text; un: appleaday

[saudades]

hiiii everyone! you can call me dazai.

since we're all supposed to work together and get to know each other, i thought it would be fun to play a little icebreaker game that's popular on my earth ♥

it's called would you rather! the rules are pretty simple:

✦ post a hypothetical between two difficult choices
✦ have others choose between them, and offer their own hypotheticals in return
✦ go back and forth until you don't feel like playing anymore

noooormally, it'd be cheating to say something like both, or neither, but if you can come up with a really interesting alternative, i'll allow it~

feel free to respond to each other, as well! can't just let me go having all the fun, after all.

here's a few to get us started:

1) would you rather hurt someone to protect yourself, or get hurt protecting someone else?
2) would you rather be unable to have your favorite meal again, or be unable to get drunk again?
3) would you rather betray your boss or abandon your best friend?

[wdym these are weird questions, he's so normal. it's just a gaaaaame and definitely not a covert means of information gathering or anything. come on and play :)]

Comments

[saudades]

[Oh, he realizes. The man is talking about Armageddon. The end of days. The silence this time stretches even longer.]

you'd think the rise of the Kingdom of God, of all things, would require His presence. the more you know.

[It isn't hard to put together the pieces, though. This man is here, working for the right to save an already doomed world he intends to die for. There is always an emptiness inside Osamu Dazai, that much isn't new. Yet there's an ache that gathers in that swirling void now; somehow, he finds himself thinking of Odasaku, who went to his inevitable, futile death to avenge the children that had been under his protection.

He wants to stop having this conversation. He wants to throw his communicator in the trash and forget he ever started it. He almost does, more than once. Eventually:]

say, castiel-san.
i think i'm going to be rude and skip your turn.
would you rather have a drink with me, or several?

[messenger]

[ castiel certainly doesn't mind the wait. he needs time to gather his own thoughts. he's living every moment with his disappointment and his bitterness and his fear, but in moments like these it roils upward and overtakes him and it's difficult to — to keep a level head. he isn't used to having to mete out his emotions. up until very recently, he was operating under the assumption that he didn't have any. ]

You would think.

Several.

[ he can only hope it's easier to get drunk here than it was back home. nobody is going to appreciate it if he empties the entire liquor store. ]

cw suicidal imagery/ideation

[saudades]

[That's always how it goes, isn't it? Thinking you aren't truly capable of feeling anything until you do, and then you're burning every bridge around you for the opportunity to save the only one that brought color into your gray, lifeless world, the only one that matters.

But sometimes the bridge crumbles anyway, and you're left with no choice but to swim to shore and hope you drown somewhere along the way. Dazai has been trying to swim those choppy waters for four years now, and he's still struggling to get enough air in his lungs for the next stroke, and the one after that.]

i've yet to locate a proper bar, but at least the kwik stop has cheap booze. or there's the coffee shop's pinot noir, if you want something slightly classier. i'm not especially picky about these things, so it's up to you.

cw for the same

[messenger]

[ soon enough, he'll be in the same position, bridges burnt, hoping that he drowns. some of them are already in flames, spitting smoldering ash into the reservoir while he teeters at the edge. he can map out the trajectory of his life from here, and he knows it's not going to be pretty. when he confronted his former commander, he asked her to tell him what to do and she couldn't; he told her i feel and her answer was it gets worse—

and she chose to fall. she chose to become human. what is he going to do? he didn't choose this for himself. he just wanted—

well, that's the problem. he wanted. ]

There's no bar?

[ how is that possible? he can hardly imagine humans inhabiting a world without a bar present somewhere. he can hardly imagine it himself. ]

The kwik stop is fine. I'll meet you there.

onto action?

[saudades]

there might be one, I’m still finding my way around
it’s a really big city for someone without wings, you know!

see you soon.

to action!

[messenger]

I've mostly been inspecting the barrier.

I'll see you there.

[ while taking wing around the city, castiel didn't see anything that, from the outside, looked like the kind of bar that he would be familiar with, or a liquor store, though maybe it's worth taking second stock.

it only takes him a moment to arrive at the kwik stop. it reminds him a bit of the gas-n-sips that are so ubiquitous on sam and dean's travels, so it has that going for it. by the time dazai arrives, he'll find castiel drinking directly from a bottle of cheap whiskey while he mills around, leaning back against the front desk. the helper bots choose wisely to ignore him. at his elbow are a few more bottles of the same, though it's hard to say if they're for him or to share with dazai. ]

[saudades]

[Oh, dear.

When Dazai agreed to meet at the Kwik Stop, he'd assumed that Castiel wanted to pick out his own booze and go from there; he genuinely hadn't anticipated finding him getting a head start, already surrounded by booze, drinking directly from the bottle in the middle of the convenience store.

