. Now they were out of the hunting picture, pursuing “apple-pie lives” and “letting down all of humanity” as their dad would put it.
And what more to say about hunting other than, ah, yes -- yet another part of their life that he had to keep on the down-low…but he supposed that Novak would be quite impressed if Dean could be believed. Hey, he may not be a chemistry genius yet, but he knew how to do blood transfusions in a sketchy hotel room like a pro.
“Dean,” Charlie elbows him in the arm, and Dean snaps out of his thoughts, looking blankly up at Novak’s pinched face.
Fuck, he must have missed another question.
“What?”
“Professor Novak is asking us to introduce ourselves,” Charlie explains, and Dean winces. Already spacing out is not a good first impression. Not that Dean has been doing a stellar job thus far anyway.
“My name is Dean Winchester,” he offers, and Novak flattens his mouth in another unamused look.
“Dean. Charlie. Kevin. Yuri.” Novak recites their names and sits down in the chair at the head of the table. Dean, thankfully, is towards the other end of the table with Charlie. Kevin and the Russian kid, or Yuri, as his name seems to be, are on the opposite side.
They all stare at each other for a moment, and then Yuri raises his hand awkwardly.
“No need to raise your hand, just ask your question,” Novak tells him, and Yuri launches into a complex query involving something called a Maxwell velocity distribution.
Novak listens with his head tilted at a slight angle, a pensive look on his face. “I believe it would be prudent to begin with an explanation of the derivation of the Maxwell distribution,” he says and stands up, picking up a whiteboard marker and rapidly writing something on the whiteboard behind him.
“The Maxwell distribution, as we know, essentially describes the probability distribution of the velocities of gas molecules in an ideal gas. In other words, while velocities may have a wide range, there is an average that can be found, resulting in the bell-shaped curve we obtain when graphing the distribution.”
Yuri nods as if the gibberish that just came out of Novak’s mouth makes perfect sense.
Now Kevin jumps into the conversation, and Dean still hasn’t taken out his notebook, he’s so confused. Kevin’s talking about something named Boltzmann, and Dean is praying this isn’t one of those office hours where the professor asks the other students to pitch in with their ideas.
“Yes,” Novak is now smiling enthusiastically, nodding at Kevin. “Exactly. The Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution would no longer be Gaussian.”
Novak draws a new bell curve on his whiteboard, this one skewed to the left. “The speed would no longer average to zero since each component is squared, thus turning our negative values into positive ones, therefore yielding a skew toward nonnegative values.”
“Brilliant,” Charlie whispers under her breath, and oh Lord, now she’s asking her own question. Dean has to come up with something, he can’t just sit here and not ask anything. What to ask?
Hell, he didn’t even realize that this was stuff covered in the lectures this week. He distantly remembers something about distributions, but, hey, this guy is now delving into multivariable calculus, and this is supposed to be a simple introductory chemistry course.
Novak is writing some new thing on the board, and Dean squints, trying to figure out what the hell he’s looking at. Novak’s droning on about something called spherical coordinates, and Dean’s not sure he’s ever seen a scarier looking equation.
This thing has four integrals, and he’s not even sure what it’s supposed to be used for.
“Dean? Do you have a question?” Dean tears his eyes away from the board and finds Novak looking at him intensely.
“Question?” Dean parrots, and Novak narrows his eyes.
Novak continues to look at him, unblinking, and Dean is feeling a bit unnerved. “You were examining the board rather closely. You do understand that this is an alternate way of denoting the Maxwell speed distribution, yes?” Novak pushes, and Dean tries to act as if he has every idea of what’s on the board.
“Of course. Sure. The, um, integrals, are, uh, integral to the probability,” Dean chokes out, and fucking hell, Sam would lose his mind with laughter if he had heard what Dean just said.
“You don’t understand what’s going on,” Yuri breaks into the conversation before Novak can respond, and Dean glares at him, his face turning redder by the second. “You haven’t asked a single question yet. Are you sure you are in the correct class, Dean?” Yuri goads, and Dean’s hands clench into fists under the table.
“I understand thermodynamics perfectly well,” Dean grits out.
“Oh? So you would have no problem explaining what the equipartition theorem is?” Yuri quips back, smirk on his face as he shrugs. “Wouldn’t be so hard, we went over it in lecture on Wednesday after all.”
“Not a problem,” Dean shoots back. “But while I’m at it, would you be able to explain thermodynamics in a practical setting? Say, a car, for example? You know, how the engine has intake of air and fuel, then compresses that mixture, and oh, yeah the spark plug then ignites this compressed mixture and shit starts happening because this energy then pushes the pistons and we’ve got--”
“That’s enough.” Novak cuts in, and Dean nearly forgot about Novak. “Your knowledge of the inner working of a car engine is intriguing, but we are not here to push each other. We are here to learn, and, Yuri,” Novak looks pointedly at the Russian, who, in turn, plasters a smile on his face.
“Yes, professor?”
“I appreciate your enthusiasm for making sure other students understood my lectures, but, as I’m sure you’re aware, office hours are designated for students who wish to discuss questions or expand their knowledge in productive ways,” Novak glances over at Dean, who is still glaring at Yuri. “Please refrain in the future from aggravating other students.”
“Yes, professor,” Yuri says, respectful as anything, but shoots Dean a glare of his own as Novak turns his back to them to erase the whiteboard.
“Um,” Charlie clears her throat. “I actually had a question about the level of this course.”
“Yes?” Novak is still erasing the board, and Charlie exchanges a look with Kevin before continuing.
“This is an introductory thermodynamics course, but we are discussing multivariable calculus. Multivariable calculus is not a pre- or corequisite for this course,” Charlie delicately says, and finally, someone is pointing out what Dean thought he was insane for thinking.
“That is correct. I do not expect you to know multivariable calculus. You will not be asked to derive formulas on any of my exams. I only ask that you use the formulas correctly in different situations. I merely provide background on the derivations so that you all can understand why the different components are included and how they add up in the big picture,” Novak explains matter-of-factly.
“When I obtained my PhD at MIT, it was quite competitive, and my physical chemistry background has bordered more on physics than chemistry, if I am to be honest. If you take my advanced physical chemistry laboratory course, we will delve more into quantum mechanics and this introductory course will provide a good basis for your lessons there,” Novak states, and Dean can hardly figure out how he will survive this course let alone a more advanced course with this professor.
Novak turns back to the board, scribbling something on it and talking more about probability, and Dean is mentally beating himself up. So what the guy has the bluest eyes he’s ever seen? So what he dresses like a retired accountant but leaves his tie hanging in that disheveled way that Dean loves. So what his voice is bordering on that side of raspy that makes Dean shiver? So what the guy is a genius and has shown an interesting use of sarcasm in class so far?
It means nothing because this so-called guy is Dean’s professor, most likely has a kid (and a family), and very clearly is way smarter than Dean can ever hope to be.
So many reasons that Dean absolutely cannot get into anything with Novak. Ever. (And as if Novak would ever even be interested in him…the guy couldn’t be much older than Dean…he looked to be in his mid-30s or so but, hell, a professor was way past what Dean could reasonably go for).
And he’s spacing out again, goddamnit. Dean shakes his head and he’s sweating now because Novak is finishing writing some indecipherable formula on the board, and Yuri, Charlie, and Kevin are all dutifully copying it down in their notebooks.
And Dean, of course, still has his notebook in his backpack.
Way to go, Dean, he scolds himself and takes a deep breath, unzipping his backpack, finally getting his somehow already battered notebook out.
He grabs a pencil from another pocket in his bag and begins to also copy down the equation, hesitating several times on different symbols and resorting to trying to copy them the best he can.
“And that,” Novak finishes, setting down his marker, “is the integral that shows the probability that the random variable, V, will take on values in the aforementioned range.”
And fuck, the integral is so long that Dean has to write it down on two separate lines. He finishes writing the damn thing only to look up and see Novak once again watching him.
“All good?” Novak asks, and the other three students confirm that they’re ready to move on, but Novak’s still looking at Dean.
