Castiel was going to say something, figure out who had sent him the picture and at least thank them for it because it was beautiful and thoughtful and someone had spent a lot of time on it. They deserved to hear how much it meant to him to have someone not look though him like he was a pane of glass for once, but when he made it back to the common room eyeing the other patients that he passed in an effort to try to suss out who the mystery artist was he had realized exactly how many people had been in Pam's art lesson.
Practically everyone was sporting paint embedded under their fingernails or hands that were tinted graphite grey from moving over recently made pencils marks, there was no way in hell he was going to be able to figure out who had done the drawing, not without asking around and that was the whole stranger thing coming back to bite him because just the thought of talking to anyone besides Ash or Charlie or Dean or even fucking Crowley made his throat dry and achy.
So he stuck the drawing into the crossword puzzle book that Gabriel had brought him, being careful when he folded it into the newspaper print pages so that it wouldn't get messed up and went to sit on the couch behind Becky and Charlie who were sitting cross-legged on the floor with the coffee table between them playing a heated card game that he didn't really understand the rules of. He could play poker, Balthazar had taught him that way back in their freshman year and both of his brothers had learned the hard way that Castiel's poker face was a force to be reckoned with, but whatever they were playing involved a lot of hand slapping and excited, girly squealing that was giving him a bit of a headache.
"Cas," Charlie began seriously, marking down on the scoresheet that she was keeping for the two girls' game with a little, triumphant smirk on her face. "We missed you during art class."
"I don't draw," He said, running a hand over the back of his neck as he did because was this going to be a thing that happened every time he didn't do something that the rest of the floor seemed to do?
If so maybe he should just suck it up and go watch everyone else draw so that he didn't have to hear about it later. Even if it made his heart hurt from missing his mom and the way she smelled like turpentine faded acrylics and how the parts of her fingers where she would hold the charcoal that she used to sketch was permanently tinged black. He had always just enjoyed watching her work when he was a kid and maybe he could find the same peace watching other people do something similar.
"I don't either," Charlie continued, seeming unconcerned about the pained expression that Castiel was sure was on his face. "But there are a couple of people here who are really good, it's kind of fun to just screw around while they paint all serious and stuff. You should see mine and Dean's room; it looks like a kindergarten teacher's worst nightmare. Finger paintings as far as the eye can see."
He smiled weakly when he thought of what the pairs' room probably looked like, Dean's portion covered in posters of swimsuit models looking a lot like Balthazar's half of their dorm had before the Brit started dating Meg and taking decorating advice from Castiel with Charlie's finger paintings encroaching on the other man's side like a primary colored disease spreading across the walls. Castiel thought about sticking up his mystery drawing on his own wall, but if the artist hadn't even signed it maybe they were shy and he could understand that so maybe he would just keep it to himself, keep it something private that might make him feel better if he started getting down.
"Where is Dean, anyway?" Becky asked, licking her lips nervously and glancing back at Castiel who was sitting next to where she had her back propped up against the couch.
"You know how he gets after Lisa comes by," Charlie replied rolling her eyes at the other girl and making a jerk off motion with her hand that earned a snorting laugh from Becky. "Artists can be so temperamental."
"Yea well, he's missing out on all of the lovely company." Becky said giggling, leaning her shoulder into Castiel's leg and glancing up at him meaningfully before flinching back when the table jerked between her and Charlie, screeching slightly across the tiled floor. "Ow! Shit, Charlie."
"Body space, Becks." Charlie chided gently, giving the girl a pointed look that Castiel couldn't even begin to understand. "Don't want you getting in trouble."
"I fucking bet," Becky sneered, her mousy face looking suddenly vicious and feral as she clambered to her feet and tossed her cards down on the table before stalking over to sit next to Crowley who just smiled at her approach like a wolf charming an unsuspecting lamb.
"Ignore her," Charlie said, sighing to herself and gathering up the scattered cards, shuffling them expertly and holding the fanned out deck towards Castiel. "Pick a card."
"What was that about?" He asked, leaning forwards with his crossword puzzle book in his lap to pluck out a card. Castiel gave it a cursory glance, the ace of spades before placing it on the top of the deck like Charlie gestured for him to do.
