"Uh oh. Sassy Gay Friend is soaking blood into the arm of his Banana Republic cardigan. Whatever are you to do, Mr. Castiel?"
As Robin glibly addressed this into his ear – both otherworldly beings transfixed by the scene before them – the angel took this very sight as an indication that he had lost the chance to demur. Seeing Audrey's friends being mugged at gunpoint, one already wounded, awoke a great sense of duty in him, and it was almost against his wishes since the occasion, although undeniably perilous, held no underlying link to the supernatural. So Robin had pretty much given voice to his own internal commentary: whatever was he to do? Play human or handle it like the warrior of Heaven he was?
Upon that appearance of blood, he knew the answer. He sighed. Not. Again.
"Ooh, this is gonna be epic," Robin gasped, bouncing on his feet like an avid squirrel, "Did you know that this is actually how Batman comes about?"
Castiel turned to the demon and questioned his continuing presence with an up-and-down glance. "Are you intending to help?" he asked curtly.
Robin scowled primly upon that tone. "How easily piqued you are, Castiel. And I'm sorry to say that this here demon shows mercy, not assistance. If I did, I wouldn't be doing this."
Then he vanished. Abandoned, staring at nothing, Castiel was swept back into reality by the sounds of belligerent tones his aural faculties were no stranger to. All at once, his and the lead mugger's eyes met. He began to stalk over to the angel, comfortably twirling around his gun; a toy in his hands, never a weapon. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about the presence that had been Robin.
"What about you, pretty boy?" It was asked softly, but there was a slick intimidation in its tenor. It actually captivated Castiel in its effective subtlety, which he expressed in a blink. The blink appeared to scare the living daylights out of the man, as though this reaction somehow demonstrated defiance, and his suavely menacing act caved. "DON'T FUCKING MOVE! FUCK!" he screamed, pressing the gun hard against the angel's temple. "I SAID WALLETS DOWN, HANDS UP, COME ON!"
The gun was warm. This had been the trigger-happy man to have shot Nicky earlier. Stirred up by Castiel's lack of response, anxiety began to burgeon behind the mugger's eyes. They then winced, feeling it take form within them and fearing it was noticeable.
"If you are wise, you will put the gun down." Castiel employed the same calmly authoritative tone that almost never affected the Winchesters, hoping it would work on him instead.
The boldness of this statement made the mugger flinch. "Wh–what?" Angry to have been made flinch, he pressed the gun harder. "What the fuck did you say to me?"
"Put the —" Bang. Sigh. Castiel took a moment to glance down at his bleeding abdomen, casual as ever, then back up at the mugger, who had a growing look of terror on his face.
"The fuck?" The mugger stumbled back, not expecting the angel to start advancing on him into the shadows, lifting from him the mask of menace and then wearing it even better.
"I said –" Bang. "– put the –" Bang. "– gun –" Bang. "– down." Click.
The trembling mugger was too petrified to even acknowledge his lack of bullets. After a minute where there was complete and utter silence all around (by now, the others had witnessed everything at equal levels of shock and were standing still in one inclusive group), save for the ringing of the shots fired, he dropped the gun.
Castiel watched it fall and land next to the spatters of his own blood, regarding it all with an unearthly repose. He looked up at the mugger. "Thank you." He reached out, touched his temple, and watched the mugger crumple into an unconscious heap at his feet, as though his strings had been cut. Severe eyes slid up to the remaining two, who flinched at his scrutiny.
"Drop these civilians' possessions immediately."
They exchanged identically apprehensive glances. Then they jolted into a dash in the other direction. The urge to roll his eyes had to be resisted as he outstretched his hand, fisted the air and wrenched back. A telekinetic force took them and launched them back to crash at Jody and Nicky's feet, who staggered back in alarm. Frantically, they dropped their possessions, even some of their own, and then moved to flee. But, after bumping into each other, they stopped and appealed to Castiel with uneasy faces. They thought they needed his permission to go. He nearly smiled.
