Of all the things Castiel could potentially enjoy with the limited recreational capability he had, riding an elevator ranked somewhere around the bottom. Not only were they slow and confining (like an automobile!) but one had no concept of how fast you were moving or where you were. The little light up buttons did not satisfy, despite what people may argue.
Surely humans could fathom a way to teleport – it wasn't that hard! By the formula of – what was his name? – Albert Einstein, energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, which in the inverse would naturally be mass times the speed of light squared equals energy, therefore, all humans had to do was convert themselves, a mass, into electro-magnetic energy, control said energy so that the initial conversion would not lead to a dangerous release equivalent to a thousand one-megatron hydrogen bombs, send the converted energy through radio waves to their desired location, revert this energy back to a mass and voilà, a simple teleportation.
A ding! roused him from his rumination, and the elevator doors parted for a young woman with a gym towel slung over her shoulders. If it weren't for her superfluous efforts to advance her looks, this woman could have been very beautiful. The twenty-ninth floor's uptempo music flowed into the elevator cart as she boarded, and retreated once the doors shut.
"Marilyn," acknowledged Audrey, in a mocking tone that was still cordial enough to account for friendliness if challenged.
"Audrey," the platinum blonde responded in kind, tossing her immaculate Goldilocks-style ringlets.
Not only did Castiel sense that this was a standard exchange between them, but he also felt that his presence inhibited their routine of flinging around catty remarks portrayed as good nature. Perhaps this was a good thing where their welfare was concerned.
The necessity for formal introductions hung in the air, which Audrey reluctantly attended to.
"Marilyn, this is my friend, Castiel; Castiel, this is my neighbor, Marilyn."
Out shot Marilyn's eager hand with a whip! to which he stiffly accepted.
"Hiii!" she trilled, with an extravagant warmth he suspected was never presented to Audrey. There was a gap the size of Colorado between her teeth when a rather frightening, red rimmed smile smeared across her face. "Smile" really wasn't the best word. She was really one of those people who just shouldn't look happy. He strained his own in response.
The three lapsed into a difficult silence filled only by inconvenient elevator music and the occasional cough or clearing of a throat.
At long last, the glorious sound of another ding! chimed. There was a sudden stampede as all three strove to leave first. They paused immediately, exchanged hastily drawn glances of formality, before Marilyn flounced out with her nose to the ceiling, with Castiel and Audrey following.
"Goodniiight!" Audrey sang out in that mocking-but-not voice of hers. The blonde acknowledged it with a "Whatever!" flick of her hand without so much of a glance back at them.
Her plastic smile remained as she furtively added between her teeth, "You gap-toothed bitch!" and then pulled out her keys.
"I notice there's friction between the two of you," he observed, after the door on the opposite side of the room slammed so violently, a picture frame crashed onto the floor. His wry tone earned him an equally wry smile.
"She's still miffed I got the apartment she wanted," she muttered. After a jingle of keys, her door was unlocked and they stepped into the darkness of her foyer. "I don't see the fuss! Our apartments are on the same side, we share the same view; well, one of them, at least, and —"
His attention took flight the moment she switched the master light on. No way could she afford this place.
Without going into redundant detail, her home was huge – not Buckingham Palace huge, but fitting for a family and therefore seemingly huge for a single person. It achieved being stylistically modern while still bearing the impression of a "home". And then there was the stunning skyline of New York City, crystal clear through her living room's floor to ceiling windows, which was another story.
Her grand piano caught his eye within the otherwise typical contemporary-style living room.
Sequins and other shiny things peppered the glossy veneer, and was adorned with graffiti written in what he suspected was lipstick. A stack of vinyl records supported a broken leg, and on the top surface were playing cards, a pair of scissors, a bowler hat, a champagne flute, a disco ball, a stiletto heel without its mate, and rolls of photographic film … this piano was certainly the life of the party.
Her voice, which had become lost in the kitchen, reemerged when she joined him. "— and then there's the case of the big ward full of porcelain gravy boats, but you get the idea."
Turning away his eyes from the piano, he blinked as though he had just discovered her. "What are you talking about?"
"Were you even listening to me?"
"No, I wasn't."
There was an ironic note in his voice, which implied it should have been obvious as to why. A telephone began to ring, closing their directionless conversation for them.
"Go! Go enjoy the view!" she encouraged, taking his elbow and hurrying him towards the terrace. Halfway, she abandoned him and scurried towards the source of the ringing.
Like a child needing their chaperone, Castiel merely turned around and remained where he was, waiting patiently.
"Hello, Audrey speaking? No, I haven't checked my messages…"
The sight of her talking into a pink stiletto heel had him frowning, dumbfounded, until he realized it was actually a cordless telephone, stylized as a shoe. Trust her to purchase something like that.
"— what? That's not supposed to go in there! … Well, make it fit!" Her words earned her a very odd look from him, to which she grinned at before covering the phone's mouthpiece. "Don't you love out of context remarks?"
Then, when her hand flew up to wildly shoo him away, he resignedly turned and proceeded out onto the terrace.
The midnight skyline of Manhattan was a spectacle he had never encountered before. "The City that Never Sleeps" was indeed a very fitting name; it lived up to its name as perfectly as Heaven and Hell lived up to theirs. The city was an individual in itself; no one was ever really alone if one could still hear the traffic, or glimpse the flickering lights of a skyscraper on the horizon. How very far away the Winchesters and their journeys to quiet modest towns seemed from here.
Minutes ticked by.
Suddenly, the vastness of the city registered with him, stirring his divine cognition. Demons. There couldn't not be any demons here. Nothing about this city immunized it from such a threat. Either they've assimilated with the humans or their attacks have yet to eventuate. It was something he decided, then, to investigate. And maybe, just maybe, Gabriel would help…
The back of his head burned. Turning around, his eyes met with Audrey's for what felt like the first time, as she lingered serenely against the door frame. Her hyperactive temperament seemed so distant all of a sudden. He couldn't be sure if the admiring glint in her eyes was attributable to the view of the city or the view of, well, him. And there was an odd but not entirely unpleasant undertone of romance in the air; acknowledged by neither as it floated between them, as palpable as the cold.
"You said you were a struggling photographer," he aired, slowly advancing on her. "Was that a lie?"
"I am a struggling photographer," she retorted, turning and heading back inside, "I'm… struggling to get known."
Especially with her back to him, he got the impression that she was being intentionally cryptic, which was rather trying but scored the targeted reaction out of him. Although he briefly chose to deny her the satisfaction of being asked about it, he remembered the designer clothes, the piano, the skyline, the apartment, the everything… his curiosity got the better of him.
"Are you… wealthy?"
This prompted a sheepish smile, confirming it. "I prefer the term financially inclined."
Taken by this new enlightenment, he let out an astonished breath. A second ago, she was the quirky human girl. Now, she was the human girl who was apparently associated with one of the finest cultures of the human race. She seemed to sense him regarding her in a different light, and began to fidget under his scrutiny.
"What was all the talk of financial troubles in aid of?" he questioned, alluding to one of their earliest conversations.
"I was talking about artists in general."
This revelation was met with a minute of silence as he surveyed her as though it was the first time he'd seen her. He knew he shouldn't be feeling manipulated. She hadn't tried to wheedle anything out of him, except food for thought, which he acquired likewise.
And, he really wasn't in a position to hold judgment – he was keeping a rather significant secret from her…
"Still and all, how can you possibly afford a property like this?"
"Oh, I'm not paying for it. It's paid for. It's bought."
"You bought it."
"Noooo."
Again, intentionally cryptic. He shot her a look, the subtext in his eyes relaying his disapproval for her ambiguity, to which she submitted to.
"My dad bought it," she confessed, put out. "Technically, this is his home, but he never uses it, so he just," she gestured the room emphatically, "gave it to me. It works out for the both of us. Should he ever swing by Manhattan, he could use one of the three spare bedrooms! Why does this surprise you?" she inquired, referring to his unchanging stare of bemusement, which she had become painfully aware of as she had been speaking.
