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Re-Entry 13: Spam/Audio
((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."
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."
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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.
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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.
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"People don't normally dream in Barge comas. Unless you were just... sleeping like regular, for a bit, after coming out of it and before waking up," he offers. He doesn't remember anything from his own experience with the coma, and neither does anyone he knows. At least not anyone that's talking about it. "I..."
Dean doesn't believe in gods, either, even amongst all the other things he believes in as a matter of professional duty. Felix is trying to backpedal, now, though not exactly furiously; but he said something in the first place. He's concerned about something, and Dean doesn't like that.
He's trying to get better about dealing with that anyway, but it's another thing he's not sure he wants to be good at, so instead he offers: "Most of the cases we looked into? It was nothing. I only knew one psychic that was worth her salt, and she... was ridiculous." Yelling at him for things he hadn't even said or done yet and threatening to beat him with a wooden spoon. He liked her anyway. "In a good way. I mean, she knew what she was doing. And Sam..."
Dean struggles for a moment to explain Sam in a way that won't give too much away, that won't give off the wrong impression. The hunter shows far more tact in dealing with his brother than he does almost anything else, definitely anything in himself. "Sam's thing is different. It's not... I know what it is, and it's different." He quirks a smile. "It wouldn't be the same."
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Except that he'd wanted Dean to know, he realizes almost immediately after he says it. He hadn't asked because he wanted answers; he'd asked because he thought Dean should know, and not because Dean is a hunter. "It doesn't change anything," he murmurs, not totally sure what to do with that. "It was just a message. It... they... whatever caused it, I guess it wanted me to come and see Earth." He smiles a little wanly. "Gods know, we fought hard enough for that."
And the home fires, but maybe he's not ready to talk about that part of it yet. He's not even sure he's going to do it yet, whatever Racetrack has to say about it. This part of it... this is the part he can do here, now, and it's strange, but he can't help but feel a little brighter again, thinking about it. After all, this is what he was working on, all those late nights poring over star charts, all those times he called out to action stations. "Earth," he says again, and smiles more fully. "It's real."
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"Well, if that's what woke you up in time, then I'm glad for that much at least," he asserts, giving it a joking edge to take off the cutting sincerity beneath it. But Felix is starting to lighten up again, and Dean hasn't forgotten that blistering joy of a few minutes ago. He moves his arm, not to dislodge Felix's hand, but so he can reach up and take it in his own instead. He smirks.
"It's hot." This, Dean states flatly, then: "I told you it was. Someday, you're actually gonna listen when I talk," he teases, then tries on another crooked grin, climbing a step at a time back towards where he'd been when he first saw Felix here. "Food first? Or there's a boardwalk carnival a little ways down. Or I have a hotel room on the freaking top floor. There's a skypool."
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"Well, as much as I'd like to see your hotel room," he teases dryly, "if the gods brought me all the way out here, I should probably frakking see the place... Unless you were talking about the view," he adds lightly.
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"I was talking about the view," Dean replies in a mockery of prudence that absolutely does not suit him. Then he breaks into a wider grin, because he actually agrees. It's just that the hotel room - a nice hotel room with room service and a balcony and a view and no weird smells - is almost enough of a novelty to Dean to count for sight-seeing. "Seriously. We've been here about three days now, so unless we're actually stuck here, we have a maximum of 24 hours before we get zapped back to the Barge. Choose wisely."
Beat.
"And if all you want is directions, I'll... do that." Not happily, but he can probably manage to hold off being a jackass about it. He knows something of what Felix was talking about with that whole we fought hard enough.
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A thought occurs to him as he eyes over the expanse of the beach. He quirks a curious smile at Dean. "How far is this from where you're from?"
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But Felix is laughing, and he's amused, and he's not telling Dean to go away, so the hunter lets his own grin settle back into place, widening smoothly and seamlessly now in a way it doesn't always. "Food first then. We'll find one along the beach with a patio or something. And shade."
He's already straightening up to look around for what's immediately available, mentally marking the distance back to his car in case there's nothing, when Felix pops that question and Dean hesitates. "Kansas?" he asks in surprise, then recovers with a more flippant reply, already doing the math in his head. "I'm from all over. But ah... half the country. Two days worth of driving, at least, usually three, though I can make it in a little over one if we need to haul ass straight through for some reason."