"Go." They didn't move. They were being pinned there by their morbid curiosity. Suddenly, Castiel vanished. Only to materialize right in front of them. "Go." They scampered off like panicked hares. Castiel had never seen humans move so fast. He then turned to Jody and Nicky. Now for the tricky part.
They had forgotten completely about Nicky's wound, even Nicky himself, as they gaped openly at him. Castiel drew closer. They backed away in response. They didn't make it far as their backs met the brick wall. He said nothing, his gentle gaze aspiring to say everything necessary, as he reached out to a trembling Nicky and placed his hand on the tenderest spot of his arm. The trembles stopped when his body realized that the arm had suddenly been healed. The moment it struck his mind, and Jody's, they looked back at Castiel, no longer with fear but with wonder.
"Shall we go somewhere safer?" he asked in measured tones. Dumbly, they nodded, not knowing what to expect but keen to follow him anywhere. Castiel reached out to both of them, touched their brows and flew them elsewhere.
In between each tick of the clock, silence followed reluctantly. They were in the back room of the record store, and Castiel had just demonstrated the same visual presentation shown to Professor to confirm that he was an angel. The wings, the healing, the control via hands and fingers, the whole shebang. With every passing tick, Belief grew just as reluctantly within both Jody and Nicky. The latter was curled up in the leather desk chair, clutching the wound on his arm that was no longer there, though the memory was. The former was seated on the table, staring at the floor, reeling.
"Wow."
"Yes."
"You're a —"
"Yes."
"Of the —"
"Yes."
"Which means God is —"
"Yes." When Jody appeared to be out of questions he could prematurely answer and was stewing in this sea of new realities, he glanced at Nicky. "How do you feel?"
For a second, he thought his question had been lost on the boy, but eventually, he spoke very stiffly, "I have been shot. Then healed. Then I discovered that the Man Upstairs exists." His tone grew understandably ornery. "It's a lot to take in under twenty minutes! I honest to Gucci haven't felt this frozen with emotion since I learned I was too fat to fit into those clothes I bought from eBay."
Castiel felt Jody's precarious stare before he saw it. "Are ya telling the truth?" She sounded resistant to it, even though he knew she was devoid of any plausible explanations of her own.
"To question my honesty is to question your senses. You saw what you saw, and it is all true."
Very slowly, her precarious stare dissolved into one of gratitude. "Well. Thank you for what ya did." It suddenly contorted inquisitively. "Is that, is that why you were there? To save us?"
He blinked thoughtfully, gaze lowering. "To be quite honest, I have no idea why I appeared there when I did."
Nicky suddenly jerked out of his stillness into his usual exuberance. "It's a miracle!"
Jody smiled briefly at his change of mood, but then looked back at Castiel abruptly. "Does Audrey —"
"No."
"Is that why you —"
"Yes."
"Can you read my —"
"Yes."
She sighed, astonishment descending upon her again, and she ran her hands through her hair. As she dithered about something, it struck her, and she glanced up at Nicky from beneath her hands.
"Honey, I think we need to go to the authorities to make a statement and —"
Silence fell between them when they became alert to the sound of approaching steps. Their eyes darted to the door. Nicky curled up further into a ball, Jody stood up, bracing herself, and Castiel narrowed his eyes, wondering the same as the others: who could that be? The doors opened.
"Audrey?" Jody humbled with relief, escorting her into the room, "What are you doing here at this hour?"
Her presence, after what felt like so long, swept him over with a tidal wave of emotion. His eyes followed her movements closely as though he was also escorting her in by way of looking, and in her evident surprise of finding anyone at all in the room, she had to do a double take of him to properly recognize him.
"I came back for the stack of CDs I bought today since I couldn't carry them earlier," she replied distantly, still taken aback, as she pulled out her iPod earbuds, "What's going on?"
