Winifred "Fred" Burkle (i_figure) wrote in we_coexist, @ 2011-03-18 20:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | castiel, winifred burkle |
An angel and a genius have some coffee, no, really. (Castiel/Fred log)
Castiel took Dean’s suggestion of reconnaissance very seriously. Though demons could not track angels instinctively or vise versa, and Castiel was not afforded the senses that would reveal any of his brethren to him, he looked in what might be termed ‘the old fashioned way’--that is, by looking. That meant a lot of traveling through the City, staring at people and making them nervous, watching day-to-day activities and noting the patternless shifting of the Cityscape. It was truly one of God’s more bizarre creations. Since not even an archangel could create a reality that would fool Castiel, he was increasingly certain that his presence here was God’s Will.
This reassured him somewhat.
His canvas of the City was therefore hardly at random, geometrical and precise in nature, pursued in his own way as he slid through the stream of people. It was odd indeed, as the trench coat would appear at the end of one block, walking steadily, and then two blocks down, would appear again, walking at the same pace.
----
Fred, on the other hand, had to approach any searches in a more fixed manner. Or more her feet didn’t leave one spot only to appear in another that was very far away. She’d been looking for some of her boys. Harry seemed busy, so she was forced to go it on her own. She had yet to make her way to the black and white world of the Bates Motel, and the brainy female wasn’t sure she should go there without knowing who was in the City to back her up. Then again, that was possibly the only way to find out if Wes was around...
She’d stop carrying around the clipboard, hoping this would give the City some hint she was ready for one of those phones everyone seemed to have gotten but her. Why it was so determined to keep her in the near dark ages of technology with that stupid pager that wouldn’t leave her alone, she’d never know. The City had it out for her, and she actually had proof in the pager. She wasn’t completely crazy after all.
Or so she thought. It was just as she was taking a bite of taco, not as good as the one she’d had that day....She was taking bite of taco when she noticed a guy pop in and out of sight, literally. Well, not pop so much as....pop. The taco was forgotten for a moment as she thought she saw a trench coated fellow pop out, there a moment gone the next. Then, pop, there he was again down at the end of the block. The sidewalk wasn’t that crowded. She looked at her taco, uneaten and waiting for her, and sighed. The taco would have to wait. She had something to investigate.
She hurried after the trench coat and hoped she wasn’t about to get into trouble.
----
It was difficult to sneak up on an angel on recon. They were looking everywhere, moving fast enough that it was only when he slowed at a destination (ten, fifteen, sometimes fifty yards ahead) that he was even visible. She had reached him on the corner, the brown rain coat’s material rough and real, as was what might have been a silver threading in the dark hair at the nape of his neck, before--pop. He was gone again.
No, wait, not gone. Castiel stood across the street, at precisely the place he would have been if a mirror stretched down the dividing yellow line in the center of the road and he had become his reflection. This time, however, he was facing her, and his serious, expressionless face showed nothing except his rapt unbroken attention, gaze directly at her face. The businessman’s cheap tie was slightly loose, and the oxford shirt had a button come free, but there was something extraordinary about the way he stood absolutely still in the bustle of the street and the flow of the crowd.
----
Fred had somehow managed to not go “ooh” when he popped out of “existence.” She hadn’t really planned to get that close, but she had. It was strange to see someone do that. Fred had lived in many interesting places and had many interesting experiences, but she’d yet to see someone who could pop in and out like that. She paused a moment to think if she had known anyone who could do that in the City. Sure, the City might move her or another person, but usually it wasn’t a pop in and out like that, not exactly.
She hadn’t noticed that she was being stared at, not at a first. Her mind was working through the math that would require such a very determined projection. The City did have some sort of physics, but it demanded a different application of theory. One that Fred was still working out. She knew back in the asylum she’d touched on how it worked, on how it fit together. She might have even answered all the big questions, but now she could only feel as if she were grasping at straws.
It wasn’t until she reminded herself that she was tailing someone that she looked up, feeling that someone was looking at her. Her head turned this way and that, searching for the source of the stare. Finally, there he was. The trench coat! And he was looking at her. She’d been spotted. There was a weak smile and a lift of hand for a wave. Now she had to decide if she would walk over to say ‘hello’ or run for her life.
