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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 :)]

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[ it's hard to say whether that sharpness doesn't cut castiel, or whether he just doesn't feel it — there's unrest on his face, though, enough to say that he isn't totally unaffected. but he's also annoyed by this conversation, and close to leaving dazai behind. he thinks he would rather get drunk on his own. ]

It would be.

[ there's merit to what dazai says. however, castiel sees it like this: ]

The only thing left is to save the world I left behind.

[ god may be useless, but god brought him back. that's why he went looking for him in the first place. he thought, surely it meant something. surely it's a sign— and he knows better now, and the bitterness of that knowing wraps around his heart. still, he thinks. dazai has reminded him of something important. as much as he might regret the loss of his home, he knows his choice was the right one. god brought him back. god wanted him to try.

he just didn't want to be involved in the trying. ]

[Truly, he's not sure what Castiel gains, trying to refuse to acknowledge it now. He's plastered his affection for Dean in flashing neon lights for anyone with eyes to see. Dazai may no longer be in the Port Mafia, but he is no less dangerous or cutthroat for it. If ever there were a situation where he could gain favor for his universe by leveraging that affection, he wouldn't hesitate for an instant.

This man is a fool, or arrogant, or both. Odasaku might have made a mistake assuming the boss wouldn't use him as a chess piece to sacrifice for his own machinations, but that's different than simply extending that good faith to a stranger who offered to share a drink. The sharpness dissolves from his expression, leaving behind only that hollow falsity. He was willing to try, out of deference to his friend's memory, but there is only so far he'll take things for someone he doesn't know and has no immediate use for. Dazai twirls the bottle in his own hand, stepping ahead of Castiel to push open the door to the apartment complex and let them in.]

That, and alcohol, right~? Shall we, then?

[ he gains nothing. but it's also not a lie on his behalf to say he'd let dean and sam die for the greater good, which would make dazai's accusation moot. that includes himself, of course. they have to save the earth, humanity— this is the most important thing of all. he never considers that he might only feel this way because of dean. he just knows that he does.

but once the lash of defensiveness has stopped stinging, he's left with only the words. something in his face shifts, a thin shimmer of unease beneath the otherwise impassive veneer. is that really what this human assumes of his feelings? is that how he appears when he admits to the truth? his brow knits, and he moves into the complex with dazai, not hearing the words that come out of his mouth. maybe if he were more focused, he'd have a clue that he's being mocked, but his attention is elsewhere.

it's like the feeling of having a word stuck on the tip of your tongue — except that this isn't a sensation castiel has ever experienced. he's teetering at the edge of something, but the way down is dark, and far, and he can't see the bottom.

drinking the feeling away seems like a wonderful response, so that's exactly what he intends to go and do. of course, it takes several trips back to the kwik stop and many many more bottles of liquor before he's suitably inebriated. only then does he begin to feel better, and his mind wander back to dean. dean also drinks to ease his pain. he doesn't get drunk, though. it's different. ]

Your... friend. He sounds like exactly every angel I know. My condolences.

[Dazai drinks to ease his pain, as well, but more importantly to receive the blessing of oblivion for a few short hours. If he is drunk enough to be more unconscious than asleep, he's less likely to dream. It's a respite where nothing else in life is.

But the difference is, he doesn't trust anyone enough to be truly three sheets to the wind in front of them. He'll drink enough to be pleasantly buzzed, perhaps, but he's too cautious to lose his wits when he isn't in private.

The question surprises him a little, though, and he huffs a soft laugh.]

Is that so? I'm not sure whether he would be flattered or offended, by that.

[Dazai leans toward offended, though. Kunikida is a person who so heavily values ideals of how he believes he ought to be, it'd be galling to have someone imply he's any different than what he knows.]

Does that mean Castiel-san is like that too? Or do you happen to be unique?

[ that's something castiel may only someday understand, since he doesn't normally sleep, or dream. difficult to say if that's a blessing or a curse. the endless drone of life gets tired when you've existed for eons. ]

Oh, I'm "unique".

[ he does not seem to think any more kindly on himself than on the others. maybe no one lives up to his standards. ]

[Ah, that sense of bitterness in his words, again. Castiel is truly an intriguing person; convinced of his actions, and yet seemingly skeptical of whether he's on the right path or not. Or maybe, whether it's worth going down that path in the first place, right or wrong.]

It's not a bad thing, you know. To know with certainty what you value, what gives meaning to your existence in this life. I've certainly never found such a thing for myself.

[He takes a sip of his drink, then, idly tracing the rim with a finger...before he stops, all at once. And speaks again.]

The trouble arises when ideals to strive for become baseline requirements to function. That's when those same admirable ideals become a recipe for unnecessary suffering.