It's rare for Dazai to find someone whose mental state is apparently in even more dire straits than his own. Yikes. Dazai stares at him for a long moment, as though unsure if he should just stand the guy up, actually, any painful feelings or sense of fondness kicked up by that conversation notwithstanding. Instead, he lets out a sigh, allowing himself to actually indulge in the mildly pitying exasperation he feels right at this moment.]

Castiel-saaaaan, I didn't mean we'd do the actual drinking here. We'll crack our heads on the tiles! Do you even know how much it sucks to have a concussion and a hangover at the same time? I've done it! Not pleasant at all!

[messenger]

[ castiel wouldn't blame dazai for leaving him out in the cold. in fact, he's so intent on the alcohol he'd probably forget he was planning to meet him here, given the time to let it set in. once given a task, even if it's self-appointed, he's dogged in seeing it to its completion.

but then dazai is there, saying hello, insisting on the respectful honorific despite his easygoing demeanor. he remembers sam's stumbling when they first met, when sam was still devout. (that didn't last long.) dazai is nothing like that, thank — someone. ]

No, I don't imagine it is. Here.

[ he passes off one of the unopened bottles to dazai and then turns to gather the others, two tucked under his left arm and the half-drunk bottle held in his left hand. ]

Where should we go? I can take us there.

[saudades]

[Ah. This presents a complication. Dazai has never met a literal angel, in fairness, but his abilities seal the Arahabaki's power harmlessly back within Chuuya with a single touch, so if this ... being is inhabiting an otherwise ordinary human man, there's no particular reason to assume that Castiel would be an exception. It would be really awkward to have a grown man try to fly him somewhere only to be stuck leaping in the air fruitlessly with someone on his back.

...At the same time, Dazai's not entirely sure he wants to show his hand just yet. It'll come up eventually, that's inevitable, but mmm. Not yet.]

Please don't! I'm afraid of heights.

[this mfer. he doesn't look even a little scared.]

[messenger]

[ dazai is lucky that castiel is terrible at reading faces. maybe he could sense that he was lying if he suspected it, but it passes him right by — though there's a hiccup in dazai's plan, he's certainly on the right track. of course, dean's excuse for not wanting to be "whammied" was the claim that it gave him constipation. ]

You won't actually be flying from your perspective. The transition is faster than the human mind can comprehend.

[ but he doesn't touch dazai. thankfully. who knows what would happen? this body once was just the body of an ordinary man, but it's empty now. essentially a corpse. maybe dazai's ability would simply seal his grace, or maybe it would shunt him from this dead vessel entirely, or maybe it would lock him so deep inside he'd be unable to reach the surface. in any case, castiel wouldn't be happy about it. ]

[saudades]

[Honestly, Dazai doesn't especially care if he's believed or not, so long as he has plausible deniability, which -- mmm. The clarification is inconvenient, because not only does he nullify abilities upon a direct touch, but abilities simply do not work on him, either, so if Castiel can just ... relocate people, he'll get caught out immediately. That'd be a waste of a good lie, so he switches gears.]

Ouuugh, that fast, really? Even driving on the highway can be a bit much for me, I feel nauseous already...

[This time he even accentuates it with a little whine...before he suddenly brightens, like he's gotten a great idea.]

Say, my apartment isn't very far. Maybe we could walk there? I could get to know Castiel-san better, in the meantime.

[can u say no to this smile castiel!!!]

[messenger]

[ castiel sighs, and rolls his eyes. but he takes one of the bottles and thrusts it toward dazai to take (again, thankfully, without threatening to touch him in any way). humans, his manner seams to say, they're always like this. but he's not so stubborn he won't accept it, as is evidenced by what castiel says next. ]

You're worse than Dean.

[ he shifts, to better secure his alcohol, and moves away from the counter to follow dazai. he knows where the apartments are, and so he knows it isn't that far, at least. ]

But fine. Let's go.

[saudades]

Oho? Is this Dean a friend of yours?

[Feed him the hot goss, Castiel...

Whoever this is, Castiel is fond of enough to casually namedrop, yet he's leaning toward the assumption that it's not someone especially important; letting strangers know about your people is handing them tools to harm you with. Then again, maybe angels don't have to think about that sort of thing very much.]

Another human, I assume. It must be terribly strange, living among us.

[messenger]

Yes.

[ angels don't generally have to worry about that. they generally don't have to worry about much of anything. no emotions. no friends. just loyalty to god, their father (which, in practice, means the nearest archangel). but it's really a matter of adjustment. where he comes from, dean already has a big, red target painted on his back. castiel, by comparison, is an annoyance — just a fly to be swatted. dean is both needed and hated. it breeds a special kind of resentment among their enemies.

it's different here, of course. he doesn't consider that he could put dean in danger. but. adjustment. ]

It is.