"Becky is um...well I don't like to talk about other people's business," Charlie said softly, flipping through the cards with practiced movements turning them and shuffling them until she started to deal them out solitaire style. "Just know that she's not supposed to be within two arms lengths of any male patients."
"Dean was hugging her earlier," Castiel murmured, watching Charlie's sure movements enthralled when she flipped over the top card on her reserve pile, his ace of spades, giving it a satisfied little tap before smiling up at him.
"Is that your card?"
Castiel nodded quickly, knowing that his eyes were probably as round as saucers because sleight of hand was just another thing that he had never been good at as a kid even with all of the magic kits he bought at the joke shop that Gabriel liked to visit. "How did you do that?"
"Cas, they'd kick me out of the alliance of magicians if I told you that." Charlie said ruefully, offering him the pencil she had been using to keep score before starting to set out another game of solitaire, squared up in perfect little piles on the table before her. "And with Dean and Becks...it's different. She's surprisingly realistic when it comes to who she hits on. I'm kinda stunned she even tried with you, but then again the girl wouldn't respect a dibs if it bit her on the butt."
"Dibs?" Castiel asked softly, feeling the sweat that he hadn't even noticed make his shirt stick to his back.
He swallowed hard and flipped to the first page of his crossword puzzle book, drawing an idle little scribble in the corner of the page of some made up language that he and Anna used to use when they were younger and bonding over being the only two kids in the house after Gabe and Mike moved out. Charlie probably knew who sent him the drawing; he would only have to ask. She had been in there, right there finger painting with Dean and acting goofy and being an easy going early twenty something who was probably used to having secret admirers.
Cas was not that kind of twenty two year old. People didn't just give him things without some kind of hidden motive or special occasion being involved. Balthazar had bribed him with tickets to see the Pixies that he had claimed were for Castiel's birthday about six months ago, but really it was so that he and Meg could have the apartment to themselves for their anniversary, which just happened to fall the same day of the concert two weeks after his birthday. Coming home to find the chain lock in place inside the door, effectively keeping him out of his own house, had been an unwelcome reminder of how much of a third wheel he was amongst the people he claimed to be friends with.
Charlie ignored his question anyway, whether it was on purpose or not he couldn't tell because she was just so focused on her game that she might not have heard him. So he folded himself up on the couch with his puzzles, trying not to think of the drawing that he had spent twenty minutes sitting on the edge of his bed staring at and badgering Rufus about who had left it, but apparently the older man's back had been towards the door and all he had noticed was that it wasn't there before lunch and when he had gotten up to go to the bathroom later it was.
The drawing that was lurking folded up in the back of the book that he was holding, so close that if he wanted to he could pull it out and look at it again. His fingers itched to do so, to feel the way that whoever had drawn it had pressed the pencil firmly into the paper, leaving slight indentations like the spaces between piano keys that he used to feel against his fingertips hours after he had finished playing. Castiel could imagine soft, sleepy music playing in the background when the drawing had been coming to life under the artist's sure hands even though the cafeteria had in all likelihood probably been pretty loud like it had been at lunchtime during Lisa's art lesson. But it was special; just for him and Cas wasn't ready to share it with anyone else so it stayed buried in the book instead.
He lost himself in the simple, monotonous task that the crosswords provided him humming under his breath as he worked and periodically pushing his glasses back up his nose or running a hand through his hair when a clue for the puzzle stumped him. It was almost fun, working on something that wasn't really challenging but still required paying attention and there wasn't a deadline on it; which was honestly probably the best thing about the brain-teaser. Castiel could put it down and pick it up at his leisure and not feel like his chest was caving in or the world was going to spin off of its axis if he didn't finish it by a certain time. It was freeing.
Castiel didn't even notice that it was dinnertime until a paper was being waved in front of his nose by Ellen; it was the same menu thing that Jo had given him earlier where he was supposed to circle what he wanted to eat the next day.
"Need that before you go to sleep, sugar. Otherwise you'll be eating burgers and grilled cheese again tomorrow." Ellen said, giving him a wink before heading back towards the nurse's station and a stack of the same kind of papers that were waiting for her on the desk there.
"The grilled cheese is actually pretty epic," Charlie said, stretching from where she had moved to sit beside him on the couch at some point; reading her faded, well-worn copy of The Hobbit that he had seen her with. "Y'know for hospital food. I'm gonna go see if Dean is up to coming to dinner go grab us a table, will you Cas?"
