#like I’m racking my brain (and I guess I need to review hahaha) but there’s probably something there to be discussed between them

[age-of-moonknight]

“Dead Reckoning,” Moon Knight: City of the Dead (Vol. 1/2023), #3.

Writer: David Pepose; Penciler: Sean Damien Hill; Inker: Jay Leisten; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

[good-things-do-happen-dean]

I am actually terrible at prompts but for you I will try: Dean and Cas teach at the same school but no one knows they’re married because Cas was just hired a few months ago, and they don’t want people to think that’s the only reason he got the job; cue Benny incessantly flirting with Cas and trying to ask him out until Dean is forced to step in. The ending is up to you (;

[casually writes this one hundred years later] i love this prompt so much em, thank you for sending it 💖also, it’s me, so i think you can probably guess where the ending goes hahaha enjoy!!!

sweet like honey, sweet like molasses

“Mornin’, sunshine,” somebody drawls across the teachers’ lounge.

Dean doesn’t look up from the copier, until he hears Cas say “Good morning, Benny,” back to the somebody, and he nearly puts a crick in his neck from looking up so quickly because what the hell, that’s Dean’s line.

The somebody in question, Benny, apparently, is leaning back against the counter with the coffee maker, sipping from a steaming mug that says “Mornings suck” in red over a cartoon vampire. He’s a big guy, or, maybe he’s not actually. He’s shorter than Cas, but broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, with a neatly trimmed beard and bright blue eyes.

Dean turns his ring around his finger with his thumb, looking back at the growing stack of copies without really seeing them. They chat about Benny’s AP class maybe coming by the library next week to review research strategies for their upcoming project. Benny says something that makes Cas laugh, rich and low. And Dean finds he suddenly needs a fresh cup.

“Hey there,” he says, squeezing between Cas and Benny to get to the coffee pot. “Morning, Cas.” He doesn’t miss Cas rolling his eyes at him ever so briefly. “Don’t think we’ve had the pleasure,” he says to Benny, reaching out a hand. “I’m Dean Winchester, ninth and tenth grade English.”

Benny grins, and it spreads across his face all slow like honey, or molasses maybe, with that accent. Okay, Dean decides. Fine, he’s hot. Whatever.

“Benjamin Lafitte,” he says, shaking Dean’s hand. “But you can call me Benny. I’m the new Miss Kline while she’s on maternity leave.”

“I see you’ve met Mr. Novak, here,” Dean says, clapping Cas on the shoulder.

“Practically the first thing I did when I was hired.” Benny winks at Cas across Dean, who gives Cas’s shoulder a little squeeze. Only because he’s friendly, and definitely not because he’s possessive or jealous of this guy. Also definitely not to show off the simple silver band on his ring finger that wouldn’t mean anything to Benny anyway.

That’s the plan, after all, to keep their marriage private at school. They live out of the district, so it’s unlikely they’ll run into any students in line at the grocery store or the movie theater. Same for coworkers.

As far as almost everyone knows, the Winchester-Novaks are just Mr. Winchester and Mr. Novak, work friends who hit it off pretty much immediately after Mr. Novak was hired. They get to work at the same time, but they drive separately.They have lunch together, but they eat in the teacher’s lounge instead of in Cas’s tiny office at the back of the library. Dean normally stops by the library at the end of his planning during fourth period, but that’s because he teaches English and the library is, well, where the books are. It’s not because he’s a sap who misses his husband an hour and a half after they’ve just eaten lunch together. Or, okay, it is that, but nobody else knows it.

“Would you look at the time,” Dean says at the sound of the first bell. He rinses out his mug, setting it upside down in the drying rack, before heading to the door. “Gotta beat the thundering hordes to the stairs.”

“Actually,” Benny says, “I’ve got planning first period. Mind if I swing by to pick your brain about that project, Cas?”

Dean turns to stare daggers into Benny’s broad back with one hand on the doorknob. It isn’t that he doesn’t trust Cas, of course he does, but there’s something about this Benny character that rubs him the wrong way.

“Dean?” Cas calls after him, just like he would at home from the garden or the kitchen to where Dean is working in the garage. Dean very nearly says, yeah, babe? but he catches himself just in time. “Your copies.”

Right.

