Chapter Nine
Castiel watched the sun rise.
He'd seen more sunsets and sunrises than any human had the patience to count, and yet the beauty of each one never failed to inspire a sense of awe in him.
Ever since he had first interacted with twenty-first century humans, Cas had not only slowly begun learning to understand them, but also to understand what it was like to be them. These strange "emotion" things had, at first, freaked him out, but he realized in time that emotions inspired mortals to do many great things.
Some of them were terrible, yes, but all of them were also great in the sense that they had learned to drastically change their world.
Emotions, Cas now knew, got humans into trouble, but also out of it. With that in mind, the Angel got up from his perch on the moss-covered rock he'd occupied for the last day and a half, and made his way back to Griffin Vale.
The girls, evidently, had been up early: by the time Dean came down, Ivy and Charlie were finished with breakfast and about to depart for a morning run, they explained when he saw them tying their shoes in the front hall. Sam stepped out of the kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal.
"A run?" Dean repeated. "Where?"
Ivy laughed. "Where else? The woods, of course."
"Yeah. Okay. You have fun with that."
Ivy and Charlie exchanged amused glances. "Afraid of a little nature run?" Charlie teased good-naturedly.
"Nope," Dean replied. "Just perfectly happy in my comfort zone."
"I'll join you," Sam said, finishing his cereal, "if you're okay to wait maybe ten minutes?"
The girls nodded and Sam returned upstairs to change. Meanwhile, Dean wandered into the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee and something to nibble on. When he returned with a cup and some toast with peanut butter in hand, not only was Sam ready, but Ivy and Charlie had also removed their shirts and started stretching in their...sports bras.
Dean nearly dropped his breakfast but remained calm as he tried to discreetly check them out. He couldn't help it. Sam, on the other hand, seemed entirely unaffected.
Charlie's flat stomach rose taut above the waistband of her shorts, sculpted into a perfect set of abs. She wore a pair of really short shorts, whose apparent aerodynamically advantageous length came off as more advantageous to showing off long legs and an impressive bottom. But Dean's attention shifted quickly to Ivy, standing nearer to the door in a pair of black, skin-tight capri pants.
Ivy was stretching with her arms extended behind her as she balanced on one foot, the toned lines of every muscle somehow simultaneously bold and graceful. Her abdomen was not as chiselled as Charlie's, but Dean found himself more attracted to the slightly softer lines. With her hair braided and coiled into a knot on the back of her head and her slender frame perfectly still, she reminded Dean of statues and paintings he'd once seen of the Greek goddess Artemis in a mythology book.
He felt Charlie's eyes on him and realized to his chagrin that he'd been gawking. Mercifully, Ivy hadn't noticed; Sam, however, had, and was trying his best to keep a straight face.
"See you later, Dean," Charlie said, batting her eyes at him as they left.
Ivy smiled at him brightly. "Bye, Dean!"
It was one of those days when Ivy had the house all to herself. Thursdays were Charlie's solo days at the Motors, and normally Ivy busied herself with research and housekeeping. Today, however, she felt more restless than usual even after pushing herself during the morning run harder than she had before
Focus, she told herself in the reading room. There are Faeries to deal with. She grabbed a heavy tome off the shelf and strode with purpose towards her reading chair.
Then again, your aura could use a bit of a spring-cleaning, too.
She set the book down on a side table and went upstairs to change into a fresh set of workout clothes. In a few minutes, she returned to the reading room with a yoga mat rolled up under her arm.
That was why, twenty minutes later, the Winchesters found her bent double in the middle of the reading room with a book about the Fey propped open upside down behind her heels so she could read it.
"He…llo?" Sam said inquisitively.
"Oh, hey! Don't mind me. Needed to be a bit more Zen," she joked. Ivy was simultaneously glad and embarrassed that she was standing facing away from them, for she had realised the view they must be seeing.
"Nice wide-legged forward bend," Dean managed to say, right before she moved fluidly into a warrior pose briefly and then into a standing split. Wow, smooth. "I've never seen somebody do a standing split so easily," he bleated.
Sam stared at him. "Wait, you know yoga poses?"
"Uh, yeah," Dean replied. "Lisa, remember?"
"Ah, right," Sam murmured.
Ivy momentarily let go of her calm and felt a prickle of jealousy. For no reason, she thought, straightening out and shaking out her limbs. Letting her hair loose, she shoot out the dark auburn mane and let it tumble down her back. After taking a final calming breath, she bent down to roll up her mat and turned to face them. "So, what's up?" she asked brightly, avoiding Dean's eyes.
"We were looking for some information…thought we might find it here in your…extensive collection," Sam said.
The reading room was covered on all four walls with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves groaning under the weight of innumerable volumes. The Griffin library was indeed quite impressive, boasting several books that were so old that they had to be kept in wooden boxes behind glass doors. There were several also written in ancient languages, including old Irish. Sam, as studious as if he was still back at Stanford, had read online about an ancient Celtic manuscript dealing with Faeries, and the name had been familiar. He'd later realised that it was because the Griffins had it in their library.
