8724/Down By the Jersey Shore

Down By the Jersey Shore
Date of Scene:	10 August 2019
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	In which Hayal and Castiel ponder their purpose, and Castiel rediscovers his wings.
Cast of Characters:	Exile, Castiel

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Exile has posed:
The shore fascinates him. Wild and remote or populated by those on holiday, cold or hot....he loves the edge of the sea. This time, it's closer to the loft/nest that's the nearest thing he has to a home.

AT the moment, they're walking along the water's edge on a warm summer evening....and Hayal, at least, is enjoying cotton candy. It's a lurid pink and he hasn't mastered the art of eating it neatly. "I love sugar," he says, with a contented sigh.

Castiel has posed:
"I do not understand the fascination," Castiel mumbles, brow furrowing as he watches his companion pull bits of the air spun sugar confection off the cone, and nibble at the bits. Seeing the ends of the sugary thing deepen in colour to a near red as the moisture from Hayal's lips melts the stuff back into sugar. Indeed, Hayal has a pink ring around his mouth attesting to the not-yet mastering eating it neatly.

He is walking on the sand side of the shore, leaving Hayal to be closer to the water, but ever since they had 'played' on that beach in Vancouver, Castiel had been thinking of just such things as this walk. He had, not that he'd admitted it, enjoyed the cool lap of water against his flesh, and the gentle lulling sounds it had made. Not unlike the Choir's murmuring in his ears, the cound coming and going.

It should, he thought, sadden him, but it doesn't.

"We will have one of the street meats, too," he says emphatically. That's a treat he has been made aware of, and like the boilermakers, the vessel has foind memories of the things. Memories strong enough to drag longing from the angel to indulge.

"Do you ever wonder," he asks suddenly, "About our purpose?"

Exile has posed:
"Yessssss," Hayal hisses, unaware how snake-like he sounds for the moment. "Hot dogs are almost always good." He may not need to eat....but the pleasure of tasting never grows old.

He offers Cas the wand of cotton candy, as he says, "Many times. Why do you bring it up now, though?"

Castiel has posed:
"Hot dogs," Castiel echoes. It sounds weird to call them that when they are not dogs. Sometimes not even hot. Like Hayal, food was an indulgence, not a necessity. Despite himself, and perhaps out of reflex, he pulls a strip of the puffy pink treat and considers it. The air itself at the shore is nearly moist enough to cause the confection to wilt of its own accord.

"I do not know," Castiel has to admit. "Only, after I did talk to Agent May about the vessel, I am plagued with thoughts of him." And not just Jimmy Novak, but Jimmy was a start. "Humans are always worried about their purpose. Where they are going in life. We are angels, created for one thing, only we are not those things anymore. I am confused."

Castiel didn't like being confused. It was one of those emotions that made his insides feel awkward, though he no longer believed he was dying when that happened. Progress.

Exile has posed:
The fallen angel pads along beside him, scuffing at the foam that laps up at the toes of his boots. "Because we are no longer filling that purpose?" he ventures, giving Cas a look out of the corner of his eye. "I suppose we're like humans again. They don't know....or don't want to know. I don't fight as part of the Host. Maybe I will again. But.....now I decide where I go, what I do. Sometimes I fight in human wars....but mostly I go and look at things. And learn. Matter is wonderful."

Castiel has posed:
A slow, almost understanding nod from Castiel, his pace an even match for his brethren. "We were made for one thing, and that has been taken from us. I tried to explain to someone that we do not have free will, it was never gifted to us. He did not understand, I do not think, only it does not change that I was a warrior, and now I am not. You were a soldier.."

Castiel pauses to consider Hayal. "Maybe you are still a soldier. I do not know. I have fought beside them in their wars, but something is missing."

He almost smiles - almost - when Hayal gets excited, only he hides the gesture in tasting the cotton candy. "I do not understand how you can be so innocent still. I am only ever reminded of every battle I have fought."

Exile has posed:
"Am I innocent? I have waded knee deep in human blood. I saw the Cities of the Plain burn as I fell. I came down among them, saw the way the blameless suffered with the guilty. So it always is. Why the Most High made it so that's how it is, I never knew. That I presumed to ask that it must be is why I fell."

He shrugs at that. "But I choose not to suffer unless I must. Life in time ends, no matter what it is. This planet's sun will dwindle to nothing, and everything that ever lived upon it will die. The war will come. Maybe I'll be destroyed then. Does that mean that I shouldn't look at what's beautiful while it's here? A leaf will turn color and fall and become part of the soil....but it's still beautiful."

Castiel has posed:
"I never questioned His Word but the once. And ever since then it has been nothing but questions," Castiel grumbles quietly. "They were nothing. Not even numbers. That was never my concern, but His. So many bodies lain out against.. what?"

