entrancelogs | OPEN | here come the night

Entry tags:

OPEN | here come the night

Who: Adam Milligan (

halfwinchester) and whoever else might be admiring Ewaymas!
Where: Around the mansion.
When: Dec. 13, anytime from late night to mid-afternoon.
Rating: G for now!
Summary: What the hell's with all this Christmas stuff? At least one newcomer is out and about looking at the changes.
The Story:

_{[Very rarely does Adam sleep through the night--or at all, if he's being honest. When the light fades and the mansion gets quiet, it's the perfect time for thoughts of his time in the pit to creep back in, and almost every night begins and ends with him sitting wide-awake until he's too tired to mount a defense. Sometimes he likes to ward away his nightmares in the bathroom. It's smaller in there, and reminds him of the times he'd hidden there when he'd been sick with the flu as a young child.

That night, he's counting spots on the ceiling of his room when the snow starts to fall, and it's the first thing that grabs Adam's attention before the noise starts. Snow? Had that been in Wonderland's weather report? By the time his curiosity wins out over his apprehension, the noises outside his door have long since stopped.

He creeps into the hallway in bare feet to see what going's on. Christmas decorations? Is it Christmas?

The mansion looks beautifully done up in the late hours of the night, and for a while Adam looks around until the pull to return to his room grows too strong. He can be found downstairs inspecting the giant Christmas tree once daylight breaks, dressed for the weather in a heavy sweater. His breakfast is an apple, which he eats while poking at ornaments on the branches.

For once, he has something to do in the mansion that isn't simply "avoid angels." It's strange enough thinking it's already December. A lot of the time it feels like he just arrived, soul broken and all.]}

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

You could have, actually.

_{[But he hadn't thought about that... what would happen if he'd died for real. It comes as a surprise to him, now that he considers the possibility. If he'd caught the brain-eating, mindless zombie disease, then maybe he would have come back from the dead as one of those things. More so than anything else, the idea makes his appetite shrivel up.]}

Uh, guess we can be glad you didn't have to take me down.

_{[Not this time, anyway. Besides the ghoul, no monsters had stolen his face and gone on a rampage in recent memory.]}

You know, still, talking over the phones isn't the same. I would have said something in person, but this place has a million rooms to it.

_{[Because "we're all infected" doesn't sound ominous at all.]}

So... the next best plan is to hit on anyone you see? You've really got no fear if you're okay doing that over staying locked up a while. Thanks, I guess. For... that.

_{[What's the politest thing to do here? Accept her apology, or thank her for the kiss?]}

_{[A pause.]}

You haven't been around that long?

_{[He doesn't remember doing much chitchatting the only time they'd spoken, certainly not long enough to ask. All in all, there's a lot about Wonderland he hasn't bothered to ask yet, and although he has a feeling his brothers would be able to fill in some of the blanks, there's wanting to know and then there's pride. Where Sam and Dean's experience is concerned, that's a delicate line.

Glancing down at the apple in his hand, he thinks of the magic closets.]}

Most I've figured out is that nobody seems to know anything.

[He gets a small frown at his words. He makes it sound like she's some floozy!]

Before arriving in this world, I stayed locked up for twenty years. I'm not going to let their magic spells or whatever you call them keep me that way when I have my own free will now.

[Looking somewhat indignant, she turns to go.]

I am glad.

[Like it or not, Adam had become an ally of hers. Maybe even a friend. And friends didn't abandon each other; or so Bela had been led to believe. She had been unselfish the first time they met and she did it for a second time, which apparently made Adam grateful. How long her unselfish streak would last, Bela didn't know.]

Look, it's fine. I did what I had to do and that's all there is to it. [Just don't thank her anymore, okay? She doesn't want this to become mushy.]

You could have asked me where my room was over the phone or picked a place to meet up. I could have even come to you if you didn't want to venture out into the mansion.

_{[Adam stares at her. He gets the "trapped in a place for years on end" part, but he wouldn't call getting mind-controlled by a plant and involuntarily making out with people free will. But hey, whatever floats her boat.]}

Sorry.

_{[That's about all that comes to mind now that he suddenly feels like someone chastising an excitable kid for trying to have some fun.]}

Do what you want, it's just... I wouldn't call that a safe bet. There are people walking around with loaded guns, you know. Or worse. I can live with that, but maybe not everyone else will sit back and take it. Just saying.

