applesaucedream | [open to all]

Gabriel hasn't been dipping into the dreams of others all that often lately, but tonight something catches his attention and holds it long enough for him to take a closer look. It's a human soul. The bright and shiny from-his-universe kind. It's curiosity that takes him closer, wondering what human could have fallen through the rift after him.

Only, the closer he gets, the detail and outward tarnish show through and something else feels...off. Beyond the amazing feeling of actually feeling a human soul again, it's also familiar somehow.

It's takes until he's standing directly in the dream with Sam Winchester running towards him to realize just why the soul feels so familiar.

"Oh, fuck. Really?"

He nearly runs into the man before Sam actually notices him, intent on his quarry. When he does notice, and then, a millisecond later, when he actually registers who it is he's nearly run into, he reels, skidding to a halt in mulch and turfed-up loam. He stares, sweaty-faced and breathing hard.

'Gabriel? The fuck--?'

But he can't stop the chase just because he's run into an angel who's supposed to be dead, and he shakes his head, pointing off in the direction the hound had run.

'Good,' he rasps curtly. 'There's a-- a hellhound, and I don't have my knife. You can come with me, and kill it, and then you can explain how the hell you're alive. Come on.'

He jerks his head at Gabriel and strides on; he can either follow Sam or stop him.

Yeah, no fucking way Gabriel is going to run after a hellhound in Sam Winchesters panicked dream-space. He rolls his eyes, and a moment later they're both sitting on the comforting and slightly sticky vinyl seats of a dive-bar booth.

A waitress in a low-cut top sidles up, settles two beers on their table, and leaves to go back to the bar. For now, it seems like they're the only people in the joint. Robert Johnson whines out about hellhounds from the jukebox in the corner as Gabe raises an eyebrow and pushes one of the beers across the table.

"It's a dream, genius."

A moment after Sam strides past Gabriel, he is suddenly... no longer striding past Gabriel. He's no longer sticky with sweat, nor is he out of breath; he is, in fact, sitting in a bar, like any of a million bars alongside empty highways Sam's been in, with a beer being set down in front of him. Some of the sensation of frantic, oppressive purpose lingers from the forest and the chase, but nothing more. He blinks, and, for a lack of anything better to do, downs about a third of the beer in one go.

Putting the glass down, he eyes Gabriel dubiously. 'My dreams aren't usually quite so self-aware. And why the hell would I be dreaming about you?'

"My eyes? My ass? My engaging and irresistible personality?" He snorts a laugh and has a sip of his own beer. Not the best, but it is authentic to the scenery.

"Your dreams are suddenly bearable because I'm really here." For a second, he spreads his hands out presentation style around his face. "Surprise! Not dead anymore." Yeah, he's going with anymore because he'd really rather Sam keep on thinking he was a martyr for the cause. It's better for his image. His hands drop back to the table and his smile turns more wry than amused. "Don't start a parade with your enthusiasm or anything."

Sam will accept that he's dreaming. If anything, Gabriel's sudden appearance confirms it, though he has no idea why his subconscious should decide it's a good idea to have him chat over beers with a dead archangel.

'You know, if you wanted to guilt me out about angels, you could've picked another one. Seriously.' This he mutters to the ceiling, as if his own brain were living up there to pick up on his internal critiques of his own dreams. Turning back to Gabriel, he levels an unimpressed look at him. The obnoxious flirting is neither cute nor original, and Sam is the wrong Winchester brother to rise to that particular bait.

'Yeah, well, forgive me if I'm not exactly thrilled; at least with a hellhound, I know what it's going to do to me if it gets the chance.'

He tilts his head to the side and shrugs. "It's a fair complaint. You're not exactly numero uno on my list either, Sammy." And if Sam really is in New York and not just the dream-space, watching his back might not be a bad idea. He's already had enough trouble keeping knowledge of what he is contained. Sam definitely would be more hindrance than help there.

Gabriel hasn't missed the fact that Sam doesn't exactly believe he's here yet, but that's not really important to convince him of at the moment. He's more interested in information. "Have reasons for feeling guilty about angels? What's Castiel up to these days?"

'They fell, asshole,' Sam bites out. 'And now I'm freakin'-- stuck in an alternate New York through a ~magic rift that apparently doesn't work both ways, so I can't get back to help put back together what we've fucked up.'

