Tentatively turning around in bed, a man sporting fairly short, dark brown hair that was tousled messily on his head from tossing in his sleep, groaned faintly upon realizing his bed was empty. The other side was ruffled and smelled horrible. His blue orbs trailed over the mess around the ground on that side of the room, and that told him enough about what had made his bed so empty this morning at least. A dull pain was aching through him as he rolled out of bed.

His sweatpants hung on his delicate frame, threatening to fall off of his hips with just the slightest provocation as he teetered around the bed, straightening out the sheets and tucking them in properly so it looked absolutely perfect when his hands went over the comforter to smooth it out. He trailed around the room picking up rumpled clothing and throwing it into the hamper before finding the cigarette butts in one of his nice teacups. He took the teacup to the kitchen with a frown, gently tapping it against the inside of the trashcan to get most of the bile out before taking it to the sink where he cleaned it as thoroughly as possible, before gently drying it off and placing it back up on top shelf of the cabinet.

After he'd cleaned up the dishes that had been left in the sink, he wandered back into his room to get dressed, glancing at the clock as he made it in the room. 6:43. His alarm still had another two minutes before it would go off, but he always woke before it anymore. If it weren't for his workouts in the summer, he wouldn't have gotten in the routine of waking so early and these 7:30 lectures would have hurt so much more than they did right now. Waking up after six had become sleeping in for him anymore, the man had grown accustomed to either going to bed earlier or running on less sleep in general.

After shimmying his sweatpants off and tossing them in a hamper he pulled on some slacks and a white button up, followed by a blue silk tie and tan colored trench coat. His briefcase with his laptop and other things was where he left it at his desk, so he could easily scoop it up and be on his way, which was exactly what he did after locking the door and traipsing out his apartment to the bus stop not too far outside the door.

It was only a five-minute ride on the bus to the station on campus, and it was now only fifteen after seven so after a short walk to the union he was in class with a good ten minutes to spare. Walking patiently through the influx of mostly eager students, he was able to make his way to the front of the classroom with enough time to pull out his laptop and log in to set up a PowerPoint to the projector before his watched chimed perkily at exactly 7:30.

"Well, welcome," he spoke somewhat powerfully into the room so they would all quiet down. "Surprised to see you all here so bright and early," a few audible groans came from somewhere in the middle of the room and his eyes scanned the classroom as he spoke. "Enrollment says 300, and since this auditorium only seats 315…" his eyes crossed the room again, "Well, you can all count the number of empty seats." He gave a quick roll of his eyes as he walked back behind the podium with his laptop and pulled out his glasses. There had been a few chuckles from his last comment, but it was pretty plain what he was saying. Not everyone had bothered to show on the first day and he didn't expect the numbers to increase. This was only his second year teaching full time at a University with large lectures like this, but he knew well enough to know that his most populated days would be test days, and even then the numbers would drop along with enrollment, except for finals with the idiots who never showed up for the other tests then popped in for the final because they failed to drop the class. He had never done that in school, but knew enough people that did that it never surprised him while he taught.

"As the slide says and as you hopefully know, this is essentially, Religion 1013, the emphasis in Jewish and Christian origins. Meaning that some of you here are Religious Studies Majors or Minors, then the rest of you are taking this either in lieu of Humanities or World Literature one." Another small chuckle, though that was the end of his occasional funny banter, really. "I'm Professor Castiel Novak and hopefully we'll be seeing one another three times a week this year, barring any vacation conflicts. And I'm sorry if I'm not exciting enough for you at 7:30 in the morning." Okay, maybe it wasn't, but did he really want to be there that early in the morning? No, but as a newer teacher he didn't get first dibs on his time slots. Between this time and 9:30 at night, he would prefer the morning.

He spent the 50-minute period running through a slideshow of what they would be covering in the course over the course of the semester, when the tests would be, his email, his office number, his office hours, the paper requirements, and last but not least, his TAs who sat enthusiastically in the front row. They were the only reason he agreed to teach the class with a paper. He wasn't about to read over 300 papers by himself. He went over the required book as well, emphasizing that he would in fact use it, and that was laid out in a PowerPoint and through the school's own little enrollment and grading website, and by the time he was done explaining everything, he was regretting skipping his morning coffee and bagel sandwich. His stomach was growling audibly and his eyelids felt heavy, so when he wrapped up the PowerPoint he logged out immediately.

"Well, that's all I've got for you today."

Most people had already packed up, and the rest were quick to follow suit. While Castiel was bent down, sliding his laptop back into his bag before standing upright again where the small hoard of suck ups stood. Well, not all of them were suck ups, but the majority of them were. This would be inevitable with all of his classes, he internally groaned when he remembered that would happen for his next two classes today and his two classes tomorrow. He squared his shoulders back with a sigh when he stood upright and had to begin to address the students.

