uploadedmain | Those aren't magic fingers.

WHO: Ariadne & Dean, Open
WHAT: Old pals, catchin' up on fun times at the mall!
WHERE: Bridgeville Mall, starting off at some massage chairs
WHEN: Week Four
NOTES: Anyone at the mall is welcome to join them. Should be pretty tame, but there may be body horror if they violate the terms of their role.

Dean had stopped somewhere around the end of week two asking why the events in the mall were what they were. He'd now seen Spider-Man 3 six and a half times, so he just assumed this was just some level of Hell he hadn't been privy to before. He wasn't enjoying himself, per se, but as far as Hell dimensions went, the mall wasn't that bad. It was inconvenient, sure, what with the little head pictures and random rain (and the monsters outside), but for a change, he wasn't surrounded by death and no one was depending upon him. He missed his brother, but he was also grateful Sam wasn't trapped there with him. As much of him that wished Sam would rescue him also hoped his brother would just move on. Dean could survive here - the food court alone was enough reason to stay.

And there were other reasons. He'd met a few decent people over the course of the month, though he couldn't tell if they just came and went because it was surprising how few "real" people he'd actually met. He'd considered the mall could be some kind of stopover on the way to real Hell (or maybe even Heaven), but if that was the case, Dean couldn't tell why he hadn't been sent on his way. Though to be fair, maybe whatever made that choice didn't know what to do with him. Dean certainly wasn't conventionally "typical".

So it was a bittersweet surprise when he ran into Airy again a full three weeks after they arrived. He was eyeing up a vending machine near one of the banks of massage chairs, weighing the satisfaction he'd gain from either a bag of hot Cheetos or Reese's Pieces when he saw her rounding a corner. He abandoned his critical decision to wave her down.

"Hey! Airy!" So maybe he sounded a little more exuberant than was strictly necessary, but Dean was growing bored (and a little lonely), so a friendly face brought him more joy than he wanted to admit to himself.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, that was the question, wasn't it? What the hell was happening? And there was another competent: why them?

Dean felt like a terrible failure for not knowing. He flopped down into one of the Magic Fingers chairs, resting his chin on his fist and doing everything short of out and out pouting.

"If Sam were here, he'd figure this out." He smiled wanly at Airy. "You remember my brother, right? Big, doofy, moose-like?" He waffled for a moment, the sibling rivalry within him stopping him from elaborating on more of the factual adjectives he could attribute to his brother, like "brainy" and "helpful in these kinds of situations."

Honestly, it took everything in Ariadne's power not to ask what 'moose-like' meant. Did he have antlers? Probably not. More likely, it was just a figure of speech. Ariadne was terrible with figures of speech. But best not to ask. She would know what her dear friend's brother was like.

She squatted down on the floor, in front of one of the other chairs. Her ill-gotten booty clanked in the bag. "It's like a new kind of torture, I think," she said. "The worst part of being in a dungeon is always the waiting. Listening to the sounds of other prisoners on the rack. But here? Here, we don't even know if they have a rack or something worse. Our imaginations can conjure up anything and we just...don't know."

Psychological warfare. It was a curious concept.

But who was waging war against them? The Red Dragon was the greatest monster in Ariadne's life, but as far as she could tell, no one knew who he was. This was something--or someone--new.

Her intimate knowledge of torture sent a chill down Dean's spine, and he looked at her, seeing her suddenly anew . It was if she'd come into focus. For such a close friend, he barely knew her. (But really, that wasn't too different from his actual long-term relationships.)

Perhaps it was more than coincidence that had brought them together in this place. Maybe they really were being tested. He felt the urge to turn and give the finger at the ceiling but he resisted. Instead, he dove deeper into their conversation about their unknowable circumstances. "Do you think we're driving this? Like whatever this is responds to our fears?"

He hadn't seen plain evidence, but as part of Dean's Generic Theory About What The Fuck Was Happening, it made sense. There was something lulling and innocuous about the mall while at the same time, it was clearly sinister (hello, Tobey Maguire's emo bangs). And the vague, unformed monsters stalking them didn't attempt egress as far Dean knew, so they were an empty threat to anyone who had half a brain. In his opinion, Airy hit the nail on the head - whatever was going on had to be motivated at least in part by their imaginations.

She thought she sensed a change in his pulse, but she couldn't be sure. Indeed, her own imagination was definitely playing tricks on her. Not to mention the fact that the abilities she relied upon so heavily back home were failing. She was beginning to distrust herself, which was, indeed, a horrifying thing.

"I suppose it's possible," she said. "But wouldn't that also mean that the opposite was true? If we weren't afraid, things would stop being scary?" She paused. "Of course, I don't know how you go about convincing yourself not to be afraid."

Whistle a happy tune?

That felt too facile. No matter how much she enjoyed music.

Dean wasn't sure if he agreed. Fear was a powerful thing, and even if he could he convince himself not to be afraid of one thing or another, some new fear always rushed in to take its place. He'd even died a few times, so he was no longer afraid of that in and of itself, but he never stopped fearing the absence his death left in the world. And even if people stopped being afraid of the obvious scary things, like fog monsters, more mundane fears would eventually take over and they could be stalked by giant past due notices and tooth decay or whatever normal people were scared of.

But Airy had made a good point. If the mall was feeding off things they were afraid of, it'd have to do a hell of a lot better than monsters and weird patrons as far as Dean was concerned. He was annoyed, yes, and definitely bored, but not scared. He was troubled that he had no way of reaching his brother, and concerned about what was happening without him back in what he thought of as the real world, but not actually fearful.

Ah, well, back to the drawing board.

"No, you're right. It's too simple to be the case." Sullen, he plonked a few quarters into the chair and leaned back into it as it began to pulse in a soothing manner. His next words carried a hint of vibrato. "At least we're not alone with these automatons." He managed a weak smile at her, more grateful than he was letting on that they'd met. They could make a good team if there was actually something to team up against.

Those aren't magic fingers.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject