A Lesson in Clubbing
Rating: PG-13/T
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Friendship/General
Summary: Atropos tracks Balthazar down to a club following the Frontierland incident.
Author's Note: Okay, so… Because it was announced that Frontierland was supposed to air before My Heart Will Go On, that's usually the timeline I acknowledge. For the sake of anyone who follows the same line of thinking, in this story My Heart Will Go On goes before Frontierland.
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. It belongs to Eric Kripke.
()()
He did it again.
Castiel pulled some kind of crap again.
Atropos took a strong, deep breath before actually looking over the details and checking to see what, if anything, Castiel's little apes had done this time. They'd gone back, spoken with Samuel Colt, killed a phoenix…
She let out a little huff-like noise.
Okay, so they hadn't disturbed the time flow. They were supposed to go back and affect the timeline in such a fashion, just as they had done in times previous when Castiel had sent them back to the seventies.
All the same, though, she was irritated.
Atropos had thought that Castiel had learned his lesson from the last time-travel related mishap. Didn't he figure that she'd be keeping a closer eye on him this time to make sure that he didn't keep trying to manufacture souls like some generic production-line item? Souls were a little more sacred than that.
She felt like giving Castiel a piece of her mind, but oddly enough, couldn't seem to locate him anywhere. She'd spoken with Rachel just recently, and the lieutenant had, in her own careful way, expressed concerns over Castiel's odd, unexplained disappearances at random points in time. Atropos may have let a thing or two leak to Rachel in regards to Castiel's current supply-power, but had left it at 'he's been using souls, lots of souls, for power' and failed to drag the details of the Titanic incident into it.
Castiel was AWOL, all right.
Atropos could think of someone else who might know where he was, or would at least be able to pass the verbal beating on to him later.
()()
Balthazar had always been a 'wild' one.
'Wild' was a subjective term, because what angels previously considered 'wild' and unruly behavior seemed to stand in relatively stark contrast with what most humans considered to be wild. He had always been the kind to be a little mouthier, a little more outspoken, a little more wise-assed than most. But other than that, he had always been a good, virtuous, honorable soldier who rarely (and never out loud) questioned orders, so he was safe from punishment. Most of the time.
Of all the angels that could have delved into booze, sex and drugs upon the end of the apocalypse and the end of destiny and order, Atropos was not, in the least, surprised that it was Balthazar who had done so.
She found him at a nightclub in New York. It was dark to the point of ridiculousness; what was the point in being there if you couldn't see an inch in front of your face? People who weren't even dancing were smashing into each other, some of them drunk enough to laugh stupidly once they did. Because it was so dark, though, and everyone was either really drunk or really high, no one seemed to notice that her attire (her usual) was not exactly compatible with the clubbing scene.
Most of the noticeable light came from bothersome, flashing strobe-lights flickered wildly in the center of the room, an epileptic's nightmare if Atropos had ever seen one. Hell, she was a being with a stronger constitution than that of a human and even she was getting dizzy from the multi-colored beams. However, on the edge of the room there were sets of tables and couches and whatnot that seemed to have very, very dim lights set right over them.
That was where she spotted Balthazar. She'd spent enough time around angels to pick one out of a line-up blindfolded, and that was the only reason she managed to locate him in this bedlam, this microcosm for the universal chaos she so despised. It took her maybe five minutes to wade across the room to where he was, all the while having to weave between people and not lose sight of her quarry in the process.
"Hey baby," A young brunette man of thirty or so, a bit tipsy from the looks of it, stepped directly in front of her. "You wanna have a drink with me?"
Atropos stared at him flatly, scrutinizing. While the overall fate of humanity and the planet in general had escaped her grasp, the individual fates of most people were still fairly certain. And given her profession, she could more or less access this information at will, just by focusing on whoever it was she needed.
Hm. Interesting.
