lostcarnival | HELL OF A HANGOVER PT. 1

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HELL OF A HANGOVER PT. 1

Who: The people who escaped!
When: Very early Day 66 to Day 67
Where: The Carnival
What: The Ringmaster brings everyone she can back to the carnival after getting kicked out the Celebration, a bit worse for wear. Those that have resolved their threads at the Masquerade can start trickling over here as they sort things out.
Warnings: Angst, mostly likely, as well as potentially graphic injuries.

RETURNING HOME↴

About 45 minutes after the conflict with the vampires begins, the Ringmaster will finally show her face at the Masquerade - and immediately be mortified by what she sees. Though initially mostly confused by the fact that there's been problems over the week, and characteristically obtuse about what's going on, as soon as she realizes the severity of the threat she will launch into action. If the Host managed to miss the combat already going on, they won't be able to miss the Ringmaster tearing up the joint and looking for her people. She's quick to scoop up those that have managed to gather in the dining hall - but unfortunately her arrival seems to be the vampire's cue to retreat.

Her attempt to challenge the Host about this will result in the being finally losing their patience and banishing all the vampires and all of the carnival workers from the premises, forcing them back to the portals they arrived from and launching their remaining belongings out with them. The Ringmaster will be pretty fucking pissed off when they return (once again) and will tell everyone to take the time they need to recover, but to stick together and stay safe for the time being. She has a plan to chase down the carnival members that have been stolen, but it will take time.

► BEER PONG: Apparently the Ringmaster spent the entire week playing a nonstop game of beer pong, against several dozen of the Host's bodies. She hadn't quite won yet when the Masquerade began, so she was late. Whether or not she was caught up in the same spell as everyone else is up to interpretation, but the answer "definitely probably." She won, for the record.

► MISSING: Upon doing headcounts, it will turn out that all the supervisors are missing, as well as several regular workers - a few of which will have been spotted as freshly turned vampires during the fighting. Whether that was the point of the attack or not is unclear, but it's pretty clear that the Ringmaster is a little bit devastated about it - particularly about the supervisors. However, she will refuse to talk to anyone long enough to get into too many details.

► THE PLAN: The Ringmaster will announce that she intends to get everyone back - it's just a matter of figuring out their way back to the dimension they've been stolen off to. She guarantees that she will find it, but that it may take some time. In the end, the workers will have a total of two days to recover and plan - during the evening of Day 67, she will be leading a rescue mission to get them all back. You don't have to come, but lives do depend on its success.

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No.

NO!?

Sherlock's brain worked very fast. He had already seen that he didn't have a bandaged hand and the strange stillness and--Jimmy had told him about what happened to him. Sherlock had taken it all with a grain of salt, because Jimmy also sounded very, very insane, but clearly something had happened to him--and right now, this Was. Not. Jimmy.

And who else could it be but--

His brain ground to a halt and he just stared. Maybe it was a vampire trick--but they were at the Carnival--

"That's it. I took too much. That's the only explanation," Sherlock held his head. A mad sort of laugh. "Of course. I knew it would catch up with me someday."

He rolled his eyes at Not-Jimmy.

"The Carnival, obviously." He should know, being a hallucination and all. Not a very high quality hallucination, then.

The fact that Sherlock goes to denial so quickly is impressive. Most humans take a little longer, show more shock and sputter for a time. Make some display of just how silly it all is. While Sherlock works through it, Castiel only watches him dispassionately. Comforting or enforcing who he is doesn't figure in his thinking. Sherlock will believe or not.

"I need to talk to Jimmy about him telling other humans about me."

A nod answers Sherlock before Castiel vanishes from the foot of Sherlock's bed and reappears sitting on the one beside him. He reaches down to pick up the tray Sherlock dropped and sets it aside.

"It is better than bat given the circumstances. Some healer or another might be able to do something for you."

But not the angel sitting at his side.

"What happened with the vampires?"

