#and my brain goes: destiel au destiel au destiel au EVERY DAMN YEAR WHEN I WATCH THIS MOVIE

[seenthisepisode]

you all: halloween

me: maybe this year i will finish my holiday (2006) destiel au by christmas eve maybe so maybe so

[orionsangel86]

15x04 Episode Review - What a Meta Rollercoaster THAT was!

Jensen Ackles directed this. Let that sink in before you read on. Because this means EVERYTHING.

Davy Perez said on Twitter that he had a lot of help with this episode from Bobo, Dabb, Meredith, Even from Jensen and Rob. Which seems pretty clear from me as I was blown away by what I consider a meta masterpiece.

There is a lot to unpack here so let me just jump straight in with my favourite part:

THE REDEEMED FANGIRL AND THE BRONLY GOD

In an episode directed by Jensen Ackles it both astonishes me and pleases me immensely that the strongest and most interesting plot didn’t involve the brothers. Every single scene with Becky and Chuck was a galaxy brain of meta and my head is still buzzing about it. 

**Meta Essay under the cut**

Becky has changed. She has grown up, has gone to therapy, has channelled previously unhealthy behaviour into a stable and successful Etsy business. She is the model fangirl. No longer the source of this shows mockery. Becky shuddered when remembering what she did to Sam. Showing her regret and guilt over her former actions leading the way for this fanbase to forgive and redeem her. Formerly Becky was portrayed as a mockery of those in the fandom who irritated Kripke, now she has grown beyond that dark and hateful corner, has welcomed Castiel into her home as the character whose form appears most often on her shelves. Clearly Becky is a Cas stan now. I bet she ships Destiel in those domestic AU’s she writes on AO3. Only Cas stans and Destiel shippers proclaim “not enough Cas” when referring to the source material after all.

However even though the positive message of the reformed fangirl from obsessive incest fetishist into healthy Cas fan filled me with joy, it wasn’t my top take away moment from these scenes. The entire message of Chuck and Becky’s conversation makes me want to cry tears of joy. After all, it isn’t often your favourite show includes an avatar of yourself arguing with an avatar for the writers - or at least, the villainous arrogant writer who refuses to acknowledge you. 

Becky likes the character drama. Chuck likes the monsters. Becky doesn’t care for the monsters. Chuck brings up the Leviathan (because of course Chuck would enjoy the season that first tried to “go back to the shows roots” and reduce the format back to just “Sam and Dean alone on the road”). Chuck tells her that fanfiction doesn’t count, but our strong willed fangirl avatar tells him “writings writing!” and damn right you are Becky. It counts.

Then Becky goes and blows my mind by speaking aloud in my favourite show the kind of things that I think and talk about every time this show brings out another generic MOTW episode:

“If I had to give one note, the jeopardy Chuck, its feeling a little thin. No stakes. It’s fun to hear the boys voices but a story is only as good as its villain and these villains are just not feeling very dangerous. Not to mention there’s no classic rock, no one even mentions Cas, the climax is a little stale. The boys tied up again while we get the villains monologue which frankly isn’t one of your best. A hint of originality wouldn’t��� hurt.”

(x)

At this point I might as well be on the floor because holy shit Becky is me. When did the writers become so very aware of their fanbase? It’s taken them 15 years, but they are finally here. Chuck is fuming of course. How dare a fangirl criticise his work, so instead of taking her advice on board, he plays up. He gets mean.

Chuck’s perfect SPN ending is tragic and in some weird insanely meta way this feels like a message from the writers telling us that they hear us because Becky once again says what we have ALL been screaming on Twitter about a tragic ending:

“It’s awful. Horrible! It’s hopeless! You can’t do this to the fans! What you did to Dean? What you did to Sam?”

I keep thinking that the SPN writers have made Chuck into a parody of the GoT writers. Chuck is arrogant, egotistical, and completely incapable of taking criticism. He went to Becky hoping she would fluff up his ego, but she shot him down and unfortunately, he destroyed her for it. 

