Encounterlogs
Deans Odd Encounter Sr Rachel 240909
Dean and Isaiah find themselves in a deeply unsettling situation when a malevolent spirit begins to haunt them through mirrors with the ability to possess Dean. The two try to stay cool in their dilapidated trailer, a world away from the ordinary, surrounded by eerie decor and a ceiling painted with disturbing imagery. Their mundane evening takes a terrifying turn as the temperature inexplicably drops and strange whispers fill the air, signaling the arrival of the unseen entity. Isaiah attempts to protect Dean, urging him to avoid his reflection, but the spirit's grip is strong, manifesting physically and taking control over Dean's body, turning him into a puppet for its malevolent whims.
The tension escalates as Isaiah scrambles to fend off the creature using his ritualistic knowledge, engaging in a desperate fight against time and the entity's cunning. The room becomes a battleground of wills, with Dean caught in the middle, struggling to resist the spirit's influence. Isaiah's quick thinking and magical prowess manage to hold the monster at bay momentarily, but the situation deteriorates as Dean, under the spirit's control, becomes a significant threat. Isaiah's relentless efforts to save his friend and himself from the suffocating darkness culminate in a frantic climax, with Dean fighting the possession from the inside and Isaiah completing a banishing ritual that finally dispels the entity, restoring a fragile sense of normalcy to their trailer, though the damage and psychological scars of their encounter remain a haunting reminder of their ordeal.
(Dean's odd encounter(SRRachel):SRRachel)
[Sun Sep 8 2024]
In a large, decorated living area within a trailer
Cheap, dingy, and the walls are thin enough in this deadbeat trailer
home that they may very well be paper and succumbing to the elements
outside easily. Sun or storm, they're either searing to the touch or
frigid and freezing. The absolutely horrendous state of the trailer,
is at least alleviated by a complete ceiling decor and a ceiling fan
A completely black backdrop is dominated by swirling and handpainted
strokes of purpled reds and of similar shades that cover the expanse
of the ceiling. Dirty by nature, marks tainted by smoke, and similar
disappear amongst the mass of ink that depicts obscure shapes, vague
faces in the darkness, and decrepit figures gathering to midpoint in
an amalgamation of brighter colors, where disarray ends in salvation
The walls are similarly painted a mood souring mauve-black tint with
a golden trim along the floor and ceiling. It lightens the heaviness
of the dark decor, distracts from the age and make of the walls, and
the floors bearing the brunt of various scrapes and scuffs, from the
ghosts of furnitures past and present. A scent of art-grade paint is
a constant reminder across the room, elavating off of the floor from
dark splotches that have spilled haphazardly, some even stepped over
It is morning, about 61F(16C) degrees, and there are a few grey clouds in the sky.
(Your target is singled out by some sort of spirit that can only attack them through mirrors, it is up to them to survive long enough by avoiding mirrors/their reflection until their allies can help them find a way to defeat the monster.
)
Isaiah sits on the middle seat of a sofa that has seen better days, his knees pulled up against his chest and held by his long, scarred arms. His ankles are crossed, and his glacial blue eyes are focused on an incredibly spoofy porno that's playing on the television in front of him. Two women are sprawled over a couch similar in design to the one he sits on, and in the back ground: a dark-skinned man in a plain white t-shirt, wearing a lampshade over his head. Isaiah doesn't seem particularly invested in the show, at least not enough to do what most people would be doing while watching such a thing. He seems to be treating it like anything else one might find on the television- invested in the poorly-written story, and even chuckling on occasion at the bad acting.
The show starts out amusing - who watches that kind of thing for the plot? - but slowly starts to lose its intrigue. The two of them might find that the shots aren't (forgive this turn of phrase) titillating enough; the dialogue, too, has begun to read hammier than acceptable. The TV hums, the same way that heat waves do. Even with Dean and Isaiah's having chosen the program, there's something about the stale air, the atmosphere, the here and the now that bores. It compels them to turn it off.
It's hot in here. Why is it so hot in here? The temperature reads 63. That's nothing; the summer's cooled off, given way to a crisp autumn. Yet, inside this apartment, it ratchets up. It's not particularly noticeable, at first. It's just a prickle at the back of their necks. Soon, though, moisture sits on foreheads, on arms and legs, worn like a second skin. Maybe there's something wrong with the AC. Isaiah's closest to the monitor; he should look.
Dean could help, too, of course, but... the restroom's right there, and God would a splash of cold water feel good right now. That could do the trick. Ice water could do the trick. Anything involving not being /here/, plastered to some sticky couch in their clothing would be preferable.
At least this is the worst of their problems. In Haven, that's a godsend.
Dressed, to be sure, but Dean steps out of the bathroom on the eastern portion of the trailer. The relatively small blueprint of the trailer leaves very little for privacy, and so, Dean, inevitably after that wake-up ritual, comes to see Isaiah on the couch watching TV in pokemon onesie no less. The towel Dean has over his shoulder stops under his hand drying his hair, and yet, Dean merely affords a low, amused sigh towards his trailer-flat-mate. Particularly about what he's watching. It does capture Dean's attention just as well while he continues to drop himself on the armchair not far from the sofa. Leave his towel draped on his shoulders. "Is that a dude with a lampshade on his head?" It must be a common thing here to watch such spoofy tapes in this place, because Dean shares the complete lack of investment in the more lecherous part of the show - more attentive to the poor acting.
Except, Dean can't even really calm down. Not because of the show, obviously. It's not getting turned off - but it is on perpetual mute. The only channel that they have in the trailer. Dean uses his towel to wipe some perspiration over his forehead, clear out gathering sweat. Heat hits him worse, for whatever reason, likely because he's already damp from a recent shower and the humidity sticks to his skin badly. Barely a few seconds after he's settled in his lazyboy, Dean leaves his seat again with another extended sigh, "Fucking hell.." It's possible he already feels parched, but the lack of any refreshment nearby, and the kitchen southward that feels miles away, Dean opts to return to the bathroom. To do exactly what he should - wash his face, his bare arms from wrist to bicep, and throw water at his throat.
Isaiah seems to grow more comfortable in the heat as it rises, rather than withering or sweating. He doesn't sweat at all, in fact- his body seems to feel the same as it would if 63F were a cold winter's day and the sudden spike in heat were a warm blanket and a mug of hot cocoa. He smiles, and then he hunkers down, relaxing, his legs lowering from his chest as his arms release them- apparently that's the reason the man was in such a fetal position; the cold bothers him, and anything below 80F sees as though it is just too damn cold for his liking. He watches Dean wander back into the bathroom for a bird bath, letting his gaze drift from the 'show' since they're starting to zoom in on things that a guy like Isaiah is just really not interested in seeing. Women, and worst of all, they're naked. Blergh. "Yeah, it's called 'Black Guy Lamp'," the title is recited for Dean as though it were the latest episode of Supernatural. He watches his roommate wash his arms and face, confused, but seeming to not think too much of apart from the odd comment of, "You're sweaty as fuck, dude- what temperature did you have that fucking water on when you washed your ass? Jesus."
Dean's balled up towel flies out the bathroom with the keen intent to slam Isaiah in the face where he sits on the sofa. "Don't be fucking crass." He says, with all of is own crassness. Though, he's /really/ getting into it. Absolutely lost in that feverish heat rising. Water-dripping features are aligned up to the mirror in front of the sink, with both hands set on it on either side. Steps away from panting, the stern fetures of his are aligned at the mirror, watching droplets trail off of his face while he stares at his own reflection with a long, low sigh that fogs up the lower portion of it.
That's alright. The TV doesn't have to go off. They don't have to alter the temperature. The funny thing about Haven is that sometimes, things happen, entirely out of your control.