This hallucination was stubbornly persistent and was displaying annoying signs of being real. Which was worrisome.

Except the vanishing thing. That was proper hallucinatory behavior.

But why would a hallucination need to know something he himself already did? After all it was coming from his brain...

Sherlock focused on Not-Jimmy, the nuances were obvious now that he really paid attention. Despite the fact that he hasn't been able to trust his brain for the past week...well, maybe his brain just took what Jimmy told him and made it real. His brain was certainly capable of doing something this involved.

Still, no reason to be overly rude.

"Well, clearly they must have planned this. When we were at that...I don't remember what it's called. Party dimension, whatever, there was a masquerade, and that's when they started attacking. Stealthily, at first. They picked so many off..." A slight break in his voice. Blast. Gon, Sora, Snake... Despite what people thought about his arrogance and coldness, Sherlock cared more than he ever let on. "We were fighting them outright when we got tossed back here. I'm not sure who exactly they took, besides the few I encountered. They turned them, some of them, I don't know..."

That stillness persists as Castiel sits there watching Sherlock. When Sherlock's words dry up, the angel nods.

"I wasn't aware of any danger to all of you when I was. When did you notice that things had gone wrong? What did these vampires look like and act?"

Perhaps it's Fate, perhaps someone suggested Sherlock to Castiel for his ability to process information and deduct the truth of a situation. The small break in Sherlock's voice is noted but not acted on. Even if he knew best how to comfort a person besides an embrace, he isn't sure Sherlock would appreciate it anymore than Cas does surprise-hugs. So far, Sherlock is the first person that seems detail oriented enough to tell him what Cas feels he needs to know.

"When you were fighting them, what weaknesses did they display? What areas of them were most vulnerable?"

"It's a bit difficult to pinpoint exactly when..." was this his guilty mind berating him for his bender? If he hadn't been on all that, he might have done much more good. He could have actually helped people. "They blended easily amongst the crowd. Weren't too different from ordinary humans, but they are..I don't know. More aesthetically inclined than most people?" Beautiful, was what he was trying to say, because he was embarrassed he'd been taken in by a woman--vampire--who looked too much like Irene Adler. "I think some had red eyes though. Or maybe that was the new vampires. I...some of it's a blur. We had masks, and it was difficult to focus on physical attributes until they were off. Suppose they were enchanted."

Psh. Enchanted. What was his life even, now?

"They were very difficult to fight. Silverware bothered them though, anything silver. I think the only thing that really worked was tearing them apart or decapitation."

Sherlock's forked tongue flicked out, sensing the lingering flavors of popcorn in the air.

"You believe in magic and vampires but not angels."

Castiel watches Sherlock but it's more looking through the detective instead of at him. The guilt that fills the human isn't picked up on. It's the information he hears, not the pain buried within.

"They don't sound like the vampires of my world specifically, but things blur in a place like this. There's many species that use glamour or spells to draw victims in. Hypnotism isn't unheard of. Silver. Good. That will help."

There's not much thought in him offering Sherlock the bag of sugar-salted kettle corn. Castiel has something of a sweet tooth when the mood takes him. A blink, and his dark blue eyes focus on Sherlock.

"The fact that you remember anything is good, as is you living. Those of my world do not leave survivors. I am glad anyone was left alive when I arrived here earlier." He pauses before going on. Sam would have done it. "We will get them back. In the mean time, I am Castiel. Who are you?"

"I don't really have much of a choice in the matter now, do I?" Sherlock wryly waves a clawed, webbed hand in the direction of the rest of the medical tent, indicating what was obviously in front of him. "Jimmy's story was...well, mad. Though admittedly, so is all of this."

Sherlock takes some of the popcorn anyway, he's hungry and has a considerable sweet tooth himself. He studies Not-Jimmy with a keen, practiced eye. Well, the popcorn was real enough.

Blast.

The reassurance that they'd get them back is a little lost as Sherlock keeps studying him.

"Sherlock Holmes."

