Prayers in the Dark
{ missing piece }
She thought she had seen him. Of course she had seen him. She had seen her angel in her dreams. She had seen him in the early morning light, when her eyes were too tired to comprehend, when her heart was too weak to handle the idea that he stood before her. Kailee was sure that he was standing before her now, not Castiel, not even Cas, but Blue.
Not an angel of the Lord, not a blood stained warrior, but an amnesiac that had stolen her heart without saying a single word. His eyes were so bright that she preferred them to sunlight, so clear she saw her own flaws in them. His entire form demanded her respect and adoration, though she never felt forced to love him. It was so natural that she almost forgot to breathe in, caught up in how the hollow ache in her chest filled with light and told her that it was okay—-
But it wasn’t real. It was three in the morning on a Wednesday, and she was tangled in her sheets, a fan blowing in her window and the television showing nothing but static. Kailee woke to her face damp with tears and her hair tangled around her face, her fingers clutching something so hard in her hand it had left an indent in her palm. So hard, in fact, a small hint of blood stained the bottom of the object. Kailee unfurled her fingers, her throat sore as it contracted, trying to form words or even a sob.
In her hand, a small set of cuff links. Angel wings. A gift meant for a man that had left her and had yet to return. A gift now tainted with her blood. He was tainted by his own memories and she was tainted by longing. The hollow ache returned, burrowing into her soul, as if she had been marked by her sorrow. Never before had she felt so alone. It was akin to reaching for her brother in the deep of the night after a nightmare and finding a cold nightstand instead. Kai wished she could say that she was used to it.
These hands cupped little angel wings, bringing them to chapped lips and gingerly kissing them. Her kiss was one that was meant for the cheek of someone who didn’t know her from any tiny human on this huge, unforgiving earth, and it was in the middle of the night she came to the horrible realization that she was unremarkable. Despite how her Blue had tilted his head and, in a moment of weakness, rested it on her shoulder—and despite how they hadn’t been traditionally happy—they were still together, and now she was alone. He was powerful and stood so tall, and she was so small and so broken.
Broken and scared and alone—-and she carefully pressed her feet to the floor. She started the trek from her tiny apartment, to the door— There it was. The boundary keeping her from him. It was just a door, and she could pick the lock, but it would only reveal a vessel that didn’t know her face from any other human.
She was so exposed. Tears on her face, her feet bare, clad in nothing more than a long t-shirt, weaponless, her entire soul bared on what sleeve she did not have, and her hand shaking as it grabbed the doorknob.
Locked. It mocked her. She knew she could pick the lock, but the very idea that it wasn’t left open for her to wander in told her that no, she was not welcome. Not in his apartment, not back into his life—not as anything more than a figment of his broken imagination.
“Blue.”
She whispered to a closed door, her lower lip trembling as she fought to find her words, and better, to find her legs. Her hand pressed to the wood, like it would convey what she wanted to say. Like a scared child locked out of her parent’s room in the middle of the night, her forehead leaned forward and pressed to the frame. "You left, and you took a piece of me with you. I need it back now." Her voice broke, coming out as more of a dry sob than anything as she curled her fingers, her nails scratching against the cheap wood. “You took my heart with you—I need it back now. It’s okay if you broke it, because I’ll still love you, and I can survive a broken heart, but you need to give it back. I need you to come home, because I’m so empty when you’re gone. You left and you took my heart and I think I’m dying.”
The clock was mocking him.
Though it ticked while he watched it's face, roman numerals perfectly aligned in a twelve-point circle, its so-called-hands never moved. But when, and only when, his attention was briefly turned upon the sparse oddities of his apartment; the window streaked with the tears of the gray sky, the wood paneled piano and its many scars and bruises as if the instrument itself was as tangible as a person's skin, the antique of a radio quietly humming the unspoken words of Mozart in between brief lapses of radio silence. When his attention was transfixed on those for even the barest of moments, the two black bars of the clock would spin just slightly in a rightwards movement.
The man--- or what was left of him; broken beyond compare. Like a shattered record or a burnt bulb: how could he be expected to play again? To light again? His life, the majority of which lays unknown to him, had been through a shredder. That much he knows. How else would he have ended up in such a position? To not realize who he is? To not understand the complexity of the world around him? To not know?
He sat on the edge of his simple twin-sized bed, plain grey sheets only wrinkled where he sat, the rest of the bed untouched. He was far from tired that night. Or any night for that matter. So was he human? He didn't sleep, didn't eat. His mind was a mess. And it all threw him further and further inside, afraid to open himself to those around him. Afraid to lose even more.
But what else did he have to lose? He had nothing. Once---- once he had her, but now she was gone. Untouchable. Forgotten but not. There, as if hidden behind a veil. And it frustrated him.
---------Perhaps he should speak with her?
Disregarding the notion the clock tried to announce; but it's two in the morning, Castiel pushed himself up from the bed, resisting the urge to straighten out the few wrinkles he left as he made way to the door that separated him from her.
She knew him. And he had known her. Wasn't that enough reason for him to miss her?
Fingers turned back the deadbolt, door pulled inwards yet stopping short of fully opening as blue hues landed on the figure against the frame. Her.
"I- I---- I couldn't sleep. I guess I had a rough day. Though if that be the case for my lack of sleep, then I suppose all my days have been rough. Except Thursdays. There is peace on Thursdays. Perhaps I am a uh . . . a 'Thursday Person'?"
He couldn't tear his gaze from her, from the tears that sparked against her skin, from the lines made from laughter and despair. Even now she was beautiful and for some strange reason he found himself missing her touch, missing her smile.
