i've been up and down in prison

[kickingand]

Who: Dean Winchester & YOUUU
What: waking up at Home and being confused out of his mind
Where: Home!
When: morning sometime
Other: talk of Hell & not overly graphic mentions of torture. also, prose or brackets are welcome!


Dean doesn't have a clue as to where he is. Granted, he doesn't have a clue as to what's going on altogether, but that would be said no matter where it was he was waking up. Because the thing is, he isn't supposed to be here. A thing that likely everyone said upon waking up here, but Dean isn't supposed to be anywhere but Hell. It's a thing he can't comprehend as he wakes up with a start and looks around to find himself not on the rack. The lack of shrill screams in the distance, the dank nonexistent smells wrecking havoc through his brain, making it impossible to do anything but shudder with anticipation of what tool was going to be used today to pry body parts from his soul, over and over and over--

Giving his head a shake, the place he is now is so opposite of what he's endure for the past years that it's nearly startling. It's beyond startling actually, and Dean doesn't know what to do about it when all he can think is he doesn't deserve it. This place is practically happy and somehow blossoms with an easiness that he can't comprehend, his stomach twisting with confusion and ultimately a sheer disorientation that he's struggling his way through. He hardly knows how to move let alone how to think his way through this and he tries to find his voice to shout for the existence of anyone else here. But it clams up in his throat, refusing to puff out from between his lips and instead makes him want to curl up that much more. It's terrifying and soft all at once and he's rejecting it aggressively, trying to butt himself up against the nearest wall and hide, wondering if this is a new breed of torture. Let him see something happy for two seconds before he's dragged back to the reality that is Hell, brutally laughed in the face by Alistair before the torture continues. A psychological thing, maybe.

He doesn't know.

But eventually, he begins to move.

Slowly, he pushes himself out of the bed, taking one cautious step at at time, moving forward and ducking around corners, peering around the edges of the spacious room and trying to adjust to everything he's seeing. Which unto itself is still just weird - if anything, he should've woken up in a dank motel room. His grave maybe. And some part of his mind wonders if he's been shot up to Heaven finally, in some sort of weird Brazil-esque filing error, but that's just ridiculous.

He's supposed to be in Hell. So what the fuck is going on.

Continuing to move, Dean soon finds himself on the stairway leading downwards, though he glances up for a moment and stares, before deciding that down is best way for now. It isn't as if any of this is truly ominous apart from the fact that he doesn't know why he's here altogether but he has to keep moving, try to figure out what's going on, understand this as best as he can before he finds himself getting tugged straight back to the one place he's actually supposed to be.

"The fuck is this-"

Rough words are finally pulled from his throat, scratchy and hard and he steps even further down, slow going as he tries to take it all in. He just wants to know where he is and why, maybe even find someone here. Or maybe he just wants to be alone for a minute, relish in the lack of pain and death fleeing across his vision, the wholeness of his body and the feeling of his limbs stretching out. It's all odd sensations after too long on the rack, at the hands of demons, souls at the hands of him, and he grit his teeth for a moment, squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to think before he keeps going, pushing himself forward, and finally gives a shout, sounding distant to his own ears.

"-- Anyone here?"

Comments

[a_vandal]

"The world is called Fa'Diel, from what I could pick up. This is a tree, where the collection of us has been dumped. So far, at least." The sort of sing-song cadence of her speech is still there, but the elf is trying to enunciate a bit more. Had Dean shown up and been with his brother when Avandrel had met Sam, well. Her reception might have been less warm. But fate is a fickle thing.

"'Us' is mostly humans like you, though we've a wolf-mannish sort, a centaur, an orc, a blue girl with rainbow hair, and myself. Probably more." Avandrel hasn't met everyone at Home, after all, so now she can only speculate. But with how jumpy this fellow is, a warning is probably good. She doesn't know about day-glo orange jackets that scream 'don't shoot me'. They don't have those on her world.

Her next gesture is wordless; but what she pulls from a pouch at her belt is very clearly a flask, and she offers it over. Within it is probably rot-gut whiskey--Avandrel isn't a classy drinker--but considering it's for her own consumption, likely safe.

"Can't tell you what I don't know more of, but there's a village about half an hour from here, called Domina. If that helps. It didn't me, sad to say." The rogue shrugged at that, then. "Avandrel Amberspike, at your service. Such as it is, eh?"

[kickingand]

Alright. That is a lot of information that he's got no goddamn clue what to do with and Dean finds himself cocking his head a bit, trying to listen that much harder like he's being handed words in an entirely different language. Granted, he gets the centaur and wolf-man crap, stuff that's more worrisome than he really knows what to do with, but he stows that for a good few seconds and just tries to concentrate. A thing that's rather hard to do his brain's still rattling around desperately, trying to grab a hold of something that makes sense and trying to knock back images of the place he just spent the last few... too many years of his life.