_{[If it'd been Michael standing here instead of him... not a pleasant thought.]}

[It's true that they are often manipulated. She's just glad to see more than the same walls of her tower back home. And if she is too afraid to even leave her room here, she might as well have rotted in that tower.]

I'll do my best to be careful. You should do the same. It might be you giving the kisses next time.

Never. They're new.

[He's seen Wonderland break down before, but the roots are totally new.]

But it isn't the first time things have gotten messed up.

_{["New," huh? Around Wonderland, crappy news falls on a gradient and this is somewhere between "a sign of impending doom" and "something out of a bad sci-fi film."]}

Well, that's great. I'm guessing everything happening all at once isn't a coincidence.

_{[Is he supposed to be relieved they're in this together, or even more resigned to some awful fate? Adam's leaning toward the latter.]}

And your special powers don't give you any hint what's gonna happen if they come through the floor?

They're not that kind of power.

[Souji tilts his head, one eyebrow raised, but not offended.]

Do you have a problem with people having powers?

Yeah, well, me too.

_{[Better borderline mushy than reminiscing on the times he had died. He can do without the repeat performances.]}

It's kind of awkward when someone you don't really know that well asks, don't you think? _{[He pauses, gaze flicking away for a second.]} When you found me the first time, I wasn't exactly... I was worse.

_{[Saying "I wasn't exactly in my right mind" would be a lie, considering he still hasn't found his right mind yet, but the gist is there. He hadn't been sure the woman would care to see him in person. As for inviting people over for coffee and stimulating conversation... well, that's out, unless they wanted to admire the blood-smeared angel warding all over his walls.]}

What, the mistletoe?

_{[Don't say that, Elizabeth. It takes some mental prep for him to do something so simple as leave his room; Hell had been his own prison he doesn't want to open his bedroom and step back into anytime soon. Granted, the mansion isn't anywhere near as bad, but...

Hadn't he earned a break yet? Maybe young women coming up to him and planting one on him is his break.]}

[This little interaction is definitely not going quite the way Wash figured it would. He's not really fond of the way these questions are coming up, if only because they're coming off a little... Well. A little rude. But he holds onto his patience for the time being, thankfully not one to fly off the handle easily.]

If we do, at least I'll have a better chance of surviving than the rest of you. [Okay, it's a little sarcastic, but not rude sarcastic.] No, I'm not worried or expecting that kind of situation. But Wonderland doesn't exactly throw us what we're expecting, does it?

[It could happen. ...Oh god, now he's worried it's going to. Sigh.]

I'm in the military where I'm from. And where I'm from, that means being out in space, hence the suit. It lets me breathe out in the vacuum and conveniently helps protect against attack, whether it's fists, bullets, or plasma.

[Explanation enough?]

Yes. If you see someone standing under it, you'll be compelled to kiss them.

[Just as she had been compelled to plant one on him.]

I wouldn't find it awkward. [Unless the person in question was someone that Bela didn't really want around.] You were out of it; for lack of a better phrase. But you seem okay now.

[Okay being used in the loosest sense because things could be different underneath the surface. There's probably a lot more that Adam wasn't letting on- perfectly within his right of course.]

Baby steps, Adam. Just don't become a shut-in, all right?

_{[He'd mostly been sarcastic about the comment, so Adam's not exactly shocked to get a negative response.

He can't even really fault the guy for asking if he's some kind of special snowflake bigot, either, given that that's how the train of logic seems to go in this place. Unlike at home where mentions of the unnatural would be met with a hell of a lot worse, here people with supernatural abilities and monsters strut around like it's normal, like questioning them is the weird part. The girl Lena had certainly seemed to think failing to embrace the supernatural right off the bat is a sign of a personality defect.

For Adam, though, having a "problem" with it implies he has any kind of say over the stuff, which he doesn't. Just experience. Experience he can really do without.]}

Is that what it looks like to you? Like I've got a problem? _{[Adam's not any more offended than Souji. At least this guy gets points for not letting a bug crawl up his ass.]} I know a little bit about powers and usually it seems to end with a lot of people dead. And when stuff goes down, it's because monsters with chips on their shoulders decided to show off.

_[Basically.]

