Always Cas | ✔

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO; part one

     Sleep comes easy that night and in the morning Cas and I go our separate ways. I head to Weston's first, determined to begin prep before my session with Ashley. My mobility is better, but not good enough that today will be easy.

     After I've unlocked and disarmed the store, I cross the front room, pausing in the place I'd stood two nights ago. I expect to be hit with a flashback but I'm not. I feel grateful to be alive, to be minimally injured, that nobody else was hurt.

     I go into the kitchen and start prepping cupcakes, moving slowly but moving, nonetheless.

     Dolores and Charles come in early, walking into the kitchen looking surprised that I'm there. "Good morning," Charles says recovering faster than Dolores. "You look well."

     "I am well," I say coolly.

     "How's your arm?" Dolores asks. "Should you be moving like this? What did Cas say?"

     "Cas is not my doctor," I say, dismissively. "Cas is a doctor. But he's not mine, anymore. I'll be following up with my doctor next week. But in the mean time it's business as usual. Full menu, and we'll start the pies for Thanksgiving this week."

     I show up to my appointment on the later side, so that Ashley beats me there. When I get into her office, she gives me a surprised look. "You're running late," she says.

     "Yeah, sorry, prep took longer than usual," I tell her as I hang up my coat and take a seat.

     She fixes me with a serious stare. "I'm glad you're okay," she says. "I wish you had sent me a message to let me know what happened. I had to hear about it from Polly in the grocery store last night."

     "Better than hearing about it on MSNBC this morning," I mutter.

     "Oh, well, I heard it again, then," she says. "I'm kind of in awe this happened here in Aurora. Makes you rethink things."

     "Well the guy wasn't local," I tell her. "Aurora's still safe. This kind of thing could've happened anywhere."

     "So how have you been dealing with this with everything else? You look rested, at least. The sleeping pills are working?"

     "I actually haven't been taking them. I've slept really well the last few days. I expected some kind of disturbance, but nothing."

     "Interesting. And did getting shot bring up any memories for you? All this mention of Michael, how are you dealing with that?"

     "It really didn't," I say and then stop. "I feel good about it all. It doesn't even hurt to talk about him. I actually told Cas about him."

     Ashley raises her eyebrow questioningly so I proceed to tell her about the last week of events, everything leading up to getting snowed in with Cas and everything that followed.

     "There's a lot to unpack here," she says after a moment. "I have to be honest, Dresden, I'm disappointed. I really hoped you would maintain boundaries with Cas. And now you're telling me Cas has not only been intimate with you, but others, too? And didn't make you aware of this? That's risky behavior."

     "I know and I said that. I understand without exclusivity I can't be mad about what he does with others, but not knowing isn't fair to me. Because his exposure is my exposure."

     "So then why are you sleeping together again? Have you made things exclusive?"

     I shake my head. "It's a work in progress."

     "Have you told him how you feel?'

     "I think he knows, honestly," I respond. "I don't see how he couldn't."

     "That's not an assumption you can make. So Cas cheats on you, puts you at risk, and you can go back to being physical without so much of a conversation about the terms of what you're doing?"

     Technically speaking, Cas and I hadn't had sex recently. There's been more bed sharing going on than anything.

     Ashley rolls with my silence, saying, "Dresden, seriously."

     "I - I can't say no to him."

     "What do you mean you can't say no to him?"

     "I just. I want to give him everything, okay? So I can't say no to anything."

     "You can't give someone everything. That isn't realistic. It's no way to live. You have to have boundaries. You have to think about yourself for once."

     "When the guy showed up, I had a feeling. This feeling something wasn't right. And when he pulled out his gun, I wasn't really surprised. I knew by then that he wanted me dead, or at least to hurt me. And right before he shot me, you know what I thought? I thought, please don't let Dolores walk out here. And thank god the other staff have gone home. And I hoped that Cas would be okay. That he would move on with his life and that he'd know I was sorry. I'm about to die and those are the things I'm thinking about. I can't just not put the people I love first. Even if it means hurting myself. Even if it means taking less than what I deserve."

     "You don't think I know this about you? It's the same reason why you're saddled with Private Weston's. Because you want to honor Michael. Because you feel you owe it to him. This is what we've been working on for years. Your selflessness will be your self destruction. You can't just put everybody else's lives ahead of yours and think that's love."

     We sit in silence and I'm acutely aware of my breathing, of the hot feeling in the back of my throat.

     "I'm sorry," she says after the silence has dragged on.

     "No, you're right," I admit. "You're right."

     "I know you're not saddled with Weston's. And I know you don't just do it out of obligation. But how long did it take us to get you to take a day off from work? To start a project that's for yourself? Those are huge strides of progress and," she pauses. Hesitates, really.

     "Go ahead," I tell her.

     "And I think that Cas is undoing a lot of that work. Actually, let me rephrase. Having Cas back in your life is undoing that work. I don't think this is intentional on his or your part."

     "So what? I'm just supposed to walk away? Again?"

     "No," she responds quickly, throwing out a hand like she can physically pull that option from the table. "No. I'm not saying walk away. I'm saying you deserve to get what you want, to ask for what you want. I'm saying just because you hurt Cas once doesn't give him carte blanche to treat you however he wants. If you keep doing this with him, you're just not hurting yourself. He has to live with these past few months as much as you do. The things he's said, the things he's done — that's not Cas. And eventually he's going to do something you can't forgive. If you let this continue, you're not going to like who he is anymore. Do you want to see him become that person? Don't give him the chance, Dresden. You need to say something."

      "I will," I say quickly.

     "I'm serious," she responds. "This isn't something you can just wait on. What are you afraid of?"

     "That he. That he isn't going to want that. Or anything with me. That this is just him buying time."

     She smiles weakly. "Unfortunately, there's only one way to find out. But once you know, you'll know. And then you can move on, whether that's with or without Cas."

     "After Thanksgiving," I tell her. "We called a truce for the holiday. Our families are celebrating together. So we have truce. So I will say something after."

      "Okay," Ashley nods. "After thanksgiving. And not a second longer."