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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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So you're one of the good guys. [ A hero, like her brother and Roy and basically almost everybody else she knows that isn't her dad. She smiles. ] That's good to know.

Well, typical hotels have front doors, soooo. [ Definitely not your typical hotel, no. ] Salt keeps ghosts away. [ Seems legit...? ] I'll remember that.

['Good guys' seems pretty relative. But mentioning 'by the way I started the Apocalypse' or 'so you know Lucifer? He possessed me this one time and it was really kind of bad news bears' seems like the wrong foot to start off on. And not everything is about guilt and whatnot so, cool, Sam's going to aggressively not think about that.]

Salt, yeah. And typical hotels also don't have a staff that never shows up, exploding Easter eggs, and a penchant for cutting food without warning. [Ticking these off on his fingers.] Did I get that all covered?

[ At the very least, she'd be surprisingly sympathetic at the Lucifer thing. ]

You forgot the ghosts you weren't here for. And before I got here, they cut the heat with no warning, left everybody to shiver and suffer.

Kinda weird that someone must've really wanted us here for all that.

[If you're gonna harvest unwilling people and dump them all into a disreputable rat-trap of a hotel, it makes sense to at least care about them. A little.

Maybe it doesn't.

Maybe logic just isn't a thing here.

That's pretty likely actually.]

Then again, a lotta things are 'kinda weird' here. Maybe I shouldn't get picky.

I think the most popular theory is that it's some sort of experiment.

[ And she's sort of inclined to believe it, too. It seems like the most likely explanation next to 'needless torture'. If it were just her, or just her and Oliver, who'd been kidnapped, she would've guessed the League of Assassins, or one of Oliver's other enemies. She might've guessed Malcolm.

But there's a lot of people here with a lot of different stories from a lot of different worlds.

She tilts her head at him. ]

What do you think it is?

['Experiment'. Now doesn't that sound lovely and ominous. He scratches his nose contemplatively, considering.]

I mean, I've dealt with being trapped in hotels before. Just not really like this.

[Still, if past experience is any indication, his stab in the dark isn't going to be a fun one.]

If I had to make a guess, I'd say we probably pissed off something big. Like a deity or something.

[Ugh. That's something he admits very unhappily, because he has had quite enough of slaughterhouse hotels thanks.]

I hope you gave them awful Yelp reviews.

[ Because when she gets out of here (when, not if), this place is getting the shittest one of them all.

Deities, though. That sounds about as fun as 'experiment'. At least there has to be an actual physical person to exist to experiment on them. She's pretty sure that isn't the case with deities. ]

All of us? It'd be kind of incredible if every single one of us managed to do something to piss off the same deity.

[His mouth twists wryly.] You'd be surprised. Might be they just wanna have fun with us.

['Fun' as in the SHITTIEST WAY POSSIBLE. Sam does not mean 'fun'. He means the opposite of fun. The kind where people DIE.]

[ Thea's nose crinkles unhappily. ]

I guess I'm used to my bad guys having reasons for causing trouble.

[ Like Malcolm's insane need for revenge. And Slade's insane need for revenge. And Ra's al Ghul's insane need for revenge. Her life is a shitty cycle of revenge, apparently. ]

Oh, but that would make sense.

Honestly, I have no idea what it is they mean for us to do here.

[Assuming there's a 'they'. Or a 'do'.]

God forbid that happen.

[ Maybe she would hate being kidnapped to an inescapable hotel a little less if it weren't constantly trying to kill them. This place doesn't know a thing about customer service. ]

At least we're all on even ground in that respect.

And on the 'get the hell out' respect. Far as I can tell, no one's really jazzed about being here.

Kidnapped away from our friends and families when we had far more important stuff going on? I wouldn't bet on it.

[Family and friends and the minor problem where all the angels were falling and it may or may not have been the Winchesters' collective fault. Among other things.]

Well, hopefully a spell'll do something. [Buuuut his fingers aren't crossed. They aren't usually, because he's not always a fingers-crossed person, but if he was! ...they still wouldn't be crossed.]

Hopefully. And hopefully it'll do something that doesn't involve demons or other potentially awful things.

[ Even though that would apparently just be another Tuesday at this hotel. ]

[DEMONS HMM. SO ABOUT THAT]

I'll - try to keep that to a minimum, yeah.

[ OH, THIS OUGHTA BE GOOD. ]

Let me know how it goes.

I'll let you know.

[Not that he's all that optimistic. Literal Archangel Gabriel couldn't break out, and he's Literal Archangel Gabriel. But whatever - he's gonna try either way.]

Thanks. And in the meantime, take care of yourself.

[ Because, again. You look like actual death. ]

[True, except Actual Death had slightly shorter hair and a cane and at least 5000% more swagger.]

I'll try. You too.

[Except unlike him, she seems to be doing just that.]

[ ~~Too bad he'll never cut his hair.~~ ]

Sure thing.

[ And with a small smile, she ends the feed. ]

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