_{[It's not your fault, Wash. Blame it on the fact a kid's gotten the really short end of the stick where the strange and the supernatural is concerned. Doesn't help having a crushing load of Hell-related memories when you're trying to process someone calling themselves a space soldier.

Adam doesn't stir very much at the grim assessment of their survival, but mention of the military gets a scrutinizing look.]}

Space. _{[He'd heard that right, hadn't he?]} As in... outer space.

_{[Does he have that right? Because if he does, wow. This took a turn he hadn't been expecting.]}

Yeah, I got that, but--

_{[But it's not really helping explain why suddenly the mansion's turned whacky on him, no more than usual. It's a tough learning curve.]}

You know what, never... never mind.

_{[He shakes his head. Not his area. Not something he wants to make his area. But his name is something small and a relatively safe subject, which is why when he lifts his head, he swipes his tongue over his bottom lip and says:]}

It's Adam. My name.

_{[How neighborly of her. Not what Adam would guess people's first reaction to be when stuck in some strange dimension with a bunch of strange people.

He lifts his shoulders as he slips his heads into the front pockets of his jeans. Is that a shrug at the observation that he seems to be doing okay? Hard to tell.]}

If you have a good reason for why not, you'd be the first.

_{[But from his faint humor, he doesn't entirely mean it. Not overtly, anyway. Fact is, he's already well on his way to becoming one, because he'd needed to in the beginning. And because it's safer. According to Dean, no angels are getting into his space unless they bring the building down on him.]}

[Safer as it might seem, staying in a room all tucked away wasn't exactly living. She felt like Adam needed to take advantage of the second chance that was given to him, Wonderland mayhem and angels aside.

Bela tries for lightness:] Unless you like the Howard Hughes look. [Not exactly pretty.]

Would it help if I told you I like seeing you around? I don't think I can do much beyond that since I know you've got to work things out for yourself. [Is she being sincere? Quite possibly. For him, Bela will be. Just once.]

[Well...Souji can definitely see that. Even in his world, people with powers got a little out of control, and most of their powers didn't even work in daily life.]

Is that how you ended up in Hell?

[The beauty of this situation is that no way in Hell or Earth or Heaven is Gabriel telling one of Michael's vessels, no matter how temporary, what his real dealings in the Apocalypse were. Because yikes, does he have some self-incriminating dirt. Michael would probably throttle him if he knew exactly how that Cage was going to open when he got back home.

Minimum.]

Make what you want of it, kid. I've been trying to get along with the family members who don't want to take me out back and thrash me. Castiel's one of those people.

[Obviously, Adam doesn't want to see this as a kindness. So he's not going to waste air trying to convince him.]

It's nice to meet you Adam.

[She smiles a little, glad to at least have the name of the stranger she kissed.]

Well, I won't trouble you further.

[It's a bit awkward, after all.]

_{[He doesn't think there will ever come a time when even a mention of Hell doesn't sharpen his attention. He lowers his chin a little.]}

More or less. I had a life before this stuff got in the middle of it. One of the monsters hanging around here took the wheel, actually, a lot like these Mirror guys of yours. He screwed up, so down we both went.

_{[He gives the barest summary without much emotion; in fact, there's a thin layer of sarcasm turning the words into something more cavalier than they should be.]}

That's the short version. Never seen it for yourself? Good for you.

_{[Harsh, but true. Acting crazy, being in a ton of pain... Hughes might not have gone whacky because his soul had escaped from Hell, but Adam can't exactly argue the comparison. He hasn't spent time watching movies in the nude, so that's something Adam has over the guy.]}

See, there you go, you're pretty good with American pop culture.

_{[He smiles a little, becoming something smaller and more shy at the sudden show of good faith in his company. If it helps Bela, Adam's gotten a little rusty at sincerity, too. It's difficult to give your real feelings their due course when you have to live around the people who'd destroyed you.

And yet having someone who'd seen him at his worst say they'd like to see more of him makes a strange sense of hope bloom in his chest. Bela might claim she isn't nice, but she's given him something he hasn't had in a long time. Even if it does end up being a lie.]}

Uh, yeah, that... helps. _{[He's looking at his shoes as this awkward reply leaves him.]} You are the first.

_{[Even a polite offer to be a shoulder to lean on is better than none. He's grateful for the small kindnesses, the little flashes of humanity he'd thought Hell had taken away permanently.]}

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 4 of 9

OPEN | here come the night

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject