hellhouse | (no subject)

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(no subject)

WHO: Jared Jacobs & Sansa Stark
WHAT: Waking up in Hell House
WHEN: Day 1, early morning
WARNINGS: tbd

You know that feeling when you wake up and you immediately know that something's wrong, more often than not, that wrong thing being that you're late?

Jared Jacobs wakes up with a start, with that feeling. He has a job interview this morning because his father finally put his foot down and said that if Jared wanted to keep living in the basement apartment, he needed to start paying rent, at least. Jared's been lazy as hell the past several years of his life. ...okay, Jared's been lazy his entire life but, in his defense, a lot of that had more to do with being bored for lack of intellectual stimulation than anything else. Somewhere in his teen years, boredom stopped being motivating and started becoming an excuse to do absolutely nothing instead of looking for ways to fill the void. Sometimes, it's not easy being a genius.

The first thing Jared notices is the darkness in the room doesn't match the pitch black of the basement apartment; there are candles lit. He doesn't do candles. Candles are for romantic dinners in the movies and girls averse to Febreeze spray.

The second thing he notices is that he's slumped over a table and there's another person across the table, bright red hair splayed out over its surface and her head down on her arms like she's getting ready to play a rousing game of Heads Up, Seven Up. That thought almost — almost — makes him laugh with its absurdity, because the third thing Jared notices is that he's dressed in a suit not unlike the one he wore to his junior prom — the last one he bothered to go to, because it was the last one when Ems was still a part of his life.

"What the fuck?" he hisses. Guess he's missing that job interview...

His head snaps over to look at the source of the sound of a machine turning on and he realizes belatedly that it looks like a record player. A flash of white-blue light in his periphery catches his eye as he shucks off the suit jacket — seriously, what the hell? — and when his eyes follow it, the shock nearly has him falling out of his chair as he shoves himself back from the table. The chair topples with a crash to the floor as he scrambles to his feet, tearing at the cuff links so he can pull up the sleeve of his left arm revealing what looks like a freaking cellphone in his arm. In his arm.

"What the fucking fuck?!" he yelps, fingers running over the seamless implantation and eyes wider than saucers. His eyes move to the girl and an even more terrifying sensation settles in the pit of his stomach. Is she dead? Is she fucking dead and he's in this, what? Dining room? By himself with a dead body and a phone in his arm and holy shit, okay, he appreciates the giant upgrade from waking up as part of a Human Centipede or something, but seriously, what the fuck?!

His chest is heaving with unsteady breaths as he walks slowly around the table and toward the girl. "Please don't be dead...oh shit, please don't be dead, don't be dead, please don't be dead..." he whispers to himself, swallowing thickly as he approaches her and reaches a shaking hand out to touch her shoulder. "Hey...hey, lady...? Oh, God, don't be dead, lady, please fucking don't be dead..."

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It takes a lot more effort than Jared would like to admit to straighten himself back up once she's climbed aboard, so to speak. It doesn't occur to him that she might find any part of this situation uncomfortable, because he doesn't. The way he sees it, this is survival and it's not like they're doing anything salacious. If he knew what she was thinking, it might give Jared some well-needed perspective on his male privilege, but alas, his focus instead is on the sprinkler system.

When she calls down, he tries to look up to see what it looks like inside the box. For his effort, he gets a face full of skirt and water, so he gives up as quickly as he'd tried. "Okay, there should be, like, either a switch or a dial. I can't see, what's it look like on the inside of the box?"

If there's a dial, then it's on a timer that she'll have to manually force down to zero, he thinks. If there's a switch, it might be a little more difficult, because he imagines that the thing is still on a timer and the switch will have a delay on it. He hopes that it's either a dial or that he's wrong about the set up. It'd be so much easier if he could see. Hell, there could even be buttons; he supposes it could look like anything at all. If whoever brought them here had enough technological advancement to embed a fucking iPhone in their arms without killing them in the process by way of bleeding out or sepsis or something, then who knew what kind of tech would be running the watering system for a bunch of killer plants?

Speaking of, he could feel the vines wrapping and tightening around his legs, so he hoped to hell Sharra could reach from where he was standing, because he wasn't going to be going anywhere like that. His hands were too busy holding her up to keep her from falling to be otherwise occupied untangling his legs.

"It's round and has numbers on it. Should I turn it, then?" Sansa hasn't ever seen anything like this before in her life but she knows their time is running short. She decides to start turning the small dial back to the left, back to zero, and as she does the water sputters to a stop. She's still chilled enough that there's goosebumps all over her skin but at least the water's stopped and she'll have a chance to start drying out here shortly.

She shifts a bit atop Jared's shoulders, trying to keep her balance, and she knows that he's seeing and feeling parts of her that no man ought to see. He doesn't know who she truly is, at least, and that's a blessing but it's still damned uncomfortable. Perhaps now that the water's stopped, they can start trying to find an alternate exit to this room.

"Help me down and we can find a way out of here," Sansa says, voice firm but not unkind. The only way she can keep from losing her head is to pretend she has the situation well in hand even when she so clearly doesn't and so she must take charge of it.

"Yeah, turn it to zero," Jared replies. Relief washes over him when the water shuts off a moment later. "Sweet baby Jesus, thank you," he breathes.

His hands tighten on her knees when she starts to move. It's a reflexive move because, at first, he thinks she's falling. It takes him a second to realize that she's just adjusting and his grip loosens again. He tries to shake his sopping bangs out of his eyes, but all he probably manages is to make her more uncomfortable with the movement. "Sorry," he says quickly, realizing that a second too late.

But then she tells him to put her down and Jared can still feel the vines thick and tight, curled around his legs from his ankles up to his junk. "About that..." he says reproachfully. "I can't really move..." This is going to hurt like a fucker, isn't it? He can't just leave her up there, obviously, but he also can't crouch to let her climb down.

Sighing heavily, Jared lets go of her knees and holds his hands up higher. "Take my hands. I'm going to bend forward and tuck my chin. You're going to have to slide off and then get these fucking things off me so we can get the hell out of here, okay?" If he sounds a little bit panicked at the latter part of that, it's because a tiny part of him is a little afraid that she's going to cut and run. ...he fucking would, if he were her.

Sansa doesn't exactly slide down gracefully from her perch but she manages to get down without injuring herself or Jared and she calls that an accomplishment. When she sees how the vines have wrapped around his legs and hips. Sansa frowns a bit, trying to decide what to do about the situation, and then she decides that there's no option but the obvious.

"Don't move," she says firmly, kneeling down to start the arduous process of unwinding vines and pulling them away. She wishes she had a knife but she doesn't so she only has her hands. Ages ago, she'd be embarrassed to be this close to a man's cock, even clothed, but she's not that Sansa any longer. Now she has a job that must be done and she'll accomplish it whether or not it's uncomfortable for her to do so. It takes a few minutes but she manages.

"Sorry for the intimacy but it was necessary. Now, let's check to see if we can get the door open, yes?"

The way his arms have to stretch at somewhat unnatural angles to keep hold of her hands until she's safely on the ground and the discomfort that comes, as it turns out, with bending at the waist without letting the legs join the party tweaks the hell out of his back and shoulders and Jared growls softly to himself in an attempt to stifle a groan of pain, grimacing until she's down and he can relax and stand up again.

"Couldn't if I wanted to, babes," Jared points out, holding up both hands defensively. He doubts that her request is because she's worried about him taking an offensive move toward her and more about her worrying that him moving is going to make the vines start to behave almost like quicksand in that they'll just work harder to keep him in place. He's not entirely sure she'd be wrong if that was where her mind was.

Normally, Jared would be making a joke about her position on her knees in front of him, but given that he'd really like to get the fuck out of here, he bites the insides of his cheeks to stave off the urge to do so. She doesn't seem like she'd think it was funny, anyway, and she'd probably leave him there. He'd deserve it. Jared is a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them.

The closer she gets to his groin the more intently Jared tries to think about literally anything but what's going on below his waist. This would be a really fucking inopportune moment to pop an unwelcome boner, after all, and while he's pretty confident that his jeans would've done a good job hiding it, this fucking monkey suit probably wouldn't. Not a hot girl kneeling in front of him, untangling vines from where they've wrapped around his legs and waist straight up like something out of some kind of anime tentacle porn or some shit.

Shrinkage. Jared concentrates on the fact that he's started shivering because they're both soaked to the bone and it's dank and cool in this room. His balls are probably practically grape-sized by now. Maybe the chill is coming from the fear still scratching at the back of his mind after all this, but whatever the source of it, whether physical or psychological, it's got him feeling like he just stepped out of an icy river. Can't get a hard-on when he's fighting shrinkage, right?

Jared is so deep in his own head to make sure that this doesn't get awkward as fuck on them both that he almost misses what Sharra says when he's been freed. "Oh, shit, I don't even care. You can do whatever you want if it means getting me out, babes, I'm good. It's all good. So yeah, let's book it. I'm not staying for round two in this bitch."

He starts to move without her but pauses. "You good?" he asks, offering one hand for her to take since the foliage is still unnaturally thick and he doesn't want to lose her if she doesn't want to potentially be lost.

Sansa doesn't allow people to touch her, normally, but she's touched Jared enough in the last little while that the offer of his hand is nothing in the grand scheme. She takes it gratefully and squeezes it a bit in gratitude. She doesn't want to seem ungrateful for his help even if she's wary of the situation they've been put into. It seems wrong to deprive herself of a potential ally.

"I don't know if we'll be able to get out but at least the plants seem to be less...aggressive." It seems as if they're not clinging quite as much as they had when the water had rained down upon them and if the water had caused them to grow up and threaten to engulf them, removing that at least made this bearable again.

Now that the water is gone, though, Sansa is quite cold and her gown is brief up top. Queen of Winter she might be but she is not immune to winter's chill and she begins to shiver a bit, goosebumps rising up on her skin. "Hopefully we find out way soon...I'm quite cold now."

At her comment, Jared looks around a little. "...yeah, no, I think you're right. I think we need to get out before it turns back on again. Who knows how long that timer was set or how often it's supposed to go off," he replies, frowning as they start to move closer to the door. He can see it, but it's still several yards away.

"I'd give you my jacket, because you look like you're freezing, but it's back in that dining room," he says almost apologetically. Women really get the shit end of the fashion stick, don't they? Jesus, even Jared can see the goosebumps on her skin. This time, he gives her the little reassuring squeeze. "We're nearly there. That door's gotta open. One of them has to open."

He hopes.

Once they get to the door, Jared lets go of her hand when he reaches for the knob, partially because he's expecting to need both hands to get the damn thing open, but the knob turns easily and he pushes it open with a creepy creak. Jared reaches back for Sharra again so that they don't end up getting separated before they can both get out of this room. If it's dangerous when they're there to help one another, he doesn't want to think about what would happen if one of them was trapped in here alone and that sprinkler system turned back on... "Come on, we'll just keep looking for another door," he assures her as they move into the hallway again. "...maybe we can find osme dry clothes somewhere."

"I'll stay close to you," Sansa decides. She is quite cold, actually, and she presses up against his back as much as she can. It doesn't help much with the cold but she wants to try and warm herself as much as she can. The only time she's ever been this cold had been when she'd crossed an icy river trying to escape from Ramsay in the midst of winter; this is similar, with her brief clothing and wet skin.

"Thank you for not leaving me, Jared. It means quite a bit and I do not forget a kindness. It's not how we do things in the North." The North Remembers, after all, and Sansa is nothing if not the embodiment of that. She has survived other horrors in her life. She will survive this, for good or ill, and she will be grateful for those who help her along the way.

The air chills her drying skin again and she buries her face against Jared's neck in a futile attempt to warm herself. "Jared, I'm sorry. I'm so cold that I'll be of little use very soon. We have to find something dry to wear or a fire so I can warm myself. I don't know that I'll warm up otherwise."

It surprises him a little to feel Sharra up against his back, but he can't say he's going to complain about it. In spite of the fact that she's soaked to the bone, too, her body feels warm against his and that's admittedly kind of nice. "I think we're even, all things considering," he points out. "You could've left me back there, too."

If she had, he might not have made it out of here alive, but she didn't. She helped untangle him from the vines, even though she felt uncomfortable doing it. He's grateful, he's just never been very good at gratitude.

"You're gonna be okay," he assures her as they move into the hall and he looks around to see if he can find any way to get back into the dining room where he left the suit jacket. She could take the top of her dress down and cover herself with the jacket, to warm her core. "We'll figure something out."

He moves a little to drape an arm around her shoulders, moving her to his side. "If we don't find something in a few minutes, we'll stop and see if we can figure something else out. Tear down some curtains to wrap you in or something."

Sansa feels warmer when he puts his arm around her and she thinks at least this will keep her from getting any colder. She doesn't think she's in danger of freezing to death; she's not wet in the snow, after all, and she's Queen of Winter. Cold will not defeat her. Cold is her friend, her ally, something she's familiar with. She can defeat this if they could defeat the vines.

She swallows a bit and she tries to speak without her teeth chattering - that would shatter the illusion that she's in control of herself. "Curtains would be easy enough to come by, I think, and provided I got the wet clothing off I would warm up quickly enough. It's my wet hair and this wet dress that's keeping me from getting warmer. Damned material won't dry fast enough."

It's not like her to curse but it's necessary, in this instance, and she hopes Jared isn't the sort to be easily offended. She keeps moving through the hall and searching for a door. Any door will do, she thinks, and she hopes nothing lurks behind it worse than the glass gardens they'd been trapped in. When she spots a likely door, she calls out to him.

"There's a door. Should we try it?"

Taking a deep breath and sighing a little, Jared looks around. "Yeah, the only problem with that plan is that I haven't seen any windows and without windows, there's no reason for drapes. There's got to be some around here somewhere, I just didn't notice any between the dining room and that plant room."

He's still weighing the pros and cons of looking anywhere that they haven't already been when Sharra asks whether they ought to try the door she's found. He lifts an eyebrow. Should they? It feels like a loaded question after what they just went through.

For a moment, Jared doesn't answer. Instead, he looks back at the door and hesitates. "It could be worse than the plants," he points out. "...or it could be our ticket out." Jared doesn't like this feeling; he's never unsure of himself where other people can see. He keeps that shit to himself. "Yeah. How much worse than that could it possibly be?"

"There's nothing to do but try. We survived the last room, anyway, so I have faith that whatever this room does cannot be worse. We at least have the ability to work well together and I...I've some experience with things like this."

Her horrors had been in her own home, though, and they'd been visited upon her by a person and not the rooms themselves. It's somewhat different, yes, but Sansa thinks it's made her strong enough to survive whatever this place plans to throw at her. Besides - she's fought the dead. That's no small thing.

"Come, let's try it and stop dreading the unknown."

Honestly, he's terrified. Jared has never been more scared in his life than he has been since waking up in that fucking dining room. He has no idea what's behind that door and whether it's another death trap or an escape route. Sharra, on the other hand, seems sure enough of herself that he finds himself bending to it.

Taking a deep breath, Jared shakes his head a little as he shrugs. He can barely believe he's going along with this, but what other choice does he have? Wander around in hallways and never try a door because he's scared? That'll get him big, fat, fucking nowhere.

"All right, here goes nothing..."

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