Part of him wanted to ask why the other man wouldn't be coming to dinner, Dean had seemed fine earlier. In fact, he was probably one of the most upbeat people in this place besides Crowley who just seemed to want to be in the hospital more than anything else, but after Charlie's cryptic explanation for why Becky wasn't supposed to touch people he figured he might be better off not knowing what was going on with his green-eyed tour guide.
Castiel headed towards the cafeteria, taking the long way around so that he could drop off his puzzle book in his room. Pausing there long enough to change into a shirt that wasn't entirely soaked in sweat and smooth out the creases that he had put into the drawing when he had folded it. He cast around for somewhere he could put it without it getting torn or crinkled before finally deciding that under his pillow was probably the safest place, that's where he had kept important stuff as a kid; stuff that he wanted to look at before he went to sleep or would keep bad dreams away through the powers of osmosis and a child's imagination.
When he rounded the corner at the bottom of the hall, slipping his cardigan back on over the old grey New York Marathon t-shirt that Gabriel had brought him that Castiel knew really belonged to Michael because his oldest brother was the runner in the family, he paused outside of the door marked 'Bradbury/720904' and 'Winchester/091808' wondering if he should check to see if Dean and Charlie were ready, but he could hear hushed voices coming from inside the dimly lit room.
He chanced a peek inside, ducking back when he saw Dean pulling a long sleeved plaid button down shirt on, his heart doing a weird little flip when he saw how muscled the other man was and feeling entirely self conscious of his own wiry frame that used to be strong too before stress and nausea had cause him to stop eating more than a couple of bites a day. Dean looked like the kind of guy that ended up on the covers of the Men's Health magazines that Michael kept around his swanky Upper West Side apartment and Castiel...well, didn't. No wonder no one wanted him.
"I just feel stupid, Charlie." Dean muttered to the girl petulantly where she was sitting on one of the beds in the room, playing with a couple of pencils that she had found there holding them like chopsticks and sighing to herself.
"I miss sushi," She said, ignoring Dean's statement and clicking the pencils together in his direction like she was going to pinch him.
"Not helpful," Dean groused, hurriedly doing up the buttons on his shirt and tugging on the sleeves with a grimace. "I should've just kept it to myself, I don't know why I let you talk me into doing such bonehead shit sometimes."
"Because I'm always right about these kind of things," Charlie said, nudging his boots in his direction before standing up and putting her hands on her hips impatiently. "Besides I want to see you happy and you two would be the absolute cutest. I'm not going to be here forever Dean, I need someone to be the angel on your shoulder once I'm gone."
Castiel decided that he had heard enough, maybe Lisa wasn't really a therapist just like a volunteer or something. It probably wouldn't be against the rules for her to date a patient once they discharged and it really shouldn't bother him so much that Charlie was trying to set Dean up with her. He didn't even like guys, okay maybe he appreciated them from afar sometimes, but it always became weird when he started thinking of it in terms beyond that; he could barely look Alfie in the face anymore after giving the other man his number so that he could call about some GRE flashcards that Cas had made. It had felt too much like begging for a date and the pitying look on the other man's face had just confirmed that he really had been acting weird around his study partner even though he had been trying his damndest not to.
After seeing all of the shit that Michael dealt with in junior high and high school, getting picked on by every intolerant jock in school for just being the president of the Gay/Straight Alliance; Castiel didn't want to imagine what kind of flack he would get for acting on any bicurious feeling he might have. No, straight was easier. He could just pine after Meg forever until someone finally got desperate enough that they settled for him; Cas knew that the kind of relationship that his parents had had together wasn't in the cards for him. Not as long as the girl he was in love with was dating his best friend.
He was still trying to sort out his feelings when he headed into the cafeteria and sat down at the same table that Ash was already sitting at, still wearing the thick driving gloves that he had been wearing earlier and swearing up and down to Bobby that he could hear secret government radio chatter through the fillings in his teeth anytime metal touched his skin. Just when Castiel had started to think that maybe there were more than a handful of normal people in this place, he heard something else that threw him for a loop. Dick and Crowley were speculating at a nearby table about how muffins made out of babies might taste and Ruby and Lilith were laughing over something like they hadn't been threatening to murder each other just hours before.
"Hey, Cas."
