[OPEN]

[ofthursday]

Who: Godstiel and YOU~
When: From November 21st to just before midnight November 30th
Where: All over the city
Summary: Godstiel brings the wrath of God down on Siren's Port, along with some miracles.
Warnings: Violence, death, religious imagery, crazy people, etc etc etc

OOC: Plotting post is here, and feel free to comment there with questions or if you wanna plan out more details before jumping into the log. Please comment to the ooc post if you want to be involved and haven't already responded, so we can work out why Godstiel would be going after/helping your character! Random encounters without planning are okay, but may not lead to anything but a discussion.

Post your own threads in this log for any confrontation with Godstiel, and please make a note of the day in the subject line, and the setting if appropriate. Threadjacking/setting up threads are fine as long as the other parties are good with it! The final confrontation with him near midnight on the 31st will be with Oz, but people can still encounter him earlier in the day on the 30th. PM me with any questions!

Comments

[retraced]

He sighs. He kicks. And he tumbles up, back and around, awkwardly but without collapsing on his face this time! He lands well enough on his feet with Break's help, and ends up standing hunched over for a moment to make sure that he's regained his balance while the children laugh and applaud their favorite clown.

The shadow, face red as an apple, takes a graceless bow in silence.

[maddeninghatter]

Break can't see Gilbert, but at this moment he doesn't mind it so much, for in his mind's eye he can perceive all at once:

...the small child he had found that day, wet with rain and his own tears...

...the youth, sighing with embarrassment, resentful yet yoked to him like a shadow...

...and the man Gilbert might yet become, after Break is himself no more than a memory.

It's a tiny achievement, in the scheme of things, being able to flip backwards and land on one's feet. Yet one can find joy even in small victories - Lady Shelly had taught him that.

As Gilbert bows, Break twirls - modeling his new black hat, snatched from the floor where he heard it fall.

"That's right, that's right, a round of applause for Mister Gilbert. And maybe, since he's been such a good shadow, I'll give him a half-holiday. He can wait for me downstairs, if he likes. Don't you think shadows ought to get a vacation, it must be awfully dreary tagging along after somebody, flat on the ground."

Break flips the hat off, down his arm like a showman, and holds it aloft for Gilbert to take. It's a clear dismissal, for Break is now returning his attention to the many little reasons he's here in the first place: the children.

[retraced]

Gil has to stop himself from reaching over and snatching that hat back and possibly yelling profanities that none of the children in this room should have to hear. But before he can decide for or against it, it's offered back to him, so he takes it and shoves it back onto his head to cover his mortified expression. It makes him look more like a shadow at least, with his face darkened and hidden, but it doesn't give him any extra incentive to play the part any longer.

He grunts an affirmation before turning and walking out of the room, heading towards the waiting room rather than leaving the building completely like he'd planned on. Break must want him to wait, otherwise he wouldn't have even mentioned it. Either that or he simply wanted to placate him after embarrassing him, but either way, he's happy (relatively speaking) to go and sit in one of the threadbare chairs in the lobby and stare at his feet.

Pitiful looking, to be sure.

[ofthursday]

Castiel had been on his way to the hospital when he'd sensed what was going on in the children's cancer ward, and he'd stopped to observe from afar. Senses stretched out, he watched the entire scene play out, watched the demonstration and the kids laughing, and looked into the hearts of those in the room.

Once Gil had left and the show was over, Castiel appeared in the room in a soft flutter of feathers. The children--those that notice his sudden appearance from nowhere, anyway--gasped in surprise, and he nodded slightly in greeting to them. He wasn't there to be a vengeful God, here was there to be a kind one.

Tracking fail + holiday hiatus, I'm SO SORRY!

[maddeninghatter]

Now that Gilbert has left, he can get back to business; that is to say, plucking plush rabbits from his hat and making impossibly large lollipops appear from his candy case--

His first thought, at hearing the beat of wings and the children gasping, is that Gilbert has returned and summoned Raven, for some inexplicable reason. No - he'd be able to sense Gilbert, feel his Chain's presence. This... this thing doesn't register at all. And that itself is familiar, particularly with the fluttering feathers. He's met this person before, or someone like him, anyway. Hadn't Castiel said there were others?

"My, myyyyyy~! An angel in our midst, how exciting!"

Telling the children not to be afraid will only have the opposite effect. Instead he waves his floppy sleeves, as if they were wings, and twirls about the room. The best way to dispel fear is with laughter.

"Did you want to be my shadow too, Mister Angel?"

<3 No worries!

[ofthursday]

Castiel just watches Break's theatrics impassively, senses reached out and scanning around the room, reading the children and their reactions--their hopes and dreams and fears--and then turning toward Break. He looks at the his past actions, at what he's learned, how he feels, and who he is.

It takes only a moment for him to decide what he wants to do in regards to Break; his mind is already made up with the children, after all, and how Break is treating them, trying to make them happy and keep them calm, just makes the decision easier. He reaches a hand forward, gracefully, to stop Break in midtwirl and send his grace forward to activate his healing ability and direct his efforts to Break's right eye.

1/2

[maddeninghatter]

Even after he lost all vision in his remaining eye, the parts of his brain responsible for visual analysis have remained active, sometimes conjuring up vivid, fanciful hallucinations: this is the "Charles Bonnet syndrome" (Break knows this because he's taken the time to look it up, on his voice-activated NV).

He creates precise mental maps, as a way to get around the places he frequents. He knows every inch of the Phantomhive-Trancy estate, for instance; and this hospital wing. But sometimes his hallucinations overlay these maps, so that there are nodding daisies covering the carpet of his bedroom, for instance; or flocks of butterflies wafting through the children's ward. On occasion, outside on the street, he can "see" the faces of people he knows. He has learned, through hard experience, not to call out "milady" and go chasing after Lady Shelly.

Sometimes he can see the faces of them: 116, in all. Men and women. Children. They never do anything; they simply stand and stare. They vanish when he waves his hand where they seem to be standing.

Thus he believes himself to be simply hallucinating as Castiel's grace flows through him. He is aware of having been stopped mid-twirl, by some force that is beyond the purely physical.

"Why... ha ha! Don't you want to fly with me, Mister Angel?"

2/2

[maddeninghatter]

It's not his usual sort of hallucination, however. The flickering fluorescent lights overhead, with their greenish tinge - that's new. Likewise the dull grey clouds outside the window; usually if he "sees" the sky, it's a bright blue, with clouds shaped like sheep or prancing rabbits.

But the sight of Castiel himself is what makes him start. Because the people his mind conjures up are usually clad in the fashion of his home, with ruffles and velvet and pins and frippery. Castiel, by contrast, is just so - plain. He can't be... he can't be real, can he?

"Are you--?"

Break waves his floppy sleeve at Castiel, disbelieving. He'll vanish, surely!

[ofthursday]

Castiel watches as Break reacts, expression neutral and even, but with just the barest hint of what might be a genuine smile. This is why he's done everything; he isn't wrathful and vengeful because he wants to be, he reminds himself, he is because he has to be. The benevolent God who is there is what he wants to be.

He just gives Break his faint smile and turns toward the children, beginning to drift through the midst of them, reaching to trail his fingertips over foreheads and shoulders as he invokes his healing once again.

[maddeninghatter]

His hands fall to his sides, as he watches. Health and life are flowing through these children. The shadow of Death has become a mere cobweb, that Castiel is brushing away. Break can see: the light in their eyes, the roses in their cheeks.

He can see.

When he'd first gone blind, he said it was a punishment, the way to his salvation. But after a while, he rejected that as vanity: his own salvation shouldn't put others in harm's way. People had been (and still were, like that idiot Gilbert) trying to help him, even at risk to their own lives, because of his blindness.

So - no. Going blind was just a punishment in the end, nothing more. No atonement, no redemption.

But this...

To be healed like this, in the company of these innocent children... what did it mean? Perhaps that's all it was, just an ordinary sort of miracle for an angel, a divine diversion, without any sort of reason.

"Am I..."

He holds his fingers before his face, gazing at them; and then through them at Castiel. He can't not ask.

"Am I forgiven?"

[ofthursday]

Castiel finishes moving through the children, healing the last one just as quietly as the first, before turning back to look at Break at his question. He's silent, a brief time, smiling just slightly as he seems to think about the answer.

"What you did is unforgivable, but your regret and the good you do now is a counterbalance. There is no forgiveness, but there is redemption, and you are on the path to it." He understands how hard it is for people to turn their lives around, to try to do good when they'd done wrong; he rewards it so highly because he's seen how difficult it is.

It's far easier for someone who's never left their feet to keep standing than it is from someone who's fallen to get back up.

[maddeninghatter]

He has his answer: this was no casual miracle, no simple act of healing. This angel had looked into his heart and seen what he'd done. And then offered him more than simple forgiveness.

"I suppose..."

Castiel has offered him hope.

"I suppose I'll need a new hobby."