goneawayworld | Invasion!

Entry tags:

Invasion!

Who: The New Hires
What: Sudden Memory Share
Where: Their Memory Palaces
When: After Intermission
Warnings/Notes: Possible in every memory, warn in subject lines.

Contact.

It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking across the Top Deck. Taking a slow breath between reps in the training room.

The New Hires are connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can help the violation.

To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?

And if they were there, who was in theirs?

[[So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self.

They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can control any other memories they'd like to show people. Of course, there's always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up memories unbidden.]]

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Now free of his own memory, Ronan's appearance shifted back to his nineteen year old self. His sharp expression now fit his face and the same went for his posture with his build and tattoo.

His gaze was intense as he stared at Sam in the wake of that brief flash of memory. The fireworks were nice but not distracting. Ronan's own memories of them had been tainted.

"What was that?"

Sam lets out a breath. "That's what I figured out to do. What I was unprepared for and had to scramble to figure out."

He flicks through his memories and finds a calm one. A library in the midwest, looking for info on a case. Nothing important, but it's quiet and steady and he needs that for a moment.

"The demon that my premonitions were linked to...it caused that by giving me a taste of his blood when I was a baby." God, it sounds crazy when he puts it like that. "It did that to other kids, too, wanting a general for Hell's armies. Only, of course, there was more to it."

At the mention of the word 'demon,' Ronan froze. He had to split his focus into paying attention to what Sam said while keeping himself here in the moment. It mostly worked. There was a flicker of pure black, the complete absence of color, and as he grounded himself back in the library he realized that Sam had finished talking.

Hell's armies, he finally registered. Different demon.

"You mean, a good old fashioned biblical kind of demon," he said more to reiterate the point to himself. Then that sank in. "Damn. Did it possess you?"

"Not that one, no." Which didn't mean he hadn't been possessed. Because he absolutely had. Just not by Yellow-Eyes. "Even a lot of hunters don't know that demons are real back home. They're good at hiding as humans. Which makes sense. They used to be human."

"Not--" Ronan stopped. Any further words lodged in his throat. After seeing his mother, it was too much. He clenched his hands into fists and took a deep breath. "Not the one back home," he said eventually. "Did you kill it?"

"It's dead. My brother did it, not me, but it's the same thing."

He'd had a chance. He hadn't taken it. But he figures the kid would understand if they ever got into that.

Of course, the place around them rocked for a moment as he dwelled a moment too long on both of those memories. So Sam refocused himself on the current memory, shoring the library up. "Things like that are likely to be different from world to world. The rules change, near as I can tell."

The library kept periodically darkening then going back to normal as Ronan regained control. It happened over and over while he pretended not to notice.

"Yeah, I got the shitty one." All demons were awful, of course. Ronan was just-- well, justifiably biased. And he needed to think of something else before Sam saw why. "Where's this?"

The problem might be because it wasn't a very strong memory for Sam. More of an amalgamation of memories for him of years spent in the library. It made it easy to keep the memory going without much thought, but also didn't make it very hard for Ronan to try taking control.

The specific library, though... "The library at Stanford University. I was going for pre-law. Never got to graduate, but I spent a lot of time in here."

Ronan looked at the library with renewed interest. He'd never got a chance to see Harvard's library. It probably didn't look anything like this anyway.

"Let me guess. Demons and magic and whatever ruined it." The interest faded and his slight hunch returned to his shoulders.

"Yes and no." Sam found a table and leaned back against it. Nearby, a young man who looked very like Sam but half a dozen years or so younger, hunched over a book, highlighter between his teeth as he scribbled down notes in a notebook. "I've never known a time when that stuff wasn't part of my life. Not properly, at least. Dad kept me from knowing about it until I was about eight, but I knew we weren't a normal family from the off. We moved around too much, Dad was gone too often, that sort of thing."

He shrugged. "The demons and stuff didn't help, of course. They were the reason I left in the end. I just...have kinda come to the conclusion that it would have been inevitable. That I wouldn't have been able to have that 'apple pie' life, as my brother likes to call it. Just wouldn't have been a good fit."

Ronan looked at the younger Sam, then around at the library. By the furrow in his brow and intent look in his eyes, he was clearly working through something in his head. His thoughts were on the boyfriend he'd left behind.

"My boyfriend's at Harvard," he said before he caught himself. "I dropped out of high school. College isn't for people like me." Finally, he look at Sam again. "Or people like us, I guess." He tugged on his leather wristbands. "Shit, I just wanted to be a farmer."

He snapped the bands. "Does your whole family have demon blood in them? Is that why you've got-- I don't even know what your family business is."

...Maybe he didn't want to know. The fairy market certainly drove home the fact that there were things in the world he just didn't want to see.

Sam smiled, but it's one of a sort of sad understanding. Empathic. "Yeah, probably not. Everything else keeps coming up and wanting our attention. Not good for trying to keep going with a pre-law degree."

Technically, anything could be a pre-law degree. But that wasn't the point.

Sam shook his head at the question. "Just me. It's...there were extenuating circumstances. Bad decisions made out of emotion before my brother or I were even born. Some of them made centuries or millennia ago, even."

"Who wants to be a lawyer anyway. The ties'll just choke you." Ronan started to mime a hand around his throat-- at least before he turned pale and looked away. He lowered his hand to his side.

"Sounds a hell of a family business and I don't even know what you really do." He noted that the definite lack of an answer to it. Maybe he shouldn't press but the main reason he didn't do that with others was the fear of reciprocity. Seeing as Sam already knew Ronan's big secret, that wasn't as much of a worry.

"I wanted to help people in a...more tangible way, I guess. A way that didn't end up with quite so many illegalities involved." And God knew how many illegalities were involved in Hunting.

Sam huffed a half laugh, reaching up to brush his hair back. "We Hunt." The capital H was practically a thing you could hear. "The things that everybody has forgotten about, the monsters of myth and legend that thrive in the dark where they can kill with impunity? That's what we Hunt."

"A way that let you keep your soul?" Ronan couldn't help himself there. He'd heard enough lawyer jokes and gone to school with enough sons of lawyers who either wanted to grow up to be just like their probably corrupt father or wanted to rebel against it.

"So what, demons, werewolves, vampires?" Ronan asked. His thoughts went to Stacia.

THAT rocked the memory.

The library disappeared, becoming a country road at night. Sam's there, younger and standing beside a black muscle car. Another man was at his side, leather jacket and close-cropped blond hair, features similar enough to be his brother.

"You know," the memory Sam said. "When Jake saw me, it was like he saw a ghost." The other guy scoffed, but stopped to listen. "I mean, hell. You hear him, Dean. He said he killed me."

"Glad he was wrong." The other guy -- Dean -- looked cagey. Wary.

"I don't think he was, Dean." Sam frowned and looked to the other man. "What happened? After I was stabbed?"

Which probably explained the wariness. "I already told you."

"Not everything."

Dean looked exasperated, but his resolve was obviously crumbling. Sam knew how to play his brother. "Sam, we just killed the demon. Can we celebrate for a minute?"

Sam gave him a serious look. "Did I die?"

"Oh, come on."

Still serious, but straightening a bit to try to tower over Dean. "Did you sell your soul for me, like Dad did for you?"

Dean was trying to stay stoic, but the crumbling was becoming more obvious. "Oh, come on, no!"

"Tell me the truth." Sam turned the puppy dog eyes on his brother. "Dean, tell me the truth."

And that was it. Dean sniffed, then chuckled, shaking his head. "Sam..."

"How long do you get?" Voice breaking, uncertain.

"One year. I got one year."

Sam managed to get the memory wretched away, or at least to freeze. The car, the road. Neither him nor Dean in sight, because he needed that for the moment. "Uh...uh, yeah. If they're killing humans, that's what we go after." A moment just to breathe. "I know about Stacia, we've talked. She's fine. Nothing to worry about there."

This just kept getting more awkward. Some memories just shouldn't be dived into. Ronan looked away from the brothers. If Sam saw any of his memories with Declan or some with Matthew--

He tried to shut down those thoughts.

"Yeah, good." As much as he tried to forget what he'd seen, he had to ask. "What happened to your brother?"

"He's..." Sam paused, considering the answer to that. "There was a lot that went on, but he's okay. Not great, not perfect. But he's alive and he's himself and that's kinda the best you can expect after everything we've been through."

Ronan nodded and he should have left it at that. Should have shut up about it, but as someone who considered the state of people's souls more than he probably should, he couldn't help himself.

"And does he-- y'know. Does he have his soul?"

"He does." Sam grabbed a piece of paper, balling it up so that he had something to do with his hands. "It's hard to explain, but we were literally caught between Heaven and Hell for a while." Not quite as much as they'd thought they were, but no need to explain that. "He came back and that's how we found out angels are real in our world, too."

Their surroundings shifted again. This time they stood in a church best described as small and green.

Ronan, the one from the memory, was only distinguishable from the real version by the fact that he was more clean shaven. Right before him stood a slightly older young man, well dressed in a bland suit, with dark brown, curly hair that he’d tamed. They shared the same sharp face and blue eyes and were clearly sons of Niall Lynch.

“I needed you. It was an emergency.”

“A zoo emergency,” Ronan mocked.

“Did you even read the texts I sent you? Did you listen to the voicemail?

“It wasn’t like it was a big surprise where he was going to end up. He always goes to the falls, to the exact same place at the falls. Overlook One, rinse, repeat. My phone was in the car, man, stand the fuck down.”

“I had work. I had appointments. This created a situation that put me into a difficult place.” Despite his restrained words, Declan himself was clearly failing to keep himself in check.

Ronan didn’t seem to care. His face twisted into a mocking sneer. “Created a situation.” He mimicked.

Declan grabbed Ronan by his arms and shoved him into a doorway. He leaned in close and lowered his voice though it was no less venomous. It could also still be clearly heard. Some quirk of this memory, the present-Ronan guessed.

“You see that kid there? Head down?"

The kid he was referring to was evidently the young man, perhaps not even eighteen, sitting in the front pew of the church. His blond curls were untamed. He looked cherubic, like an angel descended to bless this unremarkable church, or he would if he didn’t look so morose.

“You know him, right, your baby brother?” Declan continued. “I don’t know where the hell you really were, but while you were there, that kid was putting the pieces together. While you were out doing fuck all with yourself, he figured out you dreamt him. So no, we are not. Still. Hitting. The. Zoo.” And with that he let Ronan go. “I’m going to the car to put out some fires. You can go look him in the eye now and be a fucking smart ass if you want.”

The past-Ronan’s demeanor changed. Before he’d been snide and enjoyed goading his brother. Now his expression shifted to shock. As Declan left, he looked at his brother. His face was open, showing just how lost and vulnerable he was before the walls came up again.

Present-Ronan had watched his brother leave. He couldn’t quite look at Matthew yet. He struggled to keep the shame from showing but he felt the familiar burn in his cheeks and so he kept his face turned away from Sam.

Well. That...

"That was unexpected." Sam watches the memory with a raised eyebrow. "I got my younger brother in the usual way. My dad shacking up with a woman while Dean and I were off working together. I think he told them he was a travelling salesman or something like that. Something to explain why he was always leaving."

He's trying not to be bitter, but Sam's able to keep things from changing around them. Mostly because he doesn't want to think about Adam if possible. "I didn't know that dreaming your own brother up was even a possibility."

Ronan didn't speak for a second. This was a worst case scenario. There were more traumatic memories to go through, but his dreams had been his dark and terrible secret. And if someone found out about his brother-- well, he'd already seen what could happen. And if that wasn't bad enough? He had to relive the moment when not only his secrets but his brother's and father's and mother's all blew up in his face.

"I didn't either," he said bitterly. "Not until a year ago. I don't even remember dreaming him. Dad never told me. He was always leaving too just-- no other younger brother."

...God, he hoped there wasn't another younger brother.

The other Ronan walked down the aisle to sit beside his brother.

"Why does God give some three year old the power to dream somebody into reality?" Ronan finally voiced one question that had bothered him since he found out. The other went unspoken. The thought was too terrifying and too possible. What if it wasn't God who gave him that power?

And his other self sat beside Matthew. "Hey kid." When Ronan got no response he tousled his brother's hair. "Do you want to talk or not?"

Silence.

As somebody who had gotten his powers from the Other Side, as it were? Ronan didn't have to say that part out loud. Sam could hear it.

"I don't know. They say that the Lord works in mysterious ways. Me? I figure it's more than just mysterious. It's fucking dumb, most of the time."

Sometimes, he didn't hate God in his world. But most of the time? Yeah.

Ronan looked at Sam, a mix of emotions came across his face. He was a little taken aback at the blasphemy-- at least in church, but that was from the child who went to church every Sunday. The older Ronan, the one who went anyway but nurtured and brooded over his doubts, was glad that someone had said it.

"If the priest were here, he'd say it's not our place to judge," Ronan sounded more skeptical.

The other Ronan spoke to his brother, not so skeptical and even more lost. "What do you need me to say, little man?"

"I don’t want... to hear you say anything-- because now I know--" He sounded like a more restrained Declan and a furious Ronan, carefully doling out words when he was burning up inside. "You’re as big a liar as Declan."

"Oh." Ronan sank back into his seat.

The current Ronan just wanted to be swallowed up whole. "Christ," he said softly. "He's got the most soul in my family and we don't even know if he has one."

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