"What? Are you friggin' kidding me?" clamored Dean, hurling a ball of aluminum foil at the angel's head, which, of course, did not faze him the slightest. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Cas, you pretty much called her an idiot for not sharing your beliefs." At this, Castiel opened his mouth to defend himself, but Sam, sensing this, swiftly persisted. "I know you're in a position where you can't contradict it, but people - as in humans - are usually a lot more liberal these days when it comes to religion. They don't possess the direct inside lowdown about God and whatnot like you do."

"I've realized that since then," he stiffly said, his eyes lowering away from their's in chagrin. "I framed it all wrong. I need to be more articulate."

"No," Dean snorted, "if you were any more articulate with your thoughts, she might have punched you in the face. Thank God she didn't," he mumbled, kneading his knuckles unconsciously. "I think you just need to be less insistent and more considerate."

Upon noticing Castiel's rather hangdog expression, Dean clapped a firm hand onto the angel's shoulder. "You've got a baaaaad case of verbal diarrhea, my friend." At his questioning glance, Dean then asked; "Remember Chastity? Hm? She got hit with the first wave of Montezuma's verbal revenge." As if it would help any, he mimicked the act of regurgitation, and then made a whooshing sound to accompany the illustrative wave of his hand.

"Dean," Sam groaned, shooting a rather pained look at his brother, "that is a disgusting metaphor that I'd rather not have associated with Castiel."

Curious contemplation colored Dean's features for a beat, before a grimace formed its place instead. "Yeah, that is sick, isn't it? I doubt angels even have violent bowel movements anyway."

This earned him an extremely impatient look by Castiel, who was still secured under his hand, and Dean simply grinned charmingly and awarded him another pat on the shoulder. "Do continue!"

With a resigned sigh, he moved away from Dean's touch, and his eyes narrowed with concentration. "I'm trying to change. I'm... learning. Eventually I made things right, I think."

"You think?"

"Things are fine now," he assured firmly. There was a brief lull, and his confident gaze faltered, and was immediately replaced with curious fascination at the night's recollection. He absentmindedly said, "It was a very interesting encounter."

He continued to visit the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center for the nights that followed their altercation. In the back of his mind, he knew that he was not there to stare at the tree anymore; he was waiting for her. And Castiel preferred to keep that impression where it belonged: the back of his mind. He had learned of and endured many emotions since assuming his human vessel, and if he could hazard a guess, what he was feeling now was a nauseating mixture of disappointment and guilt.

Though, in retrospect, he still could not pinpoint the moment in their last conversation where he had struck a bad chord in her! That made him feel even more guilty. But was he right to feel guilty about not knowing why he felt guilty? This was incredibly maddening! Why did he care so much?

She was here tonight; he had seen her, but she made no move to approach him. It could be that she wasn't aware of his presence, but the rather sour look coloring her otherwise beautiful face informed him differently. Was he supposed to go over to her? Was she waiting for him? Was she only there to widely demonstrate her indignation to everyone?

Suddenly, he saw her sigh heavily and sharply turn around to flounce off. Castiel made a move to follow her, but he hesitated. What would he say? What would she say? How would she react? How was he supposed to react? What was the point of this? Why was he even there?

This matrix of simple yet decisive questions were driving him completely and absolutely thoroughly, POSITIVELY OFF-THE-WALL NUTS!

"You're supposed to follow me and say you're sorry!"

Castiel, who for a long moment appeared to be in danger of breaking blood vessels in his eyes from looking so wide-eyed with red-hot bewilderment, spun around and discovered the rather spiteful looking raccoon girl. She was rather fast on her feet, wasn't she?

"Sorry," came his automatic reply.

"Don't apologize to that, I want an apology for the other thing!"

"Other thing?"

"What happened the other night!" she seethed.

Aware of her potential public assault on him but willing to risk it, Castiel raised his chin defiantly and said, "No."

"No?" she spluttered as if the word was foreign to her.

"No." He stilled himself, preventing any traces of pride or superiority from manifesting externally. "I stand by what I said. You are ignorant."

He could see that she was startled by his shift in attitude; one minute he was as expressionless as a mannequin, now he seemed to smolder silently with authority. Though, she didn't appear intimidated by him as much as she was confounded. That was her general reaction until that very last statement.

"Do you really have to use that word?" she whined.