Castiel comes up short, and considers the remainder of cotton candy in his fingers.

"It is all meaningless. We fought in an endless war - you. You stepped away. You saw it first. You.." He looks annoyed with himself. "I watched a man about to offer his soul for his brother and I could not let it be. I have no reason. No sense of why. Just there was a need to do the thing. I do not even recall making a decision."

"You are innocent," he repeats. "I can not see the sunsets the way you do. Or the leaves. It is all just questions for me. All things I do not understand. I see no purpose in it." His brows knit, the man turning to angle his shoulders towards Hayal, guarded as he questions, trench coat a relentless tight line across his back, "Do you think this was our purpose? To defy. Out of all the angels of the Lord, to embrace free will?"

The cotton candy is laughed at softly, his shoulders relaxing, the last bit of it stuffed into his mouth. "I'm taking my shoes off."

Exile has posed:
"Do," he urges. "Sand and water are magical. So are toes. They're like little fingers, but they aren't." Hayal's sufficiently moved, in fact to scamper up just beyond the water line and take off his own boots and socks. He knots the former together and slings them over his shoulder.

"I don't understand it either. I don't know that I ever did. I just thought I did." He looks at Castiel. "Well, we're here. They could come destroy us at any time. But....they didn't. So....maybe it was. Maybe we're only the first of many."

Castiel has posed:
"That has been my thought as well," Castiel admits, still looking perplexed as he sits down and slowly removes first one shoe, and then the next. Because Hayal has mentioned toes, he even remembers to take off his socks, stuffing them into the shoes before standing up, digging his toes into the sand while he contemplates.

"I have tried to understand it. At first I was angry. It was a very strange emotion." But near enough to righteousness that it wasn't unfamiliar. It felt like battles and strength, and smiting. It also covered up a myriad of other things he was not ready to feel. "Now I can only wonder why they haven't sent someone. If He were so displeased, still, why am I still left to come and go? Why was I not stripped as you were stripped. The only answer I can find is that I am doing what I am supposed to. Only what purpose is there in denying His commands? It makes no sense. We punished humans for that hubris."

Castiel considers the shoreline where the waves touch the sand, and walks first to the edge of this, and then in further until he is shin deep in the water, and his pants are damp to nearly his knees with the errant crests as they lap around his legs.

Exile has posed:
HE rolls up his own jeans, and wades in. Shivers a little in delight - cold and warmth, sand silky and soft. "Exactly. I can't fight a real angel or demon. Not now. I'm too weak. Maybe the plans are more complex than we see. If He knows when the smallest bird dies on this world..... can we truly be forgotten? It's ...." Words escape him, for now. "Too much. WE're still limited. I wish I could talk to more of our brethren without being afraid...."

He sloshes around like a child for a moment. "I heard a rumor. Even the Lightbringer himself has abandoned his role. He no longer rules Hell."

Castiel has posed:
A slow, and understanding nod from Castiel, who stands near knee deep in the water and merely lets wave and wind wash over him. "I had heard that. The others jockey for positions they can not hope to keep should Morningstar return. It is not a good state of affairs. And yet, He still does not step in."

His nostrils flare with the scent of sea air in them. "Friedrich Nietzsche said God is dead. I know that my apology was demanded, but I am no longer so certain of His presence. It isn't so clear in my mind. There are details missing. The only constant is Michael."

Exile has posed:
"I can't hold it," Hayal admits. And now, for the first time, his voice is troubled. "The City. The Presence. What it was like before I fell. I may not suffer much, but I remember what it was like when I was pure and I did not know doubt....but the details....they..." And he bows his head, as the waves wash past them. "Michael....he's only one of us. The mightiest and most loyal, but....just one."

Castiel has posed:
"He has a stick up his hindquarters the size of a telephone pole," Catiel declares unkindly. "He is too much of himself." And where the Lord had been scarse, Michael had not been.

"I miss it," Castiel says, unable to stop himself from thinking 'sometimes' - and it isn't just sometimes he misses it. But less than he once did, which also frightens him. The longer he was with these humans, sharing their plight, the fewer and further between the moments of despair were. His resolve had always been steady in this matter, but that did not mean he did not painfully wish to return to be with his kin.

"I can not tell if the forgetting is a recent thing, or if I am only noticing it now." He closes his eyes and exhales, letting his body relax. "The Silver City is.. How can it be beautiful when I know what I know? How pointless all this is. So many deaths - for what? I.." His voice falters, dropping to a near unheard register. "What if that is what Morningstar saw? The hypocrisy of it all. The hubris of a creation that can only ever serve without fault in believing that they are somehow better?"

Exile has posed:
Hayal turns on Castiel at that, and there's despair on his face. "That's what I think," he says, and hates the admission, by his tone. "That he is right.. If his followers weren't just as cruel and spiteful and destructive, I could have served him, instead, with something like a whole heart. But they were. Nowhere was better. Now I'm down here among all these mortals, all these lives that come and go.....but I can't make myself regret it. Not now that I've seen. I wish I could forget and unsee, but I can't."

Castiel has posed:
Castiel's eyes open on a tired blue. "If we are nothing but perfect soldiers and warriors of the Lord, with no thought but His, then what are we, really? We kill them for having the audacity to do what we can not. I don't understand why we were given that task."

And that, ultimately, is why he will not grovel back to the great throne in the Silver City, and apologize.

"If I were to stand there, again, knowing what I know now, of all that would happen to me, I will still raise that boy from death to stop his brother. Otherwise, what is anything that has gone on meant?"

His visage gentles on Hayal. "You are not alone. I am only sorry it took so long for another to understand what you saw."

Exile has posed:
He turns his face aside and down - as if he were trying to hide it under a wing that isn't currently there. "I am sorry to be glad that you are here, but I am. It feels....selfish. But....humans say that misery loves company. Maybe they are right."

Castiel has posed:
"I didn't do it for you," Castiel points out in maddeningly reasonable terms. "I did it for Stupid and his brother."

Only he realizes, perhaps moments too late, what the other is going through to admit that. The years of loneliness there must have been watching wave after wave of humans he might have cared for come and go - like those leaves he spoke of. And, too, Castiel realizes maybe it wasn't just leaves Hayal meant.

Still, he regrets his hasty words, speaking more slowly now, more carefully, his tones gentled, "You should not be alone. We should not have to be alone."

Castiel stepping forward towards the other angel, and wrapping his arms around him. His being suffusing with light, and for a moment transcending the vessel to shelter Hayal within the embrace of his wings.

Yes, Castiel's wings. Things he had thought were lost to him, and may not yet realize he has manifested to comfort the other, much as Hayal had done the same for him so many times before.

Exile has posed:
So the sound effect there is the world's biggest record scratch. He can feel Hayal go utterly still in confusion, within the sweep of those pinions.

"Buh?" he says, intelligently, trying to turn within the embrace to get a better view of them. It's like an impatient child trying to escape a huggy grandmother.

Castiel has posed:
Castiel is still unware, if only because his attention is that fully upon Hayal; comforting him. "I'm trying to be nice, you idiot," he scolds, failing to contain the other angel, and giving up with a gruff heave of a sigh. "Fine. I don't understand what has you so..."

And then he notices. The way the wind catches in those wings, lifting them ever so gently away from the waves that they drag ino. The way each feather ruffles and sends a whisper of sound into the air to play about the pair of them. How they feel like home, and forgotten memories. And how the weight of them reminds him that they were a choice he'd made.

"I don't understand," is his quiet response. "They.." He doesn't finish speaking, for what do you say when you've been offered a glimpse of Heaven? When the lulling rise and fall of those very wings is a shushed secret between you and the Lord.

Something is right. So very right...

...Unless it's so very wrong.

Exile has posed:
The exile wriggles free, and then there are his own wings present. Hayal's laughing, bouncing up and down on the sandy shore. He doesn't even have something coherent to say about it - only that wordless joy.

"They're back," he finally supplies, grinning like a fiend.

Castiel has posed:
It's really, really hard not to join in that laughter. He does manage not to join in the bouncing, though. Still, the goofy grin struck across his grizzled face tells tale enough. "They are," he says, looking for a moment to add a caustic retort. "Thought they were gone for good. Don't suppose this is what humans call a reason to celebrate?"

He seemed to recall something about street meat. Or that little pub back on the boardwalk. Hell, he was happy enough he'd let Hayal convince him to strip down and swim. Or ride that unfathomable thing they called a roller coaster.

Exile has posed:
"Can you fly? Try," Hayal urges. "Gravity is a big pain, but I bet you can do it. Do it. Do it. Do it." Like an impatient kid cheering on his big brother.

He hasn't lifted off himself. As if he doesn't want to try until he's sure Castiel can join him.

Castiel has posed:
Normally, that would be a thing that would elicit stink-eye from the gruffer angel, but Hayal is contagious - as is the glorious feeling of having his wings back! Cas needs no second urging, throwing caution to the wind (almost literally!) and sending himself aloft.

It was.. as Hayal said, both different, and the same. Gravity felt so much more when you were not merely celestial. But it also left flight a euphoric feeling to flight. There was a sense that at any moment you might give in to that pressure and succumb to earth - only you didn't. You caught thermals, and you drifted, aloft. Weightless almost. Free again. And feeling, however briefly, that you had been forgiven.