"We were mugged," Jody sighed dejectedly, but managed a small smile when she added, "Castiel saved us."
"WHAT? Oh my God!" She went straight to Nicky, who clearly looked the most shaken up, and threw her arms around him. "Are you okay? All of you! Are you guys okay? Tell me!"
"No. I am not okay," Nicky hissed, his mood souring again, but huddled into Audrey's embrace anyway, "These pristine pores of mine have been soiled by my own sweat and tears."
Audrey pulled back, caging him by the shoulders to address him, "Did they hurt you? What, what did they take?"
"Just our dignities," he muttered. Shyly, he peered at the angel. "Without Castiel here, we would have left with a lot less. Or nothing at all."
For the first time since she had entered, their eyes met for more than two seconds. "Thank you," she breathed gratefully. He nodded in acknowledgment, but his eyes suggested he was keen to discuss something else. Jody witnessed that glint and became painfully conscious of the sudden tension between the two. Eager to avoid interfering, she began to gather her belongings.
"Nicky, hun, we should go make a statement to the police," she urged delicately, whisking her scarf around her neck as she patiently regarded the young man.
Though initially irritated by the notion of abandoning the consolation of the chair, he peered up at her timidly. "Will you hold my hand?"
A solicitous smile stretched across her face as she gently grasped his hand, coaxing him to his feet. Audrey's hands shot up, spoiling the heartwarming scene. "Wait wait wait! Tell me what happened!"
The pair swapped glances with each other, and then discreetly with Castiel, before together deadpanning, "I don't want to talk about it."
Audrey narrowed her eyes warily, and then spun around to Castiel, who demurred under her abrupt, expectant scrutiny. "I also do not wish to talk about it," he said, his words humorlessly labored.
Allowing no time for her to protest, the pair hurried to the door and turned back to him. "Thank you, Castiel," Jody said with a smile.
"Yeah thanks," Nicky mumbled, also managing a genuine yet tired smile. He received it with a gracious bow of his head.
It appeared to strike Audrey that if they left, that would render she and him alone, so she rushed after them to the door after breaking from his mental hold. "D–do you want me to come?" she asked.
"Oh, no, sweetie, we got this," Jody replied, pinching her cheek affectionately, "You finish up here with…" she tipped her head, stealing a glance at Castiel, "your CDs. It's okay, we were nearly mugged, nearly. It's not the end of the world." Suddenly, she poked her head inside the room; wide, panicked eyes leveled on the angel. "RIGHT?" He nodded. "Right. I'll call ya tomorrow, sweetie."
Her shutting of the door was reluctant. After what he suspected to be a moment of collecting herself, she whirled around to him with a pasted look of composure. "Shouldn't you go too?" she asked.
His eyes considered her for a moment, as if she herself was an option. "No."
Eyes questioning his, she bobbed her head slowly to prompt an important detail. "But… you're a significant part of the incident."
"I believe they have more than enough information required." This didn't appear to reassure her, and he thought, during a fleeting moment of levelheadedness, her reaction was reasonable. It was quite selfish of him to choose staying with her instead of vouching to the authorities about the incident. The strength of her presence made him reckless. Though she looked doubtful, she gave a "damned if you don't" shrug before wading through her box of CDs on the table.
"I appreciate what you did for my friends," she said after a while, glancing briefly at him within her perusal.
Pushing off from the bench he had found himself leaning against, he began to approach her. "Any decent human being would have done the same."
Obliquely, she granted him a cynical smile. He had missed her smile. "Decent human beings don't live in New York."
He stopped next to her. Stared at her for a moment before speaking. "Some do."
Another smile, acknowledging his remark. It was enough to strike out all and every argument for leaving her in the first place. Attraction affected cognition, it would seem. It doused his divine practicality with chloroform so all that was left was raw human desire. Internal conflicts had been put to sleep by the strength of her presence, and it was as though abstaining from all her qualities made them impact him harder upon his return and knocked out that moral sense. A human girl involuntarily bending an angel's logic to her fancy; how compellingly and very wrong.