What happened to the angels isn't his fault, or Dean's, and he doesn't actually feel guilty about it; that's all on Metatron, and poor stupid Castiel for being hopeful enough to believe his lies. He does, however, feel hugely the weight of responsibility for being stuck here, even though he knows, he knows that there's nothing he can do about it. But he's aware all the time that back in his own world, Dean will be freaking out, Kevin will be freaking out, and there is shit that needs to be done. Crowley will need to be dealt with, whatever he is now after Sam's aborted ritual, and all the angels now on Earth (and there had looked like thousands of them), and taking down Metatron-- and Sam can't help any of it.

He takes another long drink of his beer and meets Gabriel's eyes, scowling.

'So no, I don't know what Castiel's up to. Dead or fallen, depending on how lucky he is.'

Gabriel barely registers the confirmation that Sam is in New York. After that first bombshell, everything else that Sam has to say fades into background noise. He recalls now what the TARDIS had said about what that demon told her - another all out war between heaven and hell with souls being used as fuel for the slaughter. But even if that were true, that would result in deaths, not fallen angels.

"All the angels." He's not really getting how that is even possible. "Are you sure you're not still stuck in fantasy land there?" He huffs out a laugh that sounds nervous and worried more than anything even approaching amused. "What'd they do, form an orderly queue and start hopping off clouds? Sorry, but it doesn't really work that way."

'You know what, I don't actually know what exactly happened, I was kinda occupied at the time.' The snark gives way to something more serious, though, as he remembers the shock of that moment, of huddling on the ground next to Dean and seeing it, and he lets out a long breath and shakes his head. 'It was Metatron, all right? And he... tricked Cas into doing something, I don't know what, but it was like-- like all the stars in the sky dropping through the clouds all at once, and I could hear them--'

He breaks off. He hadn't heard them with his ears so much as whatever weird sense heightened by the trials had made him resonate with angelic matter, or whatever the fuck, but somehow, he had heard screaming. And even though this is just a dream, he's not sharing that with Gabriel.

'You honestly telling me you managed to miss that memo?'

"You're telling me that Metatron is a big bad now? How many actual baddies did you burn through before you got to him?" He's still having trouble believing that this is a coherent story that Sam hasn't made up on the spot to fuck with him. It seems almost too ridiculous to be true, and he's almost afraid to confirm it. If it is true, then who of the angels is left but him? The thought of a loss that enormous is barely comprehensible, too big to fathom on any scale.

He takes a sip of his beer, sets it down with a clunk onto the tabletop, and reaches into Sam's mind. And there it is. All true. A demon named Crowley. Castiel. Dean. Angels falling like meteors to the Earth. Screaming.

He leans back into the booth as he pulls away from Sam's mind, looking visibly shaken. For a fraction of a second, the scene around them blurs. The lights flicker off, the music stops. When they turn back on, everything seems normal again. The waitress is washing glasses behind the bar, their drinks are full, and there's a rough acoustic guitar sound creaking out of the jukebox.

"Yeah," He smirks and picks up his beer, then sets it back down without taking a sip. "guess I missed the memo. Being dead and then in another universe tends to mix up the mail. I don't get any of my magazines."

Sam is about to throw a sharp remark back in Gabriel's face when, very abruptly, he can feel him in his mind, a sensation like the distant memory of burning, and he jerks back, accidentally jostling his pint.

'Stay out of my head, dude!'

Sam stares, unnerved. He's aware that angels can read minds, and knows, indeed, that Castiel has read his mind in the past, but Sam can't recall ever being able to feel it like that. It hadn't been a physical sensation, more like the tugging he'd felt somewhere internally when he'd had to strain hard to exorcise a demon, something somehow purely mental. He doesn't know what Gabriel just did, but he doesn't like the recollection of that sensation. That and the fact that he's got a whole bunch of shit going on in his head right now that he really doesn't need Gabriel knowing.

"Untwist your panties," he snaps, his smile dropping in favor of a petulant glare. "I'm done reading your diary." Gabriel isn't going to do any more digging now that he knows as much as Sam does about the angels falling.

