[Castiel] Thursday's child has far to go. (childofthursday) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-02-01 14:23:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, castiel, felicity smoak |
Who: Felicity + Castiel
What: Re-meet. Chatting
When: Late January
Where: A park / Japan
Rating: Low
Status: Complete
Felicity had decided to take lunch away from her desk for a change and found herself meandering through a nearby park looking for a place to eat her sandwiches. She came across a few benches in a clearing and spotted a familiar face. Smiling, she headed up to the bench he was occupying and re-introduce herself. “Hi there!” she smiled, getting his attention with a wave of her hand. “Do you remember me? We met on the steps of a church a few weeks ago,” she told him.
Castiel, in mid bite of his sandwich, rose his eyebrows, half chewed and swallowed thickly in order to answer and not appear rude. “Hello,” he greeted, sounding rather pleased. “Felicity.” He remembered. These days, he remembered most everything.
“How are you?” He asked, scooting over on his bench a little to give her space to sit if she felt so inclined. This was his favorite bench in the park -- in fact, it was his favorite spot in the entire city, the bench looking out over a steep hill and giving a very lovely view of the ocean.
"Castiel, I'm ok thanks, just needed to get out of that office for a while, it gets so stuffy sometimes," Felicity smiled. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I love computers but sometimes I just need a break...and that sounds suspiciously like something someone would say about a boyfriend..." she rambled a little. "Thanks," Felicity took the space next to him. "I was afraid I'd have to turf you off," she teased.
Castiel did not at all know what it meant to be turfed off, but he smiled anyway because -- well. She was, so that seemed like the proper response. “I understand,” he said kindly. “I eat my lunch out here almost every day. I like my job very much, and am not opposed to my office, but it’s nice to get outdoors when possible.”
He paused, readjusting his little lunch bag and opened can of tomato juice. “Boyfriend troubles?”
“Trust me, I live and breathe computers, but every now and then I need to just...take a walk in the park,” Felicity told him with a smile as she unwrapped her sandwiches and took a bite, nearly spitting it out when he asked about boyfriend troubles. She stared at him with wide eyes for a second as she reminded herself to swallow. “Boyfriend? Why would you think I had boyfriend...troubles? I don’t have a boyfriend,” she told him before rambling on like she did when she was nervous. “Or a girlfriend for that matter, not that I have anything against the lifestyle or anything, it’s just the opportunity hasn’t presented itself...and my brain really does find the worst ways to say things,” she closed her eyes in disbelief and gave a little laugh as she pushed her glasses up her nose again. “Sorry, I just...babble when I get nervous or taken by surprise,” she told him. “Anyway…” she took a deep breath. “How have you been? Not been stuck on anymore church steps I hope,” she joked then took a bite of her sandwich.
"Oh," Cas said, slightly abashed now too. He was rather awkward himself when it came to social interactions, and was now regretting saying anything at all. Assumptions, he reminded himself, rarely worked out in his favor. Maybe that was why he so rarely elected to actually speak. "It was just that you made the comparison."
He chewed his bottom lip awkwardly and rolled his shoulders in a stiff shrug. "I shouldn't have assumed your sexuality either. I'm sorry. It's very hypocritical of me." But then luckily the subject was kind of changed, and he was pleased as anything to move away from his own faux pas. "I'm well," he said, making his tone go a bit warmer. "I haven't made it a habit of being stuck in front of churches lately, no."
Felicity chuckled at that, also relieved to move past her own awkward, stupid brain not keeping up with what her mouth was saying. “I’m glad to hear, what was the deal with that anyway?” she asked curiously before taking another bite of her sandwich.
“Oh,” Castiel said again - it was just sort of a word he repeated often, more as a placeholder for when he wanted to think a moment. It seemed easier than having people think he was ignoring them. He rolled his shoulders again, another almost shrug. “I just -- have these dreams sometimes,” he offered, a little lamely. It was the sort of conversation that never went over well with those who didn’t. “They make me… hesitant on occasion. To do things I might have once done without thinking.”
“Oh yeah? Dreams about what?” Felicity asked after swallowing a mouthful of her sandwich.