Maybe not a hallucination. A dream, then? Popcorn seemed real enough. And the lingering pain. He's not quite sure what to make of it. He seems to be slightly malfunctioning, frozen, as the gears grind to a halt in his brain. What if Jimmy's story wasn't as mad as he'd thought?

And this was--

The danger to Jimmy was the first thing he thought of, besides the obvious shock to his system. This stupid Carnival, what else would it spring on him?

But all these thoughts were in the detective's head as he just blinked.

"Knowing Jimmy, his story was probably all true. Before he gave himself to me as a vessel, he was a pious and honest man. I do not know what the Carnival has done to him, if that has changed. I would have to hear what he has told you. What you call madness might only be truth that's hard to face."

Under Sherlock's stare, Castiel shows no signs of discomfort. He takes a few fluffs of popcorn for him, chewing on them thoughtfully while he turns the name over in his mind. It isn't one he's heard before, but that means nothing. Unless a human was a prophet or figured into Heaven's plans somehow, he had no need to know them.

"If I thought it wouldn't break some mainspring of you, I would show you what I could, but you would tell yourself later that it was the pain, a fever or some other thing making you see a lie."

Offering the bag back to Sherlock, Castiel leaned forward enough to take a sniff of Sherlock. Most humans, he could tell a lot about their physical state with just that. Trying to be coy about it never crossed his mind.

"You're not mad, Sherlock Holmes. Turning into a snake, but not mad."

Sherlock just stares and blinks occasionally. It's a long moment before he manages to speak again.

He takes some popcorn first to get his thoughts in order. It helped, at least.

"That's true, I would." Right now he wasn't so sure he wasn't asleep or dead. Or if he could trust his senses. The problem of being an addict, he supposed. There would always be some part of him that wondered if his entire time in the Carnival wasn't some mad trip or dream.

Somehow that comment released an ironic, bitter bark of a laugh.

"And yet, I would have the former. Would make things easier, at least. And probably more simple."

Being mad at least would have its own sort of release, a logical explanation to his experiences here. Turning into a snake and fighting vampires was flat-out ridiculous.

"If you're who you say you are," Sherlock finally said. He wasn't sure he could believe everything Jimmy said, maybe it was metaphor, maybe Jimmy really was a bit schizophrenic...either way, Jimmy was Sherlock's friend, and that was not something that came easy to the detective. Especially in a place like this. Jimmy had shown him kindness after kindness. Sherlock wasn't used to people being nice to him. And his story...that one time he had been so upset when they were in Atlantis, maybe that was because of...what could he do if he was here for Jimmy? If this--he couldn't quite say it, but whatever he was--Castiel was here for Jimmy, there was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do.

Except warn him to run and hide. Or make a deal with the Ringmaster.

"Are you here for Jimmy?"

Edited 2017-03-04 09:22 (UTC)

Castiel waits patiently through the time it takes Sherlock. The entire idea is madness, and he's at least aware of that. More than a few have lost their minds trying to grapple with the idea that angels, demons, vampires and all the rest were real instead of stories told to frighten others. Humanity has always been adept at creating a tale to match their version of the 'truth'.

He says nothing on what Sherlock is going through for the basic fact that he doesn't understand. He has no basis to build on and relate to, not that an angel can relate to a human on much of anything. Except for madness and how it frees someone. That he gets.

There's no dispute when Sherlock begins, Castiel's patience without end on that. Waiting is something he's good at. When the point is finally made, he only shakes his head.

"Jimmy Novak is my vessel, Sherlock Holmes. His physical body contains my being as no other can. Looking at me now, you can see that I am in my vessel, in Jimmy Novak. I can only assume the Ringmaster gave him a new body for his soul. I have no need of Jimmy in that way. Or do you mean another?"

While he can't think of one, humans are adept at finding a million things wrong or suspicious.

