Title: Lessons Lacking and Learned
Entr’acte:
“Hello, Castiel.”
Gabriel had fallen into step beside him. Cas glanced at him. “What do you want? I still have one day to make my decision.”
“I want to know why you’re agonizing over this? You’ll have maybe eighty years here with limited powers -- tops. With us, that’s a drop in the bucket.”
“Unless Raphael chooses to kill me again.”
“He won’t.”
“You sound so certain.”
“I am certain. He won’t bother you. Aren’t you enjoying the human experience so far?”
“I’ve had a taste of limited powers quite recently, in case you’ve somehow forgotten.”
Gabriel snorted. “You’ll keep your healing and your travel capabilities for yourself and others so you won’t be completely powerless, but that’s not what I meant.” He gestured towards the motel. “Ellen and Jo Harvelle.” His brows raised. “The women, Castiel. How are you enjoying women? Succulent, luscious, feisty beauties.”
He stopped walking. “What do you mean by that?”
Gabriel shrugged. “Oh, just that I took the liberty of loosing that ridiculous restraint on your libido and revving it up a few notches.” He grinned. “Oh, and taking away the ability to hear other’s thoughts.”
“That was your doing?” He didn’t bother with righteous indignation. Gabriel’s skin was particularly thick in regards to his pranks.
“What, you think the hormones in that body would do that all at once by themselves? Without my assistance, you’d have missed having naughty thoughts and a boner for Jo Harvelle. She’s cute isn’t she? Too bad she’s all hot for Dean Winchester, but then we angels can’t get all the women. It wouldn’t be fair to mortal men.”
“The evening was --”
“Boring. All you did was talk and watch her sleep. Even the whole ‘breaking the bed’ thing was boring because you didn’t do anything exciting to break it. You should have joined the poker game in Ellen’s room. We had a wild good time until she kicked all but Dean out at three.”
“You’ve been watching us all.”
Gabriel’s expression told him he was naïve to have thought otherwise. “If only Jo Harvelle hadn’t matured. She was quite the wild child when she ran off a couple years ago. If she hadn’t, you’d be understanding more than a few things right now.”
“Return me to how I was.” The request would be futile, he knew, but it never hurt to ask.
“Nope. You’re going to need that libido, I think.” Gabriel leaned over as though telling him a secret. “The mom likes you,” he said in a stage whisper.
“Ellen?”
“Is there another mom looking you up and down and wanting to ruin other women for you forever? Of course I mean Ellen. Like mother like daughter. Jo got that wild streak she had from someone and I’m telling you it wasn’t her dad. Ellen’s a pistol, Castiel.”
Castiel thought for a moment on how Ellen had been looking at him, but as such musings made him feel unsettled, he quickly concluding that Gabriel was teasing him. “You’re mistaken, Gabriel.”
“And you’re in for the ride of your life. Don’t fight it. If you’re going to agonize, you’ll need as much information as possible to work with and that woman will give you a lot to think about. But if you ask for my advice --”
“I’m not.”
Gabriel laughed, shook a finger at him. “Take the human time. You’ll enjoy it more than you think you will.”
He was gone before Cas could say anything more. With a frustrated clenching of his teeth, he finished the walk to Jo’s room and materialized inside.
~~~~~~~~~~
Was it mean to not tell Castiel that he’d already returned his hormone levels to normal; that they’d been normal since dawn?
Gabriel discarded the idea and sat back to watch what would happen when Castiel met up with a determined Ellen Harvelle. He hadn’t been lying or manipulating the truth when he’d told Castiel that Ellen liked him and that she wanted to ruin other women for him. She’d had that exact thought when Castiel had answered the door to Jo’s room that morning.
How exactly was his waaaay younger brother going to react while still under the impression his hormones were raging? Probably the same way people who thought they were drinking alcohol when they weren’t behaved. If Castiel wasn’t so distracted by Ellen Harvelle -- and Jo, mostly due to Gabriel’s own influence -- he would have noticed that body he was in was in the normal state of ‘not knowing how to have fun’ and had been since dawn. While he’d loosened up somewhat under Dean Winchester’s influence, Castiel still needed help in that regard.
Gabriel thought he himself was a terrific role model for him, if only Castiel would pay attention. But…he knew Castiel wouldn’t, so he had to give out this lesson in a roundabout way.
This planned to be amusing…and hopefully a well needed lesson for Castiel on the pleasures of humanity; a lesson he’d been lacking.