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

[itstopped]

"Adjusting," Felix echoes, somewhat hollowly, and now something does shutter off. He's not impervious to the tone in Dean's voice, or the offer that follows -- if you want it, whatever you want -- the pleasant ache it stirs in his chest now completely familiar to him. That's its own kind of answer.

It's just that the way he feels doesn't change reality, anyway. "What kind of adjusting did you have in mind?" he mutters, not really looking for an answer, because there isn't one. This is all still on the Admiral's whim. Didn't Dean say they might only have a few hours at best here, anyway? Frak, for all he knows they'll be dragged back before the sushi even comes.

Luckily, that much doesn't happen, because the plates arrive even as he thinks it, and provide him with a very welcome out. "It was just a thought," he says again, dismissively, rubbing one hand over the opposite arm as the waitress doles things out. When she leaves, he pushes the plate of chicken across to Dean as a silent peace offering, shifting at the same time to bump his shin against Dean's jittering one. He hopes Dean knows he's grateful for the offer, but he doesn't bring it up again.

[surfaceshine]

"Yeah, it's... we could..." Shut up and leave off it is, though Dean realizes it with an almost painful tightening of something in his chest. Felix is asking a question, and Dean wrestles with how to answer it in a way that won't start them fighting again; he doesn't get it worked out before the food arrives and then he's smiling his civilian smile, calling her by name and thanking her and dubiously eying the plates of food without his foot once slowing.

That only happens when he feels Felix's leg brush his and then he goes still, like he was caught out at something he's not supposed to be doing, and it's his turn to keep his eyes down; a moment later he's reaching to pop a piece of chicken into his mouth because it's what he does. He chews longer than he normally would, thoughtful, and considers whether he's willing to drop this or not. Whether he can afford to push it, or drop it, or do anything with it at all.

"It's a good thought," he says again, quietly but firmly, when he's swallowed the food he doesn't even taste this first time around. Eyes flicking up, the corner of his mouth tugs briefly before he's clearly making the decision to let it go, too, even if it feels more like prying his grip forcibly from the topic than anything like graceful. The smile broadens. He straightens his shoulders and slouches back into the chair, reaching for the chopsticks again so he can have something to make an idiot out of himself with instead, gesturing at the food.

"Alright. Here's the deal. I'll try your stupid raw fish, but if I end up puking my guts up later, you're emptying the bucket." He's back in stride by the end of it; if he can't make it so Felix can stay here, not now anyway, he can make what time there is as good as he can. "And then you're going on the roller coaster at that carnival down the street with me, and we'll see who screams like a girl first."

[itstopped]

Felix isn't looking to fight, and he doesn't now. A good thought, a bad thought -- it doesn't really matter when it's also a stupid, pointless thought, and it is as long as he's still powerless to the Admiral's whims. Just because the thing in charge decided to be benevolent for a few hours doesn't mean anything else has changed. Besides, Dean might say anything you want, and Felix is sure he believes he means it, but he doubts that Dean would really turn his back on his inmate, on his deal, on his world -- on his brother -- for Felix. He doesn't think that's the Dean he knows. Not the one he's fallen for.

So however good a thought it might be, he lets it drop with a bittersweet wrench in his gut. Already, the thought of having to leave this place again... he sighs inwardly and digs into his sushi, forcing a smile at Dean's teasing. "Does it have to be specifically like a girl?" he asks mildly, pushing a roll across to him.

The avenue pulls at his attention again a moment later, even though nothing is really going on in particular. It is, in fact, the lack of eventfulness that has his attention -- the normality of everyday life. A part of him doesn't even want to go back out there, now that he's been reminded he'll have to leave it again.

But maybe the optimist in him isn't as dead as he thought, because the urge, that's still there. "So what else do I need to see around here? Besides the view from your room."

[surfaceshine]

It's not; he wouldn't. Dean hadn't even really considered staying here, here, and not just because of those reasons. There's a Los Angeles back home. If Felix wants a place like this, Dean would take him there; it's not perfect. It never will be. But it could be home, it could be safe, it could be...

Dean ruthlessly cuts that train of thought off before it gains enough momentum to hit the low, desperate thrum that lives in the pit of his stomach every time this topic comes up. But he does mean it, more - he would think, if he thought such things - than Felix is probably capable of believing. Dean can't make himself work himself ragged to send Felix back into oblivion, it's not how he's built, but if he wanted something like a future? If he wanted something Dean could solidly put into the good category?

But here, now, this is what Dean does. This is what he does for his family and for himself, and he takes the roll and wrinkles his nose at the question, smiling easily. "For this? Yes. I seem to remember that all other screaming has to be behind a closed door.

And don't tease. I told you there was a skypool."

He doesn't hesitate, doesn't falter, except to pull a face at his first bite of the actual sushi; it's mostly for comedic effect. He takes a second bite without half the reaction, having abandoned utensils entirely to use his fingers, and uses it to gesture with now. They're going to have a good time, dammit, and they'll deal with the rest of that when they have to.

"Would you be morally opposed to seeing live fish after eating their slower, dumber cohorts? There's a pretty awesome aquarium." Full of life, anyway, and Sam had always liked it. Speaking of things Sam had liked and Felix probably would as well: "Or the Science Center is a bit of a drive, but I know where it is from here. You can fuck 'em up by putting in a magic number or something from the future."

[itstopped]

It's not clear if he rolls his eyes at the innuendo or Dean's mugging, but really, it's probably both. Skypool or not, that will come later. It will come, in fact, when they're back on board. When Felix, disconsolate, has to face going back to the drudgery of the Barge; when he returns to the things he knows and likes best that will help him get out of bed in the mornings, even knowing that he had a few hours of this and lost it again. Back on board, he already knows that he's likely to down a few shots and pin Dean up against a wall.

For now, though, he's surprisingly on board -- for him -- with the plan that involves having as much a good time as possible outside of the confines of a hotel room. For now, the only further sign of stress he shows is that he fishes out a cigarette, pushing back a respectable distance from the table to light it. Still, he visibly and unsurprisingly perks up at the mention of-- "The Science Center?"

And yes, he knows he's one of the few for whom that counts as a vacation. But to see where Earth is in its intellectual development, to see what amounts, for Felix, to living scientific history... "Do you think we'd make it out there in time?"

[surfaceshine]

Dean's okay with it, honestly. Eye-rolling is better than several of the alternatives and, sometimes, it's even as good as a reward. He's also not likely to put up much of a fight with anything Felix wants to do, now or back on board; he'll be there, whatever form Felix's coping methods take. He's willing to be one of them. More than.

The hunter doesn't like the cigarette, he never does, but there's so much else to be concerned about that he never says anything; besides, he's not Felix's mom or big brother. He has plenty to fight about without that, and Felix never shoves it in his face, so he just picks up another chicken thing and smirks at the reaction. The feeling in his stomach still doesn't quite match what the surface of him is doing, but it warms a little bit at being right, at the familiarity of it both in Felix and because he's seen it before.

"Please. With me driving, you don't even have to ask," he quips back, cocky, though this time deservedly so. He's already plotting it out in his head, and there's not even any resignation or disappointment there; it's not a place Dean would go on his own, but for all his complaining, it's not that he finds nothing about science interesting. He's just very limited in what it applies to. And anyway, he can theoretically do anything he wants once he gets back to where he came from and it's not headed down the tracks for an apocalypse anymore.

That's if he'd ever say no to Felix anyway. "You just finish up your lunch, and let me worry about getting us there in time."