(Untitled)

[hopeitsworthit]

It's not that Dean really took a whole day to talk himself up to walking out the door to what has been, up until now, his room.

It took that long to convince himself to start walking down the stairs.

(Well, that and trying to sleep. And then dealing with what happened after he tried to sleep

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[gonna_live]

It's a couple of minutes later when Kaylee shows up a couple of barstools down. Not that she's been around much lately herself -- she's come in on the off chance there are messages, and that's been... pretty much it.

But when your husband's working late and you've been told dinner won't be necessary, there's not much point in cooking and making a mess for just yourself. Kaylee starts off with some kind of so-sweet-your-teeth-will-rot wine.

And it's after the glass shows up that --

"Dean?"

[hopeitsworthit]

Dean's head turns toward the voice almost fast enough to hurt --

Then he looks incredulous.

(And maybe a little relieved.)

"Kaylee?"

It is Kaylee.

"Hey."

Starting slow's okay. He can do this.

[gonna_live]

The incredulous doesn't make much sense -- but then again, it has been a while. More than a year, she thinks -- so when she was still on Serenity, and when there was something wrong with Sam.

Not really anybody who comes here has it easy, Kaylee thinks, but she's aware that her problems have been a lot more personal in the last several years than the Winchesters' problems. And if it's been that long --

Well. No sense in speculating.

"Hey, you." Dean gets a warm smile. "Been a while."

Start slow.

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It takes him a second to crack a smile. He has to think about it.

"Yeah."

What comes next? There's gotta be --

Oh. Yeah.

"Didn't mean to let it go so long."

[gonna_live]

"Me neither." Kaylee's smile goes a little crooked. "Stuff got a little busy, though. I haven't had much time for..." She waves a hand around. "How you been?"

[hopeitsworthit]

Dean buys himself time to answer that by lifting up his glass and taking a long swallow of water.

"I dunno. Okay, I guess. Been reading a lot of old car magazines."

This is strict truth, because his cheerful lying skills have atrophied.

"You, uh."

He swallows again.

"You ever do that with ship stuff?"

[gonna_live]

Kaylee laughs a little. "You don't even want to know how many boxes of trade mags I got hidden off in the basement. I was a little shocked once I got 'em all together. But they're good in case you run across somethin' that you can use or restore, you know? On account of it's just so ruttin' expensive to go get old manuals."

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Dean huffs out a breath that might, several decades ago, have been a laugh.

"Yeah, and that's even without all that inflation crap."

Kaylee's from the future. That's gotta make it worse, right?

"You done any of that lately?"

[gonna_live]

"...inflation?"

Up goes one of Kaylee's eyebrows; she seems to be restraining a giggle.

(It sounds dirty!)

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"Uh."

Hey, he made her laugh! That's gotta count for something. Right?

(Is he supposed to be keeping score?)

"Shit gets more expensive as time goes on. I don't remember why."

[gonna_live]

"Oh, that kind of inflation. Yeah -- it depends on where you are, or what it is?" She picks up her wine glass. "But with old manuals -- it's all proprietary information, right? So even when the companies buy each other out or go under or whatnot -- somebody's still gonna have the rights to that information. And mostly in the Core, where it's more built-up and populated and whatnot, the real old stuff is either illegal for the environmental standards, or just junked, unless you're rich, and then you can afford to mess around with it and hope it works. Out on the Rim and the Border, you just have to keep what you've got runnin', and good luck trying to find replacement parts that don't cost more than the vessel's worth.

" -- anyway. Point is -- if you can't afford the replacement parts, chances are you're not gonna be able to pay for access to the tech manuals, because of course they're gonna assume that anybody who'd want it is one of the hobby folks as owns their own personal fleet, and since there's a pretty big crackdown on gettin

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"Damn," Dean says, in tones of disgust.

That part is easy.

"Looks like the shit just keeps pilin' up everywhere."

But this is --

This isn't the kind of shit that gets down in your pores. So it's -- he can talk about this.

[gonna_live]

"Sorry to disappoint," she says, a little wry. "I mean -- it's not so bad, though. You only want the manual for the real tricky stuff, anyway. Most of it you can tell with a little pokin' around."

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"No interstellar network of guys who've seen it all?"

He's trying to kid, but it's kind of rusty.

(And, okay, kind of pathetic.)

"Man."

[gonna_live]

"Maybe," Kaylee says, "but come on -- you really think they're gonna give it all up to a bright-eyed naive upstart? A girl upstart?"

[hopeitsworthit]

"No interstellar network of dudes that aren't assholes?"

Hey, that almost felt natural!

Too bad it doesn't last.