Audrey pressed a hand to her hammering chest. "Jesus. Fucking. Christ," she choked out. Then sputtered a breathless laugh. "Nicky, why did you just scream like a girl?"
On the opposite side of the kitchen island was Nicky and Jody, huddled together wearing similar expressions of horror that would be most undesired if the wind changed direction. Dumbstruck, together they pointed gingerly at the thing that had just materialized behind their friend. The gesture was received with a puzzled frown before she turned around to inspect for herself.
"Oh hi, Cas!" she greeted brightly, allowing him a quick smile before resuming her earlier task. Had he not been so single-minded on telling her the truth tonight, he would have noticed that she was readying hors d'œuvres. Not to mention wondered why Nicky and Jody were present. "Remind me to attach a bell to you."
"I'm an angel."
She stilled. Then looked at him over her shoulder as though he'd just morphed into a big purple giraffe wearing a sombrero. "Whah?"
Behind her, Jody's face was alight with a wide-eyed stare of fierce objection, searing him like the fires of Hell. Nicky was jerking a hand across his neck, a clear signal for him to discontinue talking. Why were they opposing to this? It was bound to happen sooner or later. Audrey, picking up on his abrupt detachment, turned and followed his eye. In an instant, the pair smiled innocently back at her.
Her attention was snared back to him when he firmly repeated, "Audrey, I am an angel."
All of a sudden, Nicky bolted to his side, laughing with a clear edge of anxiety. "You're gosh darn right, you're an angel! You saved my life!" Once at his side, he put his back to Audrey and spoke to him through a grin. "Omigod, now is so not the right time." Why was he saying that too? Couldn't he understand that this had gone long enough? Waiting one more day or so would make no difference.
Again, had Castiel not been so single-minded on telling her the truth, he would have noticed that they were all wearing formal attire.
What she concluded to be an abnormal sense of humor was acknowledged with a mannerly yet noticeably disturbed smile, and when she found she was unable to respond with anything more, she blinked intensively before turning back around, continuing with her task.
"Well then angel," she intoned peppily, "please to be passing me the sodium chloride since Jody is still too busy being starstruck by you to do so."
His regard extended to encompass the background, glimpsing the salt shaker that sat on the bench right in front of Jody. He eyed it intently, an idea forming. Jody, seeming to read exactly what he had in mind, shook her head slightly in protest, eyes screaming no at him. At his side, he could sense Nicky's responding tension in protest also. Both were ignored.
He stepped into her personal space, his chest meeting her back, lips very close to her ear. It wasn't a last minute venture in seduction, but a gesture moved purely by his desire to be close to her for what he suspected would be the last time. Strain etched his brow as he lightly pressed his face into her hair. Breathed in her scent, embraced the texture, remembered the moments when he would grab fistfuls of it. No doubt a kiss would be nicer, but it would make the situation harder than it already was. Goodbye, Audrey Hathaway.
Oblivious to his distress, Audrey welcomed his gesture as one of flirtation.
"Castiel," she chided gently but alluringly, responding in kind to what she thought was an amorous advance, "I told you to get the —"
As she spoke, his arm extended out in front of her, palm out and open, reaching. Her sentence was never completed as he compelled the salt shaker into his hand by his own power.
"Salt?" he finished, into her ear. Nicky and Jody deflated instantly.
A stampede of feet was heard, but only Professor came rushing into the kitchen, panting. He considered the silence. Took one step out of the room.
"Do not leave, Professor," Castiel ordered, without looking. Professor complied. The other two inched next to him, deciding to lump their collective discomfort into one social cluster.
Slowly, he placed the salt shaker down, feeling her heavy stare on his hand the whole time. Just as slowly, her head turned to look at him, not having to turn that much since he was right there at her shoulder. His fingers lingered on the silver crown of the salt shaker as he found himself pinned in position by her stoical stare. After an empty minute or two, he scraped up the effort to move from behind her and stand at one side of the kitchen island, well within the expanse of her frontal view. Steeling himself, he looked at her determinedly.
This would be quick.
"I don't wish to lie to you anymore, and I refuse to watch you fall fool to my deceit." With that said, he hardened entirely into complete ceremoniousness, attending to this like another mission. Suddenly the man she had embraced intimately was now an impassive solider. "I am an angel of the Lord, which means that yes, God exists, and you have been wrong to challenge his existence. God entrusted me with a mission to oversee the earth following events that had made great strides toward a potential Apocalypse. It was narrowly forestalled by the efforts of mine and the Winchester brothers. Perhaps you remember Sam and Dean Winchester. They're hunters. They hunt and kill beings of darkness that walk the earth, and ultimately save those in danger of them. I liberated Dean, who had bartered his soul for Sam's life, from eternity in Hell. Sam and Dean are the chosen vessels for archangels Lucifer and Michael respectively. Gabriel, my brother, who you have met, is an archangel. He is the archangel Gabriel."
A moment was allowed for her to digest what she could before he introduced himself, his true self, to her. "I am Castiel, angel of Thursday," he dipped his head a fraction, to ensure her with the full scope of honesty in his eyes, as he said, in an urgent whisper, "and I swear to you, this – is – no – lie." Without so much of a glance, he unsheathed her kitchen knife from the safety of its block. The trio in the background flinched in anticipation. "I can prove it."
He rolled up his sleeve and made a laceration without blinking or hesitating. He felt nothing but her scrutiny. Behind her still eyes, a trace of terror flickered as this was done and as he bled freely for a moment or two, but it was soon passed over by sheer disbelief when the wound closed up as if never existed. All blood shrank into oblivion.
The knife, as clean as it was at the outset, was resheathed in its block.
