23: [Action/Video] Pirates

[dashboardlite]

Who'll make his mark
The captain cried
To the devil drink a toast
We'll glut the hold
With cups of gold
And we'll feed the sea with ghosts
I see your hunger for a fortune
Could be better
Served beneath my flag
If you've the stomach
For a broadside
Come aboard my pretty boys
I will take you and make you
Everything you've ever dreamed.

Obscenely loud music is blaring from one of the first floor parlors, and it possesses a remarkable nautical quality that borders on the fucking epic.  You might be wondering the reason for these festive tunes, curious resident.  If you happen to be peering through your communicator or walking down the hall, venturing into the nearest open door, your vision is assaulted by a swath of colorful fabrics draped over the furniture, from the ceilings, along the walls.  The alluring glitter of gold winks up at you from piles on the floor, and a bust of someone who looks suspiciously like Edward Teach is bedecked in jewelry and scarves.

The captain rose from a silk divan
With a pistol in his fist
And shot the lock from an iron box
And a blood red ruby kissed
I give you jewelry of turquoise
A crucifix of solid gold
One hundred thousand silver pieces
It is just as I foretold
You, you see there before you
Everything you've ever dreamed.

You might even see Dean Winchester, sporting an eyepatch and a large, plumed hat, lounging on a silk divan.  His jeans are tucked into heavy leather boots and he's wielding a flintlock pistol, cleaning the barrel with a chamois rag.  Pausing for one moment, he sets the gun aside and reaches over to pick up one of the gold doubloons scattered across the floor.  He then peels away the leafing and pops the chocolate money into his mouth, enjoying it with obvious relish.  Turning the music down as soon as it breaks to an instrumental interlude, Dean crosses his legs on the divan, getting comfortable.

He pulls out a hip flask, taking a swig and saluting the camera with his left hand - observant residents might notice that he appears to have only four fingers now.  Then he spreads his arms to welcome the adoring audience.

"All aboard, bitches."

Comments

[blimeyjamwalls.livejournal.com]

He doesn't know Dean all that well, and for an early Victorian man it's sort of not the done thing to go spilling your guts to acquaintances. Not in a less than strictly literal sense, anyway.

You know what, he needs another mouthful from the whiskey flask.

"Will he be all right?"

How Dean's supposed to know that is anybody's guess.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Telling the truth wouldn't be kind, in this situation. Not encouraging, to say that the full psychological recovery after being possessed by a demon and mutilating friends could take anywhere from two months to two years. Some people are never the same. Some people make the jump easier. But the landing is never soft.

Dean stretches the truth, because he knows that Philip is never going to forgive himself.

"He'll bounce back," he nods definitively, as if everything he has to say can be taken at face-value. "It's gonna be harder for him to recover if he doesn't have our help, though."

He fiddles with a piece of chocolate money, peeling off the wrapper to keep his hands busy, and sends Daniel a sidelong glance.

"D'you forgive him?"

[blimeyjamwalls.livejournal.com]

Daniel is quite willing to be lied to, and quite able to take things at face value. He's a little reassured.

"I know that he was not the one wielding - who -"

Can they. Can they not get into specifics at all ever please and thanks.

"I - I know that it was not his fault; yes - I forgive him." He's already thought about this. He's already realised that their relationship is built on letting things slide. He can say the word forgive pretty easily, and hope to be able to keep to it.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"That's good."

And it is. It's really good. It's probably more than Philip ever anticipated getting, and since things have come down to the point where they're all pretty much dangerous (Except Daniel, unless he has some kind of sinister secret hiding beneath his cravat. But that would be silly.), it's best they offer each other the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe they should change the subject, now.

"So what's your world like, anyway? What year are you from, again?"

[blimeyjamwalls.livejournal.com]

"Eighteen thirty-nine," he answers, absolutely willing to change the subject. "I lived in London, Mayfair."

By this point he can form the syllables and feel like there's some recognition attached to them.

"And yourself? --You are another from the future." That's clear enough from his clothes.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"...damn."

That's well over a hundred years ago. Practically two centuries. No wonder he dresses like friggin' Shakespeare.

Dean suddenly feels like Marty McFly.

"And yeah, I'm from the future. Two-thousand and seven. We got cars and flannel and- youuuu probably don't know what I'm talking about, do you? Geez, how'd you even figure out how to use the communicator?"

[blimeyjamwalls.livejournal.com]

"Philip has acted as tutor." He says it with a bit of a smile, because hey, there's a good memory of Philip he can focus on rather than a memory of Clarence's mocking voice and twisted expression.

Hang on, though, he can't let this misconception about his time go uncorrected. Daniel doesn't want Dean looking down on him or anything.

"But I know what a car is, of course. Our rail network spans..." Uhh that's difficult to estimate when you can only remember one station. He finishes lamely: "Some distance."

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Dean takes a moment to try and think of a good memory with Philip. Being able to talk about his (probably) son was kind of nice, and getting geared up to make a car...yeah, that's definitely gotta happen sometime soon. It would get his mind off of things.

"A...railroad car," Dean deadpans, feeling the edges of his lips pulling into a smile. That's so sad it's almost adorable.*

"That's, uh...cool, I guess. I'm plannin' on building a car from my time if you wanna work on it."



* - In a completely platonic way, because Daniel totally has the hots for Philip teacher.

[blimeyjamwalls.livejournal.com]

"You don't say. Are they much advanced?"