[ there's a bottle dangling from castiel's fingers, most of the way empty. he tilts his head until his skull is resting against the back of whatever seat he collapsed into when he walked into dazai's apartment, eyes raised to the ceiling. dazai is more right than he knows. and yet, this is what he admires most about those he keeps company with. it's why paradise holds such allure: dean and his brother don't need to hold their ideals in heaven. ironically, when life is over, only then can you live with no restraints.

but dean has rejected heaven more than once and been there, too. he has every right to make that decision. humanity has every right to continue existing. because that's the real question, isn't it? everyone who is alive now will die someday, and they'll find paradise or perdition same as they would if the end happened tomorrow. but the human race as a whole would cease to exist, forever.

how can he be the one to make that choice for them? maybe only their creator has that right. but when the vote came around, he chose to pass.

castiel turns his head at a shallow angle to eye dazai. there's a sense of acceptance in his face, in his body language.

or maybe that's defeat. ]

Happiness and suffering are... human concerns.

[Dazai's just drunk enough that a soft little laugh bubbles up in his throat at that. It's more a sad sound than amused, really; there's something almost mournful about it, the kind of absurdist laugh of the damned. Because it's true, isn't it? Even Dazai, for all his detachment and disconnection from society, humanity, cannot escape that most human of experiences -- not alive, anyway. He drinks, looking out past Castiel to the empty nothingness of his apartment. Empty, just like him. Fitting.]

I'd go so far as to say suffering is the most human concern of all.

[ castiel grunts, though there's a note of amusement behind it that makes it sound like almost a laugh. his eyes return to the ceiling, until a few minutes later when he picks up his head to uncap his bottle and drink from it. the sardonicism leaves him, and in its wake only a solemnity. he doesn't envy humanity. he isn't like his sister.

he never would have chosen to fall. ]

Hey,

[ he starts, as prelude to a question. ]

[Dazai turns back to Castiel as he breaks the silence, twirling his own bottle between his fingers — a little less than half empty, by now. It’s a little ironic, perhaps; Castiel speaks of suffering as a human concern, and yet here he is, looking distinctly troubled, going through his alcohol like a man intent on chasing away his pain as quickly as possible. Maybe it’s infectious, suffering, and being around humans has contaminated him.]

Yes?

[He nudges, encouraging the angel to go on. He’s curious, honestly. There’s something the other man wants to say, yet he hesitates. He hasn’t really hesitated about anything this whole time, even as Dazai pressed him about Dean.]

Edited 2024-11-16 22:20 (UTC)

Is that... really what you think of Dean and me?

[ maybe it is catching. castiel can't stop thinking about what dazai said. the claims he made. living among humans is complicated. and perhaps dazai is right, that he should be more careful. keep some things closer to his chest. he just never considered—

what he was saying. ]

[It's a surprise, frankly. Dazai had considered that topic closed, a red stop sign planted directly in front of his face. Saying something in the first place had been unusual for him; he doesn't make it a habit, usually preferring to let others figure things out on their own or otherwise pulling strings from the background to engineer the outcomes he wants. He's only admonished Atsushi about his self-pity once, though he could come up with at least five things on the spot the boy would be well-served working on. A moment of sentimentality had driven him, the situation a little too reminiscent of Odasaku's, and he'd been rebuffed, dismissed. Dazai's tone is considerably chillier than it's been this entire time when he answers:]

If I were going to lie, I would've chosen one more useful to me. Or at least, funnier.

Edited (i forgot my timelines lmaooo) 2024-11-17 00:09 (UTC)

It's not funny to you?

[ everything seems to be funny to dazai. ]

I just... Never thought of it that way.

[ it seems, when he says this, that he means more than just about what dazai told him. his confusion encompasses many topics, broad and far reaching, and far too numerous to delve into now. or ever. he doubts his insecurities are really all that worth talking about. ]

Not especially.

[Here's the trick of it all; there's very little that stirs him in any way or other. He finds messing with people funny, but mostly just as something to do, fill the hours of a life he mostly finds monotonous and exhausting.

Joking, too, is a way to keep people from paying too close attention, a convenient layer of distance for his purposes. But even Dazai has lines he's not interested in crossing.]

You seemed quite unwilling to think about it at all, really.

Huh.

[ no? interesting. he'll keep that in mind. the things that stir castiel stir him deeply, but everything else — well, it's hard to say. obviously, he hasn't quite figured it out yet.

castiel snorts. his shoulder twitches into something that's almost a shrug. ]

Well, I was embarrassed.

[He hums, expression still impassive, closed off.]

Is that so. What a terribly human emotion -- you really are getting corrupted by us, hmm?

... Yes, it is, isn't it?

[ he hadn't realized at the time, or he might have stopped to reflect. he looks troubled, and then he shifts around to lift his bottle to his mouth again, emptying it of its last dregs. he leaves it on the floor with the rest (there's a small city of empty bottles growing around him. he's been popping back to the kwik stop every so often) before sitting up to grasp around for another — only to find he's all out. ]

Maybe I am. [ he makes a sound in the back of his throat. as though to say: of course. he's surrounded by empty bottles. what is this, if not corruption? ] But it was God who drove me to drink.

[That one is funny, actually, but Dazai doesn't laugh. He may or may not have taken a swig from his own, unfinished bottle, just out of spite.]

Or maybe you're just more human than you think. You must be aware how many of us have been driven to despair and even violence over Him, after all.

Yes, your crusades. Your holy wars. We helped with some of those, you know.

