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.]}

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

_{[If nobody's bothered to point out Souji's hair has all the pigment of a ninety-year-old's yet, Adam would have to say that's a failing on everyone else's part, not his. Souji's hunch is right; Adam has half a mind to say something else on the subject before the other boy (human?) cuts him off at the knees.

He glances back at the tree for a second. What's he think? Where to start?]}

... I don't know. Someone do it on purpose?

The Mansion. It does this every year.

[Souji sticks a hand into the tree to see if he can forage anything edible. He'd like a candy cane, but he'll settle for pine needles.]

_{[Every year? Makes Adam wonder how many years this place has been in business. A hundred? Two hundred? A thousand? Forever? Trading his time in Lucifer's Cage for the mansion wouldn't be so bad, if he had a choice.

Before he knows what's happening, the other person is scrounging around the Christmas tree, derailing Adam's train of thought. He shifts back, watching in confusion.

Souji, what are you doing?]}

[...

......

.........Yesssss a candy cane.

Souji hauls it out and sticks it into his mouth. It's kind of pine flavored but that's just a new take on an old classic.]

It's a little different every year. [He speaks around the candy cane.] But there are always Christmas decorations.

_{[He watches the boy fish out a candy cane. This guy must really be used to how things work around here to trust putting that thing in his mouth.]}

And you are...?

_{[Not who, but what. Is he even talking to a human being?]}

Souji. [He bites a chunk off of his candy cane.] Seta Souji.

_{[It's not the what he wants to know, however the name (it's a name, right?) still brings him up short. He's heard something like that before and has to scrounge his memory to remember where.

From the... texts he'd sent? Adam gives the boy an uncertain once-over.]}

Were you the one making burgers in the diner?

_{[If so, he's not what Adam had been expecting, which is silly in retrospect since he should know better than to have expectations.]}

[Souji nods. It takes him a minute before he figures Adam was the guy who text messaged him. It's possible he just saw the post and didn't respond at all, but Souji decides to take a guess anyway.]

Are you Adam?

_{[Does he really want to give his name? After a pause, he nods slowly.]}

That's me.

_{[Given that half of the people staying in the mansion don't seem to be people in the conventional sense at all, or are capable of things far beyond what an average person should be, a regular person in a sweater and jeans is probably as unexciting as it comes.]}

Are you human, or something else?

_{[That's a fair question, isn't it?]}

[It is a fair question.]

I'm a human. I've got some powers, but I'm human.

[Souji swallows a mouthful of peppermint and now the candy cane is gone.]

You came out.

_{[The remark about him coming out of his room surprises him more than the idea of someone with "powers." If he didn't know better, he might have said something had changed between going into the pit and coming out.

Before, he'd gone nearly his whole life without more than a handful of people taking a keen interest in his life, and now he gets the odd sensation that people are watching him. Not to watch him fall, necessarily, but to help him up when he does. Not everyone in this place can connect back to Sam and Dean, right? Not everyone can know about what happened and pity the meat suit Michael had used and abused. If this guy doesn't know, what's he supposed to believe, that Souji's asking out of good will alone?]}

What? Is it that obvious?

[That is exactly it, Adam. Exactly that.]

A little bit.

[Souji smiles a little and eyes the tree, looking for non-candy-cane ruffage. It's not that he's hungry, per se. He's just way too curious.]

Why did you?

[The obvious answer is the decorating and cracks in the floor, but the obvious answer isn't always the right one.]

_{[Well, gee, maybe he should be glad no one's thought to strap him into a straight jacket and throw him into the nearest padded room yet when they know something's obviously wrong.

Souji's under some intense inspection as the other boy looks over the tree. When people ask questions about him, Adam has to wonder why. Who's asking? What's the catch? What lies is he failing to pick up on this time? Honestly, he has to wonder why he bothers to leave his room as well, and the only answer he can come up with is that he needs some sense of normalcy in his life, even if he can't have it.

This morning is definitely not normal.]}

If something's going to happen to turn this place upside down, I'd rather have a heads up.

_{[Coming out to investigate makes sense, he thinks.]}

[Souji nods and turns to face Adam again.]

Me too. The cracks are pretty weird, but otherwise nothing seems out of the ordinary.

_{[Souji could speak for himself. Adam is still finding plenty of things out of the ordinary, including Souji...

... Out his idea of ordinary, anyway. For a place like Wonderland, maybe this is the status quo. Maybe this is just how it is here. He can accept that, can't he? More to the point, where's he going to find the time to not accept it? His plate's too full to make a stink about people who may or may not be human, who may or may not have special powers.]}

What do you think it means? You said you've been here a while, didn't you?

The cracks?

[Souji reaches to adjust a pair of glasses he isn't wearing and then tries to play it off as scratching the bridge of his nose. Smoooooth.]

Were you here at Halloween? When the roots took over?

_{[Now he really thinks this guy is a little weird, as if he hadn't already, what with the hair and the talk about crawling into television screens like the evil girl from those Ring movies.

He waits a beat, but not entirely out of bemusement. It takes him a second to remember if it had been Halloween. October? He'd gotten here in October? Sounds right, maybe. He hadn't exactly kept a calendar of all his days spent thrashing around in fever dreams.]}

Yeah. When people were possessed. That time?

_{[People like him. Another reason he doesn't spend much time thinking about his first month in Wonderland is because of his time spent alongside his Mirror.]}

[Adam, you are just thinking what no one else is willing to say.]

Yeah. [Souji'd had to share with his Mirror as well. He'd rather not remember it.] It was the roots that caused it, remember? The ones down in the cracks now look the same. If they are, that means they're still inside Wonderland and things will break again.

_[Sullenly:]

I remember.

_{[And he still has the scabbed skin on his abdomen to prove it where the roots had dug in and his Mirror had tried to play doctor.]}

You mean you've never seen them before then?

_{[The way people talk, it's like they've gotten used to inexplicable effects happening around the mansion; he'd assumed the roots fell under that category, that they had just been something the long-term residents had known about and filed under "weird stuff that happens." Maybe not.]}

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?

_{[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.]

[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?

_{[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.

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