Chapter 6: The Heisenberg Proposition
Chapter 6: The Heisenberg Proposition
Author: fiercelynormal
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mentions of JDM/Jared/Jensen
Word Count: 2017
Summary: I think we need a bigger ship.
We're going after the impossible dream, my friends,” Chad tells them. “We’re going to find my balls!”
* * *
A hush falls over Chad’s enraptured audience of two at his dramatic announcement, hopeful smiles slipping off their faces like Morduvian fowl eggs off a Teflon pan.
“Did you just say - “ starts Jensen. There’s a small pause.
“...your balls?” finishes Jared, more because it’s expected than out of any real desire to discuss Chad’s genitals. Jared looks to Jeff for confirmation, apparently hoping he heard incorrectly. Jeff just shrugs awkwardly, which is confirmation enough.
“So, we’re not going to be saving kidnapped princesses, or retrieving mysterious gems, we’re -”
“Getting me laid? Hell, yeah! The Chad will be back in the saddle in no time!” Chad makes a lewd thrusting motion with his hips and all three men recoil with gasps of horror. Even Tim’s face contorts in a grimace, though he remains blessedly unconscious.
“Okay, okay, we’ll be pleased help you in your quest; whatever it takes to get out of Dodge. Just -”
“- please stop doing…that!” the traumatized yet still unbearably attractive altar boys beg.
Chad grins, and Jeff just knows he’s thinking nailed it.
* * *
Several hours later…
The men sit dejectedly at the edge of the pool. Jared, Jensen and Jeff whiled away some of the time with a brief but enthusiastic threesome while Chad scouted around and Tim pretended to still be unconscious, but eventually they ran out of things to do. They tried every way they could think of to get out of the hidden copse, but the steep cliffs and heavily-guarded entrance defeated them at every turn. It appears they’re stuck there until Ruthie deigns to release them.
“Psst...over here!” The hushed voice is feminine, and the men all look around but see nothing but trees.
“Where are you?” Jeff asks.
There’s a rustling sound in the shrubs decorating the cliffs and the men all look over to see a rope. Their eyes follow the rope up to the top of the cliff to see...a red-headed woman.
“Oh, come on” the men all shout in unison.
“What?” says the woman. When no one answers she shrugs a shapely shoulder. “Whatever. My name is Danneel, and I’m here to rescue you.”
Muttering under his breath about a “ginger plague”, Jeff walks over to the rope Danneel threw down. He gives it a couple of sharp yanks to make sure it will hold his body weight, then deeming it safer than staying put, climbs up the steep bank and out of the hidden copse. Jared, Jensen, Chad and a sheepish Tim all follow suit, until they stand in a semi-circle around Danneel.
She’s dressed as befits some kind of warrior queen, all leather from her aforementioned red head to her toes and it’s a damn good look, Jeff muses before snapping to attention when she shoots him a withering glare.
“Focus. We’ve got to get you away from here before Ruthie and her henchmen come back.”
“But wait,” says Jeff. “I thought she was saving us from Misha! Doesn’t anyone know the plot of this goddamn story??”
“If by ‘saving’ you mean ‘ritually murdering’, then I guess you could say that.” Danneel says sweetly. “What do you think happened to the crew of the first ship that crashed here?”
They didn’t last long though. Jeff suddenly realizes he probably should have asked about that four chapters ago. His bad.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” he hisses at Jared and Jensen.
“We didn’t know!” Jensen protests. “History is not exactly a huge part of the Heart and Hands curriculum. Misha has been campaigning for education reform, though.” Jared nods in solemn agreement.
Jeff has suddenly had it up to here with this damn planet, monarch or not. Misha is welcome to it. Jeff is sure he’d make a far better leader than anyone else will anyway - certainly not the monarch since he has no beard but he could definitely be President - mostly because he’s the only one who really seems to give a damn about it.
“Look, lady,” Jeff bites off, “I don’t know who you are or what you want, but just get us back to the village so we can pick some stupid poppies and get the hell out of here.”
“You’re taking me with you when you leave,” she says, and it’s not a question.
Tim coughs politely, and when Jeff looks over he says “Me, too?”
