Title: Lessons Lacking and Learned

Act III:

“I’m going to bed,” Jo announced, putting away the nail polish.

Castiel nodded. “I’ll sit here.”

“And do what?”

He watched her smear lotion onto her hands and face. “Wait for morning.”

“By watching me sleep? Cas, that’s creepy.”

“Dean has mentioned that once or twice.”

Jo got up from the tilted bed. He thought she had to be very tired to think she could sleep with it like that. In a few steps, she’d reached one of the plastic bags on the floor. “You don’t sleep?”

“I’m not required, no.”

With a murmur of satisfaction, she knelt and began pulling magazines from one bag. “Then you can do some reading. You know how to read, right?”

“Of course I can read.” Why wouldn’t he be able to?

“English?”

“And more languages live and dead than any human could master in one lifetime. I’m an angel, Jo. It was always a possibility I’d need to deal with any nationality throughout the centuries.”

“A simple ‘yes’ would have sufficed. How was I supposed to know that? For all I knew, you read angelic script or something.” Coming to him, she set a stack of magazines down on the table. “Some light reading to give you a small inkling of insight into women. My mom and I tend to read magazines because they’re portable and you just chuck ‘em in the trash when you’re done with them.”

“Dean and Sam do the same.” He’d watched Sam take a stack of magazines and put them in a dumpster one day.

“I’d love to read novels and sometimes I’ll pick one up, but they’re not practical in the long run.”

Sam had told him all of that once. “Does Ellen like to read novels?”

Resting a hand on the stack, Jo gave him a curious once-over. “That’s twice now you’ve asked about her,” she pointed out, then answered his question. “On occasion, I’ve seen her reading bodice-ripper historicals.”

“Bodice-ripper historicals?”

“Romances that got the term mostly because of how the heroine’s clothes usually come off.”

“Ripped,” he guessed and was rewarded for that correct guess with a smile.

“Got it. Forcefully ripped. She also sometimes reads fantasy novels. We had a Marion Zimmer Bradley in the truck for weeks. That’s an author.” Jo spread out the magazines. ‘Cosmopolitan’, ‘Complete Woman’, ‘First’, ‘All You’, and a few more. On three of the covers, the woman pictured was barely dressed.

Cas swallowed and took a deep breath. “You wish me to read these?”

“Yup. Not nearly as creepy as watching me sleep. Start with ‘First’ and ‘All You’ and work your way up to ‘Complete Woman’ and ‘Cosmo’.”

“Why?”

“You don’t want to read the heavy-duty stuff first.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said so.”

Which sounded an awful lot like Dean’s arguments to Sam that he was right because he was older. “That’s not a valid reason,” he said, an promptly received the same reply Sam always did when he pointed that out.

“Of course it is.”

Under her watchful stare, Castiel picked up ‘All You’ and opened it.

“Disregard anything contradictory. If you have any questions, I’ll answer them in the morning. And if you molest me in my sleep? I will hurt you. Somehow.” She got into bed and turned out that light.

Halfway through the magazine, he could tell she was asleep. Setting ‘All You’ aside, Cas reached for ‘Cosmopolitan’.

An hour later, he finished reading an informative article about the female orgasm. “Interesting,” he said out loud before flipping the page. Was this how Dean got his knowledge on women? He continued to flip the pages until one flip showed a two page spread of models scantily clad in jewel-toned lingerie. Bright blues and greens, a deep ruby shade, and more, their bare limbs pale. One garment caught his attention. It was blue and slinky, draping along the form of the model.

He wondered how that blue garment would look on Ellen.

An image popped into his mind of her wearing it, reclined on a bed with her hair fanned out on the pillow. In the image, her lips curved in a seductive smile, hand beckoning for him to join her.

Cas closed the magazine, aware of a sudden stirring in his body brought about by that image. The image of Ellen was…rousing. He shifted in the chair.

