tentacruelest | 14th Wave

14th Wave

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[This week on the Barge, an older, somewhat new face is lurking about, obsessively checking a fob watch chained to his pocket and walking awkwardly through the halls. Those who were here in October during the mirror Barge may recognize the man as a disguised Davy Jones, struggling to grow comfortable in his human skin. He still limps carefully, but seems to be enjoying his relative anonymity]

[Private to Sylvanas; Voice]

D'yeh have a moment to spare for an old sailor, m'lady?

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[Dean is on a step ladder in a level three hallway, working on a light fixture. He's used to people moving around him and most of them don't bother him when he's actively working, though sometimes some will stop to help, so he doesn't immediately look away from his hands, lest the legitimate wiring he's trying to piece back together turns to silly string while his attention is elsewhere.

Then the pliers in his hand slip, rapping his knuckles smartly on the edge, and he swears and steps abruptly down to shake his hand out. When he glances up, he freezes.

It's rare to actually see real fear in Dean Winchester, but it's there now, flashing across his features and settling behind his eyes. It's not for Davy. He recognizes the man immediately, and it claws at the memories and the trauma he has spent months bricking back up and learning to carry with him. But a swift glance around, a surreptitious check of his communicator, shows that they're not back there. No one else is changed. He breathes out and tries to ignore his raised pulse, but doesn't quite get around to smiling or grinning by the time he actually speaks.]

Jones?

[Dean is one of the few people Davy still keeps respect for on the Barge. Not that he'd let the man know it, but he likes to see some people going to work on the Barge: it shows honesty, not this lazy laying about that a lot of wardens do.

He's fully prepared to keep going his own way without looking at the other man when the pliers drop. Turning his head, he accidentally locks eyes with Dean. A beat, as confusion passes over his face when Dean looks fearfully back at him.

Then, it clicks. The darkness and suffering, the pain and death and constant terror, under constant threat of worse to follow. He grimaces, and puts on his usual scowl in order to keep Dean from getting too familiar with him]

Winchester. Afternoon.

[It helps more than Dean is willing to admit, and more than he even realizes. It settles them more firmly in the here and now, not the there and then, and the hunter mercilessly shoves the rest of his reaction back down out of sight. Not out of mind, yet, but he pastes a crooked smirk on and does not completely miss his mark.

He's still just enough off balance, though, that he does not respond with his usual obnoxiously bright cheerfulness.]

Hey. You're uh... what's going on? [Awkward at best, lame at worst; Dean instinctively knows this isn't, necessarily, a bad thing. But he remembers when Sylvanas had so much trouble when she was suddenly alive, and he remembers how much Jones said he hated being who he'd been; he's still unsure of his footing.]

[Jones is thankful for the more subtle, subdued Dean today: He can't hardly stand the obnoxious cheer. It seems fake to him: fake, and untrustworthy. He grunts, holding up the watch by its fob]

Warden's given me a device t'make me look human. Giving it a try before I decide I don't like it and throw it back t'him.

...Don't yeh go looking pale like that, Winchester. This is how I was before I was cursed. It's got nothing to do with that other Barge.

[There is a somewhat surprising part of Dean that will always respond best to commands; even though there's a part of him that also instantly thinks If I could, don't you think I would?, it matters less than the drive to obey. He's been living up to impossible expectations all his life as a common standard, and now he swallows and shakes his head.]

I know. I just... [Then the rest of it registers, his eyes narrowing on the watch, and both eyebrows go up. He changes gears, but not to fake cheer; now he's thinking, remembering another conversation they had.]

What makes you think you won't like it?

[Jones turns to look at the watch in his hand. It's a fine thing, but he has no idea how it works and won't trouble himself to trying to imagine how.]

Yeh don't go around circumnavigating what you steered yerself into in the first place. If I'm going to break the curse, I'd rather do it properly than cheating. This is cheating.

[That's... shockingly hopeful, but Dean doesn't close the trap door just yet.]

And that's the only reason why? Because anything worth doing is worth doing right?

[No mockery - the hunter agrees wholeheartedly.]

...Aye. It were my own mistakes that cursed me to have this face, and I know what it takes to fix 'em. Here, I don't pay my due.

But you do want to break the curse.

I don't care much either way. Yeh get to be my age, things that yeh thought mattered don't seem to, any longer.

I've only allowed this disguise because I don't have the patience nor the temperament to refrain from beating on those who go around making fun of my face.

Uh huh.

[Dean does not believe this; he doesn't bother hiding it. Instead he bends down to scoop up the wrench, glancing down at his scraped knuckle. He continues deceptively lightly, lacking his own customary harsh flippancy:]

So apparently, you get to be your age and kids are still obnoxious, huh? Even without a lawn?

[He pauses, confused by the phrasing he so often hears. Finally, he grunts;]

I find most people obnoxious. Children no more'n anyone else.

Then you think you'd be used to being annoyed by now. Like oxygen.

There are no children and no oxygen below the sea, Winchester. Those that drown, I send them on their way. I've no use for them.

Well, you just have a smartass answer for everything, don't you?

And you're bound and determined to change a mind that doesn't want changing, boy.

Is that what I'm doing?

[But he's quick to change the subject, squinting at the older man speculatively.]

You any good with tools?

[He squints back, just as narrow-eyed but with suspicion added in]

I can keep a ship afloat.

Would I be considered obnoxious or... [He has to actually find the word, because Dean doesn't do this; he doesn't vocalize this, though he masks it by pursing his lips out amusingly before becoming abruptly serious again.] Impertinent, I guess, if I asked you for a hand with some stuff?

Peter's not around, and my woodworker ran off to have a baby.

[Davy stares long and hard at Dean, attempting to figure this offer out. He's immediately suspicious, suspecting a trap or a betrayal or at the very least, complacency]

What could I possibly know that you and your future knowledge and hands can't accomplish?

How to keep a ship afloat.

[Dean's reply is immediate and flat. He lets Davy look for whatever he wants because he knows from experience that the kinds of things that people look at him like that in search of? He simply doesn't have in him.

The hunter is dishonest, but not in the ways most people are.]

Cars are my thing. You hand me a wrench and fifteen minutes and I'll name you the cause of every sound any vehicle you put me to is making, but this place? Mostly I'm just stubborn and I been here too long.

[He glances first to Dean, and then to the hall behind them]

The Admiral keeps this ship up. He wouldnae let us drown.

No?

You know something about him that I don't? Because he's allowed pretty much everything else under the damn sun to happen - I figure that's somewhere on the list of what's left.

[He has to admit this is true. Grudgingly, Jones turns to look Dean full on, measuring him up]

What needs t'be done?

[And here is the surest sign that it's a trap, if it's any kind of trap at all: Dean doesn't even have to think. He'll finish up the light, both because he already started it and because he doesn't expect Jones knows what to do with electricity just yet.

Instead, back and shoulders straightening somewhat unconsciously under the scrutiny but still calm:] I got some tables from the dining hall up in the office, need their legs bent back straight. I'm not sure who bent 'em or how, but no one else needs any ideas.

You up for it?

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