07: [Action] Break on Through (To The Other Side)

[dashboardlite]

As he stands there, staring, Dean Winchester wonders why he's never noticed this door before.  It's not anything normal, by any stretch - it's just a huge door; tall, foreboding, made of something that looks like solid oak.  He hasn't touched it yet, he's simply been waiting.  Waiting for it to open, waiting for someone to go in or come out. 

It doesn't even have hinges or a knob or a lock, but he knows it's a door, and not some giant slab in the middle of the foyer.

Without dragging his eyes away, Dean slips a hand into the pocket of his coat, pulling out the comm unit he'd warped into an EMF reader.  Something this big and unexpected had to have a spike off the charts.  Switching the device on with a little click, he takes careful, precise steps towards the door, holding his electro-magnetic-frequency measurer up to the offending object - He really shouldn't be feeling like a gorilla out of 2001: A Space Odyssey right now, but he does - and his eyebrows shoot into his hairline as the EMF lights up and squeals, obnoxious beeping echoing through the front hall.

"...sonuvabitch," He mutters, tucking his little invention away and running his fingers over smooth wood.  "We chased our pleasures, here...dug our treasures, there, but can you still recall..."  Dean hums quiety, squinting at the grain and scratching a fingernail over it, half-expecting sulfur to come away.

"...the time we cried...break on through, to the other side, break on through, to the other side..."

Comments

[kindly-done.livejournal.com]

What does that mean?

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

[He snorts.]

In my line of work...you don't get a break. Not even for one hot second. Shit sucks, man.

[kindly-done.livejournal.com]

You must not be very happy.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

...thinkin' about it...no. I'm not, really. Hunh.

[kindly-done.livejournal.com]

I was set to start learning auto-mechanics before I came here. Can't you get a job like that?

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"...I...could." He furrows his brow a little, thinking. If he was to do anything else in the real world, it would be a blue-collar job like mechanics, but...it wouldn't be the same. He'd still have that niggling feeling that everything wasn't quite right.

Particularly since he knows what's out there. It's almost an obligation to take care of it all.

"I ain't made for domestic life, though. You know that, man." He smiles a little faintly, nodding.

[kindly-done.livejournal.com]

"I don't know that," Jack replies, a little confused, "I just met you."

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"...we're alike. I can sorta tell. Y'know, read people?" He offers another hopeful smile. "What're you like, then, dude?"

[kindly-done.livejournal.com]

Jack smiles back. And the truth is, they are somewhat alike, but you wouldn't get that out of, "I have five little girls back home."

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Dean blanches. "...five little girls?" He repeats, eyebrows raising into his hairline. Shit. Not so alike after all, huh?

"Didn't peg you for a family man, Jack," He hazards carefully with a slight laugh. "You don't look the type."

[kindly-done.livejournal.com]

He grins, fairly comfortable with Dean's discomfort; he gets all kinds of reactions, and he's happy to talk about his girls regardless because he's rude like that.

"It happened by accident."

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"...an accident." Dean mumbles, staring. "Dude, how many chicks did you knock up at once for that to be an accident? What are you, twenty?"

[kindly-done.livejournal.com]

Jack counts vaguely on his fingers, though it has very little to do with any number of women or his age. He comes up frowning.

"About twenty. Knock up?"

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, knock up. You know...get pregnant." The expression of sheer confusion on Dean's face probably would be much funnier if Jack understood his manner of speaking.

[kindly-done.livejournal.com]

Jack goes red right to the tips of his ears and sputters for a moment, shaking his head wildly.

"I didn't make anyone pregnant!"

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Well. It seems a little impossible, given how old Jack is. Unless the guy's been knockin' up ladies since he was fourteen.

"How the Hell d'you have so many kids, then?"

[kindly-done.livejournal.com]

"I found them!"

Yeah, you heard right. He found them.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"...you found them."

Dean stares for a moment. "Where the Hell did you find a bunch of little girls, dude?"

[kindly-done.livejournal.com]

"At the bottom of the ocean."

Even Jack realizes that this is not enough information, after a moment.

"...in Rapture. A city at the bottom of the ocean."

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Dean just looks at him for a beat. An undersea city. Named Rapture. Where he found several little girls.

"Okay, I don't even want to know anymore, man."

[kindly-done.livejournal.com]

"Oh."

Something about the tone stings a little, but Jack shrugs it off.

"That's all right. I don't really like to talk about it, either."

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"It's just...man, Jack. I don't see it. I just don't see you with little girls hanging off your arms and legs like friggin' limpets."

Dean really doesn't see it. It's a weird image.

[kindly-done.livejournal.com]

Jack laughs.

"They don't hang on me. They ride on my shoulders sometimes."

Pause.

"They might hang on me a little. I don't mind."

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"Well aren't you adorable."

Dean smiles to himself a little, picturing it. It's actually...sort of in-character. Now that he thinks about it, the awkward and somewhat-bumbling Jack would make a good dad.

[kindly-done.livejournal.com]

"I can't get back to them soon enough."