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It seems more than not bad, really, but he's still too wary to be too enthusiastic. It's just... there have been breaches, and there have been ports he'd care to forget more than remember, but to stand on warm sand on his own two -- two! -- feet, his own mind in his own body for once, real sun on his face, real salt on the wind... and to know that it's Earth... now that he's not focusing on the dream or Elena, it's hard not to feel that sense of wonderment, the excitement brimming in his stomach.
Of course, he knows well enough from Dean what else can be found on this planet, and he knows it's not all sunshine and beaches. He knows if he stays long enough he'll find plenty to upset him. But for once, he doesn't hate the Barge as much as he usually does. Not for a few hours, at least.
"I saw a sushi place back down the road," he decides, taking over, reaching back out to tug at Dean's wrist. "Come on."
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Of course, Dean sticks to the back roads and the podunk towns mostly, but he knows enough about Kansas City, about Wichita. He's opening his mouth to say something else when Felix's hand closes on his wrist, and Dean reacts to that before he even hears the words.
He grins, catches Felix's hand in his instead of his wrist, and goes along willingly. Dean's missed him, unapologetically.
"I love it when you take charge like that," he teases. Then he catches up and his grin falters, though in the next moment he remembers talking about this before and that strikes any real protest, he's still who he is. He still complains, and he still follows. "Wait, I didn't agree to raw fish. If that's the kind of decision making you're doing, I'm calling for a recount."
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Besides, one thing is becoming very clear and intriguing: Earth, for being only one planet, is more diverse than any single planet in the Colonies. Winter and endless summer only a few days drive apart? The scientist in him takes note, piqued.
But he's ready to move forward, so he does, leading the way, and although he drops his hand after a second he flashes a pleased, impish smirk at the compliment -- and a quizzical glance at the complaint. He remembers before, too, but it's still not a thing that makes any sense to him. "What's wrong with raw fish? It's good." And unavailable on the Barge, so he's not about to back off now.
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Not that he's thinking about any of that right this second.
"Well for one, it's raw," Dean replies with mock consideration, like he has to think about it. "For two, it's fish. So. That's two strikes already."
He wrinkles his nose, hamming up the face he pulls just because he can. He knows. He's not really fighting the decision. "Don't tell me you're gonna make us eat with sticks, too."
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As it turns out, they actually do have something like chicken nuggets, and Felix can't help but laugh and add them to the order when he realizes. Different worlds or not, there only seem to be a few things on the menu he doesn't recognize; and still in the lead, here, he manages to get them settled with food and drink on the patio, overlooking the beach, without much incident. He goes quiet then for a moment, folding his arms against the narrow rail running around the patio, leaning forward to look out over the beach again.
And again, Racetrack's words creep back into his head, as little as he wants them there. The problem is, for the first time in a long while it's hard, really hard not to think of home. He's sort of inviting it, really, doing all this exploration. It's hardly a proper distraction when he can't help but compare everything.
And so, despite his best efforts, his expression starts to wear at the edges, his smile growing softer and more wistful before fading entirely. "We had winter, too," he says quietly. "A lot of winter. I guess it wasn't so bad where I lived... just a klick from the shore, you know, so it could never get that cold. It only ever really got cold in the mountains, but... that's home for you. It's all either mountains or shoreline."
He doesn't look up, or away from the shore, not once, and he's not sure he wants Dean to ask questions. He's not even sure he wants Dean to acknowledge he said anything at all. He smiles, suddenly, as if to dismiss the entire thing. "Anyway."
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So that's how he ends up seated at a table - stubbornly in the shade, screw sunburns, for real though - and fussing around with the chopsticks they set out, though thankfully at his bewildered look he also scored a fork. It's not that he doesn't notice where Felix's attention is, or that it's nearly unprecedented when he does start talking past more than their casual sniping, it's that he just listens while it happens.
The hunter is sucking the back of his teeth thoughtfully, carefully setting the chopsticks down as if they're some kind of particularly unstable firearm, and reaching for his water instead when he glances up.
A lot of things pretty much make sense once he knows that; why Felix is always cold, why the first thing he craves is fish of all things. Dean doesn't ask questions, at least not at first, especially when Felix tries to dismiss it. Instead: "We have mountains. Two main ranges, one of 'em between here and Kansas. The other shore is colder - the Atlantic - and you have to go North for the really spectacularly ball-freezing weather." Not that the northern states don't get impressively snow-bogged, but that's why he's content to stop there. He doesn't have any interest in driving the Impala where she could drive across the ice almost year round.
"Just two seasons? Winter and not-winter?" He raises an eyebrow, curious, but not to the point where he's willing to spoil the good mood altogether if it starts heading that way.
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And yet.
