multiversallogs | A stranger I've just met, a woman who I hardly know at all and should forget [CLOSED]

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A stranger I've just met, a woman who I hardly know at all and should forget [CLOSED]

Who: Mina and Castiel
What: Either a date or an exercise in poor decision-making
Where: A pub
When: The end of monster week (back-dated)
Notes: None
Warnings: None yet

Mina made it a point to arrive at the pub earlier, after doing a cursory job of tidying up a bit. She had managed to wash most of the blood off of her, but she was hardly as put-together as she usually liked. The sleeves of her purple button-down were rolled up, her collar unbuttoned, her tie untied. Normally, she liked to be meticulous with her appearance (perhaps due to so many years of having to hide certain parts of her body) but the onslaught outside had set Mina's priorities, if nothing else. Quite frankly, she hated the idea of leaving her first aid station, but she had to feed and meeting with Castiel gave her a reasonable alibi. Fortunately, she had found a few volunteers to mind the shop.

After quickly scanning the room, and making sure that she had arrived first, Mina sidled up to the bar, ordering herself a drink. She took whatever it was that passed for blood around here, having it mixed with copious amounts of alcohol to mask the smell and the texture. She'd call it a 'Bloody Mary' or something. Extra virgin. Although that would apparently offend the Hellsing people.

Taking a sip, she sat down, resting her elbows on the bar, watching the door. What new surprises lay in store tonight, she wondered. Castiel clearly had some kind of agenda. No man ever called her beautiful without having some kind of agenda. Furthermore, she wondered what he was. If he came from 2014, or whatever, and remembered the 20's, he was something other than Human. But what? He hadn't recognized her subtle hint about the Mekhet, so clearly not a Kindred.

If nothing else, it would be interesting...

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"Just Castiel," he didn't need the pleasantries. He took her hand and turned it back so that he could kiss the back of it, he placed it near to the table again when he was done. "Pleasure to finally see you in person."

A gentleman. How rare.

"A pleasure to be seen, believe me." She glanced at one of the windows to the pub. "Hell is empty and all the devils are here." That was a particularly popular quote among the Kindred. Mina heard it in practically every city she visited, right around the time when things went from bad to worse. She was embarrassed to admit, however, that she really knew nothing of its origin. She had picked it up from a young Gangrel girl who was much older and much more powerful.

"You, my friend, have certainly caught my interest. It takes some kind of mad genius to remember the notion of morale at a time like this." She tilted her glass toward him. "To your health."

"Oh, my health," he raised his own glass. It was an ironic thing to toast to consider just how unhealthy he was but Cas wasn't going to question it. "Precisely, thanks for coming out with me tonight."

Mina took a sip of her drink. It really was quite terrible, but is sustained life (theoretically) and the alcohol was just what she needed right now. Still, she never dreamed she would miss Christopher Doyle's shitty, mixed-blood drinks. She would never be able to wholly escape that asshole, would she?

"So tell me about yourself," she said, setting her glass down. "From the looks of you, you're either quite well-preserved or you've lived an interesting life. All the way from the 1920s to 20...14? Was that it? 2014?"

This was what of the opposite gender did when they went out together, wasn't it? Mina wasn't entirely sure of the proper protocol. And for all she knew, the protocol had changed dramatically since 1932. Time was funny that way. The world only spun in one direction, no matter how much she sometimes wished it would go in reverse.

"Interesting is a befitting term," he replied casually, sliding his finger around the rim of his glass. "And yes, I remember the 1920's but I've been alive much longer than that too, 2014 is and was just the year of my... demise." He shrugs.

Her eyebrows shot up slightly. "You're rather spry for a corpse." She was one to talk. "Rather spry for a...94 year old, for that matter." Again, she was one to talk. "How is that possible? Was there some kind of medical miracle that occurred after my time? If so, I think I'd like to hear all about it."

She crossed one leg over the other, resting her chin in her palm. Absently, she pulled her right arm closer to her body, turning the burn scar in toward her chest. If he was that old, or older even, he might be one of the few people in Baedal who knew what it meant. Not that she expected him to jump out and start calling her a pirate or anything, but better safe than sorry, she supposed.

"I wasn't always human," he said after a sip. "Essentially, anyway. I used to belong to a much better club. I was around for the Big Blast, 94 doesn't even nick my heritage."

Well that was...interesting.

And wholly unexpected.

Mina blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. "I'm afraid," she said slowly, "that I'm going to require a little bit more in the way of exposition." And they were probably going to require a lot more in the way of drinks. She reached into her pocket, putting several coins on the counter; enough to cover at least three drinks more for each of them.

"Let's start with your better club."

Cas looks skeptical because most don't believe him but he gives himself time to settle against the chair and clear the rest of his glass before he does get into it.

"I'm was an angel," he rolls his head on his shoulders. "Of God."

"An angel," she repeated, doing her best to keep the skepticism out of her voice. She did find it hard to believe. But that probably had something to do with the stories about Kindred being repelled by those with True Faith. Surely an angel, of all entities, would have True Faith in God. But she was drawn to Castiel, not repelled by him.

Apparently, her type included lunatics and abusive jerks.

"How does one go from being an angel to being a human?" she asked cautiously, although it was not the first question that came to mind.

"The apocalypse happened and my brothers all left the planet, being cut from heaven makes the juice kind of.." Cas whistled and dipped his hand. "I'm not human, but mortality is a word that could define me now."

Mina frowned thoughtfully. Many Kindred she knew were very eager to regain their mortality. Mina was not one of them. She enjoyed being what she was, she had asked for it. There was a profound pleasure in being able to walk away from a hanging or an explosion, not to mention the fact that she enjoyed watching the world change, changing with it. She could not imagine what it would feel like to suddenly revert back to what she was. "That must be awful for you," she murmured, taking a sip of her drink.

She then spit the drink out.

"Apocalypse?" Joseph Brown had warned them, hadn't he? That the world would be consumed in 2011. She remembered the story clearly from when she had been in Morgenstern's mind. California was an island, ruled over by the Ordo Dracul and maintained by mutated creatures with Bat wings. She had been so certain that future had been avoided, based on what the other people had been telling her.

Maybe not...

Cas didn't acknowledge the first part, knowing that it was true and not wanting to admit weakness. He just shifted in his seat and took another swig.

"The Croatoan virus went viral... leaving several infected and more dead in its wake. Lucifer walks the earth. The whole shebang."

"Not the sort of apocalypse I would have expected," Mina said, taking out a handkerchief and neatly sopping up the mess of her drink. "Pardon my mess," she added politely.

This was quite a lot to take in. So, for that matter, was his cavalier attitude. It was all too familiar. Not surprising, she supposed, for someone of his age. He out-dated Kindred society itself. That is, assuming that he wasn't a complete nutter.

It was possible.

"How did you survive?" she asked.

"I was born a soldier, I'm not stupid," but he paused after that tongue against his teeth and just sighed. "And in the end, shortly before arriving here, I think I was near death."

A soldier. Damn it, she really did like him. "I'd offer to examine you, but somehow, I have a feeling your physiology is beyond anything that I've ever encountered before." And if he were dying, she very much doubted that anything in her bag of tricks could help him. Would vampire vitae work on an angel? It sounded more like a philosophical question than a medical question to her.

Mina picked up her drink, swirling the remaining liquid, then downing it all in one shot. She gestured over to the bar tender who, fortunately, did not ask what she wanted, but instead, went about mixing her another drink. She jerked her head toward Castiel's glass too and he nodded.

It was now time for the scientist in Mina to kick in. "So," she said slowly, "if you're not quite human, but you're not an angel anymore, then what is it that sets you apart from the rest of us?"

"Age, I suppose," he answered dryly. "Intuition, seniority, wisdom, recollection, capabilities of both the mind and body."

Cas shrugs. His pride wasn't of import.

Mina smirked slightly. "Capabilities? Now that sounds interesting." She supposed such a statement probably sounded lurid to those who weren't of the blood, but that hardly mattered. Her curiosity had always been a bit of a problem. It had brought her this far, hadn't it? No sense in hiding it now, or pretending to be anything other than what she was.

Which was a little ironic, in light of the Masquerade. But as she was learning now, the rules were different in Baedal. She would have to forge her own path.

"What sort of capabilities?" she asked.

"The perceptive kind, mostly," Cas said stretching out his arms over the wood surface of the table. He took his glass and later drained it after he was done. "I can tell things at first glance most wouldn't be able to, quirks, intuition, wisdom...... what I mentioned before."

Rapidly, Mina played out a cost-benefit analysis in her mind. She decided, given the circumstances, that it was worth the risk, so she leaned forward, holding out her hand, palm up, as though she were visiting a fortune teller. "All right," she said, rippling her fingers slightly. "Then tell something about me. What do you perceive?"

Maybe, she mused, he had some form of auspex. It was possible, and frankly, a bit silly to believe that the Kindred had some kind of monopoly on the ability.

Cas just smiled, smoothing his hand out over hers before placing it back in her direction. "I don't give out freebies," he met her eyes. "And sometimes mysteriousness is the corner stone of a relationship. Wouldn't you think?"

Normally, Mina would immediately have responded with some witty banter to the same tune. But she had changed quite a bit lately. It was all Dr. Brown's fault, she supposed. His existence had made her doubt everything; herself, the nature of her calling to the Valkyrien Amazons, and of course, her disaster of a marriage. But there was no room for Tom at the bar. So once again, she pushed him out of her thoughts.

"I suppose that depends," she replied, "on the nature of any particular relationship."

"We're just two strangers sharing drinks," Cas mentioned in a feather light tone as he gestured to the barkeep for a refill. He didn't want to involve himself too deeply into anything, as far as he knew this was just a delusion brought on by the plague or one of Lucifer's tricks. He'd stay a skeptic until something truly legitimate happened.

Unexpected. But probably for the best.

Mina drummed her fingers on the counter a moment, the light gleaming off of her four rings. "So what sort of work does a former angel do in a place like Baedal? It seems to me that after surviving an apocalypse, working as a stockboy in a shop would seem frightfully dull." She paused. "Or maybe a pleasant relief, I'm not entirely sure."

It was certainly a relief being able to practice medicine normally, rather than spending every night engrossed in Cruac and the destruction of churches. "Where are you working?"

"I'm not working anywhere, yet," he remarked dryly. He wasn't ready to get a leg up even if he wanted to. "I'm living with the Winchesters currently, anything else is left to the wind... I haven't really discovered my purpose here yet."

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