Outside of their direct notice, the monitor reads, just as expected, 63. The screen flickers. It's just a blip the first time, a faint line drawn through the 3. The second time, it lasts longer, the digits crackling out of view. The third time, it starts going down.
62.
61.
60.
That's too cold -- especially, perhaps, for poor Isaiah.
59.
58.
It won't stop. It's out of control now, ticking down, down, down...
...as if it were a stopwatch, alerting him to something that's about to happen.
Didn't they mute the TV?
Somewhere around the 30 mark, a tinny buzzing can be heard, like a mosquito, persistent in the ears. It grows louder. Not a mosquito, after all, but voices. They dovetail the end of the two men's conversation. It's not English that they're speaking. It's a jumble of sounds - maybe words, but not in any language that Dean and Isaiah know - that emit out of sync with speech.
A hand slams against the mirror Dean looks through, rattling the thing from the inside out.
The slammed hand againt the mirror doesn't give Dean the jumpscare of a fright that it would give to anyone else. It doesn't shift the distant make and mold of his expression, but it does add to it. A sterner look, a shift of his jaw while green eyes drift down at the hand, the rattled reflection, and yet, he doesn't shy away from it. Finds his own reflection through it to stare dead ahead into his own eyes. It's hard to fear when you're often the source of fear and trepidation itself, and yet, his nose twitches.
The cold that replaces the heat leaves his skin clammy, and fingers hold tighter on the edges of the sink while Dean tilts his head, without breaking sight of the mirror, to speak outside the bathroom. "Jr? What the fuck is going on?" He'll defer to the more magically apt of the two for answers and explanation. He does, however, also lift one of his hands eventually to touch the edge of the mirror, press two fingers against the reflection of himself to tilt the rattled, tilted frame back in place against the wall.
"I dunno what crass me-" Nope. Isaiah doesn't get to speak. He barely has time to close his mouth before Dean's wadded-up man-sweat towel wallops him in the face, causing his head to jerk backwards at the impact, though it isn't anything painful. Probably. Maybe. Then again, it is Dean that threw the fucking thing. For all we know, Isaiah could have a black eye, a broken nose, and a busted lip from that ball of fury. The redhead gives the 'oof' of a traditional Roblox death, before snatching the towel off of his face, balling it back up and cocking back as though prepared to turn this trailer into a field for rugby; him versus Dean. Instead, however, the temperature starts dropping again, and his faintly-fanged teeth start to clatter against one another, gooseflesh prickling over his arms.
"F-Fuck if I know," is his shivering, stuttering response to the larger of the two men. "Y-Y-You're fucking thermostat is busted. I didn't touch it," he insists, now using that towel as a makeshift scarf instead as he rises slowly to his feet, rubbing his hands against one another as he approaches the dial, then watches it go down.... Down... Down... "Shit," is his sole comment as he watches the degrees tick, tick, tick away. "So... Two options. Nightmare monster, or spirit-" He pauses. "Third option, rats are chewing the electrical lines."
The hand vanishes. There's no ripple as it goes, no fade to black. It simply was there one moment; and now it isn't. What remains is Dean's face: the moss-green eyes, the black air, the scuff marks and bruises. It's as if it never happened.
What a funny thing, that 'Dean is often the source of fear and trepidation.'
What beautiful irony.
His skin goes paler, almost jaundiced in its cast. His eyes sink in, the shadows beneath growing, growing, growing.
Rats can't do this, Isaiah.
As Isaiah crosses to the dial, there's a moment - just a brief moment - where the TV goes black. Something moves within it, but is no more.
Whatever is plaguing them - monster, spirit, ghost - it has a consciousness. It travels with them.
In frustration, Dean's head tilts again, now. An expelled sigh aside while frost builds up from within, fights and wins against that internal furnace of Dean. He's not perceptive enough currently to tell how much Isaiah shivers outside, but he hears the chatter - and his breath mists in the air. "Ain't rats." Simple, explanatory. How does he know? He knows because no animal is dumb enough to be so close to danger. Unmentioned, but a clearer explanation is how the temperature drops. How unnatural it is, fading fast. It forces Dean to grind his teeth, muster enough will to speak again through a frigid cold that settles into his fingers curled around the sink
"There was a hand on the-" He doesn't finish the sentence. He's distracted. Harsher fold to his features stay upon the reflection of himself against the mirror that's now plagued by flakes of frost spreading around the frame of it, capturing the fog and turning the moisture to heat. He swallows, stares into his eyes, how they appear sunk in and he can't tell while his thumb runs over them on the glass; whether it is just his reflection, or the change of how ghastly pallid his already pale pallor has become is a thing that is happening to him. "What the fuck.."
What follows from the bathroom is a sudden thud. That bone-wrenching, metal bending grip is gone. It slips away suddenly in a haze of disorientation, and Dean, with eyes that are drifting in clear sign of unconsciousness that's beckoning for whatever reason, whatever ailment, falls back with a horrid crash onto the paved tiles of the bathroom, still wet, and now even frozen after the shower he had took. His lips look pale, purple, frozen, just as the tips of his fingers are slowly being taken over by some form of frost. For all of his vigor, Dean is a creature of the physical realm - with little prowess in magical resistance. It's very clear, here, and now, where he's collapsed, and cracked the floors with his deceptively heavy weight in spite of his lean figure.
Something.
Clicks.
Silence sits heavy, like a shroud, after Dean collapses.
There isn't enough time for Isaiah to ask whether everything's alright.
It is.
It's very, very much alright.
Dean comes back into view, to the living room. There's something off-putting about the way that he stands. This isn't how he walks. He isn't so rigid. This isn't how he emotes, as he regards Isaiah. The smile stretches too wide; the movements are too jittery.
"I understand," Dean says to Isaiah.
Not Dean.
Something other. "I see it."
A moment. A brief flicker of a moment. Isaiah is walking past that television and movement, not himself, not Dean, swipes its way across the now-black screen. He immediately freezes in his tracks, slowly shifting his gaze towards Dean in the bathroom. "Dean, get away from the mirror," he says, the first time, then realizes that Dean is withering away like a husk before his very eyes. Fuck standing still, he starts walking forward, hands moving, reaching out. "Dean, get a way from the mirror!" he says again, louder, and by the time he makes it to the doorway, Dean has dropped like a sack of potatoes, and Isaiah is in a full sprint, dropping to his knees by the guy, skinning them, bleeding them, the pain isn't present in his mind. He doesn't need skin. He needs Dean to be okay. His motions are quick, and they seem to come subconsciously as he lifts the guy's cold and freezing torso off of the tiled bathroom floor, cradling him against his chest as he looks around frantically for a source of warmth- then realizes that he literally is one. He unzips the front of his hoodie and presses his chest to Dean's like he were doing skin-to-skin time with a toddler. Starting to breathe harder, faster, less shallow as warmth starts to billow out from him like a bellows and he continues to squeeze on tight, holding onto his friend, trying to share that heat to bring some life back into Dean until that odd... Something... Calls out to him. He shivers, shudders, trembles, then glances over his shoulder. It isn't a full-on look, like he's /afraid/ to full-on look. But he glances. Then he squeezes his eyes shut. "F-Fuck off!" he shouts at whatever 'it' is.
That 'it' is Dean. He's not within the clutches of Isaiah, standing there - too late, apparently, for him to have been captive by the other man - as opposed to, the other thing. The thing that walks in the reflection of his eyes, deep in his corneas, pulling strings, motioning him like a puppet save for the few seconds where 'it' doesn't breathe, and Dean, inside, can muster the sheer willpower to only manage something shallow, enough to keep himself from suffocating. Beyond it, he is not in control of his skin. It's something else, and it isn't the wolven side of him, either.