Sherlock's head hurts, and it's not just because of the withdrawal. He's used to science, not this...this...whatever this was. The Carnival was hard enough to comprehend when he first came here. Now he was trying to figure out if there were two Jimmy's...somehow...? Well, supposing the multiverse theory was correct...it wouldn't be too far fetched. Or with magic involved, even easier to explain.

"This is insane," the green detective muttered under his breath. It wasn't the first time his very being had just balked at the ridiculousness of the reality he found himself in.

"So, plainly speaking, you're not here to...use Jimmy," he said, narrowing his eyes. "Or take him away or do whatever it is you did to him." The only recourse Sherlock would have to save Jimmy would be to make a deal with the Ringmaster. He would gladly add on more years to his debt if it were to save his friend. If this Castiel really did drive Jimmy around like he was a Taxi, that was...horrifying.

"Insanity is much easier. There's nothing to worry about then. It's all someone else's problem."

He speaks from experience there. Castiel hadn't wanted to be sane again, but Purgatory had forced it on him. Seeing clearly is worse than being in the clouds if one cares for his opinion.

"I asked him to use his earthly body as my vessel, and he agreed. As I said, he was a man who believed in God. Being used by one of us isn't easy. Some go mad. Some die. Some blow apart into shredded bits of flesh and sprays of blood because they can't contain the power of an angel in them."

There's no rise and fall to Castiel's voice, only cold fact bluntly spoken. That unnatural calmness is in his eyes when they move back to Sherlock's own. The inhuman angel within the body of Jimmy Novak stares back at him, not the kind man Sherlock knows.

"I give you my word that I am not here for Jimmy Novak. I have been here over a year, gone most of the time. If I had needed to take him, it would have already happened."

Really!?

Sherlock found that both fascinating and, remembering that one of his friends was someone that very well may have happened to, terrifying.

I may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one second that I am one of them.

Sherlock's words to Moriarty all that time ago rang in his head, when he saw that look. It definitely wasn't Jimmy, even though it was with his Jimmy's face. Whatever he was, whatever he really was, this man was definitely not human. If he didn't feel sorry for his friend before...it came back a thousandfold.

"Fine. You stay away from him," Sherlock said, knowing full well that he couldn't do anything much about it. "He doesn't deserve this. He's finally escaped from you, and you come waltzing back in here? Do you realize what even seeing you might do to him!?"

He stays that way, staring back flatly at Sherlock.

"I agree, no, he does not. Had I not needed a vessel here on Earth, he would have lived out his days with his wife and child in mundane happiness instead of leaving behind a corpse and an orphan."

Grasping human problems is a problem Castiel has had in the past and continues to struggle with along with free will.

"You and Jonathan Strange. Both of you threaten me and have no understanding of what I am. Jimmy accepted me willingly. It was his choice. Twice. Don't, Sherlock Holmes. He's stronger than you think he is."

Sherlock, if anything, is practical. He's the kind of person that has no problem from going to point A to point B the fastest, most ruthless way possible. Doing what was necessary, he understood that. But after the 'experiments' with his sister...now that he had emotional context, he was finding it difficult to ignore the human side of things. The collateral damage. His friends had been collateral damage.

Ah. Strange had met him. At least he was in good company.

It wasn't fair. Jimmy probably did it the second time if there wasn't any other choice. He couldn't quite remember if that was part of the story he heard, but it sounded like something he would do.

"And he's done with you, strong or not," Sherlock snapped. Fine, maybe what happened was unavoidable, as horrible as the consequences were. He elected not to think about that at the moment. Now he knew why Jimmy wanted to make that deal. A deal he himself wanted to make to save his own dear friends. "You've already taken so much from him. Spare him this amount of peace."

That flat gaze of an inhuman creature lingers on Sherlock's face before Castiel links and looks away. His full focus is an ugly thing, and Cas knows it. Even the mortals who have been around him for years don't like it

"You don't know what you're asking, Sherlock Holmes, but... I agree."