----
Castiel stared, forgetting that normal humans did things like fidget and blink while they thought. The woman wasn’t a demon, and she certainly wasn’t an angel. It wasn’t specially strange that she took notice of him, after all, he wasn’t dancing on the head of a pin or taking measures to keep himself hidden. He did find it odd that she was pursuing him, however, even as ordinary as she appeared to be. The stare was occasionally interrupted by someone walking by or a passing car, but it was always still there, as if he could see right through other heads and truck beds.
A second later he made the decision for her and finally (finally) broke the look, glancing to one side and then jaywalking across the street without looking again. He joined her on the sidewalk, standing stock still again after he arrived. “Hello.” His bleak voice was all acquired politeness.
----
Fred stared. She wasn’t sure what else she should do. He was staring back, so it made sense, somewhat. Only it didn’t. She took a step back as he started walking over, but she didn’t run. Something told her that if she ran, he’d be able to catch her. If he could pop in and out like that, he could probably catch her without really trying. It was how it was, wasn’t it? The feeling that she couldn’t just get away, that she didn’t have a chance in running for freedom, was a little upsetting, and she wasn’t exactly sure why. Well, she knew in a way why, but not ….
“Hello.” He arrived before she could actually do anything. She’d watched him walk over, and yet, she hadn’t done a thing. Some hero she’d be. She looked up at him then around. “You’re a little different, aren’t you?” She didn’t want to say he wasn’t human because that seemed a little rude, and she certainly didn’t want to ask if he was a demon. She’d not met enough different demons to know if they could do whatever it was he was doing. Bypassing space and time perhaps? Her eyes widened at the thought, but she kept it to herself. She also wasn’t going to ask if he was some sort of mutant, mainly because she couldn’t remember if there was such a mutant. Then again, that was the fun of mutation, never knew exactly what you might get.
“You’re not going to kill me, are you? I don’t really want to die today if you don’t mind.” Fred thought she’d get that out of the way as quickly as possible.
----
Judging from his attire and expression, Castiel was not the kind of person who might think mutation was fun. He didn’t have anything about him that might reassure her; no angelic glow, no soothing presence, not even a sense of agelessness or power. All those things he could have if he chose, but it was not in Castiel’s nature to make a big deal out of himself. Instead he just stood there, and he had no more presence than Jimmy Novak would have if he stood in the exact same place.
“Why would you think I would do that?” he asked, not answering yes or no.
-----
“I like to think you wouldn’t, but there are people here who do lots of crazy things, and you could be one of them. You stare, or were, and you go pop. Well, actually you don’t go ‘pop.’ I didn’t hear any pops, it felt like something else. Or looked like it. There should have been some noise of you leaving a space quickly and coming back, but there wasn’t it. There should be, unless I’ve forgotten something. Pretty sure I didn’t. Even if you’re running faster than normal, there’d still be something. Always wondered how Quicksilver did it. Probably didn’t. Friction should have done something; then again, Marvel always gave them special clothes. Flash too, but he’s not a Marvel character. He’s DC. Not that you needed to know that. So, yeah, you could be a killer. I hope you aren’t. But you could be.” Fred finally took a breath and had managed a small step back.
“So, are you going to kill me?” Fred looked up at him. She wasn’t trying to look sweet and innocent, or even scared. She was trying to look strong and sure, and heroic, without succeeding. She had faced up to a ravenous angry Angel, so why was she feeling so very unsure about herself now?
----
That was the second person in this city to say that he went pop, and Castiel was increasingly disliking the appellation of the being that ‘goes pop.’ None of this showed on his face, fortunately, and as he listened to this quite exhaustive ramble, he finally understood that she feared him. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, in a voice that was not at all like your mother would use saying the same thing. It was a traditional angelic saying, and Castiel obviously expected it to have some effect. “I am not here to kill.” This was very true. He was a warrior but so far all of Castiel’s battles usually involved the Winchesters in some way, which meant that he was a little more (or perhaps a little less) than just a warrior.
----
“Well, that’s good to know. What are you here to do?” Fred was a little less worried with that announcement, but only a little less. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but he seemed off in some way. As if he still weren’t normal, other than he didn’t exactly walk from place to place. She looked at him.
-----
Castiel hesitated. He thought about it for a few seconds. Ten, fifteen. Then, after what seemed an abnormally long time, he said, “I have not yet ascertained my Purpose here.” You could really hear the capital in ‘purpose’ when he said it. “Have you lived here for very long?” He looked into her eyes for truth, waiting.