"Uneducated then." The look she then gave told Castiel that he wasn't making the situation any better. "I don't know what to say," he sighed, lowering his guard a little. "You're not entitled to be angry with me because I cannot argue with someone who doesn't know everything about what we are arguing about."

Once again, he had her noticeably cornered.

"You have a point," she grumbled hotly. "But still! What?"

He was smirking, and he had been unaware of it up until that point.

"You have a lot of pride," he observed in a note that suggested he was both impressed and taken aback with her possessing such a trait.

"Yeah, and that lot got hurt!" she fired back tartly.

"Ignorant... wasn't the most gracious word," he conceded in a more gentle tone, despite himself. "I sincerely apologize." Then his self-righteousness got the better of him. "Only for using that word."

Amused by his own awkwardness, he found himself smiling. It would also appear that it was a contagious smile, but she caught herself. She puckered her lips together and twitched them to one side, trying to restrain the smile that threatened, though his unfaltering smile did not help any.

"Stop smiling!" she hissed through gritted teeth - or a distorted open grin. She averted her eyes to the sky and continued to do a lousy of job of trying to repress her own smile. "Don't look at me!"

"What's wrong?" he questioned teasingly. Yes, Castiel teased; he found that he couldn't help what he was doing to her - it was alarmingly - what was the word? - enjoyable!

"Don't look at me! Why can't you be ugly? You're making it difficult for me to hate you!" And like a child, she squeezed her eyes shut and clapped her hands over her ears. "You're an asshole who kicks puppies and punches orphans in the face and cuts in line in the bathroom and enjoys Michael Bay films and voted for McCain and, and-and-and sleeps notoriously with gay marriage and is against cheap hookers!"

They exchanged equally stunned glances. "Strike that, reverse it," she immediately uttered. And as if that phrase worked magically like a spell, any remaining animosity felt towards each other vanished.

She sighed, visibly dreading what she was about to do. "I am ... also sorry," she finally said, trying to smile but more appearing to be wincing.

Castiel was about to repeat the same, but then decided to pick on her further. "You didn't enjoy saying that, did you?"

"No! I didn't," she sniped with a scornful lilt, but quickly simmered down once more. "But... I don't want to ride the guilt trip later on." Then, she raised her chin at him, trying regain whatever dignity she felt she had lost, and fought hard to disregard his expression of quiet triumph. "So there you go. I hope you recorded that in your mind because I'm not saying it again. It's been said. No need to say it twice. What's done is done. What's said is said. Done. Cut. Finito. That's a wrap. Dunzo. That's all, folks. That's it and that's all and that's goodbye."

She stole a glance at him, and was visibly irked by what she saw. "I'm glad to see that my strife amuses you!" she exclaimed sarcastically, but with good nature. "I'd like to see you in my position."

A proverbial light bulb seemed to flash before her eyes, widening them with an enthusiasm that unnerved Castiel. "In fact," she murmured lowly, her eyes skimming to one side meaningfully, "that doesn't seem like a bad idea."

Afraid of what he was to see, he followed her significant gaze, and was met with the sight of the Rockefeller Ice Skating Rink.

Somehow, she had managed to drag Castiel down to the ice-skating rink, force him into a pair of skates and shove him onto the ice. He stood on the ice as if he were wearing a normal pair of shoes and was set on any solid surface. He was obviously doing something wrong since she was staring back at him in outrage.

"'the hell? This wasn't supposed to happen!" she raved, gesturing madly at Castiel, who was shuffling his feet like a meek schoolboy. "You were supposed to take one step on the ice and fall on your ass!"

With his hands tucked behind his back in a gentlemanly manner, he glided elegantly towards her, with him looking very considerate while she looked very petulant. Anyone watching them would have believed they were a couple ... having a little lovers' spat.

Proving to himself that teasing her was kind of fun and that Dean's sarcastic demeanor was becoming a strong (however bad) influence, he replied in subtle jest, "It doesn't look like it's going to happen, I'm afraid."

She playfully scowled at him in a very deliberate manner, but took a step back and marveled at how well he maintained himself on ice. Sam and Dean weren't around to give him a hard time about what he was doing, so he let himself glide circles around her.

"How are you such a natural at this! This is stupid!" she whined, pouting. "You don't even have to try!"

"I'm enjoying myself," he lied. Half-lied. He wasn't sure what he was enjoying. The ice-skating or seeing her completely livid. "Wasn't that the intention?" he asked innocently, knowing very well that it wasn't.

