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 wrinkles his brow, like she's crazy.

Because come on.]

Of course I am. Yeah, definitely. They ripped the vessel apart a long time ago.

[... And Castiel came and repaired it. Took it away. Sam's still not entirely sure that happened, though; maybe he was just losing his mind most of all, then. He tried to cling to his body, then, those ugly remains.

But he fell back down. Drifted right back into Lucifer's engulfing grace.]

...

I guess if I told you you've been out of hell for years and you're just having a flashback, you'd think that was a trick.

[He smiles, but it's unsettlingly empty.]

You know me so well.

[Spoken at Nami.

But not to Nami.]

[Unsettling isn't quite the word, but it's close. Nauseating. She hates hearing him like this. Her mouth thins into a line and for a long moment she says nothing, getting them back home to the Bloodsport. It's a good couple minutes before she finally answers, voice low and thick.]

Figured.

Let's just stick with the game.

Yeah.

[The game. He can play along. Sure.

He walks in a heavy silence, hands fidgeting in front of him, slumped in defeat in default. He looks like a prisoner in invisible chains being led back to his cell.]

[She helps him out of the shuttle in the Bloodsport's cargo bay-- holds the door for him at least, tugs a hand if he needs a cue. Reels off a brief description of the areas they pass as they travel through the ship as if she's showing a new shipmate around, though it's delivered in a quiet monotone as if it doesn't really matter.

Because it doesn't. She can already guess how this is going to play out.

So she makes a point of two rooms only. The kitchen. The bathroom.] You can use these whenever you want to. [Not need to, there's a difference, but she wonders hopelessly if he'll ever go to either without prompting. And after a moment's hesitation, she'll go right by Sam's normal room on the Bloodsport and go to her room instead.]

You can sleep in here. There's a lock. I can override it, but if you want to keep other people out, you can. [And maybe it's nice enough that he'll at least be as comfortable as possible given the circumstances. Her maps and sketches are all over the walls, and there's a stack of books on the bedstand. The glow fish in its bowl in the corner, cloth by it so it can be covered if he wants real darkness. Which she doubts.]

You can do whatever you want in here. Read, or... stay in bed. You can go anywhere else on the ship, but this room is yours. Okay?

[He looks around, almost in a daze. The place just sort of all melts together, metal halls and unfamiliar doors, hatches, crawlspaces. He lets his hand hang limp in hers, has even surrendered enough to curl his fingers just slightly. When she takes him to her room he looks around at the drawings — and then uneasily at the bed — stands in the middle of the room like he has no idea what to do with himself. His hair is a bit in his face and he has no motion to move it.]

... Um. I, um. Okay.

[And he doesn't move. Just stays, swaying faintly, eyes on the floor.

His eyes flutter toward her and the bed, sparingly.]

Is this part of the game, too?

[...you know what, Sam. It's all kinds of fucked up. But this, she was expecting.]

Sleeping in here? Having space to yourself? Yes. Nothing else that you're thinking of.

No one's gonna hurt you. No one's going to so much as touch you unless you give them permission. The bed is yours alone. Understand?

[Please understand. If she has to spell it out, she's going to cry.]

[His hands twitch at his sides. He recalls Jessica's hand, her fingers slipping between his.

"Baby? Is something wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing, I just miss you. So much. But I... barely remember your face."]

... Okay.

[Like a broken record. Okay, okay, okay.

But he just.

Stands there and stares at the floor.]

[...taking a breath.] When you're hungry, go to the kitchen and eat. If I don't see you there at least once a day, I'm gonna bring food to you. I don't mind, but I figure you'd rather see me as little as possible. [Or anyone, really.]

Clean up in the bathroom. Don't let those injuries get infected. Don't tell me they won't, because they will here. And--

And just. Sleep. Do whatever-- read. Something. It's--

[We're done. She wheels abruptly and exits the room, closing it behind her. She's not going very far, mind-- but she needs a moment, okay? Or six.]

[His skin crawls a little, when the door closes.

He doesn't like it, the closed door, but he's also used to it. It's a paradox. He stares at the door for a long moment, then looks back at the bed; it still feels like a trap, such a soft and nice bed, probably a secret horror waiting for his guard to go down. Nothing's ever so clear-cut. Everything should be questioned.

He sits down slowly just beside the bed instead, letting his body sag against it.

Sleep, she said. He doesn't need to sleep.

He's dead.

He's dead, he thinks, as he closes his eyes and finds he can't open them again. He ends up laying down sideways, curled up with his arm as a pillow, sleeping like a rock on the floor. His body apparently would prefer he just stay that way; unless she prods at him, he'll go a full fourteen or fifteen hours unsupervised. Not sleeping, though. He doesn't sleep. It's not.]

Edited 2017-03-18 10:47 (UTC)

[Nami doesn't go very far. In fact, she's right outside, back to the door and her knees up to her chest, listening. And granting herself some privacy to decompress.

She hears him go to ground, but it's a good twenty minutes before she finally peers back into the room to see whether he's okay. He didn't collapse. But she's also pretty sure he's not in the bed, either.

...figures he'd be conked out next to the bed. She peels the covers away and tucks them gingerly around his shoulders, expecting him to wake and freak out. And when he doesn't, risks putting the back of her hand gently to his forehead to check for fever.