Jimmy isn't the only living Novak should he need another vessel. Chances of that were slim to none, but as Sherlock had once been, Castiel was a practical creature. Jimmy might feel different if Sherlock ever brought this discussion up to him, but that isn't for Cas to warn him of.

"Jimmy's lucky to have people like you and Jonathan Strange. I'm glad he does." With that, the angel rises to his feet, looking down at the snake-ish Sherlock. The half-full popcorn bag is offered to him. "Should be easy enough on your stomach if you want it?"

Sherlock's unnerved by that look.

It's so not Jimmy it bugs him on a visceral level. It just feels so wrong, the intensity too much.

When he finally looks away, the detective breathes a sigh of relief that he didn't know he was holding.

There's a wry sort of sad smirk when Castiel says that Jimmy was lucky to have him and Strange around. "You do, really? For someone who just drives Jimmy around, I didn't think you'd care about something like that."

He's quite hungry, and reaches out with a clawed, webbed hand to take it. Practical as ever, despite his feelings on Castiel, he wasn't going to say no to the snack.

On the good side, the popcorn is still weirdly warm as if Castiel got it from the pot a few minutes ago. How it has stayed like that might be best not to ask.

A slow blink answers Sherlock at first, a small frown there and gone. Were he one to show emotion clearly, Castiel would be obviously confused. Instead, he looks more like an uninterested child presented with a Rubix Cube for the first time.

"Jimmy is my true vessel. I have lived within him with his soul for years. I watched him before that, spoke to him before I asked him to accept me in."

Some find it creepy in a way how angels learn about their vessels before asking to be allowed to take over their bodies. It gives them the right buttons to push, levers to pull although Castiel had tried to avoid that as much as his non-existent morals allowed.

"Before the - well, before I understood humanity a little better, I would have said he was only a human and should have felt himself special to be used for a higher cause. He helped prevent the Apocalypse. Saved every human on Earth. I don't know if it was worth it to him."

Sherlock does note the warmth of the popcorn, but he's used to the minor oddities of the Carnival by now, so he just shrugs and tosses a few in his mouth as he regards the other, his own keen eyes studying him.

They were reptilian and cold, but they were just as icy as they would have been were they still human. He was good at keeping his fiery emotions behind them, years of practice trying to deny said feelings. Now, however, he was more willing to display them, to feel them...he knew the value of emotion far more than he used to.

"Yeah, I'm sure that was fun for Jimmy," he muttered under his breath. Someone talking to you for years. No wonder he thought he was crazy.

Sherlock frowned, his facial expressions feeling foreign and odd on such a snake-like face. "Well, his family was his whole world. What does that tell you?" He was starting to understand the way Castiel viewed things. It was unnervingly familiar.

"You remind me of my brother," he grumbled.

Edited 2017-03-05 10:12 (UTC)

He'd be right in the matter of the popcorn. At least the bag keeps the food within warm for a little while. Out of Castiel's hands, it will start to cool in about fifteen minutes.

Sherlock's eyes don't cause Castiel much distress or change his opinion of the human. It's actually easier for him. Sherlock doesn't put off a hundred tiny cues that he should pick up on that denote anger or sadness or disagreement. He doesn't have to try to guess what Sherlock means.

"I don't know. I didn't have much time to talk to him with the oncoming Apocalypse. After my first death, he stopped answering me."

Angels also don't get sarcasm much. Sorry. Dean had been trying to work on that with Castiel, but even he couldn't succeed where Meg failed.

"It tells me that he may be very upset with you later, Sherlock Holmes. His bloodline can hold my Grace, and he has a daughter. You asked that I stay away from him. I can do that. Should the vessel I'm in become too damaged to continue, I can return to Claire. I told you Jimmy was my vessel twice. The second time he agreed to allow me back in so I would leave his daughter."

His head tilts a little, about the most he can or does show to indicate further confusion. Soon enough, Sherlock might be able to read an angel with the best of them.

"Why would I remind you of your brother? Is he one of us?"

