IC CONTACT

[righthemisphere]

You've reached Raleigh Becket, please leave a message.

Comments

[righthemisphere]

Jesus Christ that is absolutely infuriating to hear someone say.

Raleigh clenches with anger. With hurt and betrayal.

"What happened to you?"

Memories of morning runs and gentle conversation. Affectionate bitching about their older brothers. Plans for a community garden.

All with a different Sam, not that Raleigh particularly realises there are two, but Sam all the same.

[endoftheverse]

Lucifer shakes his head in what seems like the equivalent of a father disappointed in his son's disobedience. It's too light, too holier-than-thou, like Raleigh just can't seem to grasp the common sense of it all. "It's really none of your business, is it? I swear, there's this... entitlement of knowing things with you people."

But he seems to relent, if only to smash apart whatever image Raleigh had of Sam, down to the smallest, sharpest pieces.

"There was always something like this in me, Raleigh. Always capable of taking people apart and not bothering to put them back together again. You couldn't feel it or see it, sure, but it was always there. I was born to be this way. I was destined for it. For greatness."

He shrugs. The frozen little girl stands at his left-hand side, as he circles her like she's the sun, as if she's got a sort of gravity. Maybe to this Raleigh guy, she is something of the sort; a positive energy. She must mean a lot to him, if she's standing here in his dreams.

"I just had to find the right time to embrace it. And what better time than now?"

[righthemisphere]

Man this is like talking to a completely different guy (duh).

Then again, people can be weird in dreams, not that Raleigh is aware of the meta of it. One usually isn't when they're dreaming.

As a veteran pilot you'd think he'd have better control but the one thing he said he could never handle again- feeling someone die, sharing those last terrified, tortured moments- well it happened. So forgive him if he's chaotic and easy to tear apart. He's having a very bad week.

The thought of Wu- of Sam doing what he did- rips out half the dreamscape and replaces it with another fracture of a memory. Like a stageshow half way between scene change. It judders under Lucifer's power where it would have flipped completely. Somewhere in the distance Wu's ghostly form is still begging for his life. Mako to one side still frozen with tears in her eyes, and now on the other side of the alley where a brick wall had been is a hole into Gipsy's connpod.

A step deeper into Raleigh's soul.

All due respect sir we intercepted the kaiju- Yancy says from his harness, speaking to someone authoritative and very angry over the comms.

Bagged our fifth kill, the Raleigh on that side of the looking glass chimes in, cocky and excited.

The Raleigh facing Sam curls his fists, refusing to look. He knows what come next. He sees it every night.

Every. Single. Night.

His guest is running out of time. Raleigh will wake when his copilot dies. At 3:48am like clockwork. Every. Single. Night.

"I'm gonna find you," he grinds out. A threat Lucifer has no doubt heard countless times by now.

"Wu didn't deserve it. I don't give a shit what he did to you."

[endoftheverse]

Lucifer watches with placid interest, as the world around him changes. Human minds are such a terrible thing, aren't they? Always funneling into chaotic, nonsensical images, chemical imbalances... dreams presenting all of someone's traumas and flaws like a soul laid stripped of flesh in hell. Lucifer's familiar with it, the intricate way a human is built; Dad did well at that, he'll admit. They're flawed, horrible little things, but their machinery is complex and difficult and not so easy to put in little neat boxes. You can carve and carve and carve into them and unearth more in their bones, in their brains, than any yowling cat or whimpering dog.

It's gross, really, but in that fun way you'd dissect a frog.

False sympathy pulls at his face, brow furrowed and frown a ghost of Sam Winchester.

"You poor thing. You're such a mess in here, it's any wonder you can function. Maybe that's why you're filled with so much animosity... like I was." Sam's muffled voice begs Lucifer to stop. I hear you, I know what you're doing; please, just stop. Lucifer ignores him and continues, "It just... starts breaking you apart, doesn't it? Watching person after person suffer. I'll admit, my dreams used to look a lot like yours. Messy. Full of death and failure."

Smiling, though, he gestures towards poor Yancy, so close to a grizzly fate.

"They're all replaceable, though. That's the secret to a good night's sleep. There are a million other Wu's out there. A million other... sad little girls." He glances at Mako, glances at Raleigh. "Plenty of people to shove into a cockpit and use until that one dies and the next comes in."

Yancy is about to be ripped out of the cockpit.

"People's worth is the blink of an eye." Yancy is fear, looking up at that terrible creature. Trapped in his final moments. "What they do and don't deserve doesn't matter, in the grand scope of things. They're all ultimately... pretty worthless. So why cry over spilled milk, champ?"

[righthemisphere]

Raleigh opens his mouth to answer but the scene to his left is swirling towards the finish line.

He wants to yell that Sam is wrong. That these people, these relationships, are one of a kind. That knowing and cherishing them is the reason to live. He burns with anger for the death of his friend. He carries the sorrow of loss and feels it so acutely in every breath that it almost feels like needles on inhale.

Inhale sharp, stinging nettles.

Exhale fire and wrath.

Instead there's only the sound of metal screaming as it's torn by a monster. The scream of claxons. Finally he turns and looks, lurching towards it as if pulled by an invisible rope around his heart. A bond. The Drift. Blues and ambers offset by darkness and white armor slicked with red.

RALEIGH, LISTEN TO ME-

And then he wakes. Like clockwork. Heaving for breath with sweat at his temples in a nice, warm bed with a nice, warm body curled against his side. Chuck murmurs something in his sleep and throws his arm over Raleigh's waist the way he does most nights. It's just routine now. Try to lull him back to sleep. It doesn't work but it's the thought that counts.

No, no the only thought he's got is that he needs to find Sam.

Find Sam Winchester and make him pay.