Maybe too late to have caught him, but...
Nothing, at first. Then, that monitor responds.
0.
1.
2.
At 10, it might feel as though Dean were a lost cause. The shadows beneath his eyes fill in, the purple becoming blue, and the blue becoming an off-white.
The vacant expression and that rictus grin fade.
...15. Not too late to /save/ him.
The question, though, is what they're going to do beyond this temporary solve. For now, this 'thing' is held at bay -- but how will they restrain it? What will they do if they can't? They could, perhaps, smash every mirror and window in the room, never to encounter it again. It'd be terribly inconvenient, but it could be done.
Or, perhaps, they can invest in something longer term. It's up to their creativity -- and perhaps the boundaries of Isaiah's powers.
Was it all some fever dream? Some hallucination? Isaiah stares down into his arms where he thought he'd been sharing his body heat with Dean, and instead finds himself cradling air vaguely in the guy's shape. He blinks. Confusion. Realization. Fear. He turns to look over his shoulder again, realizing that 'it' isn't quite 'it'. It is 'him', and 'him' is Dean. And 'he' is Isaiah, who is now in deep shit depending on how this goes. As though hopeful that the missing space where Dean once was was the hallucination, the redhead looks back at his lap. Nope. Empty. He struggles to his feet afterwards, staring at Dean, the puppet, where once he was Dean the man. "Fuck you," he spits out with venom, not towards his Alpha, not towards his friend, but whatever it is that's inside and pulling the strings. It's instinct for Isaiah to start casting a ritual, stepping slowly backwards, his spine facing the bathroom as his feet slowly shuffle, careful, calculated steps. He doesn't look at the mirror when he passes by it- instead, a flame-engulfed fist flies out to his left side, punching straight through without risking even a modicum of chance that he is caught by his own gaze. That flame drips down into the sink like water, oozing out of the slices on his skin; his blood is flammable. He is a Wolf, but some traces of him are still demonic and origin, and it lends his crimson vitae just enough explosive power to catch fire when it touches flame. Less like gasoline now that it is further diluted; more like kerosene, or lighter fluid; a steady flame, but not one that pops or sizzles.
He glances towards the bathroom door, weighing the option of closing it versus the time it would take to do so. It's a flimsy trailer door, and Dean is fucking Dean would it really matter if he closed it? There are ways around it, and the dark-haired man could crumble it like an Oreo in his grasp if he so chose, but it would cost Isaiah precious seconds to do so regardless. He doesn't close it. He just listens to this heartbeat thundering against his chest as he continues to mutter profane syllables under his breath, a summoning, but also a banishment as his flaming blood pooling in the sink basin begins to take shape and shift with a life of its own.
Dean - it - doesn't say 'fuck you' back. No, Isaiah has begun to break that mirror -- and as fire engulfs it, the surface distorts. The flame licks along the edges of the glass, causing light to flicker and reflections of the room to distort.
More than that, it causes... it's not Dean that's distorting, too, but some figure within him. It overlays his body, his face. Its form ties to Dean's, a shadowy body with puppet strings that pulls away, with the consistency of rubber melted to a street.
There's a brief moment where, in its utter agony, it tries to lunge for Isaiah. There's a wolf in Dean, too, and controlled by this thing - this awful, confused monster - it hungers for anything to balm its hurt.
Cracks spiderweb across the mirror.
By the end, nothing is left of it but jagged, collapsed shards, to be thrown away -- or kept, at their own risk.
It's quiet again. The TV sounds normal. The dialogue has restarted, and they're getting to the /good/ part.
Maybe it's over.
No, it's Haven. It's never over.
Normalcy. A modicum of it. A brief, tiny flicker. However much he had, anyway. It's off-putting, sickening, and it shows in the suddenly more humane expression of disgust shown on Dean's face. He topples forward after the fact of whatever entailed, the decrepit sense of separation, the peeling of his bodily control that stretches like that of a puppet being pulled taut. Isaiah is in a predicament, certainly - if that thing were to still, somehow, control Dean. He is, after all, the very facet of violence.
Both hands find the frame of the door, keep himself upright and standing instead of meeting the floor again. A shallow, yet more attune breathing ensues on Dean's part while he recovers the disorientation, and the flicker of fire from the sink reflects in the dim, mossy hue of his gaze. Casts gaunt shadows across his features. It isn't enough to dispel all of the frost, he is still freezing, frozen, and his expelled sigh that sounds more like a growl in ferocity comes misting through clenched teeth. "Fuck.." It is the voice of a man out of options, really, because even if he's fought many foes - he is powerless to a force like this.
Meanwhile, Isaiah has waves of heat flickering around him like a mirage in the desert as Dean approaches, an imposing figure, even bedraggled, that strikes fear into Isaiah's heart. He changes his mind. He's closing the fucking door. He grabs the handle, rearing it back and preparing to slam it right in Dean's face as he leans against the threshold, only to be paused mid-swing by the singular word that drips from his friend's lips, a moment of hesitation brought to Isaiah as he pulls his bleeding fist out of what remains of the mirror, saying softly, questioningly, "... Dean?" Though it is to be noted that Isaiah does not let go of that door handle, like he's emotionally and physically prepared to slam it on Dean's head until there's a handsome face-shaped dent in it; or until there's a fist-shaped dent in his own handsome face. Whatever comes first, really.
He stares long and hard at Dean in a suspicious fashion, once bitten and twice shy they call it, and that lapse in control that lets the 'real' Dean potentially peak through isn't enough to sway Isaiah from continuing his ritual, muttering under his breath a bit more, hissed whispers of Sirinian curses long lost, passed down through generations in his demonic bloodline. The battle is won, but what of the war? No. Isaiah isn't a guy that backs down, he doesn't tuck his tail. Someone hurt his friend, and quite simply he can't allow that to happen. That puppet master just isn't going to get away with it.
There's a single window in this room. The curtains are drawn over it. The funny thing about curtains, though, is that they /move/. What they shouldn't do - and what they're doing now - is move of their own volition. They're slinking open with a quiet, metallic 'scrtch.' If neither Dean nor Isaiah notice, there's about to be another surface from which the monster can emerge. And if the monster can emerge...
Well, it's not just Isaiah who likes pretty faces.
Strength returns to Dean's grasp. Fingers at the doorframe squeeze, start to bend the trailer's construction to Dean's own whims in slowly rising fury. Another snar, and Dean's head begins to rise. He stares as if taking note of his surroundings for the first time - like his brain simply shut off as soon as he fell, and anything beyond up until now simply wasn't recorded. He was elsewhere, likely somewhere dark. The wolf within is horrendously ravenous, however, lashing out with more vibrant emotion than he himself displays. It's a snarl from a larynx not entirely human, spilled through teeth definitely not man-like. He doesn't notice the shifting curtains, nor the reflections that would ensue because of it. All that he says- demands, is towards Isaiah in a hoarse voice with slow words from where he hangs, staring at his pack through the half-open door between them. "Do something," Because, if it wasn't apparent, Dean is helplessly clueless.