His eyes swept her form entirely, punctuating his thoughts. "You don't have the air of the upper-class."
"That's 'cause I'm not upper-class," she told him pointedly. "I choose to not be affiliated with that sort of thing. That's the difference between me and Marilyn. Big bank balances, but different social crowds."
"The upscale apartment, the designer clothes, the modern appliances and furniture, the grand piano, the efforts into your appearance – it all costs money," he pondered aloud. She pasted a look of incomprehension onto her face, demanding some sort of conclusion from him. "Money which you can't possibly earn on an artist's salary," he prompted. Her expression remained.
"You are reliant on your father," he concluded, eyes shining with resolve.
She let out a little indignant scoff. "No."
He didn't stop to scour that response for traces of denial. "You should never rely on fathers."
"But I love my dad, he's the best. I'm the Scout to his Atticus Finch!"
"Be that as it may, he may not always be there for you to depend on." He shot her a cautionary gaze. "Fathers aren't perfect."
"I know that," she mumbled. Her gaze fired up to him, belatedly affronted. "And I am not reliant on him! I understand there's a fine line between being loved by your father and being spoiled, and I assure you, he's not spoiling me. I'll have you know that although I'm no Annie Leibovitz, I still get my work out there and I do make a profit! What's your problem anyway? You have daddy issues, or something?"
There was no rancor behind her words; her tone was merely curious and a touch concerned, however offhandedly phrased.
"You could say that," he responded absently. She was already halfway across the room, sidetracked, and failed to pick up on his own expression of ambiguity, so he took a seat on the sofa across from the wide screen television on the wall.
Suddenly, a black cat dexterously hopped onto the coffee table with classic feline grace. It was perched in a somewhat guarded stance, regarding Castiel with silky suspicion through slitted eyes. He narrowed his eyes at the cat in similar fashion, not yet understanding the reason for his own misgiving.
The cat gave him the answer as, with the drift of a devious wink, the cat cocked its little head. Then, with its paw, it prodded a remote, and the television blared to life.
"— town of Dubois in Fremont County, Wyoming. The gruesome scene was discovered by the local sheriff at approximately 10:45 this morning, and is said to have been a freak accident caused by —"
Castiel, who went scrambling for the remote the moment "the gruesome scene" was spoken, hastily changed the channel. Fortunately, Audrey missed all of this, but turned around in time to spot the cat.
"Oh! There you are, Rembrandt!"
Had her attention not revolved on the cat, she would have caught Castiel's horrified gape. He could have sworn he saw the cat glare sinisterly at him when she picked him up.
"So, about these daddy issues," she resumed, settling the highly suspicious cat back on the floor, "do you want to talk about it?" Her face contorted with concern as she sunk next to him on the sofa. "You don't have to, if you don't want to."
He contemplated her distantly. With anyone else, it would have been a guaranteed, definite, cut and dried "no". However, her perspective had always been one he was fond of entertaining. She wasn't right most of the time, but he respected her logic. It was refreshing, though maddening when combined with her adamant decisiveness.
It was sensitive ground, but he allowed her in.
"I thought He was… a deadbeat," he murmured, immersed in the memory of his past torment which, he didn't realize, stretched on for a few minutes of silence. She waited patiently the entire time. "But then I found that, all along, He simply wished for me to learn. Fulfill things on my own."
"The tough love shtick, huh?" she chuckled humorlessly. "Effective if both parties are committed."
His face clouded in recollection. "They were."
"He's not a deadbeat. He's a great father." Her words startled him, but he was too interested to interrupt. "You're an example of that."
He surprised her with a genuine laugh. "If you knew Him, or my siblings," his eyes darkened at his reality, "you wouldn't be saying that."
"There will always be bad eggs in a nest, but they shouldn't have to represent the efforts of your parents."
"But we were all raised the same," he reasoned pressingly, gazing at her as though she was the sage with all the answers. "We were all taught the same things —"
"Remember what we talked about? Maybe you were all taught the same things, the same facts, but you're individuals, you will experience different things from each other and it will influence you." Her intention was clearly to reassure, but strangely enough, her words only dismayed him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wanted to place all the blame on God. It was just … easier.