Atropos gave him a thin smile. "No, thank you. Actually, you may want to spend less time picking up the ladies and more time giving some thought to what new career you're going to think about taking up when you get fired from your office tomorrow for showing up late and hungover." And with that, she pushed past him and managed to break out of the worst of the crowd, finally able to approach Balthazar at a more brisk pace.
He was lying on one of the couches, seemingly asleep, though Atropos knew better. He wasn't stupid enough to sleep out in the open like this, especially when just about any angel could waltz into the club and use the mayhem around them to slit Balthazar's throat without causing an immediate fuss.
He was, however, evidently stupid enough to get high out in public.
"Cocaine, Ecstasy, LSD or Heroin?" She said in a clipped tone as she stood over him, arms folded primly over her book of names.
"None of the above," Oh, he had to be stoned. The only other time she'd heard his voice this slurred was when he'd been seriously, seriously injured some two thousand thirty-five years ago in a rather nasty battle with some big-name demons. "Technically. I decided to go traditional and go with opium."
Atropos rolled her eyes, but had to agree; Crystal meth, cocaine, ecstasy, they were all big names, but opium had been getting people high- or rather, low- for over six thousand years. All the same, though, this meant her plans to bitch to Balthazar about what Castiel had done were moot, since he probably wouldn't absorb any of it. She'd come all this way for nothing.
"Wow, Aisa," Balthazar drawled, cracking one eye open to look up at her (how he could see her through the drug haze and the darkness she would never know), "Never thought I'd see you here."
"Well, for once we agree," Atropos said dryly. "Because I never thought I'd be here either."
"Let me guess." Balthazar pushed himself up into a sitting position, though his limbs and posture were still rather limp (she didn't even want to think about how much opium he had to ingest for it to break past his natural angelic composure even a little bit, never mind this). "Cas did something- probably involving time travel, since you wouldn't get into a real tizzy about anything else- and you can't find him, so now you're here to bitch at me."
"Spot on. You're getting good at this." She sat down in the space his head had recently vacated, partly because she was sick of being bumped into from behind and partly because she didn't want him to lie back down and pretend he was ignoring her. He liked doing that; he knew it pissed her off.
"Well, go on and rant all you like, Aisa," Balthazar snapped his fingers and a drink appeared in each hand, one of which her offered to her. "I am so de-light-fully stoned I probably won't hear a thing."
Atropos was starting to suspect that that wasn't quite true. While Balthazar was definitely stoned, he was an angel, and it was difficult to be truly affected by things like drugs or alcohol. And right now, he suddenly sounded way too… Alive to be really drugged. What she'd seen a few seconds ago may have been an act. Or maybe he'd snapped out of it when it was apparent she wasn't going to leave.
She accepted the drink, but eyed it warily. "What is this?"
"Alcohol."
"And only alcohol?" He rolled his eyes.
"Yes, only alcohol. I'm not going to date-rape you, darling, Clotho and Lachesis would castrate me." Indeed they would. Atropos almost smiled, because it did create a most amusing picture in her mind's eye. She took a hesitant sip and then set the drink back down on a nearby table.
"So you do drugs." She'd heard that he'd gotten into the scene, but hadn't actually witnessed him going at it before. Balthazar shrugged.
"It's not like it's hurting me. I don't have a psychological dependence, evidently I'm incapable of getting addicted physically, and my vessel is asleep, so he doesn't feel or see a thing. It's not like there's anything angels can get addicted to."
"Much that you can get addicted to." Atropos corrected, eyes boring into his pointedly. To both her satisfaction and displeasure, something dark darted through Balthazar's eyes, and he frowned. She was happy because this was one of his 'I'm taking you seriously' expressions, and less than happy because it meant he was angry.
"Don't know what you mean," He said coolly, though the way he swallowed all of the alcohol in his cup in one go said otherwise.