"I am," Isaiah replies, relief lacing those two little words, dual syllables, his chest emptying itself of air, his shoulders relaxing, his grip on that door going slack as he realizes that 'it' is no longer 'him' and 'him' is back to being Dean and almost all is right with the world once more. "I'm banishing the monster- do you have enough energy to break the things I tell you to, or do I need to keep summoning Shovel?" he asks, flicking his pretty blue eyes towards that half-full sink of flaming blood where a newborn Imp is congealing itself into something a little more solid, coming to life, screeching like a monkey as eyes of blazing blue flame stare up at the two. "If those muscles are still worth more than just eye candy, I need you to bust out the fucking window- don't look at the reflection. Don't look at any shiny surfaces. If it takes you again, you're gonna put me under, Dean; I can't fight you, even weakened like that. We'll both be fucked," the redhead warns, his eyes stern as glacial blues find mossy greens. He's putting his trust into Dean right now; the lump sum of his faith poured into that amalgamation of man and muscle, that brick shithouse standing before him. Dean may be helpless when it comes to the arcane, but where it comes to brute force and ignorance, he reigns supreme- and that's something Isaiah needs now more than ever- Dean's talent for channeling The Hulk and just /smashing/ like Nigel Thornberry said.
Meanwhile, there's something going on with the room. Cornered animals - and this is close enough to one - have a tendency to fight back. The lights flicker on and off, sending shadows spinning about the room, as if Dean and Isaiah had suddenly come across the opposite of a disco ball.
Suddenly, all light vanishes within the apartment; outside, the sun still looms at its apex, with noon arrived.
The curtains swing all the way open.
The voices pick up again, hoarse, eldritch whispers in cacophony with one another. The stagnant air splits open to laughter.
...Something is coming once more.
Isaiah has the right of it. Dean has a handful of seconds before both of them are in trouble. What's reflective, here? The window. The TV. What else?
The paint canisters, the floortiles, the freshly wet puddles that are iced over. There are many reflective surfaces left after the fact, and beside the ones mentioned. Dean grinds his jaw, those fangs in his mouth, the elongating canids, he spares Isaiah another look and another command, almost. "If it happens again.." The worst case scenario. "Force me to shift." How would he do that? That is left for him to figure out, spoken to the ether while Dean pushes away from the doorframe that bears the imprint of his fingers, now.
He, foolishly, has to look. Glance about their trailer in search of whatever that may be host to even the smallest flicker of reflection while he still fights and internal aggression and magnified compulsion. He's drawn, that much is clear, but it is the hunger inside, that bonefire feeling, rising void within that seeks out the windows first - behind the curtains that swung open. Dean lifts his hand, flicks it towards the window in an almost dismissive, aggressive motion. Something unseen takes hold of a canister of paint off the floor, propels it with sheer willpower from afar to crash into the window and leave it in splinters thundering glass outside. That's really the best he can manage, in his state.
That's all the monster leaves. The laughter becomes raucous, almost gleeful, as it prizes Dean open like a jacket to step into. Isaiah would know - Dean would certainly know - the moment that Dean is no longer Dean again. The light goes from his eyes. The mouth wears that unsettling smile. He's so pretty as a vessel.
That's all the monster needs. The laughter becomes raucous, almost gleeful, as it prizes Dean open like a jacket to step into. Isaiah would know - Dean would certainly know - the moment that Dean is no longer Dean again. The light goes from his eyes. The mouth wears that unsettling smile. He's so pretty as a vessel. (fix)
"God fucking dammit Dean, I said don't-" Too late. Dean is flicking his eyes around, looking for reflections right after Isaiah said not to, and it happens again. It fucking happens again. Isaiah looks helpless, hopeless as he watches the guy, 'him' become 'it' again, and that bathroom door is immediately slammed shut and locked, not like that will fucking stop him. The redhead shoves his back up against the door, some semblance of a barricade as he tries to hold it shut for what he believes to be an inevitable breaching. The ritualistic utterances that come next are more like fervent prayers desperately cried into the Aether as he hugs his knees up against his chest again- not because he's cold this time, but because he is now, once again, the cornered animal. At the very least he has a shit-eating Imp in the sink beside him, jumping around and continuing to screech, awaiting orders. His breaths shudder as he continues to work his magic, and he obssessively checks the time on his phone. Twenty more minutes. Fifteen more minutes. Fourteen. Not fast enough. Can he survive against Dean for fourteen minutes? What did he say? Force him to shift? "Fucking asshole.. How? Predator drive.. Prey... No... I... Shit. Shit, shit shit, fucking jerk. Hardheaded fucking asshole," he complains, cursing between curses.
And just like that, as soon as Dean breaks down the window, that hand falls limp. The light fades from his eyes. Maybe it isn't just the reflections with which he's taken control of, but after the fact, he's trapped just as before. The totality of his endurance, the sheer amount of his will, it is reduced to fighting to breathe, because whatever this 'thing' is, doesn't, and doesn't know how. So he does, for their mutual, symbiotic relationship that wears him down every second in his attrition to survive.
They're getting close to the end. They have to be, if what's inside Dean is fighting so hard. The door rattles in its frame. There's the sound of splintering. It might be that before Dean knocks it off its hinges, it'll simply break under the force of his pummeling. By the end of this, the two of them - who by the looks of it don't have two pennies to rub together - will have to repair the entire apartment. Thirty minutes has never felt longer.
It - the thing possessing Dean - isn't interested in shattering reflective surfaces, of course. The window might have broken, but the TV remains as is, and everything else along the way to that bathroom door. Tick, tock, Isaiah.
'Run, Rabbit, run, Rabbit, run run run' echoes in singsong fashion from the room just to the west of the bathroom as Isaiah's record player chooses the worst fucking song for the worst fucking time and plays it at maximum volume. It's like rubbing salt into the wound he hasn't received yet as bits of corkwood splinter and rain down upon those pretty red curls, a choked sob heard that the ginger kid quickly stamped down as he sucks it back up and then grabs his big boy pants. Now isn't the time, and Isaiah isn't going to die crying like a bitch. He chants faster, louder, bidding Shovel the Quasit to latch onto Dean's flesh the moment it starts to peek through the door. He looks back down at the time- five minutes. He just needs five minutes. 'Run, Rabbit. Run, Rabbit. Run, run run', the song says again, and he screams out: "FUCKING FIGHT IT, DEAN!! YOU'RE NO ONE'S BITCH!!"
There is no control here. Dean far beneath the skin, the outward display. Yet, as soon as the thing that has used his strength to effortlessly punch through the door seeks to drive him forward further, that Qusit does latch onto Dean's hand and forearm. The thing, as it would soon find, would see that Dean's fingers curl around the throat of the thing expectantly, of their own volution. Just as the smile on Dean's lips shifts to drawn back lips, display a mouthful of fangs that erupt heated breath misting in the air with a snarl that comes from something else. Something bigger, stronger. The primal personification of a beast of judgement not yet shown but peeking from within with all the hunger it bears, and Dean carries on his back at all times. The wolf fights the thing, if only to give Isaiah a few more seconds he needs.
The wolf prevails for those critical seconds. It's grueling work, like exercising a muscle that doesn't exist -- but he does it. The door doesn't come down.
As quickly as all of this began, it ends. The lighting in the apartment returns, bathing them in oranges and yellows. The temperature sits at a perfect 63, not too hot, not too cold. The wreckage in the living room and bathroom remain, of course, but the storm is past. There is no bogeyman hiding in the shadows - or in Dean, as it were.
Beyond them spins the record player, telling them still, 'Run, Rabbit, run, Rabbit, run run run.' It's broken. Only that one line continues, on and on and on...
Isaiah finishes his banishment ritual just as poor Shovel has the life squeezed out of it, but the guy isn't sure. It /could/ work, but only if he was dealing with a spirit. If this is a nightmare of the monster, well, a dream snare isn't something he has the time for anymore. He jumps up as that fist breaks through the door, stumbling backwards, deeper into the bathroom until his heels smack against the side of the bathtub and he is sent falling backwards, ass over kettle. He lands on his butt in the basin, his head smacking against the side and causing pain to shoot through his skull before he drags his legs inside and curls up into a ball, slowing his breathing, soothing his heart rate. He's done everything that he can do. Now he just tries to make himself small, tries to make himself scarce. He's hiding. He's waiting. He's holding his breath, even, as pain throbs in his cranium. Something. Anything. A sign. A word. Maybe even death; who knows?
