driftfleet | Glitch | "Who wants to remember all that hell?"

Entry tags:

Glitch | "Who wants to remember all that hell?" | OTA

Who: Sam and you. Also Hell!Sam.
Broadcast: N/A
Action: Iskaulit
When: 1/25/17 and onward as he glitches.

WARNING for Supernatural being awful, so you'll find stuff here that will be very mental health oriented. Mentions of torture/abuse, potentially graphic in narrative, talk of hallucinations, hell, the devil, etc. Sam'll also be reacting as someone who has endured said things listed so if that sort of thing bothers you don't mind me (or if you're close CR lemme know and we can work around it). Sam's a hot mess 'de-aged' for a week to season 6 (~5 years ago in canon), where he hasn't been resurrected yet and thinks he's still trapped in hell. Your character may think he's canon updated into the future but it's quite the opposite! Luckily!

WEDNESDAY/THURSDAY. AFTERMATH, CONTINUED. Space Bar/Garden/Iskaulit. (aka anything you wanna do before he glitches)

[Sam has busied himself with helping with repairs; luckily things aren't quite so awful looking, and the debris and blood's been relatively cleaned away. The garden is one of his top priorities, actually, other than helping re-open the bar (which congrats, guys, we did it! just need some replacements but...), and he can be found carefully replanting and plucking dead leaves and sadly pulling any of his herbs that were too damaged to salvage. He also helps with the library and works on any damage the Bloodsport sustained. Everything seems to at least be getting back to normal. That's good. Really good. And as much as he wishes they'd been spared the attack — Aria's still out, even if she's not dead from her injuries — he at least finds a shitty silver lining in being too occupied to think.]

FRIDAY. LIBRARY. "who wants to remember all that hell?"

[And on schedule, per Sam's luck, he glitches.

He's in the middle of quietly reading in the library when it happens, like a punch. His eyes roll back and he's out for the count, slumping forward, unconscious — for a short while. Images dance behind his eyes, voices teasing him from afar. If you happen to find him here, practically comatose against handwritten accounts of what happened during the raider attack, you'll find he looks — bad. Pale pink scars have formed on his arms and neck and face, and he twitches in the throes of terrible images, eyelashes clumped and wet. Despite what it looks like, he hasn't updated to a new point; he hasn't gone to the future.

No, he's gone to the past. Down below, trapped with the devil himself in a cage. De-aged years back, before he was resurrected, plucked from hell by Death himself. An attempt to rouse him will give the visitor a surprise: Sam jerks like he's been burned, shuddering like he's been struck by lightning before he throws himself back from the chair, toppling it with him, a strangled NO flying from his lips as he blindly crawls back and away. He's terrified and confused, utterly confused.

... Good luck.]

GLITCH. Iskaulit. Garden.

[After he wakes up from the library, anyone who expected him throughout the day will find he'll absolutely miss any appointments. He can be found wandering the Iskaulit, actually. He's not all there — actually, he's trying to figure out where this hallucination begins and ends. Nothing makes any sense, but there's no way he's going to think he's out of hell. No, this must be some elaborate prank by the devil. He's just... waiting for the whole thing to fall apart. Sure, he hasn't seen any familiar faces, and usually things would have gotten violent by now, but... you know. You can't trust Lucifer and his new tricks. Always, new tricks. You can't torment someone for eighteen decades without mixing things up a bit.

The nervous figure rubs his hand along his burn-marked skin, over rough scarring, and looks nothing like the usually confident and good-natured man Sam usually is; he's flighty, and his eyes dart to any little noise like it may very well be the death of him. Er. Well. He's pretty sure he's dead anyway, but the... mutilation and reconstruction of his soul, if you will. He doesn't want to be found, but it's inevitable. His teeth chatter behind his lips and he passes like a ghost, gray-rimmed eyes and disheveled appearance unnatural on his figure.

Sometimes if he hears someone approaching, he finds a place to hide and wait it out. Whether or not the person in question doesn't find him is another matter entirely, but regardless, he'll look at you as if you're aiming to behead him and squeeze into the smallest hiding space he can in order to evade your destructive hands. Because you're probably Morning star, you know? Probably.