Even though he's not entirely sure if those years count or not.

"We're in a tree. Right now."

Dean sounds somewhere between dumbfounded and bemused, and yes- this is the fact that he's still stuck on, after all of that. "Makes this place even more like Disneyland on steroids, I swear- and it's a whole new world? We're talkin' off planet Earth entirely?" Waving a hand through the air, Dean's eyebrows raise, suddenly seemingly twice as worried as he was two seconds before. Because being on a whole new planet is just all kinds of fucked up that he's not used to, and all this being dragged from one place to another might be getting to him a little bit.

And even though it isn't Hell? Hell is where he's supposed to be, it's where he was sentenced to. So how did he get out?

... But then she's offering him a flask and he stares even longer- it was on her hip, a fact that makes it infinitely more likely to be safe, but god- he's so unsure of everything. And nothing Hell was good, nothing, and so the fact remains that he's a touch tentative, nervous to be so quick to accept drinks from strangers. Because he knows better. Even if she's at his service, which is just something he has no idea what to do with.

"Dean. Winchester."

[a_vandal]

He's talking strangeness, and it's more than a little difficult to follow. What is a 'Disnee land'? She has no clue, and her brows furrow, just a bit. But with how agitated he seems (understandable, though Avandrel has absolutely no clue what he's been through, what Dean's dealing with here), she doesn't let the frowny face continue. This whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. That much, she knows. It's been ridiculous for the month or so she's been here, as well.

"Yes," she says, to his 'off planet Earth entirely' comment. "I do not know much of Earth (certainly Sam has told her some things), but the only planets I know are Azeroth and Draenor, and we are not on those, either."

And then, at his introduction, her eyes narrow slightly, once again. Not angrily, but more focused. Now, he definitely has her attention.

"Like Sam Winchester?" Because if so, he'll be following her as she yells his brother's name. Really, she wasn't entirely unaware that Sam had been looking for someone--he is a private sort, though, and he hadn't particularly put it forth to her. Still, for all her claims that she's not that bright, Avandrel can put two and two together here to make four.

"He is here, and safe. We'll just have to find him for you now, eh? Gotta be around here someplace."

[kickingand]

If she thought Dean was climbing the walls before - and it's easy enough to ignore the comment about planets once the conversation continues - the mention of Sam's name has his eyes growing wide as dinner plates, making a step or two forward on the stairs and looking painfully alert. The fact that Sam's here is both horrifying and comforting and Dean can't help the flash of expressions that parade across his face, the rampant worries and frantic need to make sure Sam's okay. It's all an immediate reaction to not having seen his brother in what feels like forever and all he wants to know is if Sam's been alright.

If he's still alright. If he's just fucking okay.

Granted if he's here, maybe he isn't - or maybe he is, this place looks tame enough after all. A little too tame all things considered but Dean doesn't care too much about that when all he wants now is to shake his brother around and make sure he's all intact and whole.

"He's here?" It's the first stupid thing he says; yeah, of course he's here, otherwise she wouldn't know his name. And that registers a second later and he drags his hand down his face, looks both ways as if his brother might spontaneously show up on the spot and then he's looking back, trying to keep his focus centered even though it's frayed in more ways than one.

"Safe is good, safe is better than good. Should be pretty easy to find, kid's not that hard to miss. I mean-" Dean makes a face, one of those 'have you seen him?' sort of expressions, because right, it's funny, Sam's fifty feet tall. But Dean's all over the place and he can't hammer himself down to one thought at a time, trying to still his emotions when all he wants is Sam in one piece along with answers to a series of questions he's barely gotten his way through yet. "He been here long?"

[a_vandal]

"Here. Aye, but out hunting. 'Tis his turn today, and he didn't want me following." Why, she couldn't say, but she respected Sam and his wishes--like she respected few others, either here or back on Azeroth. Then again, he'd earned it.

Maybe he had just wanted time alone. Fine by her.

At Dean's expression--the 'have you seen him?'--the elf couldn't help but laugh. Especially since, compared to Sam, she's short. At least she could ask him to get things off the high shelves, right?

"Aye. Long as I have, a month's time or so, give or take. 'Least how I reckon time, it's been a month." Not that Avandrel would have been happy to find it had been longer--there's a burgeoning invasion back home, and her shivs hungered for demon blood. That was neither here nor there, though.

"We'll find him. You know him, gods know with what he's said about himself, if yer family--" because she can tell--"ya can prob'ly track him well enough, aye?" Watching his face. Watching that frayed focus, with a bit of a frown playing around her lips.