As his eyes ran over the dozen or so students, his eyes met with a few, but he focused on one in particular. His breath hitched, but the impossibly green eyes shifted away. While the first of the crowd began to introduce herself to Castiel, he heard her flirty tone and immediately began to zone out as she spoke. His eyes wandered to the owner of the wonderfully green eyes to find a young man, probably just a couple years younger than Castiel, chatting up what he supposed was an attractive young woman (obviously a Freshman by the way she had dressed up for a 7:30 class), with a coy smile on his face from what Castiel could barely see with his skewed side view.

The girl before him was on his way and slowly but surely the line filtered down until no one was left in the auditorium, except for Castiel. The green-eyed man had left awhile back. Castiel heaved a heavy sigh. Of course he had to just be flirting with that girl. One of the perks of the job for Castiel was that from time to time he did get the occasional so-called eye candy, but he was never enough fortunate to have those ones show up very often much less actually be one of the elite suck ups or smart ones that came to him for help.

But that was the last he saw of the green-eyed man that day. As luck would have it, he'd relocated with the pretty, over dressed brunette to the campus bakery. Internally, Castiel grumbled to himself. He was in a monogamous relationship with another man for Christ's sake; he shouldn't have been looking so interestedly at a student, especially a student who was acting so into the pretty brunette. Castiel went up to the counter to pull out the bagel, egg, bacon, and cheddar sandwich and a large coffee. He had a meal plan from the school and the sandwich and coffee made for a meal trade that he had found saved him way more money and time in the morning since he didn't have to make any breakfast for himself.

He took the only table open, which happened to be a few away from the green-eyed man. He was able to catch an occasional glimpse of him as he fiddled with his laptop and ate his breakfast. He noticed the brunette get up after awhile, but stared at his computer because he noticed her walking towards him.

Now Castiel was by no means completely naïve, so with the way she approached and sat across from him … it was almost impossible to miss. She crossed her legs, showing a significant amount of skin – enough to almost make Castiel uncomfortable. He knew college girls well enough to know that it didn't matter if he was attractive or not (although he liked to think he was), there were always a few that just went after their professors. His eyes rose from his sandwich and up to meet her with a brow raised curiously. "Can I help you?"

"Actually, you can." Castiel watched her eyes shift over to where he knew the green-eyed man had been sitting. "Professor Novak, right?" Her light-hearted chuckle caused him to put his sandwich down so he could lean back and actually focus on her. He gently closed the lid of his laptop as he gave a nod. emObviously/em he was Professor Novak, she wasn't that dumb. After all, the girl before him had been smart enough to get into Stanford. He couldn't quite comprehend why these smart girls still sometimes felt the need to play dumb. "My friend over there and I got talking about Dante and his circles of hell and I was telling him it's an accurate depiction of Dante's time and the corruption present then," As she spoke, he felt more confused as to why she had played dumb – she even more obviously wasn't. "Now, he thinks it can't transfer to modern day. Of course, I don't mean quite so literally. Like all religious text, it was built and adapted to the time in which it was written, and I think it could be adapted for modern day. I was emhoping/em, if you don't mind, that could back me up? I mean, unless you disagree, then I'm just going to slowly back out before he catches on." Castiel cracked a small smile at this. Well, he'd been a bit rude to think that they were just dirty talking. Dante wasn't really a work he covered in his class – it was better suited for a World Literature class – but it was based upon religion and he could certainly appreciate it, though he wasn't sure he agreed with the girl entirely.

"Well, I think a good portion of it can be easily adapted to modern day. Our laws are based upon a lot of the principals found in each of Dante's circles of hell. Of course, that wasn't really their intent…" He did this a lot. He had a vast knowledge and his triple major in religious studies, statistics, and history left little to his imagination. The girl beamed and popped up to retrieve the green-eyed man and Castiel felt his stomach tense nervously. He wanted to have an intellectual conversation, but the small glimpse he'd gotten of the man's eyes before was enough to make him practically speechless, who knew what prolonged exposure could cause.

The brunette, who's name he'd never gotten, returned with the green-eyed man who was giving her a rueful smile, though rolled his eyes. He only carried a coffee cup over to the table. Castiel thought it was curious that the man didn't have a backpack, but he was far too obsessed with keeping things organized to not bring a bag around with him. He wore scruffy boots, loose jeans, a flannel shirt with white undershirt visible from the top, and the brunette had set an old leather jacket over the back of his chair, so Castiel took the assumption it was his. He raised a curious brow to that since it was August in California – it was hardly leather jacket weather. His eyes met up with the green-eyed mans', but this time both sets lingered on one another's.

