towerofanimus | This Is A Joke, Right?

Entry tags:

This Is A Joke, Right? | Open

Characters: Sam Winchester [

xbludjunkie] and EVERYONE!
Setting: The dorms
Format: Whichever, don‘t cur. I'll match it.
Summary: Sam just woke up, and he's pretty confused. Prepare for interrogation if you approach.
Warnings: PG-13 for language maybe.

Waking up in a unfamiliar room wasn't alarming. Blank walls and laying on an uncomfortable bed? Yeah, that was pretty normal. See, he was used to traveling from motel room to motel room with his brother, so his initial response was to roll out of bed and start getting ready; either to go get caffeination and wake his previously mentioned brother up, or try getting ready while avoiding the walking embodiment of a health hazard that was his brother.

Except then he remembered he had fallen asleep at Bobby's yesterday, and that he so hadn't fallen asleep in these clothes.

No really, what in all of Hades was he wearing?

Panic? Nah, Sam didn't panic. He hunted things that made nightmares pale and fidgety, and so was kind of over the whole panic thing. He was a little anxious to figure out how he got here though. Immediately he got out of the bed to look around, noticing three very important things right out of the gate. One, he obviously wasn't alone since there were other beds here, two, he obviously hadn't come here on his own because he didn't pack via trunk. (Duffel bags; they were easily accessible and you could grab 'em on the go. Much better than a trunk), and three, there was unfamiliar weight on his neck.

Sam reached up to scratch at it and he hit something cold and definitely not skin, successfully distracting him from any further searching of clues about how he got here. Nope, still no panicking, but Sam did furrow his eyebrows in confusion as he ran his fingers along the thing, trying to feel it out.

... was that a collar?

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The reaction of the probably-human was that of a fighter - good reflexes, instant survey of Ψiioniic's likely threat level, and remaining wariness despite his apparent harmlessness. Signless reacted to being surprised like that, so Ψiioniic recognized the reaction.

He didn't do something stupid like raising his hands. That could be interpreted as a move to get a weapon, and anyway empty hands meant nothing to a mage like him. He did hold carefully still, not doing anything that might make the stranger twitchy.

"I'm called the Ψiioniic," he said evenly. "Are you a human adult? I haven't theen one before. Well, sort of. The last one I thaw turned out not to actually be human."

Oh. Sam's eye's widened a fraction. He was screwed if that title meant what he thought it did. Thankfully though, the other seemed pretty intent on doing the opposite.

And despite himself, Sam did look a little curious. "You don't have a name?"

And hearing that there were other non-humans here, regardless of what they were, had him more confused than he thought possible. What kind of supernatural thing would kidnap it's own kind?

He did cock an eyebrow at the question though. "Pretty positive."

"I mutht have, when I was a wriggler," Ψiioniic said, shrugging slightly. "I don't remember it anymore. I wath a slave for too long, and they broke me too well. Ψiioniic is at leatht the title I chose for myself, not the one they gave me." Helmsman. How he hated the word, now. Once it had been his greatest ambition, before he'd understood the slavery that came attached to the job.

Realizing belatedly that his words might be taken as an indication of the situation here - since the confusion this person was exhibiting was probably a pretty good sign that he was new - Ψiioniic hastily added, "That wath back in my own world, though. I've only been here one night, but everyone I've run into thays we're pretty well treated, here. I'm not sure just what's going on, but even I can't break out of here."

Wriggler? What the heck?

Sam's expression became one of silent apology. Monster or not, Sam felt bad for bringing up something that he seriously doubted Ψiioniic (or anyone really) had wanted to remember.

As for what was going on? "I think whoever brought us here wants us to make this our new home." And Ψiioniic actually helped him soldify his Stockholm Syndrom theory, because being told people were being treated well here put all the pieces together.

Seeing the look of apology, Ψiioniic gave him a shy smile in return. Though whether it was recognizable as 'shy' to a human, given his rather prominent fangs, was debatable.

"Well, I underthtand why most people are upset, but I'm about a million times better off here than where I was before," Ψiioniic admitted. "I'm free, my dead betht friend is alive again, and even if I can't leave the tower at least I can leave the room. Tho, as long as Her Imperial Condescension doethn't show up, I'm not complaining."