----
“Long is a little relative, isn’t it?” Fred realized she was talking to a strange tench coated man on a busy-ish sidewalk about killing, Purpose, and now time. It was a little awkward, now that she actually thought about it. “I don’t know how long I’ve been here, well, here on this spot just for a few minutes, even though this spot relative to everything else does tend to change at times, doesn’t it? Well, you don’t know. Or maybe you do. How long have you lived here?”
Fred glanced around then relaxed again. “I think if we’re going to talk about here, living here and all that. Not that you really want to talk about that, but you might, seeing as you’re not going to kill me. Or you’re not here to kill. Which isn’t the same thing, not yet. And you’ve no purpose in particular, maybe we should sit down and have this talk. Not that you really have to have the talk with me, you could probably have it with anyone you wanted. Maybe. Unless the person you’d like to have the talk with isn’t here. I don’t mean here where we’re standing, but here in the City. That’s always weird to think about. So, would you like to have some coffee?” One day Fred was going to have an issue that couldn’t be solved with coffee.
----
Castiel didn’t feel the awkwardness as she did. She talked more than any human he had ever met, which was a little peculiar, but not especially awkward. Humans were a unique species and difficult to fathom. “I have a larger Purpose,” he said, a little defensively, “just not one specific to this place. That I am aware of.” He tipped his head to one side, of if listening, but no celestial voices explained anything through the mystic ether. Castiel sighed and returned his attention to Fred.
He recognized the opportunity to learn more about the City in the offer, and even though he was not thirsty--and wouldn’t ever be thirsty, come to think of it--he nodded. It wasn’t a lie; he did want to have coffee, just not for the sake of having coffee. “What kind of talk?”
----
“Well, if you’re new to the City, the talk about the City. If you’re not new to the City, well, the talk that people have after one asks if the other one is going to kill the first one. Or the one about purposes. I don’t have much of a purpose here either. Was a little confused about it before, as in before I got here, but now I have no idea. I mean I sometimes think it’s to help other people out, but really that isn’t a purpose, that’s how things should be on the everyday sort of life way. It makes the world nicer, right?” Fred smiled up at him. Okay, this was a little better than it had been. She liked not having to worry about someone killing her, and she also liked that he was at least open to the coffee idea. She motioned for him to follow and started making her way to the coffee shop that was a small oasis in the crazy.
“I’ve now met...well, quite a few new people, some are new new. New to here, but some aren’t new to here, but new to me. So you could be new to me but not here, or you could be new to here and new to me. I’m pretty certain I’ve never ever met you, not even if I were in my regular timeline, which I’m not or I’d be there not here.” The brainy female looked at him and smiled. “I’m Fred.”
----
Castiel comprehended all this perfectly, though with an expression of concentrating as he wondered why it was so necessary to use so many words to communicate a simple thing. He imagined that perhaps the potential was too much to manage, and she needed to vent every possibility. He was comparatively of very little words, and of poor social cues, as her smile just made him blink and shift a little as he moved next to her. “You have a Purpose; perhaps you are just not aware of it yet,” he said, reassuringly, his tone bending for the first time into something slightly warmer.
“I am Castiel,” he said, saying his name was the sort of upright importance some people used when they were giving their professional title or military rank. “I am new,” he nodded.
----
“It’s nice to meet you, Castiel. Yes, you seemed new. Then again, there are some people who do and aren’t. Okay, so the City, not sure how much you’ve seen of it, or how long you’ve been new, but you’ll find that it moves around. Not like the world rotating on its axis but actually moves around. Bits and pieces. Sometimes even buildings’ insides move around. I think the City does it, but I don’t know how. I also think there’s some pattern to it. There’s a lot of energy being used to do it, but I haven't figured out where the power source is. Of course, I’d need some way to find it, so I’m still working on that.” Fred grabbed the door handle and pulled the door open it for him. “Not that you needed to know that. I’m sorry. I tend to let things come out that don’t really need to be out. And, that was really nice of you to say about the purpose, and you’re probably right, that I haven’t found it yet.”
Fred paused as soon as they were both in the shop. It didn’t look like one she’d been in before, but that didn’t mean much. It could have been one that was rearranged to look different. The baristas and counter types didn’t look familiar, but that didn’t mean anything either. It wasn’t like she got coffee the same time of day in the same place.
“So, it moves, and then you have people coming from all over, realities and times. People who come, then leave, then come back, sometimes they’re a little different. Sometimes they’re the same, though I haven’t met anyone who’s left and come back the same person. Then again, I’ve only really met two people who’ve come and then left. Although I have met people from my reality that are from different times.” She nodded as if that explained it all.
