DISCLAIMER: HEY SO I DON'T OWN THIS STUFF, 'CEPT ADDISON. THE FACT THAT I DON'T OWN CASTIEL IS A FACT I WOULD LOVE TO REMEDY. ;)
Anyhoo, thought I ought to get this up pronto before y'all murdered me. LOVE YOU ALL. Thanks for all the sweet reviews and the love and sorry again about finishing the last chapter like that (sometimes I'm just evil).
All my love doe, for realsies.
XX
That's the thing about family, when someone you once trusted turns against you it feels a lot like you're drowning, but try as you might you just can't fucking die.
-Unknown
I fell into my usual instinctive motion, just like back at home. I froze. If I tried to do anything else, I'd only make the situation worse, staying still was safe.
"Why did you run away from me, Addison?" He asked.
My mind was working at a rapid pace, maybe now that I'd had some time to recover things would be different. Maybe I could talk to him this time.
I turned to face him despite alarms in my head telling me that doing so was bad. Immediately I received the backside of his hand, cutting across my cheekbone and sending pain shooting through my skull. My backpack slung off and my face connected violently with the floor.
Time seemed to slow, I could see my backpack a few feet away and I noticed the pocket that held my iPod was open and empty. It must have fallen out when I dropped it to scramble on top of Castiel after he played his song about me.
Oh God, if only he were here.
My father grabbed my shoulder and hauled me to my feet, shoving my roughly on to the torn couch.
"It took me a long time to find you."
The first blow was directed at my face again, my head snapped to the side, blood gushed from where a ring had made contact with my skin. I cringed and fought to move off of the couch but he held me down, eyes flickering to my side, still stained with blood.
"I remember this." He cocked his head, raising my shirt to stare at the wound. Each word he spoke stained the air with the smell of alcohol, bitter and stale, much like the man himself. He stared at the cut with an odd fascination, the same kind he once wore when he surveyed my mother, like he was looking at art.
Before I could blink he produced a hunting knife from his pocket, appropriate seeing as he'd spend this past month and a bit hunting me. He leaned over my stitches, I was confused as to what he was doing until he split one with the blade. It stung. A lot.
I could feel blood dripping off my side and I met his hazel eyes, which were identical to my own only his were full of a tantalizing out of control rage that I feared with every bone in my body. Mine were full of tears. In one swift movement he tore all the stitches open.
I was momentarily blinded by the white hot pain that followed, and looking into the darkness of the worst I'd ever felt I realized that my worst nightmare had been confirmed, he was definitely going to kill me.
But I didn't really want to die. Not at all did I want to.
I had so much left that I wanted to do. Castiel being number one on that list.
Yes I know, my dramatic thoughts of living my life were ruined by my thoughts of... well... more graphic things. Through my tears I raised false hopes and brief beautiful dreams to try and tear myself away from the pain.
I wanted to thank and stomp on my hormones.
In an effort to escape I struggled off the couch on to my knees, which only granted me a hard kick to the ribs. I doubled over, clutching at my chest, fire spreading through my veins. I cried out, fingers digging, scratching at the floor.
He kicked me again, though that time something audibly snapped. Crack.
I choked, gasping for air. There was definitely something wrong, very incredibly wrong with one of my lungs because it was getting harder and harder to breathe. My heart was pounding at an unsteady rate, any second now I would just die. I was certain.
He cracked something heavy on my back, I heard it shatter and with all the screaming I was doing, you'd think I was shattering too. Crack.
Good thing that most of the apartments were designed to block noise. Shit.
I fell on to my stomach and rolled over, stars flashing in my vision like a strobe light.
"It can take a healthy human up to eight minutes to die after you've slit they're throat." He said, as if he were merely stating fact. There was a bit of blood on the bottom of his shirt that I could safely say was mine. "How many new cuts could I give you before that time runs out?"
Oh my God.
I thrashed feebly about, my hands flying to my neck. My apartment door creaked open and a head of red hair could just be seen staring through at the scene in the family room, but I ignored it because I was feeling very dizzy and was focused more on thinking.
It had a kind of poetic justice to it, Addison Richards murdered in the family room by her father. I decided that if somehow I lived through this I would never ever find poetic justice funny ever again. But I wouldn't live, he was going to slit my throat and I would die quite quickly considering I was already bleeding out of many other places.
The tip of the blade pierced the skin of my neck, I made a guttural sound that could only be described as pathetic, but he didn't get the chance to drag it across the rest of me, over the bruises that currently marked me. The very same person who had given me those bruises wasn't giving me up that easily apparently.
Castiel made an inhuman growling noise when he charged at my father. He swiped up a beer bottle from the floor and smashed it over Dad's skull.
When Dad climbed to his feet, I knew it was over. Castiel didn't stand a chance against the smartest man I'd ever known. He took a hit to the chest and my heart broke as he staggered backwards. Another punch and his lip was cracked open, bleeding down his chin.
"Run." I moaned, trying to sit up and pull my father away. If I died it was my own damn fault for being so weak and useless, but Castiel didn't mean to be dragged into this.
My Dad shoved me back, my head slammed into the coffee table. From what I saw through blurred vision that is what gave my red-headed hero enough time to deck my father a massive punch in the face. When he was recovering, Castiel had enough time to grab a kitchen knife and slam the handle down on our assailant's head.
Dad crumpled in a heap on the floor.
In a flash, Castiel was knelt over me, cradling my head.
"Shit." He hissed, he grabbed the phone from the counter and returned swiftly to my side.
I must have blacked out while he called 9-1-1 but when I came back to my senses up he was putting the phone down on the floor.