Yeah. Fangs did kind of distract from that...

And maybe Ψiioniic was a pure example of his theory. Before he could even look into it though, Ψiioniic also happened to give Sam a completely different view of why he was here.

Maybe it wasn't something evil. Maybe it was something that was simply trying to stop the whole world coming to an end by bringing Sam here.

Sam relaxed completely now, wondering where the heck he was supposed to go with his thoughts now, and was pretty much convinced Ψiioniic wasn't, and was probalby never planning to be, a threat.

So, he held out his hand for the other to shake. "I'm Sam."

That was the second time a human had done this bizarre hand-out gesture at him. Once again &936;iioniic was left staring blankly in response, head tilted to one side in a universal gesture of confusion. His eyes flickered briefly, the red and blue changing sides and then back again. "Humanth keep doing that when they introduce themthelves... am I supposed to do something back?"

He saw the way the alien had relaxed - accepting that Ψiioniic meant him no harm, maybe? It made him relax as well, and his shy smile got a little bigger.

When the other gave him the look that was almost exactly what he had come to expect off of Cas, Sam felt the side of his mouth twitch up in amusement.

And yeah the eyes flashing and the creepy fangs were noticed. Sam was trying his hardest not to stare. Or grab his gun for that matter.

"It's a greeting," Sam replied. "You're supposed to shake it."

Ψiioniic didn't mind being stared at - even among his own people he was a freak, he was used to the attention. "Shake it?" he repeated, hesitantly reaching out to grab Sam's hand. In the wrong way, of course, but he looked up at Sam again for approval. "Is thith some kind of dominance thing? Showing vulnerability by letting the other person capture your hand ath a signal that you won't fight?"

"Yeah."

D'aaw. Sam couldn't help but smile completely now. Maybe not a full blown, but definitely enough to show that he was amused.

"No. It's just way of greeting. Kind of like waving or saying 'hello.'" And thanks to said Cas, giving lessons about being human to a non-human was pretty much second nature to Sam. "It's mostly used for meeting strangers."

Getting a smile back made Ψiioniic relax further. The custom was strange, but obvious common because this wasn't the first time he'd encountered it. And Sam seemed like a good person, at least by troll standards.

"It theems like a strange custom to me, but then we don't touch each other much," he admitted as he extracted his hand. "Unleth, you know, we're attacking or in a concupiscent relationship. I've never had a chance to actually talk to an alien race before, usually I'm thtuck in the ship when we encounter a new inhabited planet."

Hey whoa what?

Sam's eyes widened as he dropped his hand. Alien race? inhabited planets? He didn't doubt the other was speaking the truth, but his mind had trouble wrapping around it.

Aliens didn't exist.

He supposed they could in other realities though. Realities because if aliens didn't exist, then the fact everyone who was brought here came different worlds could not.

Which was another reason the note was faker than fake.

Sam wasn't interested in getting into a discussion about that right now though. Instead he asked curiously, "how do you greet each other?"

Ψiioniic could tell that something he'd said had disturbed the human again, though he wasn't sure what. Not what the alien was actually asking him about, he was pretty sure. Probably best not to push the issue... if Sam wanted him to know, he'd tell him.

"Well, SS's favourite greeting ith usually 'hey fuckass'," he admitted with another smile. "Mostly we don't. Greet strangers, I mean. Either we already know each other from talking online and we're meeting up, or we jutht ignore each other on the rare occasions we leave our hives. Though, I thuppose it's possible normal adults have some way of greeting strangerth they have to work with," he realized. "I was taken ath a slave before I even hit eight sweeps, tho I'm not sure."

Sam really couldn't help himself. His eyebrows disappeared into his bangs before his smile stretched out along his face.

"Colorful," is all he could think to come up with. "Whatever happened to hello?"

Maybe a slight stab of guilt for the other mentioning he was a slave again, if only because Sam should have put that together on his own. Of course, before he could take any more time thinking about it, the word hives stung him like a wasp.

The curious, always got his nose in a book, kinda guy he was, made it extremely difficult not to imagine what that must look like.