***

Things continue on like that. Benny starts showing up at the same time as them, somehow casually overtaking them so he can hold the door open. He joins them in the teacher’s lounge before school for a cup of coffee and a chat. He sits with them at lunch. He pops his head into the library at the end of the day (when Dean is there during his planning) with a cheery “see ya tomorrow!” and a wink.

Benny asks them about places to go in town. Which coffee shop has the best cold brew, which one has the best atmosphere for getting work done, which one attracts the least students. Where’s the nearest place to fish, or would it be better to drive farther up the highway. What’s the deal with the weird owner of that bookstore on Main.

In the evenings, when Cas and Dean are stretched out on the couch, Cas with his legs draped over Dean’s lap while he reads, Dean using said legs as a slightly lopsided table to grade on., they talk about it, a little.

“He’s harmless,” Cas says. “And besides,” he folds himself up to sitting and presses a kiss to Dean’s temple. “I love you.”

Dean’s ninth graders may or may not get their essays back a day late after one such evening when the stack of papers he’s working on are unceremoniously dropped on the floor, and Dean hauls Cas up and fully into his lap for a while before they fall asleep curled together on the couch.

Soon enough, Dean even starts to maybe like the guy. A little. Not that they’re friends, or anything, but he doesn’t mind Benny so much, doesn’t mind the three of them being the three of them so much. Sure, he doesn’t love Benny staring at Cas over his mug like he hung the moon, or the gifts he starts bringing (“Made it outta that Metatron guy’s bookstore alive. Have you read this? I think you’d like it,” one day, a hearty loaf of homemade bread the next week), but it’s fine. They get along despite the shameless flirting.

Until all of a sudden, it’s been four and a half months and Miss Kline is due back next week. They’re sitting in the teacher’s lounge before school on a Friday at their usual table. Charlie, the computer skills teacher, Dean’s work wife, and the only person on staff besides Principal Singer who knows the truth, just popped in to show them pictures of the baby, little Jack, with his tuft of blond hair sticking straight up and his chubby cheeks.

“Well,” Benny says, leaning back in his chair. “End of the road.”

“We’ll miss you,” Cas says sincerely, reaching across the table to pat his arm.

“Don’t suppose,” Benny starts, looking right at Cas. “You’d wanna get a drink?”

“Okay,” Dean says because he’s finally had enough of this guy. “Look, dude, he’s taken.”

Benny looks at him and cocks his head like he doesn’t understand.

“A ring, I mean, come on, Cas is wearing a ring. A wedding ring.” Dean knows he’s almost definitely getting too loud because Cas’s other hand squeezes his thigh.

“Dean,” Cas says.

“And another thing -” Dean starts, but then he’s the one who doesn’t understand because Benny’s tipping his head back and laughing, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Cher,” Benny says, and Dean bristles at the pet name. A pet name, for his husband. The nerve of this guy. “You think I don’t know you two are together?”

Wait.

“You think,” Benny says, and leans forward in his chair, making direct eye contact with Dean. “I was only flirting with Mr. Novak here?”

“Uh,” Dean says, eloquently.

Benny raises an eyebrow, that same molasses grin spreading across his face. And then Cas is laughing, and Benny joins in, and, eventually, after he finishes thinking through the last four and a half months in a different light, so does Dean.

***

The other history teacher, Mildred, retires at the end of the school year. There’s a retirement party in the teacher’s lounge that’s also a welcome back Mr. Lafitte party.

When they come back in August, as far as almost everyone knows, the three of them are just Mr. Winchester, Mr. Novak, and Mr. Lafitte, work friends who really hit it off last spring when Ms. Kline was out. They used to drive separately, but now they carpool. They sometimes eat lunch in the teachers’ lounge with Charlie, but mostly they eat together crowded around the tiny desk in the tiny office at the back of the library. It works out that Benny and Dean have the same planning period, so they normally end up in the library at the end of the day, co-planning an interdisciplinary English and history unit with all sorts of supplementary materials that Cas helps them find.

And in the evenings, when they’re stretch out on the couch, Cas reading with his legs in Dean’s lap, his head against Benny’s shoulder, Dean and Benny grading on the matching lap desks Cas bought them at the beginning of the school year, they’ll catch each other’s eye over Cas’s head and grin, slow and sweet.

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