INTO THE WOODS ※ GAME EVENT

[wildestmods]

INTO THE WOODS

The faerie faire goes on into the evening, the faire filled with the sounds of revelry. For those who've spent the day there, the cool evening air is welcome respite from the bright sun that's shined all day. Those who still have some faerie gold might even want to invest in a cloak if they haven't gotten one yet, because it may get chillier as night falls.

As evening descends and various floating flowers start to glow to provide light, the spring faeries start to bring out night-time merchandise and amusements, like brightly-colored phosphorescent flower jewelry. Fireflies are charmed to blink in different colors and magical fireworks paint the sky in vibrant light. They're quieter than normal fireworks, but there are still satisfying snaps and hisses.

It seems like it'll be a pleasant night at the fair and those only just arriving in the evening will find a charming scene opening up before them.

But one thing that isn't noticed as evening begins to fall is the way the winter faeries suddenly slink away into the rising dark. Or at least it isn't noticed until it's too late. Some of the summer faeries start to react to it with alarm.

"Where did they go? The winter faeries are supposed to provide security, they signed an agreement. Go tell Ponto and get some faeries with warding magic to shore up the wards." Faeries start flying with purpose to speak to others that need to be put on security. "We can handle it ourselves but we need to get enough people out to the borders."

"Should we disperse the faire?"

"No, there's no sign of any threats and if we re-ward it, they'll be safer here than people scattering in the woods at night. Even if we had the bad luck to be attacked before the wards are re-done we can defend them with our magic - and we're contracted to."

Unfortunately that bad luck hits too soon. While the faeries scramble to re-do the defense wards, an unearthly fog rolls in. Terrible screeches start to rend the air, sounding similar to the screams of foxes. Warning bells ring from warning wards placed in certain areas of the woods.

"Nightrenders!" someone calls out and people in the crowd start screaming, gathering their loved ones closer. Horrifying beings start to pour into the faire and the hand stamps of all the people who bought tickets ahead of time start to glow. Faeries rally around those people, casting powerful defensive spells. Due to the panic, several stalls start to go up in flames due to knocked over cooking fires. Fortunately the stalls are small enough for people to escape them easily and spread far enough apart that they can be avoided, but smoke joins the fog in the air.

If a faerie sees one of the squad of otherworlders, and their lack of glowing hand stamp they're quick to offer a warning. "You have to run! The people who bought tickets ahead of time entered into a magical agreement of protection. The warding takes time to charge. We can do nothing for you, without slow-charge wards we're not powerful enough to protect you. The Nightrenders will devour your brain, or your soul."

Apparently that little disclaimer about not being fully protected that some of them read while coming in (for those that had arrived earlier in the day) was more important than it seemed.

The faeries always point the same way, still trying to help the people without tickets. "To the north! There's a place in a canyon with a large, glowing crystal. It looks like an abandoned market and dwellings. You'll be safe there, the magic of the Heartstone will protect you."

USEFUL LINKS

Setting Background/FAQ | Major NPCs


NIGHTRENDERS

The beings known as Nightrenders start amassing on the faire. Their movements are quick but clumsy, as if every one of their movements is made up of a hundred janky, smaller fits and starts, like they're made of clockwork. The faerie magic summer faeries use seems to do no more than stagger them back or temporarily knock them over, but at least makes it clear to the squad that they at least can be knocked over and slowed down. At the very least it seems to take them some time to get off the ground and back to their feet.

Attacks

They attack anyone they see in different ways. Some they wound with massive claws. Or they squeeze someone's torso and nearly suffocate them to give them a chance at possibly chomping into the heads of their victims to get at the brains. Most dangerously of all, they breathe in with a loud sucking noise, clawed hands guiding the magic that lets them drawn out someone's soul to devour it. It looks like a small delicate thing, sometimes in the form of a glittering star or a flower, as its drawn out of the victim's mouth.

This process can fortunately be interrupted if the Nightrender is attacked. As long as the soul hasn't been sucked into their mouths, it goes back into the victim.

Cursed Aura

But the whole thing is complicated by the magical aura caused by the Nightrenders. When they draw close, everyone around them is choked with fear, grief, and dread. Some succumb to visions of their worse memories playing out in their heads over and over. Some might be able to still stagger away in this state, trying to see through the visions, especially if someone helps them along, but others will find it nearly impossible to do anything other than curl on the ground. It is unknown why some don't have the flashbacks or can power through them more than others, though it's thought that those that repress their bad memories or negative emotions struggle more.

Anyone that helps someone who's having visions may get a glimpse of their memories - and empathically feel a flash of the pain, fear, rage, or grief they felt during the memory. If two people try to help each other move forward when both are having visions, they may transmit glimpses back and forth.

