milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[OOM: In the year 2013, Castiel gets by with a little help from his friends.]

A not-quite-man on crutches clumsily makes his way into the bar.

He may be familiar to you. From this side of the door, he hasn’t been away for very long.

Everything about him speaks of an existence that has grown shabby and threadbare. His jeans and button-down shirt are worn and frayed. He seems to be wearing an old ski boot in lieu of a cast. The crutches have seen better days; one of them sports a small pink Hello Kitty backpack, held on by a quantity of grey duct tape. His hair is unkempt and he is sporting about three days worth of stubble.

And yet Milliways, as far as Castiel can tell, hasn’t changed at all.

He had been thinking about it, for the first time in a long time, sitting in his cabin at Camp Chitaqua. And now, just like he has conjured it, here it is.

There’s really only one thing to do.

Castiel starts to laugh. Hard. And he shows no signs of stopping.

[OOC: You are all beyond awesome, but I must beg slowtime. As a favor, no new tag-ins? The cup runneth over. I'll catch tags tomorrow.]

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"March 22, 1989," she says, automatically.

"How long has it been since you've seen me?

"And we should get you off that foot."

Which brings up another point.

"I didn't think you got hurt."

"I don't know. Kinda hard to remember. Couple of years, anyway. Door just...phffft."

Castiel waves one hand. Nearly falls over altogether. Grabs Meg's shoulder again.

"Yeah, well, things are a little different these days. Those days." He nods to the door.

Those days out there.

"Sitting's probably good," he agrees.

"Right," Meg says.

Sitting first, then they can worry about the rest of it.

Which is kind of neatly summed up,

"What happened to you?"

Castiel eases himself into a chair, and just takes a moment or two to look around the bar.

It hasn't changed. Not a bit.

His bloodstream is still full of fun and exciting chemicals, but a bit of the giddiness of finding himself back in Milliways has begun to level off.

He smiles (a little more sanely) at Meg.

"Where should I start?"

"Unless you're asking about the foot. Tool box."

"Maybe you should begin at the beginning," Meg says.

Wherever that is.

"You . . . you have changed.

"A lot."

"Me and everything else."

"When things change drastically, the sanest thing is to change along with them."

It's not like he had much choice on some of it. As for the rest, it had been easier to put as much distance between himself and his former self as possible.

"I'm not quite sure where to start."

He looks at her quizzically.

"Let me guess. The last time you saw me it was still coat, tie, and wings?"

"Coat, yes. Tie, yes. And a blue suit.

"I never saw any wings."

"That damn coat."

Castiel chuckles.

"Finally, died, you know?"

"I think we used it for bandaging. What was left of it."

"Sort of like you're using an old boot for a cast?" she asks.

"I didn't think you had broken bones and casts and crutches."

"Yes. Our medical personnel, such as they are, are being forced to get creative lately."

Castiel reaches over, drags another chair around, and props his injured foot up on it.

"No. This is a new development. Broken bones."

"What was it you said once? Some lessons are just going to suck?"

Someone has been spending a lot of time in Dean's company the last few years.

Meg can't imagine using that particular turn of phrase when talking to . . . well, anyone, but especially Castiel.

"Was it?"

"Or words to that effect."

"It did, by the way. Broken bones hurt."

"A lot."

Is it time for his next dose yet?

Edited 2010-03-23 02:29 (UTC)

"Yes, I know," Meg says.

"Do you have aspirin or anything like that to take?"

They can probably get him some, if he doesn't.

"Aspirin?"

Castiel frowns, trying to do a mental inventory.

"I doubt it. Jordan fixed me up with some pain meds."

The suppliments are all Cas's own.

He pulls his right crutch over, zips open the pink backpack, and begins to pull out bottles and baggies.

After there is a sizable pile on the table:

"Here they are. Don't know how they migrated all the way to the bottom already."

Castiel tosses the bottle to Meg.

Meg watches, eyes getting wider and wider, as Castiel pulls what looks like the contents of a small pharmacy out of his pink backpack.

She catches the bottle he's thrown her. "Vicodin?"

And then starts reading the labels on the pile on the table.

Codeine. OxyCotin. Ritalin. Valium. Dexedrine. More valium. Xanax. Diazepam, also marketed as valium. Amphetamines. Hydrocodone. Percocet.

"How many of these are you taking?"

Edited 2010-03-23 02:55 (UTC)

"At this moment?"

Castiel studies the mound of drugs.

"The red ones are generally good mixers. They take the edge off of the edge the pain meds leave."

It probably shouldn't have taken her this long to figure all this out.

But . . . it's Castiel. It didn't even occur to her that . . .

"You're high as a kite, aren't you?"

His Meg always was so clever.

"Generally, yeah," he says.

"I . . . um . . . how is that even possible?"

"Oh, it's easy. You just need to know the right quantities to mix."

Castiel fishes around and hold up one bottle.

"These work pretty well on their own. Three is the magic number."

He eyes Meg for a moment.

"I'd say one for you, though. Since you're...you know." He holds one hand parallel to the floor, about three feet off the ground. "Little."

"No thank you," Meg says.

"I guess I'm just surprised human drugs work on you."

For a given definition of the word work.

"Well, it's not all that surprising. I'm practically human these days."

Castiel shrugs a bit.

He's accepted it.

Meg looks at him for a long moment.

"I think I'm back to my earlier question now.

"What happened to you?"

"Life?"

"I guess you could say I got stuck with it."

He smiles. Just a small one.

"I can't complain too much. I made my own bed. Made my own choices."

That's the problem with choices, really. Even when you make the best one you can, sometimes the outcome . . . well, to borrow a phrase, it sucks.

But not making your own choices is . . . well, that's not a course of action Meg really cares for, either.

(And anyway, not making a choice is, in and of itself, making the choice to not choose and this way lies paradoxes and headaches.)

Meg's not sure what to say.

She's not even sure she'd know what to say if this were the Castiel she's used to talking to.

Which it's not.

Except that it is.

(See? Paradoxes and headaches.)