The tension escalates as Isaiah scrambles to fend off the creature using his ritualistic knowledge, engaging in a desperate fight against time and the entity's cunning. The room becomes a battleground of wills, with Dean caught in the middle, struggling to resist the spirit's influence. Isaiah's quick thinking and magical prowess manage to hold the monster at bay momentarily, but the situation deteriorates as Dean, under the spirit's control, becomes a significant threat. Isaiah's relentless efforts to save his friend and himself from the suffocating darkness culminate in a frantic climax, with Dean fighting the possession from the inside and Isaiah completing a banishing ritual that finally dispels the entity, restoring a fragile sense of normalcy to their trailer, though the damage and psychological scars of their encounter remain a haunting reminder of their ordeal.
(Dean's odd encounter(SRRachel):SRRachel)
[Sun Sep 8 2024]
In a large, decorated living area within a trailer
Cheap, dingy, and the walls are thin enough in this deadbeat trailer
home that they may very well be paper and succumbing to the elements
outside easily. Sun or storm, they're either searing to the touch or
frigid and freezing. The absolutely horrendous state of the trailer,
is at least alleviated by a complete ceiling decor and a ceiling fan
A completely black backdrop is dominated by swirling and handpainted
strokes of purpled reds and of similar shades that cover the expanse
of the ceiling. Dirty by nature, marks tainted by smoke, and similar
disappear amongst the mass of ink that depicts obscure shapes, vague
faces in the darkness, and decrepit figures gathering to midpoint in
an amalgamation of brighter colors, where disarray ends in salvation
The walls are similarly painted a mood souring mauve-black tint with
a golden trim along the floor and ceiling. It lightens the heaviness
of the dark decor, distracts from the age and make of the walls, and
the floors bearing the brunt of various scrapes and scuffs, from the
ghosts of furnitures past and present. A scent of art-grade paint is
a constant reminder across the room, elavating off of the floor from
dark splotches that have spilled haphazardly, some even stepped over
It is morning, about 61F(16C) degrees, and there are a few grey clouds in the sky.
(Your target is singled out by some sort of spirit that can only attack them through mirrors, it is up to them to survive long enough by avoiding mirrors/their reflection until their allies can help them find a way to defeat the monster.
)
Isaiah sits on the middle seat of a sofa that has seen better days, his knees pulled up against his chest and held by his long, scarred arms. His ankles are crossed, and his glacial blue eyes are focused on an incredibly spoofy porno that's playing on the television in front of him. Two women are sprawled over a couch similar in design to the one he sits on, and in the back ground: a dark-skinned man in a plain white t-shirt, wearing a lampshade over his head. Isaiah doesn't seem particularly invested in the show, at least not enough to do what most people would be doing while watching such a thing. He seems to be treating it like anything else one might find on the television- invested in the poorly-written story, and even chuckling on occasion at the bad acting.
The show starts out amusing - who watches that kind of thing for the plot? - but slowly starts to lose its intrigue. The two of them might find that the shots aren't (forgive this turn of phrase) titillating enough; the dialogue, too, has begun to read hammier than acceptable. The TV hums, the same way that heat waves do. Even with Dean and Isaiah's having chosen the program, there's something about the stale air, the atmosphere, the here and the now that bores. It compels them to turn it off.
It's hot in here. Why is it so hot in here? The temperature reads 63. That's nothing; the summer's cooled off, given way to a crisp autumn. Yet, inside this apartment, it ratchets up. It's not particularly noticeable, at first. It's just a prickle at the back of their necks. Soon, though, moisture sits on foreheads, on arms and legs, worn like a second skin. Maybe there's something wrong with the AC. Isaiah's closest to the monitor; he should look.
Dean could help, too, of course, but... the restroom's right there, and God would a splash of cold water feel good right now. That could do the trick. Ice water could do the trick. Anything involving not being /here/, plastered to some sticky couch in their clothing would be preferable.
At least this is the worst of their problems. In Haven, that's a godsend.
Dressed, to be sure, but Dean steps out of the bathroom on the eastern portion of the trailer. The relatively small blueprint of the trailer leaves very little for privacy, and so, Dean, inevitably after that wake-up ritual, comes to see Isaiah on the couch watching TV in pokemon onesie no less. The towel Dean has over his shoulder stops under his hand drying his hair, and yet, Dean merely affords a low, amused sigh towards his trailer-flat-mate. Particularly about what he's watching. It does capture Dean's attention just as well while he continues to drop himself on the armchair not far from the sofa. Leave his towel draped on his shoulders. "Is that a dude with a lampshade on his head?" It must be a common thing here to watch such spoofy tapes in this place, because Dean shares the complete lack of investment in the more lecherous part of the show - more attentive to the poor acting.
Except, Dean can't even really calm down. Not because of the show, obviously. It's not getting turned off - but it is on perpetual mute. The only channel that they have in the trailer. Dean uses his towel to wipe some perspiration over his forehead, clear out gathering sweat. Heat hits him worse, for whatever reason, likely because he's already damp from a recent shower and the humidity sticks to his skin badly. Barely a few seconds after he's settled in his lazyboy, Dean leaves his seat again with another extended sigh, "Fucking hell.." It's possible he already feels parched, but the lack of any refreshment nearby, and the kitchen southward that feels miles away, Dean opts to return to the bathroom. To do exactly what he should - wash his face, his bare arms from wrist to bicep, and throw water at his throat.
Isaiah seems to grow more comfortable in the heat as it rises, rather than withering or sweating. He doesn't sweat at all, in fact- his body seems to feel the same as it would if 63F were a cold winter's day and the sudden spike in heat were a warm blanket and a mug of hot cocoa. He smiles, and then he hunkers down, relaxing, his legs lowering from his chest as his arms release them- apparently that's the reason the man was in such a fetal position; the cold bothers him, and anything below 80F sees as though it is just too damn cold for his liking. He watches Dean wander back into the bathroom for a bird bath, letting his gaze drift from the 'show' since they're starting to zoom in on things that a guy like Isaiah is just really not interested in seeing. Women, and worst of all, they're naked. Blergh. "Yeah, it's called 'Black Guy Lamp'," the title is recited for Dean as though it were the latest episode of Supernatural. He watches his roommate wash his arms and face, confused, but seeming to not think too much of apart from the odd comment of, "You're sweaty as fuck, dude- what temperature did you have that fucking water on when you washed your ass? Jesus."
Dean's balled up towel flies out the bathroom with the keen intent to slam Isaiah in the face where he sits on the sofa. "Don't be fucking crass." He says, with all of is own crassness. Though, he's /really/ getting into it. Absolutely lost in that feverish heat rising. Water-dripping features are aligned up to the mirror in front of the sink, with both hands set on it on either side. Steps away from panting, the stern fetures of his are aligned at the mirror, watching droplets trail off of his face while he stares at his own reflection with a long, low sigh that fogs up the lower portion of it.
That's alright. The TV doesn't have to go off. They don't have to alter the temperature. The funny thing about Haven is that sometimes, things happen, entirely out of your control.
Outside of their direct notice, the monitor reads, just as expected, 63. The screen flickers. It's just a blip the first time, a faint line drawn through the 3. The second time, it lasts longer, the digits crackling out of view. The third time, it starts going down.
62.
61.
60.
That's too cold -- especially, perhaps, for poor Isaiah.