"So… Professor. Feel free to completely shoot down my friend here." Castiel looked over to the girl then back to the young man, shrugging slightly. He wouldn't rather just jump into confrontation with either of them; he'd much rather just monitor a conversation than just straight into a full on debate with a blindfold on.

"Or not." The young man spoke, his voice deep, like Castiel expected, though almost forced or something. There was a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

"I can't shut anyone down or agree with them until I know where they stand." At Castiel's response, the young man smirked in response. He went silent for a bit though, because he too was surprised by the man in front of him. He had a moderate voice that seemed to invite the green-eyed man in, and he accepted that.

"Well, I was just saying that sin is irrelevant. You know, people have their own perceptions on what qualifies as a "sin". I mean, it's all bullshit as is. I don't see there being any biblical text relating to nine circles of hell or whatever, because aren't all sins supposed to be equal? And that's more bullshit because if "God" is a forgiving God, all sins are forgiven. Hell was an idea created to scare the shit out of people so they didn't stray from doing the "right" thing." Castiel listened intently, though his eyes went between the two. The girl seemed completely uncomfortable as he spoke and Castiel took the assumption that she was incredibly religious while the green-eyed man wasn't. That was obvious by how he so blatantly spoke about heaven and hell. This wasn't really what Castiel's class was about, but he was eager to talk to the green-eyed man more, so he responded.

"I think that's a fair way of looking at it. The bible after all is a collection of stories. They chose stories that fit the time and fit the standards they wanted upheld by society. There's no doubt Christ was a great man, but they elevated him to a status of sainthood so as to use him in the image they wanted to portray to the public. All religions hold the foundation of a sort of heaven and hell, whether it be a fiery pit or a hell on Earth, or the pearly gates or seventy-two virgins." He shrugged and watched the mans smirk reappear, which caused him to look at the girl who was frowning. "Sorry, I can neither agree nor disagree with him. You both present reasonable points. I would be a poor teacher if I told you what was emright/em in terms of religious studies when religion in and of itself is founded on faith, something that is entirely personal in it's basis." She sighed and shrugged in response.

"But you can't just go around truly treating all sins as equal – that was just something said to give people hope for redemption."

"Why not? One interpretation would be that they are all equal while another would say that they aren't. Cursing and homicide might be equal to me but they might not be equal to you. Who determines and decides that? Why is one even considered bad? Is it morals or faith?" The girl looked at him seriously, and thought before responding.

"It's both." Castiel smiled lightly, and the group fell into silence. It was borderline awkward until the girl looked up at the wall where Castiel knew no clock existed, but she acted as if there was and basically jumped out of her seat. "Oh, I'm sorry, I have class in five minutes. Thanks for taking the time to talk, Professor. And I'll see you around…" she paused, looking at the man sitting next to her.

"Dean." His response was matched with a slight smile to which she didn't take much notice before heading out in quite the hurry. This Dean person turned in his chair to watch her as he left and Castiel expected him to follow behind, but he didn't. Instead he turned back to Castiel and shook his head slightly. "Sometimes it's just not worth the effort." Castiel heard his muttering through his sigh.

"You're at the wrong school if you're looking for significantly easier freshmen. Might I suggest frat row Thursday through Saturday nights?" Castiel wasn't naïve to the extent that he thought all of the "smart" students here at Stanford were pure. Of course, since he taught two freshman-level religious studies courses, an honors colloquium for the same subject, two sophomore-level statistics colloquiums, and a basic freshman composition class, so he tended to have the cream of the crop in terms of innocence, but that gradually tainted. And with his large lecture, the tainting was shown in how his attendance declined throughout the semester.

Castiel was still looking at the man called Dean, waiting for him to say something, but he just continued to sit there with a sort of smug look on his face for a while longer before finally saying something back. "What was it again? Professor…?" Castiel leaned back in his seat with a small sigh.

"Castiel Novak. And you?"

"Dean Winchester." Castiel cocked an eyebrow curiously.

"Like the rifle?"

"Like the rifle."

The pair fell into an awkward silence again. Castiel wanted to reach for what was left of his sandwich, though he had a sinking feeling that it was cold and it wouldn't be quite as delicious as it had been a few minutes prior. He didn't mean to end up staring Dean down a bit in the process, but when he focused in again, he felt uncomfortable that he'd spent so long staring at the other man. But there he was, that slight smirk still on his face. He slapped the table lightly and stood up, throwing his jacket over his shoulder. "Sorry to bother you." Something told Castiel that this Dean guy wasn't really all that sorry. "I guess I'll be seeing you around then, Cas."

Castiel wanted to rebuke the mans sudden nicknaming of him, but he was strolling away before Castiel knew what to do, so he just sat there in slight shock as the man left the bakery.