The message here though is one of hope. Everything about Chuck is framed as negative, as villainous - this includes the tragic ending. Therefore if there is one thing I am practically certain of after this episode it’s that the actual finale will subvert Chuck’s vision. We will not be getting a tragic death ending to the show.

The other thing I can’t quite believe that the writers have done here, in an episode directed by Jensen is the shaaaade. I’m honestly feeling a little sorry for the bibro’s right now. Because the writers have been shading them HARD this season. Chuck has proven himself to be one of them. Imagine having the writers see you and the things you like about the show, and make you into the actual villain? I mean... ouch.

Reasons Chuck is a Bibro

He has tunnel vision on Sam and Dean (ignores Castiel completely)

He is all about the MOTW episodes. Doesn’t pay attention to depth of character

He clearly enjoyed season 7 MOTW brother only season

He believes a tragic brother only ending would be loved by the fans

He wants a dark tragic ending

When Becky recommends he write something else, he moans that he only likes Sam and Dean and only wants to write about them.

He is arrogant, egotistical and doesn’t listen to criticism.

(this is technically a crack intermission to an otherwise serious meta post but ADMIT IT there is truth to this crack!)

SAM AND DEAN - CHUCKS PUPPETS?

Whilst Becky faces Chuck and makes all our meta writer hearts pound with excitement, the other main story was a rather generic MOTW episode. But wasn’t that the whole point? What a genius twist on a MOTW this episode was. We all know the formula, so overdone now in the show that it has grown tiresome. Yet to have that tiresome format called out in the very episode that... includes... that...format... well, that’s gotta be one of the most meta things this show has ever done. I’m in awe. 

Sam and Dean investigate the mysterious death of a cheerleader at Beaverdale high school (and even though I don’t watch Riverdale even I can see how this school is a blatant nod to that terrible show #sorrynotsorry). It starts off pretty boring and normal. Sam and Dean do their thing, they wear the suits and pretend to be feds. They suspect Veronica (again Riverdale fans are probably enjoying this) but realise that she can’t be their vamp. The boys seem quite lost as to who is responsible... until Chuck starts writing that is. Then suddenly a random car driving past the crime scene on CCTV is enough for them to enter someones house with a machete. It’s a sloppy MOTW storyline, but this seems intentional IMO. From the moment Sam and Dean are back in their lumberjack chic and storming the family home to accuse the father of being the vamp, something feels off - or it did to me anyway. 

In fact, as this was all playing out right at the moment that Becky critiqued Chuck’s writing, it felt as if she was critiquing the very MOTW hunt that we were watching, at least from that point onwards. 

Suddenly we are back in Chuck’s world and he’s made it dark and tragic. 

The son in this nuclear family is Jack. unwillingly monstrous, innocent and guilty at the same time. The father, so desperate and self sacrificial for his child - heartbreakingly Castiel:

“You don’t have children do you, because if you did you would know that to see your child in pain, rips your heart out, and you’d know that you’d do anything. You’d die for them.”

The mother, wide eyed, armed and dangerous - Clearly Dean:

“Or kill for them.”

The son plays his part perfectly. Chuck be proud:

“I killed someone that I loved” 

“I’m a monster” 

Compare this to Jack in 14x20 saying to Dean as he stares down the barrel of the gun “You were right. I am the monster.”

But we as the audience know that this situation is wrong. There is no real monster here other than Chuck. The boy is a victim just as Jack was. The parents forced into desperate circumstances out of love. They may be the stereotypical white middle class American family made of privilege and self obsession, but what they do is still purely out of love. It is a situation they are forced into by Chuck, just as he forced the TFW family into the same situation at the end of last season, and we are made to look on in horror as what happened in the season 14 finale happens again, and yet Sam and Dean barely blink or question their actions. This is the strangest part of all. 

Sam’s reaction is interesting, because he knows this is wrong. He knows they shouldn’t be killing this kid. He can see the mirror, the repeated story here. He can TELL that something isn’t right... but he doesn’t speak up, doesn’t protest, doesn’t stop it. 

Dean doesn’t question a damn thing. He plays his part perfectly. It’s haunting. Chuck almost had his clutches in Dean before, but this time his hold is tight. 

