Re-Entry 13: Spam/Audio

[itstopped]

((Backdated to the last day of port.))

Felix Gaeta doesn't know this beach.

Well, he might. It could be Picon. For all that he grew up by the sea, for all that he can swim as well as any fisherman, he's never exactly been much of a beachgoer. But no, he thinks there's another reason he doesn't know this beach. He's never stood under this misty sky. He's never stood on this white, gauzy shore.

Because he never got off the ship, and he never set foot on--

All of this has happened before, something whispers into the air. He turns and looks at the wreckage extending out to both sides. Ahead, the view is empty. Featureless. Nothing but sea and sky, muddled together at the horizon. To the sides, though...

Each ship is as big as a town. He's dwarfed beneath their massive carcasses. Some are still smoldering, their names still picked out on their sides like bones: the Galactica, the Zephyr, the Hitei Kan, the Inchon Velle. Others, in the distance, are older, long dead. The Pegasus, the Atlantia... even a Pan Galactic freight liner from Caprica. If he squints, he can make out one of his father's ships.

This is the graveyard of the Twelve Colonies. Of his people. It's just twenty billion bodies and him.

Not just him. Not anymore. He opens his mouth to speak as Racetrack comes up beside him, but something prevents him.

All of this has happened before.

Everyone knows how the proverb, the prophecy finishes -- all of it will happen again -- but that's not what's happening this time. He turns around again, twists, looking for some hint in the wreckage, and what he sees instead, at the same time she does, is the sapling. One tiny green shoot, barely visible against the hulking, elephantine mass of Galactica's corpse.

They approach it together. They kneel and lay hands on it together. And as it starts to grow, he--

[Audio for Racetrack]

[--wakes up from a two-week coma and groans, burying his head beneath his pillow. He's on the comm to her a second later, though, sounding bleary but annoyed.] Tell me you didn't see that.

[Frakking visions.]

[ETA: Lazylog spam for Dean, towards the end of port]

And now there's another beach. A real beach, an Earth beach, in this city with the strange name. There's a part of him, in the back of his mind, that's still marveling at the fact that he's actually standing on real Earth earth -- or sand, at the moment -- and standing on a beach at all, for that matter, after all these years. But more than that, he's caught up by the coincidence of it all. The dream, only hours ago, and now this...

Not that this beach is a great deal like the one from the dream. It's a bright, sunny day, hot enough that he's stripped down to his undershirt and bare feet. He's found a quieter section of the shore, but there are still people everywhere, and no wrecks in sight. But the sand is the same shade of white, and the horizon looks even more the same than any other horizon would, and he just can't help but want to know what else might be here.

Not that he's taking any heed of the dream. Obviously not. It's just curiosity. He's here to see the beach, and... enjoy the sea and the salt smell and the many attractive half-dressed people milling around. And maybe he'll get an ice cream cone. It has nothing to do with anything else. There was no ice cream in his vision.

He's just turning to approach the food stands when he spots a certain and particularly enjoyable -- and particularly attractive, even when not half-dressed -- sight coming up the beach towards him. He brightens, flashing a smile. "Hey."

Comments

[landfall]

You tell me you didn't see that.

[ excuse her, the logic machine in her brain is still booting up ]

[itstopped]

Fine. I refuse to have seen it.

[landfall]

[ Okay she is coming awake, processing processing. ]

You didn't see a beach.

[itstopped]

[Crap.] No.

[landfall]

Then neither did I.

[itstopped]

Or that-- plant, or any of it. [Crap, crap, crap.] ...You're not... I don't think I've ever asked.

[landfall]

I haven't really thought about it. In a long time.

Could the Admiral have.....?

[itstopped]

I'm not sure which would be worse -- that or the gods.

[landfall]

Gods.

No - Admiral.

No -

Frak.

[itstopped]

I guess at least with the Admiral it's less likely to have some... secret meaning behind it. He'd probably just be frakking with us.

[landfall]

I'm all for knocking the Admiral around verbally, but the meaning behind this wasn't exactly secret, was it?

[itstopped]

[That is a fair point, but it's one he doesn't want to admit to.]

Not... exactly, no. Assuming I accept that it did have a meaning at all.

[landfall]

Oh no we just coincidentally dreamed about a beach and a sapling and a voice saying all of this has happened before, that sure doesn't have any meaning I can decipher.

[surfaceshine]

It's hot in California, which is part of why Dean hates it. It's California, for another, and he'll never not hate California even if he never says it aloud, even if he's well aware that California didn't actually do anything to him, even if he knows it's childish. But right now it has going for it that it's not the Barge, and that no one is screaming or running or dying, and he has an untraceable credit card in his back pocket with no limit - or at least one he hasn't found yet - and that no one here knows him unless he purposely seeks them out. The majority of them are on the Drive, anyway, or at Disney World, and Dean has no interest in either of those.

