Something niggled the back of his mind – a thought, a suspicion. It crawled beneath the figurative armed sentries stationed to identify any malevolent, profane thoughts on the approach and kill them on sight – thus preserving an ideally angelic disposition – and delivered to him this new suspicion.
The suspicion proposed that Audrey was perhaps chromosomally challenged in the cerebral realm of tact. Granted, it wasn't a particularly wise suspicion, but upon glancing at the very image of undeserving bravado sitting across from him – arms folded, leg crossed over the other, chin thrust into the air, pointedly avoiding the gaze of the retrench-coated black hole of divine exasperation across from her – he was tempted to remove the "perhaps" from that suspicion out of retaliation.
In human terms, he was currently inflicting her with the ever famous silent treatment. Though, the effectiveness of this conversational (well, lack thereof) tactic was questionable, considering how she had not said one word to him to let said tactic be known, much to his inherent annoyance. Tension of the not so unpleasant kind careened freely throughout the limousine, even reaching Ranjit with its disagreeable feeling and the suffocating silence that it was wed to, to which he non-verbally protested by elevating the central window that isolated their two sections.
Her gaze grazed his, possibly by accident, but it triggered him to end the silence.
"I refuse to talk to you," he said. She shrugged. His severe gaze deepened imperceptibly. "I am gravely disappointed in you."
Her smile was maddeningly bland. "I thought you weren't talking to me."
"I'm not." Hastily, he looked away, internally grimacing at himself.
The shallow smile remained, lacing her words with an artificial sweetness. "Don't worry, I'll be home in no time and it'll make tolerating each other's presence a whole lot less challenging."
His gaze, now vaguely ominous, turned to her. That was it. She needed a good talking to. Her empty smile persevered stubbornly against his withering glance – a glance bearing an added touch of concerted power that was indiscernible to the eye, but evidenced by the abrupt sound of horrible bursting noises, reverberating wildly.
"What the hell was that?" she exclaimed, frantically clutching the leather upholstery as the limo rolled to an unusually bumpy stop.
The central window retreated, uniting the two separate sections of the limo as one again, revealing Ranjit. "I am sorry Miss Hathaway. Believe it or not, the tires have burst."
"All of them?" She threw an incredulous look at Castiel, expecting him to appear the same, but he was not fazed the slightest. After all, he made this happen.
"Yes yes, this confuses me very much, Miss." Then, reluctantly, as though he did not know how to say this, "… and, and from what I can see, the tires of all the cabs in this area have also burst."
Immediately, her lips narrowed to release an bewildered exclamation of "What?" but instead, deciding differently, with her clutch in hand and snatching her navy overcoat from the seat next to her, she began to clamber out the door; Castiel eventually followed with less desperation.
He found her scanning a disbelieving gaze at the scene around them; every cab indeed had blown tires, inspiring the anthem of Manhattan's roads to amplify with its melodies of traffic horns and lyrics of verbal abuse.
Eventually, for reasons unbeknown to her, her gaze stopped on him as she shrugged on her overcoat. Suspicion seeped into her eyes, but he knew that she knew that there was absolutely no proof to backup what had crossed her mind.
"I suppose we must walk," he said, eyes shining potently. Recognizing her own expression of bravado on his face, her nose wrinkled peevishly.
After sharing some appreciative words with Ranjit and awarding him a whopping tip to shame all others, she took up his motion to walk by launching into it at once with an intensity that would make a personal trainer proud, not even acknowledging him as she passed. Before following, he angled his head up to the night sky with a face of tired determination. Bid me luck, he seemed to convey.
It was easy to catch up with her. Not so easy to fathom just how she achieved such a velocity in those loud heels.
"That was a very dishonorable thing to do. What possessed you?"
"Oh? So is a two hundred dollar tip a travesty to your standards?"
His gaze darkened as he directed it to her. "That is not what I am making reference to."
Her grin was impenitent. "Then I don't care!"
"I abominate that attitude," he growled, moving to stand in front of her, thereby blocking her and caging her attention. Her gaze was decidedly mutinous, challenging whatever he had to dispense.
"In spite of what you may argue, I did you a favor," he said the latter in an almost sinister whisper. "What was left of your relationship finally procured a balance tonight – procured by way of honesty and reason, not through false pretenses – a balance of which you overturned with your rash actions."
"I don't recall asking you to do your little interrupting cow maneuver," she hotly shot back before shifting to round him, but was impeded when his hand briskly caught her arm.
"The weak direction on your part craved my assistance."
Her mouth fell open in indignation. "Dammit Cas, you're concluding things to cater your own damn defense!" she yelled, wrenching her arm from his hold. "God! You're just as a bad as…" The danger of the word, the name, that was about to spill from her lips struck her, and she stopped herself at once. However, he was shrewd enough to have sensed it coming.
"Oliver?" he finished lowly, the ghost of a sneer shading his words disquietingly. For a minute, neither of their obstinate glares faltered as the words hung oppressively in the air.