Look at how this was framed and tell me this whole thing isn’t Chuck’s doing?

In both scenes Sam looks on in horror knowing that it isn’t right. But this time no one protests, and Chuck get’s his horrific ending.

Chuck banishes Becky and her family, and arrogantly proclaims that he “can do anything, I’m a writer” and the next scene cuts to Sam and Dean in the car ready for the classic Bro Melodrama moment as to be expected of all standard MOTW, but this time, it feels like they are reading from a script - at least at first:

Dean: ��Well that was an interesting one.”

Sam: “Yeah. What Henry did. We’d have done the same thing. For Jack, if we’d had the chance.”

Dean: “Yeah. Yeah we would. Look man I get it. I get it we have lost way way too much. And its hard enough to feel like just cashing up. I felt like that. After Chuck back at the crypt. But you know what brought me back, you did. You saying that what we do still matters.

That’s why I wanted to drag us out here, to work the case, to save lives. Ya know. Because it is, it’s a crap job. We do the ugly thing so people can live happy.”

Sam: “Lucky them.”

Dean: “Yeah lucky them.”

Sam: “But it doesn’t change a thing. Ya know you still do the job. We don’t do it for us. We do it for Jack, for mom, for Rowena. We owe it to everyone whose ever given a damn about us to keep putting one foot in front of the other. No matter what.

Hey man like you said, now that Chucks gone. We’re finally on our own. We are finally free to… move on. Ya know.”

Sam: “Yeah I dunno I dunno if I can move on. I can’t forget any of them. I still think about Jessica. I can’t just let that go.”

Dean: “No man that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Sam: “I know I know I’m sorry I know. What I’m saying is that I don’t feel free. What we’ve done, what we’ve lost, right now that is what I’m feeling and sometimes its, its like I can’t even breath. Maybe tomorrow, maybe ill feel better in the morning.”

Dean: “And what if you don’t?”

Sam: “I dunno.”

First of all, would they REALLY have done the same thing for Jack? Kidnapped and bled an innocent girl to feed him? Because I don’t think they would have. Then Dean goes into a monologue that we have heard over and over again and it feels like he is reading from a script. It’s like going through the motions. We are back in Chuck’s worlds. There is no freedom here. Even the lack of Cas mention which we can argue is because Dean is burying those feelings and in denial, even so it feels jarring in the episode where the lack of Cas mention was already called out directly by Becky, so it only further adds to how disjointed this whole scene is. Like this scene is pure wank fodder for Bibro Chuck. Quite frankly, it is. But this time it feels like the writers are aware of this and are doing it purposely to MAKE it feel off.

The one time the script seems to trip is when Dean mentions moving on - triggering Cas’s words from last week, which he struggles with, and then Sam protests and actually opens up to how he is really feeling. The brother’s are back in Chuck’s maze, and this time it seems like he has made it impossible to deviate from the path - but I do wonder if Sam is going to be harder to control because of the connection...

The final shot of the episode only seems to further confirm that the Winchesters are once again being manipulated by Chuck. They are his puppets again, and this time it may even be worse:

There is a huge sense of foreboding with this final shot. The shaking funko pops seemingly in fear of what Chuck plans to do. The two feathers behind them indicating their missing guardian angel (as Chuck continues to neglect Cas’s role in classic Bronly form) the tree indicating a garden? Heaven? and the grey paper with the Winchester tattoo potentially the gravestone that Chuck visualised? 

Whatever Chuck has planned, it appears to have played out in some form in this episode. Whilst I don’t think that the boys have been completely robbed of their free will, it is safe to say that they are back to playing by Chuck’s script, but this time with the confidence of men who think they are free. 

CASTIEL AS THE CATALYST FOR FREE WILL

For years now, I have been one of those annoying people irritating Cas fans by being irrationally happy when Cas isn’t in key episodes because I can see him so clearly in the negative space that his absence basically forms its own overshadowing presence instead. 

When I have rambled on about negative space in the past, it is almost always connected to MOTW episodes following some big DeanCas drama, and on the surface level, people have moaned about how the Cas mention wasn’t enough, or Dean hasn’t acknowledged him or something like that.

Well, this episode is no exception. But this episode IS different in that this episode textually calls out the lack of Cas blatantly within it’s script. Which is just some next level self awareness from this show that I am amazed by.

The entire first three episodes of this season spiralled around this DeanCas tension and drama which us Destiel shipping meta writers could barely believe we were watching since it is practically unheard of for this show to set its emotional A plot around Dean and Cas rather than Sam and Dean. But that is what Dabb has done. When that tension came to its climax in 15x03′s final scene, it was well speculated that 15x04 would understate the DeanCas break up due to the episodes being filmed out of order and therefore Jensen not knowing exactly the impact of the break up when he filmed his scenes for this episode. 

Well, we were certainly right that it was understated, with Dean basically burying his feelings in denial and work and food and drink. Until Chuck started writing and therefore took control back of the script, Dean was eating or drinking in practically every single scene. As he is well known for using food and alcohol has coping mechanisms when spiralling into a dark mindset. Other than these key clues, Dean doesn’t mention Cas once. So we can speculate that he hasn’t told Sam what happened, and probably made up some excuse about Cas leaving so that Sam wasn’t concerned. Though no doubt we will find out the extent of what Sam knows fairly soon.

On a surface level, DeanCas shippers and Cas fans have a right to be somewhat upset by this lack of acknowledgement of Cas, even though it is perfectly in character for Dean to bury his feelings in denial and distractions. But beneath the surface this meta masterpiece of an episode was so full to bursting with Cas it left me very happy. Lets go through the key Cas positive areas:

1. The AU world vision of Sam’s that opens the episode is dark and depressing and indicates a world in which Sam's demon blood obsession got the better of him, which was a season 4 story arc (which we all remember as Cas’s introductory season), and yet Benny appears as Dean’s right hand man, a season 8 story arc founded in Purgatory (which we all relate heavily to Cas). Castiel is mysteriously absent from this vision though, even though the two key story lines here in the OG world heavily revolved around Cas. The question has to be asked, in fact the entire vision demands we ask it, just as Becky points out later: Where is Cas? This AU world is sure to appear later in the show, and I have a feeling Castiel’s absence will be explained.

2. Becky’s house - The crew clearly had a lot of fun filling this set with fan made merchandise (and what a wonderful way to reward your fanbase by including their creations in the show itself?). As a Cas girl my eagle eyes were mainly looking for any Cas merch and I was not disappointed. In fact there wasn’t a single scene in Becky’s house where a Cas figure of some kind wasn’t in frame. Whether that was Jensen’s decision or not, it makes me very happy. I talk here about the specific arrangement of Cas merch paired up with Dean merch which blatantly proves Becky is a Destiel shipper). In fact, Cas looms in the background in every scene until Cas sits down at the end to write his tragic ending when the camera pans to the Winchester funko pops bobbing like puppets. Cas is jarringly absent from that scene which only further indicates that he has been overlooked and is therefore still free of Chuck’s manipulations.

3. “No one even mentions Cas” - Obviously this was the line that pulls everything else together. For this to be said in an episode in which the very complaint actually occurs is a whole other level of self awareness and by including it the writer is of course reminding the audience to question this very thing. Like with the first scene, like with every moment that Sam and Dean are on screen together stubbornly not mentioning Cas or the extremely dramatic emotional break up scene at the end of the last episode, this line links everything together and forces the audience to keep Cas at the forefront of their mind.

4. The Bro Melodrama scene - As I mentioned above, this whole scene feels like the brothers are reading from a script and going through the motions but particularly Dean, whose stubborn refusal to mention Cas when he says “ We do it for Jack, for mom, for Rowena. We owe it to everyone whose ever given a damn about us to keep putting one foot in front of the other. No matter what.” it feels so intentional that they have left him out here. Thanks to that one line from Becky, the lack of Cas mention is impossible to ignore. He is so present in the negative space that its like a brick to the face. There is no way that there isn’t an agenda here regarding Castiel.