Weaknesses

The Nightrenders cannot be destroyed, only knocked down, or slowed down. However, those with "holy" weapons, spells, or powers, or those who have weapons, spells, or powers that can hurt "ethereal" beings or evil spirits will find they can cause them enough pain that sometimes they run away. Spells and abilities that create magical manifestations of good will and happiness, as well as spells of light, or purification can also harm them and drive them away.

THE SISTERS

The Nightrenders don't speak, but some have the misfortune of hearing two voices echo out of the fog. The come in stereo, only just slightly out of sync.

"Chosen Ones, you must be so confused. You've become lost in the forest, and the Dark Lord's nightmares already pursue you. Fortunately for you, our mistress desires your company. You'll adore obeying her will. Don't run, embrace a better destiny."

Two woman in white masks and straw hats, with cloaks made from the feathers of ravens, come out of the fog, body language almost identical. No eyes can be seen through the eyeholes of their masks, just darkness.

They start attacking, and when they beset their victims they stop speaking, refusing to talk or answer questions, instead filling the air with wild, mocking laughter. One wields twin katanas, the other a kusarigama with a painful claw at the end of the chain that closes down when it hits something.

Nets

While they're extremely willing to injure the squad they seem to be trying to capture them instead of killing (albeit capturing them after they're maimed), occasionally tossing out nets of glowing silver of moonlight. Being caught in the nets renders someone paralyzed and weak, a deep cold settling into the marrow of their bones. Some may even hear the shrieks of dying loved ones, whether they've actually died in reality or not. The Sisters apparently have the strength to carry even the largest of the squad in the air and will attempt to fly away when someone is ensnared.

The nets are difficult to destroy, but can be with great force of some kind. It has to be aimed at the part closest to the Sisters' hands, because the force required to break the nets would also injure those trapped inside them. The cold and paralysis fades when the victims are free, but some of the rescued may feel weak and need help staying on their feet. Unfortunately, even when they're broken, the nets of moonlight seem to be something they can recreate within several minutes.

Smoke Monsters

For some, they don't attack directly. Instead, one of the sisters pulls out a pipe and smoke monsters pour out of it. They try to drag their victims closer to the sisters so they can be caught in their nets. Fortunately, they can be destroyed with enough force.

While the Sisters seem impossible to injure, they can at least be caused pain with extreme enough attacks, something that makes them teleport away before risking any further injury.

PROMPTS

a) RENT
Uh oh, a Nightrender has you. Either it's squeezing you so hard you're suffocating and about to chomp into some juicy brains, or it's in the process of sucking your soul out through your mouth. In either case, you're likely broadcasting visions of your worst memories in small flashes to whoever is near. You're in desperate need of rescue and the summer faeries can't help - their magic is all but useless on the Nightrenders if it didn't have time to build by a covenant. Only others that fell into the Wilderlands like you did can save you.

(Feel free to provide multiple memory options ala a memshare, but keep in mind they'd only be flashes instead of a full memory!)

b) NABBED
The Sisters have got you, their smoke monsters are trying to drag you away, or you're still trying to fight them to avoid being caught. It'll be a lot easier if you have help - otherwise you're outnumbered and possibly outclassed. The only way to stop them is fight back hard enough that they feel you're not worth the effort and teleport off.

c) RESCUE
Perhaps you're not affected by the Nightrenders or are just good at powering through the haze of painful magic they're inflicting on the area. Either way, you're out to help the people around you. Perhaps you run into another member of the otherworlder squad that needs saving - or maybe they join you to protect a third otherworlder, or a denizen of the Wilderlands that also forewent a ticket and is therefore at risk. Unlike many of the people from other universes, many of the denizens of the Wilderlands are powerless and thought they were in for a day and night of safe fun.

There are also other hazards to rescue people from. Maybe a small child has been separated from their parents and is disoriented by smoke, in need of rescued from some flaming tents. Or maybe an elderly person has fallen and is at risk of being trampled. There are lots of reasons people might need help, due to fires, panicked horses, collapsing tents, and panicking crowds.

d) RUN
It's time to run! Perhaps, after some screaming and confusion - and teleportation - you finally grab a buddy and bolt through the woods. You better run fast because the Nightrenders and the Sisters may give up chase at some point but it may take time and moving through difficult terrain in the fog to lose them. Perhaps you and a partner have to help a third, injured otherworlder because they're having trouble walking.

Better head north like the faeries said. The faeries were right that this Heartstone to the north may be your only hope - and you'll have to reach it despite the fading evening light, skies overcast with dark clouds, and fog.

It may be easier navigating in the dark with a partner or two.

e) WILDCARD
Maybe you decide to do none of the above. Go nuts!

OOC DETAILS
❧ Quest magic: Players can handwave that the quest bond magic is tugging the group northward to the safe place, with the mysterious Heartstone. They can also use the quest magic as an excuse for many different threads. As the group tries to run, their scattering movements will affect the magic and cause people to teleport at random, allowing for many different encounters with many other characters. This can explain why two characters that might otherwise stay together through the whole thing might get separated.

