Wednesday November 26th
(2 weeks into Dean and Sam's treatment)
Morning group is all about forgiveness, and one look at Castiel's pleading blue eyes and Dean is out the door, no looking back. After a bleak breakfast and med time, he plays with Colt for a while in the rec room, tossing a stuffed squirrel around until his bad mood seems to rub off on the dog, who eventually ignores both Dean and the toy and stalks out of the room. So Dean watches TV until it's time for his session with Missouri.
The topic of forgiveness is fresh in his mind, but instead of talking about his pathetic longing to tell Cas it's okay, he understands that he grew up with religion shoved down his throat, and that he'll wait until he's ready, Dean talks about his father and his inability to forgive him. The session takes an hour and a half, and when they are done, Dean feels no closer to letting go of his past than he had been at the beginning of the session. He only feels drained.
Fucking therapy.
Dean decides to stop going out of his way to avoid Cas, because he's missing out on practically everything, so he goes to the mall outing because he knows that this may be the only time to do gift shopping before Christmas. He buys Sam a book of compiled Shakespeare works. Dean is still royally pissed-off at Cas, but that anger is starting to soften as time goes by, and he thinks that by the holiday things will be a little more friendly between them, if not intimate again. So he throws caution to the wind and buys him a gift, too. If they're not civil by then, he can just give it to Sam.
Dean is just putting away Sam and Castiel's presents when the latter man pushes him against his dresser and kisses him with enough force that he's practically bending backward. It feels perfect, the way their mouths fit together, but Cas has a lot he needs to explain first, so he leans back as much as he can without slipping a disk or something.
"What was that for?"
"I wanted to kiss you," Castiel says, latching his mouth onto Dean's neck. "I still want to kiss you."
Dean wants to pull away, because what the fuck is happening, but holy shit Cas is biting kisses on all the most sensitive parts of his neck, and he finds himself leaning into the touches.
"I'm kinda getting mixed messages here." He can't help but moan as Cas nips at his earlobe.
"I didn't mean what I said. Not a signal word of it." He pulls away from what is probably going to turn into a hickey and looks at him with an apologetic look that seems pretty genuine.
"Then why did you say it?"
"I was scared." Castiel brushes his lips against Dean's chastely. "I'm sorry."
Dean is trying to figure out what was so terrify about what they were doing that would cause such a reaction.
"Cas, have you ever been with a guy before?"
Castiel takes a shaky breath and looks down at the floor, twisting his hands together. "Just one, and it was far from enjoyable."
Dean feels anger rising up in his chest again, this time not toward Cas, but toward whatever asshole made him nervous to be with another man. He probably rushed him, didn't do enough prep or use enough lube. Dean's been on the bottom end of painful sex before, so he gets it.
"Look, I'm not like him, okay? I won't hurt you. We can go as slow as you need to."
Cas finally looks back up at him and presses their lips together again, this time slow and gentle, and then leans his forehead against Dean's. "Thank you."
They sit together at dinner and Dean can't get over how right it feels. He talks with Andy and Sam and Cas about books the whole time, which Dean admits is a pretty nerdy, but he is a closeted fan of reading and he likes being part of table conversation again.
They talk about Shakespeare, which Sam loves (and Dean feels pleased with his choice of present today), Vonnegut, whose books Andy and Dean argue over, and The Lord of the Rings, which Castiel has neither seen nor read.
"Woah," Andy says, putting his sandwich down and staring at Cas like he just grew a second head. "First Star Wars, now Lord of the Rings? Have you been living under a rock?"
"That's what I've been saying!" Dean tells them.
Garth pounds on the table with his fist. "I'm calling Charlie, STAT, my friend."
And so continues the game of discovering what classics Cas has been deprived of. They have a lot of catching up to do.
After dinner Sam and Castiel bug Dean about going to yoga.
"I don't do yoga," he tells them, scrolling through his iPod to find something to drown out his annoying brother and roommate.
"You did yoga with me that one time, remember?" Of course Sam would bring that up.
"That's because I was trying to get with the instructor, who was incredibly hot. And I succeeded, I might add."
"This one's hot, too," Cas tells him.
"Yeah Dean, I think you'll like this one," Sam adds.
In the end, Dean caves, but truthfully he's only going because he wants to see how bendy Cas is. If the instructor is attractive, that's just a bonus. "Fine, fine. You win. I'll go."
It turns out it was all just a scheme that Dean fell for. The instructor is not hot. It's Garth, and although he is kind of cute in his own quirky way, he would never describe the BHA as sexy or anything like that.
Despite the fact that Dean found out that Castiel is indeed very flexible, fueling his fantasies for at least the next week, he regrets saying yes to the whole thing. He actually faceplants in warrior III pose, but thankfully the his embarrassment is overshadowed by Andy letting one rip during downward dog and laughing so hard Garth asks him to leave, which admittedly was pretty fucking hilarious.
Still, he definitely won't be doing yoga again anytime soon.
They have free time after that, and Cas, Dean, and Andy spend the first half getting completely baked in the bathroom again, during which time Dean and Castiel actually shotgun, and they spend the second half of break watching Ancient Aliens, at Cas' suggestion. It was the first thing Cas discovered on Netflix here, and it's full of conspiracy theorists who talk about how people a long time ago were visited by extraterrestrial beings and given technology to build shit they wouldn't have been able to build before. Dean doesn't know if it's the weed giving him paranoia, but the damn show is starting to sound very convincing.
They have to pause for wrap-up group and meds, but Dean doesn't take his sleeping pill, determined to stay up with Cas and Andy and watch more of the show.
They're still pretty stoned as they continue the marathon, and then Castiel suggests they go to the kitchen and make hats out of tin foil, so, as he says, "the aliens can't read our minds when the mothership comes." Dean is not nearly high enough to do anything but watch Andy and Cas with raised eyebrows as they fashion each other pointed protective hats, but seeing Cas laugh so freely makes him really happy.
When they finally go to bed around midnight, finally clear-headed, Dean receives several goodnight kisses from Castiel and marvels at the day's turn of events.
