Day 54: Breakfast

[arc_wrench]

For once, HK was working very hard to hide a giddy facial expression as he met his nurse at the door. He'd already hidden his scalpels in his clothing. The wonderful, sharp implements of doom would be needed today. “Statement: Despite my reticence towards all processed meat and plant products, I am experiencing intolerable levels of hunger,” he

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[poorexample]

All things considered, Sam's reaction wasn't that out of the ordinary. He was still at a point where he believed that his brother's death would be permanent; as far as Castiel had been informed, he had more or less given up on him returning, at least for a time. It was hard to believe that Sam would have let it lie even if Dean hadn't been returned to him by other means, but the point was that it made sense that that piece of information had been enough to leave him almost speechless.

Castiel was certain he had not stuttered during his explanation, so the fact that Sam was requesting that he repeat what he'd said was likely rhetorical, a sign of disbelief rather than an actual request. Still, he didn't know if there was a way for him to rephrase what he'd just related in a way that would be easier for Sam to wrap his head around.

The Winchesters had been just as baffled by the idea of angels when they'd met in the proper timeline, so Castiel was just going to have to suffer through this once more.

Just as he had been preparing to continue with the story, not having any better idea of how to proceed, they were interrupted. Mainly by the yells of other patients, far beyond the normal level of volume he was used to, and then the throwing of food. For a time, all Castiel could do was watch. This was something beyond his understanding, something that everyone seemed to fall into the pattern of quickly enough but that he merely failed to grasp.

Something very human. Something so human he had no idea what it was.

Even Sam seemed to recognize it, and Castiel looked to him after he forced himself to stop being awed. "Sam," he said, too perplexed to stop himself from speaking to the other as if he was the Sam that he knew, "why is everyone throwing morsels of food at each other?"

[allroadslead]

Of all the days. Seriously.

Though, why was he even surprised? Most of the patients he'd come across were good people, but there were still a couple hundred or so of them around and few of those had to have had the mentality of twelve-year-olds. Statistics and everything.

Man, he hoped Dean wasn't gonna get caught up this crap. Not that he thought Dean would do it deliberately; his brother wasn't an idiot (well, not when it came to this stuff, at least; when it came to edible food options, that was another story), but Dean also had this tendency to get involved even when he didn't mean to.

In spite of the chaos, Sam had time to turn a look on Castiel, caught off guard by both the question and its phrasing. Well. He guessed it'd make sense for...an angel to, uh. Not know about these things. Even if Gabriel seemed familiar enough with human behavior which was interesting...

He shook it off. He wasn't going to analyze that right now. It wasn't the time.

"They're having a food fight," he said. Castiel sounded so confused, it was hard not to answer simply, and he was still a bit incredulous that this was going on. He remembered in high school, his instinct had always been to duck and cover. He'd been a pretty small kid, so it was easy. Ten years later, the situation was sort of different, but it wasn't like there were a whole lot of options. If they didn't get out of the way, they ran the risk of being tossed in with the whole crowd who'd started this. Sam was all for bringing the place down, but chucking bacon wasn't exactly Step 1 in the Revolution Handbook.

He glanced briefly at the exit. Maybe if there'd only been the nurses as usual, but with the soldiers? No, too much could go wrong. If he was going to get anything done, he needed to not be drugged up to his eyeballs.

He pushed his chair back, emptied his tray to use it as a potential shield, and gestured beneath the table. "C'mon." Behind him, a cup splattered against the wall.

It occurred to him that he'd just invited an angel to hide under a table and was seized by a sudden irrational horror of, What the hell am I even doing? before it was replaced by the thought of, Was taking cover even necessary? He had a crazy flash of an image of Castiel deflecting projectile food by some kind of holy force field surrounding him, which was just embarrassing. He felt immediately awkward, and quickly shoved the ridiculous concept out of his mind.

Under the table it was.

[poorexample]

As he waited for Sam to answer his question, Castiel continued to watch, having to sidestep at one point to make certain that a piece of sandwich didn't hit him in the chest. He didn't think the objective was to get hit by the projectile food, but he couldn't be certain. Either way, he would rather not participate in something that was likely to lead to retaliation from the staff.

He turned to Sam when he spoke up, nodding while still not completely comprehending. A food fight; so they threw food instead of punches, then? And yet there were some patients who were definitely doing the latter, going straight for the nurses. Castiel observed as the soldiers did their job and fought back with a trained efficiency, the sort of thing that reminded him of his own drill sessions in Heaven.

Still, almost every patient he saw getting into a fight was eventually neutralized, which was proof enough of what they were up against.

It wasn't until Sam spoke to him again that Castiel drew his gaze away from the skirmish, noting what it was that the human wanted them to do: hide. The soldier in him didn't want to resort to such a cowardly method, but his own logic knew that he would do himself no good if he got involved. For now, the underside of the table would be the same as a trench where they would wait it out.

With no force fields to deflect the food, Castiel nodded to Sam and then started to crouch down to get under the table, though it wasn't long before he was back to watching from their hiding spot, fascinated. "With how efficiently they're behaving, this will likely be over before long," he remarked.

[allroadslead]

Okay. They were under the table. It was a sort of (read: very) tight squeeze, but not to the point where it became too weird and uncomfortable. At least they were out of the way, right? Anyway, he'd had worse. Sleeping in the backseat of the Impala, for one.

Sam peered out from beneath. "Let's hope so." The longer this took to end, the worse it would be for everyone. Whoever decided this was a good idea-well, it wasn't. There were a lot of people out there who had nothing to do with it, who could easily get hurt, including some kids. With any luck, they'd have the good sense to duck out of the way, as well.

Though man, those guys seriously were fast. He'd only ever seen the nurses and orderlies in action, and while they were pretty damn efficient, too, the contrast was marked. These guys weren't just walking around looking like soldiers for kicks.

Definitely The Eagle's entourage, then, if there'd ever been any doubt before. Whoever the hell The Eagle was. He'd have said he didn't want to know, but that would be a lie. He wanted to know. Besides, every bit of information counted. The institute getting tipped upside down for a new face wasn't good news, but it was better than being stuck in a rut forever.

The surprise of the commotion wearing off, Sam turned back to Castiel. Squeezed under a piece of furniture wasn't an ideal situation, but there wasn't much he could do about it. He paused, uncertain of how to pick up the threads of their interrupted conversation.

"Um...my brother..." The immensity of what Castiel had said crashed over him again, this time with the added white noise of a large mass of people kicking the crap out of each other. "I know you said-but I just, I mean-it's not possible."

Then again, neither were angels. But here they were, two days later, and Sam was no longer so disinclined to disbelieve him.

[poorexample]

If Castiel felt cramped in any way under the table, he didn't show it in the slightest. Perhaps it didn't bother him, or maybe he was just so distracted that it didn't register. Either way, he wasn't protesting much to the idea of hiding under a table with Sam Winchester. At this point in time, it was the wisest choice for them to make.

He'd also taken note of the way that the soldiers were performing, and he had to wonder where they came from. He didn't know much about Earth's military, except that each country had their own forces, not to mention hidden groups that did top secret missions on said country's behalf. Heaven's forces were also split up into smaller groups depending on what a particular angel's skill was, but... he didn't know how comparable the two things were.

In any case, these people had to have come from somewhere, and it was still unclear if they were working with Landel or if they were here to usurp him. More than that, would they be in a better or worse state if the latter happened? It was impossible to predict, but either way, this whole event could eventually shed some light on how he and Gabriel had been brought to this place.

Castiel would have been content to have spent the rest of the time watching what happened and waiting for it to all die down, but Sam seemed to have something else in mind. He glanced over to the human when he spoke up again, realizing that the importance of what they'd been talking of previously was not something that Sam could ignore, even in this situation.

"Sam," he said, turning slightly so that he could stare the man in the face, giving him his full attention, "this is not something I would speak of lightly. I'm not lying." And yet he knew he had no proof. He would just have to hope that somehow, Sam would come to believe him. And then maybe he would eventually speak with Dean about it, though Castiel was likely expecting too much in that case.