59.
58.
It won't stop. It's out of control now, ticking down, down, down...
...as if it were a stopwatch, alerting him to something that's about to happen.
Didn't they mute the TV?
Somewhere around the 30 mark, a tinny buzzing can be heard, like a mosquito, persistent in the ears. It grows louder. Not a mosquito, after all, but voices. They dovetail the end of the two men's conversation. It's not English that they're speaking. It's a jumble of sounds - maybe words, but not in any language that Dean and Isaiah know - that emit out of sync with speech.
A hand slams against the mirror Dean looks through, rattling the thing from the inside out.
The slammed hand againt the mirror doesn't give Dean the jumpscare of a fright that it would give to anyone else. It doesn't shift the distant make and mold of his expression, but it does add to it. A sterner look, a shift of his jaw while green eyes drift down at the hand, the rattled reflection, and yet, he doesn't shy away from it. Finds his own reflection through it to stare dead ahead into his own eyes. It's hard to fear when you're often the source of fear and trepidation itself, and yet, his nose twitches.
The cold that replaces the heat leaves his skin clammy, and fingers hold tighter on the edges of the sink while Dean tilts his head, without breaking sight of the mirror, to speak outside the bathroom. "Jr? What the fuck is going on?" He'll defer to the more magically apt of the two for answers and explanation. He does, however, also lift one of his hands eventually to touch the edge of the mirror, press two fingers against the reflection of himself to tilt the rattled, tilted frame back in place against the wall.
"I dunno what crass me-" Nope. Isaiah doesn't get to speak. He barely has time to close his mouth before Dean's wadded-up man-sweat towel wallops him in the face, causing his head to jerk backwards at the impact, though it isn't anything painful. Probably. Maybe. Then again, it is Dean that threw the fucking thing. For all we know, Isaiah could have a black eye, a broken nose, and a busted lip from that ball of fury. The redhead gives the 'oof' of a traditional Roblox death, before snatching the towel off of his face, balling it back up and cocking back as though prepared to turn this trailer into a field for rugby; him versus Dean. Instead, however, the temperature starts dropping again, and his faintly-fanged teeth start to clatter against one another, gooseflesh prickling over his arms.
"F-Fuck if I know," is his shivering, stuttering response to the larger of the two men. "Y-Y-You're fucking thermostat is busted. I didn't touch it," he insists, now using that towel as a makeshift scarf instead as he rises slowly to his feet, rubbing his hands against one another as he approaches the dial, then watches it go down.... Down... Down... "Shit," is his sole comment as he watches the degrees tick, tick, tick away. "So... Two options. Nightmare monster, or spirit-" He pauses. "Third option, rats are chewing the electrical lines."
The hand vanishes. There's no ripple as it goes, no fade to black. It simply was there one moment; and now it isn't. What remains is Dean's face: the moss-green eyes, the black air, the scuff marks and bruises. It's as if it never happened.
What a funny thing, that 'Dean is often the source of fear and trepidation.'
What beautiful irony.
His skin goes paler, almost jaundiced in its cast. His eyes sink in, the shadows beneath growing, growing, growing.
Rats can't do this, Isaiah.
As Isaiah crosses to the dial, there's a moment - just a brief moment - where the TV goes black. Something moves within it, but is no more.
Whatever is plaguing them - monster, spirit, ghost - it has a consciousness. It travels with them.
In frustration, Dean's head tilts again, now. An expelled sigh aside while frost builds up from within, fights and wins against that internal furnace of Dean. He's not perceptive enough currently to tell how much Isaiah shivers outside, but he hears the chatter - and his breath mists in the air. "Ain't rats." Simple, explanatory. How does he know? He knows because no animal is dumb enough to be so close to danger. Unmentioned, but a clearer explanation is how the temperature drops. How unnatural it is, fading fast. It forces Dean to grind his teeth, muster enough will to speak again through a frigid cold that settles into his fingers curled around the sink
"There was a hand on the-" He doesn't finish the sentence. He's distracted. Harsher fold to his features stay upon the reflection of himself against the mirror that's now plagued by flakes of frost spreading around the frame of it, capturing the fog and turning the moisture to heat. He swallows, stares into his eyes, how they appear sunk in and he can't tell while his thumb runs over them on the glass; whether it is just his reflection, or the change of how ghastly pallid his already pale pallor has become is a thing that is happening to him. "What the fuck.."
What follows from the bathroom is a sudden thud. That bone-wrenching, metal bending grip is gone. It slips away suddenly in a haze of disorientation, and Dean, with eyes that are drifting in clear sign of unconsciousness that's beckoning for whatever reason, whatever ailment, falls back with a horrid crash onto the paved tiles of the bathroom, still wet, and now even frozen after the shower he had took. His lips look pale, purple, frozen, just as the tips of his fingers are slowly being taken over by some form of frost. For all of his vigor, Dean is a creature of the physical realm - with little prowess in magical resistance. It's very clear, here, and now, where he's collapsed, and cracked the floors with his deceptively heavy weight in spite of his lean figure.
Something.
Clicks.
Silence sits heavy, like a shroud, after Dean collapses.
There isn't enough time for Isaiah to ask whether everything's alright.
It is.
It's very, very much alright.
Dean comes back into view, to the living room. There's something off-putting about the way that he stands. This isn't how he walks. He isn't so rigid. This isn't how he emotes, as he regards Isaiah. The smile stretches too wide; the movements are too jittery.
"I understand," Dean says to Isaiah.
Not Dean.
Something other. "I see it."
A moment. A brief flicker of a moment. Isaiah is walking past that television and movement, not himself, not Dean, swipes its way across the now-black screen. He immediately freezes in his tracks, slowly shifting his gaze towards Dean in the bathroom. "Dean, get away from the mirror," he says, the first time, then realizes that Dean is withering away like a husk before his very eyes. Fuck standing still, he starts walking forward, hands moving, reaching out. "Dean, get a way from the mirror!" he says again, louder, and by the time he makes it to the doorway, Dean has dropped like a sack of potatoes, and Isaiah is in a full sprint, dropping to his knees by the guy, skinning them, bleeding them, the pain isn't present in his mind. He doesn't need skin. He needs Dean to be okay. His motions are quick, and they seem to come subconsciously as he lifts the guy's cold and freezing torso off of the tiled bathroom floor, cradling him against his chest as he looks around frantically for a source of warmth- then realizes that he literally is one. He unzips the front of his hoodie and presses his chest to Dean's like he were doing skin-to-skin time with a toddler. Starting to breathe harder, faster, less shallow as warmth starts to billow out from him like a bellows and he continues to squeeze on tight, holding onto his friend, trying to share that heat to bring some life back into Dean until that odd... Something... Calls out to him. He shivers, shudders, trembles, then glances over his shoulder. It isn't a full-on look, like he's /afraid/ to full-on look. But he glances. Then he squeezes his eyes shut. "F-Fuck off!" he shouts at whatever 'it' is.
That 'it' is Dean. He's not within the clutches of Isaiah, standing there - too late, apparently, for him to have been captive by the other man - as opposed to, the other thing. The thing that walks in the reflection of his eyes, deep in his corneas, pulling strings, motioning him like a puppet save for the few seconds where 'it' doesn't breathe, and Dean, inside, can muster the sheer willpower to only manage something shallow, enough to keep himself from suffocating. Beyond it, he is not in control of his skin. It's something else, and it isn't the wolven side of him, either.
Maybe too late to have caught him, but...
Nothing, at first. Then, that monitor responds.
0.
1.
2.
At 10, it might feel as though Dean were a lost cause. The shadows beneath his eyes fill in, the purple becoming blue, and the blue becoming an off-white.
