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[The few days it's taken to adjust have been, well - Sam is not going to use the word 'Hell' because he's actually been, and this is crappy but it doesn't come close. Still, anyone who hasn't seen him yet might be a little alarmed at what's being broadcast: six feet and four inches of sickly sasquatch, valiantly trying to address the network, appallingly pale, sallow-faced and bloodshot-sunken-eyed.]

Hey. Uh - Sam. I'm new. I guess this is a, uh, a thing that, that people do. Is introduce themselves. And I get that - we're all looking for a way out.

[Auspicious beginnings. Who knows if anyone's even getting this? Nevertheless, he continues.]

Okay. So. No promises, but there's something I can try. Kinda like a ward, or a spell. [Magic exists, surprise. The few people he's already talked to have expressed a kind of varied interest in this sort of thing, so caution be damned.] Anyone wants to help, I'll need a couple things.

First is - salt. Table salt, any kind will do. Second? Matches, a lighter, anything that can make sparks, even for a few seconds. And then I'll need something to write with, marker, pen, spray paint - I don't care. Anything along those lines.

[He looks at something off-screen, mouth briefly twisting in what might best be categorized as 'disgust'.]

I have food to trade for it. Heard that's kind of a limited resource these days. Food and, uh. [He squints at something.] Neosporin. If anyone, y'know, needs that.

[Yeah, he doesn't get it either. He jerks off frame for a moment, face buried in his elbow. It's not enough to fully stifle the ragged, fierce coughs that leave his shoulders shuddering. Finally, signs of life trickle back through the feed, albeit muffled and with their subject mostly lurched off camera as he mutters in his more characteristic deadpan, wearily sardonic, 'so-done-with-this-shit' tone.]

Also. If anyone happens to have some aspirin on them, that'd be great.

[There's the rattling of trembling, uncoordinated fingertips trying to navigate the tablet, and the feed snaps off.]

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You do?

[Not many people do. But here's this guy, brand new and searching for a way out, looking like he's ready to drop. He says he gets it, and for some reason, she believes him.]

You don't have to elaborate, it's just kind of a new development.

[Something she hasn't made peace with yet. It's not that she thinks her parents don't love her, she knows they do. Love doesn't make what they did okay, and it doesn't make lying to cover it up something she knows how to deal with.]

My world was small-town Maine. Before that, it was Boston, before that ... let's just say I moved around a lot. My parents sent me out of their world before a curse hit, so my life was drastically different than what it was supposed to be.

[Or maybe she was always supposed to be like this. Sometimes it's hard to tell.]

I was born in the Enchanted Forest, but I've only been there twice since then. My boyfriend, Hook, is from over there. He's stuck in the hotel, too.

Well, um. It's a long story. But yeah, kinda. [And like. Super awkward, because it's not often one gets to say that their elephant in the room is Actual Satan. That's a whole can of demonic worms that's probably best saved for...not now.

Fairy tales, on the other hand. Enchanted Forests. Hook.

Sounds like an exciting life.]

You weren't joking about moving around. Like - literally other worlds? My brother and I, we hunted things, but never like, uh, like that.

[A long story. Isn't that the same thing she tried on him? He gets a pass for struggling with this more than she is. If she had some aspirin, he'd be welcome to it.]

Other worlds came after I got to Storybrooke. I grew up in the foster system.

[Moving around was going to wherever there was a place for her. The Enchanted Forest, Neverland, and getting her friends back to Arendelle came later.]

Things like animals, or things like creatures?

Ah. That - sounds like that must've been tough.

[And that's...stickier. Running away's not quite the same thing.]

This would be my first time with, uh, this particular...deal. Other worlds and stuff. The most I've ever dealt with is other timelines, and - [hhhhhooooow does one broach this topic? ah, fuck it] - and uh, and Hell, but that was, that was different.

[There's just...not an easy way of going about it.]

Uhh. Not really. More like demons, ghosts, things that go snap in the night?

