milliways_bar | (no subject)

[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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"Yes?"

Castiel arranges his crutches in such a way as to be handy, and quasi-comfortable.

Cal blinks a couple of times.

"You've changed."

Stating the obvious: one of Cal's more developed talents.

The waitrat returns, depositing water and food in front of Castiel.

"Change. Evolution. All things must change in order to survive new circumstances. It's natural law."

Castiel picks up a paradox and sniffs it. He puts it down for the moment in favor of fishing a couple of pills out of the backpack taped to his crutch. He tosses them back with the glass of water.

"Except this place. Doesn't seem to have changed much at all."

"I'm not sure how long it's been here," Cal says, "but not very long, I don't think." He should really start keeping a closer eye on the calendar.

He sips his coffee and continues mildly,

"I wouldn't have thought those'd work on an angel."

Of course, he wouldn't have thought an angel would need crutches, either, but - there's a lot to unpack in Castiel's state and what he just said, and Cal's had some ideas for a while now about who among his friends might just be from what world, and sometimes focusing on the smaller and more familiar things is better. Or at least easier.

"Oh, I haven't been an angel for a while," Castiel says, off-handedly.

"Haven't been here for a while either."

He can't think, at the moment, how long a while it's been. In either case. Drugs help the foot and the mood, but they're not so good when trying to reckon time.

". . . oh," is all a taken aback Cal has to say to that.

"Yeah. That's kind of all you can say about it in the end," Castiel agrees.

He picks up the paradox again.

"I never really knew. What the hell are these things, anyway?"

It really is, when you get down to it. Cal takes a sip of his coffee to give himself a few extra seconds to recover his powers of speech.

"Uh," is what he comes up with, before he continues. "They're paradoxes. They, uh, they're kind of - um." He shakes his head. Even if he could describe them, he's not actually sure they taste the same to everyone. "Just try one," he advises.

He's more than happy to talk about paradoxes, not least because he knows an evasive topic change when he hears one.

Or a drug-related rambling one. Either way.

"I've tried them before."

Before before.

Castiel takes a bite.

"Never could quite get a read on what they were supposed to be made out of."

He shrugs.

"Still good, whatever they are."

"Oh, right," Cal says. "Yeah, they kind of remind me of - chicken. If chicken wasn't chicken, and apples, uh, if apples were . . . oranges."

. . . yep.

Castiel raises his eyebrows at Cal.

"You're stoned yourself then?"

Cal laughs.

"No," he says, "not for a couple years now. But trying to describe those things makes me feel like I am."

"Well, you still have the vocabulary down, if it's any comfort," Castiel says.

It's distinctive.

It is distinctive, and this isn't the first time Cal's caught himself sounding on the stoned side during a conversation in Milliways. Some subjects just - invite it.

"Thank you," he says dryly.

"You're welcome," Castiel replies, pleasantly.

Broad verbal skills are important.