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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"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.)

Castiel smiles affectionately, and reaches over and gently tweaks the end of her nose.

"You're going to sprain something like that," he says.

Her smile is very slight.

"So I've been warned before."

She turns the two bracelets around her right wrist.

"Are you sorry?

"That you made your own choices?"

He shrugs.

"Does it really matter?"

He shifts in his chair, trying to situate his leg at a more comfortable angle.

It's a losing battle.

"I made the only choices I could at the time. Or the only choices I thought I could possibly make."

He could have gone along with the Grand Plan. Could be back in the Garrison right now, watching the world burn from a safe distance.

But he hadn't picked that path.

"I guess it only matters if you think how you get some place is important, in addition to the place you get."

So . . . maybe, maybe not.

Meg turns the bracelets around her wrist again.

"Do you need anything?"

"Oh, any number of things."

Grace. A real cast, if he has to be stuck with a broken foot. Hygiene supplies, maybe, so Chuck can stop fretting over the stores.

"But I can't really ask for much more than being able to pay a visit again."

He smiles.

"I missed you, Meg. You were always a good friend to me. I appreciated it. I hope you know that."

She nods.

"You're a good friend, too.

"And, hey, maybe now that you're back, you're back."

She has no idea how the door works.

The other person she's known who came back after time had gone by only came in once, that she knows of. But then, a lot of time had passed in the bar between his visits, as well as out in the world. And that isn't the case here.

"Maybe."

Maybe not.

"But even if it's just a one-time offer, I'm grateful."

He's not sure to who. Or what.

The proverbial Gift Horse, he supposes.

"It's just . . . it's really weird to think about not seeing you any more."

Even if it's the more-or-less-human-and-stoned version of Castiel.