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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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.

"Well, I for one have given up on predicting what life is going to throw at me, so..."

Who would have thought, back when he was just starting to putter around in Milliways, or deployed to Earth, it would wind up like this.

He pats Meg's hand.

"If this is it, I take comfort in the fact that you'll remember me fondly."

It's not that she won't, it's just . . . that sounds like the sort of thing you say to someone right before you put her in the last lifeboat leaving a sinking ship, or head off to do a far far better thing than you have ever done before.

"Well, I'm going to hope it's not.

"But if it is, of course I will."

And the thing of it is, that's the world that Castiel lives in now. Anytime anyone leaves the camp--himself included--it's with the knowledge that that person might never come back.

He gives Meg's hand a little squeeze.

"Don't look so sad. A person like you shouldn't have to look sad."

"But go ahead and hope. Always. Hope is a good thing. It's a shame there isn't more of it."

"The only thing left in Pandora's box."

Hope's not always a good thing. Sometimes hope is very cruel.

(She knows that, on a rational level. She hopes for things, anyway.)

"'A person like me'? Are there people who should have to look sad?"

"And yet she still made out better than Eve was said to have."

Castiel shrugs.

"It's possible I'm biased."

"Actually, it's a certainty that I'm biased."

"We're all biased, when it comes to our friends."

It's part of being friends, right?

"Indeed."

It's one of the reasons Dean still has his unwavering support.

And this all feels a little hypocritical, because Meg's particular bias here is that she'd very much rather be talking to the Castiel of old.

(It would be different, she thinks, if it had been however many years for her, too, or if she hadn't skipped all the steps between suit and tie and wings, and cast and scruff and drugs. But neither of those is the case.)

But, if this the time and state from which Bar chooses to bring Castiel now, well, Meg will adapt.

(She hopes.)

"Are you sure I can't get you anything?"

Beat.

"That isn't contraindicated for any or all of what's on the table?"

"Maybe some coffee?"

For old time's sake.

"I think caffeine should be safe enough."

Unless he's planning to spike it.

Though it's not great for mending bones.

Still.

"Coffee I can get."

And if the coffee comes with an apple and a sandwich, well, so be it.

Castiel gives her a knowing look. But lets it slide.

He does pick up the apple appreciatively.

"It's been a while since I've seen one of these."

Fresh produce is a hit or miss thing these days. Some things they can grow at the camp (there are some enterprising gardeners among the ranks). And some things they can gather wild.

Apples don't fall into either category.

He said it himself. She hasn't changed a bit.

"They're good for broken bones," Meg says.

"Where are you living these days?"

Castiel waits until he has properly chewed and swallowed his mouthful of apple.

"Place called Camp Chitaqua."

"It's an old...I think it might have been a scout camp, or something?"

"It's not a bad place. It's safe. Remote. I have a cabin."

She doesn't ask safe and remote from what.

Next time, maybe. For now, she'll just leave it at safe and remote.

(And again, she feels a surreal disconnect related to how time has been moving for the two of them. It hasn't been long, for her, since they were talking about his not being sure about having a room. Now he has a whole cabin. She almost wants to ask if it has blue and white wall paper.)

"And you're not alone?"