-----
Unaccustomed to bothering with human social niceties, Castiel moved into the shop slightly sideways and stepped aside so she could follow, a move that did not expose his back entirely but at the same time didn’t compare to walking into the shop backwards. He was listening carefully to this explanation, and it came to him quickly that Fred was a scientist. This explained quite a lot, from her rambling descriptions to her fascination with his movement. Human scientists were always trying to come up with the proper reasons for things, as if logic could support cosmic reality.
Content in his estimation, Castiel relaxed a little, something apparent in his speech and not really his movement. “I noticed it moved; also that it was alive. The forest beyond the wall is also alive, I think. I cannot be sure, but I think so. It moves in the same way the City does, but less often.” Castiel’s slight squint and lifted chin rotated thoughtfully toward the coffee menu, which he wasn’t actually looking at. “Different times; yes. I know... someone who says he has lived two years longer than I.”
-----
Fred watched him, but didn’t comment. He was strange. There was a quality to him that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. It wasn’t the hero feeling, but something else. Not that she’d instantly say he wasn’t a hero, just that whatever he was, it didn’t have much to do with being a hero. It felt...different. Then again, she didn’t know many soldiers, military types.
“There’s a forest? Where? You mean the Park? Oh, yes, I think it moves around like the City. It’s part of the City after all.” Fred had never seen on the other side of the wall. She only knew of the wall and the water. It wasn’t that she didn’t think there was something on the other side of it, but she was trying to focus on what was contained in the wall, what was inside around her. Outside had to wait, for now anyway.
“You know someone here? Someone from your reality?” Fred smiled. “That’s sort of wonderful; it means you’re not alone. Unless you’re enemies, then I’m sorry. But, if you’re not, that’s great!”
----
“On the other side of the wall,” Castiel said, blankly, not knowing the terminology even if he heard the capitalization. “Yes.” He watched the barista through the cloud of milk steam without any real comprehension, and moved as she did through the line without any of the anticipation that others seemed to feel. “If the City is a thinking being, then it too must have a Purpose, and it simply remains to be seen or discovered what that might be.”
“Yes. I know someone here.” The way she said reality made his eyebrows rise, as that implied multiple realities, and awareness of such. Castiel knew of multiple realities, but he also knew that humans weren’t necessarily aware of them.
----
“Oh.” Fred thought about this. There was something beyond the wall. “You’ve seen it? Well, I guess you did if you know it moves. Then again, you could just be making something up. But you don’t seem the type to make something up. Then again, I did just meet you. So, yes, the City probably does have a purpose, but not sure it’s a good purpose. Not all purposes have to be good. There can be bad ones.”
She reached the counter and order a coffee and turned to look at him. “I’ll pay for yours, seeing as you’re new.”
----
Castiel didn’t have any money. He understood the courtesy. “Thank you,” he said gravely. As he nodded in agreement to whatever the person on the other side of the counter offered him, he pondered what she’d said. Or thought; she seemed to do both simultaneously. Then, after a little while, he said, “I never make things up. Or lie.” The blue eyes concentrated on her for a moment, and then eased. Perhaps he would if there were lives on the line. It would be a sin, but he was fairly sure he could sin on others’ behalf. Almost. “You are talking about the City’s intent. What it believes to be purpose.” The emphasis was not there.
----
“Well, the City throws very strange and dangerous things at us. Its inhabitants. Not just the people who come from different times and places, realities and all that, but the people who live here, really live here. I guess I live here now, but I didn’t always. The people who were born here, and I’m pretty certain I wasn’t born here. I was born in Texas.” Fred smiled at him, and stepped out of the way for the next customer once she’d paid for their drinks. She didn’t mean to, but instinct had her claim his sleeve and softly pull him along after her. Maybe that was it; he seemed not so grounded in the here and now. But he was real. She was pretty certain he was real.
“Godzilla, zombies, Cupids, leprechauns, I was killed once - I was the only one who was killed, so it’s not like I’m that special, just saying. Came back to life. There are vampires, some good and some bad. Or they have the possibility to be good or bad, then again, everyone has that possibility, don’t they? Demons, monsters, magicians, wizards, aliens, humans...they’re all here, in the City.”