❧ Network: The network can now be used. Mirrors can and do float if someone is trying to talk through one and running, and can follow someone as they move, allowing people to communicate on the go or during action. Feel free to start using the network in parallel with the log events.

❧ NPCing: The mods won't be npcing but players are free to npc the actions of bystanders, the Nightrenders, and the Sisters. The Sisters won't speak, just continue laughing, and players can npc their specific attacks, capture attempts, and teleportation. Please just don't have them talk or godmode them dying - they're currently a little too sturdy for that. If you have a question about whether/how something will affect them feel free to ask the mods in the first comment below.

❧ Environment: Feel free to manipulate the environment. There are things left over from the faire people can work with like bow and arrow sets from the competition, horses (which can be temporarily stolen, though we'd like to limit any that are permanently stolen to the (1) horse another player already requested), and even explosive faerie fireworks (they're quieter than the normal thing but still create a big bang). Abandoned stalls also have weapons and supplies to grab as people run for it. If they didn't think to steal or buy useful things during the day, please limit this to only grabbing one or two items as they run, like a cloak or sword. They won't have time to loot for more.

❧ Experimentation: We'd like to encourage people to experiment! Obviously ask other players if they're down first, but it could be fun to do something other than 2 person threads, like maybe 2 PCs banding to rescuing a 3rd. Players are also encouraged to set limitations if they think it'd be more interesting, like locking their final escape prompt from the faire grounds to a single thread partner and playing out the drama of a full escape.

[OOC: Plot is visible so people can see and start plotting together but not open until Nov. 1. The mods will enable comments then.]

Comments

Dean Winchester, CW: implied child abuse, homophobia, mention of suicide, death

[rambles_on]

Dean’s first thought after waking up in the middle of the woods is shit.

That is also his second, and third thought.

He doesn’t know where he is or how he got there, he has no service on his phone, and his gun is missing.

The last thing he remembers is pulling over at a rest stop and going to sleep in Baby.

If anything has happened to his car, he’s going to kill someone.

Fuck, Dad is going to kill him.

The woods were like no others he’s been in before in that it is like every other forest he has been in before, which is a lot. It has no definable characteristics that he can see. He knows he had fallen asleep in Arkansas, so chances are that’s still where he is, but this could be literally anywhere.

So he decides to look around. There’s this feeling in the back of his head and the base of his gut urging him to move in a particular direction. He isn’t sure if it’s his instincts or some sort of spell from whatever dropped him here.

Walking right into a trap is probably more productive than just waiting around, at least.

He decidedly doesn’t let himself think about the fact that he is completely lost and alone and that his dad just checked in with him a few days ago, which means it’s probably gong to be a few weeks before anyone even notices Dean’s missing.

He hasn’t been walking for very long when the screaming starts.

He runs.

When he comes to an opening in the trees he is greeted with a scene of pure chaos.

People are running and screaming, there’s fire everywhere, and there are these creatures attacking. He’s never seen or heard of anything like them before.

It probably says something about him that he feels better being faced with monsters and violence than he did wandering around, but he doesn’t dwell on it. People are in danger, it’s time for him to do his damn job.



1. HELTER SKELTER

Dean ran headfirst into the chaos, determined to help people get away, only to be immediately entrenched in memories that he has spent years of life purposefully not looking at.

a.

Dean is in the familiar position of standing between Dad and Sam while they scream at each other.

“You want to leave so badly?” Dad screams over his shoulder. His face is red and his hands are shaking. Dean had just pushed Sam away from their Dad because he started clenching and unclenching his fists in a way that set off every warning bell Dean has.

In the other side of the room, Sam is mirroring John’s posture. There’s a duffel bag in his right hand. He’s standing next to the door. He’s looking at Dean, betrayed.

Don’t Dean wants to beg. Don’t leave me.

He’s always known that Sam was going to move on to bigger and better things, he just always hoped that he would take Dean with him.

“If you walk out that door, you better stay gone!” Dad says.

Dean freezes. Sam freezes. The room is silent as they all process the ultimatum.

Sam’s expression turns from hurt to determined.

“Sammy-“ Dean tries to say before Sam cuts him off.

“Fine.”

Somehow, Dad looks even angrier. He starts moving toward Sam and Dean does the only thing he think of in the moment.

He moves first.

Dean pushes Sam towards the door and yells “Then go!” His voice is filled with panic and hurt and anger.

An even deeper look of betrayal flickers across Sam’s face before his expression goes blank.

He opens the door, walks through, and slams it behind him.

John throws his half-empty beer bottle against the cabin wall. Dean flinches.

The room is silent and Dean feels like he’s drowning.

b.

Dean is seventeen and standing above a freshly dug grave. The top of the casket is broken, allowing him to cover the bones with salt and lighter fluid. His hands shake as he tries to light a match.

Two weeks ago, John caught Dean walking back to the motel with another boy. He doesn’t know what tipped Dad off. Was it they way Dean was looking at the guy? Did he stand too close or laugh too hard?

Dean thought the that Dad hadn’t noticed the way Dean smiled at the boy until Dad gave him his first solo case.

Now here he was, burning the bones of two nuns who committed suicide after their affair was discovered. The night air is cuts through him.

Message received.

The sweat that had built up from digging the grave is beginning to feel gross and tacky on his skin. His hands are almost numb. He wants to puke.

Dean hesitates when he finally manages to get the match to light, then drops it into the coffin. Something inside of Dean starts burning away, too.

The smell of burning, rotting flesh is absolutely awful. There are tears stinging his eyes. He wants nothing more than to go home, but home hasn’t existed for thirteen years.

Happy birthday, Dean he thinks to himself.

c.

Dean is four years old and his brother is heavy in his arms. He stands outside of their home, waiting for his Mom and Dad to run out after them.

His mother on the ceiling, bleeding from her stomach, then catching fire is etched into his brain like the sun when you stare at it for too long.

He is waiting for his Dad and Mom to come out.

Even from the lawn, the fire is hot enough to hurt. He holds baby Sammy tighter.

Sammy is crying. Dean is not.

His Dad runs out of the house.

His brother is heavy in his arms.

[skinlotion]

[Never rode a horse before. Fantastic. Mona steadies the horse as best she can, which, considering that everything is on fire and under attack by strange monsters, she's not too shabby at. It's still a tense moment of unease as Ange clambers up to a totally unsuitable position behind her.]

Okay, first things first? If anything happens to me while I'm riding in front, you're going to fall off and get kicked in the head by the horse. [It's the best thing she can think of saying to reduce her chances of getting stabbed or otherwise attacked by the girl behind her. With that warning out of the way:] Sit right behind me. You should be able to see if my roots are showing.

[Which they aren't, though her blonde hair is very obviously dyed. If this girl turns out to be working for A, Mona assumes she'll get punished for that reference later, but again, if she turns out to be rescuing an A minion from burning to death at a Renaissance fair, she should get some slack.]

[takenalive]

Circling just close enough to hear, Alloran laughs sardonically. From him, part of a species that does not vocalize or have anything like the human laughter/sobbing reflex of short stuttered inhalations and exhalations, that's a series of something like painless static pops of emotion.

The nightrender notices the breeze from his passage and looks up, head tilting. The flying alien is too far away to get its full effect and it is intelligent enough to realize that even if it can climb the AT bubble, Alloran can fly away. Still.

<So you're one of those! I'm not going to argue that.> During his long infestation, the two and a half decades where Alloran's mind and body were completely at the disposal of the Yeerk in his brain, he had learned that he couldn't stay in true and total despair at all times. His main resorts had been daydreaming and going long periods without conscious thought, just an awareness of the body he could not move, that went on doing things without his willing it. There's a kind of appreciation in non-thought. Of course, now that he's not infested he has to work to not blank out or get caught in daydreams. <All the same, if there's beauty in chaos it ought to be there in calm too, don't you think?>

[bringinghopewithme]

This has gone on long enough, Bunny realizes, as Saturday roars. The night render barely acknowledges him in its attempts to get to her, like he's a field of burrs between the monster and a full banquet.

He drops the ground out from underneath the night render. It emerges as far from Saturday as he can send it, and he sprints to Saturday to drop the ground out beneath her too.

The slide Saturday slips down is soft with moss, gentle as a child's playground slide. The soft light of dawn through thick green leaves illuminates it, until the tunnel launches her back aboveground, onto soft grass in the middle of the quiet woods.

"You're okay." Bunny can see the wound on her leg, but says it anyway to calm her. "You're safe for a moment. Can you hear me?"

He crouches at the edge of Saturdays personal space bubble, ready to back off or lean in with a hug depending on what she needs.

[hallelujahjunction]

Dan's galloping through the fray, exhausted but looking for anyone who might be left behind. He's shuttled about a dozen people out, mostly other faire goers, mostly all in good shape but terrified. He's back out in it, feeling his age and the exertion of riding a horse and hauling people around, longbow prepped with an arrow in case he needs to try and pin anything.

"Dean Winchester?" Dan's voice is quiet, rarely gets above a speaking tone, but he raises it as much as he can as he brings the horse around and sees a young man beset by a pack of nightrenders, all of them squabbling with both the man and each other to try and get the little star of a soul that's being coaxed from the man's mouth.

It's the flash of memory that does it; Dan's seen this fight before, from Sam's perspective. He knows who this kid is, how brave.

