Post by Cassiel on Jan 28, 2016 1:40:14 GMT
There is nothing to drink in that house, I need something to pass the time and being interrogated for days by my host, who, I might add, still refuses to believe me, left me with a particular desire to quench. That of getting myself roaring drunk. No one knows that I'm here and from what Jacob has told me, no other Demons have been hanging around. I feel confident enough to wander out of the house and walk the short distance to Jacobs bar, which thankfully is still open for business.
I don't really pay attention to my surroundings, I stop a few times and close my eyes just taking in the chill of the night, I'm out here without adequate protection from the cold and snow, but there is always a fire under my skin and this weather does not phase me in the slightest.
I 'feel' him before I see him, though I must have mistaken that presence for someone else as an Angel blade slips into my right hand and I look around ready to defend myself against some wayward, holier-than-thou Angel set on rooting out all the Demons. At least, this is the scenario I have in my head. I was expecting Demons, really. I seriously don't need this right now and am almost tempted to tiptoe back to the house and hope it hasn't noticed me. What I notice, though, is someone, hunched over against the outside wall of the bar. A victim, a drunk..too far yet to make out his face. Blade in hand I steadily grow closer.
CASTIEL--
The cold, crisp night air did nothing to help him sober up. But, he had nowhere else to be, nowhere else he even particularly wanted to be. Not even the lure of the silence of the woods around the cabin was enough to stir him to move from where he leaned against the outside of the bar, hidden in shadow. There was just something nice about being able to just lean here, not worrying about much of anything. He hadn't truly gotten intoxicated since the apocalypse had been an issue, and he found it to be much more pleasant a feeling when there wasn't that undercurrent of hopelessness and helplessness marring the experience.
With a sigh that sent a plume of white mist up around his face, he slid down until he was crouched, with his back braced against the wall. He was still feeling a little unsteady on his feet, and this was just so much more comfortable. Briefly, he considered rousing himself to go back into the bar to gather up his coats, but the thought drifted from his mind almost as soon as it had appeared. Instead, a smile curved his lips with the memory of wrapping Donna in his wings, mantling her as he'd not done with a human in a couple thousand years.
His head slowly rose and he looked around into the dark, squinting, head tilting. Someone was out there. He could feel the faint oily-black-smoke feel of a demon nearby, and growing closer. He'd felt it as a constant, distant thing ever since arriving at the bar earlier in the evening, but he'd dismissed it until now. This was growing stronger, closer, but...there was something off about it now. There was something almost...honey-sweet about it, twined in with the oily feel of the sensation. Something...familiar.
With a grunt, he realized his blade was still inside, along with his coats. He could call it to him despite that, but he was wary now of using any hint of grace unless he needed to. Use of his power could alert the demon to his presence, if it didn't already know he was here. And, even if it did, if this demon was familiar to him – though he just could not grasp in the fuzziness of intoxication who it could be, what demon that he knew, except that he was certain now it wasn't Jacob, and it wasn't Crowley – then he might be familiar to the demon as well. He didn't want to do anything that might give away who he was, the one advantage, the one bit of surprise he had to use.
MEG--
He..it, moved and I stop, perhaps my victim and the Angel are one in t he same, lying in wait, no doubt did it sense me already, but even now I can smell the strong scent of alcohol emanating from it's direction. Is it drunk? That would explain it's current slouching condition. I didn't think an Angel could get drunk without significant effort on it's part and what Angel would defile itself so completely by attempting this feat in the first place. Out here, alone and seemingly vulnerable. Though I wouldn't put it past the asshats to use this tactic as a trap. I grip the blade tightly and it glitters in the harsh light that illuminates most of the parking lot when I step into view.
"Look at you, slumming with the rest of the rats." That easy smirk crosses my lips, too mouthy for my own good, too mouthy for anyone's good. But I was never good at being good anyway. Still not able to view his face or much of his features. I move slowly, the constant motion to help me remain focused. I could have turned back, but once I felt it, I knew it felt me in return, there would be no running away this time, hopefully Jacob isn't too far away, I'm not going down easy or at all if I can help it, but neither am I wanting some Angel reporting my whereabouts to anyone else right now.
CASTIEL--
There, a gleam of light on the silvery-metal of an angel blade caught his eye, just before a figure stepped into the light of the parking lot. The sight, instead of having him ready to defend himself, left him stunned. And then...that voice, honey-sweet just like the honey-sweet sensation threaded through that oily smoke feel of the demonic essence curled through her vessel. His heart started to race, fear and confusion overwhelming his muddled mind. It couldn't be her. She was dead. She was...gone, and had been for years.
Castiel scrubbed a hand over his face, then looked again to see if she was still there. And she was, approaching him slowly, that familiar strut she used when she was on guard and ready to fight for her life, or....he'd sometimes felt, that she used just to fluster and toy with him. Every movement she made was bittersweet in it's familiarity.
He remained still as she approached, fighting against the effects of the intoxication to understand how he could be seeing something that....simply couldn't exist. But, finally, some deeply rooted instinct took hold and Cas staggered to his feet, still leaning against the wall unsteadily. A thought, a whisper of his grace, and a flick of his wrist...and he was gripping his own blade tightly, though he let it remain at his side. He was ready to use it if he had to, but he made no threatening moves with it.
“Meg,” he said despite knowing this thing, whatever it really was, couldn't be her....couldn't possibly be her. His his voice was low, and rougher than usual, grief and confusion suffusing it.
MEG--
Aha, I knew it would be armed, not so helpless, not so vulnerable. Ready to strike me down despite it apparently having some familiarity with my face. That alone makes my pulse race, who does it belong to? Seems despite it all, each faction of Angels is more crazy than the other. We are not so different in the end, They and Us. Madness is just more readily easy to grasp when you have nothing else to hold onto, what else could you be when everything else is stripped away. I lick my lips slowly as I continue my approach.
"It knows my name, that's..unfortunate." I croon.
Meters away now and I see it there for the first time, frumpy but with a hard determination in it's blue eyes like the worst of the kicked dogs I have ever seen, kicked but still standing, still ready to take on Hell and Heaven and everything in between. Because what else is there when giving up will never be an option. So familiar, that look, I see it in the mirror when I happen to look, not that I look very often. Still standing, still alive and still ready to raise Hell. I sneer delicately, weapon at the ready.
"Do I know you, Clarence?"
CASTIEL--
'It' she called him. Somehow, that caused more pain to flare in his chest than even the sight of her did. Cas scowled, reminding himself that this demon could not possibly be Meg, no matter how much she felt like her...moved like her...and, of course, looks meant nothing, just as they meant nothing in relation to his own true form. Vessels could change, and even more readily for demons than for angels. But no matter how much he repeated these simple facts in the silences of his own mind, the pain didn't fade.
Even the sneer, an expression that spoke so eloquently to him of loathing of self as much as of the intended target of the expression, was achingly familiar. Every fiber of his being screamed at him that this was Meg, even as every tattered and fraying scrap of logic he could gather to himself desperately told him it was an impossibility.
'Do I know you, Clarence?' The words echoed in his mind, even as his blade clattered to the concrete at his feet, dropped from nerveless fingers without his awareness. The memories he'd allowed himself to get lost in all-too-recently whirled in his mind, the intoxication making them nearly impossible to push away. They were too fresh, as they always were when he'd forced himself to relive them.
He wondered, briefly, if this feeling – as though the world had dropped out beneath him – was how Dean had felt when he'd found Cas all those years ago, living as Emmanuel, with no memory of anything before walking out of a river, and certainly no memory of a man with green eyes who had once been the center of his world.
The demon moving ever closer to him couldn't be Meg, not his Meg. She couldn't be. But, with that single word – 'Clarence' – he couldn't believe anything but that this was Meg. She'd had so many clever, cute, even mildly insulting nicknames for him, but her use of the one she'd always come back to, time and again, sealed it for him. This demon didn't just look like Meg, move like Meg, sound like Meg, feel like Meg...this demon was Meg. The thought that perhaps he'd somehow gone insane again, reality twisting and warping, occurred to him then.
He pushed himself away from the wall, staggering slightly. One hand, the very one that had held his blade only moments ago, reached out toward her helplessly as he took one step toward her, then another, before stopping, unsure. “Cas,” he whispered, voice strained and desperate. “Castiel. I'm...Castiel. You know me Meg. You... You were my caretaker.” He paused, searching his mind desperately for something to say, words to express what she was to him. “I was...broken. You were the one who stayed when everyone else left me.”