----
None of this really seemed to phase Castiel, except for the bit about Godzilla, which he was not sue whether or not he was supposed to take seriously. He allowed himself to be pulled along, the coat certainly real enough in her fingers. Castiel had a strange smell about him, a sort of potential that hung centimeters from his skin. It was like standing somewhere lightning had struck, or perhaps on a cliff about to be overtaken by a rainstorm. It made the hair on one’s neck rise if you thought too hard about it.
“Interesting,” he said.
----
“So, you know someone from your future. That’s weird. I know. I’ve met a few like that here. They’re not here anymore, or they are but I haven’t seen them. That happens too. What else can I tell you about this place?” Fred looked at him, yes, there was something strange about him.
“Have you ever been to LA? In California? I have. That’s where I was last. I’ve been to other dimensions. Oh, yes, if you see Cupids, don’t let them shoot you. They make you fall in love, and then you are in all sorts of trouble, but it didn’t last long. It wasn’t real. Did you know there were all sorts of demons? Also, you can tell me to stop talking, but you make me a little nervous. Like you waiting for something. Are you waiting for something?” She stretched a little to her toes to try and see if the barista was working on their order yet.
----
“It feels that way,” he said, without thinking. “But lately I have tried to be more active.” He looked where she did, and stared at the barista. It took two seconds for the barista to realize he was the lucky recipient of a long, unblinking blue-eyed stare, and he proceeded to spill a milk carton. Castiel blinked, and continued the conversation as if they had never left it. “I have been almost everywhere on Earth; the Earth I know. Perhaps yours is a different one.” He seemed at ease with that, though less with the next topic: “What sorts of demons do you know, Fred?”
----
“Well, there are the ones from my reality. They look like demons. They come in all shapes and sizes and names. Some are good, some are bad, some just are. Guess everything’s like that. Then there are the ones who are vampires - that’s where vampires come from. Or one set of vampires. They’re a little bit of demon rather than being all demon. They have demon in them, but they aren’t the same everywhere, neither are demons. There are demons who are inside people. I think Angel and Wes and Cordelia came across one like that, but I wasn’t around at the time. The demon inside the person, but it wasn’t the same thing. These demons wear people like suits, which isn’t good or nice. So, these are definitely bad demons. I didn’t really meet any of them. I did meet someone who had had a demon in him. He was big.” Fred nodded, then smiled.
“That’s me. And him. ‘Castleville?’ Who would be named ‘Castleville’?” Her question wasn’t to Castiel, but the barista, who just shrugged and quickly moved on to the next order. Blue eyes was giving the poor guy behind the counter the creeps. Fred handed Castiel his coffee. “Sometimes people just don’t listen.”
----
Castiel’s coffee was the special today, which turned out to be some kind of sweet whipped caramel thing that he sipped at without special anticipation. To him it just tasted very, very sweet, which was not entirely bad, but all strange. He sipped again, and decided he liked the taste of coffee and the taste of caramel and the taste of milk, but not all together at the same time. “My name means that my shelter is God,” Castiel said, without even a trace of humor. “I understand it is not a common name.”
He nodded thoughtfully at the description of demons. It was not unusual to think other supernatural creatures as demonic, and in Castiel’s mind many of them were. “The ones of most concern to me,” he said, after following her from the counter, “are the ones wearing humans. However, I am looking for one in particular. Yellow eyes, forked tongue. Do you know him?”
----
“‘My shelter is God.’ that’s a nice definition. My name is really ‘Winifred’ which means I think ‘peaceful’ or ‘idealistic,’ but I like ‘Fred.’ I’ve always been Fred, not so much Winifred. Think ‘Fred’ has something to do with peace and ruling.” Fred shrugged and smiled. “Do you like it? Most guys I know like just black. Maybe with a little sugar.” She held out her cup.
“Yellow eyes. Well, I know of one. He has wings, too. Unless I’m remembering incorrectly because I was running away from zombies at the time. He doesn’t like Queen. His name is...” Fred searched her brain for the name. “Anthony Crowley? He’s English. He drives...a car.” Her lips thinned as she couldn’t recall what sort of car.
“He saved my life, but I get a feeling it was by accident. He wasn’t overly eager in saving. Not much of a champion type.” Fred didn’t claim Castiel’s sleeve this time; instead, she just motioned for him to follow. “Why are you looking for him? He hasn’t hurt anyone, has he? He did save my life, intentionally or not. He could have left me behind to be eaten.” She paused just as she was about to sit down. “How do you know about demons?”