5. Castiel as the self sacrificing father - The second most glaringly obvious mirror in the episode after the son that mirrors Jack, the father of the vampire boy was far too ready to be killed by the Winchesters if it meant saving his sons life. Neither Sam nor Dean ever willingly offered themselves up for Jack, but we as the audience know all too well that Cas did in one of the most heartbreakingly emotional moments of Season 14. In an episode where the Winchesters stubbornly refuse to mention Cas (though Dean’s drinking on the job and overeager consumption of meaty food are a good indicator of his repressed feelings), Cas forces his presence on them anyway. It is a clear indicator of how close and important Cas is to the story that it is impossible for the boys to ever really forget about him, and I suspect that this will start to eat at Dean very soon.

6. Chuck overlooks the most powerful player - What ties in everything I have mentioned above already about Cas in the negative space, is Chuck. Because the whole point of this episode is that whilst he argues with Becky - the avatar for an inclusive healthy fandom that clearly adores Castiel and surrounds themselves in his image - we are left watching a stale and relatively boring MOTW episode where the Winchesters really do act like nothing more than shallow two dimensional bronly versions of themselves - because that’s what Chuck forces them to be. Chuck, who sits down and types with his Sam and Dean puppets metaphorically shaking with fear as they are condemned to live under his pen once again. It isn’t an accident that in a house surrounded with Cas merch no matter where you look, the one time his image isn’t in frame is that all important last shot - an indication that whilst Sam and Dean may now be under Chuck’s control, Castiel is not. Therefore Castiel’s importance in freeing the boys from Chuck’s villainous tragic ending becomes elevated. This episode symbolically makes Castiel the catalyst for true free will - after all, Castiel himself finally took control of his life and his mental health last week when he chose to walk away. In an episode where his presence in the negative space couldn’t be more obvious - he is the metaphorical elephant in the room - I can’t help but wonder just what role he has to play in Chuck’s vision, because right now it seems Chuck has simply forgot about him. A terribly foolish thing to do given everything Castiel has proven to be capable of.

OVERALL

As a quick summary, I’ll say I loved this episode and everything about it. Even the puppet bronly Winchesters because they were so clearly framed as being wrong. It’s such a hopeful episode, that indicates a hopeful non tragic inclusive TFW ending at least. Chuck is the villain and he will be beaten in the end. Dean and Cas will reunite and it will be the kind of scene that will rip all our hearts out in its emotional investment. Jensen Ackles directed an episode that threw major shade at the Bronly fandom corners, that celebrated TFW inclusivity through the reformed healthy successful fangirl Becky. That villainised the dark tragic brother only ending. This was a thoroughly validating and satisfying episode for me as a meta writer to watch. It has elevated my hope for the rest of the season, and following the incredibly emotional Destiel break up scene that held the focus of the last episode, I can’t stop myself from feeling joy just knowing that right now, everything that I watch this show for, all the things I adore about it, are the same things the writers of this show enjoy and are making the focal points for the series.

This isn’t a show for people that only care about seasons 1-3. This isn’t a show for people who hate Cas. This isn’t a show for people who fetishise the dark, depressing tragic game of thrones style brother ending. This is a show for people like me. Who actually enjoy it and celebrate it and can’t wait to see what happens next.

[qaftsiel]

The Night Watch

(Trying a new thing-- posting the fic itself here. It’s also on AO3 and FF dot net!) 

It's 3984 CE and Dean is the Night Watch engineer aboard an RK-NGL high-γ cruiser. It's a run-of-the-mill transit until it isn't. (Hard science fiction AU. Slow burn Destiel, a lot of space travel feelings, some plot, and a sprinkling of posthumanism. Currently rated T, but might go up.)

“Went out on the mass drivers today, Sammy,” Dean says as he shucks the skintight underlayer of the exosuit. The magnetized gauntlets, kneepads, and boots of the external components are already neatly tucked away in their cubby by the airlock. “Another eighteen months, another three point five tee. She’s holdin’ up like a champ, though-- these new-fangled cruisers are somethin’ else.”

