driftfleet | 01 [ video / action ]

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. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He holds his hands up, nodding.]

Alright, alright. Taken out back and buried, then.

[... He supposes he should hurry and breach this important but uncomfortable conversational transition soon, because if he lets his brother carry on in space as is, he has a feeling things will get — at worst — very bad.]

Another important thing. Just... follow me here. Trust me.

There are monsters and supernaturally inclined people here. Witches, vampires, demons, whatever. They're not bound by the same logic as our world... In fact, a lot of them have had my back before. A lot of people here are like Lenore. Benny. Garth and his family. Glenda the fairy. Good people.

... Not to say you can't be suspicious and all, because I still am.

[You can't exactly rub that away, it's ingrained as all hell.]

Just... don't make too many enemies and burn all the bridges.

We're hardly working hunters here.

[ Dean always knows, when Sam says "trust me," whatever he says after is going to be something Dean won't like. Of course, this time's no exception. And Dean listens through it, quiet and patient right through the whole thing, even though it itches him. But once Sam gets to that last part, the part about hunting, Dean can't keep quiet anymore. ]

Not bound by the same logic? Not working hunters? You kidding me?

Look, I'm all for killing what's killing and letting live what's letting live. But this isn't a three hour tour here, Sam. We're not on vacation. Just because some nut-job aliens decided to play reality TV with our lives doesn't mean our lives, our real lives, get put on hold.

We're not actors. We're not bartenders or FBI agents or anything else we pretend to be. We're hunters. That's who we are. And if there's something to hunt here, then we hunt it.

I don't see how you don't get that.

[ But he does see it, and that's the problem. Because Sam never wanted to be a hunter. The second he gets an out, he takes it. Just how he ran off to Stanford, just how he spent a year with that vet in Kermit, and all the other dozen times. And every time, Dean's surprised and hurt about it, like stitches being ripped open and a wound never getting to heal. It'd be easier if Sam left and stayed gone, or if Dean died and stayed dead, but they can't just do that either, can they? They're the damn snake eating its own tail. It's never-ending, not for either of them. ]

[You're so dramatic Dean, fuck. He rubs his temples.]

Can you stop putting words in my mouth? Jesus, Dean. I didn't say it was a vacation like I chose this. I was dragged here from home, smack in the middle of hunting for a way to stop the Darkness. And you know what happens currently when people figure out too much? Their memory of it gets wiped. [You know. Like how Gadreel wiped all those lovely conversations you two had? Yeah. He's not even gonna be low enough to correlate that, even if he's still fucked up from it. It's not like you can just forget that kind of traumatic shit.] So I'm sorry that I couldn't tap my damn heels together and get back home asap.

What, would you like me to go chasing after all these non-hostile supernatural captives here and yell that I'll chop their heads off if they so much as look at someone weird? Because let me tell you, I don't think that'd blow over well with them and all their human friends.

I can't get by as a hunter here. We can't get by as hunters here. We can't skip town.

I'm working to make money.

And I'm taking care of myself.

[ Whoa dude, who's being dramatic now? Does Sam seriously think Dean's going to yell about chopping people's heads off? That Dean'll chop anybody's head off who doesn't deserve it? He didn't kill Garth or Lenore. Benny was like family. Just how does Sam see him, to talk about him like that?

And Dean didn't know about the memory thing, but like hell that's going to stop him, either. Sam don't own the property on angels fucking with your memories; they've done it to Dean, too. Dean might be guilty about Gadreel, but he's guilty about a lot of things he's done to Sam, and none of it gives Sam a get out of jail free card. ]

Yeah, and you know what you said we were doing, while trying to stop the Darkness? Cases. Hunting. Because we're hunters, Sam, and that's what we do.

The fact that we got abducted to this place? That it's taking people from their families, screwing with their memories on top of everything else? That's all the more reason to hunt the thing down and put a stop to it, before it keeps taking more people like us.

And if it hasn't escaped your notice somehow, we're on freaking spaceships. We're not skipping towns, we're skipping goddamn galaxies. And you could make twice whatever you're pulling in bartending by hustling pool and counting cards instead. So don't give me those crap excuses.

Maybe you're fooling yourself about what you're doing here, Sam, but you ain't fooling me.

[I just wanted to warn you about the goddamn scene, but apparently you wanna bitch about me being a bartender and not pretending I actually got jobs here as a hunter. Just fab. Sam leans back, staring with a half-lidded bitch-face. Truth is, he's too tired to face this right now. Home was bumpy enough, but he's not ready for Round Fifteen of ways Dean wants to shit-talk right when he comes in. Maybe he was stupid to wish Dean were here; maybe he should have hoped Dean would stay away from this mess, stay back home to the other mess.]

Fooling you? Are you serious?

Is this how you're going to start off your first day here, trying to guilt-trip me about how things work when I've already dealt with this? Getting pissy about not counting cards? Put the wagging finger down, Dean, don't strain yourself. If you don't want to listen, fine. Go talk to other people who've been here so they can tell you the same thing; get a feel for the place. We can talk about what to do next when you cool off.

Just leave your dickheadedness at the door.

[DISCONNECTED.]

[ Oh, so Sam just hung up on him after their little pissing match, but Dean's the dick here? Well screw you, Sam. Dean's mad about it, and Sam's the one who's wrong, and lying to himself, running away and acting like Dean's a problem for putting a kink in his good time of serving drinks and palling around with vampires and demons and avoiding the real issue here. But of course he doesn't see it like that. They never see eye to eye on anything, no matter where they are. Why would space be any different? ]

Damn it.

[ Hopefully the thing being disconnected means nobody sees Dean huffing and cursing and throwing his head back and generally having a little tantrum. Because he's mad at Sam, but he's still worried about him, doesn't like leaving things like that between them when everything about this place is alien and unsure. But there's no point in calling Sam back after what he said, and hunting him down's not an option, either. The only thing Dean can do is wait it out, and keep looking for a way off this goddamn spaceship.

A couple days not speaking is probably better for them anyway, much as Dean hates it. It might not be the best way of dealing with their disagreements, by avoiding each other and not talking about the problem, but hey, they've got a lot of practice at it. ]

[You know, Sam could wax poetic and all that, think about deep, terrible issues.

.......... Or he could, y'know. Grumpily drink one of the bottles taken off the bar shelf, while the alcoholic in the corner watches in nervous awe.]

[ Bottoms up, man. Pour one out for the guy stuck high and dry. Dean might not agree with the bartender thing, but damn if it doesn't come with its perks. ]

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