Unpopping Death ((from Gaiman's Endless))

[endlessgoth]

There was a distant sound of wings rustling as the popcorn room began to shift. A pale, pretty young woman appeared, dressed in a black tank top, jeans and wearing a simple silver ankh around her neck. She looked down to see that she was completely covered in butter. Dragging a finger down a pale arm she shook her head with a slightly amused, if

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[nerdofthelord]

All right, that he definitely hadn't expected.

"We've met?" Cas looked her up and down, trying and failing to place her, though he had a very strong nagging suspicion he really should know who this was. "I'm afraid I don't remember. But a lot has happened in the past several months." For the angel, accustomed to operating on a scale of centuries, it had felt like it was all happening very, very quickly, leaving him little opportunity to catch his breath (metaphorically speaking.)

Her greeting to Jimmy threw him that much further off-balance. "I doubt Jimmy can..." and he trailed off, realizing even as he spoke that it wasn't safe to assume the man couldn't hear, if she wanted him to.

"Who are you?" he concluded rather lamely, stuck for anything more intelligent to say. More often than not, when he'd encountered something that overpowered him by orders of magnitude, he'd been too busy trying to kill or not be killed to worry about making conversation...

It was with that thought that something finally clicked, and he paled visibly, eyed going suddenly wide.

[endlessgoth]

Death gave him a sympathetic smile, “I know hon, you’ve all had a pretty hard run over the last few months. It hasn’t been easy on anybody. Especially you two.”

The poor angel and his vessel. She really did feel bad for them. They had died in battle twice, and she had been asked to escort them both back to the field each time. It was a rare occurance, and one she’d only done a handful of times. And she liked them. The angel was sweet, in a sort of naïve way, and the vessel was a lot stronger than he gave himself credit for.

She watched him put it all together and realization begin to dawn. “I was kinda hoping you’d remember, Castiel. We had a few nice little talks before I brought you back.”

[nerdofthelord]

Cas shook his head dumbly, wondering how he could have failed to realize. He hadn't met the Horseman personally, and this girl didn't fit Dean's description at all (not that that necessarily meant anything,) but there just couldn't be many anthropomorphic personifications around who fit the criteria.

(If this wasn't the same entity, if there was yet another level of hierarchy among the Reapers, well, he'd never claimed to know everything there was to know about Creation.)

Hard on the heels of that revelation, though, the meaning of her words filtered through. "Back," he repeated, seizing on the word and all it implied. "Please, back from where?" Though the where was really less important than the insinuation that he hadn't simply ceased to exist and been recreated on a whim, after all.

[endlessgoth]

Death walked over to stand right in front of the angel and scrutinized him closely. She couldn't tell him in detail where he had gone, that was breaking one of The Rules, but she could tell him a little. Rules could afford to be bent once every so often.

Reaching out, she touched the side of his face gently. "I brought you back from where you were supposed to go after you died. It was nice."

[nerdofthelord]

She couldn't have broken him any more effectively if she'd used a sledgehammer. Staring into her ageless eyes, Castiel felt his own start to water up. Like so many before him, he fell in love with her just a little bit, right then and there.

"So there's a reason," he said huskily, swallowing hard. "We're not just being toyed with. Someday it will all make sense?"

[endlessgoth]

Her thumb swept across his cheek before she dropped her hand. The look in his eyes was a familiar one, and she liked that the angel was able to show it. Most angels were far too stoic for her. Emotions were so undervalued by the immortal set.

"There's always a reason, Castiel. You and your friends aren't the butt of some great cosmic joke, I promise. I can't tell you much more than that. But it'll be okay. It really will," she assured.

[nerdofthelord]

"Thank you," he said, blinking and wiping impatiently at his eyes. It wasn't all his questions answered, and he knew enough not to press. But at least if he couldn't be certain that God was out there paying attention or caring, now he knew that someone was, or would be.

"You're covered in butter," he added rather obviously, trying to collect himself. "Do you know which House you're supposed to be in? There are towels, and showers and...things." People who arrived in this greasy fashion had been sorted previously, if he understood correctly.

[endlessgoth]

"You bet," she said with a wink. "You know.. emotions aren't so bad, once you get the hang of them. The adjustment period stinks though."

Looking down at herself she shook her head. "Weird. I swear, sometimes things surprise even me. Nope. I don't quite remember, but I suppose we can figure it out, right? And there are hot showers? I haven't had one of those in years! I hope they're as cool as I remember."

[nerdofthelord]

Castiel nodded, looking around the room for possible clues. "All the amenities. Which is a good thing, considering how many people turn up here covered in the stuff. ...Wait, I saw a plaque on my way in..." He ducked around the doorframe for a moment and found the plaque, scanning the names until he came to...not one, but several Deaths. But all of them were in the same House.

"You're in Hufflepuff," he said, looking back into the room. "I'm not well-acquainted with anyone from that House, but we can ask the house elves."

[endlessgoth]

"Hufflepuff? That's an odd name. As long as it has a hot shower, everything else should be just fine. I mean, I could get rid of it, but I haven't had a shower since the last time I was mortal and I think I really liked it."

After getting direction from a house elf, she smiled at the angel. It was nice to see a familiar face. "Walk with me?"

[nerdofthelord]

He fell in beside her, pleased to be asked. "You were mortal?" he queried. "More than once?"

[endlessgoth]

"Yup. One day every century I live and die as a mortal. It helps keep everything in perspective. At first it was hard, I really didn't know how to handle all of it. Being mortal is a lot more difficult than most of my family realizes."

[nerdofthelord]

Castiel nodded. "I know. There are so many small things they have to keep track of just to stay alive and navigate their own existences. Food, sleep, medicine, hygiene, and those are just the fundamentals." Just getting from the hospital where he'd wakened drained of power to Bobby's home in one piece had been a logistical nightmare. "Identification, insurance papers, prescriptions, wire transfers, taxi cabs, bus terminals...sometimes I think if they run out of ways to complicate matters, they feel compelled to add more."

[endlessgoth]

She laughed, "It's a trait very unique to mortals. They seem to like making things far more complicated than they should be."

Death tucked a greasy curl behind her ear, a very human gesture. "The basics are tricky to navigate the first few times around. But then you can get to the really fun stuff."

[nerdofthelord]

He smiled slightly. "Dean keeps trying to show me. Alcohol, nutritionally questionable food, aging cars traveling at unsafe speeds and very loud music. Some of it I like. Some I just find confusing."

[endlessgoth]

"He sounds like a good friend. Mortal, right? They can show you some pretty fantastic things. Some of it still goes right over my head though, and I've done this a long time."

"But you wanna know what I really like? The ones that try. The ones who want to show you stuff. They don't get all freaked out that you're not one of them. Sounds like you got lucky."