“Yeah, sure,” Dean nods in what he hopes is a confident way, and Novak just nods back and picks up his marker again, now talking about a supposed joint probability.
Dean releases a shaky breath and obediently begins copying down the new stuff Novak is adding to the board.
Office hours last about an hour, but it feels like eons have gone by. Dean’s notebook is filled with stuff he has no idea about and he packs his backpack feeling more confused than he had before he came to office hours.
Yuri quickly packs up, thanking Novak and glaring at Dean before leaving, claiming he has some other study group he needs to get to. Dean highly doubts that, but hey, anything that helps the stuck-up jerk sleep at night.
Kevin and Charlie then come over to Dean while Novak is cleaning the board and exchange phone numbers with him, claiming that they actually do study groups and feel this would help all of them.
Dean refrains from telling them that he is about as helpful as a flat tire is on a car, instead dutifully giving them his cell phone number and pleasantly wishing them a good weekend.
They leave and Dean is left awkwardly standing in the room. Novak still has his back turned to him, and Dean isn’t sure whether to just leave or awkwardly say goodbye or --
Novak turns around and his eyebrows raise as he sees that Dean is still here. “Do you have an additional question?” he asks, and Dean shakes his head, his blush returning. He should have just left, God, why did he just stand here like an idiot?
“Not even about how to find other rooms on the 3rd floor?” Novak asks, and Dean stares at him.
“Was that a joke?” Dean asks, and Novak shrugs.
“Maybe it was,” Novak walks over to his office, grabbing something off the desk, his car keys, Dean realizes. “Your knowledge of the thermodynamics of a car engine was impressive.”
“It’s why I thought I would be good at chemistry,” Dean sighs.
“You don’t think that anymore?” Novak glances over at Dean as he turns off the light in his office, the contents of the room once again hidden.
“I don’t really understand what’s going on,” Dean admits, and Novak’s mouth quirks in what is almost a smile.
“There’s a lot you don’t understand yet, Dean,” Novak says sagely, and he then turns to look Dean directly in his eyes. “It will make sense eventually, but not for some time yet.”
Dean frowns at him, his hunter instincts telling him that they’re not talking about Chemistry 20B anymore, but then Novak is breezing past him, opening the door of Room 302 for him, and they’re walking down the hallway, the tense moment between them broken.
“I will see you in class on Monday, I trust?” Novak says, but it sounds more like a confirmation than a question. He doesn’t wait for Dean to reply, just sighs and waves his black rectangle of a car key. “My car is parked in the staff lot out back. Have a good night, Dean,” he nods and then turns around to walk down the opposite end of the hallway, apparently not expecting Dean to say anything back.
Dean just stands next to the directory, watching Novak exit using the opposite stairwell at the other end of the hallway. When Novak is gone, he lets out another shaky breath.
He has been to office hours like three times before. Granted, this is his first year at university, but his previous office hour visits (with different professors, of course) had not been so…intense? Weird? Confusing? Utterly fucked?
Probably a combination of all of that, Dean thinks, finally making his way down the stairway. In short, he has no idea what’s going on in chemistry, has a borderline obsession with Novak growing, and, well, knows absolutely nothing about him.
And, beyond all that, the thing Novak had said about not understanding everything yet made his brain itch. It just seemed out of place for the conversation. He was 80% sure Novak was referring to something else, but what?
Not that he had much prior experience with professors, but Novak seemed to take more of an interest in Dean. He had interacted well with Yuri, Charlie, and Kevin, and maybe he was just seeing things where there was nothing, but…oh hell, he chastises himself. There’s nothing. He’s just conjuring things.
Focus on actually understanding this chemistry shit, he tells himself, and walks down the stairwell, pushing aside all thoughts of Novak and trying to zone in on what the hell a Maxwell something or other is.
The rest of the night is, predictably, spent with Dean breaking his brain looking over his notes and Sam being quiet in exchange for Dean promising to tell Sam tomorrow morning about how his office hours with Novak went.
All will be well, he repeats to himself as he puzzles over his notebook. Because, if not, then he’s got to face the truth that he’s beyond fucked.