Cas frowned, fiddled with the cap lid of his tomato juice awkwardly. He really didn't want to come across as strange or crazier than he actually was, but decided to go for it anyway. "I dream I'm an angel," he said, after a beat.
"With wings and everything?" Felicity asked curiously. "Cool," she raised her eyebrows as she thought about it. "I always wanted to have wings as a kid, then you could just...fly away from it all when things got hard," she quirked a smile as she remembered seeing a shooting star once as a kid and wishing she grew wings instead of facing the stupid girls at school who picked on her. "So why would dreaming you're an angel stop you going into a church? Aren't you supposed to be all amen and hallelujah to start with?" she asked flatly before sipping from her juice box and pushing her glasses up her nose. She wasn't being rude, she was genuinely curious.
"With wings and everything," Castiel agreed, although that wasn't exactly that easy. But he wasn't sure it was really his place to start describing metaphysics, or celestial wavelengths and how they applied to angels. "Flight is exceptionally pleasing, admittedly." He said he like he knew for real. Which he did.
"Because…" He frowned, suddenly more uncomfortable than anything else. "I don't know. The dreams are… exceptionally real. And I think I have found something more important to me than the 'amen and hallelujah'." He used air quotes when he repeated her words.
“Like what?” Felicity asked, turning to face him a bit more, still munching on her sandwich but focusing on him as he spoke.
The angel picked up another carrot from his little bag of them, but didn't seem inclined to actually eat it, so much as have something to do with his hands in holding it. "I have faith in people now."
“Wow, that’s...deep,” Felicity replied as she watched him. “So what happened to you? I mean, to ‘have faith in people now’ implies that you didn’t before, so…” she shrugged. “Why?”
Castiel blinked in a way that clearly conveyed some surprise with the question, more like he wasn't sure why it was being asked when it was such an obvious answer than it was shock. "I've found some that convinced me otherwise, is all." Well, it might not have been a complete plural, but that was his own business.
“Fair enough,” Felicity shrugged. “I’ve never been one for faith I’m afraid, too curious, I like to know how things work, mechanisms, systems, procedures,” she explained easily.
“Faith in people is a bit different than faith in God,” Castiel murmured. “You can see it, everyday. The good, the effort made. I think it’s similar to what you’re saying.” Not that he didn’t believe in God, but that seemed… less important now.
“I know what you mean, but it can be easy to forget the good what with the amount of bad stuff being reported in the news everyday,” she replied, looking across the park at two people laughing a talking on a blanket across the way from them. “That’s why I like to come here, remind myself of the good things around me,” she indicated the couple vaguely with her sandwich, losing a tiny bit of the filling on the ground with the action.
“I understand,” Castiel murmured, looking over at the two she was pointing at for a moment too, before turning his gaze back out toward the ocean. The good he saw daily wasn’t something he needed to look far for; he lived with Dean, after all, and Dean was Righteous. “A reminder never hurts.”
“It most certainly does not,” Felicity smiled at the couple pleasantly. “I never asked you what it was you did for a living,” she suddenly thought, turning to him slightly.
"I'm an angel of the lord," Castiel said, not even blithe, just completely serious. He gave a slight pause and then lifted his shoulders slightly. "I also work as middle management in insurance sales."
Felicity almost choked on her mouthful of sandwich at that and started coughing to try and dislodge the bread in her throat. Reaching for her drink she took a few long swallows and then a few deep breaths. “Sorry I just...I...an angel? Really? How do you know that?” she asked in a rush.
Castiel only offered her a very perplexed look, like he just wasn’t sure why she was asking him that, or doubting his words, let alone enough to choke. “I dream about it,” he said, and his tone was just this short of impatient, like he felt strangely about having to repeat prior words. “And I have… abilities.”
“Abilities? Like what?” Felicity asked curiously, sitting slightly forward on her seat and setting her sandwich down on the top of her lunch box beside her.
Castiel rolled his shoulders into a little shrug, invisible feathers of invisible wings ruffling slightly. “Flight,” he said finally, almost shy. “And hearing prayer.”
“You can fly?! That’s amazing! And hearing people’s prayers? Can you...answer them?” Felicity asked, turning to face him more fully.