He's not sulking. He's enjoying the sun (even though he can feel the freckles popping out of the skin of his face and chest and shoulders as the sun warms it) and the view (even if he's headed for the part of the beach where no one really is) and he's just enjoying the time off (he hates it here). Hands shoved in his pockets, he really is enjoying the hot sand against the bottom of his bare feet, and the wind pulling at the loose, white linen shirt that is about all he can handle on top of his jeans without keeling over from the heat.

He's squinting up the beach at nothing when he picks out someone his hindbrain recognizes, and he almost turns off because of that alone; then he looks closer and realizes why the man standing just out of reach of the waves is familiar, and he actually stops for a second, spine snapping straight and heart skipping. He'd disbelieve what his eyes are telling him, but his eyes are absolutely trustworthy even in the glaring sun, and he knows that dark hair, that olive skin, and - when he's in closer, swearing silently about how flipping hard it is to stride in sand - that smile.

He's beaming by the time he's in close, covering the last couple yards at a jog that has considerably more spring in it than when he started. He doesn't answer. He just very narrowly avoids slamming into Felix, and kisses him right there and then.

[itstopped]

For all that Felix has suggested some surprisingly risque things behind closed doors, Dean knows by now that he's not exactly big on public displays of affection. It's not shame or embarrassment or even, really, modesty; it's not that he really cares who knows or sees. He just has a very... particular sense of privacy. And he's been asleep for the last two weeks, so he hasn't felt whatever Dean has. It's not as though he's had the chance to miss him.

...but is he really going to say no to that smile? No, he is not. Dean barrels into him and kisses him, and he brings his hands up to Dean's biceps and kisses him right back, if lightly, almost sweetly.

He's probably the only guy in LA with his skin that's as pale as he is underneath the olive tones, but there's a slight glow in him when he pulls away. Dean, smiling at him like that, kissing him like that, under a real sun, by a real sea, on Earth... he hasn't really let himself think about it, but there's something very slightly intoxicating about all of that in combination. "Hi," he says again, rubbing a hand warmly up and down his arm.

[surfaceshine]

It's not about the public display of affection, although Dean could really, honestly care less; it's not that he isn't aware of Felix's preferences. It's that he couldn't have stopped himself if he tried, and there's no real reason not to, especially since Felix just goes along with it.

He remembers afterwards, though, and the grin is undiminished. He's been as careful as he can not to look at anything he's been feeling while Felix was down, and overall he thinks he did pretty well; if that means a lot of fighting, a lot of drinking, and a lot of work, well. He's just not going to overanalyze that now because it doesn't matter. He stays close when they break apart, even in the heat and even remembering that Felix doesn't really like this, slightly breathless and unapologetic. "Hi," he says back, hand raising as if he wants to do something with it - touch Felix's face, his shoulder, his side - and dropping again without doing any of it.

He's trying, okay. "You have perfect timing. How long you been up?"

[itstopped]

That's okay, Dean; he's trying in the other direction, and he's not finding it all that difficult right now. Spotting the hesitation in Dean's movements, he glances around, then leans back in to kiss his cheek, right at the corner of his mouth. He lets his hands fall away, but one lingers on Dean's wrist for a long moment. "Not long. Just a few hours. I woke up with Margaret, and..."

He doesn't mean that the way it sounds, but he doesn't think to correct it. He's thinking more about what it actually meant, and a look of uncertainty crosses his face. He glances around again, this time at the beach itself, digging a hand briefly into his hair. "Earth," he says a little vaguely.

[surfaceshine]

Dean lets him, and when he glances down at Felix's fingers on his skin, the kiss has dimmed the grin a little but the smile he tips back up is somehow... warmer. Brighter. Younger. That stays, something in his shoulders relaxed stays, and he misses the perfect opportunity to make some kind of joke about the wording.

What he hears instead is: "Racetrack's up too? Awesome." In a little bit he'll think maybe to text Mal and tell her to find her, but right now his attention doesn't stretch beyond the immediate area. Felix has gone slightly quiet and uncertain and that's okay, because Dean is looking around now, too.

"Los Angeles, to be exact. Not my Los Angeles, but... close enough," he admits. He spots the food stands Felix had originally been headed for, glances down at his watch - the date is probably wrong but it matters more than it tells him how long is past, how long they typically have - then cranes his neck to catch Felix's gaze again, still smiling. "I can show you. We got a little time anyway, probably."

[itstopped]

"Hang on," he says, but then he stalls on the followup. He's not sure how to explain. How to tell Dean about the beach and what Felix saw while he was sleeping? Or how the logical part of his brain knows he shouldn't pay it any heed, and how for once he's not really listening to it? How he doesn't know how to keep being a nonbeliever when he knows, actually knows for a fact that he got some kind of message?

He scratches at his brow, frowning, but then licks his lips and moves in a little closer, lowering his voice. "Before that, um... You told me there are... prophecies on this planet, right? People see things, visions, messages..."

