[6: action]
[Likely caught on video as well, though he's not intentionally recording]
--Rewind to just after midnight, March 6th--
While still wandering the halls (avoiding their shared room until Dean makes a sign he's welcome back), the screen on Castiel's phone suddenly lights up and begins displaying a video feed. It's not an incoming communication, but just images. As Castiel watches, shadowy forms begin to resolve, flickering across the feed.
His true form is not physical, but if it were it might appear something like this: strange and totally inhuman, with multiple faces, none of them quite resembling any earthly thing. There are wings of feather and shadow, and flames wreathing the whole figure. If it can even be called a figure. It fills the small screen, but he knows it's vast, almost beyond human ability to comprehend.
Before he can stop the reaction, Castiel finds himself startling backward. It's been a long time since he's thought of himself in this form that used to be so familiar.
Then a second figure appears. Castiel is not a habitual mirror-gazer, so his first thought is 'Jimmy Novak', but after a moment he realizes it's not. It's... himself. Also. Again. The figure is as human, as ordinary and powerless as it's possible to be, but there is no trace of Jimmy about him, only an undeniable recognition of himself.
When the figures speak, they do so with one voice, speaking his name simultaneously in tongues of man and angel. "Castiel."
By this point, Cas has picked up his phone to watch the feed more closely.
He drops it.
--FASTFORWARD--
At some point, with Castiel's awareness but inability to stop it, a dark haze has risen in the Mansion, and when it clears, it's not the Mansion. Castiel is in a house. Mundane, average, lived-in. But totally empty of any creature besides himself. He feels a strange sense of familiarity, but also of intrusion. It's only after wandering through it for a while that he finally recognizes this dining room table, this television set. This is Jimmy's house.
But Jimmy is not here. Not physically separate from Castiel, nor even within him. The house is quiet, tidy, clean like its occupants have left for an extended holiday. His footsteps echo through the rooms. "Hello?" he tries, but there's no answer, and he doesn't really expect one.
There's a flash of movement at the edge of his vision, and he turns just as quickly. A window, and outside it's dark, foggy. He watches for a long time, but doesn't see anything outside. It's only when he turns away that there's another flash of movement, but he's waiting for it, and he gets a brief impression of wings, flames, faces.
Hours pass, and it keeps happening. Sometimes the vast figure of flame and feathers, sometimes the human one. For reasons he doesn't want to examine, he really, really doesn't want them to enter this place, nor himself to go outside to them, but even if he wanted to, he can't: all the doors and windows are locked and impregnable even to his greater-than-human strength. And he can't travel with a thought; he's tried that too. He's trapped here.
Abruptly he misses Dean like an ache, and wonders if he's okay. And he's feeling a little hungry.
[ooc: should anyone wish to tag, please feel free to come in at any stage of the above entry - just specify when in your tag. ^_____^]
--Rewind to just after midnight, March 6th--
While still wandering the halls (avoiding their shared room until Dean makes a sign he's welcome back), the screen on Castiel's phone suddenly lights up and begins displaying a video feed. It's not an incoming communication, but just images. As Castiel watches, shadowy forms begin to resolve, flickering across the feed.
His true form is not physical, but if it were it might appear something like this: strange and totally inhuman, with multiple faces, none of them quite resembling any earthly thing. There are wings of feather and shadow, and flames wreathing the whole figure. If it can even be called a figure. It fills the small screen, but he knows it's vast, almost beyond human ability to comprehend.
Before he can stop the reaction, Castiel finds himself startling backward. It's been a long time since he's thought of himself in this form that used to be so familiar.
Then a second figure appears. Castiel is not a habitual mirror-gazer, so his first thought is 'Jimmy Novak', but after a moment he realizes it's not. It's... himself. Also. Again. The figure is as human, as ordinary and powerless as it's possible to be, but there is no trace of Jimmy about him, only an undeniable recognition of himself.
When the figures speak, they do so with one voice, speaking his name simultaneously in tongues of man and angel. "Castiel."
By this point, Cas has picked up his phone to watch the feed more closely.
He drops it.
--FASTFORWARD--
At some point, with Castiel's awareness but inability to stop it, a dark haze has risen in the Mansion, and when it clears, it's not the Mansion. Castiel is in a house. Mundane, average, lived-in. But totally empty of any creature besides himself. He feels a strange sense of familiarity, but also of intrusion. It's only after wandering through it for a while that he finally recognizes this dining room table, this television set. This is Jimmy's house.
But Jimmy is not here. Not physically separate from Castiel, nor even within him. The house is quiet, tidy, clean like its occupants have left for an extended holiday. His footsteps echo through the rooms. "Hello?" he tries, but there's no answer, and he doesn't really expect one.
There's a flash of movement at the edge of his vision, and he turns just as quickly. A window, and outside it's dark, foggy. He watches for a long time, but doesn't see anything outside. It's only when he turns away that there's another flash of movement, but he's waiting for it, and he gets a brief impression of wings, flames, faces.
Hours pass, and it keeps happening. Sometimes the vast figure of flame and feathers, sometimes the human one. For reasons he doesn't want to examine, he really, really doesn't want them to enter this place, nor himself to go outside to them, but even if he wanted to, he can't: all the doors and windows are locked and impregnable even to his greater-than-human strength. And he can't travel with a thought; he's tried that too. He's trapped here.
Abruptly he misses Dean like an ache, and wonders if he's okay. And he's feeling a little hungry.
[ooc: should anyone wish to tag, please feel free to come in at any stage of the above entry - just specify when in your tag. ^_____^]