Ever the perceptive girl, she seemed to read his thoughts. "Don't hold your dad responsible, he did the best he could, but he can't play God."
Her last words virtually invalidated all the words preceding it.
"What does that mean, "play God"?" His eyes flickered combatively, and it didn't seem to faze her. "God doesn't play, He watches."
"Well then," her tone was dangerously mirroring the one used for Marilyn, "he must have gone on a really long bathroom break."
As resilient as Castiel was, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. He shot up to his feet.
"I don't understand you!" he yelled, staring helplessly into her eyes. "If God doesn't act, He's negligent; if He does, He's playing! What do you want from Him?"
She gave him a rather jaded look. "Sit down, Castiel."
"No!"
She sighed, and then appeared to be taking the time to conceive her argument.
"This is why I don't want to believe in him at all, because it's too complex! It airs all these contradictions and ethical dilemmas and just this whole mess of crap that you can't really explain impartially because we don't have all the right answers despite what you may say and I'm not making any sense here and it's stressing me out and this is why I don't want to believe in him at all because it's too complex and —"
"I'm sorry." The words emerged on their own accord, prompted by his massive guilt complex – one of his least favorite human developments. He ran a weary hand down his face and slumped back into his seat. He breathed, "I'm… sorry."
She accepted it with a wan smile before sighing. They sat through a depressing silence, the type of silence one would suffer after a funeral, and the only thing heard was the sound of their breathing.
"Well," she breathed out with an exasperated little smile, "I'm not in the mood now."
Castiel, who had been leaning forward with his chin supported on clasped hands, looked over his shoulder at her.
"In the mood for what?"
Her immediate response was a look of irony, until she saw the genuine innocence on his face. Her expression lost all trace of frustration and was replaced with a mixture of wonder and amusement.
"Wow. So this," she gestured between them as her smile pulled to one side, "was always just an innocent visit to you?"
Her smile, now a smirk, made him curious. "How did you see it?"
She sat frozen in astonishment for a solid thirty seconds and he stared back as though he could wait a million years for a response. Then, she smiled. The way she did so suggested that she was most definitely "in the mood".
"Well —" In one fluid move, she drew up her legs onto the sofa and began to crawl to him, as he watched her, again, voyeuristically. Her tone of voice plunged seductively. "— my idea certainly didn't involve talking about our dads, but God's name may have fallen into the equation."
She kissed him, finally, and without hesitation, seamlessly easing the sting of their previous conversation and replacing it with the "buzz". No, not the buzz, not anymore. The buzz had electrified to a blazing point, and was now lava coursing deliciously through his body. Her lips were warm and soft, though the pressure she applied against his informed him that she longed for it to progress beyond a close-mouthed kiss. Her implicit wishes provided the much needed kick in the right direction. So, his mouth opened beneath hers.
His willing participation was met with approval as her hand soared up to rake through his hair, both tugging him towards her and angling his head for the perfect kiss. Why did this pressing of skin make him feel so weak? Weak with … desire? He felt he could just keel over contentedly right now.
Just when he was about to twine his own fingers into her hair, she suddenly jerked back into a sitting position, a look of horror on her face.
"You got me thinking about my dad!" she groaned, hands flying up to conceal her face. Had he been completely sober at the time, he would have pointed out it was she that mentioned him.
But he had forgotten who he was.
"A dilemma that can easily be resolved." He apprehended her wrists, pulling them away from her face and swooped in to recapture her lips, firmer this time. Her wrists remained his captive, preventing them from roaming, so he could work to satisfy her himself.
At his feet was Rembrandt, purring lowly, irate that they were acting in such a way within its holy presence – the cat wasn't related to Heaven in any way; Castiel just got the impression that it had a very pompous, holier-than-thou attitude. Though, he wondered what motivated such behavior in the animal. Did he know what Castiel was? Maybe it was a demon in the form of a cat… or more embarrassingly, an angel! Maybe it was God in the form of a cat! What if he was warning him not to go further? It couldn't be; why now, if so?
