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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He really doesn't need to be thinking about Dean and Hell in the same instance, so Sam does his best to clamp down on any and all memories. Can't keep the effort of that off of his face, but he's pretty sure that Stacia would understand.

"I'm not sure that logic was ever part of the way our lives went," he admits after a moment, grimace fading a bit when things don't start wobbling around them. "Pretty sure that went out the window with the demons."

"Demons are the worst," Stacia agrees. "Fun fact, when my kind of werewolf encounters them, we get extra murder-y."

She glances around at the blank landscape. "Does this feel...unstable to you? Because I'm feeling like if we don't pick a memory to hang out in, we might end up in one we don't want."

He looks around and makes an indistinct sound before they find themselves both in the back of an 1967 Chevy Impala, driving down an unnamable back road on a summer evening. For once, the music is turned down, the two men in the front seat lost in their own thoughts.

The passenger is obviously Sam, though a much younger Sam, skinny with floppy hair, wearing a hoodie and slouched down in a way that couldn't be very comfortable, but looking out the windshield with a contented expression. The driver's hair is more closely shorn, a dark blond to Sam's brown, wearing a leather jacket and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel along with the beat.

The backseat could be scrunched, but it's memory so Sam is still comfortable here. "Anyway, yeah. Demons are definitely the worst. We've had to deal with them a lot over the years."

Stacia glances between the Sam riding shotgun and the Sam in the back seat with her and grins.

"It's amazing what a hairstyle will do, huh?" she says, not really expecting an answer. She settles in herself, half-turning in her seat.

"I was lucky enough to only have to deal with them a couple times before they all got sucked back out of our reality to where they belong," she said. "One of them tried to murder me, but then, so did an angel. Well, Nephilim, technically. Ramiel." She shakes her head. "Murder-y bastards. And that's me saying it."

"My brother makes fun of me all the time for my hair care regime." Which he's somehow managing to keep up even on the Rig. Don't think about it too much.

He sighs, leaning back. "Yeah, no. I absolutely agree with you about the angels being murder-y bastards. Though we should probably not go down that road too far. This is an easy enough memory for me to keep going, but it could get rocked."

Stacia draws her fingers over her lips like she's closing a zipper. No more talk of angels and demons.

"That's what brothers do," she says, on the topic of (almost certainly Dean) teasing Sam about his hair. "Or so I understand it. Nicky was off at college by the time I started really doing my own hair. He's eight years older than me, and Mila's ten, so I never got the full 'older siblings' experience."

She wouldn't like what she saw if it got rocked too hard.

"Dean's only four years older, but it felt like more when we were growing up." Sam looks forward a bit, out the windshield. "Dad wasn't around much when we were growing up. I think he wanted to try, but...he was never cut out to being a single parent. He put way too much onto Dean. Really, Dean was more of a parent to me than Dad ever was."

"That stinks," Stacia says. "For Dean and for you. I'm sure he did his best, but that definitely wasn't fair for your father to ask of him." She taps her heel against the seat. "I'd imagine your other parent is in the "let's not talk about this" category when we're staggering wildly through each other's memories, huh?"

"It's...actually not." Sam settles back with a shake of his head. "Not directly, at least. I was only six months old when it happened, so I don't have any actual memories of her death."

Though he had memories that could be used to figure out how it looked. Which means it came CLOSE to rocking, a waft of heated air and a lick of flame in the vision before he clamps down on it. "Though...yeah, I know how she died."

Stacia tenses, looking around for the source of the fire, then hunkers back down in her seat. Dream fire can't hurt her. Can it?

"Judging by what just happened, I'm not going to press it," she says. "Which isn't something I say very often so, you know, congrats for getting that from me."

Sam takes a deep breath through his nose and lets it out through his mouth, taking a few moments to gather himself. "Yeah. Not recommended. I should say that I don't have memories of how my mother died. But I have memories of somebody else who died a very similar way."

He leans his head back, letting the music of the memory wash over him. "Anyway. This is probably what most of my memories are like. The good, quiet ones. We've put so many miles on this car over the years, just like this."

"Yep, definitely not going to press."

No death involving fire is going to be a pleasant one.

"Not bad memories to have," she agrees. "It's a nice car." She twists around in her seat so that she can peer out of the back window.
"Good amount of trunk space, it looks like. Though I can't imagine you and your brother sleep in here that often, considering how huge you both are."

"It was Dad's." There could be bitterness, but there isn't. He doesn't associate the Impala with John any more. "He gave it to Dean on his eighteenth birthday." He glances over the back of his shoulder. "And yeah, there's plenty of room in the trunk. A lot of it is full of weapons, though."

He looks at the backseat and laughs, shaking his head. "If I have to sleep in the car, I sleep in the front seat. It's more comfortable than curling up back here."

"Your brother is almost as tall as you are, there's no way he's sleeping in the back seat either," Stacia counters. "Do you at least have a pop-up tent back there too? Camping supplies? My boyfriend uses a sleeping bag and a tarp to hide the definitely-not-a-serial-murderer kit he keeps in his trunk."

A pause, then, "Sleeping is not generally what Dean does in the back seat, no."

It's easy to stay on the nicer memory, at least. "There's a false bottom. I've seen some hunters put their weapons in the doors of their cars, so you do what you can." He offers her a half smile. "He still manages to keep a spare tire and tools in there, too."

A pause as what Sam said works its way through the filters of her brain and then Stacia recoils, kicking Sam in the leg in the process of flailing.

"Eww!" She shoots him a dirty look. "You could have warned me we were sitting on a fuck-seat!"

She'll come back to the topic of weapons storage in cars, once she's finished throwing her mini-tantrum.

He can't help it. The way she recoils just makes him laugh. The kind of long, hearty laugh that sounds almost a little rusty because he hasn't had a chance to do that in a long time.

Their lives are a shit fest, really. But that reaction? That was hilarious.

He snorts and shakes his head. "Sorry. I never think about it that way. Of course, I never have to sit in the back seat, either. And it's been recovered since those days."

His laughter softens her glare to a pout, but there's amusement in her eyes too. He's not laughing at her, and she's always played up her dramatic reactions in situations that aren't life-threatening. Sometimes she thinks it might be a defense mechanism to help her bleed off Rage, other times she thinks she just revels in being a little bit of a brat all the time.

"Well," she says mock-huffily, "I'm glad to hear that. Tell him to put down a blanket in the future, because ewwwwwww."

Sam would say that there's nothing wrong with either reason. After all, they were younger siblings. Sometimes, being a bit of a brat was in the DNA.

He grins over at her. "I'll let him know."

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Invasion!

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