008 + LIGHTEN MINE EYES [VIDEO]

[trenchcoatedly]

[This angel looks very confused. Also, he has the bedhead of someone whose slept on his side for a week.]

I.....slept?


[ooc: replies may or may not be slow.]

Comments

[nolongerhollow]

...

Castiel.

[All the hesitation. All of it. He finally can't go on and changes the subject.]

Welcome back.

[trenchcoatedly]

[The severity of his stare is lightened significantly by his bedhead.]

Thank you.

[nolongerhollow]

[Once upon a time he had been a little kid in church and he had gotten exactly that look from the priest for squirming about.]

Ehm...

When you have some time I have...a question. One that may require a great deal of consideration.

[trenchcoatedly]

Would you prefer this question receive my immediate attention?

[nolongerhollow]

It will...require a great deal of talk and thought on both our parts, and I am searching for the right words to describe my request. But...

...a conversation with an unusual holy man during the Breach made me realize some things about...faith, and about myself.

[trenchcoatedly]

Is it something we should discuss in person?

[nolongerhollow]

...yes. I think it would do good to tell you of this man. Where he came from, what he did for people, his message. He...was one of the first in an age whom I have met who truly seemed to get it right.

[trenchcoatedly]

I would like to hear about him. Is there a place you'd prefer?

[nolongerhollow]

The plants do love you. And I finished putting up the jasmines.

[trenchcoatedly]

That sounds good.

[nolongerhollow]

Very well. I will meet you upstairs then.

SPAM

[trenchcoatedly]

[Castiel is looking up at the plants. They look very nice now.]

SPAM

[nolongerhollow]

[Dracula's manner is different when Castiel gets there: very subdued, always sniffing the air or glancing at the door. His hands shake as he kneads some mulch into the soil around a rosebush's roots.]

Re: SPAM

[trenchcoatedly]

[He doesn't want to get too close, because he knows that his presence is uncomfortable, but he leans forward a bit, watching Dracula with the roses.]

Are you all right?

SPAM

[nolongerhollow]

...No. [He keeps working.] I am surrounded by vampire hunters who think that their genocidal racism and hate is completely justified, and who regularly try to bait me into fights so they can try to kill me. Another just arrived.

...that and my wife and I are now officially quits. In part because she thinks I should sympathize with our murderers. But I suppose none of that matters.

Re: SPAM

[trenchcoatedly]

[His eyebrow quirks up and he takes a surprised step back. He wasn't expecting that, that's for sure.]

Who? Not Dean, is it?

[A beat.]

I'm....sorry about your wife.

SPAM

[nolongerhollow]

No, I don't know anyone named Dean. Her name was Faith and she tried to draw me into a fight. I'm tired of it--I am tired of them. Since I came here they have harassed me, mocked me, and tried to draw me into fights so they could beat me down and kill me. It does not matter how kind or thoughtful or mindful of the rules I have been. I am a vampire and thus I deserve to die. It does not matter that if that was said about any other race people would recoil in horror at the people saying it. Vampire bad, hunter good. Genocide of vampires goooood.

Re: SPAM

[trenchcoatedly]

[He considers this at length, thinking about himself, and angels, and humans, and the undead.]

Seeing the world in absolutes is simple. There's no questions, no doubt, no guilt, no mistakes. What's right is right. What's wrong is wrong. Orders are orders. In this, it's....difficult for me to blame another for a similar circumstance. I'm a soldier, and we follow orders.

Perhaps she considered you a vampire of her universe, where these creatures are inherently evil. Humans tend to be afraid and fight things they don't understand, that aren't like her. And coming to this place can lead to many misunderstandings.

You don't deserve to die.

SPAM

[nolongerhollow]

That kind of black-white thinking has no place in any intelligent being's head. Especially when it is tainted with racism and evil as it is in the case of the hunters. Genocide is one of the ultimate evils, yet they pursue it with zeal.

I have tried to explain who I am and my stance to both Buffy and Faith, but they are both too stupid, single minded and eager for a fight to listen.

Re: SPAM

[trenchcoatedly]

Have you never been told something, over and over and over, until you believed it? Until it had to be the truth? That your superiors were right, or that... something, anything, was wrong, simply by being?

[He puts his hands in his pocket and looks up through the glass.]

I will speak to Buffy.

SPAM

[nolongerhollow]

I have had that done to me at times before. The difference is that I broke free and started thinking for myself.

I appreciate the offer, but...

Good luck reaching her. She wouldn't budge one inch on her fanatical hatred of vampires even when she was sleeping with one.

[He sighs and sits back on his heels, surveying his work even as his hands keep shaking.]

It is so ironic. Before this I was willing to ask for the chance to risk my very life for redemption. Now...

Re: SPAM

[trenchcoatedly]

As have I. And I'm sure they will at some point, as well. But they're young. And the human life is....microscopic in comparison to eternities. That revelation took me millenia.

I will speak to her.

[He crouches down, so him and Dracula are at the same eye-level.]

What's most important is that you do what's right. Ignore those who disdain you.

SPAM

[nolongerhollow]

I don't...I can't...it is somewhat difficult to be the bigger person in this matter when I lost everything to people like them.

[He looks away, pained, then back.]

If I do this it is only for myself now. My Brides want nothing to do with me. Aleera is only letting me dangle. And what is the point of risking the true death only for myself? I won't be around to enjoy being purified. I'll just be dust.

And the Hunters will celebrate.

Re: SPAM

[trenchcoatedly]

I... you're not obligated to do anything with them, for them. If you can't forgive them for what they did, at least not now... then that's your choice.

[A pause. Then, more neutral, he talks again.]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was within the Admiral's power to restore you to your human state, perhaps as a warden deal. He - it, perhaps - is clearly a being of extreme might. Such a thing is beyond my reach, however...if I were to attempt to purify you, I'd most likely turn you to dust.

SPAM

[nolongerhollow]

[He just stares at the angel, and then says softly,] I want my family back.

Do you think I can ever forgive the genocide of my people? The Hunters do not deserve forgiveness and would never ask for it.

[The assumption that he must become human to be purified makes him turn away with a snarl.] I have NO desire to become human again. My race is not a taint. My demonic pact is!

...

I cannot ask your help in this matter, then, clearly. I will not become a pile of ashes for the Hunters to gloat over.