applesaucedream | Here You Are, Stick Figure and a Busted Grin [Open to All]

Current Music: September 14th/15th, 2013

Here You Are, Stick Figure and a Busted Grin [Open to All]

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The first thing that the dreamers of Manhattan might notice is that the ground is a good deal closer than it normally is. The second thing they might notice is that their surroundings are larger than they might expect. The playground looks almost daunting. Of course, there are other ways for the dreamers to occupy themselves on this hot summer day: a charming fountain bubbles away a little distance from the playground. There's an ice cream stand with treats free for the taking. Beyond the paved area is a meadow, covered in wildflowers and dominated by a huge, sprawling tree, perfect for climbing.

It's all prime entertainment for children. So really, it's just as well that 'children' is what the dreamers will find themselves to be - once more, for those who had childhoods, or for the first time, for those who didn't.

Perhaps you'll remember everything: the Rift, Manhattan, the friends (and enemies) you've made since your arrival. Or perhaps you'll only remember who you were when you were young, and find this an opportunity to forge new friendships - or new (and probably pettier) animosities. Run around, get dirty, have a good time. ~~It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.~~

[ooc: usual dream party rules apply. All are welcome, whether they've been apped to the game or not. Characters will remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion. Mental and emotional regression is optional, but physical regression is mandatory: your character is in the body of a little kid - human, or human-ish - regardless of who or what they are in the waking world.]

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Sam startles.

It's immediate, it's automatic; his hands tighten on the chains and his feet go still, and one finger twitches with the impulse to seize at the knife thrust in his pocket.

He looks over, slow and controlled. It's a boy. A little older, maybe, but a boy, human and unassuming. Except for the fact where he knows Sam's name, and that ratchets up all his red flags.

"How long have you been watching me?" he asks, and he keeps his voice low.

"Two minutes and forty-three seconds," he answers. "And I would appreciate it if you left the knife in your pocket, Sam. You won't need it."

It also wouldn't do anything to him, being an angel and all, but he doesn't want to get his vessel marked up. These creatures are all full of blood and other fluids, and it's terribly messy even without any additional holes.

The chill burns in his blood like an ember, his knuckles blanching over the swing chains. He didn't feel anything going through his head but it must've because it knows. What is it?

He can almost hear Dean now, run like hell. He doesn't think that'll help.

But it answered his first question, so maybe it'll answer his second. He tries again, the words broken out slowly, warily.

"How do you know my name?"

"My Father must have given me the knowledge of it."

He turns his head and looks at Sam; his gaze is steady and intense, and his eyes are very bright. Where his feet touch the ground, little clumps of grass and buttercups are springing up; his Grace burns close to the surface in this vessel, pure creative force.

"I didn't think of it until I saw you, though. He must have intended for us to meet, and gave me foreknowledge so that I'd recognize you when the time is right. He does things like that, sometimes."

He watches silently as the green spreads in a steady inflorescence beneath the other boy's dangling feet. He doesn't know what it means, and there's no Dean or Dad to help. He can handle things on his own, he's sure he can, things like ghosts and making a salt line. But Dad never takes him on hunts, and now there's this. This and its father, and he doesn't know what it means. He's running, silently, through the list of things he and Dean and Dad have hunted and killed, but he comes up empty.

It's being receptive, whatever it is. Maybe he can use that.

"So who's your father?" he ventures.

"God Almighty," he says, like it's not at all unusual to claim that your dad is literally God. "And I'm one of his angels. You can call me Samael."

There isn't really any reason not to tell him; their Father never told them to hide their true natures from his creations. And Sam has his name written all over his heart, down in his sinew and bone and soul, so that means it must be okay for Samael to tell him who he is. Sam's his, his Father even marked him so.

"God's not real," Sam says bluntly. He doesn't have the same ironclad conviction as Dean, or Dad, and he'd never admit to either of them that maybe he prays sometimes - but only sometimes. And he only prayed to angels. If there's a God out there, why'd he make a world full of monsters?

Why'd he take Mom?

He looks at the other boy dubiously. He doesn't think that's what angels are supposed to look like. "Don't angels have wings?"

"Of course my Father exists. He made everything."

It's obvious, of course-- he witnessed his Father making the entire universe, and he never considered the possibility that these little creatures He made might forget that He exists. Mortal things have such short memories.

"I have wings, but if I showed them to you, your eyes would burn up. I could show you their shadows, if you want, and that won't hurt you."

"Lots of things say that," Sam scoffs, because that's always what Dad comes home saying. Big something-or-other, boasting about how it was there for the Crucifixion, there for the Tower of Babel, how it was old old old and they'd better not dare. And Dad always killed those things that boasted and scuttled and bragged. Dean keeps saying Dad's a hero.

He considers the offer. Some things you can't look at, he knows that, it's like staring into the sun. Then he nods. "You're gonna have to prove it then."

He hops off of the swing and walks around so that he's standing in front of Sam. The grass and flowers follow him when he walks, leaving a little trail behind in the playground sawdust.

"Don't be afraid," he says, then rolls his vessel's shoulders back and lets his wings unfurl in a rush like thunderclaps. They expand out and out, three sets of graceful, feathered shadows arching out in a good twenty-foot wingspan, curving up and around Sam Winchester until they bracket him beside and above.

He lets them stay out, inky black and quivering, for several long seconds before winching them back in.

He scrambles back when it happens, unprepared for the roar and the rush of the pairs of wings in triplicate as they come snapping into being. He trips over the swing and lands on his ass and has to tear himself back to his feet in startled disbelief.

The reassurances don't help, nothing helps. Be not afraid, Sam, only he is, this is something he's never seen before.

Maybe it is an angel.

No. He pushes back, shoves that thought away. Can't cling to things like that, Sammy. They're little wisps, false hopes, nightlights. They're not real. This isn't real.

"What are you," he says, and he hates the tremble when he says it, the shudder, the specter of doubt pinned behind the words. What is it. What else could it be. What does it have to be.

"I told you, Sam, I'm an angel of the Lord."

His expression turns disappointed when he can clearly see and feel that Sam doesn't believe him. What else does he have to do? He can't show him his halo or his real wings without hurting him, or even speak to him in his true voice without possibly breaking his ear drums. Sam's special, he knows that down in the heart of his Grace, but he doesn't know if he's the right kind of special to be able to withstand an angel's glory. He doesn't want to test it.

"I won't hurt you, I promise. I don't lie, and I wouldn't ever lie to you. You're special, you're very special, Sam, and my Father's chosen you for something very important. You're going to do great things one day."

"I don't believe you!"

For the first time Sam yells and his voice is shrill but he keeps backing away. He doesn't wanna hear what this thing's saying - what great things? Be a hunter? Like Dad and like Dean? He doesn't want it, he doesn't want any of it. He wants to do something else, something actual, and not spend his life chasing ghosts and shadows.

He wants to cover his ears and shut the thing out. It's speaking careful and affectionately and it would be better if it were shouting instead. He wishes it were shouting and cruel and evil instead of this - whatever it is.

"I can tell."

Sam is all but running away from him; how could this be going so badly, if his Father had written his name in Sam's heart? Doesn't he feel the inevitability, the gravity-pull of angel to true vessel?

"It doesn't matter if you believe me, because it's my Father's Word, but don't fear me. If I was going to hurt you, wouldn't I have done so already?"

That's -

That just makes it worse. It has wings and it's powerful and it's saying things and he wishes it would stop but nothing's gonna block it out.

"I'm not chosen for anything," Sam insists, fists clenched and shoulders drawn up. "I'm not even gonna be a hunter when I grow up. I don't care what your 'father' says."

"I'm so sorry, Sam."

He's upset, Samael can feel it coming off of him in awful wretched waves, and there's nothing he can do to ease it. The truth isn't going to be a comfort to Sam Winchester-- no matter how many times he's says that it's okay, that it's his destiny to do great things, he can't make him want it.

"I'm sorry that this isn't what you want. You didn't ask for my Father to choose you, and it's hard to accept, but you'll be all right. I'll make sure you'll be all right."

"All right?" He's not 'chosen', he never was - he's just Sam, Sam who argues with his big brother and talks back to a dad who hunts a demon with yellow eyes. And angels aren't real, they can't be, angels would be watching them and keeping them safe but Mom died in a horrible way that Dad never talks about, and what kind of God or angels would allow something like that?

He's not about to cry, not with Dean's voice in his head telling him he could waste this thing - but he knows he can't. He doesn't know what it is, and it won't stop saying things that aren't true with this horrible, perfect conviction.

"What do you mean 'all right'?"

He steps forward until he's close enough to touch Sam, but refrains. He doesn't need the contact to see the images in the boy's mind, to see the big brother that he loves so much, and knows-- the parallel rings too sweetly familiar for it to not be true. His name is wound all through Sam; if he looked at Dean, he knows whose name he'd see written on that beating heart.

"I'll be watching over you, Sam. And there's going to be an angel watching over your big brother, too."

He's not gonna ask how this thing knows Dean because if it knows him then it can already see into his head.

"Angels aren't real," he says, but there's nothing behind it. The words fall from his lips all broken and tangled in doubt, and there's a searing wetness in his eyes that he blinks away angrily. Angels aren't real because they can't be. They can't. "And if they were they wouldn't be watching over us."

"One day, you'll have faith, Sam."

He wouldn't be able to deny the existence of angels when he had one inside of him, after all. And then he wouldn't have to worry about monsters ever again, because Samael would make sure that nothing could ever hurt him.

"You and your brother both, you'll have faith."

He shakes his head but the action feels numb.

"You don't know that." It doesn't, it can't. Everything it's saying could be a lie. He bets it is. It probably is a lie. Trying to catch him off guard, or keep him in an emotional chokehold, or something. This is monster-hunting basics. They always try to get the best of you. "You don't know my brother, or me."

So why do you pray, Sammy? Why do you pray to the angels sometimes?

He falters.

"I know that you love him more than anything. I know that he takes care of you, that he keeps you safe, that he teaches you everything you need to know."

He's Sam's Michael, the older brother that he loves like he loves nothing else. Samael knows what it's like, having a sibling that you love with such fierce fervency that it outshines supernovae, a love more steadfast and stable than the bones of the Earth.

"I have one too, Sam. My big brother's name is Michael."

"I don't care," Sam says, desperately, hands fisting into his hair, but there's an ice in his blood he can't shake. Anyone could say that about anyone's brother, right? Of course Dean loves Sam, of course he keeps his little brother safe, it's his job and it's what he does.

"Everyone's big brother does that," he insists. "I'm not chosen or different or - "

- or a freak in any way besides the ways he already knows he is. He knows he's different, and doomed to be different because he knows how to load a shotgun and make a salt line and sharpen a knife. But he's not meant for anything. He's not meant for anything besides running away.

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Here You Are, Stick Figure and a Busted Grin [Open to All]

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