"Haven't seen you in about a month," she mused, hoping to shake him from the thoughts that had grown to be readable on his face, "Whatcha been up to? Saving more lives? Busting up chifforobes?"
He looked at her with muted amusement for a second, his expectations being met before his eyes. Too proud to appear vulnerable, as usual. "Working," he eventually answered.
"Of course." There was hesitation between her words as she had sensed him moving to stand behind her. The second word was barely drawn out to its full length when he framed her hips with his hands. Desire lingered briefly before her eyes before she forced it imperiously aside. Her blush indicated that she couldn't help the wave of her own attraction washing over her, but refused to let it get the better of her as she attended only vaguely to her errand.
He pressed himself closer, their bodies now perfectly in line from chest to knees. She continued to hold her ground, clinging to that self-discipline, even as his hands stole up her blouse. Her resistance enthralled him and invited him to be daring. He nestled his face into her red hair. Nothing. Grazed his lips against the curve of her ear. Still nothing. Brushing down to her pulse. Nope. Finding that unfailing magic spot there, he gently bit her. It won him a moan as she swooned back against him.
"I thought you didn't want to do this anymore." She aimed to taunt, but his slow assault at her neck robbed her the ability to deliver such a tone. Her cell phone chimed a message alert. All his movements halted the moment she flipped the device around and revealed the sender of the message. Oliver.
"Oliver?" he questioned witheringly, as though word tasted sour. The thought of any other man in regards to her, especially Oliver, raised a sense of exclusivity in him. When he stepped away, she wheeled around to him wearing an expression of newfound morale.
"Yes!" she shot back, beaming priggishly, "I'll have you know that thanks to you, we are friendlier now. And I figured that if he's not seeing anyone, and I'm not involved with anyone either —"
"You're involved with me," he said, eying her pointedly.
"Since when?" she asked with feigned perplexity. She blinked owlishly at him. "You broke us up, whatever it was that we had going on."
Though she posed a question, she didn't appear to be in a mood to listen as she finalized her errands in a very urgent manner, preparing to leave.
"That was a mistake," he murmured. A trace of regret hung in his tone and hummed meaningfully in the silence. He knew she heard it but found it easier to spurn him when he was the vulnerable one.
Box between her hands and ready to leave, she smiled thinly. "Maybe you should pray for a miracle that one day you've been relieved of your clichéd lines." And with that, she moved to leave.
He wasn't going to let her get away that easily. Before she could round him, he stopped her by placing his hands on the box, holding it the same way she was, and slowly walked her backwards, eyes pinning hers as her back met the wall. Stunned by his uninhibited behavior, she swallowed thickly when he listed towards her. It was an act of pure impulse when he closed his eyes and inhaled.
She smelt nothing like the Winchester brothers. They always had a salty scent about them, indicative of their masculinities and their livelihood. Audrey smelt sweet, but not garishly so. Like vanilla. Vanilla smelt nice. Tasted nice, too. It made him a little lightheaded. On a less conscious level, he always marveled at how such simple sensory attributes about her brought him a strange indulgence.
"Staring is a non-verbal aspect of communication that indicates interest or curiosity," she quoted in a limited voice, the majority of her effort going into futilely fighting her attraction.
Tone darkening to suit his gaze, he replied, "I've decided to follow up on it." …even though he knew he shouldn't. A burn was sure to come if he played with the flame, seductive though it may be.
His words were read well and her eyes responded to something she saw in his own. Her hands slackened instinctively, and he removed the box from her possession and set it aside. Visual communication did not break as he placed his hands at either side of her head on the wall, caging her as he closed in through the heat and into the last of her personal space. His lips met hers. Almost.
At the last moment, she had managed to obtain a sliver of good sense, and turned her head away.