Castiel looked up from where he had dropped his gaze to the scared wooden tabletop, flinching away from a pretty imposing glare that Dick had leveled at him once the older man had realized that Cas was eavesdropping. Dean was standing there, looking less self-assured than he had earlier in the day and biting on his lip nervously before quickly taking the chair next to him, again at the head of the table with Charlie settling on the other side of him with an amused smile on her face.
"Hello, Dean." Castiel said, clearing his throat and nodding thanks at Bobby when he sat a tray with grilled cheese and tomato soup in front of him on the table.
It smelled amazing and when Dean wordlessly moved his tea to sit next to Castiel's tray again, looking at him in askance before taking his glass of ice water off of his tray in exchange that little gesture is what steeled his resolve that he was going to fucking eat this, at least some of it. He could see the worry in Dean and Charlie's faces when he didn't immediately reach for his silverware and it reminded him of Anna; how she would always always ask if he was ok. To the point that it became annoying, but he could never disappoint her so he would choke down whatever food was in front of him and just pray that it wouldn't come up later even though it almost always did.
Dean smiled widely at him when he took the first bite of grilled cheese, nodding with surprised eyes towards Charlie when she commented that she had told him so, right? Castiel instinctively smiled back at Dean, because something about the other man's elation was infectious and then he blushed because the image of Dean walking around his room with his red and gold plaid shirt unbuttoned flashed suddenly through his mind only the memory had changed so that Dean was smiling just for him.
And that shouldn't make him hard, probably wouldn't have if it had been anyone else, but Castiel could admit that Dean was a good looking guy. All strong jaw line and wide shoulders and light brown hair that had probably never even seen an emo phase in its perfect life. The kind of guy that girls swooned over and called rugged, the kind of guy that Castiel definitely did not have dreams about when he watched too many episodes of Dr. Sexy M.D. in a row with Michael or Meg. Dreams that involved all kinds of things that he had only read about online along with all of his other knowledge about sex because his practical knowledge was non-fucking-existent, not that he had dreams like that about other guys. No.
He shifted in his seat and just thanked god that he hadn't decided to put on any of the pants that Gabriel had brought him because there would be no way he could hide an erection in any material that was thinner than denim if he had to suddenly bolt out of here in embarrassment. Castiel just willed it away, tried to think of things that had always worked in the past like stray kittens or starving children, stuff that would make the guilt override the hormones and make him sad probably, but bonerless and not scaring off the few friends he was trying to make here.
"Are we still playing?" Ash asked around a mouthful of lasagna, gesturing with his plastic fork towards Charlie. "Or did we decide that Bradbury won yesterday?"
"The game never ends, Ash." Dean stated seriously, taking a bite of his own grilled cheese after dunking it into the bowl of soup on his tray. "Its not a winner or losers kind of thing."
"Dude, you have so many games that I never know which one ends up with someone coming out on top or not." Ash grumbled before getting a serious look on his face. "I'll go first, Edwin Armstrong."
"Who the hell is that?" Charlie asked, sounding incredulous and winking at Castiel conspiratorially as she elbowed Ash in the side. "You made that one up."
"Did not, "Ash protested. "Guy invented FM radio, he's the reason we're all going to get brain tumors. Jumped out of a building."
"Oh-kay," Dean said rolling his eyes. "Um...Van Gogh, shot himself in the chest."
"You always say Van Gogh," Becky muttered, sliding her tray onto the other end of the table with an apologetic glance towards Charlie. "I don't think this is a nice game by the way. Its freakin' morbid."
"You just say that because you aren't any good at it," Ash drawled.
"Francesca Woodman," Dean interrupted, pointing his finger at Becky with a teasing smile on his face. "If you stay you play, Becks. Woodman, photographer, concrete nosedive."
"What is the game?" Castiel asked, furrowing his brow because he knew who Van Gogh was of course, but Woodman was a pretty obscure artist.
He and his mom had gone to the Guggenheim to see a showcase of her work just months before the diagnosis came, he could still remember how happy she had been then even though what they had thought at the time were ulcers had kept her from eating a lot when he had taken her to Three Guys for lunch. Greek food still made his stomach churn and he hadn't been back to their favorite restaurant since she had died.
"They're naming people who've committed suicide." Becky said disapprovingly.