[ very forthcoming.

I'm... not used to it.

[ looks like he's not used to having conversations, either. ]

[saudades]

Really, now? It's a good thing you've run into me, then. I happen to be an expert in dealing with humans. I can give you all the secret insider tips.

[I'm so sorry in advance, Castiel. Run while you can.]

For instance, people like to know they've been seen and appreciated! So you want to get up real close to look in their eyes and breathe in their scent. You'll want to ask everyone you meet for a selfie, too, to commemorate the occasion -- and, this is crucial, you want to make double-peace signs behind their head while the picture's being taken.

[He makes said peace signs with his own hands, in demonstration.]

It's an important signal that you don't want any trouble, see. If you skip it, you might get beaten up!

[messenger]

I've been told personal space is important.

[ his eyebrow twitches. it seems to say, you little shit. ]

I don't know what that is.

[ that one's not on him. smart phones don't exist yet in his time, which means selfies are not yet a staple of popular culture. he's missing a nokia flip phone right about now, actually. he's not very fond of the ear pieces. ]

[saudades]

Only stuffy squares think that!

[He is immune to the eyebrow, alright. This man does not know shame.]

I should know, my colleague at work is one of those. Every day I would have to take some time to show him how to relax a little bit and take himself less seriously. [He lets out an exaggerated siiiigh.] What will he do without me now, I wonder...?

[Ah well. C'est la vie. He brightens at the next part, pulling his smartphone out of his pocket. It doesn't get any signal here, but what it can still do is take a proper selfie rather than using the earpiece's HUD.]

Anyhow, selfies are an important part of human culture. Even stuffy squares would agree with that much. Come on, let me show you.

[messenger]

I'm not a square, or an imaginary number, or anything else but an angel.

[ sorry, 37! he tried to understand you, he really did.

castiel lifts one of the bottles he was holding to his mouth. the cap, which was previously present, is now vanished without explanation. he takes a long swig while side-eyeing dazai, his face a mask of exasperation. half the contents of the bottle have disappeared by the time he drops it to dangle from his fingers again. he doesn't seem truly angry, however.

if he were, he'd probably just leave. ]

Who was your colleague?

[ how d'you like that unsubtle subject change? ]

[saudades]

[That's...an incredibly literal interpretation of that word, wow. And an incredibly unsubtle subject change, enough so that he's leaving the strange square talk be so as not to let said subject change pass uncommented.]

Oh dear, you aren't camera-shy are you, Castiel-san?

[y u denying him this wholesome selfie moment!! smh.]

My colleague is incredibly fussy and uptight, the kind of person who schedules his day down to the minute and finds himself disgruntled if anything unexpected happens, even if it might be a windfall! He's stubborn, too trusting for his own good, honest to a fault, unwavering in his convictions, and unyielding in carrying them forward. The kind of person who will be a natural leader, when the time comes.

[He smiles, genuine for just a moment before the mask comes back up.]

He's not here, but you'll know him immediately if you see him.

[messenger]

[ he's still riding off the high of being called an imaginary number and trying to explain to a girl who speaks entirely in metaphor his place in the phenomenal world. he does, in fact, realize a moment later that that's probably not what dazai meant — he hasn't been speaking in math metaphor this entire time, after all. at least, not as far as he can tell. he tries to track back the usage of the word—

well, judging by the context clues, it's probably an insult.

(if you keep trying, dazai, he'll go along with it. he's just in a bad mood.) ]

That sounds like a lotta' people I know.

[ he watches dazai for a long moment, bottle still dangling from his fingers. he takes another drink — a drink, this time, not a swig — and then tucks it back beneath his arm, the cap returned as though it was never gone. ]

Dean is why I'm here. And I'm why he's here, too.

[ tit for tat. dazai told him something, after all.

of course, he has to stop, pause a beat, and roll his eyes at himself. ]

Not here. On earth. Back home.

[ you know what he means. ]

[saudades]

[ ...

Dazai's steps slow to a stop, suddenly, both the smile from before and the hollow facsimile of it gone.]

Castiel-san. You're new to interacting with humanity, so let me give you some advice.

[It's clear from his tone; he is not fucking around this time.]

Never expose your heart like that to a person you aren't certain you can trust. We have only just met, and yet if you'd been unfortunate enough to encounter me a few years ago, you would've just handed me the means to blackmail and control the both of you.

[A few years ago, he would've considered himself as having hit the jackpot with this man, learning this. The Port Mafia would've owned them.]