He does sound interested. Not because of the mechanics - though he can do mechanics if he has to - but because of the item out of time. There's a reason he studied as an archaeologist.


* - He so doesn't, Dean, you wanker.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"Dude, these things are so advanced they're gonna blow your mind."

Dean chuckles, making a grab for his flask and indulging in a little Southern Comfort. He spreads his arms, then, and tries to explain.

"It's like...okay, it's like a train, but smaller and probably more dangerous. Engine's right in the front, probably about a foot away from the driver's seat."



* - Daniel Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

[blimeyjamwalls.livejournal.com]

"A smaller train?"

He sounds a little doubtful. That isn't as impressive-sounding as he hoped.

"Very remarkably smaller?"


* - But Dean is a shipping fangirl.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, smaller, but that's the thing. It goes just as fast as a train - faster, too."

Dean sounds excited. How can someone not be excited? It's...it's just...cars, man. They are so freaking cool.


* - Nah, he just wants you to be ~happy~

[blimeyjamwalls.livejournal.com]

"Faster than a train."

Now he sounds impressed again. Trains are pretty fast bro.

"Have I overlooked the railway through Wonderland, or do you plan to lay that as well?"


* - Through buttsex?!

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Dean resists the urge to add faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, but then he remembers that he hates Superman, and Batman is five million times more awesome.

"This car doesn't need tracks, dude," his grin widens. "Hold on, I think I got a photo of the one I got back home..."

Dean rummages around in his pocket, withdrawing a beaten up leather wallet (he keeps it on him out of habit) and pulling out a folded-up photograph of a much younger Sam and Dean Winchester (http://thetvaddict.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/young_sam_dean.jpg) leaning up against his car (http://www.carology.tv/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/chevrolet_impala_01.jpg). He hands it to Daniel.

"S'me and my brother, and she," Dean taps the black automobile in the photograph. "Is the car."



* - Through sweet, sweet lovin'. ;D

[blimeyjamwalls.livejournal.com]

Daniel looks both impressed and a little dismayed as he takes the photograph, and handles it carefully. "Why on Earth have you folded it? This is a remarkable painting." AND YOU GOT CREASE LINES ON IT. DUDE, WHAT.

He doesn't have to be an art critic to appreciate a ridiculously lifelike bit of art. Because this is definitely painted, right? Photographie in Daniel's time was in its first unsteady steps as a science which produced faint, grubby, monochrome images, and he's not quite made the leap of logic between that and the mostly-overlooked word 'photo'.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"Painting? No, dude, this is a phot-"

Dean stops, realizing that photographs were a good while after Daniel's time. Well...damn. That's a lot of pop culture references that Dean will never be able to make around Daniel without utterly confusing him.

Oh well.

"It's a photograph. Y'know, like when you do photography?" He mimes snapping a camera in the hopes that there will be some vague recognition.

[blimeyjamwalls.livejournal.com]

A blank look. But he gives it a try, because he doesn't want to look ignorant at all.

"That's... French, isn't it?"

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Now it's Dean's turn to look confused.

"Pssshhhh, I dunno. I can't speak any other language 'cept English."

And he's so good at English, too.

"It's a future thing. You stand in front of a box, and it...like...makes the picture for you."

[blimeyjamwalls.livejournal.com]

An ordinary Victorian might remember the announcement of the daguerreotype. A Victorian with self-inflicted amnesia would gape, and make a connection to pinhole cameras, and gape some more.

"Itself-- it makes the image?"

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," Dean replies, a little exasperated, because the point of this discussion was not about cameras, it was about cars, and Dean actually knows about cars. He couldn't tell you what the fuck an f-stop was if his life depended upon it.

"The camera - the box-thing - makes the image."

Clearly Dean does not find Daniel's derp nearly as endearing as Philip does.

[blimeyjamwalls.livejournal.com]

"But that's-- incredible!"

He examines the photograph with new fascination, turning it this way and that. But Dean's impatience is pretty evident.

"And... this is the car? The rail-less car?" So... more like a carriage, really, but without anywhere to attach the horse. So where does the combustion engine go? It doesn't have a tell-tale chimney that he can see.

"And it's faster than a train? How on Earth does one steer it?"

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Ah, back on familiar terrain. This, Dean can handle.

"Think of it this way, dude: at fastest, a train could get to maybe eighty-eight miles-per-hour." So what if he learned that from Back to the Future: Part III? It still applies. "A lot of cars now - including my baby - can get up to a hundred, one hundred and twenty, or one hundred and forty."

Dean points to the front of the automobile. "The engine's in there, under the hood. If you're sitting in the car, facing forward, you steer it from the left side at the front. See, the wheel's right...right there."

[blimeyjamwalls.livejournal.com]

The gaping comes back for an encore. But that's so fast. And the engine is so small.

Wait, wait, he thinks he knows the answer here. And won't Dean be impressed by his guess!

"Does it work by electric..." shit what's the suffix suffix suffix "...ity?"

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"Electricity? Hell no. Nah, this is an internal combustion engine, baby," Dean's grin widens. "Electricity wouldn't give it enough juice to run. She moves on gasoli- Uh. I think you guys call it petroleum, or somethin' like that. S'like a kind of oil."

[blimeyjamwalls.livejournal.com]

"Oil?"

But as surprised as he sounds, Daniel realises that that actually makes a lot of sense. If one can burn oil for light, why not for other things? No, what's still awing him is:

"But - the speed! Men of your era must have the reflexes of cats if they are to steer a carriage which moves at twice almost the speed of a train."