"But not just that," Charlie added quickly. "You have to know what they did for a living and how they offed themselves or you're out."
"What happens when there's only one person left?"
"I don't think we've figured that out yet," Ash said with a shrug. "That's probably why no one ever really wins, no incentive. Right, Dean?"
Castiel saw the other man glance at him and rub at his jaw in a contemplative way before nodding his head slowly. He remembered what Dean had said to him earlier about there not being any incentive to keep his level and Cas wondered not for the first time what his new friend was actually doing here when he seemed so together and popular and outgoing.
"Jon Dough!" Becky said loudly before lowering her voice quickly when Bobby shot her a disapproving look. "Porn star, hung himself."
"You would," Charlie laughed, tossing a piece of crust off of her grilled cheese at Becky who was eating some plate full of steamed vegetables that looked unappetizing as hell. "Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, purposely got a snake to bite her."
"Hardcore," Ash marveled, pushing his tray away with a sigh. "You in, Cas? If you stay, you play."
"He doesn't have to play," Dean muttered under his breath, glancing at him again with a faint pinkish tinge on his cheeks. "You don't have to play, Cas."
"No, it's fine." Castiel said, carefully putting down his spoon and picking up his tea-something chamomile this time, probably so it would make everyone calm and sleepy. "Um...Bob Welch, guitarist, Van Gogh'd himself."
"Fleetwood Mac." Dean said softly beside him, smirking and biting his lip at the same time like the fact that Castiel knew anything about the band had surprised him, but that he hadn't meant to let it show.
Cas decided that it was an expression that could compete with some of Meg's best adorable pouty faces. He cleared his throat in an effort to get his mind off of that track; Dean was straight, he was straight. Being in a mental ward was not any excuse for suddenly deciding he could indulge in those kind of thoughts, it only led to trouble and for him that meant panic attacks and cold showers and sleepless nights with a stomach that wouldn't stop roiling.
They continued going around the table with the game for a couple more turns, Castiel kept naming musicians just because that's what he knew; he noticed that Dean kept doing artists and authors, all of Charlie's were women, and Ash was just all over the place with politicians and serial killers and athletes. Becky got knocked out after two turns because everyone voted that David Carradine did not count since his death via autoerotic asphyxiation had been an accident.
It wasn't until he was watching Dean laugh, little crinkles forming at the corners of his eyes and the horrible fluorescent lighting playing off of the natural highlights in his hair when he tipped it back to clutch and his side and try to get his breathing back under control that Castiel realized not only had he eaten practically everything on his tray, including the lime green jello that Gabriel would have gagged over if he had seen him eating it, but that he wasn't feeling nauseous. Not even in the slightest.
And then he realized he was staring, because everyone had suddenly gotten really quiet and Dean wasn't laughing anymore just staring at him too. Charlie was sitting beside Dean with her eyes wide and covering her mouth in the same way that Anna had when they had watched their kitten (now the most annoyingly cuddly cat ever) carefully curl up in the crook of their dad's neck one time when he had fallen asleep at his desk while writing.
Castiel cleared his throat and searched for something to do with himself, something that would take everyone's attention off of him because he wasn't used to it and it was too much too fast for him to deal with. He got up, breathing a thankful sigh that his erection had faded to something he could write off as just being the fabric of his clothes laying weird and went to put his tray on the big cart that he had put the one from lunch on, muttering that he would see everyone in the common room when the movie started and escaped to his room.
"Someone's got a crush," Crowley sing-songed when he passed the other man in the hallway and all Castiel could do was duck his head and wrap his arms around his chest and walk faster.
It was nothing because Cas was in love with Meg. Falling all over himself, worshipping the ground she walked on, putting his trench coat over puddles so that she could walk across in love with Meg. Casablanca, Gone With the Wind, old timey movie in love with Meg. But Dean was nice and funny and he didn't have to try so hard to not be weird around the other man; try to hide how bad things had actually gotten with the not eating and being depressed like he did with Meg because they were in a psych ward and being weird was kind of a prerequisite for being here.
Meg had her problems, her family that she hardly spoke to and all of the stuff with not being able to hold down a job, but it was normal stuff and she could deal with it. She had Balthazar to help her and Cas had no one, it was nice to feel like someone might understand and not judge him for the crazy things going on in his head half the time. And Dean was his friend, it was nothing.