And yet it's warm here, and he can't help but think of summer, those short weeks when even he sometimes managed to get a real tan. He can't help but think of himself as a boy, reflected in the water: skinny back then, all arms and legs and hair he hadn't begun to learn how to tame yet, and usually huddled on the pier with a fishing rod tucked under one arm and a book in the other hand. And sometimes, rarely, his father with him, glasses misting, sleeves rolled up...
He clears his throat and glances back at Dean with a funny, bland little smile that's barely an expression at all, like an actual manifestation of repression. "You like the cold better, though," he notes conversationally, eyeballing the shade Dean has so carefully tucked himself into. "Or at least not the sun. And all those winter things? Winter sports, holidays... what was it? Christmas?"
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It's something that practice never makes easier, but there's one thing Dean can say for his life: he's had a lot of practice. Oh, sure, there's happiness scattered throughout, too, good memories he wouldn't trade for anything; he's seen more of the country in twenty years than most people will in their entire lives, he's met a wide array of people in all their quirky, odd, wonderful, terrible, mundane humanness, he's gotten to make a real, tangible, dramatic difference in a lot of people's lives, and he got to share almost all of it with the family he has left. Now, he sips his water, and listens like he rarely has patience for doing, and tries to figure out what it means. If it's good, if it'll be bad, if it...
Dean laughs. "Not the sun," he confirms, because he may not mind the cold, not as much as he claims to, but it doesn't mean he's looking to buy a set of snow chains for his car. Dean is shaking his head as Felix progresses down the list, until he's grinning, crooked and mild but sincere, at the last. "I like fall best. Beer festivals." He leers for a moment, but then wrinkles his nose and shakes his head.
"No, but like - don't laugh. But everything starts turning colors, and it's not kill-you-hot outside, and it's not fuck-me-cold yet, and there's Thanksgiving, and a little bit later yeah, Christmas." Here, now, it's easy to be excited about those holidays. He has someone to talk to about them, someone he wouldn't mind spending them with; he's in the shade and he doesn't like the beach as much as Felix clearly does, but the heat is still comforting in its way, the familiar surroundings, people and life and sun and food. It's easy to be excited, in a way that would surprise most people, but which Felix has probably seen a time or two by now. Never about big things, not science or ideas or miracles; small things. Every day things. Things he loves. "I mean c'mon: all the food you can eat, presents, and people you actually like."
Family, he doesn't say, nor does he try to put into words all the sense memories it brings up, not in something as flimsy and vulnerable as words, but he's still grinning.
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He leans his head on one hand and smiles over at Dean, a little more genuinely, soothed by his quiet enthusiasm. "They don't do them here?" he asks, honestly curious. If things are so different between Kansas and here, they may have entirely different cultures, entirely different practices. He doesn't know. He's asked questions about Earth every so often, but even knowing how many worlds the Barge visits, even knowing it's landed on this planet before, he somehow never expected to find himself so up close and personal with it.
It's probably a small thing to most of the others, except for Racetrack -- a detail -- but this is the first time in a long time he hasn't felt conflicted to feel gratitude for something the Barge has given him. "I know some traditions get observed on the Barge, but I have to imagine they're pretty different in the... uh, in the wild." I'd like to see that, he catches himself thinking, and his brow knits slightly.
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Then he's grinning again, sitting up a bit more in his chair so he can lean forward, elbows on the table and more actively engaged in the conversation. Dean isn't ever completely still, not easily, and it's not long before he's gesturing with his hands to illustrate what he's saying. It's probably a small thing, but Dean catches both the smile from Felix and the crease of his brow, and is eager to share what he can still see and smell and hear in his mind's eye.
"Yeah, the holidays happen on the Barge and all -" And he would point out their first breach together, now, if he didn't have his own wealth of memories to draw on, and if he weren't instinctively avoiding what could be considered an inciting incident. "- but they're supposed to be about family, and choosing to shut off all the bad shit that happens in the world for a couple days. When I was a kid we had a real tree in the living room, and we'd put up lights all over the outside of the house - lots of colors, Mom never liked just the white ones - and Dad always thought he was being quiet swearing, trying to get the tinsel to stay. Mom used to always try to make pies and stuff but we'd end up buying 'em anyway, and Dad would always talk about ice-fishing 'cause he grew up doing that but there wasn't any place to do it around where we lived."
He's only getting more excited as he goes, for once outrunning the time in between, the other thing that time of year means for him. It's easy, for now.