This Dean is the friend you betrayed God for, isn't he? If there is ever someone you would do anything for, where something inside you would be irreparably broken by their loss, and others find out, you are ruined.

[He thinks of Odasaku and the orphans he watched blow up in that car. He thinks of Odasaku bleeding out in his arms. The void inside him swirls with rage and grief and anguish; he didn't realize it in the moment, but Odasaku was lost to him the moment those orphans burned, and it was because Mori knew that his friend would no longer see any reason to live without them, and his death was too valuable, too "necessary" a sacrifice for the Port Mafia.]

Do you understand?

[messenger]

[ it's difficult to see things from dazai's point of view. from a human point of view. what does death mean to an angel? not the same as what it means to a human. death is an end-point, but not for him — certainly not for dean, either. that's why he was in hell in the first place. because dean sold his soul to bring back his dead brother. and then, everything that happened after: he can sympathize with human pain and tragedy, but he can hardly empathize with dazai's position.

he's just not capable.

still, he stops, facing the man. acknowledging what he's trying to convey to him. ]

I understand.

... But we're far past that. Heaven and Hell both want Dean and his brother, and they know what I've done, and what I continue to do. There was never any option where I could have hid my... regard. I've already been punished for it.

[ regard. he respects dean, deeply, for the decisions he's made. he turned his nose up at paradise for the greater good. whatever might have happened with michael, dean would have gotten his reward. eternity, or nonexistence. and, most importantly: his brother, at peace.

he doesn't consider that he may feel anything more than that, but by simple process of elimination dean is the most important person in his universe. he loves his father, even if he also hates him — but god is hardly present.

dean, however, is.

castiel shifts, suddenly a little awkward— ]

And, uh... Not that I don't appreciate the advice, but I wasn't being figurative. I was tasked with raising Dean from the dead. That's why I was sent to earth, and that's why he's alive.

cw suicidal ideation ref

[saudades]

[Dazai lets out an impatient breath. It's rare for him to lose even a little bit of composure, but this interaction has brought up some things, and he's frustrated that the other man seems to still not realize what's at stake here. Most of all that talk -- of Heaven and Hell, of raising someone from the dead -- is meaningless to him, the mechanics and metaphysics of it all over his head and irrelevant. If this were a different sort of conversation, maybe he would've needled for more context, a better explanation, but instead:]

You're missing the point.

[Frankly, he's only establishing it further, at this point.]

None of the forces from your world are even here. But Dean is, and you continue to tell me how much you would do and have done for this man. Which means that anyone can use him against you. What do you think will happen if he dies here? This is not your universe. There's no guarantee his soul will return to the afterlife you presided over, nor would you be able to leave here to retrieve him if it did. I sincerely doubt you would be willing to let things come to that, either.

[There are plenty of things in this world worse than death, in the end. Dazai has always welcomed the notion as a relief, an escape from the pain of existence. Odasaku is perhaps the only one who ever tried to understand, even if he couldn't, not fully. It's not death that's truly the issue, here.]

Not to mention, if you care about him so deeply, what would he do for you? It would be just as easy to threaten you to make him comply, especially if you let people know you're already a condemned man with no allies to protect you, because you threw them all away for him.

[messenger]

I do understand.

[ his mouth twists, and his arm tightens around his alcohol, where it's sloshing in its bottles. ]

Heaven and Hell both employ the tactic. But sooner or later, all of our loyalties will be revealed. The abilities of the people around us, the close quarters we're living in. What Aurora and Echo likely already know. We won't be able to hide our weaknesses forever.

[ he slants another look in dazai's direction before he begins to walk again, once more adjusting the parcel beneath his arms. the paranoid, he understands, but there's never been any reason for him to employ that strategy. nothing in the physical world can truly hurt him, and their true enemies overpower them so vastly that it's difficult not to be hopeless.

usually, he is. ]

We have to be able to defend ourselves regardless.

Besides, Dean and I aren't as close as you're saying. The other Castiel — The one from his time — was hardly around.

[saudades]

[That saccharine smile returns to his features, but instead of inane and empty, there's a sharpness to it, his features filed down to a knife that's bared at Castiel now, pressed against the flesh of his neck like a threat.]

Not close, hmm? So you're saying you didn't betray your creator, consign yourself to a war in which you admit you're going to die whether you win or lose? You haven't, with your own hands, burnt every bridge connecting you to your former brethren, in such a way that you can never turn back? There are things left to you in that world or any other beyond protecting this man?

[He lets all that linger in the air a moment, that sharpness all but predatory. If Cas won't listen when it's put gently, he'll need to draw blood.]

In that case, I suppose I must be mistaken, because if those things were true, then that would truly be quite the high bar for closeness, wouldn't you say?