#the salvation gambit: sapphic con artists! toxic levels of devotion! buff middle aged blacksmith lady who i ship myself with!

[le-trash-prince]

for the five or whatever many things meme/prompt...whatever:

the story of how dean completely accidentally becomes the top dog of their prison block and how winner somewhat accidentally becomes his bitch

I'm making this a space prison AU because thinking about real prison just makes me sad dfkgdfgd

setting-wise this is inspired by The Salvation Gambit but garbled because I'm going off of memory of having read it once.

Background plot-wise, things are similar to Pit Babe, just, you know, space-ified. Babe champions a local star-system racing circuit, Tony deals in interstellar human trafficking (I'm going with "special alpha powers are a human thing"), Kenta is an android (I have so many thoughts about android Kenta to share later), and Dean and Winner are on the same shuttle, post-series, getting shipped off to the nearest prison planet. Winner spends the entire trip bragging about how his family is sooo wealthy, he'll get a retrial and be out of there in no time, and "maybe if you kiss my boots I'll think about helping you out." Which just pisses Dean off, but whatever.

But, there's an unexpected change of plans, and their shuttle gets hijacked by a massive, unsanctioned prison ship run by a sentient, megalomaniacal AI that views itself as the prisoners' god of redemption. They're not just prisoners now, they're captives, and nobody ever escapes this ship. Not that this is going to stop them from trying—they're both pilots after all. They're each given a "welcome kit" and then dropped into a hallway where they're immediately jumped by a trio of scavengers. Winner, as always, cowers after a single hit, but Dean—he may be small, he may be new, but he's angry and he's willing to hurt people, and he fights them off until they're rescued by another, friendlier group.

They get taken to this group’s quadrant for the night, and they’re given the recruitment speech, "we grow our own fresh food, we've got weapons," but they've also got boring rules that Winner isn't interested in living by. And if these people are desperate enough to recruit newbies, it means there's bound to be better things elsewhere in the ship. Dean on the other hand is a little taken-in by being pampered and told what an asset he'd be, and he's a little annoyed by Winner's assumption that Dean would just follow him wherever. Especially when Dean is starting to realize he could actually take Winner in a fight, so who actually needs who here? They argue, Winner storms off, and then Dean has a "goddamnit" moment of realizing this ship is bigger than he can even fathom, and the only familiar face onboard is about to disappear, possibly for good. And Winner is a better pilot than him, which still makes him Dean's best chance of ever seeing daylight again. They need each other. So he grabs what he can from the little room they'd been set up in and sulks off after Winner.

From there, the two of them make their way through the different quadrants of the ship, trying to learn the ins-and-outs so they can hatch their escape plan. They get a change of clothes that removes the "fresh meat" target on their backs. They have a "and there was only one blanket" moment on one of the colder levels. And they never cease to be amazed at just how expansive the ship is, and what kind of life people have built for themselves after having been trapped here for generations. They visit a market on a central level that has live music going on—the loud and pulsing sort that gets Dean stripping his jacket off and joining the crowd of dancers because he's been desperate to let loose. Winner prowls along the edge of the crowd, until he gives in to the heated looks that Dean keeps shooting his way and joins him in a dance that's mostly just the two of them grinding their hips against each other. And then there’s Dean grabbing Winner by the wrist and dragging him off to somewhere more private.

Winner is big and good at giving mean looks that intimidate most people, but Dean's the real scary one (he will bite your fingers off). Their goal is finding people who would be useful in figuring out an escape plan, but they end up amassing a small gang of recent intakes, and they hole up in one of the surveillance dead-zones of the ship. And Dean has never felt more useful or needed. The thing is, Winner still has family on the outside. He has something to lose if they never make it out of here. But Dean has already lost everything, and sometimes the thought that he might never see X-Hunter again is almost a relief. Like he doesn't have to face up to the past. He wonders if it would really be so bad to stay. But all it takes is a "No wonder you're such a shitty racer if you'd give up on it before you even got started," to remind Dean that they're still in a prison, and there's things on the outside that he wants to do. But he still gives Winner the cold shoulder for a whole day after that comment.

One last thing is Winner does eventually grow the tiniest spine and attack someone when they try carrying Dean off during a fight because he panics at the thought of something happening to Dean. Of course this is immediately followed up by a show of emotional constipation and “Maybe don’t be such a dead weight next time,” because it is still Winner.

Edit: Android!Kenta AU set in the same 'verse