anewlanguage | (no subject)

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Every now and then, this place just outdoes itself.

[Today he's bitter about it, but Cain always adapts before long.]

Check in, all of you who've still got your hands or mouths or the ability to tap Morse Code.

[PRIVATE to DEAN WINCHESTER:]

Hey. Feel like home yet?

[PRIVATE to CASSANDRA:]

You all right?

[PRIVATE to BARBARA:]

You, you especially, check in.

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Hilarious.

Y'know, I can't decide if it'd be an insult if I asked how you did.

[In Gotham, implying that someone's skills aren't up to the task is a pretty nasty insult.]

You remember me at all?

You know, a better question would be why do you care?

[Then, of course, he has his answer. And so does Cain:]

Great. Another one. Did that asshole sleep at all or did he just spend the entire damn time talking to anyone in sight?

[He snickers, can't help it.]

I never saw him sleep but that's probably 'cause I was his inmate. He probably had a siren that went off whenever I came by.

[That Dean won't even refer to a past version of himself as anything but another person says a lot, and Cain takes a moment to decide how to roll with it.]

Anyway. I care 'cause I know you're one of the few people on board who's hard to shock. Whatever your home was like, it's got you all set for life here. Pretty handy.

Fantastic.

[Logically, Dean knew that since the previous version of himself had been a warden, he must have had an inmate; he even knows that inmate must have graduated, because no one's pissed off that the other Dean isn't here anymore. Not for that reason, anyway.

He's distinctly unimpressed to actually be talking to the man, though, although it's true: he doesn't look even remotely shocked.]

Yeah that's exactly how I would describe it. Handy. [Or, you know, not.] We don't have to do this. Whatever "this" is.

[Cain offers another low chuckle, but thereafter he is all soldier.]

Yeah let's just cut through this Lone Ranger bullshit, you're too smart to stick that out for long and you'd just be wasting your own time if you tried.

What "this" is not, is me trying to reconnect with a friend. We weren't friends, and there's too much going on here to try braiding each others' hair and sharing our Legos. But you are good at what you do. Right? You haven't forgotten how to crack skulls?

[Once upon a time, the businesslike attitude and the take charge tone would have made Dean at least consider falling into line; he knew how to take orders from someone who knew how to give them.

Now the dark hazelgreen of his eyes goes flinty, and he sits forward a little. It's not anger, really, or anything like fight in what comes back from him so much as cold, hard facts.]

Good, because I'm not in the market for friends, and especially not the kind that mixes their metaphors all to hell. What I've seen so far is mostly a bunch of amateur civilian dipshits trying not to choke on a couple hiccups in reality so yeah, I might be smarter than to try to stick it out alone if I don't have to, I might be good at what I do, but I'm not seeing much of an option besides.

[He doesn't quite smother a laugh]

How do you measure what people are competent, huh? Against yourself? You couldn't take me when I was drunk. So if your new daring strategy is to run and hide and wait it out, this boat isn't big enough for stealth.

Run, hide? Nah. Wait it out? I don't see a better option for the position I'm in at the moment.

[This is either a blatant lie or the truth depending on the day; it always comes out the same regardless.]

I don't remember asking for your opinion either way.

Yeah well you don't wait for people to ask either.

Do you want to go home? You left here because- well, fuck it, you left here because you decided to. Did you get a choice about coming back here?

[It's Dean's turn to laugh - an ugly, mean sound, sharp at the edge, and under it unspeakably sad. Home. What home. Dean has no home, more than ever before in his life.]

I'm an inmate, if that's what you're angling after. So no. [What else is new?]

[He'd known that much--but his daughter had been a Warden, and returned as an Inmate, too. Some dismally small part of him had hoped that she had made that choice on her own...but if even Dean couldn't, Cass certainly hadn't.]

It sucks, I get that. But you can't just 'wait out' your time here like you could in a jail cell.

Actually, it doesn't.

[And now he straightens up a little, and for as hard as the expression he'd been giving Cain up to this point had been, this is where the real barelaid steel is, and it is tarnished and warped and bent but still strong, still certain.]

See, you don't know a damn thing about me. You think you do, because you know my name without my telling you, because you knew someone who looks like me, but me? Not a damn thing.

I'm pretty okay with hot showers, hot meals, free drugs and booze, and something impossible trying to kill me only about twice a month.

Edited 2014-07-29 01:08 (UTC)

No, see, I don't know you. I didn't know you before, either. But I know this place.

You think you can tough it out here? [He scoffs] You go ahead and try, but you're just as breakable as everyone else.

You have no idea.

[At which point the hunter hangs up - not in anger, just out of patience.]

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