milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

castiel,
elle

(no subject)

When his elder brother suggests a possible course of study, Castiel listens. Even if she is not quite the same elder brother he knows.

The weather is not yet conducive to learning to ride, but the seasons pass swiftly. And until then there is research.

And so Castiel has his nose buried in “The Noblest Invention: An Illustrated History of the Bicyle.”

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"Like what?"

She motions slightly with her hand.

No more comfortable than the first time she said it, "A - rite of passage."

Castiel thinks, looks down at his book, and smiles ever slightly.

"I suppose I am," he says.

"I am to learn to ride. To learn to ride is a rite of passage..."

It follows logically.

"It is not something that angels do much of. Rites of passage."

Certainly not with the regularity that people do.

Elle doesn't also smile. Her eyes stay on the book.

"Why are you learning?"

Beat.

"So you'll know how to leave?"

Castiel's smile evaporates.

"No. I do not wish to leave."

It is the nature of humans to want to, in symbolic ways, if nothing else, distance themselves from their parents and their homes.

Only in rare cases is that in the nature of angels.

And Castiel is not one of those angels.

"I guess you wouldn't get very far on that."

Even if the mental image of Castiel riding a tricycle is entertaining.

"Then why're you doing it if you don't - do very much of it?"

Castiel thinks, head tilted at an angle.

"I will learn for the sake of learning."

"Meg told me that not all lessons are meant to be easy. It follows that not all may make sense, either."

Quietly, "I think you can know why you're doing something."

"I believe that sometimes that knowledge comes later."

Castiel, for example, still has no idea why he was the angel who was ordered to this place to learn what lessons it might impart.

But he trusts that that will be made clear in time.

That wasn't really a good thing for Elle. And she knows she can't wait for that knowledge to come to her.

"God's telling you what to do?"

She doesn't really know the implications of that - except that it must be different from her father telling her what to do.

"Yes," Castiel replies promptly.

That is the way of it.

Orders come down from God to the angels.

The angels obey.

Elle shrugs her left shoulder.

"Then it's different."

"For me."

Maybe for humans. But she's not going to guess.

Castiel once again agrees.

"Yes. It is given to you to choose that which you will do."

Free will was God's gift to humanity.

And like everything you get, someone can try to take it from you. Something of a catch-22.

But this time, she doesn't argue it.

"I guess it is now."

Castiel looks at her curiously.

"Then why would you choose to simply give up?"

No more rites of passage? Ever? Human life is rife with such events. The only way to avoid them is to stop living, metaphorically if not literally.

"It's not -"

Elle sits back, and pushes her hair out of her face.

"They're just - they're things people make up and they're for them and I can't -"

You were a normal girl. But she's not anymore. No one saved her, no one protected her, and no matter what she was or could have been, she's not that now.

"I can't be them."

Accepting that might have been her last rite of passage.

Castiel sits in silence for a long time.

He feels he is out of his depth. Perhaps not qualified to offer any sort of advice.

And yet.

"Perhaps you then need to make up your own."

All rites of passage have to start somewhere.

"I don't know if they count if they're only for you."

She doesn't sound dubious - she really doesn't know.

"I would think," Castiel ventures, "that that would make them count more."

"In my mind," he adds with a slight shrug.

He can only guess. After all, he is not human.

But it would seem that the rites you set for yourself, not for show and not for anyone else, would count for more.

To a human way of thinking.

"Yeah, well."

She does smile, but it's very small. "You still have someone telling you what to do."

In other words: Easy for you to say.

There is no denying the truth of that. Even if he would wish to deny it.

Castiel lowers his eyes.

"As I said, that is just my interpretation."

"It is likely not my place to advise on such matters."

... Elle is not going to feel bad.

No she is not.

"You're more like me than most - people."

With a slight emphasis on people, anyway.

"But you are like X."

"This would seem like the sort of burden you could share."

"It is."

But her voice stops.

It was true. It was almost always true.

"She was - she'd never been anything else."

It had taken going to her Facility, seeing her there, for Elle to really realize her friend had ever been anyone but the woman who had left and who had known who she was. It took that to really see how much they had fucking hurt her.

Even if -

"They didn't tell her and sometimes - she doesn't know."

About rites of passage - riding a bike. (Getting a name.) Whatever.

"But I do."

"Then perhaps it falls to you to show her. To let her know what she can do."

Putting an end to one's own experiences would seem to hinder that calling.