Castiel frowned at that, clearly confused. “It depends what you mean? I could... technically answer them. By flying to the source of the prayer.” What he was getting at was that he was not, in fact, some sort of telepathically powered being. “But yes. I can fly. Shall I show you?”
“Oh my god yes!” Felicity cried, sitting up in her seat. “Or...sorry, not oh my god, because that would be taking the lord’s name in vain and that’s blasphemy, although I’m actually Jewish...mostly, that doesn’t change anything, does it?” Felicity rambled nervously a little.
Castiel only tilted his head to the side at those questions before rolling his shoulders into a little shrug. "You meant no harm," he said after a beat. "It's not a problem." Christian, Jewish, whatever. No one was going to be denied access into heaven just because they used a nearly cultural expression of excitement.
And then, without further comment or even warning, he reached out to touch her on the forehead. In less than a second and a blink, they were standing in the middle of the street in Japan. Castiel was rather fond of Japan.
It seemed Felicity blinked and she was somewhere else. One moment talking to Castiel, the next she was stood on a street in Japan still holding her sandwich. She stared at the people bustling past them, gaping in amazement. “We’re in Japan...Japan...on the other side of the globe...that was amazing! Not quite what I expected when you said flying but...I can’t believe it, we’re in Japan!” she rattled off in awe.
"It's simply a matter of warping time and space around myself," Castiel said, as if that was a useful explanation. Technically he had wings, but they were more a metaphysical manifestation, something that others couldn't generally see, and flying wasn't the same was probably what most people imagined. Flapping was involved, but he was not at all birdlike.
"Tokyo," he agreed, sounding fond. "I like it here. People are very polite."
“So you’re like a human warp drive!” Felicity enthused. “That’s amazing! And you can go anywhere? Can you go to other times or other planets? Or is it just present time on Earth? How did you find out about it? Are there others like you?” she asked, questions falling out of her mouth before she really had time to process them.
“Except I’m not human, really,” Castiel agreed, although he thought that a human warp drive sounded a little like something Dean might watch on television. Strange.
“I haven’t tried other planets,” he admitted. “It would be embarrassing to make it there and not be able to survive in the atmosphere. Time… I am not currently capable of, but will be, eventually.” He paused, considering the questions, even if they were presented in rapid fire, he felt he should be answering them all. “I knew I could do it because I woke up with wings. It’s very similar to realizing you have legs, I imagine. I have brothers, yes.” Had he missed any? Hm.
“Oh...well yeah, now you mention it, hopping to other planets would be a little suicidal without y’know checking it out first,” Felicity laughed off her own enthusiasm. “Travelling through time though? That’s going to be amazing! Where do you want to go? Oh, sorry, when do you want to go to? I can’t believe you have wings! Coz I gotta tell you, growing up I always imagined I was supposed to be born with wings, practiced taking off and landing too,” she admitted with a little shrug, followed by a shake of her head as she looked around them once more. “And your brothers? They can do this too?”
Oddly, the power to travel through time (eventual as it was) didn't really make Castiel crave any sort of adventure. There was no time or place he wanted to be that wasn't where he was already. He wondered idly if that made him boring. Instead, he only rolled his shoulders into a half shrug and didn't bother answering at all.
"Some can," he said instead. "Others will be able to. It's only a matter of time and dreams. Would you like a souvenir before you go back to work?"
“How many brothers do you have then? You sound like there are thousands of them,” Felicity said. “A souvenir? That would be great! Where from?”
Castiel rolled his shoulders into another little shrug but then gestured for her to follow him into a little shop. It was full of weird little knick knacks. He wasn’t a person who owned things for the sake of just having them, but if he was he probably would have liked a Lucky Cat for himself. Maybe Felicity would find something she liked.
“In my dreams I have thousands of brothers and sister,” he agreed, amused. “Here, not so much. In my normal life, I am the youngest of four boys. As an angel, I have three other siblings here as well. One of them is one of my real brothers.”
Felicity dropped the remains of her sandwich in the nearest bin. She couldn’t believe that she was in a shop. In Japan. After being on lunch. In America! It was bizarre and definitely a highlight of her life so far, but she had no idea how to top it. After following Castiel into the shop she couldn’t keep the grin off her face as she started looking at all the touristy trinkets on offer. She couldn’t help it, she enjoyed trinkets, not that she’d travelled all that much. She picked up a beautiful fan, turning it over in her hands and touching it gently as she admired it.