"No! I was supposed to be enjoying myself with the sight of you stumbling over!" A mischievous glint suddenly appeared in her eye. "Hey..."

"What?" He was becoming tremendously aware of the way she was advancing on him. He then meant to ask "What are you doing?", but all he could manage was a "W-w-wwwwh–" sound.

"C'mere, Brian Boitano!" she said with a rather menacing grin. He wouldn't be surprised if she sprouted a couple of fangs right there and then. "I just wanna give you a nice firm pat on the back!"

She sprang forward for him, landing surprisingly gracefully, but shocked to see that he had easily slipped past her.

"Audrey!" He looked scandalized, but only for a second, because it was plain to see that she was planning to make more than one attempt to have at him.

She was "running" after him now, intent on getting her hands on him and driving him into the surrounding barriers, but Castiel has existed long enough to familiarize with the Before-Christ innovation that was ice-skating. It was modern technology that baffled him. Why, he could probably teach Sam and Dean a thing or two about swordsmanship, or horseback-riding, or archery, or flying – well, maybe not the last one.

He slid in and under and around and in between other people as if he had memorized some sort of choreography. From nearby speakers, the lyrics "That's the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it!" could be heard blasting out of them, and if it wasn't for the however-nicely-packaged ball of fire hot on his bladed heels, he would have stopped, as he was extremely conscious of how alarmingly well the way he handled himself on ice was coordinating the song. If the brothers were around, but especially Dean, they would have been falling over each other in uproarious laughter and he would never hear the end of it.

"Goddamn you're fast!" he heard her shriek from across the rink - both were too busy to highlight her using the Lord's name in vain. "What were you, MVP of your high school hockey team? Jeez! Humor me a little, c'mon! I look like a girl with a runaway date!"

Castiel was skating around people like it was nobody's business!

Out of nowhere, she slid into his immediate line of vision, and while he came to a halt with a badass scraping of ice (but otherwise graceful), she tried to do the same and slipped instead, falling onto her backside with a squeal. Concerned, he swiftly skidded towards her, but when it appeared that she was unharmed, he immediately reassumed his unusually playful behavior.

"I imagine your ignorance has rendered you incapable of being able to catch me," he observed, with such a length that suggested he was gradually realizing all this as he was saying it. It was all, of course, just him teasing again. "Or maybe God's on my side. What do you believe?"

"Sit on it, Castiel!" He had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but considering her snarky tone, it was something insolent. He easily sidestepped her hands, which hoped to pull him down too.

"I suggest you get up," he said, watching her struggle with amusement. "You look like a fish out of water." He briefly considered the irony of that statement. Unfortunately, he chose the wrong time to blank as she had managed to reach him and nudge in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, even more so, she caused more damage than she intended to fulfill.

It was a light yet firm nudge that would send anyone else toppling over on the floor, but Castiel dexterously held his ground as he slid back a few inches. Alas, it was those few inches that brought him in the way of another skater, who collided right into him. Both men fell in a messy heap, and what Castiel made up for in expertise on ice, he lacked in human common sense. He did not draw in his limbs when he fell.

And it wasn't long before his vessel felt something sharp slash across his right arm. And this all happened in barely three seconds!

"Oh shit!" he heard Audrey cry; she quenched the sound of another skater close by, who was gushing apologies in Castiel's general direction. She crawled over to him like greased lightening. "Castiel! Are you okay? That was a stupid question – we need help over here!"

People were moving in and out of the way before he even knew what was happening. He sat up on his elbows and looked questioningly at Audrey, who couldn't take her eyes off his right arm, and her eyes only widened when he made this shift in position. Finally, he looked. Someone had slid across his lower arm, and thus cut it open somewhat. Blood seeped slowly through the fabric and there was a faint line of blood that was left by the blade of the offender's skate. It was nothing major - to him at least. Everyone else, especially Audrey, but mainly the offender, was blanching at the "gruesome" sight.

She stared at him in horror after he regarded it as though it was a mere piece of lint.

"I'm fine."

He needed to get out of there. His vessel would start the rapid healing process very soon, and of course, he couldn't be around anyone when that happened. Just as gracefully as every other move he had conducted that night, he rose to his feet. He was determined to leave as soon as possible.

"Bullshit you're fine! You're bleeding, okay? We need some - Castiel! Come ba– where are you going? Cas- YOU NEED TO RETURN THOSE SHOES!"

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