He feels suddenly at a loose end, but he can still ask questions. To say he's been out of the loop lately would be an understatement. Until he ties up all the loose ends he can here, he's not going to be satisfied. "Is this because of the war? Between Heaven and Hell. They were using souls as fuel." And that's really all the intel he's got. For someone as powerful as Gabriel, suddenly wanting information and not being able to get it is frustrating in the extreme.

The petulant glare is met in equal force by a bitchface from Sam; just because the last time they saw him, Gabriel got himself killed (nominally) helping them escape doesn't mean Sam's got any obligation to be polite to him. The question, then, gets a snort.

'When isn't it?' Sam is more than a little bitter about the overinvolvement of Heaven and Hell in his life. That doesn't really even begin to cover it though, not really, and he sighs gustily, shoving a hand through his hair.

'You want-- you've missed out on everything since Lucifer iced you?' No sugarcoating that. He wiggles a few tired fingers at his beer. 'Mojo this into something stronger and I'll... try to summarise.'

It occurs to him absently that this might actually be his brain's way of allowing him to sort through everything, an excuse to lay it all out in a way that makes some sort of sense.

If it gets him his information, he's going to let Sam think whatever he wants. If he still thinks he's a figment of him imagination after this, hey, all the better. That way he won't go searching him out and mingling with people he'd rather Sam not meet.

Sam's request is met with a snort. He doesn't bother with having the waitress come over. Instead of beer, they've now both got whiskey on the rocks. Even if it's imaginary at the moment, he takes a sip himself. Call it steeling his resolve. He knows that he's not going to want to hear any of what Sam has to relate, but he needs to hear it.

"Go for it."

Gabriel might be sipping, but Sam lets the entire contents of his glass slide down his throat in one go, keeping the ice at bay with his upper lip. It's good whiskey, and though he grits his teeth and shakes his head at the initial burn of it, the glow of heat it leaves spreading in his chest is welcome. He'll trust Gabriel to do any necessary topping up.

Now, where the hell to even start? He exhales heavily, and decides that there's no point pulling punches, not when Gabriel's his audience. 'We stopped the Apocalypse. Uh, obviously. I said yes to Lucifer, and then threw myself down into the Pit; Michael tried to grab me-- us, whatever, and he fell in too. Oh, and, he was wearing our half-brother, Adam. The angels brought him back to life when Dean wouldn't say yes. Then Castiel... brought me back.'

He has no desire to talk about the year and a half he spent without a soul, nor, he thinks, is it especially relevant in this case, so yeah, that's just gonna go unmentioned.

'But, uh, even with Michael and Lucifer gone, Raphael still wanted the Apocalypse to happen. Fate or destiny or whatever. So there was a... civil war in Heaven, with Raphael and the angels who wanted to restart the Apocalypse, and Cas leading the other side. But he was-- losing. And we were idiots and wouldn't listen to him. So he ended up making a deal with Crowley. They opened Purgatory, and Cas-- drank in all the souls there, for their power. Killed Raphael, and then... kinda went crazy. He declared himself God, and I guess he ended up... killing a whole lot of others up in Heaven.'

'But then-- it wasn't just the souls in Purgatory he had inside him, it was the Leviathan. And they... burned him out of his vessel or-- the vessel just couldn't hold up with all of that in there. So they got loose and there was a whole bunch of other shit with them on Earth, but that's not really--'

Sam sighs, and takes another gulp of his whiskey. Jesus, it's hard to explain all this in any way that makes sense.

'So, anyway. Cas comes back to life later and he-- well. The Leviathan thing ends with him and Dean getting sucked into Purgatory. Heaven's dealing with the aftermath of civil war and-- Cas, and on Earth, we've found a demon tablet with instructions on how to close the Gates of Hell, and a prophet, Kevin, who can read it, so that's, y'know, that's our focus. Or-- ok, so Dean gets himself out of Purgatory, and then we start working on the tablet. First trial, kill a hellhound, second, pull an innocent soul out of Hell, third--'

He pauses, swallowing down the bitter despair that's seemed to be living just under his skin for the past however many weeks. 'Third-- cure a demon.'