Jeff rolls his eyes. “Jesus Christ, does the whole damn planet want to leave? Fine. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
“Och, I dinna think ye’ll be goin’ anywhere, laddies,” comes a sinister yet delightfully-accented voice from behind them, and they all freeze. “I’ve got a wee ceremony to perform - well, more of a murder ritual, really - and you lot are to be the star attractions. Yes, Mistress Danneel, even you.”
The two women size each other up, one redhead to another. They’re both worthy opponents but Ruthie has the advantage here. Several generally short men step out of the shrubbery which had concealed them so cleverly, armed with bows, axes, and the occasional pointy stick. Jeff recognizes Rob, Richard, Cole and Osric from their earlier encounter, as well as a couple of other generic shortish men.
Seeing they’re outnumbered, Jeff and his companions surrender without a fight.
The prisoners are marched through the forest to a small clearing, where a giant slab of rock that Jeff can only assume is an altar waits. Old rusty stains on the rock point to some really shady activities taking place here over the years.
“Aren’t you going to at least tell us what this ceremony is all about?” Jeff asks frantically, looking to buy some time.
“You mean you want me to give a lengthy monologue while you work on your elaborate escape plan?” Ruthie asks. Dammit, she is a clever one. “Suffice to say, it takes a little magic to look this good for over a hundred years.”
“Yeah, well, if you’d asked nicely I could have hooked you up with a nice Sephora gift card,” Jeff snarks. Deciding fuck it, he lurches into the nearest henchman, narrowly avoiding the swing of an axe before knocking the man to the ground. Quickly getting with the program, Jensen, Jared, Chad, Tim and Danneel all burst into action, punching and kicking to overpower the guards. Osric is by far the best fighter among the henchmen, but Tim merely has to pick him up in his arms, cradle him like a child and sing to him for a few seconds for the fight to leave him. It’s kind of adorable, really.
Finally all the guards are left writhing on the ground. Jeff is actually a little short of breath, so he admires their spunk. Ruthie is pressed up against the stone of the altar, Danneel’s arm across her throat. It’s…pretty hot, Jeff thinks.
“You wouldna hurt a fellow redhead, would you, my dear?” asks Ruthie, her perfectly-lined eyes filling with crystalline tears.
“Well, it is against the code, but for you I’m prepared to make an exception,” Danneel growls.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Ruthie says, her lilting accent dropping away to leave a flat, unaccented voice. “I just needed a little flash to impress my men, ya know? Keep them scared, yaddah yaddah? I’m just trying to make a living here.”
“So...you didn’t kill the first crew that crashed here?” Jeff asks, confused.
“Nah,” Ruthie replied. “That crash happened long before I was born. I heard the crew all got drunk and froze to death playing naked hide and seek. I just...embellished the story a little to add to my mystique. Keeps the henchmen in line.”
Jeff isn’t sure which story is the truth, and judging by the confused looks on his companions faces he figures he’s not alone in that. But whatever, they’ve taken Ruthie down for the moment and the most important thing is getting back to the ship so they can leave all these confusing plot points behind them.
“Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
* * *
Their arrival back in the village is...well, it’s pretty anticlimactic, actually. The villagers were so preoccupied getting ready for the feast, and Felicia and Alaina were so busy trying to repair the ship that nobody actually noticed they were gone.
They hide Danneel and Tim on the ship. Jeff is grateful they already blew their load in space (so to speak), so that the hidden cargo holds are empty. They’re spacious enough to hold Danneel and Tim with plenty of room to spare. The men return to their accommodations to wait for the feast, with no one the wiser that anything out of the ordinary had happened. Felicia sneaks off to repair the ship with the parts that Jensen and Jared had hidden away and catalogued so thoroughly.
Finally they are brought to the feast. Jeff is seated at his throne and plied with copious amounts of Dodge’s best ale. He’s more than a little intoxicated, having drunk several mugs of ale on a stomach empty of all but a handful of Chad’s soggy gummies earlier, but he sobers up a fair bit when the actual feasting begins. And what a feast it is, with huge amounts of roasted unidentifiable beasts and fowl, vegetables and the ever-present ale flowing like water. The villagers are for the most part gracious and welcoming, and Jeff feels a pang of misplaced pride in his soon-to-be-ex-subjects. He might actually miss them a little when they leave. Though he’ll still have the tight-assed codependent altar boys to remind him of his travels here, so he’s not too heartbroken.