----
Castiel looked down at his cup and then at hers. He would have preferred having hers, but acknowledged, at the same time, that it was hers. He shook his head and brought his cup a little closer to his chest. He would make do with what he had.
“Which queen?” Castiel asked, obviously not understanding the reference, though his eyes narrowed on the name. That was definitely the man. “Wings,” Castiel said, his eyebrows jumping. No normal demon had wings. Angels who had become demons, on the other hand... “No doubt it served some purpose of his own,” Castiel said dismissively, of the saving. “You saw these wings?” Then he blinked, shook his head. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter.” Nothing she observed would differentiate angel wings from any other kind of wings. It must have been an extreme situation to show a being like Fred Crowley’s true nature, however. Not that anything Castiel had learned implied that the demon was low-key.
----
Fred smiled and offered her cup to him. She could get a straw and drink his. It wasn’t her favorite, but then it wouldn’t be going to waste. “We can trade. I wouldn’t mind a little something sweet.” Her brows were raised to see if he’d take it.
“Queen - the group. ‘Crazy little thing called love,’ ‘We are the champions,’ Flash!” She waited for some spark of recognition, but something told her that he probably had no idea what she was talking about. “It’s a group, not a person. Well, many people. Some might say that Freddie Mercury was Queen, but yeah.”
“Yes. I saw them. The wings. Why do you ask? Really? Are you a demon hunter? I know some. Well, I’ve known some. I haven’t seen them since I got released.” Fred shrugged, not looking too happy about admitting that one. “Think they might have gone home.”
----
Castiel was now sure she was being generous and sacrificial, but rather than denying her again for the sake of politeness, he let her insist, and handed over the cup. The black was less overwhelming. “Thank you.” He listened about Queen, and it did not clear up his perception of Crowley. What was significant about Queen? He couldn’t tell. “Ah,” he said, understanding that this was a music group. As far as he was concerned that was all that he really needed to comprehend of the matter.
“I am not a hunter,” he said, carefully. He could hunt, but he wasn’t a hunter. That wasn’t his purpose. “But were we to meet, I am sure that myself and Crowley would be enemies.” Yes, that was right. He had to make that clear.
“Released from where?”
----
“Not a hunter, but enemies.” Fred claimed a small stirrer/straw thinggummie, it didn’t matter that she might be misusing it. She stuck it right in the sweetness and took a sip. Well, it could have been worse. “It’s no pancakes. Or waffles.” There was a slight shrug, and she sat down finally at a table, motioning him to join her.
“Well, I guess that could be anything. You could be a champion of some sort. Then again, you could also be a bizarro champion - a world where demons are good and angels are bad. Though some angels aren’t good. Not that they are all bad, but some can be bad. Like Christopher Walken in Prophecy - he wasn’t a very nice angel. Then there’s Lucifer and all the other fallen angels.” She took another sip of the overly sweet coffee. She could get used to it.
“I was released from the asylum. Actually, I wasn’t released, I escaped with the Doctor.” She took another sip, then realized how that sounded. “Oh, I didn’t belong in there. Not exactly. I have my moments of crazy, but everyone does. The City put us all in there, I’m sure of it. There was Harry, the Doctor, and other people. I didn’t see anyone I knew. I knew the Doctor, but not the Doctor as he is now, but the Doctor as he was. Before. Wow, I’m probably not selling you on the ‘not being crazy’ thing. I’m really not.”
----
Castiel shook his head. Whether or not she was crazy made little to no difference as long as what she said was true. Because her observations matched with what he had learned so far, the actual state of her sanity didn’t enter into any of his equations. It was angelic thinking, really. What concerned him was her hypothesis that the City had done it. He couldn’t imagine why.
Castiel looked down at the chair, and then he sat, as if mimicking the movement. He sat very stiffly, as if he was only standing in half, and not accustomed to it, besides. “No; I am not a champion. Nor am I fallen.” His expression changed slightly, and the intensity was suddenly dialed way up. That burnt air smell of too much oxygen returned, and the blue eyes were abruptly very bright. “Why do you mention Lucifer?”
----
Fred took a tiny sip of coffee before setting it down. Yes, there was something very different about Castiel. He had a smell. Well, everyone had a smell, but his smell wasn’t like other smells she’d smelled in the City. There was that rare moment of being around someone who’d done magic, but that was different. Castiel didnt’ look like a wizard, then again, Harry didn’t either. Well, he did when he had all his stuff. He wore a trench coat too.