Dan charges the nightrenders and forces his horse to rear over them, hooves flailing, while he fires off an arrow. It's enough to buy time for the little star to go back into Dean's mouth; not enough to keep Dan from getting a snatch of a four year-old boy carrying a baby.

Dan was four years old when his little brother was born. He thought that baby was heavy too.

[rambles_on]

Dean gets shoved back into his body to see a horse standing on top of him, which is not an experience he can say he's had before.

He scrambles onto his feet, stumbling away from the creatures, and looks at his apparent rescuer (which he resents, for the record).

He kind of reminds Dean of a young Clint Eastwood, with how good he's making horse riding look, Dean will admit to that much. Dean would be lying if he said that he didn't have fantasies that played out like this.

"What the hell are those things?" he asks the-- cowboy? No, not a cowboy, cowboys need hats, and cowboy boots. This guy is wearing hiking boots and no has hat whatsoever.

His attentions snaps back to the monsters when one starts approaching again, approaching him like a fucked up Bicentennial Man

His hand instinctively goes for his gun before he remembers that it's gone.

[hallelujahjunction]

At least Dan has the accent for a cowboy, caked as it is in gravel and breathiness.

"No idea, but they get in your head." Dan turns the horse around and puts a small amount of distance between him and the pack of nighthunters. "You know how to ride?"

Dan handles the horse like he was born riding, which he practically was; his father had him perched on the horse when he was still in diapers, had him firing guns not that soon afterwards.

"We can't kill them, far as I can tell. Just slow them down." He reaches a hand out for Dean. "If I steer, can you fire a bow for cover?"

He suspects Dean can. Sam mentioned bowhunting once.

Re: Dean Winchester, CW: implied child abuse, homophobia, mention of suicide, death

[talk_radio]

There's the occasional flashing overlay of something else in the memories. Something not Dean's. A war-torn world of metal, two factions duking it out for supremacy.

Very quickly a yellow Camaro, headlights shining bright in the dark, comes tearing through. It barrels through the Nightrenders hunting Dean before swinging back around beside him. The passenger door opens.

"♪Hey you, get in to my car! Who me?
Yes you, get in to my car♪"

cw: internalized homophobia

[rambles_on]

This might be the best day of Dean's entire life. He's getting the chance to do something he has always fantasized.

"I'm your huckleberry," he says with a grin, and takes Dan's hand.

He would normally bitch about being helped up, but he's still a bit unsteady on his feet and this is about to be the coolest thing he's done, ever.

Dean sits astride the horse behind Dan. It takes him a minute to adjust, but he quickly realizes how pointless it is to try to keep some distance between them.

They're just two dudes riding on a horse together, which is just about the coolest, manliest thing a guy can do. So what if it's more comfortable to be somewhat pressed against this guys back? Doing any differently could affect how he shoots, and he needs to be on his A-game.

[hallelujahjunction]

Dan grins; he sure does love him some Mark Twain. He gives Dean the bow, figuring Dean can pull the arrows from the quiver strapped to Dan.

What Dean may notice is that Dan isn't taking them out of the fight; he's making a calculated guess, based on Sam's stories, that Dean's one of those people who rush into fights and don't leave if there's someone still to save. Dan's rushing them into the fight.

"Keep an eye out for anyone." Dan slows as they go through a particularly foggy section, not necessarily to avoid running the horse into anything but so they can hear and see any fair goers who might have been hiding or wounded. "I know your brother."

v

[takenalive]

Bieleverd morph isn't the worst choice Alloran could make right now. Its wingspan is a good twenty feet and it prefers to glide, but it sees in the low light, has enough eyes to have a good field of view, and is pretty agile as gliding animals go. If he stays above the trees, or at least avoids the densest forest, he can manage well enough.

That's... probably a wolf, running. He's got a lot of eyes, but they don't see the world quite like an Andalite or even a human does.

<Stacia. That's you, isn't it?> Thought-speech isn't directional the way sound is. It seems like it could be coming from anywhere, or everywhere. <I'm up here.>

He's a delta-wing with a trailing tail, almost invisible against the dark sky except as a moving patch of no stars, and a shimmer of teeth in a Y-shaped mouth, and orange eyes arranged around it.

[rambles_on]

Dean is taken out of the bombardment of memories that both do and do not belong to him by--

80's R&B? Whoever is blasting Billy Ocean can suck it, he gets up for classic rock and nothing else.

But now he's curious.

He opens his eyes to...

Holy shit.

The evil monsters and bad memories are momentarily forgotten as he takes in the fucking 1977 Chevy Camaro Z/28. There were only, what, thirteen, fourteen thousand produced. It's bright yellow with black stripes, had Z28 hood decals, a black grill, and a cowl-induction hood scoop. Are those yellow and black seats? Dean is vibrating with the need to look under the hood.

Then he notices there's no driver, which is weird because there's also no one else in the immediate area. Who the hell drove this over here?

