driftfleet | [ not that kind of sith ]

Who: Cara + You
Broadcast: Video
Action: SS First Breath
When: Now!

[ She felt stiff. The surface on which she lay on was too smooth, too even. She groans, stretching her eyes and gazing at her surroundings, her cat-like eyes sharp and wary. This was not the Midlands. With a graceful leap, she lands on her feet in a careful crouch, reading for her weapons –

. . . Her agiels. Gone. She straightens, a scowl marring her face. Without caring who heard her, she speaks, her voice cold and deadly. ]

I don’t know how you managed to touch my agiels, considering they pay you back in pain tenfold. But if you are foolish enough to take them, I assume you are foolish enough to test my patience.

I’ll warn you though. Do not test it for long or I’ll pay it back, inch by inch. Now. . .

[ She surveys the bridge. She knows she’s being watched, even though she can’t tell how. Honed battle instincts whisper to her that this is a strange situation and there’s little she can do about it . . . for now.

In the most deadpan of voices. ]

Why is everything metal and why was it necessary? Did someone murder every architect? Because I would for this . . . lazy work.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ That's unanswerable in a million ways and Dean is half inclined to shut down the conversation right there. To stop it in its tracks and bolt, because Cas isn't here and Dean cannot deal. He can't, he doesn't know how to do it, doesn't know how to face what he's done when there's no escaping it. It's all he can do, every minute of every hour, to try to think of something other than what he's done wrong, the death he's caused and the lives he didn't save. To think that he put Cas in the line of fire and his death was his fault.

And now he's gone. And Dean is gone. And the world is gone. And there's no saving any of it. So what is he supposed to say when there's nothing left for him to do? ]

Lost that years ago.

[ It's a piss poor answer and he knows it. It's somewhere between avoidance and the most honest thing he has to give, the most honest he's been with anyone in ages, but he can't stop himself. It's just there and Dean wants to act like it means nothing, like it doesn't hurt when everything does. ]

[ She knows that look. It's the look of a world that has ended. Cara looked the same when she found out about her father - the father who had loved her, who had not broken under torture, the father she had killed because she was tricked otherwise. Love wasn't enough and she had lived with that all her life until now.

When you remember that, what meaning does love and hope give? ]

I do not think you are so lost.

[ Dean isn't quite sure why he's tolerating this conversation, though it could be said that the reminders of Cas have made it somehow easier. Even so, the pushback he wants to throw is tremendous, like the further he can get from it the less real he can make it. But it is real, it's all there is, the only thing that's left: nothing. And no matter what Sam does or says or tries to fix, there will only be a giant nothing that's left.

There's no coming back from that, no changing it. It's Dean's fault and Sam is ill equipped to understand just what that means.

Even now, he's not quite so able to hear the words, even if they settle comfortingly on his shoulders. They make him want to laugh; he wants to say that it doesn't matter if he's lost or not, that there's just no going back. But maybe that's the point. ]

Why, because i'm here?

No. A change in location doesn't change the way you feel.

[ She doesn't believe just leaving an old world behind and finding a new one removes the distress and pain one feels. ]

It is . . . a feeling. I've been broken before and have broken people in turn. You do not seem that way to me.

[ Well. At least it can be said that she understands that much.

But Dean also doesn't want want to try to make himself any more worse off than he feels. The last thing he wants to do is tout his fragility like a whiny teenager and if anything it makes him stubborn enough to pretend he doesn't feel like much of anything at all. ]

Because you keep going.

No. Because I had someone to go to.

I went to my sister's house once. They didn't recognize me. It was a strange experience, for both of us. I promised I would visit . . . but it could never become home again.