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Pennies, a memory whispers to him, and he shrugs. The only money he's seen here was the card Racetrack had. See?
He's more interested in Dean's version of the truth. This is Dean's Earth, even if it is California, and suddenly he really does want to know all the things he's never asked about before. He hadn't known it would set Dean off the way it does, but when it does, it's impossible not to get swept up a little in his startling enthusiasm for the subject. Dean rarely talks about his family, certainly never talks about happy memories like this one. Felix shifts his weight to lean on the table instead, to face him better, watching Dean's face curiously as it lights up.
Choosing to shut off all the bad shit... it's a foreign idea to him now, but then again, isn't that kind of what he's doing here? It's bizarre to think of himself as attempting anything optimistic these days, and yet...
"We should stay here," he finds himself saying, honestly startling himself more than anything else. He blinks, clears his throat, licks his lips, but doesn't take it back. "It's happened before," he says instead, dropping his voice, slightly bewildered. "I know he's left people in other ports."
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Dean's eyebrows draw together, settling down some. "What?" It startles Dean a little bit, too, and he's waiting for Felix to take it back, but he doesn't. Felix doesn't want to be anywhere, he's made that perfectly clear, and Dean has done his level best to learn it, to accept it; he's not that good at it, but he's tried. But then here, now, suddenly there's evidence that maybe it really is just the Barge where he doesn't want to be, maybe...
The hunter doesn't even stop to acknowledge those people - several of which he knew - left behind. He's on a much more important chase, and he may not get another chance.
"This is a real place," he says, quickly, newly focused. "I mean, this isn't my world, exactly, but my world has a Los Angeles, and a Venice Beach, and they're damn near perfect matches. It has a California, and a... and a Kansas."
And Christmas and Thanksgiving and Sam, even if there's no Mary or John anymore. Even if there's no Felix.
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And what he might be committing himself to if he continues.
"It is a real place," he agrees quietly, looking at his hands. "It's not an island where someone's going to try to take limbs for profit. It's not a town that wants to bury me in the past. I know who I am here. I have my own mind, my own history... and four years of that history were dedicated to making it here. I just--" He lets out a sound like a laugh, but a nervous one, a little helpless, and shakes his head, dropping his hands to his knees. "I don't know. Every other port, every other breach, the best I've been able to think is, it could be worse. But this..."
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Maybe Felix, with as badly as he doesn't want to be there. Dean doesn't look at that, either.
The laugh twists at something in the hunter's gut, and he realizes he's no good at this not hoping thing. It's not even a choice he gets to make. He just has to pursue it, he can't not.
"This could be better," he says, and tries to make it sound casual, like the natural follow up and not the wedge that it is in his mind. He should lean back, sprawl out, make his body language casual too but he can't do that; Dean stays leaned forward, features still bright but now focused on Felix's lowered eyes, his hands as they disappear, the slope of his shoulders. "It's not perfect, but it's real, and it's... good. It can be really, really good."
Dean draws in a slow breath, keeps his voice even. "I get it."
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No-- it was definitely a mistake, he realizes. He might have said let's stay here, we could stay here, but Dean... he won't. Not with Cain and a deal in the balance, he won't. Not on a world without Sam, he won't. And what hope does Felix have of staying by himself, even ignoring the extreme unlikelihood of the Admiral actually letting him go?
It was a mistake to bring this up. "I guess it was just a thought. We spent so long looking for Earth..." He shakes his head very slightly. "If I had the freedom to leave, the resources... the information I'd need..." Or someone to fill in the blanks for me, he adds silently, daring to glance up at Dean again.
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Dean licks his lips, not unaware of the tense turn the conversation has taken, and it's the instincts he's learned as a hunter as much as his inherent reaction to Felix that tells him to back off some; it's not fair, and it's not right. He can't win this way. Sam, John, they've already proven to Dean that he doesn't have what it takes to get what he wants through sheer force of will, not with people he loves, not with Felix, who is every bit as strong willed as any Winchester. Furthermore, he doesn't have the right to get what he wants at any cost.
Still. "It's a good thought," he says, and he can't help, either, the grateful note to it. That he had it at all. That Dean recognizes it for the concession it is. His hands on the table have closed to loose fists, and he bounces one knuckle anxiously to the beat of the foot that's started to bounce under the table, too. He can't do anything about the first thing, the second is conditional, but the third and the thought itself? "It just needs some... adjusting. Anything I know, anything I can do, it's yours. If you want it. Whatever you want."
Even if that whatever is for him to shut up and leave off it. Dean can mean it. He can.
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