“You’re not a wizard, are you? I’ve asked you that, haven’t I?” She wanted to know what he was, and the fact that he has said...”I mention him because he’s an angel, or he was. Or he still is. Are still an angel if you’ve been thrown out of heaven? Or is he a demon, a really big demon. I wouldn’t want to meet him. He’s probably very very scary.”
----
Castiel’s already narrowed vision sharpened. “Lucifer cannot stop being an angel any more than you can stop being human.” Castiel wondered if what Dean had said was true, if Lucifer had issued forth, and his brothers had begun their final conflict. “He is in his own way. He is frightening because you would not think to be afraid of him if you saw him.” Abandoning the coffee on the table, Castiel stood up. For some reason most of the coffee shop turned to see; he moved with purpose.
Castiel’s expression abruptly cooled; he turned away, as if in thought. “I am not a wizard. Tell me where to find Crowley.”
----
“But I can stop being a human, or more my body can. I die, but then I guess I’m not the one who stops being human.” Fred tried to smile through that one.
“Lucifer isn’t coming here. I don’t think he is. But then I don’t really know much about him. He could already be here because there’s a god here. I guess he’d be a God with a capital G, but maybe he’s more of a god with a little g seeing as his name isn’t God or Yahweh. Then again, he may not be a god at all. I’ve never really seen him do anything godly, but gods shouldn’t have to prove they are gods. They just are; that’s where the whole see it to believe it thing comes a little awkward. How do you ask a god to prove he’s a god? Specially when there are mutants and all that running round in a city that’s a living thing.” Fred looked up at Castiel, a little confused. “You know Lucifer or are you just saying?”
“You’re not human, are you?” Yeah, she was finally figuring it out, or heading that way. “I don’t know where he is. I don’t really remember the street we were on when we met - I was running for my life after all.”
----
Castiel was certainly not human, and could therefore listen to all of this, and at the end of a long minute of speech, recall each question and answer them in order. “What you are, in your soul, is human, and will always be human. It is one of the many gifts that you humans do not appreciate.” Come to think of it, that answered the last question too. “There is only one God, and He has many names. The others you think of as gods are lesser beings.” He did not say that as if it was a bad thing, just that it was true. “I do not know Lucifer personally.” Grimly: “Nor do I wish to. Tell me where Crowley is, Fred.”
----
Fred sat there looking at him. She supposed she would always be human as far as her soul was concerned. If she understood how her death worked...her lips thinned as she pushed that thought aside.
“I suppose that does make sense. Vampires don’t have souls. Well, not the vampires from my reality. I don’t know too many who’d want to know Lucifer. Not really, unless he’s different elsewhere. There might be a nice or wanted Lucifer somewhere, in some reality.” She took a sip of coffee. It wasn’t that she was putting off his request or demand, but she wasn’t sure how to answer it.
“I’m sorry, Castiel, but I can’t tell you where he is. I don’t know. I also can’t just send you willy-nilly after someone who saved my life, whether he meant to do it because he was doing good or for some other reason. He may be a demon, but not all demons should be hunted.” Fred might have looked a little afraid to say this; there was a feeling of power to Castiel after all. But, she didn’t look as if she would back down either. This was the blood toting/smeared Fred that had lured a very demonic and savage Angel away from his sure slaughter.
----
Castiel stood there for a little while, staring at her, thinking. He believed her when she said she didn’t know where Crowley was, but it was not to be discounted that this demon had saved Fred for some obscure reason of his own. There was therefore a chance that he could threaten Fred and flush Crowley out of hiding. If this situation was dire, he could not discount the idea.
Fortunately, the situation was not dire. He needed to consult Dean on this matter, and perhaps find out what really happened to the younger Winchester. If he, Castiel, was here, then it was likely that at some point Sam would arrive too, in some condition or another.
Castiel tipped his head just slightly in his cold consideration, and then, entirely without warning, he vanished.
----
Fred stared into the space that once held Castiel. He wasn’t human. He wasn’t demon. He couldn’t be what she thought he might be. He couldn’t be an angel. Maybe he was some mutant. Although, if he were an angel, he’d be very much a soldier, wouldn’t he? Did that mean he wasn’t a champion?
She looked at her original cup of coffee; she could run tests...possibly. No, that didn’t seem right, but she was curious now. Only in the City..or LA could something like this happen she supposed.