Sammy, his clunky second-generation berth not so much ‘nestled’ as ‘crammed’ in between the RK-NGL’s cutting-edge, almost miniature creches, doesn’t reply. The berth’s LS unit emits the same, soft, green blink it has every minute of every year that’s passed.

“Knew you’d agree, bud,” Dean hums. Always the nerdy one of the two of them, his Sammy-- if it isn’t planetary law, it’s starliners or Pre-Diaspora history or biology or whatever other topic that’s caught his attention and imagination. Dean’s always hard-pressed to keep up so Sammy won’t ever be bored or without someone to talk to. “You’re gonna flip when you hear about these new ablation shields. Slicker than fuckin’ BAM, man, and just as hard-- you’ll say she looks like crap, but she’s a damn tank, Sammy. Shit’s unbelievable.”

Blink.

“Naw, you just wait,” Dean says, finally extricating himself from the last of the underlayer. “I’ll tell you all about it, dude. Give you the grand tour and everything, I promise.” He lays a gentle hand over the thick, chilly window in the berth’s insulated metal shell. “You sleep good, okay? I gotta go check up on the forward arrays, and then it’s my turn for a break; I’ll get back to you when I start my next shift.”

Blink, goes the LS unit.

Dean takes a moment to gaze down at his brother’s quiet face through the berth’s porthole, and then makes his way inward through the payload ring.

The RK-NGL, like all high-γ cruisers, doesn’t look a damn thing like the ships in Pre-Diaspora movies. As stardrives had been built and then improved upon, humanity had discovered that the not-quite-vacuum of space became very hostile very quickly as one’s velocity increased-- even the sparsest regions of the interstellar medium would blast away a poorly-designed craft’s hull in very little time at an appreciable percentage of the speed of light . Changing course mid-transit, yet another pre-Diaspora science fiction favourite, had led to several well-known explosive disasters due to catastrophic structural failures. Excess mass and pretty-but-useless bulk had rendered the earliest starliners so fuel-hungry and slow that humanity had very nearly abandoned space travel on the basis of cost-- when even a team of multinational corporate CEOs couldn’t foot the bill for something, it was far, far too expensive.

Eventually, though, humanity had shed its dreams of gleaming, frog-legged saucers, beringed pyramids, and ominous wedges. Leaving the system permanently had become less and less of an option with the way the War Between Worlds had continued to spark bigger and bigger satellite conflicts, and wishful, nostalgic frivolity had quickly been discarded in favour of relentless survivalism.

Within decades, intrasystem cruisers and starliners had dumped mass, shed cubic meterage, and stripped out all unnecessary components. Elegantly curved routes weaving from star to star had been abandoned and redrawn for straight, unwavering lines: Point A to Point B, no frills, no stops. Fins, wings, and rings had been scuttled, thrown to the blast furnaces, and re-forged with only brutal efficiency in mind.

Now, almost fifteen hundred years after the first ship had departed Earth for Proxima A, starliners are starkly different animals when compared to their imagined forbears, and the RK-NGL is no exception. She’s a child’s stacking toy stretched to almost twenty-five times the diameter of her base-- a rigid carbyne-tungsten spine capped at one end by a bouquet of cutting-edge Chevy-AkoSi mass drivers, tipped at the other by the nosecone and ablative shielding, and ringed throughout the rest by reactor, fuel, and payload toroids. From the outside she looks like nothing so much as a half-polished missile from pre-Colonial history, and except for the fact that she’s meant to stop and not explode, she might as well be one.

She’d be considered ugly by pre-Diaspora standards, sure, but that’s nothing new for starliners, and she’s one hell of a lot cooler than some of the other bags of bolts Dean’s worked on. Built around tech mecca Orla B, she’s hot off the anvil and bristling with technology so advanced that he’d had to study pre-release schematics for years on top of the data dump in order to win his position as the Night Watch crew. He even gets his own space within the Watch toroid-- not that it’s much, given that the toroid’s sandwiched between the payload ring and the nosecone, but it’s more than anyone had ever afforded him in the past.

