By some forgotten chance, Gen, PG-13

By some forgotten chance WC: 2075A/N: Totally stole the "mathlete" idea from a movie that was playing in the background, Never Been Kissed. That's right, ladies, I am a closet Drew Barrymore fan. I just think she's cute, is all. Really. (eta: I'm rewatching the movie and they call themselves The Denominators. Where the HELL did I get Mathlete from?)Thanks to elsie for skimming over this and pointing out my more embarrassing typos.Title comes from a Robinson poem because I am clueless and pretentious that way.Fluff! Gen young!Dean fluff!This is for the sn_flashback prompt #120: Dean is a math nerd.Students pushed past him in a hurry to get to their classes, jostling his books and just plain pissing him off. Christ, this was an annoying school."Hi," a girl chirped at his side and he twisted his head to look at her. She pushed her crooked glasses up her nose with a finger and said, "I'm Lisa."Well, hell. She wasn't really his type, but chicks introducing themselves within ten minutes wasn't half bad. He felt his mouth curve into a slow, insolent smile, the one that made cheerleaders look twice and waitresses blush.Lisa frowned. "I'm supposed to show you around.""I'm sure there's lots you could show me," Dean said.Lisa’s displeased expression said that clearly, she thought Dean was an idiot. "Follow me," she said, ignoring his grin.Dean blinked. That'd never happened to him before. "Christo," he muttered."What?" she asked, looking even more annoyed."Nothing," Dean said. Where had he put his holy water?***"So what's a Mathlete?” Dean asked, reading the front of her shirt while following her down the hall. He’d passed time in first period by making spit balls and trying to get them to stick to the ceiling. Lisa, who sat a row over, had ignored him when he tried to get her attention. Dean considered throwing a few spit balls at her, but then figured that wasn’t the best way to get her to like him.“Nothing you’d be interested in.”“Hey,” Dean said, stopping up short. “I’ll be the judge of that.”She seemed surprised for a moment, then settled back into faintly annoyed. “It’s a math club.”“Where you sit around and talk about math?” Dean hazarded, trying not to sound stupid. “Sounds exciting.”“It is. And we compete.”“With math.”“With math,” she said. Her eyes added, idiot.Dean bristled. He wasn‘t completely dumb - most of the time. “Sounds like fun. Where do I sign up?”“You don’t sign up, you qualify.”“Because I’m sure everyone wants to be a Mathlete.”“Right, you think you’re smart enough to be on the team.”“Smarter than you,” Dean said, which was patently untrue, unless they were talking about werewolves.“Fine. Meet me in the science lab after school,” she said smugly before she left him in the hall, staring after her.“Sounds good,” Dean called after her, just for spite. Dean knew she just wanted to make him look stupid in front of her geeky club. He wasn’t an idiot, he wasn’t.Dean looked around and realised he had no idea where his next class was.***The science lab was like every other high school science lab in America: long, black tables lined up with various vials and shit on the top, faintly sour air, and the mother ship of every geek in the school.They were gathered around the longest table in the back of the room, chatting quietly and laughing, brightly colored notebooks and pencils scattered across the top.He was in the lion’s den now, he thought, their turf. They could make him do unspeakable things like read poetry or listen to pop music and he wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. “Hi,” Dean said, feeling suddenly, stupidly nervous. He wiped his palms against his jeans.A girl he didn’t recognize stood up and asked, “Hey, do you need something?”Before he could open his mouth, a voice said behind him, “He’s here to try out for the Mathletes.” Lisa dropped her books and backpack on one of the empty tables at the front and pushed past Dean.The other girl gave him a disbelieving glance, which just pissed Dean off more. “I love math,” he lied feebly. “We’ll see.” Then, speaking the whole group, Lisa said, “Split up into two teams, not the ones you were in last time.”They scooted their stools around until they were on opposite sides of the table. Each had grabbed notebook and pen. “Which team am I on?” Dean asked awkwardly. He thought nerds were supposed to be nice.“You can be on our team,” a guy said, not looking particularly happy about it. He was dark-skinned, maybe Indian, and had the kind of distracted air that Dean had learned to take advantage of when he needed a few extra bucks. He probably shouldn’t steal his teammate’s wallet, Dean decided generously. That didn’t seem very sporting.“Thanks,” Dean said and went to sit on his side of the table. He rubbed his neck and leaned over. “Do you uh, have paper?”***Sines? Cosines? Shit was easy as scratching your balls.Lisa looked disappointed when she announced that Dean had a place on the team if he wanted it. He’d played seven times and solved his problem faster than his competitor six of those times. The other Mathletes were cheering him on while he competed and then patting him on the back when he won. “Good job,” one of the girls said with a shy smile. “My name’s Laurie.”It didn’t surprise Dean that he’d made the team, but it did surprise him when he said yes.***“Where were you?” Sam demanded from the kitchen, where he was stuffing turkey sandwiches in his mouth like they were going out of style.“Had shit to do,” Dean grunted, throwing his books on the floor in their bedroom.“Oh, you mean you’ve already found the cheapest girl in school? You’re so disgusting.” Sam’s first growth spurt had hit last year, leaving him awkward as a new-born colt and bitchy as hell.“Yeah, you wish you could get some action, too.”“No way! Shut up, dickweed,” Sam said, his voice cracking on the last syllable.