Knowing he could hold that glare if he wanted to, she was the first to break. "So what would have been an appropriate act of retaliation, in your book?" she demanded, resuming their walk.
"There was no need for retaliation. The fire had been fought."
"Well you know why I think – or, or thought it hadn't been?" she argued, frustration welling to the surface. "Because I wasn't the one to do it! It was none – of your – business!"
"I beg to differ," he grunted, stopping her further movement with just the sharpness of his gaze. "Who pulled me into that limousine? Who imposed me with this scheme and foisted a role upon me?"
"I —"
"Through your own formulation, it became plenty my business."
"But —"
"Argue to your heart's desire, Audrey; it still doesn't limit your acts of indiscretion any. Worthy reciprocation is simply not found at the end of a fireplace stoker."
"But —"
"This most certainly is not open for debate." His gaze bit into her. "What you did … was inexcusable."
"OKAY! I'm sorry!" she shouted, hopelessly wringing the clutch in her hands. "I don't… well, what do you want me to do? I do not want to have to turn myself in…"
His eyes glazed over, recalling his act of mending the car as he murmured, "There's no need for that."
They loitered idly on the spot, both feeling lost having detected their argument's obscure conclusion and not knowing how to advance from it.
"I never had a chance, anyway," she sighed, renewing their walk again. At his questioning look, she added, "Winning his implicit argument, I mean. When I'm distressed, I can't think straight."
He nodded concurrently. "Yes. And for that reason, my assistance was called upon. It was only a matter of time before he'd reduced you to sheer incoherence." She condemned him with a sore expression, and his instantly twisted into one of reluctant remorse. "Please understand, I wanted only to help."
Just as reluctantly, her expression eased. Then, in a mumble, small, resistant and stiffened with an unspoken apology, "You really did tear him a new asshole."
They shared a glance, the gentlest it had been in a few hours. He sensed his internal storm clouds receding and seeing the sparkle returning in her eyes, he imagined she was experiencing likewise.
"I still fail to understand why he took gratification from discouraging you."
A smile quirked to surface very briefly, as if to acknowledge a memory. "Mm, that's what I kept asking myself. It was so great that he was into the whole verbal, intellectual side of a relationship, y'know? But what's the point if you only end up nitpicking the other person's words to follow accordingly with your own?"
As though he could relate, he nodded, though only managed to understand on an abstract level.
What was initially meant as a brief glance at him grew into a searching gaze. "You don't do that."
He looked at her very seriously. "I often have urge to."
The beginnings of a smile teased her lips. "As anyone should," she admitted. It was relieving to see that she was returning to her usual, lighthearted calm, but resumed with a more despondent air, "but he should have had more civility than that. Especially as my boyfriend."
He nodded understandingly, but saw no need for any further words. She must have been thinking similarly, as she surprised him with a punch on the arm.
Out came his trademark confused expression as he glanced at his arm, and then at her. "For what purpose was that?"
"That was to your entire gender!"
He read her words carefully. "Am I an exception?"
This seemed to catch her off guard. An idea forming, her demeanor grew familiarly mischievous. "Oh, I wouldn't use the word "exception" for you, Cas. More like…" Despite clear effort to do otherwise, a smile grew on one side, "… freak."
The return of her usual desire to bait him was oddly reassuring and ordinarily, he would not react to a direct insult, nor even bristle. This time, and he supposed these moments had always been around but never appealed to him until now, he saw the opportunity to compete.
"It would explain how well we communicate," he observed.
"Hey!"
Playfully feigning outrage, she moved to smack him with the clutch. He caught her hand with a brisk dexterity that took her by surprise. It provoked her to act similarly with her other hand, but his own other also acted correspondingly and caught her again. She tried to reclaim her hands but his hold was firm. Upon glancing at the way he held her wrists captive, an expression bloomed on his face not unlike a cat eying a ball of yarn.
There was something abnormally… compelling about being in control of her - the notion that he could tame that wild spontaneity in this alien-like human, and subdue her to liquid. He contemplated exploring that oddity; an oddity that, considering her patent history of making impulsive decisions, could benefit the both of them.
Against his better judgment, and with eyes fixed on her with new ambition, he leaned in to capture her lips. Or rather, he tried - his lips had barely brushed hers when she pretended to slip over in order to reel away from him. She pretended.
"Whoa! Hey! Nearly slipped over there!" she chuckled unconvincingly.
Tilting his head, his eyes gripped her with a withering sort of bemusement. "Why are you affecting this pretense that you are not interested in me?"
She gaped at him. Then, a laugh sputtered out of her in disbelief before she smiled prissily. "Presumptuousness, thy name is Castiel."
He kept his gaze on her as she resumed her laughter, trying to wring the truth from her just by looking at her.
"Am I wrong?" he asked, taking a step not forward, but towards her, promptly silencing her laughter.
"No —" she responded to his move by scrambling round a newspaper vending machine so it served as a barrier, "you're right. I do like you. I would not kick you out of bed," she emphasized each sentence by motioning a palm to him. "Having said that, I acknowledge and respect that you are not —" He took her outstretched hand in his, flustering her into daze, "… not… not… uh —" He began to smile innocently in the midst of their growingly non-platonic behavior, shooting her an expectant glance. At this stage, her once-confident tone had dwindled to something meek, "… interested."
He dropped her hand the way one would drop a cup of coffee in shock, as did his smile.
"What?"
"Well," she resumed her walk with a pensive frown, with him following, "you don't seem the type to be comfortable with that sort of, uh, casualness, seeing as how you are rarely ever…" It was at this point she realized she was making no sense at all, so she effected a sudden, helpless gesture as though it would complement her point, throwing in the last word in vain, "— casual."
As she made a pained grimace at her uncharacteristic lack of eloquence, he took the opportunity to advance on her again, nodding eagerly. "But I am interested. Very interested."
His approach was quickly spotted and she bounded ahead to stretch the proximity he quite noticeably wished to close. "Uh, no, no!" Her hand was held out as an almost taming gesture. "No, you're not!" A thought hit her, upsetting her sense of mental direction. "Uh, at least - at least not in the way I am. You see, certain people have, uh, certain ideas of their interests —" she began with a desperately optimistic glance, to which he returned with one of mock curiosity.
A stray sash of her overcoat fluttered towards him thanks to a gust of wind, which he caught. He used this anchorage to slowly tow her towards him, throwing off her bearings even more so.
"— w-which differ from the ideas of, of, ofofofotherpeople!" She appeared immensely glad to reach the end of that sentence. "— who, who may share those interests, but —" her voice began to wander as their fronts touched, "… dahh, um, er, they like, uh, can't assume that their interests match completely because like, their ideas might not be like, the same. Does, does that like, make sense?"
"Like, no."
His mockery was responded with a flick between the eyes to intercept another kiss, momentarily stunning him as she whipped around him, hoping that his hold on her overcoat's sash had released. It hadn't, forcing him to be twirled around in a circle.
"Let goooo!" she mewled petulantly while laughing, trying to yank back the sash like an attention-deprived toddler. "I'm not a reindeer!"
With a smile, small but suggestive enough to establish his triumph, he let go. Immediately, she sought security from behind a lamp post as she arranged her sash back in order, keeping a vigilant eye on his movements.
"You should not stand there."
"Why? Why not? Because you want me to stand closer to you?"
His eyes were pinned on something close by as he took several steps back. "That would be wise."
Just when she was about to retort with something snarky, she began to hear it approaching. Turning around, her mouth opened to cry out in alarm, but that was when the snow plow blazed past, charging a swell of snow and melted ice in their general direction, with her bearing the brunt of it. Actually, all of it; she'd served as his shield. She shrieked upon impact and stood frozen (almost literally) on the pavement. Very slowly, she lifted her quivering hands to her face to wipe the snow caking her face and then, visibly shivering, she turned to face Castiel, who was looking vaguely smug.
Making a face and lifting a finger, the gesture translated plainly into "Not – one – word!".
"You should listen to me more often."
Her scowl was withering but her smile was irrepressible, and then she scooped up the snow that had happily settled itself in her cleavage and threw it at him.
"Alrighty then! How about this?" she continued their previous discussion ardently, defiant to her freezing condition. "I'm not interested in you, the way you're interested in me!"
This had him stopping completely. She caught onto it.
"Oh no no no, that doesn't sound good," she grimaced, both at her words and of course, at the cold. She took an apologetic step towards him, "Uh, okay, that wasn't true, exactly. I mean, that you expect differently from me." Her eyes ignited and she applauded. "Yes! Expect! Expectations! That's the word I needed!"
He regarded her with a mixture of impatience and fascination as he reached out and gently brushed away the ice that burdened her collarbone, watching as a stray drop of water escaped his own fingers and trailed at a sensuously sedate pace into the bust of her dress. One could say that a part of him was clinging to her now.
"Why must you complicate things?"
"Because those kind of relationships are complicated," she answered, smiling wryly. "Friendships are easier."
"So," he plunged his hands down the pockets of his trench coat, "you're not complicating the matter, you're merely cowering from it."
Her smile remained frozen from her previous words, but her eyes flickered with begrudging thought. Finally, she haughtily chirped, "Yes! Is that a problem?"
"Yes," he said, nodding absently. He teetered thoughtfully on the spot, before walking off with the last word. "But it's not mine."
Speechless and blushing uncontrollably, her mouth opened and closed dumbly. Then, aggravated to be made a fool of, she hurried after him.
"Hey! Hey, COME BACK HERE!"
Eight reviews for the last chapter; my goodness, I haven't hit eight since chapter ten - what's goin' on?
Read and review! :D