Passable for now. If he didn't wake to those two intrusions, she's going to assume he's down for the count for a while and retreat to go have a hot shower of her own, find some food, put some fruit aside to take in later. Despite what she said, she doesn't expect him to come down to the kitchen and eat of his own volition. It'd be nice, though.

Then she sleeps herself. Even if that's just outside her own bedroom, having stolen the pillow from Sam's room. She's waiting for him to surface again.]

[He surfaces with a nightmare hours later, which is... closer to what he's used to, at least. Small mercies — he at least had some rest. But now, he tosses and turns in the sheet, ugly images playing behind his eyelids. The blanket ends up tangled up in his legs as they start thrashing, his head thrown back and hands curled like claws against his stomach. Darkness and pain and hot irons — faces inches from his, an overwhelming celestial light jingling with the screaming souls outside — Something in his head hisses, just in his head, metal against skin.]

No — no, no, no. Please —

No!!

[It's a punch out of him before he yells at the ceiling like he's being mutilated.

... Hope you had a good rest, Nami.]

[A terrible one, actually. He catches her mid-doze, but to be honest Nami had been expecting this for while. She's dazed and a little disoriented (and a little bedheaded) but that doesn't stop the door being flung open, the lights going on.]

Sam, you're dreaming--!

[She's not sure whether touching him is the greatest idea, so let's yank the blanket away from his legs to stop the tangle adding to the panic. Please don't kick me, Sam.]

[He springs to sit up, scrabbling backwards against the floor until he hits the furniture in her room; he sits with wide, terrified eyes, panting as though breathing isn't coming easily to him. Dreaming? He looks around the room, eyes rolling, pupils pinpricks. Dreaming? He doesn't dream, he can't dream, can't sleep.

The old burns pulse angrily, and he wraps his arms around his legs, pulling them in close. He looks at Nami. The game. His mind returns to him, slowly.]

... The — the game, it's still going, right?

[The game's been more restful than most of his days in Hell.

He almost sounds hopeful about it.]

[There was that tiny (and admittedly ridiculous) sliver of hope that sleeping would somehow reset him, but she can hardly say she's surprised that it didn't. Nami rocks back on her heels, hands still up in that kind of don't-spook-the-horse kind of way with a corner of the blanket caught in her fingers, and can't help but feel disappointed anyway. But.]

Yeah. It's still going. Just.

[Just what? She fumbles for something to say.]

Do you want something to help you sleep? Without the nightmares, I mean.

[He wrinkles his brow, disheveled and breathing roughly still.]

... Nightmares?

[He shakes his head. He feels a little light-headed, and his stomach is doing some things he hasn't felt in a long time.]

... No, that's not right...

What's not right?

[She looks at him warily. She has a few ideas, but unless he spells them out she doesn't really want to jump the wrong way.]

[Something about the question intimidates him -- scares him, makes the core of his heart icy as it beats. Cold, cold all over. He shakes his head, breathing a shaky but calming breath as he slumps and lets his tangled hair fall back into his face.]

... Nothing. Sorry. Everything's fine.

[... He may be planning on just sitting here again for the whole day.

Clearly healthy, clearly the best choice.]

[Nami isn't going to worry too much about a natural desire to hide in here all day-- not yet, not so soon. That face, that response, on the other hand... she rubs a hand over her face, speaking tiredly.]

Don't lie to me, Sam. It's not a trick question. You aren't gonna get punished for the response.

[He flinches back. Don't lie to me.

It's not quite the right tone, but it's familiar enough. He squeezes his eyes shut.]

It just... feels wrong.

[He picks at his arm, looking at the space between them. He knows it's been different since he appeared here, on this 'fleet'. He knows. He's far gone, but he knows something isn't functioning the same.

The arm burns under his fingers. He grips it, feeling a dull sensation that he's not really used to anymore. It's so hard to explain. The differences in a soul being burned and torn and the raw visceral pain of that versus the feeling of human nerve endings screaming in protest... God.]

It just -- it hurts differently.

Things are different.

[She expected the flinch, to be honest. It hadn't stopped her asking-- honest to god, most of what she's ever going to have to say will probably be the wrong thing, but she needs to know.

And he's hurting himself. She hesitates, wondering if trying to pull his hand away is the right thing. It's just worrying at an injury, isn't it? The less she touches him the better. So her hand goes up briefly, before it drops to her side.]

Yeah, they are. I know you're kind of-- dead. In hell. But here, you're not. You've gotta feel hungry by now, right?

...

[He goes silent, putting a hand on his stomach.

He is. It hurts something awful, his stomach, and not like blades or hooks or needles in skin.]

I — Maybe.

[That's progress, huh.]

[It's something. She watches him a moment, then holds a hand out to him, hopeful smile and all.]

Come with me and I'll take you to the kitchen. You can try some food. That'll give you a more definitive answer, hopefully.

[He hesitates. Oh, how he hesitates.

Looking at the door, he's as skeptical and worried as ever. Game or not.]

He'll be pissed.

[Illogical. Nami is Lucifer, he knows already. But if she's not him — if this is really... No, it can't be, it can't be real. Is this a test? Not a game, but an actual fucking test, or the moment he's lead into what's really happening here.

He's jittery at the thought.

But hey — when did his hand end up clasping hers?]

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