***Three weeks into the new year, when his dad noticed Dean hadn’t been coming home directly from school and asked about it, Dean said he’d been training more. From then on, after Mathletes practice, Dean would spend an extra hour training until his arms ached and his legs were shaky.He wasn’t gonna lie again.***“Our first match is in three days,” Lisa announced, eyes happily alight. She looked pretty like that. All glowy and smart and shit.“And Dean, you’ll be starting.”Dean leaned back, pleased. “We have a gift for you.” She hopped off her stool and picked up a box from the floor. She slid the box down the table towards Dean, where it slapped against his palm as he stopped it. It was wrapped in newspaper and had a lopsided bow that looked like it‘d been stuffed in someone‘s locker for the better part of a week. Dean let his fingers ghost over it, brushing the paper beneath his hands. He’d never gotten a gift from someone other than Sam or Dad, and even those had been expected things, practical.“Open it,” someone prodded and Dean complied. He ripped the paper off, shredding it like he’d seen Sam do. When he opened the box, a sweatshirt proclaiming “Mathlete!” across the front was nestled into a wad of untidy tissue-paper.“It’s sort of lame,” Lisa said, uncomfortable with his long silence. “But I thought you’d want one now that you’re part of the group.”Dean shook his head and rubbed his palm against the stitched lettering, stiff and new against his skin. For once, he didn’t have anything to say.***When Dean got home, Dad was assembling guns on the table. “Get your stuff together, Dean.”“Are we moving?” Dean asked dumbly.“No, just gotta take care of some stuff up north. Looks like a simple Wendigo, but those can be tricky. Best to have two people.”“I’ll go,” Sam offered from their bedroom door, dressed in faded jeans two sizes too big for him that he’d hated but Dad had insisted on because it’d last him at least another year.John looked up. “You want to go?” he asked disbelievingly.“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?”John’s face darkened. “You want to watch your tone with me, son.”“Just - I think Dean should stay home this time.”John shook his head. “I need someone stronger for this, sorry Sammy. Maybe in a couple years.”“You never let me do anything I want to,“ Sam yelled and stomped back into his room, slamming the door and muttering to himself.John slumped in his chair, and looked up at Dean. “First he‘s angry because I take him hunting with me and now he‘s angry because he can’t go?”“All teenagers are like that, he’ll grow out of it,” Dean lied. “You aren’t like that,” John pointed out, looking more tired than Dean had seen him in a long while.“I’ve got more important things to do than bitch.”John nodded, not even bothering to correct Dean's language anymore, and turned back to his guns. The defeated slump of his shoulders had lessened some, maybe. Some lies were worth telling, Dean thought.***Dean went back to school with a slight limp and a busted lip. He‘d waited until the worst of it healed so no one called Child Protective Services, but if he missed anymore, he’d get held back a year. He was okay if he ignored the way his bones shifted and ached every time he moved too fast. The bell rang as he slid into his homeroom seat.“You missed our competition,” Lisa said quietly with a cold glare in first period, once the teacher had turned her back.“Yeah, I was sick.”Her expression softened. “We still won, anyway. But you could have told someone you’d miss it.”“About that,” Dean whispered, not looking over at her. “I don’t think I’m gonna make any of the competitions.” Family came in a lot of forms, but you can only have one. One has to come before all the others and he already had his.“You know, I kind of thought you wouldn’t,” she said smugly.Dean grinned and slouched down in his chair. “Guess you had me pegged right at the beginning, sweetheart.”The look she gave him was weirdly thoughtful. “Did I?”***“Dean?” Sam asked in the dark. He was on the bed across the room, lying on his stomach, head resting on his folded arms. “What?” Dean asked gruffly, wishing Sam would just shut the fuck up and go to sleep already. Dean had so much shit to catch up on, he might have to actually do his homework. The thought offended him.“’M sorry you missed your competition.” When Dean sat up to stare at him, Sam half-shrugged, bony shoulders moving gracefully under his thin cotton t-shirt. It was about the only movement Sam could manage with any sort of grace these days, probably because he practiced it so much, the pissy little bastard. "I followed you after school one day."“I didn’t see you,” Dean said, half-accusingly.Sam smiled. “You’re getting sloppy in your old age. You should work on that, man.”“Yeah, maybe,” Dean acknowledged, a surge of warm pride worming its way into his belly. He let himself fall back onto his pillow with a soft oof and a sigh.“Hey, Dean?”"Fuckin’ what, dude?"“Mathletes? Who’s the geek now?” Sam snickered. “You never get to call me ‘geek-boy’ ever again.”***Four months and they were on the road again. Sam stomped out to the car where he refused to help with packing and sat, arms crossed and ignoring the rest of the world as he listened to his walkman.Dean had a few old shirts that he was going to cut up and use for rags to clean their guns during the drive. Beneath the shirts was the sweatshirt the other Mathletes had given him, never worn and still wrapped in crisp tissue-paper. He grabbed that first. Scissors in one hand, he cut into the ribbed hem and up the front. He got to the lettering, stopped, put the scissors down. Outside Sam and Dad were arguing about something that would make the ride to wherever they were going miserable.It was a nice morning and not many people were out yet, so he opened the window to let a breeze in. No one was waiting for him, no one to say goodbye to. He’d not told anyone he’d be leaving and he doubted many would notice when he was gone.Dean wrapped the sweatshirt back up and tucked it into the bottom of his duffle bag. End.