He revisits the garden, temporarily eased by the plant-life growing there. Lucifer always did love nature. One of the few pleasures he was allowed was to witness exquisite scenery sometimes, when the devil was feeling generous. It was always accompanied with some sort of terrible double-edged sword, but at least Sam could enjoy that much. He sits with his legs pulled up, long fingers awkwardly plucking at someone's plant — he's a bit confused, because even though he's completely sure he's in hell and has been and never will get out... there's just. Something off. Something different. When he breathes, it doesn't hurt his lungs. And his bones don't crunch when he walks. And there aren't any hooks, aren't any flames (yet, Sam, yet, don't assume anything).

Even so. He huffs tiredly, head rolling on his shoulders, and plucks off a small fruit, unsure if he's even capable of eating it.

It's not real, it's not real. It's not. It'll probably turn into razors in his mouth.]

... This cage isn't very hot.

[Or frostbite-cold.

It's quite... pleasant, this temperature.

Everything is different. The devil is probably enjoying his owl-eyed confusion.]

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[He grits his teeth behind his lips, frustrated.

Games, all games. He breathes out shakily.]

Yes.

I do not even believe in Hell, so that is quite impossible.

[sorry bro, it ain't in her limited belief system]

[He coughs a laugh, shaking his head.

Of all the things to hear. Fuck, he's so tired. He doesn't care today.]

Good for you.

Is there a way to prove it? [...] I can prove the existence of the fleet, at least. If we are able to find a window.

[He smiles unhappily.]

You mean the window with the stars?

[He knows, mystery person. He knows.

But... it'll never be enough.]

... Lucifer likes the stars. Big fan. And, um, souls are kind of like them, y'know? When they circling the Cage, they're like shooting stars... They just want to stop, but they can't.

Yes, the window that shows out into - space? That is what you lot call it. The stars.

[she huffs a little and leans back on her hands] They do not circle like shooting stars. They are just there.

. . . someone told me they are just big balls of gas?

Of course they don't circle. It'd be a bad illusion, then.

[He'd know right where he is, and that'd be terribly rusty of the devil.]

Um. I... Yes, yes. Stars... the real ones, in the sky, they're big balls of gas. Mostly hydrogen and helium held together by its own internal gravity. The sun's a star, too... Big star.

[He seems to at least relax when he explains.

He likes pretending to talk to someone. He likes reciting facts he learned in junior high.

It's almost normal.]

If this is an illusion, it was one I've grown bored of.

[she says it a little dryly, purposely putting a little more sarcasm into the tone. But that certainly sounds familiar to her - seeing things, hearing things, the paranoia; that was a status effect in the last world she was in before home, and it had been one she's suffered more than once. It hadn't done a great job on her already high paranoia before that, but.

At least, she knows how to handle it]

Even the sun? Even though it gives life to everything that grows on the Earth? [keep him talking seems like a good start]

[He nods.]

Stars are important. They, uh. Warm the earth... They help people at sea if they're lost.

[He plucks at his jeans nervously.

Lucifer gets lonely and bored, too. Maybe he's taking pity.

It happens, every so often.]

Their light takes a long time to reach us, but they matter.

I know that much; I can speak to plants, and one of the things they always want is more sun. [she says it as seriously as she says most things, as odd as it is to even say that out loud.

But she frowns at the last part] Why does it take a long time? How long does it take?

Plants, huh... Lucifer loves plants. [He smiles, just a little, albeit sad.] Loves everything but the people.

[His vision speckles with fire and his nose fills with the stench of sulfur, distant but still wafting like chemicals across the expanses of Hell. Somewhere out there, souls are screaming. He tucks his head a bit between his knees, breathing heavier. He's going to come for him, if this woman isn't him. Something's gonna give. He buries his fingers in his hair and flinches at something that Tempest can't see.

Echoes.

Not the fragmented senses of a mentally ill man, but of magic.]

I hear it. I can hear them.

[her mouth quirks a bit] Your devil and I have a bit in common, then. How unfortunate.

[and then he's ducking and flinching and this is familiar too, in a way she's not at all comfortable with, but only because she's experienced it, too. Smells and sounds and sensations that she knew weren't there, but couldn't convince herself of.