"If you knew Signless, you'd understand," Ψiioniic told him with a little chuckle. "From him, it's a term of endearment. Or a raging inthult, depends on how much he likes you and how irritated he ith in that moment. We're not really the most social of species. Our word for 'friend' is the thame as the word for 'enemy'. Most people only socialize enough to find quadrantmates, and might not even bother doing that if we wouldn't be culled for not having filled pails when the Imperial Drones come knocking."

Their group had been odd not just for the fact that literally hundreds of thousands of strangers had followed them, but because the four of them had been so close even though there was only one quadrant involved. Well, two people in a quadrant, anyway. If you believed Disciple, the love between her and Signless had filled all four quadrants and moved beyond them, somehow.

None of that made any sense to Sam at all, but different realties meant different ways of life. He seriously doubted Ψiioniic would understand that he lived in a car, drove around fighing monsters with his obnoxious big brother, and was the supposed vessel of a fallen angel.

"Some... humans aren't very social where I come from either." Sam finally decided to reply with.

"Well, some trolls are more social than others," Ψiioniic admitted. "It seemth like humanth are the most prevalent species here other than trolls. And you're the first adult I've seen. I'd really like to learn more about you. Where are you from? Not that it will mean anything to me."

Adult? Sam certainlly hoped there weren't any children here. Just in case this place actually turned out to intend harm on it's inhabitants like Sam first thought.

"You're the first troll I've seen." That didn't match the general description in Dad's Journal anyway.

And it made him smile to know that he wasn't the only one who was curious. "I'm from Earth," Sam replied.

"Earth? That's kind of a funny name for a planet," Ψiioniic said, laughing softly. "I'm from Alternia, originally. Now I'm jutht part of the ship, I don't have a designated planet. I know there's other trolls here... another adult, my friend the Signless, and a bunch of adolescents, for thome odd reason. And not a lusus in sight, so... I hope they're old enough to take care of themselveth, but I don't know much about wrigglers or adoloscents."

Alternia was an even funnier name, but Sam wasn't about to say anything.

Listening, Sam couldn't help but find some resemblence. After all, he didn't really have a home either. Well, the Impala, sure. But no four walls with a shower and a bed kind of home.

And there was the word wrigglers again. Sam furrowed his eyebrows a little, but decided not to say anything about that either.

"Are they all from Alternia like you?"

"Well, they have to be," Ψiioniic explained. "That'th where the Mother Grub is, we're all hatched there. And we're not allowed to leave until we reach adult thtatus, so all the adolescents must be still from Alternia. Signless never left, either."

Trolls were beginning to sound like just a common name for some kind of race of bugs. Who apparently traveled through space in a ship and visited other planets.

... Mother Grub... Did he even really want to know?

Sam was at a loss for words now. Though it was fascinating, the more he learned about Ψiioniic and his home reality/world/whatever, the more he feared what he imagined (literally, a giant grub laying eggs) was actually the truth. So he just nodded his head instead.

Right, let's try a new topic shall we?

"Did you try looking for a way out in the library?"

The change in topic confused Ψiioniic for a moment, who thought Same was actually asking if he'd looked for a way out that was literally in the library. Then he realized what the human really meant, and laughed softly. "No, not yet. I jutht got here myself, I haven't done all that much exploring yet. Spent thome time poking around on the computerth, but they're pieces of shit that barely deserve the name. I couldn't even hack the network."

It seemed like the most logical place to look. There had to be some information or histroy books about the tower right? What kind library would it be if it didn't? And if Sam could figure out the tower, he was 100% certain he could figure out what brought him here and why.

Hearing that they're were computers had him excited, but it only lasted about ten seconds. Suddenly, Sam looked about as irritated as a chicken who was expected to give milk instead of eggs. "Let me guess, no internet either."

"Internal connectionth only," Ψiioniic confirmed with an equally sour look. "Nothing to the outside, no hardwires, no wifi, nothing. They're not even really computers, more like, limited communication deviceth." He sighed. "Not even worth my time, but I had to make sure there wathn't a larger network I could hack into. There's a lot of bookth, but I've never done any research that wathn't online before - there's not many physical bookth around on Alternia, so I'm not used to it. You can't do a keyword search on books."

This Is A Joke, Right? | Open

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I don't know how to make that symbol, so I guess I'll use a P?

Lol, Psiioniic works! Or just c&p from my post.

D'oh! Why didn't I think of that?

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