"As hot as it is to be pushed up against a wall and kissed," she turned her head to him again, desire still in her eyes but only behind her umbrage, "you sir, aren't entitled to pull that on me that easily."
Surprisingly, he was not disheartened. In fact, he couldn't resist the knowing curl of his lips in the appearance of her restraint. She saw it. "And when did you get so smug?" As though her honor had been bruised by the appearance of it, she prodded him away from her and made a distance between them. "Look, I'm not angry," she paused when she turned around, finding him following, and began backing away, "but I'm confused. That night you broke up with me, you pulled that out of nowhere. And I don't understand why 'cause I was putting out all over the place. Unless it's something else, and then – would you stop that?" she shrieked at his undeviating advancing when she backed up against a table, but was not at all angry. "You're turning me on – I mean freaking me out! Shut up!"
She stole away in another direction, just narrowly circumventing the angel, who continued to follow. She turned to him to speak, again reversing as he advanced. "I will gladly resume our relationship if you give me a reasonably reasonable reason for why you left and why you've returned and are clearly determined to," she made a gesture at him, "do stuff. If you don't –" Boldly, and though she knew he would welcome the move, she stood right up to him and spoke closely, pointing a finger at him, "– I will castrate you, Castiel, from my life. "
He snared her wrist, forcing her to him. "Will you now?"
"Mhm!" she nodded devoutly, lips pressed together in a mutinous smile. When he tried to kiss her, her coy demeanor dissolved and her finger shook at him in reminder, stalling him. "No, seriously, this isn't verbal foreplay. I want an answer."
For her sake, he fumbled for some prudence. Mustered with a resigned sigh, he let go of her. "I have no motive," he admitted difficultly, "As I said earlier, it was a mistake."
"Based on?"
He stared at her with distant contemplation. "Insecurity."
It looked as though she was about to laugh. She glanced briefly downwards. "If it's concerning what I'm thinking about, you have no problem whatsoever."
"No." He paused reluctantly, foreseeing her reaction. "My job —"
"Not this again!" she wailed, throwing her head back, as expected.
"— is demanding, and if I fail to recognize its limitations, then I ultimately fail."
"How does that relate to personal relationships?"
"My mistake was to believe that it does." Because these personal relationships were not supposed to exist, was what he left out. His answer was met with a minute silence.
"Oh," she finally sighed, which he interpreted as one of relief, and God willing, forgiveness. After what felt like the longest stretch of time, she began to amble past him with indolent grace, and he watched her, finding it strangely magnetic. "Silly Castiel," she intoned lowly, being decidedly playful with her L's, "Blowing so much of my time, when I could have been blowing —" Suggestively on time, a click rang through the room. She had locked the door. The implication was instantly in his mind as it readily was in hers, evidenced by the way she looked at him from over her shoulder.
There was a very wicked gleam in her eye. It struck thrill and desirous antici … pation within him. With an almost flirtatious stride, she proceeded to take steps towards him. He did likewise, aspiring to meet her halfway. A quarter of the way, though, she stopped, snatched her cell phone from the table and disassembled it in five seconds, right before his eyes. He jerked when she reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and did the same. She dropped the pieces onto the floor. Stomped on them. Castiel was close on the verge of scratching his head. Was this a formality within fornication?
Although words were inconveniently sobering in this sensual scene (though, he supposed she accomplished that first when she started dismantling cell phones), he had to ask. "What are you doing?"
"Do you want to get interrupted again?" she asked testily. Oh. He understood now. The instant he did, she apprehended his tie, dragged him around the table and shoved him backwards. He landed in the leather desk chair, being straddled by her lithe form a second later. The current situation paralleled the one that occurred those few months ago, when they had officially embarked on this… thing. Not that he was of a mind to reminisce, since he finally had her so closely again, with mischief etched all over her face to boot.
"Jody has one rule: don't have sex in the back room. And you know what? You and I are going to break it."
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