Finally all the food is gone and the villagers are deemed drunk enough for Jeff and his crew to depart on their dangerous mission of picking the evil flowers. Misha gives a short speech that makes no sense whatsoever but the crowd seems pleased and they cheer enthusiastically, which Jeff takes as their cue to be on their way. Misha stares after them resentfully as they go, knowing this will solidify Jeff’s position as ruler. Jeff, Chad, and Alaina are pointed in the direction of a small plot of land dotted with bright red poppies. It only takes them a few minutes to arrive, and suddenly Chad starts laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Alaina demands.
“You wanna get high? Dude, those are opium poppies!” he crows. “I can sell these for some good cash on Antares-3.”
Jeff tries to look disapproving, but the citizens of Antares-3 are notorious assholes, and opium actually turns them into decent non-human beings so he’d be doing the galaxy a favor, to be honest.
“Fine, get picking. We’ll take the poppies with us when we leave,” Jeff announces. Chad just rolls his eyes and for once gets to work with no argument, thoughts of riches to come enough to keep him happy.
It doesn’t take them long to pick all the poppies, no more than an hour as Jensen had predicted. They carry them back to the village in sacks, and the villagers are so pathetically grateful when they “generously” offer to store them aboard their ship so as to avoid setting off the villagers’ allergies that Jeff is almost embarrassed for them.
“All hail King Jeffrey!” they chant. Even Misha joins in half-heartedly.
Finally the celebration is over and everyone stumbles off to their huts to sleep off the night’s revelry, leaving only Jeff, Jensen, Jared, Chad and Alaina in the great hall.
“Well, that went well,” Jeff says with satisfaction. “We escaped from Ruthie and her henchmen, saved the village from the dastardly flowers, won the hearts of the villagers, and bought time for Felicia to work on repairing the ship. I’m totally sure it’s smooth sailing from here on out.”
“Goddamn it, Jeff” Alaina sighs. “Now you’ve jinxed it.
And I pass the baton to the lovely tipsy_kitty.
Author: fiercelynormal
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mentions of JDM/Jared/Jensen
Word Count: 2017
Summary: I think we need a bigger ship.
We're going after the impossible dream, my friends,” Chad tells them. “We’re going to find my balls!”
* * *
A hush falls over Chad’s enraptured audience of two at his dramatic announcement, hopeful smiles slipping off their faces like Morduvian fowl eggs off a Teflon pan.
“Did you just say - “ starts Jensen. There’s a small pause.
“...your balls?” finishes Jared, more because it’s expected than out of any real desire to discuss Chad’s genitals. Jared looks to Jeff for confirmation, apparently hoping he heard incorrectly. Jeff just shrugs awkwardly, which is confirmation enough.
“So, we’re not going to be saving kidnapped princesses, or retrieving mysterious gems, we’re -”
“Getting me laid? Hell, yeah! The Chad will be back in the saddle in no time!” Chad makes a lewd thrusting motion with his hips and all three men recoil with gasps of horror. Even Tim’s face contorts in a grimace, though he remains blessedly unconscious.
“Okay, okay, we’ll be pleased help you in your quest; whatever it takes to get out of Dodge. Just -”
“- please stop doing…that!” the traumatized yet still unbearably attractive altar boys beg.
Chad grins, and Jeff just knows he’s thinking nailed it.
* * *
Several hours later…
The men sit dejectedly at the edge of the pool. Jared, Jensen and Jeff whiled away some of the time with a brief but enthusiastic threesome while Chad scouted around and Tim pretended to still be unconscious, but eventually they ran out of things to do. They tried every way they could think of to get out of the hidden copse, but the steep cliffs and heavily-guarded entrance defeated them at every turn. It appears they’re stuck there until Ruthie deigns to release them.
“Psst...over here!” The hushed voice is feminine, and the men all look around but see nothing but trees.
“Where are you?” Jeff asks.
There’s a rustling sound in the shrubs decorating the cliffs and the men all look over to see a rope. Their eyes follow the rope up to the top of the cliff to see...a red-headed woman.