"I think you do." Atropos' voice may have sounded forceful, but she was treading lightly. This was a sensitive subject matter. "For an angel, souls can be quite the steroid, can't they? Unfortunately, like the human equivalent, they carry certain drawbacks from prolonged use, don't they-?"
The stormy expression now fixed on Balthazar's face made her fall silent. She wasn't afraid of him. Really. It was just… Alarming… To see him so dark. She'd only seen it once or twice before, and those times it hadn't been directed at her.
Atropos sighed and reached for her glass, picking it up and getting it to chest level before Balthazar suddenly pushed it back down to the table again, hand flat over the top. "You know, it's rude to roofie a lady's drink without her knowledge." He said loudly to the man standing inconspicuously near the table.
"Only way to roofie someone, man." The guy muttered, but he must have sensed that Balthazar wasn't laughing at that on the inside (he definitely wasn't on the outside), because he edged away from them with a calculated speed.
Atropos stared after him, then turned to look at Balthazar. "Thank you," She said slowly. Balthazar rolled his eyes, and the coldness to his expression disappeared so quickly you might wonder if it was ever there at all.
"As much as I would dearly love to see you high, I would feel badly if it happened without your knowledge. The first hit should be a choice for anyone." He yawned. "By the way: When in a club or bar, never leave your drink unattended. Never. Someone will try to spike it. Not that it would affect you like it would a human woman, but just in case."
"Right," Atropos said dryly. "Because I'm definitely taking up club-hopping now."
"You should. It would be a sure-fire way to get that stick out of your ass." She frowned, resented that, but didn't bother arguing. Yes, to someone like Balthazar she was, in fact, an uptight bitch. Atropos preferred to view it as sanity. And a sense of order, in comparison to Balthazar's evident love of anarchy. "So, are you going to unleash a can of whoop-ass on me or what?"
"You won't remember it in the morning. And if you do, you'll pretend you don't just to piss me off."
"You seem to labor under the idea that my purpose in life is to piss you off."
"No, your purpose in life is to serve God. Your hobby is pissing me off." Balthazar laughed.
"True enough! True enough!" He downed a shot from his glass. "So tell me, Aisa: What did my little brother do that's got your panties in a twist?" Her eyes narrowed icily at him for a moment, and then she sighed.
"He sent heckle and jeckle to Sunrise, Wyoming so they could shoot a phoenix and collect its ashes." Balthazar blinked.
"That doesn't sound so bad."
"He sent them back 150 years to do it." Atropos clarified.
"Did they succeed?"
"No. Thankfully, Samuel Colt was kind enough to collect the ashes for them and postmark the package to be delivered in 2011."
For a moment, Balthazar just stared at the blonde goddess, eyes blank. "Why do we even help them?" He asked oddly. "They could survive on pure, dumb luck alone."
"I don't help them. You help them."
"Not as much as they would like." Something in Balthazar's expression flickered darkly again, and Atropos suspected that he was referring to the Winchesters and their pushy ways, particularly when it came to Castiel (Of course Atropos knew about that; she made it a point to know all about the little trailblazers). "So did they change the past?"
Atropos sniffed and didn't meet his eyes. "No."
"So why did you come to level with me?"
"Because you seem to be one of the few people Castiel actually listens to. I want you to get him to stop." She deliberately left that open to a large number of things that she wanted Castiel to stop doing. Time traveling was one; using souls for a morning power-shake was another. Balthazar's eyebrows, however, flew up.
"I'm sorry, dear," He said, bemused, "But I think you have it backwards. I pretty much do the listening. I'm not the one handing out orders here. Cas has taken the lead."
"But you are a member of his inner circle; you and Rachel both, that I know of."
Now Balthazar's eyes went visibly dark, and Atropos was surprised to see some pain in there as well. "Rachel's dead." Her own eyes flew open. Hadn't she just spoken with Rachel a few days previously?
"What?"
"Evidently she turned traitor. Working for Raphael." Balthazar relayed this to her in a low, flat voice. She detected no emotion, no opinion, no nothing. And the fact that he'd bothered to keep all of those things from his voice was opinion enough.
"That's bullcrap." Atropos said bluntly. "Complete bullcrap. She was practically in love with him. She was his most loyal. She would never turn on him. Balthazar." She gripped his arm and made him look at her. "This has to stop. You're not stupid. You can see where this is going, where Castiel is going. And Rachel- If- If maybe- If he-" He looked at her sharply.
"Don't say it."
"You know what I mean."
"I do know what you mean, just don't say it out loud." Atropos considered for a moment pushing the subject, but then remembered how close he and Rachel had once been and how close he and Castiel still were and decided that doing so would only make him angrier and bitter.
He pulled out a pipe and started smoking, and the pungent odor of opium was immediately noticeable. Yes, she'd done it; pushed him in ways he hadn't wanted to be pushed, irritated him in ways no one else dared to or were capable of doing. To the best of Atropos' knowledge, she was the only one aware of what Castiel was doing with the souls, as well as the sheer number he had to be gulping down on the regular basis for him to need 50,000 more.
She didn't speak for a while after Balthazar started smoking. Instead she looked around the club, observing the other patrons and wondering what time it was. She'd lost track of it once she'd started talking with Balthazar. Atropos thought that it couldn't have been more than half an hour, thirty five minutes since she had arrived.
And how funny it was that the humans carried on so normally, never knowing or suspecting that a demigod and an angel were in their midst. If they saw her, the most they would probably do was wonder at how odd it was that she would go clubbing in such professional attire, maybe think that she was a little odd or out of place, and the move on to bigger and better things. Balthazar they would never take notice of; he blended in far too well, especially for a creature whose true form could blind or even kill everyone in the room if unleashed.
Atropos reached for her drink, then remembered the roofie incident and pulled her hand back. She wasn't that thirsty anyway. If that man was still around, though, she might have tried it just to startle him when he realized that it wasn't having an effect on her. She smirked, but then frowned when she wondered if he was doing the same thing to some other woman amongst the masses.
Hopefully they all knew about that 'never leave your drink unattended' rule.
Suddenly, she felt Balthazar's head leaning against her shoulder and Atropos tensed.
"Care for a sniff, dear?"
"I'll pass."
The pipe disappeared, and Balthazar seemed much more peaceful now than he had before. It suddenly occurred to the oldest of the Moirae that his trip to the club, tonight, may have been prompted by and large by Rachel's death (at Castiel's hands, as he had implied but not said, refused to say), and that the entire point of the evening's escapade was to avoid thinking about it.
"Are you just going to sit here, buzzed, for the rest of the night?" Atropos tried and failed to keep the disdain from her voice. She didn't care if he couldn't get physically or mentally addicted; this still was not a healthy way of coping with loss or stress, and was a poor and foolish way of driving it from his mind in the short term.
"Not unless you'd like to dance with me." He snickered, voice ever so slightly slurred.
"No thanks. I don't dance. And when I do, I prefer my partners to not be stoned."
"Spoil-sport."
This time Atropos knew it wasn't an act and that Balthazar really was good and toasted, because if he'd had even a shred of control over his brain or his mouth he wouldn't have pressed his face deeper into her shoulder and grasped her wrist tightly and muttered just loud enough for her to hear, "I want my family back."
Balthazar had made it one of his priorities in life to irritate the ever-loving hell out of Atropos. And the reason he wasn't dead yet was simply because of moments like these, when he showed that there was actually a shred of decency and, for lack of a better term, humanity beneath his jack-assed façade. It was moments like these that managed to evoke sympathy from Atropos, who was used to having to lock it away for the sake of her job, which required cold impartiality towards her victims.
She sighed and touched his arm, but didn't dare say anything, because she knew that he was probably going to lose a lot more than just a sister before the war was over, and no amount of smoking or drinking would be able to fix it for good.
-End