Song Remains the Same

Chapter 58: Song of Songs 6:3

"With you, I will go. You are my love, you are my fair one."
- Chris Quilala

April 29th, 2010
Kripke's Hollow, Iowa

Chuck opened the milk carton and tilted it to pour the contents over his cereal. The second he did, he recoiled. "Aaahh, no..." huge clots of spoiled, soured milk plopped out onto his Apple Jacks. "Bleurgh," he muttered and grimaced then tossed the ruined food, bowl and all, into the trashcan... then realized his mistake. "Aw come on!" He threw his hands up and made a face and fought with himself for two seconds. Was saving the bowl really worth a dig in the trash? He guessed so. He was running out of bowls after all. Resigned, he reached in there, cringing and making disgusted sounds as he tried to get to the bowl. His fingers touched something slimy, cold, and lumpy instead. He made a face and made a shuddering sound. Was that this morning's oatmeal that he'd put way too much water in then had to toss out?

His phone rang at that exact moment and he looked up. Really? Right now you call?! He retracted his arm from the trash and made a face then shook his hand off as he hurried over to his phone. "Hello?" He held his slimy hand away from himself like it was diseased.

There was a pause at the other end, then a familiar female voice. "Um, hi Chuck. It's Alex." She appended her assertion almost immediately. "Winchester."

Of course he knew which Alex it was. He grinned. "Hey, Alex, I was just writing about you a few minutes ago!" He forgot his disgusting, oatmeal-coated hand in favor of sudden elation.

"Uh... okay..." she said, not following, pausing awkwardly. "...So the reason I'm calling is because I was wondering—" she paused, realizing what he meant about how he'd been writing about her. "Oh. Wait. You mean...? You were... writing about me. Us?"

"Yeah," Chuck confirmed, friendly and conversational, pretty excited, honestly. "I already know. Really sweet proposal, Cas is a great guy huh?" There was an awkward silence at the other end and Chuck realized, oh yeah... Alex wasn't his BFF. He saw her as his character and he knew her so well that she felt like an old buddy, but... she really didn't know him at all. It was hard to keep these things straight sometimes. He cleared his throat and wiped the idiotic grin off his face, trying to be professional and not scare her off with his enthusiasm. "So, you guys, uh, you heading this way?"

She sounded surprised that he went there without any further pretense. "Wha—well, if you will..."

"Of course I will, are you kidding me?" Chuck chuckled out of self-consciousness and excitement alike, feeling important (as luck would have it, feeling important always made him paranoid). He wet his lips. "Just... gimme a little minute to get ordained online." He gave his trashcan a side-eye, darkening a little. "I was thinking of doing it earlier but... cereal debacle."

There was another pause and he would have bet a million bucks that Alex was making a squinty confused face and wondering what the hell is wrong with this guy? "Uh, right." She cleared her throat, and Chuck heard how antsy she sounded. "Um okay, well we're a couple hours out... so... see you soon."

"Okay, drive safe," he said, then suddenly thought of his manners and rushed to put them to use. "Oh, and, congrats!" He paused, hearing nothing. "Hello?" He looked at the phone. "Ah, she already hung up," he muttered to himself. Slowly, he turned and gave the trashcan the evil eye. That would have to wait. He needed to get ordained online. Well, did he? This wasn't gonna be a legal marriage, was it? Cas wasn't a legal citizen, Alex was on the FBI watch list... it couldn't be legal, the more he thought about it. But Chuck had always wanted to get ordained anyway. No time like the present, right?