roadrunnermuses | meme } { open rp post

Castiel reaches to take the book from her, studying the inscription for a moment. "If the gate is still open, I could close it."

"Sure you don't want us to go with you?"

"It would not be necessary."

Artemis folded her arms across her chest, water trialing down the sides of her legs. She eyed Castiel without blinking. Perhaps for a full minute. Maybe two? She wasn't bothering to keep track.

"If angels solved all problems so easily, there would not be problems," she murmured.

"Angels only solve problems that easily when they're allowed to interfere. Cas is different than most. He doesn't really play by the rules."

"Yes. Most of Heaven would like me dead for it." And on that comforting notion, Castiel looks up at her again. "Would you like me to fix it or not?"

"I want it fixed," she replied.

Not necessarily the same thing. But trust didn't come easily to Artemis. After all, she was apparently dealing with an enthusiastic amateur man of letters and a stranger dressed up like a flasher who appeared in the middle of her bathroom.

Perhaps not the most ragged group of strangers she'd ever worked with. But strangers nonetheless.

"Then consider it done."

And with that, Castiel is gone again. Sam runs a hand over his face, before shaking his head.

"Sorry. He ... does that."

Oh, Artemis did not like that. Even if she didn't work in the field as often as she used to, the idea of being completely on the sidelines was unthinkable. To say nothing of the fact that she had no way of following up on this Castiel.

Not for some time, anyway.

"How is it that he's your friend?" she asked Sam dully.

"He pulled my brother out of Hell." Sam replies simply. "And then he defected from Heaven to try and help us stop the Apocalypse."

So really, Castiel is a very good friend. He's just a little ... odd.

Artemis sat down. If anything Sam had said fazed her, she did an extraordinary job of not showing it.

In truth, talk of angels and Hell and the Apocalypse were nothing new to her world. But ti was a bit surprising when she heard people from outside of it talking like that. And she found herself rather wishing that she had an angel or two in her corner.

Then again, why should the Damned?

"What was the price?"

"The price?" His sanity? Their lives? Them having any semblance of a healthy relationship? He wasn't entirely sure what part she's referring to, so he's going to wait to clarify before he answers.

"When you pull someone out of Hell, there's always a price," Artemis said impatiently, as though she were trying to explain it to a toddler.

Well, compared to her, the boy of letters was.

Really. He hadn't heard of a Malkavian? That just struck her as unnaturally odd.

Oh. That price. He frowns for a moment, before shaking his head.

"I don't know. He was given orders to - Dean was the vessel, they couldn't leave him down there."

Just like they couldn't let Sam not release Lucifer.

"Good friend to have," she muttered dourly.

What she could do with a handful of them at her command. The mind boggled. Things would be so much easier. Better. Fewer of her people would have to suffer the price of rescue.

Not that Artemis had regrets about that. They were her people. Her responsibility. And when they got pulled down into the underworld, of course she was going to make whatever deals were necessary.

But it didn't help her sleep easier during the day.

Her eyes went distant and glossy. "I've seen terrible prices."

Sam's eyebrow climb slightly, before he nods. "Right. I'm sure you have." Sam's seen some terrible ones himself. But he doesn't feel like saying them out loud at the moment.

"Comes with the territory, I suppose," she sighed, her twenty-year-old body sagging under the weight of two centuries of mistakes.

There had been more than a few.

She turned to look at Sam, pressing her fingers to her face and biting down on the knuckle of her index finger. "What's it like? Hell?"

That's not really a question that Sam wants to answer. It's not really a question he knows how to answer. Castiel had taken most of the pressure of his insanity away, but that only made everything feel more distant. It doesn't even feel like his anymore. So he answers with the only thing he can answer with.

"It's Hell."

"Some philosophers argue that Hell is just being with other people." Her eyes lost their focus a bit. "And there's the traditional, cartoonish vision of hell as brimstone and fire. Although I rather think it would be cold."

She blinked once and was back in the present.

Presumably.

"I suppose I'll find out eventually."

There's a beat.

Sam shouldn't say anything. She probably doesn't want to know. But that know-it-all need to correct is shining through a little more than most, and he cringes before spitting it out.

"Actually, vampires don't go to Hell. They go to Purgatory."

It was hard to tell if Artemis looked amused or annoyed. Of course, it was entirely possible that it was both. Artemis didn't inhabit what most would consider to be a binary world.

Far from it.

"I see," she said pressing her lips together into a fine line. "Thank you for clarifying that."

Yes, Sam. Good job.

"Sorry," he adds belatedly after the fact. "We've just ... dealt with our fair share of afterlives and all that."

"All in a day's work?"

She made a dismissive gesture. "We've all died once or twice. But the work never really ends, does it?"

Well, Sam's died more like four or five times, but honestly, who's counting?

"No, it doesn't." Sam sighs. "Though sometimes I wish it did - just so I could take a break for once."

"You could always send your angel to do it," she murmured, raising an eyebrow.

No. Artemis did not like sitting on the sidelines of this. Not at all.

"Oh, sometimes we do. And sometimes he doesn't answer the phone."

Which the boys' way of saying that he doesn't always come when he's called.

Artemis had the distinct impression that he bloody didn't know how to use a phone. But that assumption was based entirely on arrogance. She was very proud of her own ability to adjust to changing technology.

Not all Cainites were so skilled.

"Who else works for you?" she asked.

He pauses at the question again because ... yeah. They weren't exactly the employee type. "It's mostly just me, my brother and Cas." He doesn't share information about Kevin at all if he can help it. It's just safer for the kid that way. "We don't have people who work for us."

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