It was not a crush, he just admired the other man for being so easy going and intelligent about cool stuff like art and books without even seeming to have to work at it like Cas did with school. Dean was just...perfect. In a way that he never would be and it was not a fucking crush.
He spent about twenty minutes rationalizing all of this out in his room, listening to the deep, even breathing of his roommate that told him Rufus was asleep and staring out the window at the rapidly darkening Brooklyn skyline like it would open up and reveal that his life was just one big joke with a very unfunny punch line. Castiel had already decided that God was a malicious bully, cackling over their dilemmas like a schoolboy burning up ants with a magnifying glass, but really this was all getting to be a bit much.
When he went to join everyone else in the common room, Castiel was surprised to find that there were only about fifteen people out of the thirty or so he had figured out were on the floor sprawled out on the various couches and chairs that had been turned to face the television mounted in the corner more fully. The movie had already started playing and Charlie earned a rousing shush from everyone in the room when she squeaked and waved him over to where she and Dean had commandeered a couch front and center of the collective group.
Castiel settled beside her, hugging the armrest on his right hand side like it would be the only thing that could save him; like in the event of a plane crash it could turn into a flotation device. He huffed out an unamused chuckle and told himself not to look over at Dean when he realized that his gaze had already shifted over to the other man who had his arm draped loosely across the back of the couch behind Charlie's shoulders and was watching the screen with a fond expression on his face, mouthing the lines to himself seconds before they were spoken by the actors.
He tried not to think about how Dean's hand was right there almost touching his shoulder, the sleeve of his plaid shirt hiking up a bit to show off the musculature of his wrist and the veins that weren't as pronounced as Castiel's under the other man's tan skin. Castiel remembered how Dean had just draped an arm over his shoulder like it was nothing when he had been giving him the tour so maybe it wouldn't be weird if he leaned into the other man's hand just a little bit. He wrote it off as trying to get comfortable as he shifted a little closer to Charlie on the couch and not as wanting to feel like he could breathe again like had happened earlier when Dean had touched him.
Because he was having just a little bit of trouble breathing and swallowing and sweating and maybe he should have just stayed in his room and done crossword puzzles until he passed out. If he passed out; Castiel was feeling entirely too awake, chamomile tea be damned and it didn't help that when he finally felt Dean's fingers brush against his upper shoulder through his cardigan it was like someone had just shocked him with a live wire and he flinched in the exact same way too.
He could feel someone looking at him, but he didn't tear his eyes off of the screen and Billy Murray because if only he could go back and do over a couple of days until he got it right maybe his life would be better. And he didn't want to see the question on her face if it was Charlie and if Dean was looking at him he definitely didn't want to see that because it was going to just ruin his carefully constructed wall of self control that he had just spent all of that time building so that he wouldn't dwell too much to the image that was flitting through his mind of Dean on the cover of one of his mom's old romance novels.
Castiel tried not to move when he felt something touching him again, slow and tentatively trailing across the seam at the top of his shoulder on his cardigan and up to the stretched out neckline of Michael's old shirt where it was too wide and left his skin exposed along the curve where his neck met his shoulder. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe, swallowing hard when Dean's hand stopped there, just shy of touching his skin and settled there like it was the most comfortable position for his arm to be in.
And it probably was, there was no way that Dean could possibly know what it was doing to him to feel someone, anyone be that close to touching him. Someone who wasn't family and his body was miles beyond caring that it wasn't Meg and it wasn't a girl because he was so fucking hard that he thought he was going to explode.
Castiel couldn't remember the last time that he had felt someone who wasn't one of his siblings willingly and knowingly press their skin against his and if he had known how touch deprived he was then maybe he would've spent the time in his room jerking off to his old standby Meg fantasies instead of having a mini-freak out over something that was probably just being caused by him not being used to someone being so nice to him. That had to be what it was with Dean, because it was not a crush.
Author Note: It's happening with this one too guys. The thing where my chapters get longer and longer because my characters just want to do stuff that I have to write because its adorable or genius and I only freaking think of it when I sit down to write. So I'm sorry that this one is so much longer than the others, but I'm not really because you like it don't you? My insanity must be catching.
ALSO, Athenasisters I will f'n marry you I swear to all that's holy you complimenting lady you. Your reviews are a joy to wake up to!