[Hopefully that's not too weird, right? Compared to literal fairy tales that can't be way out there?

Right?]

Hell?

[He said Hell, didn't he? And then just kept going like she wasn't going to notice.]

I've done weird timelines. The last time I was in another world, I watched my parents meet.

[More like she ruined it and had to course-correct, but that's the same thing.]

You hunt demons?

[With Victor Frankenstein for a doctor and them previously turning to ghost-Cora for answers, it's not the strangest thing she's ever heard.]

[Wince.] Yeah. Hell. Already been. Wouldn't recommend it.

[Because adopting a light tone with all the flippancy of a guy who's just Learned To Deal With It is definitely a healthy coping mechanism.]

Demons, ghouls, whatever else happened to be out there. Anything hurting people, we put in the ground and if it was already dead, we burned it.

[Note the past tense. Fucking hotel.]

We did the time warp too, weirdly enough. Got to watch our parents meet, and tried not to fuck it up too badly. [Which, well, points lost there.]

That sounds pretty tough, too.

[If there's anything being the savior has taught her, it's how easy it is to feel responsible for the safety of someone else. She's the one who's supposed to bring back the happy endings of everyone in Storybrooke. When people like Gold threaten that, Emma feels like it's her job to fix it.]

If you pulled that off, you did better with it than I did. I ruined my parents' first meeting and had to run around the Enchanted Forest setting them up until I fixed it.

[Which reminds her, for a moment, of how terrified she'd been when she thought her mother was dead.]

... What were you doing before they brought you here?

Yeah, my brother and I kind of...sicked a jumped-up angel on them. We had to fix it before she straight-up murdered them.

[Whoopsie-daisy, been there, nearly undid history. As is the Winchester M.O. So he feels you there.]

Would you believe me if I said 'trying to close the Gates of Hell?' Kinda backfired. Hence the, uh.

[He waves an indicative hand over the pale, bloodshot canvas that is his face. He's looked better, he knows.] Didn't really work out.

If you believe my parents are fairytale characters, I'll believe you were closing the gates of Hell.

[Closest thing she's been to that was Neverland, and honestly, she almost thought they were one and the same.]

Is there anything I can do?

[He concedes with a minimal shrug. You got him there.]

Hey, not the weirdest thing I've heard of. Once you meet Lucifer, kinda opens a whole realm of possibilities.

['Realm'. He didn't actually mean to make the pun but it just called to him.]

Not unless you got any spare aspirin lying around. It's not exactly your typical flu strain. Just gotta kinda let it run its course.

I can ask around.

[He just did, but it's worth a shot. Better than letting someone suffer through this and not trying to help at all.]

Will it run it's course?

[Or should they be worried?]

It's not contagious. Kinda specific to the circumstances.

[He had magic in his veins and fire churning through his blood. And even if he was wrenched from world the next, stuff like that has ripples. Coughing, hacking, sneezing, sleepless ripples.]

Even if it doesn't, I've dealt with worse.

Who says I was worried about it being contagious?

[It was more the limited medical resources and a guy who came in looking like that.]

... I'm Emma.

Seems to be the general concern. [And hey, he gets that! He looks like death! He's falling apart at the feverish seams, he gets wanting to take some kind of precautionary measure against the potential spread of thing-that-the-cat-dragged-in-itis.] But, uh, it's just me.

Sam. Winchester. Been here awhile?

I figured.

[This place isn't going to bring in someone just to make them sick. All signs point to it liking a more hands on approach.]

A few months, as far as I can tell. Disappeared for a few days, woke up in the boiler room with a new set of memories like I'd been home for a while, but who knows. No one's around to offer up answers.

[That's a significant deviation from the stories everyone else has told. The introduction of the boiler room is new, and Sam's not sure he likes the sound or implications of it.]

You dunno if you actually went back or just, like - dreamed it?

[Goddddd. Sam is so not here for the twisting of reality, or whatever crap this place has in store for them.]

Place just keeps getting better and better.

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