Castiel poked at a few things in the shop, but ended up with a bag of candy in his hand -- he had another friend who was very fond of lychee gummies and he bought them for her whenever he visited Japan.
“That’s a good selection,” he told Felicity with an approving sort of nod.
“Yeah?” Felicity looked up at him with a smile then shrugged. “Well, seeing as this is probably the only time I’m ever going to be in Japan I may as well get something really good,” she said, indicating the fan in her hand. She went to move over to the counter before realising a fatal error in their plans. “Umm, what about Yen?” she asked him. “Coz I don’t know about you, but I only stepped out of the office with a few dollars.”
"Oh." Castiel said, before frowning and then pulling out his wallet. "I can manage," he said. He came here enough to actually have yen on him. He liked the language. It was easier than some, just because it was mostly formal and polite. Or it wasn't, but no one corrected him on his knowledge because they were polite. Either way, really.
“Oh, wow, you just...carry that around do ya?” Felicity asked, referring to the money in his hand. “That’s cool, you must come here a lot then.”
"I like it here," Castiel responded, as if that were answer enough before he exchanged a short conversation in Japanese with the man behind the register, passing over the money and half-nodding, half bowing his thanks.
"It's easier to carry the money around then get my credit card shut off for suspicious charges," he went on wryly, once everything was paid for. It sounded a bit like he spoke from experience.
“I suppose that makes sense when you’ve got a jetsetting ability like yours,” Felicity laughed. “It’s amazing! Where else have you been?” she enthused.
“Sweden, Paris, New York.” He shrugged a little and spread his fingers slightly as if to say he’d been quite a few places at this point.
"You say that so nonchalantly," Felicity smiled up at him, eyes watching his expression. "I know you've probably done this sort of thing a lot," she gestured a hand to vaguely indicate their surroundings. "And don't take this the wrong way, but...you seem almost sombre about it," she observed.
Cas blinked over that, head tilting slightly to the side. "Do I?" He asked, a little wonderingly. He didn't mean to be. He enjoyed what he had, and what talents he'd been given. He was just… well. Solemn. He'd always been.
"That's not my intention." He paused, glancing at his watch. "Shall I take you back to work?"
"Hey I didn't say it was a bad thing, just that a lot of people would be bouncing off the walls with excitement, myself included, if I had this sort of power," Felicity grinned at him. "It's just interesting to see people's different reactions to it I guess," she shrugged. She looked at her watch too, remembering she really should get back to work instead of wanting to look at the sakura blossoms. "Yeah, I suppose so, thank you...so much for bringing me here," she told him, looking him straight in the eyes.
That made sense. Castiel was, in his own way, excited about it for several different reasons. It was nice to be able to go places he'd never seen before, nicer yet to be able to save on gas and money and the environment in general. His favorite part about it though was that it just made things that much easier when it came to escape from particularly awkward or uncomfortable situations: which he often found himself in. "I understand," he said. Because he did.
"It's no problem." He was nearly shy at her thanking, "I don't mind." And with that, he settled his hand on her shoulder and they were back in the park, as if they'd never been gone at all.
Felicity let out a laugh again upon finding them back in the park. She looked around at the other people and it was like they had never left, people just carrying on with their normal routine ignoring the two people who had just ‘popped’ back into existence in their little corner of the universe. “That’s incredible!” she grinned, touching her hand to her opposite arm as if to prove she was really there. “And no-one else noticed,” she gestured, almost disappointedly, to the other patrons of the park.
Castiel quirked his lips into an almost smile at that as well before offering an almost apologetic shrug. "I think most people don't know how to…accept something so extraordinary," he said honestly. A half a year ago he certainly wouldn't have known how to. "So they just pretend it didn't happen."
"It's a shame, just makes me wonder how much we miss in our everyday lives," Felicity replied a little sadly. "Well," she turned and picked up her bottle of drink, placing her beautiful fan down on the bench. "Here's to not missing out on the extraordinary," she toasted.
Castiel only smiled before lifting up his momentarily abandoned can of tomato juice as well. “Or trying not to,” he amended.