CW: references to child abuse and alcoholism

[rambles_on]

Dean is having a wonderful time. It takes a couple of shots for practice, but soon he's shooting on horseback with as nearly as much skill and accuracy as he does with his Colt, and he's a damn good shot.

It feels great, too. Dean hasn't gone into a fight with a partner in-- probably since before Same left. Sure, he and Dad have teamed up a few times, but that wasn't the same. It Dean was there to watch Dad's back, not the other way around.

Between the satisfying burn in his arms from firing the bow, the rush of adrenaline from running into danger, and the heat from being pressed up against another person without any agenda or intentions, Dean is laughing and whooping in victory after particularly impressive shots.

Then he hears the guy mention Sam.

It's good that he wasn't taking a shot at the time, because he would've in a very embarrassing way. As it was, he almost dropped the bow.

--Dean coming back from the arcade to see the shtriga looming over Sammy's unconscious body--

--Panic coursing through him whenever Dad got pissed and sent him away for a couple of weeks--

--Pushing Sam away from Dad during one of their fights, trying to get them both to calm down. Sam getting pissed at Dean instead, thinking he's siding against him. Dean had only shoved Sam because there's no way he'd get away with doing that to their Dad, and someone needed to separate them before Dad gets pissed enough to take a swing--

--Dropping Sam off at the bus stop and knowing that John may not let him see his baby brother anytime soon. Dean's still ticked off that Sam didn't even tell him what he was planning, that he's leaving Dean behind with Dad. He wants to ask if he can come, but he can't. He can't abandon Dad like that; he can't abandon the job like that.
Dean gives him all the cash he has on hand, even though he knows that Dad is going to blow the rest at some bar trying to forget about his youngest son--


"What?" he chokes out.

[unsealthecatbox]

That certainly gets Ange to give her a most puzzled look for a moment while she tries to lift the tent.

"...do you mean that literally?"

Hearing such things without context is quite surprising! But after today -- and everything that's happening right in this moment a short distance from them, such as nets made of moonlight, supernatural creatures, and being dragged into another world in the first place -- Ange can't bring herself to be as surprised as she should be.

Instead she feels exhausted. This is so much at once.

[unsealthecatbox]

[She definitely notices the Nightrenders debating between what target to choose. Ange knows very well that, given the chance to choose between a target that has shown some level of protection and one that is defenseless, she'd go for the defenseless one. If the Nightrenders has even a little bit of intelligence they'll do the same.

She's definitely in danger here. Despite that, she turns her head towards Kaworu, upset]

Stop putting yourself in danger and get moving!

[talk_radio]

Nobody other than Nightrenders trying to get back to their feet, anyways. The dials on the car's radio start moving on their own.

"What are you waiting for? A written invitation? We gotta go!"

[hallelujahjunction]

Dan gets the flashes from Dean too, but it doesn't surprise him at all. He has, unwillingly, seen more of Sam Winchester's head than is polite, and Dan feels the same sense of unease here, seeing things that are so deeply personal. Seeing childhoods in their grimness, in the way parental love can pervert itself into abuse when it's undisciplined and mutated by grief. He tries to speed the horse up for a moment to get away from whatever's still gripping into their minds.

"Your brother Sam. We're friends." Sam taught Dan how to sign his name, politely ignored when Dan would stay awake until the early hours of morning when they lived together, learned some of the Common Tongue Dan can speak because of all that intellectual curiosity. Dan can call Sam a friend, but he can also see that this topic of conversation is distracting Dean.

"Whoa, girl. Good girl." Once they seem somewhere safe, Dan stops the horse and asks Dean: "did you hear that? I thought I heard someone about ten feet yonder. Or something."

[rambles_on]

This is probably the weirdest thing that has ever happened to Dean, which is saying a lot because one could argue his whole life has just been a series of one weird thing after another.

But those freaky things are getting closer, and the car seems like his best shot at safety.

"Sorry, Baby," he whispers to the Impala, wherever she is. "I swear this doesn't mean anything."

He climbs into the driver's seat, ready to put this thing into gear and see how she handles and-- that is an aftermarket steering wheel, shifter, and 8-track player. This is so cool.

[rambles_on]

Dean doesn't know whether to believe this guy or what.

Maybe he's part of whatever got him here in the first place. This flash-back stuff could be this guy digging through his head, his memories. That could be how he knows about Sammy, because as far as Dean knows, Sam has stayed as far away from any and all supernatural shit since he left. There's no way this guy knows Sam.

Dean doesn't act yet. He doesn't want to let on that he's getting wise to this game. When he stops the horse, Dean just stays sitting and listens to him speak.

(He will say, evil or not, the accent is pretty cool. If Dean was a chick he'd be all over this dude.)

Now that he's listening, he does hear something.

"Me too," he says in response. He waits for the other man to make the first move.