He took another hesitant step toward her, shaking now, his outstretched hand trembling, unsure if he could even remain standing much longer. But he couldn't take his eyes from her, he couldn't seem to stop himself from trying to reach out for her, to find something to make her recognize him...
MEG--
I see it flinch with almost every word I speak, my taunts like beautiful whip marks on its skin and I smell the stink of desperation and alcohol from where I stand. I glance around quickly, assuring myself that we are indeed alone, was it indulging at the bar? Is it something that Jacob knows, surely neither would have been, civil to each other. That smirking bastard could have warned me, I'll skin him alive. Later.
My attention returns to the Angel again, it apparently has a name too, but then all things do, Bullet, Blade, Castiel. Castiel...It virtually cries its name at me again in delightful agony. How completely broken it seems all of a sudden, that glimmer of recognition in its eyes and the utterly gut wrenching gaze speaks volumes and I suddenly wish I could read it all. Bask in it, feed on it. My grin becomes predatory.
"Every syllable you speak, thrills me, but it rings hollow inside me like an empty room, all echos and dust." I twirl the blade in my hand, once, twice before holding it out before me as it starts to approach again.
CASTIEL--
Her words, harsh and cold, stop him in his tracks, even making him take an unsteady step back, more surely than the threat the blade she wielded represented. She was Meg, he was still certain of this. But she was a Meg who didn't know him. Who didn't remember a ring of holy fire and his escape, who didn't remember a stolen kiss and a stolen blade, who didn't remember watching over him when he was more vulnerable than at any other point in his long, long life.
She was Meg...but she was a threat as surely as any other demon. No. She was worse, because he wasn't sure he could bring himself to snuff out her life, even at the risk of losing his own.
“What happened to you? We... I thought you were dead, I thought Crowley had killed you,” he couldn't help but ask, voice rough and full of pain. “Meg...what happened to you?” As he spoke, he'd stepped back further, until his back was once again against the wall, and his blade was at his feet. He made no move to reach down for it, however. Not yet. Muddled thoughts raced, seeking a way out, seeking...something, anything to make her understand.
MEG--
It's like watching a train wreck and I simply can't help wanting to back it up and see it all again, over and over until It is nothing but a wounded mess at my feet. I step closer to him, out of arms reach, mind you, but close enough that I lower my blade, his is weaponless and I surmise, too shaken up to act against me at this point. It has the most delicious light inside, a glorious heat, passion, desire, under the pain, that stuff that keep it on its feet no matter what. Hidden in plain sight and I find myself wanting to reach into it and siphon some off into myself. Consume him.
The mention of Crowley's name has me tense, a smarmy bastard I never wanted to see again though that could potentially change, given the right..tools. "I did die, Clarence. Many, many times." I lower the blade completely and step closer now until we are virtually toe to toe. "The King of Hell bores easily."
CASTIEL--
She moved closer still, and the desire – almost need – to step toward her and enfold her in his arms warred with the cold knowledge that she might well kill him if he were to do so. Still, hope flared up when her blade lowered, but he made no move of any kind, except to slump further against the wall behind him.
Even now, in his inebriated state – or perhaps because of it, he couldn't be sure at this point – she was beautiful to him. Of course, her true face, the face of the demon within, was there to be seen. But that didn't detract from the beauty he saw in her, as it had never really been the vessel that had fascinated him, attracted him.
No, her very essence was what he found beautiful. She was the first demon he'd ever seen that seemed to harbour within her the potential for something more, something different, something that his own mind, his very grace had translated as honey-sweet, marking her forever to him as different from all the rest of her kind. After all, it hadn't been mere chance that his mind, in his insanity, had latched onto bees – and their honey – as a focal point.
He winced at her words, yet made no move to escape from her as she stepped closer, so close it would take the barest effort to reach out and touch her. In fact, his hand twitched at his side with the urge to do just that. “Meg...oh, Meg, I'm sorry,” came his broken whisper. He could resist no longer. Lost, in pain, intoxicated and broken, he reached his hand up to cup her cheek. “I should have been there to save you,” he whispered again, leaning forward until his lips brushed hers as he spoke.