Edited 2017-03-05 10:37 (UTC)

...right. Sherlock pauses in his scarfing on the popcorn to sort of just...blank out at the sheer absurdity of that statement. He shook his head, but it seemed depressing in hindsight. Jimmy stopped answering him...

He narrowed his eyes at what was said next. He knew how fiercely Jimmy had tried to protect his family, and--

"No, that's not what I meant at--you need to leave them all alone. Surely there's someone else you can puppet. Someone who doesn't have family!" Blast, he didn't meant to direct him back towards Jimmy's daughter.

The detective was starting to pick up on the subtle clues. It was difficult, but it was also his job to be able to read people. Or in the Carnival's case, whatever creatures he happened to come across.

"No..." there's a snort. "Definitely not. But he's...got a similar attitude. He's the British government, basically. The kind of person that would do anything to get from Point A to Point B for the greater good. Sacrificing whatever's necessary, even if it's not good...for an ordinary man." Ever since the whole thing with his sister...Sherlock's been struggling with his feelings about being gaslighted his whole life. He was resentful, of course, but Mycroft had...really just been doing his best. Doing what he could do. And that 'best' had terrible collateral damage.

Edited 2017-03-05 11:14 (UTC)

Castiel hadn't realised that Jimmy might be dead and gone to Heaven with the death of his human body. He didn't understand that with said body being brought back that Jimmy might still be there. He didn't know and didn't care when it came down to the wire. Cas had been fighting a war and one human hadn't meant a whole lot.

"But you said to leave him be, and I agreed to that. Your terms have been met. You didn't mention her or anyone else of the Novak line."

For Castiel, it was all logic. Sherlock might be one of the few who could pick up on or understand that. His expression rarely changed but his way of thinking remained the same. Knowing how Mycroft Holmes might react gave Sherlock a bonus in a strange way.

"Humans rarely know what is for the greater good, theirs or for the universe to keep on. They only think they do."

Sherlock didn't want to say he forgot, because he did, he had been so focused on saving Jimmy that he didn't realize that he should have.

"Well, add her to the terms then. I'm mentioning her now."

After what had happened with 'Redbeard', he'd done his best to suppress his emotions, thinking they would ruin his rational thinking and logic. It was only in recent years that he started accepting that part of him. And, this was also thanks to Mycroft's doing. So he gets it, he gets that cold reasoning, it's not unlike how he would react a few years ago. Now he has emotional context though, now he has friends.

"I'm sure," that was true on a daily basis, people couldn't even handle crossing the street properly. "But all we have to go on is what we know. And do our best."

That was...oddly sentimental, for someone like him. But seeing how broken Mycroft was after the experiment with Eurus, realizing that as awful as the consequences had been, he'd been doing it with the best of intentions...so he certainly knew what it was like when someone tried their best and still failed. He was living proof of that.

"I can't and won't agree to that. I did try to warn you that he might be upset with you later. I'm sorry. I agreed to the terms you had already laid out."

The feeling he gets from this discussion isn't a comfortable one. Demons made deals, not angels except for Balthazar. It didn't sit well with the tiny moral part of him that he'd known the stakes in this and Sherlock hadn't. That said, nothing would shake him loose from the Novak line if he needed a new vessel.

"You did do your best, and I've given you my word that I won't take Jimmy if my current vessel becomes too damaged or I'm forced out. The Jimmy you know is safe from being my vessel again."

The first emotion he's really shown in Sherlock's presence is regret, bitter but there. He couldn't let Claire go no matter what if he were denied Jimmy, especially with what might be coming.

"I'm sorry. You should sleep. Everyone in here smells sick in some way."

That's...probably not good.

Sherlock frowns, realizing that his staunch refusal to even learn about how magic worked around here was starting to become a serious liability. He would have to remedy that, before he made more mistakes.

"But his daughter!"

He felt cold in the pit of his stomach, and that wasn't from his cold-bloodedness. Did he just do something bad?

HELL OF A HANGOVER PT. 1

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