[ castiel watches dazai's alcohol with longing.

and then, abruptly, he's gone. he'll return a few minutes later with a fluttering of wings in the center of the room. holding two more bottles of jack, one in either hand. if he were more human, he might be better off. but who knows? who sets the score? who decides these things, but the being who he's already written off?

he wonders if what dazai said is really true. about him and dean. or if he would want it to be — if he would feel less empty, if it were. ]

You want one of these?

Wow. It must have been quite something for the people you guys killed to find out how meaningless their deaths were!

[Throwing your life away for the sake of a god that doesn't exist is one thing, but to find out the people who killed you were right to begin with, and not even have the benefit of oblivion from it? Sounds truly miserable. He prefers the ugliness of his own world. It's simpler. More honest, in a way.]

Sure, I'll take one.

Edited 2024-11-17 02:46 (UTC)

... Yes. It must have been quite something.

[ he thought they were doing the right thing, at the time. well, of course he did. but now, knowing that god wasn't guiding their hand—? his voice is pained. he does nothing to disguise it.

he steps over, reaching to hand off the bottle. ]

[Dazai is pretty good at not touching people accidentally. His power necessitates being good at it, especially when he needed to operate more low-key. But Castiel is awkwardly angled on his couch, drunk, and Dazai isn't 100% sober, either, so when he's reaching out for that bottle, Castiel's wrist just barely brushes against a fingertip he didn't manage to move out of the way in time.

He wouldn't have even necessarily been concerned about such a brief contact, though; it's not immediately suspicious for a person to experience a fleeting instant of being suppressed or hollowed out as long as it disappears just as quick and they have no reason to justify the feeling, comfortably buzzed in a personal residence in broad daylight as they are.

But then Castiel falls over like a marionette with its strings cut, and Dazai can only really watch blankly as the bottle in the angel's hand pours out all over the floor, soaking both into the carpet and the poor angel's coat.]

...Ah? Oh dear.

Edited 2024-11-17 15:18 (UTC)

[ it may be one of the most bizarre sensations he's ever felt in all his long life.

he hardly notices their fingers brushing, fingertips numbed by the ethyl alcohol in his bloodstream. there's the sliding by of their molecules. and then, already floating on the wave of ethanol that's soaked his vessel's liver, he feels his grip on his vessel give way. it's a kind of unraveling, his whole entire true form poured out into the air, invisible and flaring as sobriety slams into him like a truck.

the lights of the apartment building flicker, the lamps immediately nearby throwing bright, sizzling sparks onto the floor. their earpieces give twin whines of feedback, and the tv bursts into noisy, roaring, grey-and-white screened static, far louder than whatever setting dazai might have had it on before.

the entire display seems to scream: what the fuck? ]

Edited 2024-11-18 01:20 (UTC)

[Dazai was going to try poking the body with a fork or something to see if it really was dead or something, but then all the electronics in the room start to go out of control, and Dazai is perceptive enough to realize after a moment what's going on here. So when Castiel said his body didn't even belong to him, he meant there was some kind of angel ability keeping him inside it, and Dazai being Dazai disconnected him the moment their skin touched.

Unfortunately, No Longer Human doesn't exactly work in reverse. If Castiel can't put himself back in his vessel now that Dazai isn't touching it, he is shit out of luck. He thinks about how to communicate with static-Castiel, before he comes up with an idea: taking his smartphone back out of his pocket from his failed attempt to initiate a selfie earlier, he uses the built-in flashlight to write out a message in Morse code:]

S-O-R-R-Y

C-A-N-T

T-O-U-C-H

[Look, writing entire sentences in morse code would be incredibly tedious, alright. A moment later, though, another message is flashed on the wall:]

I-D-E-A

[before he gestures to the television, then to the corpse in his living room, and pantomimes re-entering it ... which probably looks a little more lewd than intended, honestly, but there's only so much you can accomplish without verbal communication here.]

H-A-V-E
B-R-O-O-M
P-U-S-H
T-O
O-U-T-L-E-T
?

[He doesn't know how this works, okay. Maybe real-form Castiel can only move via electricity? If the corpse was close to a source it might be easier to jump back in.]

Edited 2024-11-18 11:11 (UTC)

[ ah, morse! what a useful bit of human ingenuity to know in this situation — something in the distance groans faintly, maybe a generator or power converter or whatever sort of system is feeding electricity into this apartment complex straining under the weight of the increased load. nothing, castiel hopes, that anyone else will notice. he's making an effort to reign himself in, an effort so that the effect he has on the electrical system isn't any more pronounced than the effect your average thunder storm might cause. the last thing he wants is to break something and get noticed by aurora (though it occurs to him he might want to get noticed — another time). it isn't easy to keep himself localized to dazai's room, but that's what he does.

the lamp flickers. ]

I-S
I-T
S—

[ and then the bulb bursts in an explosion of hot sparks, raining twinkling shards of glass across the floor.

if castiel could, he would roll his eyes.

there's a pause. then the television begins switching channels, in place of the flashing light. ]

I-S
I-T
S-A-F-E

[ he means, his body — whatever dazai's ability does, he needs to know if it lingers. ]

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