“Oh, come on” the men all shout in unison.
“What?” says the woman. When no one answers she shrugs a shapely shoulder. “Whatever. My name is Danneel, and I’m here to rescue you.”
Muttering under his breath about a “ginger plague”, Jeff walks over to the rope Danneel threw down. He gives it a couple of sharp yanks to make sure it will hold his body weight, then deeming it safer than staying put, climbs up the steep bank and out of the hidden copse. Jared, Jensen, Chad and a sheepish Tim all follow suit, until they stand in a semi-circle around Danneel.
She’s dressed as befits some kind of warrior queen, all leather from her aforementioned red head to her toes and it’s a damn good look, Jeff muses before snapping to attention when she shoots him a withering glare.
“Focus. We’ve got to get you away from here before Ruthie and her henchmen come back.”
“But wait,” says Jeff. “I thought she was saving us from Misha! Doesn’t anyone know the plot of this goddamn story??”
“If by ‘saving’ you mean ‘ritually murdering’, then I guess you could say that.” Danneel says sweetly. “What do you think happened to the crew of the first ship that crashed here?”
They didn’t last long though. Jeff suddenly realizes he probably should have asked about that four chapters ago. His bad.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” he hisses at Jared and Jensen.
“We didn’t know!” Jensen protests. “History is not exactly a huge part of the Heart and Hands curriculum. Misha has been campaigning for education reform, though.” Jared nods in solemn agreement.
Jeff has suddenly had it up to here with this damn planet, monarch or not. Misha is welcome to it. Jeff is sure he’d make a far better leader than anyone else will anyway - certainly not the monarch since he has no beard but he could definitely be President - mostly because he’s the only one who really seems to give a damn about it.
“Look, lady,” Jeff bites off, “I don’t know who you are or what you want, but just get us back to the village so we can pick some stupid poppies and get the hell out of here.”
“You’re taking me with you when you leave,” she says, and it’s not a question.
Tim coughs politely, and when Jeff looks over he says “Me, too?”
Jeff rolls his eyes. “Jesus Christ, does the whole damn planet want to leave? Fine. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
“Och, I dinna think ye’ll be goin’ anywhere, laddies,” comes a sinister yet delightfully-accented voice from behind them, and they all freeze. “I’ve got a wee ceremony to perform - well, more of a murder ritual, really - and you lot are to be the star attractions. Yes, Mistress Danneel, even you.”
The two women size each other up, one redhead to another. They’re both worthy opponents but Ruthie has the advantage here. Several generally short men step out of the shrubbery which had concealed them so cleverly, armed with bows, axes, and the occasional pointy stick. Jeff recognizes Rob, Richard, Cole and Osric from their earlier encounter, as well as a couple of other generic shortish men.
Seeing they’re outnumbered, Jeff and his companions surrender without a fight.
The prisoners are marched through the forest to a small clearing, where a giant slab of rock that Jeff can only assume is an altar waits. Old rusty stains on the rock point to some really shady activities taking place here over the years.
“Aren’t you going to at least tell us what this ceremony is all about?” Jeff asks frantically, looking to buy some time.
“You mean you want me to give a lengthy monologue while you work on your elaborate escape plan?” Ruthie asks. Dammit, she is a clever one. “Suffice to say, it takes a little magic to look this good for over a hundred years.”
“Yeah, well, if you’d asked nicely I could have hooked you up with a nice Sephora gift card,” Jeff snarks. Deciding fuck it, he lurches into the nearest henchman, narrowly avoiding the swing of an axe before knocking the man to the ground. Quickly getting with the program, Jensen, Jared, Chad, Tim and Danneel all burst into action, punching and kicking to overpower the guards. Osric is by far the best fighter among the henchmen, but Tim merely has to pick him up in his arms, cradle him like a child and sing to him for a few seconds for the fight to leave him. It’s kind of adorable, really.
Finally all the guards are left writhing on the ground. Jeff is actually a little short of breath, so he admires their spunk. Ruthie is pressed up against the stone of the altar, Danneel’s arm across her throat. It’s…pretty hot, Jeff thinks.
“You wouldna hurt a fellow redhead, would you, my dear?” asks Ruthie, her perfectly-lined eyes filling with crystalline tears.