'But while we're doing that, Castiel gets pulled out of Purgatory by an angel called Naomi, who's, I guess, head of their secret service, or whatever. She had a whole Clockwork Orange thing going on with Cas, mind-control to try and get a hold of the tablet. And Cas broke free of it, but-- we ran into Metatron, while we were looking for information about the trials. Hiding out in an old reservation. And he had this story about an-- angel tablet, I guess, I don't know all of it, but. He tricked Cas into thinking it was the best way to fix what he'd done in Heaven.'

'But it wasn't trials, it was a spell, and it-- exiled all the angels. And the-- I couldn't finish the trials; I was going to, I was just, I had Crowley, and it was working, the cure, but--' Sam trails off, dropping his head for a moment, and then fortifies himself with more whiskey. 'Dean stopped me. I'd have died, if I'd finished them. So... now Hell is still open, and the entire population of Heaven is stuck on Earth.'

Laid all out like that, honestly, it almost seems more pointless and confusing than it had been when he'd just been living it day-to-day, and he lifts his head to meet Gabriel's eyes. He tries hard for some measure of wry cynicism with which to inject his tone, but it mostly just comes out sounding tired.

'So. That's what you've missed.'

"Just that, huh." Gabriel understood all of that, but give him some time to process it. He drops his head into his hands and scrubs at his face, then abruptly stands up from the booth and paces over to the bar. Let Sam have the rest of his drink if he wants it. That's not really Gabriel's focus at the moment.

His focus got fuzzy somewhere between Castiel killed Raphael and civil war and so far it isn't showing any signs of clearing enough to let him make sense of any of this. He stands with his hands on the bar, his eyes closed, desperately wanting all of this to not be real, even though he can feel the truth of it. The solidity of Sam's familiar soul behind him is an aching connection to that truth.

"How could you be so fucking stupid? Had so much good experience with angels that you just trust the Metatron with every life in heaven? Castiel should have known not to trust that sniveling little shit." His shoulders start shaking and, frustrated at his own reaction to the news, he pushes himself away from the bar and faces Sam. "Fuck, Sam. You should have known! Haven't you learned anything?"

Sam's unsure exactly what he's expecting from Gabriel; he knows that he's talking about his brothers, his erstwhile home, even if he did abandon them eons ago, but blame. He wasn't expecting that.

He should have been, though, shouldn't he? This is inside his head, after all, and what is Sam if not a mess of fucked-up, still raw from his confession in the church before he began the third trial, still aching from nearly having finished and not managing, again. Of course Gabriel would blame him.

It makes him furious. Really, suddenly angry like he hasn't felt since he was recovering from Ruby and the demon blood, and he shoves himself out of his seat. The bar around them... doesn't seem to be a bar anymore, or at least not entirely a bar; the crucifix is there on the wall, life-sized with only the hands and feet left nailed to the cross, the damp smell of rotting wood and old incense and his own blood.

'Fuck you!' he spits, facing off to Gabriel. He doesn't loom, though, despite the height and bulk he has over the angel's vessel; his shoulders are faintly hunched, his jaw tight, and he breathes hard through his nose as he glares. 'I was busy trying to close the goddamn Gates of Hell, don't you dare blame me. You think we can control what Castiel does? You-- we've fucked up a lot, and so has he, but this-- is on Metatron; you blame him if you want someone to shout at!'

Edited 2013-07-18 05:57 (UTC)

The setting for this could really not matter less to Gabriel. The marked and decaying church only helps to hammer home the symbolism of his own decaying faith. He's filled with anger for the loss of a family that some part of him had always wanted to return to. It's a guilty sort of loss, stinking of broken promises and obfuscation. The feeling bubbles up under his skin like a pot about to boil over until he's shifting forward into Sam's personal space.

"I can blame whoever I want to blame, Sammy." He lifts a hand and pushes, his palm flat against Sam's chest for just a moment, though it should be enough to knock Sam on his ass.

Something goes wrong with the forest in the middle of what had been a pleasant walk, and Daine stops in her tracks, brow furrowed. There's a heaviness to the air that wasn't there a moment ago, and the People have fallen silent. She feels stifled, as if someone had thrown a wet wool blanket over her, and it takes a moment for her to register that the People aren't just quiet: they're gone. She can't hear them with her mind any more than with her ears.

Something has gone very wrong. With swift, sure movements born of years of practice, she strings her longbow. It was a well-timed move; no sooner has she finished when she hears the sound of someone - or something - crashing toward her. It's not an animal, whatever it is, and she grabs an arrow and sets it to the string. The whatever-it-is draws closer, and after a moment's hesitation, Daine draws the arrow back to her ear. Best not to take chances. Aiming in the direction the noise is coming from, she waits.

'Jesus Christ!'

He shouldn't be surprised when he crashes through a tangle of creepers to find himself staring down the business end of a drawn longbow. Breaking from his run in a quick motion, he crouches and snatches up the nearest rock he can find, straightening tensely with it held in his hand ready to throw; kind of a pathetic weapon, but the only thing to hand.

Only then does he take a good look at the person wielding the bow. It's a woman-- a girl, really, dressed in the kind of thing he'd seen on Charlie's LARPing pals, but that bow-- he has no doubt that's the real thing. No padded polystyrene arrows here. As far as the clothes, well, monsters have been dying and going to Purgatory for who knows how long.

'What are you?' he demands hoarsely, and then, still breathless but slightly more diplomatic, 'I'm not here to-- to do any monster slaying, you can put the bow down.'

When she sees that it's a two-legger - and one surprised to see her, no less - her first instinct is to lower her bow. She's not about to shoot a stranger just for stumbling into her. But the arrow only dips a few inches before the man's back on his feet with a rock in hand, and she snaps back into position, ready to defend herself. The bow feels like an unfair advantage, but then again, she doesn't know who he is or what he could do if pressed.

The first words out of his mouth aren't very encouraging, and she narrows her eyes at him. What does he mean by 'what'? She looks human, and if he was mage enough to know about her magic, he'd be mage enough to not need to ask about it. And... monster slaying?

"I'm not a monster," she replies, baffled and, to be honest, more than a little bit offended. She's been called plenty of names before, but not by folk who didn't at least know what she was capable of. Being dubbed a monster by a stranger right out of the gate is a bit much. And no, she's not lowering her bow. "Who are you?"

The girl sounds genuinely perplexed, but she doesn't lower her weapon either, so Sam stays as he is, ready to fling himself aside if she decides to attack, his muscles taut as the bowstring. There are plenty of creatures that look human, and Sam hasn't run into anyone else since he's been here, so he's not just going to take her at her word.

His own eyes narrow, and he turns his head a little, trying to listen to the pound of the hellhound's paws, but there's nothing; even this brief delay and he's lost him, damn. Trying to tear off after it right away won't find it again. So he introduces himself.

'Sam Winchester,' he says, in a way that's half wary, half a challenge. It's not just the family name that has a reputation among things that go bump in the night; Sam knows well enough to know that Hell's one-time plans for him mean that there are a hell of a lot of dark things that know his name very particularly.

But the girl gives no sign of recognition, and some of the suspicion melts out of his expression. 'What are you doing here, if you're not a monster?'

His introduction doesn't make things any clearer, not least of all because he says his name as if he expects her to know it. Stranger still, he doesn't seem upset that she doesn't; if anything, he seems relieved. He puts his question, and after a beat, Daine lowers her bow, relaxing the string a bit. If need be, she can have it up again in a flash, but now that he's introduced himself - and now that he seems a little more kindly disposed toward her - it feels rude to keep pointing an arrow at him.

"I don't know," she says tersely, giving her surroundings an uncertain frown. "The forest was normal a few moments ago, and then it changed to this." A decidedly abnormal forest, empty of wildlife so far as she can tell. She does not approve.

A niggling sense of deja vu resolves itself into the realization that this has happened before - starting out in one forest and ending up in another - and she sighs. "Oh. The rift, I'd guess."

Finally, the arrow goes down, the girl's grip on the bow relaxing somewhat. Sam, in turn, lets out the breath he'd been holding, and lets his hand fall; if he doesn't drop the rock, well, one never knows. His mouth twists when she looks uneasily around the forest, and he hitches his eyebrows up in a wry expression.

'It's Purgatory.' And then he pauses, brows knotting somewhat uneasily. 'At least I... think it is. Are you--' he's about to ask whether she's a hunter, inclining his head at the bow in her hand, when he draws up short. 'Sorry, I don't know your name either.'

Purgatory? Thanks to her recent research, she actually knows the term. But Purgatory is where folk go when they're dead, isn't it? It's certainly not a place she'd expect the rift to take her.

"I'm Daine," she says, because at least that's one question she can answer. "But I don't see how this can be Purgatory. I'm not dead." She's pretty sure, anyway; she'd like to think if she died in New York, the rift would have the decency to let her soul go home, at least.

'Neither am I.' It's said on a sigh, as though that fact is a dragging weight around his neck. Sam doesn't seem to notice his own tone, and a moment later it's snapped back to something much more businesslike and didactic. 'You wouldn't end up here anyway, even if you were, not if you're human.' Darkly, he casts an eye around himself. 'Purgatory's where monster souls go after they die. Since the beginning of creation. Place oughtta be swarming with them.'

Which will serve as an explanation as to his misapprehension upon first seeing her. Now he completes the nod towards her bow, taking her in with an assessing little up and down flick of his gaze. 'You a hunter, Daine?'

Sam might not have noticed, but Daine did, and her brow furrows. He sounds so thrilled to be alive, doesn't he? She gives her head a little shake; there are more important things to fret over, like the monsters this place is meant to be swarming with. She doesn't feel any nasty immortals in her mind, but that only means there aren't any in her range, which probably wouldn't cover the whole forest.

His question hits a bit closer to home than he means it to, and she stiffens warily. He can't know about her da, though; that's... no. "Not anymore," she says flatly, even though she suspects he's not talking about animals. Well, she's not in the habit of hunting immortals, either.

Animals, immortals, whatever; he wasn't particular in his intent, and however oblivious he might be to the signals he himself is broadcasting, he doesn't miss the way her posture goes stiff and her words curt. That, too, hits rather close to home, and his lips twitch faintly, cynically. Good for her, he thinks, whatever kind of hunting it is she means, only here he is, Sam Winchester, life-ruiner extraordinaire, to drag her back into it.

He nods equitably, his expression somewhere between resignation and abashment. 'Only... there's a hellhound I was chasing before I ran into you. That bow looks like it'd come in all sorts of useful. And it's, uh,' he adds, 'probably best to stick together around here.'

"Hellhound?" That sounds animal enough that she's surprised she didn't feel it when she first arrived. It also doesn't sound especially pleasant, but all the more reason to not chase it down. If it's not attacking her or anyone else, she sees no reason to bother with it at all.

She puts the arrow away, though she keeps her bow strung. "I'm not shooting anything that doesn't attack me, first." And she can't help glancing at the rock Sam's still holding. If he's going to chuck it at her, now would be the time, though she doubts he will. Besides, if he's thinking to take her bow, he'll find it's not the only weapon she has at her disposal.

A moment after her glance flicks down to his hand, still loosely clutching the rock, Sam chucks it away, an idle, to-the-side motion that couldn't be mistaken for attack. He's pretty much sold by now on her being human, and lost, and more or less harmless-- at least as far as harm towards him is concerned.

Her blasé attitude towards the hellhound, however, has him snorting. 'Trust me, it'll attack; that's what they do.' He considers, since she knows about the rift, the odds of her being from a different universe seem high, so he expounds. 'You know what demons are? Hell? They have that in your universe? Hellhounds, they're like the-- they retrieve souls. Human souls. They rip people apart, and devour their flesh, and drag their souls down to the Pit to be tortured for-- eternity.'

He stops abruptly, breathing hard again. He... hadn't actually meant to get quite that vehement, but it had happened before he'd entirely noticed. Pressing his lips hard together, he ducks his head briefly, and then lifts it to shake his hair out of his eyes. 'I could use your help. Please. And then we can work out how to get out of here.'

The rock's departure is a small comfort, but she's only given a moment to relax before Sam starts to spout off about hellhounds. She listens to him with an expression akin to the one she'd wear if she'd tasted something bitter. While she knows nothing of hellhounds, she's used to two-leggers confidently - even passionately - spouting wildly incorrect information about creatures they can't be bothered to understand. There's been plenty of that going around in her realm, given the recent influx of immortals that hadn't been seen by humans in centuries.

Still, it's obvious that he feels strongly about this. Has he seen these hellhounds in action? Well, even if he has, she hasn't - and she'll judge their nastiness for herself, thanks ever so.

"We don't have demons in my realm - or hell. Folk go to the Black God's realm when they die." Her tone is gentler than it was a moment ago, as she's unconsciously shifted into the tone she'd use to soothe one of the People when they get fretful. Plus, she feels a bit sorry for him, or for any folk from realms with hells and purgatories.

But feeling sorry for him isn't reason enough to go hunting down some hellhound on nothing but his say-so. "If hellhounds are such monsters, then they belong here, surely? We don't. I'd rather focus on getting us out. If it's that determined to attack, then it'll find us."

Her expression, and the sudden softness of her voice has him bristling somewhat. Sam knows pitying disbelief when he hears it, the gentle tones of someone who thinks the person they're addressing is most likely a little bit mad, and pities them for it. But he doesn't argue; he's just met this girl, and if she doesn't want to believe him, fine. He's seen what hellhounds can do, he's fought them, he's seen Dean torn apart by them; she can learn for herself when they find this one.

There's also the uneasy sense that he needs to find the hellhound, that it's important, really, really important. It's uneasy because he can't think why, he just knows it, down to his marrow.

So he nods shortly. Fine, whatever. He saw how she handled that bow; he very much doubts, when they do come across the hellhound, she'll just stand back. 'Come on, then. Can't say I know how to get out, though. There should be a portal somewhere; Purgatory doesn't much like humans running around in it, far as I understand, but hell if I know where it is.'

With no better lead to go on, then, he sets off in the direction he was going before, tromping doggedly onwards and assuming that Daine will follow.

Daine echoes his nod, relieved that he seems willing to give up on the hellhound. If he's right about Purgatory not wanting humans wandering about the place, then the portal should be easier to find than any specific creature, anyway.

Of course, she's not entirely human... but she can't think of a way to ask if that might be a problem without telling him about her da, which she doesn't much care to do. For all she knows, anyone who isn't one hundred percent human counts as a monster in Sam's book, and she'd prefer to get through this without having any rocks chucked her way.

Trotting to catch up with him, she asks, "What do these hellhounds look like?" She wants to have some idea of what to watch for.

Hey, Sam's actually pretty open-minded about what counts as a monster, being not exactly 100 per cent human himself. By most hunters' standards, he's a hippy-dippy liberal. He'd actually probably be fascinated should he learn about Daine's father, but that is, perhaps, neither here nor there.

Briefly, he looks back at Daine as she jogs up to join him. 'They're invisible; you can only see them if they've been sent after you in particular, or through glass scorched by Holy Fire.' Inconvenient, he knows. 'They're big, though, so usually you can hear them; on ground like this, could probably track their prints too.'

Sam's no woodsman, but the mulchy forest floor looks soft enough that a hellhound would leave visible tracks. Frowning in thought, he jerks his head at Daine. 'Your arrows; what're the heads made of?'

"But they're solid enough," she half-guesses, half-asks. Not being able to see them normally is an inconvenience, but it's not as much of a setback as it could be. Few things are invisible to a bat, so a little creative shapeshifting could go a long way. Of course, she'd have to explain herself... but if push comes to shove and she does have to shoot this hellhound, maybe he'll appreciate her efforts enough to not fuss too much over her methods.

She doesn't comment on the tracking, because yes, it'd be fair easy for her on ground like this. The portal is still her focus, though, and she doesn't want to get roped in to trying to track down the hellhound if it's heading away from them.

"Steel," she replies, wondering if that's going to be a problem. Her arrows have always done well enough for the immortals back home, but different realms have different rules. Maybe hellhounds are like werebears, with only silver really harming them.

He gives a short nod in answer to her not-really-question. Far too solid for his tastes, really. The answer gets something like a grimace; he'd been hoping for iron; her clothes look old-school enough that he'd held up hope.

'Mmm,' he hums, thoughtful and disappointed. 'You don't have anything iron on you-- or salt? I--' he's about to explain about Ruby's knife, the magic knife that can kill just about anything supernatural excepting angels, but he shakes his head. What's the point? 'I wasn't exactly prepared, when I got dumped here.'

He's not actually sure how he ended up here, but his train of thought seems to skid off that question as being unimportant, so it doesn't occur to him to wonder. No knife, but his gun is pressing warmly against the small of his back as he walks, and he draws another deep breath through his nose.

'I've got rock-salt rounds; that'll hurt it, but they won't kill it.'

Daine shakes her head. "I have a little silver, but that's all." 'Little' being the key word. The Badger's claw around her neck is formidably sharp, but using it as a weapon would both require taking it off - something she'd rather avoid - and getting awfully close to whatever she's fighting. Given how little she knows about hellhounds, she can't say she's keen on the idea of close combat with one.

Besides, she's not so sure it'll matter what her arrows are made of if she's putting them into a creature's eye. "My arrows have always done well enough for the immortals back home," she says with a little shrug. "Do they really have to be iron?"

Have a young woman that's like half Sam's size bemusedly examining the surroundings and looking decidedly out of place in her blue summer dress. The TARDIS likes to keep an eye on the telepathic current, especially now that she knows Zagreus might be messing with it, so when she sensed a consciousness radiating stress and exhaustion, she decided to take a closer look. And if this is just a regular nightmare, there's no harm in helping with that, either.

As he runs, Sam shoves through the pockets of his jeans, his Carhartt, his overshirt, searching for anything that might be of the remotest use against a hellhound. He's got gum, a lighter, a penknife, his iPod, his wallet, a hex bag made for some purpose he can't remember... And then the noise of his own heart in his ears, his heavy breathing, is suddenly interrupted by a deafening bark. Sam startles back into alertness, head snapping up to see-- oh. Huh. A dog. A regular, visible, non-demonic dog. And-- he blinks as the memory resurfaces-- it's not Riot at all, it's Bones.

'Hey, boy,' he murmurs, a hesitant smile twitching around the corner of his mouth, and he drops to his knees in the mulch, greeting the golden retriever and its lolling tongue with two hands curling behind his ears to scratch in the good place. Sam looks around warily; the paranoid, oppressive feel of the place hasn't lifted. 'What're you doing here?'

It's as he looks that he notices the woman. She's small and slight, looking more like she ought to be strolling through a park on a summer's day than wandering around a-forest-he's-pretty-sure-is-Purgatory, but small and slight and wearing a dress is no indicator that she's harmless. In a movement as smooth as he can make it, Sam hitches Bones closer, gathering the dog in towards his body. The impulse to shield him is probably a stupid one; the dog can run faster than he can, after all, but that doesn't stop him feeling it. He doesn't say anything, just crouches where he is with his old dog and watches.

Well, this is certainly an unpleasant scenery. The fairly nondescript forest has an oddly foreign, threatening quality to it, and there's trepidation and urgency, like the dreamer isn't sure if he's the hunter or the hunted. She feels around for a moment to make sure there's nobody else in this mind and then spots the dreamer not far away.

It's probably polite to introduce herself before she goes and changes anything, so she starts towards him, seemingly unimpeded by the bramble and dead wood sticking out everywhere. Once she's close enough, she gives him a small, pleasant smile. "Hello... Sam, is it?" Just because she keeps being told not to poke around in people's minds without permission doesn't mean she's ever actually going to stop doing it.

The way the woman moves, Sam is (ridiculously) reminded of Disney's Pocahontas. Not because she looks particularly like an unrealistic stereotype of a Native American, but the way she manages to move towards him without snagging or stumbling or so much as snapping a single dead branch. All the brambles and thickets Sam had crashed through so clumsily seem somehow to skip her.

His attention is neatly hijacked from any peculiarities in her movement when she speaks, and he stands, holding Bones close to him on the leash that is suddenly in his hand. As exhausted and gaunt as he must look, he still pulls his shoulders back and clenches his jaw; Sam's a good foot and a half taller than this woman, he will damn well loom if he can do nothing else.

'How do you know my name?'

Looming? What's that? The TARDIS is of course completely unperturbed by Sam's stature, and doesn't bother acknowledging the dog either. "It's quite obvious, in your mind," she explains patiently, folding her hands behind her back as she looks up at him.

"I am called the TARDIS. I noticed you were having a rather exhausting nightmare and thought I might offer my help." Also she was getting a bit bored just observing the sleeping minds. Sometimes it's nice to interact with whatever they come up with, especially since the telepathic current makes it fairly easy for her to connect with them despite how small they are. But she's mostly here to help, and as proof of her good intentions there is now soothing birdsong in the air and the occasional rustling sound of perfectly ordinary woodland creatures between the trees.

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