The vacant expression and that rictus grin fade.
...15. Not too late to /save/ him.
The question, though, is what they're going to do beyond this temporary solve. For now, this 'thing' is held at bay -- but how will they restrain it? What will they do if they can't? They could, perhaps, smash every mirror and window in the room, never to encounter it again. It'd be terribly inconvenient, but it could be done.
Or, perhaps, they can invest in something longer term. It's up to their creativity -- and perhaps the boundaries of Isaiah's powers.
Was it all some fever dream? Some hallucination? Isaiah stares down into his arms where he thought he'd been sharing his body heat with Dean, and instead finds himself cradling air vaguely in the guy's shape. He blinks. Confusion. Realization. Fear. He turns to look over his shoulder again, realizing that 'it' isn't quite 'it'. It is 'him', and 'him' is Dean. And 'he' is Isaiah, who is now in deep shit depending on how this goes. As though hopeful that the missing space where Dean once was was the hallucination, the redhead looks back at his lap. Nope. Empty. He struggles to his feet afterwards, staring at Dean, the puppet, where once he was Dean the man. "Fuck you," he spits out with venom, not towards his Alpha, not towards his friend, but whatever it is that's inside and pulling the strings. It's instinct for Isaiah to start casting a ritual, stepping slowly backwards, his spine facing the bathroom as his feet slowly shuffle, careful, calculated steps. He doesn't look at the mirror when he passes by it- instead, a flame-engulfed fist flies out to his left side, punching straight through without risking even a modicum of chance that he is caught by his own gaze. That flame drips down into the sink like water, oozing out of the slices on his skin; his blood is flammable. He is a Wolf, but some traces of him are still demonic and origin, and it lends his crimson vitae just enough explosive power to catch fire when it touches flame. Less like gasoline now that it is further diluted; more like kerosene, or lighter fluid; a steady flame, but not one that pops or sizzles.
He glances towards the bathroom door, weighing the option of closing it versus the time it would take to do so. It's a flimsy trailer door, and Dean is fucking Dean would it really matter if he closed it? There are ways around it, and the dark-haired man could crumble it like an Oreo in his grasp if he so chose, but it would cost Isaiah precious seconds to do so regardless. He doesn't close it. He just listens to this heartbeat thundering against his chest as he continues to mutter profane syllables under his breath, a summoning, but also a banishment as his flaming blood pooling in the sink basin begins to take shape and shift with a life of its own.
Dean - it - doesn't say 'fuck you' back. No, Isaiah has begun to break that mirror -- and as fire engulfs it, the surface distorts. The flame licks along the edges of the glass, causing light to flicker and reflections of the room to distort.
More than that, it causes... it's not Dean that's distorting, too, but some figure within him. It overlays his body, his face. Its form ties to Dean's, a shadowy body with puppet strings that pulls away, with the consistency of rubber melted to a street.
There's a brief moment where, in its utter agony, it tries to lunge for Isaiah. There's a wolf in Dean, too, and controlled by this thing - this awful, confused monster - it hungers for anything to balm its hurt.
Cracks spiderweb across the mirror.
By the end, nothing is left of it but jagged, collapsed shards, to be thrown away -- or kept, at their own risk.
It's quiet again. The TV sounds normal. The dialogue has restarted, and they're getting to the /good/ part.
Maybe it's over.
No, it's Haven. It's never over.
Normalcy. A modicum of it. A brief, tiny flicker. However much he had, anyway. It's off-putting, sickening, and it shows in the suddenly more humane expression of disgust shown on Dean's face. He topples forward after the fact of whatever entailed, the decrepit sense of separation, the peeling of his bodily control that stretches like that of a puppet being pulled taut. Isaiah is in a predicament, certainly - if that thing were to still, somehow, control Dean. He is, after all, the very facet of violence.
Both hands find the frame of the door, keep himself upright and standing instead of meeting the floor again. A shallow, yet more attune breathing ensues on Dean's part while he recovers the disorientation, and the flicker of fire from the sink reflects in the dim, mossy hue of his gaze. Casts gaunt shadows across his features. It isn't enough to dispel all of the frost, he is still freezing, frozen, and his expelled sigh that sounds more like a growl in ferocity comes misting through clenched teeth. "Fuck.." It is the voice of a man out of options, really, because even if he's fought many foes - he is powerless to a force like this.
Meanwhile, Isaiah has waves of heat flickering around him like a mirage in the desert as Dean approaches, an imposing figure, even bedraggled, that strikes fear into Isaiah's heart. He changes his mind. He's closing the fucking door. He grabs the handle, rearing it back and preparing to slam it right in Dean's face as he leans against the threshold, only to be paused mid-swing by the singular word that drips from his friend's lips, a moment of hesitation brought to Isaiah as he pulls his bleeding fist out of what remains of the mirror, saying softly, questioningly, "... Dean?" Though it is to be noted that Isaiah does not let go of that door handle, like he's emotionally and physically prepared to slam it on Dean's head until there's a handsome face-shaped dent in it; or until there's a fist-shaped dent in his own handsome face. Whatever comes first, really.
He stares long and hard at Dean in a suspicious fashion, once bitten and twice shy they call it, and that lapse in control that lets the 'real' Dean potentially peak through isn't enough to sway Isaiah from continuing his ritual, muttering under his breath a bit more, hissed whispers of Sirinian curses long lost, passed down through generations in his demonic bloodline. The battle is won, but what of the war? No. Isaiah isn't a guy that backs down, he doesn't tuck his tail. Someone hurt his friend, and quite simply he can't allow that to happen. That puppet master just isn't going to get away with it.
There's a single window in this room. The curtains are drawn over it. The funny thing about curtains, though, is that they /move/. What they shouldn't do - and what they're doing now - is move of their own volition. They're slinking open with a quiet, metallic 'scrtch.' If neither Dean nor Isaiah notice, there's about to be another surface from which the monster can emerge. And if the monster can emerge...
Well, it's not just Isaiah who likes pretty faces.
Strength returns to Dean's grasp. Fingers at the doorframe squeeze, start to bend the trailer's construction to Dean's own whims in slowly rising fury. Another snar, and Dean's head begins to rise. He stares as if taking note of his surroundings for the first time - like his brain simply shut off as soon as he fell, and anything beyond up until now simply wasn't recorded. He was elsewhere, likely somewhere dark. The wolf within is horrendously ravenous, however, lashing out with more vibrant emotion than he himself displays. It's a snarl from a larynx not entirely human, spilled through teeth definitely not man-like. He doesn't notice the shifting curtains, nor the reflections that would ensue because of it. All that he says- demands, is towards Isaiah in a hoarse voice with slow words from where he hangs, staring at his pack through the half-open door between them. "Do something," Because, if it wasn't apparent, Dean is helplessly clueless.
"I am," Isaiah replies, relief lacing those two little words, dual syllables, his chest emptying itself of air, his shoulders relaxing, his grip on that door going slack as he realizes that 'it' is no longer 'him' and 'him' is back to being Dean and almost all is right with the world once more. "I'm banishing the monster- do you have enough energy to break the things I tell you to, or do I need to keep summoning Shovel?" he asks, flicking his pretty blue eyes towards that half-full sink of flaming blood where a newborn Imp is congealing itself into something a little more solid, coming to life, screeching like a monkey as eyes of blazing blue flame stare up at the two. "If those muscles are still worth more than just eye candy, I need you to bust out the fucking window- don't look at the reflection. Don't look at any shiny surfaces. If it takes you again, you're gonna put me under, Dean; I can't fight you, even weakened like that. We'll both be fucked," the redhead warns, his eyes stern as glacial blues find mossy greens. He's putting his trust into Dean right now; the lump sum of his faith poured into that amalgamation of man and muscle, that brick shithouse standing before him. Dean may be helpless when it comes to the arcane, but where it comes to brute force and ignorance, he reigns supreme- and that's something Isaiah needs now more than ever- Dean's talent for channeling The Hulk and just /smashing/ like Nigel Thornberry said.