It's why instead of leaving it be, like she should, her hands shoot out to grasp his, grip tight. For all that she likes to pretend she doesn't care its times like these that prove it all an act, and she'll kick herself for it later. But for now -]

Ignore them. [she keeps her voice steady and firm] Or tell them to fuck off, if it makes you feel better.

[He keeps his head bowed, and then bowed further; he doesn't dare wrench himself from her grip, but he also feels like he's about to fall straight into the flames. The heat is oppressive and his heartbeat hammers in his wrists, in his temples. He pales.]

Please don't —

Lucifer, I don't want to do this. Don't do this —

[He's terrified of the hands - and terrified of Tempest.

He simply dare not resist.]

[she almost draws her hands back, but instead she holds tighter - not enough to hurt, but tight enough that it's hard to ignore.

She can only imagine what he's seeing]

We are not doing anything but talking, and I am giving you a point to focus on. [she says it as though it should be obvious] My name is Aurae, not Lucifer. No one in their right mind would name a devil after gentle winds, yes?

[Sam sniffs, head bowed under a mess of bangs.]

... Morning Star. That's Lucifer. The brightest... The favorite.

Lucifer was the most beautiful angel, until he fell.

[His voice is tight, shoulders quaking. He bites his lip until it bleeds and he only lets a few stray tears drip down into the soil between them. Whatever he sees, it's painful, and her attempts to calm him, to make him less fearful -- it falls on deaf everything.

His head stays bowed.]

... Who's... the man behind you?

Everything I have heard of the devil would say he isn't pretty at all. Is he not some manner of horned demon?

[she's really stretching her human religion knowledge.

. . . she doesn't look behind her. She isn't going to look behind her. Instead, she shifts a little closer, freeing one hand to rest gently on the back of his head]

What does he look like?

No horns.

[Sam looks up between his bangs, tired in the eyes. Hungry. Can't be.]

Lucifer looked like me.

[He looks distantly over her shoulder, though, at the flickering figure.]

... Curly dark hair; he's, uh, following you.

I do not see horns on you.

[and as though she's checking, she gently ruffles his hair.

She freezes at what he says, though, back straightening. Her expression twists for a moment, a mix of disgust and anger and maybe even a little bit of fear, before it evens out]

Tell him to fuck off.

[He shakes his head, looking defeated. Extremely defeated.

She doesn't understand what he's done. It's alright. She'll probably know sooner or later, whoever she is. Not real, probably some projection. He doesn't know. It's just... confusing. More confusing than it's been in a while.]

I tried that. I did that... for the first few decades.

It'll never work, though.

[He blinks.]

Who is he?

[she has no idea how else she can prove that she's real or that she's not a hallucination or this Lucifer, so she's left doing what she's been doing, and that's keeping contact with him.

She finds herself scowling, though, and the curse under her breath is in a different, sing-songy language]

Decades? Just how long have you been in this Hell?

[...] His name is Maias. We have history.

... Ah.

He's a fuckhead, then.

[Oh, look, there's a little life in him yet.

Just a little. He rubs his arms, as if trying to get the warmth back.]

I don't know how long, though... Lost track after a century. Hard to keep track, y'know? No clocks, no light — just Lucifer's light, really, and Michael. They're too bright, though. Can't see anything when they're like that.

[that earns a brief smile]

Yes, he is. He is a man who belongs in Hell.

[. . . she slips her hands down to rub at his arms as well. She's a helper]

Were that the case, would you not appear much older than you are? You look younger than I am.

[He huffs, scraping his fingernails across his arm.

The sensation is strange. Feels different.]

Sorry I didn't drag him in, too.

[A pause.]

Being dead means you don't age. That's Hell, y'know? An eternity.

If he is following me, is it not my fault? I'm sorry you have to see him.

[she can't deny that that does sound like a hell. She huffs a little bit]

It does not sound pleasant.

[He groans, eyes wet. He knows he shouldn't humor this... whole thing.

But he's getting really tired. Really, really tired. It feels weird.]

It's not.

[His eyes flutter, and his stomach knots. He looks at the echo again.]

Not like I wouldn't deserve being haunted. I've done things. You should know.

Terrible stuff.

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