He shares the squished little Watch toroid with two maintenance mechs, GG4-BE and B3N-N1. Dean hates unit numbers for mechs as a matter of principle, so he calls the two Gabe and Benny, respectively; in the year of prepwork before their AIs had gone into hibernation for the transit, they’d been pretty happy about it. They’re quiet now, of course, but they still respond to the nicknames as well as their actual designations, and Gabe still plays games with Dean during its downtime to help keep him from getting too bored.

Gabe still kicks his ass at Go every time.

Dean kinda misses the way the mech used to lord it over him.

“Fifteen and a half down, nine and change to go,” he assures no one in particular as he lets himself onto the spine goway.

The quickest way to get from point A to point B on the ship, the goway is the cylindrical, two-meter-wide space between the inner surfaces of the toroids and the heavy-duty strutwork of the RK-NGL’s spine. Once upon a time, he would have found it scary as fuck-- it is a kilometer-long, pitch black tunnel shot through by support braces and anchor points, after all-- but after dozens of Watch gigs on similar (if smaller) craft, it’s just a larger variation on a familiar theme.

At least, it’s familiar on most trips. Something’s a little off as Dean makes his way noseward-- there’s a glow coming from behind the hatch into the nosecone and the forward array banks. It’s pretty blue, but the area around it doesn’t register as temperature-hot, thank fuck. Still, Dean’s whole frame prickles with high alert. There shouldn’t be light from that part of the ship. End of.

By the time he’s a meter or so from the hatch and its little window, the light is so bright that he can see his own hands and arms as he gently redirects his careful drift up the goway. Their unnatural gleam is even weirder in the eerie, blue glow.

Slowly, cautiously, Dean throws the analog lock on the hatch and swings it open.

Nothing happens.

Floating in front of the open hatch, Dean’s skin prickles and buzzes anyway-- no matter the number of modifications or years, the old lizard brain’s reflexes still resurface from time to time. Scoffing at his animal ridiculousness, he shakes it off and gently propels himself into the array bank.

The glow, he realizes, is nothing more than his handlight-- the one he’d been looking for since the last full check-in he’d done of the ship. “God dammit,” he grumps aloud, and snatches up the device. He glares at the feathery afterimages of the array bank after switching the handlight off. “Gotta get some fuckin’ rest.”

Once he’s given himself just enough time for a satisfactory sulk, he plugs into the output jack, switches video inputs, and looks over the last month of data from the array. Except for a cluster of blips in the 450 nm range a few days ago, the readouts all look pretty normal-- just the usual bunch of Doppler-shifted noise from stars and regular pings from navigation posts along the RK-NGL’s route. Even the blips aren’t anything huge, really. Dean’s seen others like them, especially on that one supremely fucked-up trip from Landung to Dàodá that, among other things, had involved passing through a (distant) pulsar’s jet range. Those peaks had been literally off the fuckin chart; these were just… well, blips. Kinda dinky, actually, like they ran over a messy smudge of blue somewhere along the way.

Or maybe crossed the path of some dumb kid’s toy laser. Dean’s seen that before, too. Either way, it’s nothing worth freaking out over. He archives the readouts along with the rest, closes up shop in the fore array, and grabs the Watch toroid’s hatch with an easy swing.

Gabe’s docked and in full dormancy when Dean drifts in; Benny, on the other hand, is just coming out of standby. <Greetings, Dean,> they send as they run their startup routines. Dean watches, and wonders if it’ll ever not be jarring to see all that servo motion and not hear a bit of it.

<Hey, Benny. Good rest?>

<Charge is at 100% and all systems are running within optimal parameters,> Benny reports out, which is about as close to a “yeah, man, like a baby” as Dean is going to get in transit. He waits while Benny pulls the archived array readouts and the walkover reports from Dean’s shift. Shortly thereafter, an update appears in the RK-NGL’s log-- Benny’s agreed with Dean’s reports, and has signed off on handing over the shift without further action needed. <The Takaoka-REST has completed startup and is prepared for use.>

<Thanks, dude,> Dean replies, and opens the hatch to his pod. <See you in eighteen.>

Like every other mech Dean’s been in transit with, Benny doesn’t respond to the small talk. Dean’ll get a ‘thank you’ for it at the end, though, and that’s enough to keep him doing it throughout the trip.