"Knock yourselves out," Ivy offered, sweeping her hand around the room. "We don't really have much of a system…just try to put stuff back in the general area you found it." She avoided Dean's gaze, smiling at Sam exclusively during the entire exchange. "I'll see you in a few minutes – have to change."
She walked briskly in between them on her way out.
Sam waited until her footsteps disappeared upstairs then turned an incredulous face to Dean. "Wow, winter sure comes fast around here," he remarked.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Dean replied defensively.
"Don't lie. That totally bothered you!" Sam gloated.
"Shut up, Sammy."
"Make me, jerk."
"Lay off, bitch." Dean blew out an exasperated sigh. "Do you actually need me right now, or can I chill on my own for a bit?"
"I just need to look up one thing, so go ahead," Sam said absentmindedly, already scanning a shelf that he thought he'd seen the book on. He paused. "Wait, didn't you want to look up some stuff too?"
"I can do it later." He was already halfway down the hall.
Dean stalked out of the back door in a huff; he was definitely annoyed with the sudden cold shoulder that Ivy had given him back there, and even more annoyed about it knowing that Sam had noticed. "What the hell," he muttered to himself, pacing the length of the veranda. "I didn't say anything. Jesus Christ."
"I don't think he'd appreciate you using his name that way."
Dean whirled around, startled. "Cas!" he exclaimed. "Whoa, hey, dude. Where have you been?"
"Meditating," Castiel replied. "I needed to clear my head. Are the girls around?"
"Charlie's working at the garage and Ivy's upstairs in the shower or whatever," Dean replied. "Why? What's up?"
"I need to talk to them," Cas said simply. "Please let Ivy know." He started walking away.
"Uh, okay. Well, nice to see you too," Dean called out after him. He sat down on the porch glider, sulking.
Ivy found Dean still brooding on the veranda some fifteen minutes later, his arms crossed and his body slouched down as he stared out across the back yard to the forest line. It was only mid afternoon, but the sky had darkened again in an unseasonable fashion, making the humid air hang heavy with the promise of another thunderstorm. But there was a thunderstorm already brewing inside Dean, Ivy immediately sensed.
"Hey," she said tentatively, walking over to lean by the railing next to the glider.
" 'Sup." He was detached, noncommittal; Ivy frowned, perturbed.
"Is…is everything alright?" she ventured.
He glanced at her for the briefest of moments. "I don't know," he finally said. "You tell me."
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh, so, what – you don't remember that sudden cold shoulder you turned on back there?"
Ivy stared at him, floundering mentally for an excuse. "I did not," she finally said, the words sounding hollow and lame in her ears as well as Dean's.
Dean scoffed. "Yeah, right." The air between them crackled with tension until he finally said, "I kind of want to be alone right now, okay?"
Ivy walked away without a word. A few minutes later, Dean heard the loud bass purr of a motorcycle engine as she drove out of the garage and off into the town.
Castiel, who had turned back and arrived just as the exchange began, frowned and found himself worrying for Dean and Ivy. He'd had the sense not to burst around the corner and make a tense situation even worse, but questions burned in his mind.
There was one person who could explain it, besides Dean.
It was one of those days when Charlie had Griffin Motors all to herself. With the Top 40 hits of the late '80s and early '90s blasting from the battered stereo above the tool cabinet, she was elbow-deep in Lucy O'Reilly's Volvo and shaking her booty.
"Can't touch this! Da-dada-dum!" she sang into a wrench, Hammer-dancing across the garage to turn up the volume. "Can't touch this!"
"Touch what?"
Charlie's screech of surprise actually hurt Castiel's ears – and for an Angel, that was saying something, considering the wavelength upon which he and his brothers communicated.
"You have got to stop that," Charlie bleated, repeating her sentiments from the previous day. "That's just creepy. And weird."
"I'm sorry," Castiel said. "My…'people skills' need some 'work.' Well, that's what Sam and Dean are 'always' saying…oh well."
Charlie found herself smiling like an idiot. "Okay," she heard herself saying, "first thing you have to realise is that 'this' – " she made air quotes – "isn't appropriate to do for everything."
Castiel frowned. "Your language is so inefficient," he remarked. "How else am I supposed to emphasise anything?"
"Use your words, Cas," Charlie laughed.
"What?"
"Um…" Charlie cleared her throat. "Just…well, it's in how you say things, right?"
"If you say so." Castiel frowned a moment, then remembered why he'd come to Chalrie in the first place. "I have a question," he said bluntly.
"Shoot," she said, digging around in her toolbox. "I'm listening,"
"Why does love make humans act so strangely towards each other?" Castiel asked.
"What makes you say that?" Charlie wanted to know.
"I overheard Dean and Ivy talking on the porch earlier," the Angel explained. "It seems strange to me that two people who have such obvious attraction for one another would be so cold. Ivy apparently gave Dean the silent treatment for no reason, and now he's sulking on the porch."
Charlie was staring open-mouthed at Castiel.
"And I don't understand that now, either," Cas wheedled. "What did I say that was so 'wrong'? Why are you looking at me like that?"