ataraxion | video; 001

[Of all the places Dean figured he’d wake up, submerged in a freaky Matrix-style pod filled with liquid wasn’t one of the top contenders. He’s woken up in far worse situations before and though that should be a comfort it’s not. All of this is supposed to be over...

What follows his rude re-entry into consciousness is a slick (literally) routine, old habits and what he knows mix, eyes, ears and hands checking out the entire medical bay. The scalpel he ends up with is more chance than anything and, though he’s got nowhere to stash it yet without risking serious injury, he keeps his grip on it tight. He has nothing else to go by aside from an itch inside his arm and it’s not until he twists it over to scratch that he reads the number tattooed into his skin. 124.

Another minute passes as he tries to figure out how stopping the apocalypse has anything to do with this, and he half considers the idea that he’s actually dead at least three times before the number and the lockers suddenly make sense. He finds 124 and opens it, stares inside at the weirdass Star Trek uniform and tries not to react to the keys he can see very clearly next to a lighter, a pack of beef jerky and his hunting knife. He’s not going to think about his baby, alone in a graveyard without him.

Once the uniform is grudgingly pulled on, his own belongings concealed in various places around his body, the device he doesn’t recognize is scooped up and flipped over twice in his hands, powered up and snorted at when it tells him to go to the blue lift. That ain’t happening anytime soon. Instead he’s messing around with every single button until he’s told he’s broadcasting to a network. Awesome.]

Who the hell’s in charge around here? And who wants to explain why I’ve got a number tattooed into my goddamn arm? I swear to that douche upstairs, if this has anythin’ to do with any of you feathery assholes I will kick your asses from here to... whatever.

I have no idea how I got here. I have a number in my arm and right now, for all I know, I’m in some kinda concentration camp for guys who the universe thought it hadn’t crapped on hard enough or long enough. Anybody with answers? I’ll trade you strips of my beef jerky for information. Maybe.

[The feed cuts out here, though anybody who’s anywhere close when he realizes where he is? Be prepared for expletives like you’ve never heard before.]

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Space douches? [That gets a more genuine laugh out of Dean, one that's mindless of their surroundings for a brief second. There's a sense of humor and then there's Dean's humor. He's not above finding name-calling hilarious.]

You see anythin' on the way over here, man? Anythin' weird or... uh, y'know. Weirder than space. [Nope, still not used to that. He's also hoping they've gotten past the point of another strip traded for more information.]

[ Mouse screws up his face when he thinks, not unlike Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin or another movie star from the silent silver screen. It's obvious by now that Mouse doesn't talk very much and when he does, it's with a kind of quiet breathlessness that comes with inexperience at it. His sentences are fragmented and punctuated with odd gaps and Mouse not-so-secretly hates the sound of his own voice. So instead, he uses his body to do the talking for him. His posture and hand motions are grossly overexaggerated as are the expression of his face, like the way a stage actor makes every gesture grandiose. Better to see from afar or, as in Mouse's case, easier to read when you don't know what you're looking for.

What Mouse's face says right now: contemplation, really Deep Thoughts, do not disturb. He makes a small noise in the back of his throat as he does so. Not quite a hmmm and not quite a hum, but a huh, huh, huh like he's breathing loudly on purpose.

His mind finally lands on something and he smiles. ] Aliens? [ He holds up a hand, displaying two fingers. ] Two.

Not weird, though. [ Mouse sniffs speculatively. ] Hot. Sorta.

[Having to focus in with more than just his hearing, the tiny line between his eyebrows gives away how much attention Dean is surrendering over to the kid. His eyes follow Mouse's gestures and, though he usually has the opposite problem, he waits patiently without making a sound until the kid's done. Only then does he raise his eyebrows, corner of his mouth turning upward into a semi-smirk.]

Hot aliens? That's all you got? [He snorts his amusement all over again and, though he should be rationing them, he retrieves the pack of beef jerky again to offer another strip over. This piece of information doesn't help him at all, but Mouse looks like he's in desperate need of some nourishment and Dean isn't a complete asshole.]

So we got hot aliens wandering around. And this isn't some kinda cosmic prank. [He feels uncomfortable at how little he still knows. There must be more leads, something he can look into until he's got at least one answer. If this wasn't Heaven, or Hell, then who the hell was it?

[ This time, instead of dawdling, Mouse eyes a certain strip of beef jerky in particular, one that seems to be poking out of the mouth of the offered bag at a particularly tantalizing angle. His fingers appear again from the mouth of his sleeve and, again, give their telltale wiggle before diving into the back and tugging free that strip in particular. Triumphantly, Mouse dangles it in front of his own face before pocketing it along with the other jerky.

Oh yes, he's feeling particularly accomplished now and it's obvious by the way he smiles at Dean and rocks back and forth on his feet. The faintest hum in his throat. ] One, blue. The other, dunno. [ Mouse gestures around his face, hiding the bottom half of his head with a hand. A mask of some kind.

Mouse shrugs, unhelpfully. ] Prank? Maybe. Huge prank, though.

Huge douche.

The only guy I know who could pull off a prank like this is dead. [Yeah, that part sounded a little more sober than he intended. There's a ton of emotional baggage he's carrying around on a good day, and so far all that's keeping him from dealing with what he's just suffered through is the fact they're stuck in space. He half considers maybe he should actually be thankful for that much.

What he actually means is the only guy powerful enough to do this, and with the imagination and desire to fuck with people like this, was killed months back. ...which is when something occurs to him.]

Wait. Back up. Blue?

[ Mouse doesn't like talking about dead people, mostly because a lot of people who have been really nice to him in the past have ended up dead and that blew. He liked living people, people that could stay and not leave or get weird because of the magical Mark bullshit trapped under his skin. This guy is living — he doesn't know his name, Mouse suddenly realizes — and Mouse likes that about him. Along with the way that he smirks and kind of talks like somebody from a movie and, apparently, carries around beef jerky in his space locker.

Mouse nods and then hums agreement in the back of his throat. ]

Bluuuuuuuuuue, [ he murmurs and then smiles. ] Freaky.

Like Smur-- [Dean cuts himself off and looks like he had to swallow the last couple of letters of that question. He's learning fast that his references to ~~America's~~ Earth's popular culture are falling flat with most people. Apparently the 'arts' never made it off the planet.]

Freaky's right. I need to see it. [Need and want seem to be interchangeable for now, Dean's curiosity getting the better of him.]

Which way was it headed?

[ Mouse thumbs over his shoulder and then, without so much as a prompt or a suggestion, begins to trot off in that direction. The kid's tiny — I'm talking five foot three on a good day, tiny — and his legs aren't so much stumpy as all of him's just small. It makes him look like a kid as he starts his way down the hall with a loping gallop.

He chirps over his shoulder: ]

Smurfette. Sexy Smurfette.

So, Avatar...?

[As his feet start to move in order to follow the kid, Dean can't help but realize that he wouldn't be surprised if he turned a corner to find a 10ft tall, blue half-cat, half-human thing from Avatar chilling with a cocktail. He's seen and heard stranger things lately. And this is after his little summer vacation in Hell.

So much for the quiet, simple, easy life after all of the apocalypse crap blew over.]

Hey, slow down! Before you run into a wall or somethin'.

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SWEET. GET READY FOR DEAN TO BE ANNOYINGLY OVERPROTECTIVE.

sob it is actually part of mouse's personality to enjoy being SMOTHERED ngl

OH BB.

it promises to be awesome and ultimately traumatic!

Sigh. Trauma. That's all these Winchesters work on.

then it's an even BETTER match made in trauma heaven~

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