[cw: child death, jail, alcohol abuse]

[hallelujahjunction]

Dean is suddenly not the only one with flashes of his memory in broad display. Dan stiffens up and grinds his teeth as he feels abruptly bludgeoned by images, out-of-context snippets of grief that Dan knows all too well.

-"why are you praying? How could you be praying?" a dark-haired teenage girl with the same blue eyes as Dan, drenched in blood and garbed in stained, old clothing, yells at another girl of similar visage- "Your brother just got- he got- he got flayed alive, his skin ripped off, and you're praying? We're covered in blood-" before she falls to her skinny knees and buries her face in her hands- "there's no God-"-

-Dan's pacing in a cell, dressed in orange, hands cuffed in the front, while a corrections officer idly tosses little pieces of a sandwich at him like he's a caged animal, the officer laughing when Dan asks "please, I want to use my one phone call, my daughter needs to know I didn't just abandon her-"

-"what the fuck were you thinking?" an older man asks as he pulls Dan from the wreckage of where a car crashed into a house, dragging him across a ruined front porch, "oh my god, are you drunk?"-

Dan takes a deep breath and tries to move through it, thinking of the fog, the smoke, Dean at his back, everything in the here and now. Here. Now. Not there and then.

"I'm going to get the horse closer. Be ready to shoot if it's hostile, hold if it ain't." He knows many people who are great at the first and terrible at the latter. "Seen a few kids curled up under upturned carts and the like here."

Re: [cw: child neglect, jail, mentions of alcoholism, underage drinking, vomiting, self-hatred]

[rambles_on]

These aren't Dean's memories, is his first thought. The second is that even if it took being inside his head, Dean finally knows this guys name.

His theory about Dan being involved with all of this is seeming much less likely, but that doesn't explain how he thinks he knows Sam. He supposes that explanations can wait.

"I've got it," he says, his voice more serious than before.

-"Angels are watching over you," Mom tells him every night, without fail. After the fire he spends every night mouthing silent prayers to those angels, begging for them to bring her back. To make Dad himself again. To take care of Sammy.-

-Sitting in the police station, scared and humiliated and hungry. He needs to get out of here. He needs to get back to Sam. He feels like such an idiot for getting caught. He's shoplifted dozens of times before without a problem, but he hasn't eaten in a couple days and he can't keep his hands from shaking. When they finally get ahold of Dad, he tells them to let Dean rot in jail and Dean doesn't think he's ever felt more worthless in his entire life.-

-Dean was fourteen the first time he got drunk. Dad was gone and Sammy was asleep and Dean was sitting in the shitty motel room feeling like he was going to suffocate if he didn't do something, anything. Dad had left a six-pack in the mini fridge. He knew it was a bad idea, but he was desperate so he did it anyway.
He doesn't remember a lot about that night, but he does remember waking up the next morning feeling like hell and smelling like Dad does when he spends too much time at the bar. Dean pukes because of the pain and the poison in his gut, and then more because of how fucking disgusted he is with himself.-

The flashes feel more distant, now, like they're happening to someone else entirely. His body and his mind feel separated in a way that allows him to notch an arrow, even as the memories play in his head.

[cookiehusband]

It's not long before the screaming starts.

"Little Cato! LITTLE CATO!"

It's the sort of distant but voice-breaking screaming that pitches Gary into high notes he can't quite reach, his shouts cracking in his panic.

"Has anybody seen my son? About yea tall, orange, just a little guy of the universe? Extremely soft ears, very adorable face, claws and teeth like knives! Really fierce knives!!"

He sounds like he might cry if he doesn't hear a "yeah I seent 'im" soon.

a-1: Interstellar Overdrive [cw: child neglect, death, gun violence]

[rambles_on]

For the first time today Dean's glad he isn't armed, because his first instinct when faced with a non-human... thing... is to reach for his Colt.

On a closer look this thing is clearly a kid and, well. That just makes Dean feel like shit for having the urge to shoot it-- him?

The kid is stumbling around like he's injured or drunk, so Dean reaches out a hand to steady him. Even if he turns out to be something nasty, he's small enough that Dean feels relatively confident that he could take him.

"Easy, tiger-" he starts to say. The moment his hand touches the kid, he gets tossed in the deep end of both of their minds.

Dean is four and he follows his dad out of the bar. He wants to say goodbye before he leaves on another hunt.

Closes the door behind him and looks around to see Dad pointing his gun at one of the men he's going hunting with. Dad shoots once, twice. The man is kneeling on the ground, injured.

Dad shoots a final time, right in the head, and the man drops to the ground.

Dean can't look away from the man with the hole in his forehead and blood pooling around his body. He has known his Dad hunts things, kills things, but this isn't a thing, right? He was a person.

Dean doesn't hear his Dad calling his name until a hand lands on his shoulder. He flinches away.

Dad's face fills his vision, so he can't see the man on the ground anymore. He looks sad, and mad, and Dean doesn't know how he's supposed to react. Dad is saying stuff like "What the hell are you doing out here?" and "You were supposed to stay inside" and "I'm sorry you saw that".

Words haven't come easily since the fire, but he manages to force these ones through his lips.

"Why'd you kill him, Dad?"

His voice is small, but it still makes Dad go quiet. He doesn't answer for a long while.

"He was a monster."

Then he takes Dean back inside and leaves them to go on another hunt. He's gone for over a week.


Dean's memories are getting jumbled up with shots of this kid's life like some fucked up movie montage. He pushes them as far and deep as he can and focuses on the small figure in front of him.

'Do your damn job!' he tells himself. Would Dad get tripped up by a walk down memory lane? No, he wouldn't, so Dean can't either.

"C'mon, kid, we gotta get you out of here."

He tries to usher the kid forward before the creatures get any closer.

maybe Gary again, then Catra and Elle?

[furtitude]

These deep, dark scary woods are the kind of place that creepy dopplegangers might call to you from in the dark. But no monster could imitate his dad that well. He's just too weird for a monster to nail it so completely.

"Dad! Dad, I'm here!" he calls out. "Also I'm not alone, my friend is a giant cat...thing, don't freak out!"

Because he has no idea if it's normal for Earth cats to be freakishly huge like Elle, because he's never actually seen one. He doesn't want his dad to go aaah because he thinks she'll eat him.

Little Cato darts through some bushes ahead of his companions and sees his dad, running into a glade at the same time. It's getting dark but his blonde hair is pretty visible in the moonlight.

"Dad!"

He runs over and jumps at him, in what would be a tackling hug if he wasn't so pint-sized. He clings.

"After I got teleported away, I couldn't find you," he says and he's not quite crying, but his voice is trembling and his eyes are watering.

Normally, he'd be less scared and more confident about being reunited but...

But things have been bad. Back home before now. And here, in this place, with these monsters dredging up raw memories. After finding out what Avocato did, he's officially down to one parent right now, and definitely has only one person he loves from back home here - they hadn't found any of the other crew in this place. Not that there were many of them left.

The memory thingy flashes again but the view is sort of...faded. Residual. The monsters are pretty far off now.

It's a very simple image, of Little Cato looking at Avocato's helmet in his hands - the one he started wearing after his father died, that his father let him keep wearing when he came back. He places it on tube-like medical pod. It's Gary that's inside the pod, beaten, shot, bandaged, bloody. Barely alive, tubes helping him breathe.

In one fell swoop, he's lost one father (as far as he knows), because he had to shoot the (possessed) man who raised him, and the other father figure is close to death. Little Cato falls to his knees in front of the pod, tears streaming from his eyes, head hanging.

The memory makes it clear what fears have been running in his thoughts since the ruckus started and he got teleported away. He has many reasons to fear losing a father. Again.

The memory fades and he squeezes his father harder.

"I was scared," he admits. "I thought that creepy lady maybe got you."

lmao we just need to content warning this whole thread

[hallelujahjunction]

The memories make Dan's heart clench with the desire to hug Dean, or reach into those memories and hug that sick, stressed kid. Nothing in these memories surprises him, but Dan doesn't need to feel surprised to feel moved.

But Dan figures the best way to soothe Dean is not to shower him with the care that should have been given freely to him as a child, but instead to focus on the task at hand, pushing through the memories clawing at the both of them. Thinking instead of how to move the horse quietly, how to sneak up on the source of the sound, how to hold himself so Dean gets a clear shot.

-a woman is crucified to a cement wall with what appear to be her own ribs; Dan's a teenager and the younger kid in his arms is screaming as Dan covers the boy's eyes and says "don't look, don't look"-

-Dan not long ago, if the angles of his face are to be trusted, in a hotel room with another man, red-faced and in tears, as the other man says "I don't know why you love me at all"-

-"are you going to do a funeral for her, or...?" the older man from the other memory asks Dan, who's staring blankly past him, while another man snarks "just don't ask him to come up with the engraving on the headstones, this isn't Ancient Egypt, we don't still use pictograms in this society..."-

Dan's glad Dean's the one with the bow at this moment, because his own hands are shaking. He stops the horse, peers.

"Lower the bow. It's a person." He's taking the lead because he's older, and because he's the one with the horse, and because he's been here forty-eight hours already compared to however long Dean's been here. He brings the horse closer and sees the body, some faire goer attacked by...something or other, unconscious, gurgling on spit and blood in the fog.

"Three on Concrete Blonde is too heavy. We'll have to walk her back." Dan crouches over the wounded person, does a once over, takes a pulse. It looks like a head injury, and there isn't much one can do in the field about that with no medical equipment, just get her away from the action. "Help me support her head while we get her on the horse."