test drive meme #2

[shadowyfigure]

TEST DRIVE MEME #2

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[Vishvendra Rai]

Hi, It's Me, Back Again

The last thing you remember is either simple or very complicated - you were asleep, or unconscious, or perhaps...you died. Whatever the circumstances, you closed your eyes at home and dreamed of a storm, and when your eyes opened again you were staring at the ceiling of your new home, injured perhaps, but with wounds bound and safe enough. For now.

Upon waking and exploring your new surroundings - a relatively nice, furnished apartment - you will discover a BlackBerry style phone, your apartment key, mail key, and a sensor for "buzzing" into the building, as well as a list of rules to live by in your new home:

1. don't use the elevator between 1:11 and 3:33 am.

2. you will receive mail from 'the building manager' shoved under your door. read it once and then burn it immediately.

3. if someone claiming to live on the fourth floor tries to speak to you, ignore them.

4. never enter the basement, or any area of the building below ground level

5. if you see a shadowy figure in the hallway, run.

The apartment you now find yourself in looks well-kept, the fridge is full, the lights are on, and the whole place looks as if whoever lived in this apartment before you simply packed up and left, minutes ago.

If you leave that apartment, you'll find yourself faced with a dim hallway that leads to a small lobby with an elevator door. You're going to have to explore this new place sometime! Why not now?

Drag You To The Bottom of the Lake

CW: POSSIBLE DROWNING, TENTACLES

Usually, one has to use their fob to buzz into the amenities on the first floor, but today you might notice that the doors are propped open and peppy pop music seems to be playing from down one of the hallways. Echoey and a little strange at first, at a distance, the music seems to beckon to you and you find yourself following the sound of it.

The closer you get, the more clear the music will be, less creepy and echoey, until it's nothing but bubblegum pop that might play on the radio in any world you might have come from. The lyrics are unfamiliar but they're easy to learn if you wanted to sing along! The happy, peppy energy is very familiar and the more you listen, the more you find yourself wanting to sing or hum along.

Eventually, the source of the music proves to be the swimming pool, the doors of which are propped open just like the doors leading up to it. Inside it is lit moderately brightly, the high ceiling sloped from about the center of the room with a glass roof that shows that it's raining outside. Inside, however, it's warm and smells slightly of chlorine and...candy? Upon further inspection, it appears there's a candy and ice cream bar set up at one side of the pool, where a little bit of room has been cleared, the lounge chairs pressed against the walls of the pool. The music appears to be coming from an old school boombox that's propped on one of the chairs and blasting at the highest volume possible, plugged into an outlet on the wall behind it. The doors to the change rooms are propped open invitingly, and the temperature is just warm and muggy enough that the pool? That looks like a great idea. Cool. Inviting. A drop of sweat winds its way down your forehead as you look at it.

The ice cream and candy bar is welcoming, with various flavours available from vanilla to chocolate to peanut butter swirl to...blood? That label must mean blood orange, right? Either way, there's plenty of ice cream to go around, and once you've scooped your portion into your bowl, you can top it with a wide variety of candies - gummy candy that turns deliciously hard and chewy with the cold ice cream, mini peanut butter cups, peppermint swirls, and a wide variety of other types. To top it all off, help yourself to caramel, chocolate, or strawberry syrup. Feel free to dance to the happy pop music in the cleared area while you eat and socialize with your fellow partygoers!

Once you're done with the ice cream, feel free to go into the change room of your choice (male, female, and non-gendered) and find a line of swimsuits and towels neatly folded in matching sets along the benches. Get changed, take a quick shower to rinse off, and go jump into the pool!

The pool itself is quite benign at the shallow end and through the middle, and as usual with pools, as you swim deeper the depth markers printed on the side of the pool go up and up. 5 feet. 7 feet. 9 feet. The final markers simply say "???" though, as you get to the last few feet of the pool, and if you are to look down you'll find that instead of the distant blue of the tile under chlorinated water, there's nothing but black. There's no way to see the bottom, and if you drop something lighted it'll simply sink until it's no longer visible in the dark. The more you look at it, the more it calls to you, as you stare into the abyss and it stares back.

Just when you find yourself tempted to swim down and see how far you can get before you can't hold your breath any longer, something emerges from the dark, a deep grey-purple tentacle with suckers on the inside. It wraps around your ankle, and you can feel the panic set in as it starts to drag you under...

Can you fight free of it? Will someone come to your rescue? Will anyone even notice?