Meanwhile, there's something going on with the room. Cornered animals - and this is close enough to one - have a tendency to fight back. The lights flicker on and off, sending shadows spinning about the room, as if Dean and Isaiah had suddenly come across the opposite of a disco ball.
Suddenly, all light vanishes within the apartment; outside, the sun still looms at its apex, with noon arrived.
The curtains swing all the way open.
The voices pick up again, hoarse, eldritch whispers in cacophony with one another. The stagnant air splits open to laughter.
...Something is coming once more.
Isaiah has the right of it. Dean has a handful of seconds before both of them are in trouble. What's reflective, here? The window. The TV. What else?
The paint canisters, the floortiles, the freshly wet puddles that are iced over. There are many reflective surfaces left after the fact, and beside the ones mentioned. Dean grinds his jaw, those fangs in his mouth, the elongating canids, he spares Isaiah another look and another command, almost. "If it happens again.." The worst case scenario. "Force me to shift." How would he do that? That is left for him to figure out, spoken to the ether while Dean pushes away from the doorframe that bears the imprint of his fingers, now.
He, foolishly, has to look. Glance about their trailer in search of whatever that may be host to even the smallest flicker of reflection while he still fights and internal aggression and magnified compulsion. He's drawn, that much is clear, but it is the hunger inside, that bonefire feeling, rising void within that seeks out the windows first - behind the curtains that swung open. Dean lifts his hand, flicks it towards the window in an almost dismissive, aggressive motion. Something unseen takes hold of a canister of paint off the floor, propels it with sheer willpower from afar to crash into the window and leave it in splinters thundering glass outside. That's really the best he can manage, in his state.
That's all the monster leaves. The laughter becomes raucous, almost gleeful, as it prizes Dean open like a jacket to step into. Isaiah would know - Dean would certainly know - the moment that Dean is no longer Dean again. The light goes from his eyes. The mouth wears that unsettling smile. He's so pretty as a vessel.
That's all the monster needs. The laughter becomes raucous, almost gleeful, as it prizes Dean open like a jacket to step into. Isaiah would know - Dean would certainly know - the moment that Dean is no longer Dean again. The light goes from his eyes. The mouth wears that unsettling smile. He's so pretty as a vessel. (fix)
"God fucking dammit Dean, I said don't-" Too late. Dean is flicking his eyes around, looking for reflections right after Isaiah said not to, and it happens again. It fucking happens again. Isaiah looks helpless, hopeless as he watches the guy, 'him' become 'it' again, and that bathroom door is immediately slammed shut and locked, not like that will fucking stop him. The redhead shoves his back up against the door, some semblance of a barricade as he tries to hold it shut for what he believes to be an inevitable breaching. The ritualistic utterances that come next are more like fervent prayers desperately cried into the Aether as he hugs his knees up against his chest again- not because he's cold this time, but because he is now, once again, the cornered animal. At the very least he has a shit-eating Imp in the sink beside him, jumping around and continuing to screech, awaiting orders. His breaths shudder as he continues to work his magic, and he obssessively checks the time on his phone. Twenty more minutes. Fifteen more minutes. Fourteen. Not fast enough. Can he survive against Dean for fourteen minutes? What did he say? Force him to shift? "Fucking asshole.. How? Predator drive.. Prey... No... I... Shit. Shit, shit shit, fucking jerk. Hardheaded fucking asshole," he complains, cursing between curses.
And just like that, as soon as Dean breaks down the window, that hand falls limp. The light fades from his eyes. Maybe it isn't just the reflections with which he's taken control of, but after the fact, he's trapped just as before. The totality of his endurance, the sheer amount of his will, it is reduced to fighting to breathe, because whatever this 'thing' is, doesn't, and doesn't know how. So he does, for their mutual, symbiotic relationship that wears him down every second in his attrition to survive.
They're getting close to the end. They have to be, if what's inside Dean is fighting so hard. The door rattles in its frame. There's the sound of splintering. It might be that before Dean knocks it off its hinges, it'll simply break under the force of his pummeling. By the end of this, the two of them - who by the looks of it don't have two pennies to rub together - will have to repair the entire apartment. Thirty minutes has never felt longer.
It - the thing possessing Dean - isn't interested in shattering reflective surfaces, of course. The window might have broken, but the TV remains as is, and everything else along the way to that bathroom door. Tick, tock, Isaiah.
'Run, Rabbit, run, Rabbit, run run run' echoes in singsong fashion from the room just to the west of the bathroom as Isaiah's record player chooses the worst fucking song for the worst fucking time and plays it at maximum volume. It's like rubbing salt into the wound he hasn't received yet as bits of corkwood splinter and rain down upon those pretty red curls, a choked sob heard that the ginger kid quickly stamped down as he sucks it back up and then grabs his big boy pants. Now isn't the time, and Isaiah isn't going to die crying like a bitch. He chants faster, louder, bidding Shovel the Quasit to latch onto Dean's flesh the moment it starts to peek through the door. He looks back down at the time- five minutes. He just needs five minutes. 'Run, Rabbit. Run, Rabbit. Run, run run', the song says again, and he screams out: "FUCKING FIGHT IT, DEAN!! YOU'RE NO ONE'S BITCH!!"
There is no control here. Dean far beneath the skin, the outward display. Yet, as soon as the thing that has used his strength to effortlessly punch through the door seeks to drive him forward further, that Qusit does latch onto Dean's hand and forearm. The thing, as it would soon find, would see that Dean's fingers curl around the throat of the thing expectantly, of their own volution. Just as the smile on Dean's lips shifts to drawn back lips, display a mouthful of fangs that erupt heated breath misting in the air with a snarl that comes from something else. Something bigger, stronger. The primal personification of a beast of judgement not yet shown but peeking from within with all the hunger it bears, and Dean carries on his back at all times. The wolf fights the thing, if only to give Isaiah a few more seconds he needs.
The wolf prevails for those critical seconds. It's grueling work, like exercising a muscle that doesn't exist -- but he does it. The door doesn't come down.
As quickly as all of this began, it ends. The lighting in the apartment returns, bathing them in oranges and yellows. The temperature sits at a perfect 63, not too hot, not too cold. The wreckage in the living room and bathroom remain, of course, but the storm is past. There is no bogeyman hiding in the shadows - or in Dean, as it were.
Beyond them spins the record player, telling them still, 'Run, Rabbit, run, Rabbit, run run run.' It's broken. Only that one line continues, on and on and on...
Isaiah finishes his banishment ritual just as poor Shovel has the life squeezed out of it, but the guy isn't sure. It /could/ work, but only if he was dealing with a spirit. If this is a nightmare of the monster, well, a dream snare isn't something he has the time for anymore. He jumps up as that fist breaks through the door, stumbling backwards, deeper into the bathroom until his heels smack against the side of the bathtub and he is sent falling backwards, ass over kettle. He lands on his butt in the basin, his head smacking against the side and causing pain to shoot through his skull before he drags his legs inside and curls up into a ball, slowing his breathing, soothing his heart rate. He's done everything that he can do. Now he just tries to make himself small, tries to make himself scarce. He's hiding. He's waiting. He's holding his breath, even, as pain throbs in his cranium. Something. Anything. A sign. A word. Maybe even death; who knows?