"Ye ain't well though, are you, cull?" Dean. She should call him Dean, but old habits die hard. Still, she knows enough about the bad things to know her rogue cant or sing-song might throw him right back into the bad times. So she forces herself to ease off that. She doesn't know details, but Azeroth isn't a pretty, kind place, most days. "Dean. What happened to you, before ye came here? Might want to clear the air, before we find Sam."

This way if there's shit he wants, or needs, to hide, there's a chance it'll come easier. And gods know there's always that flask she's still holding. Ah, alcohol. Cause and cure of life's problems. Or at least a panacea to help cure what ails one. What's foremost in Avandrel's mind at the moment, however, is not setting off the potential powder keg standing before her with a joke on his lips.

[kickingand]

He was out hunting.

Dean didn't quite know what to do with that information, all things considered. He could have easily guessed what he was hunting if she hadn't added in the facts of it being his turn, which implied Bobby's kind of hunting, the way he used to take them out when they were kids, when they couldn't even shoot a damn deer (as he would've said.)

Except he's sent entirely off track at the mention of Sam haven been here for at least a month. Dean supposes it's possible - he doesn't even really know how long he's been gone for, and yet it still strikes across his face in some kind of panic. It's the realization that he hasn't been able to keep track of his brother the whole time he was lost in Hell, that any number of things could've happened to Sam that he wouldn't have been able to stop. He'd spent so much time trying to ignore those truths that they rushed to the surface now, facing the facts that Sam had been here for a month and Dean hadn't been around to do a thing about it.

He wasn't there to protect his brother and look what happened. Look what he traded in; Dean still wouldn't have taken it back for the world. Because at least Sam had his life, and that was what mattered.

Not that it really looked much like anyone needed saving from this place.

"Been tracking Sam since I was a kid, I got it covered." It's mumbled under his breath as he drags a hand down his face, trying to adjust to all of this at once, but he pops back up to attention at what he would consider to be almost an accusation. 'You aren't well,' words he doesn't know what to do with because they're not ones he wants to address. Of course he's not doing well, he wants to say, but the silence just lingers there, stubborn, unwilling to press any further because he wouldn't even know where to begin. It's too much, all at once, and it's better if he just ignores it. Pretends there isn't a thing that's upsetting him because there can't be. Isn't time for it. He doesn't get to be in pain over this, it just isn't allowed.

"Air doesn't need any clearing."

But boy, is he ever eying that flask like a starving man.

[a_vandal]

Stubborn and unwilling to press any further. Man, if that is not her own attitude being shoved right back into her face (albeit deservingly, really), Avandrel does not know what is.

She can't get angry. She wants to, sure, but the Light or the moon goddess or whatever other god of Azeroth or beyond you wanted to name? She knows damn well she's guilty of doing the same thing, and so she really can't. She's a hypocrite at other times, so she can't deny it. So she saved Dean the scourge of her tongue for that.

"If you decide you want to retract that later, I'll listen. And it won't go past me." Meaning she won't rat out to your brother the things you don't want told. And for the moment, she makes a calculated decision, and offers that flask he's eyeing so avariciously to Dean.

"Don't go hard, cully, but I still think you need it worse than I." Avandrel's positive that Dean's smart enough not to go hard, especially if they're going after Sam now (because she's not leaving him alone, especially if he belongs to Sam like she thinks he does). But she's going to give him the warning anyway. Even if it ends up pissing the man off.

[kickingand]

Dean was, admittedly, thankful for the fact that it wasn't unduly pressed upon. Just because he didn't want to talk didn't mean he wanted to be asked questions about it either (why some people thought resistence was anything more than just that was always beyond Dean; he didn't sign up for therapy with anyone and no always meant no when it came to how much he was willing to share.) Didn't mean he didn't wait for more pressure upon the silent wound, as if expecting there to be more questions just because that's what people did.

And instead he got none, thankfully, offering a nod of appreciation, though he didn't really believe it for a second. "You sure about that?" It was offered with the faintest of smiles, not sure how to kindly impress upon the fact that he didn't trust people so easy, that information had a way of slipping free from its source and especially where family lay, word tended to get around.

But okay, okay- he gives in and finally accepts the flask with a kind of desperate greed that even he's willing to admit to himself. He needs a drink like burning, like something he can't explain and even if it does nothing to fix the ache that's wound itself tight through his core then it doesn't matter because maybe it'll help him just enough to keep him breathing for another second, another moment where he can pretend it's all okay. Unscrewing the lid and kid taking a drink, he even goes so far as to heave a breath, as if it's been knocked out of him with a wallop, closing his eyes for a brief moment and just letting the burn go down.

And then he's all back to business like he didn't just give something stupid away, not sure if he should hand the flask back now or hold on to it out of sheer possessiveness.

"Not sure I know how to do anything but go hard."