Hope You Didn't See Me Unhinging My Jaw

CW: EMETOPHOBIA, ROT, MAGGOT-LIKE CREATURE

The stairwell and elevator in Penumbra Place have never been what anyone would call 'reliable' by any means. However, it seems that over the next few days after the pool party, they're fixated on the 8th floor. The elevator constantly stops at the 8th floor, doors opening as if to admit or expel an invisible party, lingering at the floor much longer than is necessary or normal. People using the stairwells will find that the numbers painted on the wall of the stairwell to indicate where the doors go are all '8' no matter how many floors up or down they go. There's obviously something on that floor that...requires your attention.

Should anyone be brave enough to actually venture into the 8th floor, they'll find it looks like a normal floor in the apartment building, albeit slightly...squishy. The floor squelches under shoes, covered in an inches-deep mysterious greenish-yellow liquid, the walls dip slightly under the touch of fingers, even the doors are slightly squishy when the knobs are grasped to open or close them. Surfaces are shiny and slightly slimy, glistening in light that's a little bit lower than the lights on other floors. There's a scent in the air like rotting food, spoiled milk, prickling at the back of your nostrils. Every touch stings a little, too, unless some kind of protection is being worn, like acid biting at the skin and eating through it. It eats through clothing too, with drips falling from the ceiling and landing on heads and faces and shoulders, dissolving fabric and hair and the skin underneath.

As you explore the floor, you'll come across apartment 808, where the door is slightly ajar. Moving inside, the scent of rot and digestion that permeates the entire floor gets stronger and stronger, like curdled milk and bile and vomit. The amount of liquid on the floor gets deeper and deeper until it's stinging and biting at your ankles and calves, the sharp but slow throbbing pain of being digested.

And then you see it, the giant thing attached to the apartment's living room wall. About 10 feet long, the thing is like a giant maggot, squirming and pulsing above a couch soaked with that burning acidic bile, seemingly feeding on the wall and the fluid. And anything that happens by, it seems, as the creature shifts and makes a high-pitched noise, reaching out some kind of appendage toward you. In some instinctive way, you recognize this creature as a parasite, and disgust builds up like bile in your own throat at the sight of it, a primitive emotion bordering on fear.

There's no choice but to kill it, is there? Except it doesn't die so easily, requiring ridiculous amounts of damage taken before it will die. Are you going to risk killing it and damaging the building in which you all live?

The World Is Burning

CW: FIRE, POSSIBILITY OF BEING BURNED

The smell of smoke greets you as you awaken, and as you go about your day, the scent doesn't go away. It's faintest on the main floor and the 11th floor, but gets stronger the closer to the center of the building you get. If you happen to be in the stairwell, it's easy to see that the smoke is billowing out from under the door of the 4th floor.

Anyone who investigates the floor will find it on fire, the flames licking at the skeletal remains of the walls, already burned out. And they will hear screams and cries of terror from inside the floor, as if there were people in those apartments! There are 25 apartments on the floor and people in almost all of them that need rescuing! Does it matter that this floor was uninhabitable just yesterday? No! You can hear them, screaming and crying and panicking. Someone is crying that their baby is stuck somewhere, someone is screaming that they're burning.

While some characters may be heroes who'd help no matter what, the others can be compelled by the fact that the only standing and habitable building anywhere nearby is on fire. It's worth the time to help out, in whatever way possible.

Anyone who tries to fight the fire will find that nothing they do will extinguish the flames, no amount of water or ice or anything else will staunch the flames that are burning the skeletal apartment walls. There's hardly anything left to burn, and yet it keeps going, flames licking at the exposed wood seemingly without really doing any further damage. But if a person tries to touch it? Well, that's another story altogether, because the flames definitely harm flesh.

The only way to stop the blaze before it consumes the whole apartment is to rescue the people on the floor. People that no one here has met before, people who seemingly didn't exist before the flames started. Could they be related to the phantoms you can usually see on this floor? Maybe. But either way, once all the people are cleared out of the floor, the fire magically dies down and slowly goes out.

We Go Boo

CW: GHOSTS, DARKNESS

The shadowy figure is old news by this point, and easy enough to avoid. It's simple, if you see it, simply run to the other end of the hall and leave the floor, or duck into one of the apartments. Easy enough, if still pretty scary.