[surfaceshine]

Dean is happy. It's not that he's any stranger to it, not really, he's an upbeat kind of guy, but he's really happy right now and he wants to continue being happy. Felix had been happy, there for a second, too.

But now he's getting anxious, and the way he moves in closer isn't out of affection, it's out of uncertainty, and Dean has a decided reaction to that. His eyebrows start to pull together, and then a little further when he realizes what Felix is saying.

"Uh, yeah. It happens." It's Dean's turn to glance around, the swift, area-clearing scan that goes better with armed hunts in the dark than standing barefoot on a beach in the sun. He's told Felix, right? He thinks he has. It matters less now than it might have before anyway, even if he still wouldn't tell most other people. "Sammy has... something like that. Why?"

[itstopped]

"I might have..." Gods, but he really doesn't want to admit to this. "It's been known to happen in our world, too. Parts of Scripture that turned out to be very literally true, a pilot who navigated via some sort of... vision quest." His lips thin slightly; that had been Kara, that had led to the Demetrius and his leg. "Not very well, mind you," he adds snippily, "but the signs did match up. Our president had them, too. It's probably what started causing her... problems."

The more he thinks about this, the less appealing it is, even if it has temporarily led him to Earth. He grimaces. "I think we had one," he says almost under his breath.

[surfaceshine]

And that kills the rest of it, at least for now. Dean clicks over almost tangibly into business mode, back straightening and shoulders tensing, a muscle in his jaw tightening. It's as much a parallel, subconscious response to the unhappiness in Felix trying to win out as it is an overt reaction the questions he's being asked.

"You think who had one?" Then, before he's even done asking, the connection made. "You and Racetrack?" Then he's shaking his head, glancing over Felix again for any physical signs he may have missed. Sam's visions leave him weak and tense for hours, but they're not the same. He doesn't see scripture, there's no way he could navigate anything but a coma while in the middle of one, and no one else Dean knows of has them except for him that one time but he doesn't know what that was and he's not thinking about it ever again. "What kinda problems? What'd you see?" A slightly more pronounced frown, and an even more uncertain: "Do we need to go somewhere, do something?"

Just in case. You know. Of things.

[itstopped]

There's nothing physically any different, of course. If anything, he looks better than usual -- healthier under all that sunlight, more relaxed with his arms bare and the sand clinging to his feet, although of course he's slightly less relaxed at this exact moment. He's not stupid enough to blame the visions for Roslin's cancer or Kara's... anything, he's not stupid enough to seriously worry right now... it's just that he also can't help but think that the visions probably helped contribute to the whole total insanity thing in both of them. And that's without the distressing religious implications. "Problems," he says darkly, but then at the note of worry in Dean's voice, he shakes his head.

"No. I mean... I did." He gestures to the beach. "I saw a place like this. We were out looking for Elena, and someone mentioned this... Venice Beach, and I wanted to come see it for myself." He shifts back a bit, noting the sudden tautness in Dean's posture, the harder look on hi face, and he makes himself settle down. "I'm probably overreacting," he adds. "I just... wanted to see if there was anything special about this place. Anything I needed to see."

[surfaceshine]

It's just that Felix hides things, sometimes, and in Dean's experience visions are never good. They can be helpful, sure, but he was always more alarmed by the physical effects, by the weight they left resting unnecessarily on Sam's shoulders, by what they meant for Sam. Felix might be overreacting, and Dean is well aware that the experience he's brought with him from his own world of the supernatural are, more often than not, not in the least applicable on the Barge, but the past couple of years have taught Dean a thing or two about reactions anyway.

He goes still and quiet while he thinks, racking his brain for anything he knows of right off hand, ignoring the reference to Elena for now. In the end, though, he has to shake his head.

"Nothing I know of - we can do some research. I've been here on a few hunts before, but nothing specific to the area. Basic hauntings, restless spirits, that sorta thing. The state itself, on the scale of hunter activity, is pretty low. 's called the City of Angels, but you'd have to believe in 'em first to think that means anything." The hunter shrugs, shifting his weight. "You got any more details? It's always the details that click it over. Seeing a beach is pretty vague."

Intentionally, he's going to go ahead and guess.

[itstopped]

"Spirits?" he echoes, and it probably says a lot about him that he can still sound vaguely incredulous while standing on a planet thousands of years in his own past, on furlough from purgatory, telling Dean about his religious visions. "It's nothing like that. I don't... think it is," he adds suddenly, in a tone of consideration. "I mean, I don't believe in the gods, you know I don't, but..."

But he has to admit, just not out loud, that he was never able to come up with a better explanation. Not when the evidence started to become pretty frakking overwhelming. "I don't know what I was looking for," he says suddenly, firmly. "I think it was just about Earth. Coming here, I mean. The rest..." He sighs. "We already know what the rest of it meant." Keep the home fires burning.