01 [ video / action ]

[familyremains]

Who: Dean doing the OTA thing
Broadcast: fleetwide video
Action: anybody on the Marsiva
When: 1/27 - 1/29


a; (acting alone)

[ The video cuts in accidentally (are accidents ever accidental?) to Dean using a plastic knife of all things to pry a panel, about four feet in each direction, off the wall in front of him. It takes some jimmying, but after a couple seconds, it pops right off, and Dean catches it before it falls more than an inch or so open. He looks around quickly as he slides the panel aside (got to work fast with cameras on and no easy way to disable them), but when he looks to what the panel was covering, his head jerks back in surprise. Then he crouches in close to get a better look. ]

...Really?

[ Behind the panel is a network of machinery, all interwoven, some of it whirring quietly as it moves together like... like nothing Dean's ever seen. He stares at it, his expression as openly mystified as he feels before he slides the panel back on and snaps it back into place. He stands, loose-limbed and completely clueless as to what the hell he's supposed to do with that. ]

Oh, this is way above my pay grade.

[ Seriously. Where are the air ducts? The red and green wires? The, you know, normal wall stuff? Dean thought he could figure this spaceship thing out, but damn it, Shatner and Ford never prepared him for this level of sci-fi weirdness. ]



b; (the buddy system)

[ In the cafeteria sometime later, Dean is scouting out anybody who looks like they could throw a decent punch. Why? To fight them, of course.

Now, he's not going to go right up to somebody and just sock 'em one. Come on, he's not stupid. No, he's going to try to antagonize them into punching him, instead.

Look, alright, it's worked before. ...Except the other guy ended up dead. It's a long story. Anyway.

You can find Dean staring at you if you're the kind of type who looks rough and tumble and easily angered. Or you might find him eyeing up the big burly-looking guy in the corner in a completely no-homo kind of way. You might also observe his fine table manners, as while he's doing his "sizing up" of the room, he's also shoving food in his face and chewing with his mouth open, because damn, you get hungry after puking as much as he has in the past two days.

Or you might find Dean getting the crap beaten out of him by someone twice his size (which is saying a lot; he's not a small guy). You might want to help him, if you're the helpful kind of person, because the non-existent authorities sure aren't going to step in, and somebody should. Or you might find him after nobody did step in to help him because, let's be real, he deserves the black eye and busted lip and bruised kidney he gets. Just don't expect him to apologize if he got any blood on you. A little blood's not going to kill you, and everybody knows a blood splatter always makes for good TV. ]

Comments

[mikangirl]

[Hoboy. This is where Sam should come barrelling in and explain everything because she doesn't particularly want to. Mostly out of laziness. But after a faint sigh, she offers him a smile.]

Hey. I'm Nami. I'm a friend of your brother's. [A brother who's gonna get a private message if he doesn't front up to this network entry on his own in the next minute.] Congratulations on being kidnapped into space to star on television.

[familyremains]

[ All told, that's a better reaction than Dean was expecting. ]

Sam? [ 'Cause chances are, she ain't talking about Adam. ] ...Yeah, thanks. I'll get an autographed picture in the mail for you. [ Space TV, right, alien science project, sure, but she said the real magic word.

And she's cute. Good job, Sammy. You know how to pick 'em. ]

So... You're friends from college?

[mikangirl]

...not quite. It's complicated.

[And she doesn't really know how to go about this. Dean should be a stranger, but so far she's seen him (a) cry over his brother's corpse and (b) torture his brother in a group effort kinda thing. Neither of which were actually real, and neither of which really helps to remember here and now. Just. Ugh.

Complicated is probably too simple a word. Feh. Also FYI, your brother has some really twisted stuff in his head.]

Time is a bit screwed up in this place. Sam's been here for a couple months now. And before that he was stuck in another place entirely. That's where we met. Um...

...he can probably explain this better than I can.

[familyremains]

[ a) if you're gonna cry, that's a good time to do it b) not touching it c) don't think anyone's arguing that Sammy's head isn't a scary place. Dean would offer condolences if, you know, it weren't for the fact that he's not a mind-reader. Maybe some other time. Not like he doesn't have enough on his plate with what she says, never mind what she's thinking. ]

Months?

[ Like that. Yeah, let's focus on that. She seems like a nice girl and all, and Dean would like to get to know her better, especially if she's a friend of Sam's. But those couple minutes in the darkness... It's been months? And how the hell did Sam get out first? And what the hell's he been doing all this time? ]

Yeah, great.

[ It doesn't sound great when he says it like that, though. It sounds more like a parent who's getting a call from the principle, is what it sounds like. ]

I want to talk to him. Put him on the line.

[ ........That's how these things work, right? They're just phones. With video. On giant monitors. Exactly the same, right? ]

[mikangirl]

[You make excellent points, brackets. And Dean would be halfway there if he just remembered some phones have party lines.

...he's taking this pretty well. But that's not that surprising, considering. She shakes her head impatiently.]

That's not how this works. You're broadcasting to the entire fleet, so anyone can talk back to you if they want. Sam's on station tending bar right now-- once he hears you've turned up, he'll be here like a shot. He's missed you.

[familyremains]

[ Dean's never really been a "conference call" kind of guy. ...Not in any normal incarnations, anyway, and we don't talk about the not-normal universes, which this one is fast shaping up to be. ]

Bartending.

[ Nami, you are just digging this hole deeper and deeper. ]

Awesome. Should be easy to find, then. Especially once he knows I'm looking for him. Thanks.

[ Because Sam runs, sure, but unless he's keeping some really bad secrets, he's not going to hide. And with that, Dean puts it out of his head. The important thing is, Sam is here, and he's fine. The rest, Dean'll worry about later, once he's not trapped on a space ship with no exit headed to god only knows where. ]

That other place before this one that you and him were in. Was that space, too? What, a space romantic comedy? Less Big Brother, more Battlestar Galactica?

[mikangirl]

Yeah. Bartending. [There's a flatter edge there. She caught that tone. Is there a problem? And then he talks about space romantic comedies and her eyes narrow further.]

Not that I have any idea what either of those things are, but for your information, no. It was a wasteland, we were all trapped in it, and there was a psychotic goddamned cloud trying to kill us all off before we starved to death.

[Have fun with that.]

[familyremains]

[ All Dean takes from her snappy comeback is that she probably works at the bar, too. Awesome, he stepped right into that landmine. But there's no stepping out of it now, so he moves on. ]

Psychotic desert cloud? [ It's amazing Dean sounds as impressed and disgusted as he does, after all the things he's seen. But seriously, even clouds now? Where's it end? ] Nice. Real cozy.

This cloud didn't call itself "The Darkness", did it?

[mikangirl]

[It never ends. But your world is still weirder, so that's a ...comfort... right?]

No. [Her temper's quick to flare and quick to go at least, and she just peers at him uncertainly across the feed.] Though it certainly brought darkness. But uh... its name was Deireadh.

You've got your own big dark cloud?

[familyremains]

[ Deireadh. Dean repeats it in his head, tries to remember it. Chances are Sam's already looked into the lore and found what he could on it, but Dean wants to remember it, anyway. ...Until he forgets it all again, at least. What a joke. ]

Yeah, something like that. Honestly, I don't know too much about it. Could be the same thing, for all I know. But that's the last I remember, before showing up here.

Sam didn't talk about it?

[ Not that Dean would blame him. He wouldn't be talking about it either, if she hadn't mentioned her own kind of evil cloud, and being a friend of Sam's. Hunter business isn't exactly a linchpin of casual conversation in most cases. ]

[mikangirl]

No. But I haven't really pressed him on home stuff lately. [That's... probably going to change now. Sam would surely have mentioned the similarity if the Darkness had been an old thing, but he's been home since then. Or maybe it's somewhere ahead in his future.]

You've got my condolences if it's anything like Deireadh, anyway. That thing killed a lot of people and worse.

[familyremains]

[ Oh, uh... He hadn't meant to throw Sam under the bus with his girlfriend for keeping secrets, so it looks like he and Sam both are striking out where Nami's concerned. Sorry, bro. At least make-up sex is the best kind. ]

Good thing you got away. [ He looks around briefly. ] I haven't heard anything about evil clouds here, anyway. Just that Atroma thing, whatever it is. But they took away my weapons, and nothing's attacking me. Far as I can tell, whatever kind of threat this place has, it's nothing as obvious as a rolling darkness that blocks out the sun.

[ Of course, she knows all that, if she's been here for months like Sam has. Dean's just hoping that by talking about it, she'll add whatever she might know to the conversation. ]

Honestly, I'm not sure if this quiet act is better or worse.

[mikangirl]

[Well, he seems to be on the right track anyway. Nami looks less guarded and more sympathetic as Dean goes on, even crooking a faint smile at the end, even if it is dry as the Sahara.]

Yeah, I think your rolling darkness has this place beat. I've been here a while now and nothing all that menacing has happened. For the most part, you're likely to die of boredom before anything else.

...the fleet was attacked before I got here, though. By another fleet. You'd have to ask older residents about that one, but from what I hear they weren't attacking to kill either. So for all I know, that could just be to drive up these so-called ratings.

[...]

You got the same kind of weapons as Sam? You can pick up a new gun when you get transferred, probably.

[familyremains]

[ Just because things are quiet doesn't mean there's nothing sinister going on. And boredom, for Dean, never means anything good. He's just not the kind of guy who can sit around doing nothing, waiting for the crap to hit. But over the Mark of Cain or another apocalypse? Yeah, he'll take it. And peaceful or not, getting a gun in his hand again sure does sound good. ]

Yeah? That's the first real good news I've heard. Thanks.

...What'd you say your name was?

[mikangirl]

Nami. [Not gonna begrudge him forgetting it already, but she's kind of amused. You'll probably hear it often.]

And it's kinda good to meet you properly. [It's clear he means a lot to Sam, so. It's good he's here.]

[familyremains]

[ He kind of hopes so. There's a lot of weird going on in this place, but she seems alright. Nice to look at, too. ]

Properly, right... Guess I'm at a disadvantage here. You know all about me, and I know nothing about you.

[mikangirl]

If it helps, the only thing I really know about you is that you're Sam's brother and you're also a hunter, so by definition your life is probably also hell. I never actually got to meet you before now.

But I'm a navigator and a pirate. That makes us kind of even on the knowledge front.

[familyremains]

[ That she knows they're hunters (and what that means, from how she says it) is a little uncomfortable. Sam's got a big mouth. But saying she hasn't met another version of him helps take some of the edge off, anyway. One less thing to worry about. ]

Pirate? [ His eyebrows lift at that. ] Right.

...So are we talking Steve Jobs kind of a pirate? Or Jack Sparrow, Bluebeard kind of pirate?

[mikangirl]

[Nami gives him a faint grin.

I haven't heard of any of those. But we do have a Blackbeard and a Whitebeard, so I'm gonna take a guess and say it's like the latter. Who's Steve Jobs?

[familyremains]

Computer genius. Not actually a pirate. It was a joke about this movie that, uh... Well, never mind.

[ Because seriously, who cares about computers when he's talking to a self-proclaimed pirate? ]

So you're serious? About the pirate thing. You're some kind of space pirate?

[mikangirl]

Ah, right. Yeah, my first exposure to computers was here, so...

[Heh.] Well, I guess I'm a space pirate now. But no, back home I'm a navigator for a pirate crew on the Grand Line. It's an ocean.

[So the traditional kind, yup.]

[familyremains]

An ocean pirate.

[ Who didn't know what a computer was. Which mean despite how she's dressed, she's probably coming from a time when pirates were actually cool and swashbuckling, and not all douchebags. ]

....Alright, I gotta admit. That's awesome.

[mikangirl]

[Most of them are still douchebags. Trust her on this. But Nami just grins wide.]

I know, right? I sail with the best crew. [She wonders if she should tell him Sam kind of joined it, if only technically.] Sam sailed with us for a while. Before he went home again, anyway.

[Close enough.]

[familyremains]

[ Sam was a pirate? Same went home? Damn it, Nami, why'd you have to cram those two things together? One Dean wants to ask about and the other he has to ask about, and he balks for a second while the part of him that's still a kid and the part that's responsible are momentarily at war. ...Of course, the protective older brother side wins out. ]

Hang on a second. Sam went home? From here or the other place? And did they drag him back, or did he...

[ Run away from home, from Dean, full tilt again. ]

He say how that happened? How he got home, how he came back?

[mikangirl]

Oh right, that might be confusing huh-- hold on. [If only so she can work out how best to phrase this without confusing him more.]

I don't know if Sam's told you, but time kind of stands still for you guys back home. Or it did in Adstring, which is where we were together. We went through a lot there, but eventually Cas-- Castiel? I'm guessing you know him better than I do-- performed a ritual that allowed us to open portals to our own worlds so we could go home again.

It had been kind of rough on everyone, so I extended an invitation to Sam to sail with us for a while. So he used the portal to our world. He didn't stay very long-- I think it was a week. Then he went home from there.

[She peers at him, because that was probably still confusing as hell. But no Dean, Sam didn't run out on you. Just got some sun and put a little more weight on before returning home.]