kore_logs | can't seem to find our state of grace

Entry tags:

can't seem to find our state of grace

Who: Balthazar and OPEN
What: Exploring and chatting.
When: Day 54
Where: All over the place, but eventually the bar and House 11. Encounter him anywhere you like.
Warnings: Probably none, will update if that changes.

Balthazar's not sure whether to be optimistic about this brave new world or not. There's no question but that certain individuals here are a threat. Raphael and Lucifer? Scary. Whatever's got them all trapped here? Also scary. At the moment, though, the weather is fairly pleasant, there's no looming apocalypse, planned or otherwise, and even the demons here seem to be, if not civil, at least tolerable.

Probably the other shoe will drop before long, but until then he's going to try to enjoy himself.

Hence the search for the bar he hears is around somewhere. He circles through streets, looking over houses, buildings, and...hmm. Rubble. That's a little worrisome. But not too far off he finds what he was looking for, and slips curiously through the doors.

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Balthazar raises an eyebrow at that assertion. It's not like Castiel to tell a bold-faced lie, but he doubts it's that simple. Shrugging helplessly, he says, "That's ahead of me, then. I truly don't know. All I know is somehow Castiel got it in his head that he needed the power to face Raphael, and that that power could only come from souls."

His voice drops lower, as if he hates to speak ill of Cas, even in a quiet setting, with someone who can probably handle the knowledge. "He was working with Crowley, last I heard, and they were preparing to open a gate into Purgatory, to take on the souls resting there."

"Needless to say, the mo...er, the Winchesters disapproved. There was a falling-out. I had been in the dark about Cassi's intentions, but they let me in on them because they needed a new pet angel. I didn't like the idea of my brother blowing himself up. And that's the last I know."

Chuck has to lean in closer when Balthazar's voice drops. Maybe it's because, as a human, when Balthazar speaks quieter, he needs to be nearer in order to hear it properly. Or maybe it's because it feels like Balthazar is telling him some big secret that he needs to protect with his life. But, whatever the reason is, Balthazar has certainly set the mood for telling this information.

And he more than delivers. Castiel, working with a demon so that the two of them could open Purgatory to take on the souls of the damned just to defeat one archangel? He knows he can't blame Castiel for wanting, or even needing back up for dealing with Raphael. But Purgatory was not the answer to that. He sealed that door shut for a reason and, believe it or not, he doesn't do something like that for no reason at all. The leviathans and other souls that were contained in Purgatory were not something to be taken likely, and were not the means to an end.

Oh, Castiel. He knows you're smarter than that. What could you have possibly been thinking?

"...Purgatory? Purgatory is real too?" The distress on his face is not a lie. He doesn't need Balthazar, or anyone else, to tell him that nothing good can come from the way this story is going. The end is not going to be a pretty one, he knows that much for sure.

"Purgatory is real," the angel confirms grimly. "It's the resting place for the souls of monsters, for lack of a better term. Creatures driven by hunger, or raw reproductive instinct. They go there to hunt and be hunted, theoretically forever."

He leans back again, unhappily. "Which does sort of beg the question of what millions of predatory souls could do to an angel's personality. I'm sure even if he didn't explode, he wouldn't be the same Castiel any more."

The resting place of monsters. Chuck had never put any thought into where angels, demons, or any other monster go after they die but, now that it's all laid out in front of him like that, he supposes that it does make sense.

He shakes his head. "I don't--I don't know. But, I mean. He made it, right? He's fine now."

Sure, he doesn't know the details. All he knows is that, sometime between Castiel making this deal with Crowley, that Dean and Castiel end up in Purgatory, Castiel ends up broken, but they make it out of Purgatory, Castiel became unbroken and is pretty much fine, and life, he assumes, goes on.

Balthazar's knowledge of Purgatory is fairly limited. As far as he's aware, angels and demons don't end up there (which begs the question of where they do go, if anywhere). He's not even sure whether the ghost-stories he's heard of older beasts kept there--Leviathan and Behemoth--are true or simply allegory. He gives a loose, grim shrug.

"He's clearly alive, and his faculties seem to be intact. I don't like what I've heard secondhand, though. I'm afraid to ask him, myself. When I saw him last..." He breaks off with a shake of his head.

No, that's a wound that's too tender to poke at just yet.

He nods. He'd tried to keep knowledge of Purgatory limited and well kept, simply because the beings that lived there were so dangerous. He hadn't ever thought that door would be opened, and they would be unable to leash the monsters there onto Earth.

But then again, there were many things he hadn't expected. That's what made everyone and everything so interesting.

He knows when to drop a subject, and now was clearly that time. Balthazar had told him a lot as it was, and he greatly appreciates that. "I guess, uh... I mean, I thought it would all be over with the Apocalypse. I didn't think..."

"It's not your problem." Balthazar sighs, but there's a surprisingly gentle tone to his voice. Oh, if he only knew the irony.

"One way or another, it'll get handled, anyway, assuming any of us ever gets out of here. Castiel's not the kind of angel who runs from his mistakes. If he's fucked up, he'll make it up somehow." And that? That's the sound of faith in a beloved brother. It's not entirely dead, amongst the Host. Not yet.

He appreciates irony. It's one of the few forms of genuine amusement that he can get. He appreciates it when it's so freely given to him, even if he has to suppress a smile.

"Oh, yeah. If they can stop the Apocalypse, they can do anything, right?" Because stopping the Apocalypse wasn't a small feat. Sam and Dean Winchester, humans, defeated two archangels. And well, that's pretty impressive. After that, anything must seem like child's play.

Balthazar wasn't even thinking of the Winchesters, and he looks mildly surprised by Chuck's reply, but after a moment's thought, he only shrugs, taking no issue with the gist of it. He only meant he trusts Castiel's good intentions, but he supposes, as loathe as he is to admit it, those pure intentions have paired well with the Winchesters and their bloody-minded determination.

"I suppose so. It was a bit of a Pyrrhic victory, though, wasn't it?"

Sam and Dean have managed to do a lot of good in the world. Good intentions might be lead the way to Hell, but they certainly had no issue going out in a blaze of glory all the way down. Many, many times. Castiel too. Why else would he have broken his non-interference rule to bring Castiel back, if he didn't belief Castiel could do all he wanted and more?

"It was, yeah." Chuck looks down into his drink. "But, uh. Better than the world ending, you know?"

The trouble is, when you reuse a thing that's been broken and repaired once, it frequently breaks again, along the same fracture as it did the first time. Balthazar watched Sam's struggle with the scars from hell from a distance, and despite enmity and reluctance, he pitied him. It wasn't hard to see where Dean was wounded, either. As for Cas...

Well. Apparently Castiel's scars ran deeper than his brother thought.

"I don't know about that, actually. It's overly philosophical of me, but maybe things should just...end when it's time." He shakes his head. "Or maybe we should always rage against the dying of the light, but that gets exhausting very quickly."

Chuck looks up at Balthazar in puzzlement. Philosophical or not, he's very curious to know Balthazar's opinions on the Apocalypse. He hasn't seen him in eons, and he wonders just how much the angel has changed since he left. If he even changed at all. Especially since Balthazar's part in the Apocalypse was minimal; at least, as far as his involvement with Sam and Dean and Castiel were concerned.

"Do you.. really think the world should have ended?"

He frowns, quiet for a moment, but ultimately sees no point in dissembling with the Prophet. "I think Heaven and Hell should have ended. I'm not sure about humanity. They might still have a chance."

He shakes his had. "Heaven's been sick for a long time. With one archangel left to lead, and no plan, there's no chance we'll recover. Maybe some will change and live among humans, like Cas and Anna tried to. The rest will go insane and destroy themselves and one another. There's just nothing left to build from, and we weren't made to build to begin with. That's a human thing."

He smiles weakly. "I envy your species sometimes. Our Father gave you so much. Don't tell the others, but I think...it was always meant to end like this for angels. We've outlived our usefulness, and now we'll take ourselves out of the picture, just like we were programmed to."

The one upside to disguising himself as a human was that, in times like this, he can ask the heavy questions without being told what he wanted to hear, like he's sure they would do if he were Himself. No one would think twice about a human prophet asking questions.

But the downside was that he gets to hear things like this. And it saddens him deeply. He hadn't meant to leave the angels so alone. They all had each other, and he'd thought that would have been good enough. But it seems that he was wrong.

"What? No, I don't think--I don't think you're useless." And he really really doesn't.