Maybe Jo was right. He should read the other magazines first.

~~~~~~~~~~

His poker game was off and Dean didn’t care. All he could think about was Jo with Castiel. He couldn’t quite believe she’d actually taken Cas back to her room; that she’d said yes. It didn’t make sense to him, but the evidence was there that the two were having a wild time.

Dean looked at his cards, then scowled at the guy next to him. He didn’t know who he was, had never seen him before in his life, yet the guy seemed familiar. He had the feeling he did know the guy and hated his guts, but as he’d swear he’d never met him before tonight, the feeling made no sense.

“Woman trouble,” the man asked with a knowing gleam in his eyes.

“No,” Dean replied, taking his turn. Maybe if he tried to figure that guy out he’d forget about Jo and Cas across the parking lot in the other block of rooms. “We meet before,” he asked. “You seem familiar.”

The man shrugged. “I’ve just got one of those faces.”

The tone, the way the guy sat, even his facial expressions were familiar. Dean wracked his brain trying to find one explanation for his feeling of intense dislike and came up with nothing. Something in the man’s eyes sparked a memory, yet Dean couldn’t bring it fully to focus. The eyes were what gave it away, he decided. He’d seen those eyes before, but where?

Shapeshifter maybe? It’d be just like one of those sons-of-bitches to crash their reunion party now that Lucifer was out of the way.

He considered a number of ideas as the evening grew late, though none of them distracted him fully from Jo and Cas.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ellen was awake at dawn after only a few hours of sleep. She had too much on her mind to stay asleep.

She thought about Castiel. Sam was a good source of information that she’d utilized completely. He’d told her an awful lot about their angel friend. Sometime today, Ellen decided she was going to maneuver it so that she had some time with Cas. Alone. It shouldn’t be too difficult.

Sam was trying to make arrangements to meet up with some woman he’d met a couple years earlier and Dean and Jo needed to have that talk, which would leave Cas by himself. Perfect. With any luck, she could snap him up before lunchtime.

Rolling over in bed, she looked at Dean. He’d pulled the chair close to the bed and was sprawled in it, one leg across the end of the bed, the other stretched out, foot on the floor. Both arms dangled down the sides of the chair. His head was tipped back and mouth open, a gentle snore issuing from his lips. She imagined if Jo could see him now, she’d still think he was hot. Infatuation was blind.

It was infatuation, too. Jo and Dean hadn’t spent enough time together to learn if they’d have more between them or not.

Tossing the covers aside, she grabbed some clothes and went to take a shower. Once dressed, Ellen left the room and bought both the local and the state-wide paper, sitting on one park bench to read them while she waited for the time Jo usually woke up. It was a relief to see nothing about natural disasters or violent altercations for once. Since Lucifer had been dispatched back to hell, there’d been a sharp decrease in such happenings.

With a glance at her watch, she folded the papers up and headed for Jo’s room. It was Castiel who opened the door, fully dressed in the clothes he’d been wearing the night before. The suit still looked mighty fine on him, though his tie was a little worse for the wear now that she got a good look at it. Ellen entertained a quick naughty thought about what she’d like to do to him, then turned her attention solely onto Jo.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Jo?” Cas reached out a hand and shook her shoulder. Thus far, she’d slept through his efforts to wake her. “Your mother is on the way --”

There was a pounding on the door, Ellen’s voice sounding. “Joanna Beth, open up this door right now.”

Jo sat up with gasp, shoving her hair out of her face and making a spasmodic gesture towards the door. “Open it. Quick. Before she starts yelling. They’ll hear her three counties over.”

He opened the door, revealing Ellen standing there. Her stare seemed to penetrate right through him the way Dean claimed Cas’s own stare could, slipping down him and back up, then flicking to Jo, who’d gotten from the wrecked bed and was yawning. Ellen brushed past him, slamming the door behind her.

“Joanna Beth Harvelle, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Mom --”

“How old are you?”

Jo groaned.

“Old enough to know better. You’ve teased the boy enough.”

“He’s being an ass.” Jo went into the bathroom, emerging a minute later with a towel wrapped about her.

Her shoulders were bare, Cas immediately looking away from the naked flesh, though he was oddly getting no surge of attraction like he had. With Ellen in the room, his attention fell upon her and how her t-shirt skimmed her breasts. It wasn’t a tight shirt, like Jo had worn the day before, but rather a looser one that made him want to smooth the fabric taut and caress her curves with his hands. He wondered what it would feel like to hold her close, her body pressed to his.

Ellen turned, her back now to him. “True, but you might just have to be the adult between the two of you.”

Cas’s glance slipped down her and he noticed how nicely her jeans clung to her body. She wore them well.

Tugging at his tie, he loosened it even more. Was it warm in the room? He thought it was, but as he appeared to be the only one noticing, it might be just him.

“Men are supposed to eventually mature.” Jo sounded on the verge of tears.