"Do you require further corroboration?" he inquired. "I can heal others," he said. He took a step forward. Her gaze flitted down when his hand crept underneath the hem of her short dress. Delicate fingers touched the graze along her inner thigh he had left there from an earlier, passionate pursuit. His tone swooped into the darkness of his lower register. "I can heal you."
With one touch and the right idea in mind, it was gone. By the look in her eyes, she felt the change. He stepped away, restoring her personal space.
"If you care to see Sam and Dean again, I can bring them to you." Everyone gasped when he vanished. Five prickly seconds later, he reappeared, holding Dean by the shoulder.
"Dude, what the hell?" he was shrieking, but stilled when he saw his audience. "Uh, where am I?"
"Remember Dean?" Castiel asked, neglecting Dean's bewilderment.
Dean finally seemed to understand the situation. "Ooh," he grimaced, looking directly at Audrey. He started reflexively when the angel wrenched up his sleeve, unveiling his branded hand print to all.
"This is the mark I left on his body when I liberated him from the pit," he stated.
Demurely, Dean raised a finger in the air. "I can vouch for that."
His hand returned upon his shoulder. "I'll bring you Sam." Again, he vanished; their reaction was the same. Soon, he returned again with Sam in tow.
"Castiel, what's going — oh," Sam uttered, finding his audience quickly.
"You can confirm I'm an angel of the Lord, Sam?" Castiel asked him. "You can confirm that I have literally been to Hell and back?"
His interrogation fazed him at first, but then he took in his audience, realizing what was happening. With a rueful look at Audrey, he answered, "Yeah. It's all true."
Without notice, he vanished again, only to appear a second later, alone. This was indeed proceeding very quickly. His gaze met hers again and locked. Now for the pièce de résistance, his eyes conveyed darkly to her. Darkness fell upon the room. The double door refrigerator behind her opened and cast light on him. The shadow of his unfurling wings flickered into existence, dominating the wall behind him. A common feeling of both awe and terror careened around the room until the refrigerator closed and the lights turned on again. Abruptly, he appeared beside the trio without the use of his legs.
"These three can confirm likewise," he declared, gesturing the trio who jumped at his sudden presence but quickly demurred under Audrey's blank but latently judgmental scrutiny. "Professor has known since February. Jody and Nicky learned the truth when I rescued them from the felons on the street. Nicky had been shot, but I healed him."
Audrey was watching him steadily, as if taking every word that left his mouth and physically analyzing it. He moved forward to her with renewed initiative. "The time you slipped over on the snow, I healed you. The time you smashed Oliver's car, I mended the car. The time my arm was cut by the blade of an ice-skate, I left to heal. The time I supposedly propositioned you, that was initially Gabriel in disguise of me. The time where I'd told you my injury at the time was a paper cut, I'd been maimed in battle."
The directness of his tone dropped to become one reflecting great discretion. He stopped moving to stand just before her, eyes searching hers. "Do you believe me?"
The words of his revelation that had been abuzz in the air sank down and blanketed them all. He could see the activity behind her glazed eyes as she mentally floundered underneath it. He was about to speak, with the intention of assisting her in her introspection, when a hand clapped onto his shoulder. Looking over his shoulder, the hand belonged to Professor, but Nicky and Jody had stepped forward with him. They all wore identical expressions of chagrin.
"You reeeeeeally should have waited one more day to tell her," Professor sighed. Castiel questioned him with a frown, but he got his answer a second later.
A crowd of people came waltzing into the kitchen, pushing in a cart with an impressively tiered cake on it, as they sung:
"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Audrey! Happy birthday to you!"
Oh. God. What.
Audrey was staring absently at the salt shaker when he whipped back around to her.
"It's May. Your birthday is in October." The words flew out of his mouth, desperate for quick confirmation, as the crowd proceeded into a chorus of "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow".
When it appeared that she was in no position to speak, Professor moved to stand by one shoulder. "Her dead mother's name is Audrey, too."
Jody presided her other shoulder. "And it's her birthday today."
As the crushing sense of failure hit him like the mighty hand of God, Nicky appeared at his own shoulder and provided the relevant sad trombone sound effect. "Wah, wah, waaahhh."
Oh, God, how he wanted to die. Like her dead mother. Who was dead, and it was her birthday, but was too dead to celebrate it, dead dead dead – aargh, he had been so incautious! Outwardly, he appeared remarkably sober, but internally, he could break a rib by how intensely he was cringing. Liveliness in the crowd began to die (like her dead mother) when they all noted her impassivity.
"Whatsamatta, Audrey?" someone asked through a mouthful of food.
She blinked. Or rather, her eyes blinked; she still seemed so dead (kind of like – who was it? – her mother, who was DEAD) that not even the act of blinking held a sense of self. Then, like ice forming over pools of tranquil water, her eyes hardened. Her latex glove-clad hands squeaked as she clenched them. It was when he was fumbling for some sort of expression of remorse was when she spoke, at long last. When she did, he inwardly died a little (not a lot, like her mother, who was DEAD), as he could hear the rising level of venom in her voice that was only barely being subdued.
"I think you should go," was all she uttered, in a taut whisper that foreshadowed a bleak future for him. His sentiments, both of affection and of repentance, was offered to her with one last glance, and while it floated between them, ripe for the taking, the cold stillness in her eyes suggested that it never was. It was both a pain and a relief to break eye contact as he retired from the room, leaving it silent (out of shock for some, just plain confusion for others) in his wake.
Waiting one more day probably would have been a good idea.
I hope this chapter wasn't as boring for you to read as it was for me to write. A whole chapter of Castiel saying what we already know and since this is from his point of view, we can't know what she's thinking. Until the next chapter, that is, which I look forward to writing… what she lacks in vocality in this chapter, I assure you, she'll make up for it in the next.
Read and review :D