"Sorry." I murmured, blinking up at him, I tried to shift and was greeted by a not-so-friendly stabbing sensation just about everywhere in my body.
"Yes Addison, this is definitely your fault." He said sarcastically, his voice trembled with adrenaline. "Because you just let him in to the apartment and invited him to attack you."
I smiled, even that managed to make my body hurt.
"Am I gonna die?" I asked. "It feels like I am."
"No. Well, eventually, but not today."
"Howabouttomorrow?" I slurred, my vision clouded, I forced myself to get a grip.
"Shut up. You aren't going to die."
"But I'm bleeding all over the apartment. My Aunt is going to kill me." I regained some of my consciousness again.
"There are more murderous people in your family?" He snickered. "Bring 'em on."
I groaned. "No. Just the incapacitated one. Why did you come?"
"You forgot your iPod, I wanted to return it like the kind, gentle man I am."
"You're right, that was definitely the most gentle way to take down an intruder." I retorted.
The wails of the ambulance greeted us and paramedics flooded the apartment like ants attempting to escape from the murderous powers of RAID.
They lifted me up on to a stretcher, enticing a lot of screaming from me and a lot of "Be fucking careful!" from Cas.
Once carried down the stairs and into the ambulance, I was told to relax and I did, closing my eyes and letting the pain ebb away slowly.
Eventually I drifted off, whatever they had fed my body was making me completely and utterly numb. It was kind of nice, minus the whole loopy-drugged-up feeling.
In my dreams, I was standing on a stage singing while Castiel played the guitar.
A man scrambled up on the stage and started choking me. It was Dad.
I looked at the audience but none of them even moved an inch to help me.
Then Castiel beat him over the head with his precious guitar and we started dancing around the stage while my father's split skull bled all over the audience. Crack.
You know, they say that dreams mean something. Usually I can try to interpret them but I had no idea what to make of that.
Whatever it was had me smirking when my eyes opened again.
I woke up, Castiel shifted in a chair beside my hospital bed and smiled at me.
"You look like shit."
"Thank you, I really appreciate your encouraging comment on the state of my appearance." I snapped, I attempted to sit up and decided it definitely wasn't worth the blinding pain, lying back down.
"Don't get me wrong, love, he could have dragged you through a minefield and you'd still be beautiful."
I laughed and then clutched my side. "Coincidentally I feel kind of like I've been dragged through a minefield. Or hit my a transport truck carrying dumbbells."
"The doctor said you'd be fine to leave in like a week. You should check out your new stitches."
I peered down at them under the fabric of my hospital gown. "They're bright red."
"So that you'll always remember who saved your life." He grinned.
"Until they fall out." I added. He frowned.
"Shut up."
I grinned. "No worries demon spawn, I'd never forget you." A pause as he wiped away a mock-tear. "What happened to Dad?"
"They took him away, to a nice cozy jail cell I hope. Actually fuck that, I hope it isn't even cozy."
"That's harsh." I snickered. I was pretty happy to see dear-ol'-Dad gone. In all honesty, who wouldn't be? There was still a small part of me that believed the real Dad was in there, the one I used to know, but another part of me knew it would take a long time for that version of him to emerge again.
Maybe he never would.
"Don't look so sad, Scarface. I got you these." Castiel produced a bouquet of flowers from the floor beside his chair and presented them to me. It was a compilation of lilacs and white daisies which looked splendid, though I'm sure he just picked the nicest-looking one he could find.
A silver hear-shaped balloon was floating on the ceiling, the white string sitting a few inches away from his head.
"You really outdid yourself Castiel." I teased. "All this for me?"
"Don't let it go to your head." He flushed bright red and his voice took on a defensive tone. "Lysander insisted I get you flowers and the balloon was... uh... Iris' idea."
Suuuure it was.
"Anyways, it isn't quite right for this situation." He looked slightly sheepish and a little bit mischievous at the same time. He pulled the balloon down and showed me the writing.
"Congratulations, it's a boy!" I read. "Are you serious?"
I burst out laughing as he tried to explain to me that it was the only one left, that it was super cheap and he'd always thought they were really cool.
"When a new nurse came in she congratulated me and asked what the baby's name was." He hid his face in his palms. "I was so embarrassed."
"Did you tell her that I hadn't actually birth to a child?" I asked through tears of laughter.
"Nope."
"What? Why not?"
"Because she's a friend of Amber's." He grinned. "Not one of her Prada slaves, another girl that follows her around some days."
"When Amber hears that-."
"I can't wait." He said. "This is totally worth it."
"I'll kill you." I groaned. "I will actually kill you." He stood and moved by my side, feigning hurt.
"How rude. I saved your life you know." I looked up at his slightly bruised face. He had saved my life. I hadn't even thanked him. Not once.
I opened my mouth to do so and he put a finger to my lips.
"It was my pleasure." He breathed. Castiel leaned down and kissed me briefly, then added. "Once you're all better though, you owe me some serious thank you sex."
A young nurse stood who'd been standing the doorway's eyes widened and she quickly moved away, muttering about how Amber was going to kill someone.
"Please tell me you just did that to bother Amber?" I asked hopefully.
"I guess you'll find out." He winked down at me.
PS. This ain't over yet. I've got at least another chapter for you and then I was thinking maybe a sequel or one about Lysander and Kara or just a different couple and a different scenario altogether...?
My Candy Zombies was some crazy idea that popped into my head in which the story took place during a zombie apocalypse. (I know, I know, I'm crazy)
Anyways, you guys just let me know, and be prepared for an ending to this story. *Tears up*