He thought about Raphael killing him, which effectively calmed him to the point where he didn’t think the temperature was sweltering anymore. Going to the window, he parted the curtain a bare fraction and looked out.

“Well good luck with that sweetie. It doesn’t happen the way you think it will. A man who makes stupid jokes to ease tension at twenty-one will still make those same jokes at thirty-one. The only difference may be in how outright crude those jokes are. Dean has matured.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Dean is returning to his room,” Cas interrupted, letting the curtain go and looking at the two women.

Jo turned to him, “Then you can go get us breakfast.” She came to him, telling him their order as she shoved his coat towards him.

He was trying to put it on when she opened the door and gave a gentle push that had him stumbling back onto the sidewalk. She grasped his collar, the pull now making him lean towards her. He had no doubt she was more devious than Dean had ever imagined. Behind her, he saw Ellen arch a brow, the tiniest of amused quirks to her lips. The expression softened her features in an appealing fashion.

Jo’s voice was low, but he could tell she was very aware of Dean paused on the sidewalk a few feet away. With a quick glance at Dean, Cas took the money Jo gave him and left to buy the food for Jo and Ellen.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dean woke with a crick in his neck and an ache in his lower back from the position he’d slept in in the chair in Ellen’s room. She wasn’t there. He assumed she’d gone to have breakfast at the buffet place. Or maybe the bakery down the street.

The previous night had sucked so badly he was glad it was over.

However, to add insult to injury, the morning turned out to be even worse. Halfway down the walk to their room, hands full with a box of donuts and a carry out container with two cups of coffee for himself and Sam, the door to Jo’s room opened. Castiel backed out, pulling on his coat. It was even more rumpled than it had been. Dean saw Jo’s hands smooth it, then grasp his shirt collar and tug.

He avoided stepping close enough to see what he assumed was a kiss.

“Remember: two coffees, two orange juices, and two cinnamon buns.” Her voice was sleepy.

“Yes.”

Castiel was going to eat? What the hell? How did Jo manage that? Usually he eschewed such normal human behavior. It had to be her feminine wiles, AKA her breasts.

Jo reached back into the room, then pressed money into his hands. “Give them this. It’s more than enough. Bring back my change.”

“I will.”

“Go. I’m hungry.”

Cas strode across the parking lot in the direction of the bakery.

Dean cleared his throat and took a couple steps closer.

She looked his way, lips parting. She had a towel wrapped about her that looked ready to fall at the first deep breath she took. Jo whirled back into her room and slammed the door.

Dean stalked past it and went into his own room. Sam was awake, already showered and dressed, putting on his shoes.

“Hey. Where were you all night?”

“Poker game in Ellen’s room.” He set the box and tray down. “Can you believe her,” he asked, jerking a thumb at the wall adjoining Jo’s room. “What’s wrong with Jo, leaving with a strange guy like that?”

Sam’s glance conveyed that he fully understood what was really bothering Dean. “I’ll agree that Castiel is strange, but one, he’s not a stranger because two, you’re the one who introduced them, and three, you also insisted he talk to her all night. If you’re upset because Jo didn’t wait for you to get around to jumping her, it’s your own fault.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“I think you’ve forgotten you never actually propositioned her…ever. Thinking about it doesn’t count, Dean.”

“She only knew him a couple hours, Sam.” Flipping open the donut box, he decided he didn’t really want one, grabbing one coffee instead and taking a healthy gulp that burned his mouth. He figured it served him right.

“Jo’s a big girl. I think she’s fully capable of making her own decisions.”

Dean shot a suspicious stare Sam’s way. “You been talking to Ellen already this morning? Because that’s pretty much what she told me.”

Sam laughed.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jo leaned against the closed door, looking at her mother. There was annoyance on Ellen’s face and a steely glint in her eyes.

“That wasn’t very adult-like,” Ellen remarked in a low voice, crossing her arms.

“I’m still half-asleep,” she grumbled.

“You’re awake enough. After breakfast, you get Dean in here and talk to him. I mean it, Jo. Talk. The truth, and not what your hurt feelings want to tell him. So he screwed up. So what? You made it worse with that stunt with Cas.”

“He acts like --”

Dean’s voice came through the wall, loud and clear.

“See?” Jo raised a brow. “He’s making assumptions about my character.”

“Well, I wonder why that is?”

“Last night, he told Cas that I’d --”

Ellen shook her head and pointed at the bathroom. “Go take your shower and get dressed. I’ve had all I can take of you two dancing around each other. You’re going to settle this one way or another today.”

Jo pulled a change of clothes from her bag. “He hurt me.”

“I know. They do that sometimes.” Ellen touched her arm. “Jo, do you have any idea how many times your father said something stupid that hurt my feelings? Over and over and half the time he didn’t even realize he’d hurt me. You have to talk to Dean. I’m betting you don’t know the entire story, like only hearing half a phone conversation.”

With her mother’s wisdom ringing in her ears, Jo went into the bathroom to take her shower.