Wait a minute… this time, he was the one to jolt away, and right out of his seat.
"Now my Father is in the foreground of my mind," he panted, gaping at her as if she had sprouted a second head. "I should go."
She seemed more amused at his expense than disappointed. "Okay."
With a gracious nod, he moved to leave the scene, but in a flash, she had risen to her feet on the sofa so that she dominated him in altitude. Bold as brass, she surprised him with an ardent, demanding kiss that left him lightheaded. He teetered on the spot when she pulled away, a vainglorious grin on her face as she gauged his dazed expression.
"Behavior like that," he began, dumbly trying to pick out some words, and within his state, he wasn't likely to discern a noun from a verb, "doesn't give me much incentive to leave."
"Then don't!" She kissed him again – that's got to be a record for an angel – and it almost had him relenting, but his better judgment won. He had demons to be, places to exorcise … or something to that effect.
Besides, she was so sure of herself! With the little sense of humor he possessed, he decided it would be quite amusing to leave her hanging.
Neither moved away when he broke the kiss. He offered her his most rueful gaze. "I have to."
And with a lasting appreciative downward glance, he left her frustrated in a rather physical way, while he broke out into a smile only when he stepped out into the hall.
"That was about an hour ago," Castiel concluded with a sigh of release. Of course, he had omitted a few minor details in his verbal narration; for example, the music that was playing at the ice skating rink, and Gabriel's little cameo. Though, he might mention that later if it became relevant.
"Wait wait wait wait wait," Dean made frantic back-tracking motions with his hands, "… what happened to the lightening bolt?"
The angel eyed him with the same effect that one would achieve when rolling their eyes. "I removed it."
"Ah… well then, all of that explains the smile earlier." A proud smirk blossomed on his face, slapping the angel sportively on the back. "Good job, buddy! Was there any tongue? Because if there wasn't, then you didn't exactly hit first base yet. Oh! Pop quiz, Cas. If first base is French kissing, second base is foreplay, third base is extreme foreplay – with three x's – what is a home run?"
"Dean —"
"Considering the right answer, that's not incorrect."
"— I know what sex is. I'm an angel, not a boulder," he said dryly. "By theory, you are more of a virgin than me."
A mixture of incredulity and amusement exploded onto Dean's face. "You do know there's more to it than having to stick Tab A into Slot B, right? Living for forty million years doesn't make you any less of a forty million year old virgin. Right, Sammy? Sam?"
A snore blared in response. The pair turned to notice that Sam, who had been listening like a diligent college student for the most part, had collapsed back onto his bed and fallen asleep at some point. An ever-fleeting look of adoration flashed across Dean's face when he discovered this.
"It's 2AM, and you've just completed a mission," reminded Castiel. "You boys need sleep."
At this, Dean immediately tore his eyes away from his brother and ignited with his typical roguishness.
"Nah, sleep is for the weak!" he jested, brandishing a hand at the snoring form. "I'll be the better wing man here and we can talk about your girl."
Pause. "That sounds like an acceptable idea."
"Awesome. Now, this girl," he began, in all seriousness, "did she always seem like the type who would eventually put out, or did it come as a surprise to you?"
As though he had asked a very intellectual question, Dean's brow knitted and held prayer-like hands against his lips, patiently awaiting an answer of equal profoundness. Castiel regarded him in a way that said his low expectations were met. The older Winchester only managed to catch a few seconds of this stare before the angel reached out, pressed two fingers against his temple, and watched as Dean slumped back onto his bed, sleeping soundly.
"Goodnight, Dean."
Christ on a bike, this chapter's long. I hate it when they're long; I always get the feeling people check the length of their scroll bar and if it's too small, they run in the other direction. Because I do that, lol. This chapter was written with some difficulty, as I've developed a bit of writer's block. My mind has been on other things: my social life, work, moving out of home, money, and my film school application, ffffffuuuuu—
Edit: I won't be updating for a week or two; the above, particularly work, is more consistently on my plate at the moment.
Read and review :D