Things start to change in the month of January, though, with new figures appearing. They are shrouded in darkness, enough that making out details of what they look like is difficult. Sometimes they come alone, sometimes in groups of two or three. They're distinguishable enough from each other by height and posture to tell that there are 6 of them, all different save for two that are identical, only obviously two because they often appear together.

While these six figures are much like the original shadowy figure, and don't do much of their own or take initiative to attack anyone, and are impervious to any attacks on them, they are intimidating, and their appearances are more frequent than the shadowy figure's appearances had been. Every night, on multiple floors, and sometimes even in the daytime, most often around sunset and sunrise, these figures appear and sweep down hallways, rattle the knobs of the apartments, and generally make themselves known.

(CODE)

Accessibility: teacodes

Comments

cw gross nosebleed stuff for the next tags

[messenger]

[ castiel has never better looked the part of the pathetic wet cat. he makes no move to better arrange the towels. that can come later. he's a little distracted, anyway, by the hands holding his hair and his face.

his head is tilted back, and he feels the blood slide down the back of his throat with a shudder. he thinks of vampires and ghouls, drinking it on purpose, and couldn't feel any more human in the moment if he tried. it tastes terrible, metallic and sticky and hot, and settles on his stomach like a stone. to say nothing of how bad his face hurts. as the shock passes, it begins to throb.

he blinks slowly at the other man through the tears in his eyes. like a particularly perceptive zoo animal regarding it's handler. ]

I told you it was calling me.

[freakymagoo]

Yeah, well, the Nigerian prince might call you but you're not supposed to answer either.

[At least, that was one of the many life lessons he was supposed to memorise in the crash course in 21st century living. He's never actually gotten a call from the Nigerian prince. Didn't even give the guy his number when he met him on that last Wakandan mission so he's not sure how the hell he would have his number.

But the point still stands and Bucky has followed those instructions to the letter.]

Tell me if you're about to pass out. [Sigh. He can handle goats just fine but has little experiences with clumsy angels.]

[messenger]

Why— why not?

[ the statement is so absurdly un-topical that it momentarily distracts him from the spark righteous indignation that was about to flare up into a burst of decisively petty, childish anger.

this man must not have any experience with the supernatural at all. that's the only thing he can come up with: that's the only reason he'd leave him alone. where the blame lies is immaterial. castiel knows he should have been able to shake it off. he winces and swallows, eyes pricking with tears as the movement of his facial muscles send signals of pain to his currently very human brain. ]

[freakymagoo]

It's not really him and they'll empty out your bank account? [Obviously? Has Bucky been the only one cruising through the decades in cryo? These are important things for all 21st century dwellers to know. It's also not absurd and not a far stretch from stranger danger. Just because anyone comes calling doesn't mean you have to answer.

He's also not getting any special treatment, if that's of any consolation. Bucky tackles most things alone. Or at least, tries to. Which is not to say that he hasn't gotten plenty of help along the way, but he doesn't expect it and certainly doesn't know how to ask even if he thinks he might need it.]

Can we get out of the pool area now or do you want to keep fucking around with that? [Not right now now of course, but. As soon as the bleeding stops and they've ascertained that he hasn't damaged his brain somehow.]

[messenger]

I don't have a bank account.

[ comes the slightly gurgled answer. his teeth are stained pink with blood between his parted lips. not a bank account, not a single red cent to his name. there's a wallet in his pocket but it isn't his wallet, and the id inside doesn't belong to him, nor do the pictures of the family he tore jimmy novak away from, or the wedding ring he removed a year ago now.

he blinks slowly in deference to the pain, and glances askance. staring at the edge of the pool. ]

Don't be ridiculous. It wasn't me. I lost control of my body.

[freakymagoo]

[Right. So he just expects Bucky to believe that he's some homeless, penniless schmuck in a nice suit and a trenchcoat? Does he look like he was born yesterday?]

Hold this. [The towel being pressed against his face. Bucky works partly to dry the other limbs off, partly subtly feels up for any broken bones or anything else they need to be worried about. As far as he can tell it's just localised to the head, but he's no doctor and he hasn't met any since being forced to relocate to this apartment.]

Still bleeding? Blurry vision? Any problems reading that sign? [There's only one sign with rules for the pool usage over behind Bucky's shoulder so hopefully there's no ambiguity there.]

[messenger]

It's blurry. [ everything is a little hazy around the edges these days. he doesn't have the kind of sight he did when he was an angel; nothing could possibly compare. even if jimmy had perfect 20/20 vision, it would still be something he notices, something that creeps up on him and makes breathing harder than it should be for agonizing stretches of time.

he's so incredibly helpless in this body.

he's nothing at all. ] I can read it.

[ he blinks hard, nose creasing in a grimace. tears run down his cheeks, making tracks through the dried blood. he's probably going to end up with a couple of black eyes for his trouble, but when he takes the towel away to reveal the bloody mess of his face, it isn't gushing anymore, so that's a point in his favor. ]

I want to go now.

[freakymagoo]

[Bucky's eyebrows furrow at the mention that his vision is blurry. Maybe there's something more serious they need to worry about. But he's able to read the sign and he probably just needs some recovery time before they can do a few more simple tests to rule out anything brain-related.]

Let's go then. [Making very quick work of drying his own torso off, Bucky tosses the towels aside and leaves them scattered near the bloodied floor. He's not sure if he's now doing an annoying sort of hovering, the other extreme from walking away which didn't work out, but he offers a hand to help the other man up to his feet, make sure he's steady before letting go.

He'll pick up the coat and his own t-shirt on the way to the door and leave them on the table he set down outside, never straying too far from his newly acquired package. Escort missions weren't exactly his strong suit back in the day but at the moment if he can stop this guy from hurting himself he's calling it a win.]

There's some first aid supplies in my apartment. And food. [That was an offer in case it wasn't obvious.]

[messenger]

[ there are a lot of things they need to worry about where castiel is concerned, but the same could be said of bucky. he takes his hand to lever himself up off of the floor, dizzy before he even stands, legs shaky under his body. his extremities feel cold, and he becomes aware, in the same moment, of the tingling in his fingertips and toes, the beat of his pulse in his wrists. his stomach flips, and he hurries after bucky, wherever bucky sees fit to lead him.

there is, of course, still the problem of the doors and what to do about them. he only notices the table that bucky brought as they're on their way out. ]

[freakymagoo]

[It's not a perfect solution but Bucky - after checking subtly over his shoulder that his package is still with him - moves to push the door closed and barricades it with the table. Sure, he didn't use a 5 ton bookshelf, but hopefully the fact that there's a piece of furniture obstructing easy access is enough of a deterrent.

There's no accounting for strangers in trenchcoats and what signs they follow or ignore.]

I'm upstairs. [He doesn't check over his shoulder again as he heads down the corridor towards the lift.] Tell me if you're getting light-headed.

[messenger]

[ castiel doesn't look back this time. when the door is barred it's time to go— castiel's poor state certainly contributing to his easy distraction.

he follows wordlessly. he isn't anymore lightheaded now than he was kneeling on the pool room floor. in fact, the clear air is much easier to breath than the chlorine saturated stench.

he leans against the side of the elevator as they go up, hand gripping the rail. it's not as far as he expects. ]

[freakymagoo]

[Don't worry, this isn't a Captain America in the elevator situation. He doesn't have to be so tense. Bucky casts a wary sideeye that lasts no longer than a glimpse before his gaze darts back to the numbers. Once they arrive on Bucky's floor with a quiet groan and small bounce of the lift, he pauses for half a second when the doors slide open before stepping out. Sometimes he doesn't know what to expect, in this building. It could be the same lift lobby area that he remembers, or it could spit them out somewhere completely different. It's not paranoia if it just pays to be a little more cautious around here.]

Mind the cats. [They're on every floor, he's pretty sure, and he has no idea why there are so many - not that he's ever tried to do a headcount, or who is obsessed with this hairless breed. He doesn't think they're particularly cute or annoying, he just. Sort of puts up with them. But he might have adopted one of them despite adamantly not caring about them. That one he can pick out from the entire litter. Again, you know, not that he cares or that he adopted one or anything.

When they reach his door, Bucky unlocks it and pushes it open, waits for his guest to go inside before he follows and closes the door behind him.] Have a seat. I'll get the supplies. And, I don't know. Coffee or whatever. [Seems like he doesn't normally have guests unless it's de rigueur to make them drink shitty coffee instead of offering the assortment of beverages in his pantry and refrigerator.]