“Well, it is against the code, but for you I’m prepared to make an exception,” Danneel growls.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Ruthie says, her lilting accent dropping away to leave a flat, unaccented voice. “I just needed a little flash to impress my men, ya know? Keep them scared, yaddah yaddah? I’m just trying to make a living here.”
“So...you didn’t kill the first crew that crashed here?” Jeff asks, confused.
“Nah,” Ruthie replied. “That crash happened long before I was born. I heard the crew all got drunk and froze to death playing naked hide and seek. I just...embellished the story a little to add to my mystique. Keeps the henchmen in line.”
Jeff isn’t sure which story is the truth, and judging by the confused looks on his companions faces he figures he’s not alone in that. But whatever, they’ve taken Ruthie down for the moment and the most important thing is getting back to the ship so they can leave all these confusing plot points behind them.
“Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
* * *
Their arrival back in the village is...well, it’s pretty anticlimactic, actually. The villagers were so preoccupied getting ready for the feast, and Felicia and Alaina were so busy trying to repair the ship that nobody actually noticed they were gone.
They hide Danneel and Tim on the ship. Jeff is grateful they already blew their load in space (so to speak), so that the hidden cargo holds are empty. They’re spacious enough to hold Danneel and Tim with plenty of room to spare. The men return to their accommodations to wait for the feast, with no one the wiser that anything out of the ordinary had happened. Felicia sneaks off to repair the ship with the parts that Jensen and Jared had hidden away and catalogued so thoroughly.
Finally they are brought to the feast. Jeff is seated at his throne and plied with copious amounts of Dodge’s best ale. He’s more than a little intoxicated, having drunk several mugs of ale on a stomach empty of all but a handful of Chad’s soggy gummies earlier, but he sobers up a fair bit when the actual feasting begins. And what a feast it is, with huge amounts of roasted unidentifiable beasts and fowl, vegetables and the ever-present ale flowing like water. The villagers are for the most part gracious and welcoming, and Jeff feels a pang of misplaced pride in his soon-to-be-ex-subjects. He might actually miss them a little when they leave. Though he’ll still have the tight-assed codependent altar boys to remind him of his travels here, so he’s not too heartbroken.
Finally all the food is gone and the villagers are deemed drunk enough for Jeff and his crew to depart on their dangerous mission of picking the evil flowers. Misha gives a short speech that makes no sense whatsoever but the crowd seems pleased and they cheer enthusiastically, which Jeff takes as their cue to be on their way. Misha stares after them resentfully as they go, knowing this will solidify Jeff’s position as ruler. Jeff, Chad, and Alaina are pointed in the direction of a small plot of land dotted with bright red poppies. It only takes them a few minutes to arrive, and suddenly Chad starts laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Alaina demands.
“You wanna get high? Dude, those are opium poppies!” he crows. “I can sell these for some good cash on Antares-3.”
Jeff tries to look disapproving, but the citizens of Antares-3 are notorious assholes, and opium actually turns them into decent non-human beings so he’d be doing the galaxy a favor, to be honest.
“Fine, get picking. We’ll take the poppies with us when we leave,” Jeff announces. Chad just rolls his eyes and for once gets to work with no argument, thoughts of riches to come enough to keep him happy.
It doesn’t take them long to pick all the poppies, no more than an hour as Jensen had predicted. They carry them back to the village in sacks, and the villagers are so pathetically grateful when they “generously” offer to store them aboard their ship so as to avoid setting off the villagers’ allergies that Jeff is almost embarrassed for them.
“All hail King Jeffrey!” they chant. Even Misha joins in half-heartedly.
Finally the celebration is over and everyone stumbles off to their huts to sleep off the night’s revelry, leaving only Jeff, Jensen, Jared, Chad and Alaina in the great hall.
“Well, that went well,” Jeff says with satisfaction. “We escaped from Ruthie and her henchmen, saved the village from the dastardly flowers, won the hearts of the villagers, and bought time for Felicia to work on repairing the ship. I’m totally sure it’s smooth sailing from here on out.”
“Goddamn it, Jeff” Alaina sighs. “Now you’ve jinxed it.
And I pass the baton to the lovely tipsy_kitty.