Pressing his legs together with a soundless click, Dean levers himself feet-first into the open Takaoka-REST pod that’s been his home sweet home since leaving Orla. Except for the missing atmo panel, the high-gauge standby lines, and the heavy-duty power line, it’s exactly like every other hotel pod Dean’s ever been in-- a bit over a meter wide, a little under a meter and a half tall, two and a half meters deep, and plushly cushioned on every wall but that of the hatch. It’s probably the most unnecessary thing on the whole damn ship, given that Dean could do just as well with a run-of-the-mill standby dock like Benny and Gabe use, but he’s not about to argue if his employers want him to have a few creature comforts.

After a few minutes of fiddling with the standby jacks and wrestling with the power line (someday he’s gonna get around to reprogramming so he’ll have that piece of shit power port somewhere logical, not the middle of his fucking back), Dean queues his sleep routines and closes his eyes.

When he wakes, they’ll be another year and two point three trillion kilometers closer.

It’s good progress.

***

Dean stands and watches as the stasis technicians swarm around Sam’s berth; next to him, there is a man with scruffy hair and blue eyes. Dean doesn’t remember the man, but he remembers this moment like it happened mere minutes ago, and not… then. He remembers all too well the unresponsive LS unit, with no indications of where the error might be. He remembers the engineers announcing that there was no way to crack the unit open to run diagnostics without a catastrophic stasis failure.

He remembers realizing that his baby brother wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon.

That terrible moment in time, pivotal and agonizing, replays in front of him like a Netflix show.

The man tilts his head and watches as the swarming technicians slow, shake their heads, and then steadily disperse. As he had before, Dean falls to his knees.

The scene shifts. It’s Dean’s first Watch gig, aboard an intrasystem shuttle. Sam’s berth matches the ones around it pretty closely.

The flight engineer’s mouth is moving behind his faceplate, but the words come to Dean as if through water. ‘You’re joking, right? Until you’re sucking oxygen like the rest of us, Tin Man, you’re just another mech to babysit. Go play with your robot buddies and leave us real people the fuck alone.’

The man is there again. He and Dean watch the flight engineer throw the lock on the mech hangar as he leaves.

The scene blips. A vidscreen in a hospital room that resembles a nanofactory more than a medical ward streams ProximaNewsNow on mute; closed captioning flickers across the bottom of the screen. A 2967 Chevy Impala is barely recognizable onscreen, its sturdy carbon fiber frame turned to flinders beneath the shattered bulk of a freight canister. Two nearby lumps are covered with white sheets. The thing the emergency crews extricate from the wreckage doesn’t look like a body, and doesn’t get much better even after they’ve dunked it into an emergency stasis creche and sent an ambulance racing away with it.

Dean stares up at the screen from the hospital bed. Near the door of the room, a bald man and a bearded, dark-haired man face each other down, red-faced and shouting and pointing fingers. A younger, floppy-haired man-- Sammy-- sits in a chair beside the bed, hands clapped over his ears and tears filling his eyes. Lying in the bed, Dean closes his eyes and listens to the soft whine of servos as he flexes his new hands-- open, closed. Open, closed.

Sticking out from the hospital gown, Dean’s new legs gleam steely blue under translucent sensory-polymer skin. He watches the fibers twitch as he raises one knee, then the other.

More blips, faster this time. Dean re-learning to walk, Dean picking up egg after egg after egg until he’s finally able to do it reliably without cracking the shells. Dean re-learning to write. To speak. To sleep.

Dean staring down at the rejection from the MIT-Proxima Bouchet School of Physics, where he had been only been months away from his doctorate-- ‘intellect’ is a term valid only for those with organic brains, it seems.

Dean going to live with Sammy, who’s always there, alway his ally, until the day Dean learns he won’t wake up.

They’re in front of Sammy’s creche again.

The man’s eyes are very, very blue.

Continued here.