[messenger]

I don't mind them. [ castiel likes the cats. the lack of life here is unnerving. the hairless cats are obviously not a natural installation, but they seem to be thriving regardless. the apartment building would be lesser without them. though, he hasn't yet been here long enough to adopt a mongrel of his own. it's only been a few days, really. though there exists the possibility of more or less having passed, since he hasn't been the most reliable at tracking them since he arrived.

he follows bucky into the apartment without making any other comments. the apartment is no different from his own, except for being on a lower floor (castiel is situated on the seventh, which seems somehow ironic to him in a way he wouldn't be able to easily explain to anyone not well-versed in religious numerology). which means that it's generally much more spacious and habitable than any of the motel rooms that sam and dean used to— that they favor. ]

Do you have whiskey?

[ it just happens to be what he's most familiar with. and also, he wouldn't especially mind getting a little drunk. ]

[freakymagoo]

[Whiskey? It's not a weird ask but somehow it's just a little surprising that this guy would ask for it. Bucky has some, yes, but the bottle seems pretty much untouched when he brings it out to the table and the first aid kit along with it.]

Help yourself. [Just give him a few more seconds to bring a glass from the cupboard over to the table. Whiskey works well, actually. Saves him the time making coffee and they can just get right to it.]

Sit down. [Popping the first aid kit open, it's mostly scavenger and salvaged supplies that he rummages through. There's nothing to address any major injuries with, although there's tape to help with a broken nose if necessary and various plastic bottles he takes out to help rinse and clean out any blood residue.]

Are you still bleeding anywhere? Is the room spinning?

[messenger]

[ whiskey and a first aid kit seem like familiar accoutrements to a bloody injury, and a sense of rightness settles over him despite the distracting ache still throbbing between his eyes and at his temples. his eyes sockets at the inner corners are beginning to bruise, though it might not look quite as bad as it had when he first slammed his face into the side of the pool and drenched himself in blood. he looks down at himself when the questions come, trying to remember if dean had any surefire way for getting blood out of fabric. he must have, surely? castiel's wince increases, brows trembling as he squints through the pain.

rather than answer straightaway, he pours himself a glass of the whiskey. his entire face screws up at the taste, which does nothing at all to help his headache, but he's too obstinate to care he may only be making things worse. ]

No.

[ if he turns his head too fast one way or another, vertigo momentarily overcomes him, but that's not what he asked. ]

[freakymagoo]

You should be fine. [Not to worry. If any brain matter starts leaking out of his ears, Bucky will be the first to stare and point it out.]

I've got towels. Change of clothes. [Bucky gestures to the shower with a casual lift of his arm in the general direction of said shower, and absentmindedly folds his arm back in and scratches his ear.] Nothing so formal, but. Should fit. [He's not really the suit wearing type and luckily for him, none of the rooms in this building dictate a strict dress code.]

You should at least wash your face, if you're not comfortable. [Bucky's already fetching a fresh big towel from the neatly folded pile. He seems like a fairly neat, somewhat organised person, but maybe that comes with the dog tag territory.] Check if your nose is broken.

[messenger]

[ castiel takes another wincing sip from his glass of whiskey before he sets it down on the table and tugs on the front of his shirt, pulling the bloody stain away from his body. ]

Can this be laundered?

[ he's a mess. he supresses a sigh and begins to unbutton his shirt, which is easier said than done where the button holes are stiff with dried blood.

he gives up and stands after a moment. takes the towel he's been offered, and hobbles off in the direction of the bathroom. ]

[freakymagoo]

[Bucky's eyebrow crawls up towards his hairline. It's a-- strange question? Does this guy burn every shirt after one wear?]

Sure. With enough bleach. Did you have a butler or something. [Not here obviously, but. Despite the penniless talk, that outfit gives off some Sokovian Baron vibes. And no, Bucky is not anybody's attack dog or laundromat wash and fold service.]

I'll leave a change of clothes for you outside. [A simple t shirt and sweatpants to lounge around in. Hopefully his stomach won't churn with normal people clothes.]

[messenger]

[ there's a long, confused, pause, before he asks, ]

What does a cup-bearer have to do with clothes?

[ somehow, this man makes even less sense than dean, despite the fact that every other sentence out of his mouth isn't some obscure pop culture reference.

in the bathroom, castiel strips and washes himself as best he can at the sink, wincing at the sight of a bruised and bloody face that doesn't belong to him staring back in the mirror. shuddering, he pulls himself away from the sight and opens the door to dress in the doorway in the clothes he was left.

they're surprisingly comfortable.

he leaves his clothes in a pile on the floor, and jimmy novak's wallet on the counter. his bloodied white shirt remains in the sink. he tried to wash it with the hand soap, but that'll only get him so far. where does one find cleaning supplies in a place like this? maybe he'll ask the cats. ]

I need to ask you a favor.

[freakymagoo]

[Bucky recoils a bit and snorts. A 'cupbearer'? The fuck is that?]

You've been reading too much Tolkien. [Or whatever it is tax accountants read these days, that aren't balance sheets and P&L reports. He's just finished tidying and putting everything away again when his guest re-emerges from the bathroom, and he's dumped his own shirt in the laundry pile drying himself off properly since he didn't get the chance to before. It's a very unnatural sort of transition from flesh to metal where his arm is affixed to his shoulder socket, and there are very faint old scars that never quite healed properly, but he doesn't seem overly self-conscious or paranoid about having his back turned as he ruffles through his hair with his towel.

In fact he's about to take his pants off and get changed, towel in his mouth and hands on his jeans button, when he pauses and undoes the button, leaving the zip up and freeing his hands so he can drop the towel from between his teeth.]

What kind of favour? [He's normally very obliging even though he doesn't look particularly approachable or helpful, but this morning has been already very obliging and he's not sure he should sign a blank cheque here.]

[messenger]

Who? [ god, why can't people just say what they mean without making inane references? this is impossible. but, whatever, it doesn't matter. he has a favor to ask, and he doesn't know what he'll do if he says no. he stares at a lithe, well-muscled back for just a few moments too long before noticing where the artificial arm plugs in. how does that work, he wonders? humans can be ingenious when they aren't peppering him with obscure allusions to pop culture.

for a few more moments, he stares at bucky's back, the dip of his spine and where it disappears below the hem of his jeans. ]

I would like to spend the night.

[freakymagoo]

[He's pretty sure that according to the kids these days, Tolkien is less pop culture and more ancient history. Why can't people who bring 'cupbearers' into conversations say what they mean instead, anyway?

The favour is not a small one by any means, but. Mostly it catches Bucky by surprise. He's not actually terribly opposed to it? For all his paranoia, he's not overly concerned that someone who can barely climb out of a swimming pool in one piece is going to try and, what, kill him in his sleep or rob an apartment that's not even his or something. He's more curious if this guy didn't get a place to stay.]

I... haven't been using the bed. [A vibranium finger gestures towards the bedroom.] Don't need to change the sheets.

[messenger]

[ he hasn't been using the bed? castiel blinks. it feels like this is something he should probably question, but for all he knows, this is a perfectly normal preference to keep.

he continues to stare at bucky for one protracted moment before getting up and heading towards the bedroom. it makes no difference what time it is. he hasn't slept in days.

by the entrance of the hallway, he turns and mumbles. ]

Thank— Thank you.

[ before he steps away and disappears inside. ]

[freakymagoo]

[It's the first time Bucky's brought a guy home. Other than Steve, and that was almost a century ago, and he actually knew Steve. He has no idea what's the proper decorum here. Should he check in on him? That was a pretty bad fall. Is he supposed to come back at a certain time and offer food? He'd hate to be awoken for something as trivial as food, himself. Was he-- just going to invite himself over and pass out? He didn't even give Bucky his name.

And-- seriously? He just. Left all his shit strewn around in the bathroom? Is Bucky his fucking cupbearer now? He huffs a sigh and finishes stripping, deciding now would be a good time to take a quick shower, wash all that chlorine off. Maybe do some laundry.

Although he might just. Leave all of the man's clothes in one corner of the bathroom floor. He'd hate for a stranger to go through his things, in his shoes. And it's far too early days for their underwear to be touching.]

cw emetophobia, blood

[messenger]

[ it's all a bit abrupt. he hadn't actually planned to ask and immediately rush to the man's room. it had simply happened, like his body had taken over and made the decision for him, which is a slightly unnerving proposition. how can he trust himself if his instincts are capable of taking over without warning? do all humans live like this all the time?

but he can hardly challenge the necessity of sleep.

castiel lays down on top of the covers on his stomach and passes out for about two hours before becoming suddenly conscious, dizzy-headed and sick to his stomach. floundering down the hall into the bathroom, he stumbles inside without closing the door to be sick in the toilet. the results are streaked with blood from the nosebleed earlier, and the actual physical process of emesis is so overwhelming that by the time he's closed the toilet lid and struggled up to the sink, he's shaking and his face is streaming hot with tears.

but, all that aside, he feels much better once he's gotten it out. he scrubs his face clean at the sink, splashing it over and over again with the hot water until he's stopped trembling. ]