"That's kind of you. I'm sure you have no reason to think the best of us. I love my siblings, all of them, but we're monsters."

He picks a piece of lint off his sleeve and sighs. "I wish you could have met my vessel. He was a painter, and he made such beautiful things. If I thought cutting out my Grace would give me that gift for a moment...but Anna's the only one of us who ever had the balls for that."

Recovering from the moment of melancholy, at least on the surface, he smiles. "Maybe that's why humans are Daddy's favorites, hm? They create, just like He did. I hope you'll keep writing while you're here."

If he's being quite honest, Chuck hadn't thought much about the vessel Balthazar was using. Or any of the angels, really. I mean, he knows they have vessels, or else they wouldn't be here right now, but it isn't really something he puts thought in. "Well, there has to be a better way than ripping our your Grace, right?"

He looks a bit startled at the idea that he would keep writing. "Oh, uh, I don't know. I hadn't really thought about it. I mean, usually I write what I see in my visions, but..."

A thought occurs to him. "Am I going to have visions here?"

It's probably unusual for angels to spare their own vessels much thought. Balthazar has hidden sentimental depths he doesn't admit to often. "Gabriel was clever. Lasted longest of any of us outside Heaven, too. But whether that means it was a better way, I couldn't tell you."

"Then maybe you should try writing something for yourself." Shrug. "Just a thought. I have no idea whether you'll continue to be the Prophet here. That was never my area of expertise. You could ask what Raphael thinks. He'd probably answer."

But Gabriel also became the opposite of an archangel, watching and keeping humanity safe. He became Loki a Trickster. And while he was glad that Gabriel wasn't by himself all those long years on Earth (He can testify to just how lonely it could be), he's not entirely sure what he thinks about him harming humans.

But, well. At least Chuck hadn't done anything to make Gabriel prank him over and over.

He hopes.

"I guess I could. But, I uh... I wouldn't know what to write. I mean... I'm not really a good writer." The Winchester Gospels Castiel said his works would become. Well, Chuck will believe it when he sees it. Which, he's pretty sure, is going to be never.

One might argue that angels have been harming humans since before Sodom and Gomorrah went down in fire and shattered stone. Balthazar finds Gabriel's pranks comparatively benign, but he's thoroughly biased, too.

The angel shakes his head. "I don't think skill is the point. Making something new is. Do you like writing at all? I mean, I'm sure the headaches and gruesome visions are the opposite of enjoyable, but the actual process of putting words and sentences together. Does it please you?"

"What? No, yeah, of course. I mean, I went to school and got a degree and everything." Which, actually, amounted to very little in the end. His books were published, yes, but they weren't very popular. He made just enough to survive and that was it.

But, he supposes, in Kore, he already has a place to stay. What was stopping him from writing while he was here?

Well, a lack of computers, for one thing.

"Then you should keep doing it. I'll set up a studio in the attic for you, even, if you want. You don't have to show anyone or try to publish anything, but it's important." He sounds more certain about this than he has anything else thus far.

There are no computers, true, but someone might be able to find a typewriter somewhere, and there's always ink and paper.

Chuck looks a little taken back at Balthazar's insistence and generosity. No offence to Balthazar, but most of the angels he's seen have been complete dicks. He would never have that that any of them would urge him to keep writing, especially when he has no visions to write.

"What--really?"

Balthazar doesn't seem to think he's making that amazing an offer. It shouldn't be that hard to find a desk and a lamp and sweep up a bit, right? Maybe a houseplant. What else do writers need? Liquor, probably...

He nods. "Of course! Write something that's not depressing messages from the ether. Maybe it will make things a little better for all of us. Couldn't possibly make things worse."

Chuck's lips quirk up into a small smile. Most of what he's written for the Supernatural books have been depressing. The lives of the Winchester weren't exactly a walk in the park. He's written so much death and depression and sadness that he doesn't think he can write happy.

But then again, he's always loved a good challenge.

"Uh, okay. I mean, I guess I can try, right?"

To be fair, Balthazar never stipulated Chuck should write happy things. Just...his own things. Stories, not prophecies. Or poetry, or essays. Whatever. He's not picky.

He smiles at Chuck's agreement, satisfied. "It's a plan, then. I hope I can trade for a desk. I've never tried building one."

can't seem to find our state of grace

/patpat

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