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originally posted in:The New Dojo
12/31/2017 10:00:21 PM
9
[b]pick up the phone:[/b]
[i]Dojo Aerospace; an hour before [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/241277880/0/0/1]touchdown:[/url][/i]
Drake scowled in the cockpit of his repulser-craft, both annoyed and frustrated with his current situation. For one thing, he’d gotten the lat./long. coordinates wrong, and the Arrowhead had let him go a few hundred kilometers from where he’d planned on being. Next, and perhaps more pertinently, he hadn’t put enough gel in his now-unkempt hair, which flopped around on his forehead now, despite his attempts to angrily blow it off of his face.
Catching a glimpse of his reflection in the cockpit glass, Drake’s frown deepened. The stubble that he’d stylishly grown for Damien Lordan’s party had grown slightly rampant, to the point where it didn’t quite qualify as a 5’o’clock shadow anymore. His hair was messed up, failing to meet his lofty standards of excellence. Oh, and he’d also seemingly betrayed one of the more dangerous people that he’d come across in recent years. That sucked too.
But then, inexplicably, something other than his face caught his gaze. A beat-up SAT phone, wrapped in a band of green duct tape, had found itself lodged in a nook of the cockpit behind his chair. Reaching back with his prosthetic arm, he grabbed the odd device, and decided to call the phone’s only contact: the one and only Winchester.
[spoiler]Open to Xeno [/spoiler]
-
For a hot second, the only thing Drake heard was the busy tone. Winchester’s voicemail began: “[b]HI! YOU’VE REACHED THE WINCHESTER RESIDENCE! I’M SORRY I COULDN’T REACH THE PHONE BECAUSE I’M PROBABLY COMMITTING CRIMES AGAINST HUMANIT-[/b]” The raucous voicemail was suddenly cut off by the same gruff voice, granted much more reserved and calm. “Hey, Drake. What’s up?” Winchester was cramming his burner phone between the side of his head and his hulking shoulder, his hands preoccupied with cleaning a melee weapon with a blood-soaked ragged washcloth.
-
“Hey, what’s good man? Great to hear from you Winchester,” Drake sighed, a more comfortable look coming across his face as he heard the voice of his old friend. He likewise tucked his phone between his head and his shoulder, muttering a curse under his breath as his hair followed his tilted head. “I, uh, nothin’ much’s happened. Y’know, the usual. I brought the crew back together, got a new ship, and now I’m going off to convince this chick that I didn’t leave her in captivity. What’s goin’ on with you?”
-
“Eh, ya know, the usual. Just turned a post office into an abattoir.” He laughed sardonically, looking back at the fruit of his labors. Quite the macabre scene: desks, walls, and glass doors soaked in blood with printing appliances smashed down onto minced corpses while other bodies were sprawled in agonizing positions. He even decided to kill a man with a pencil, the point jammed into his eye socket. “‘Course they were crooked. Not like I’d slaughter a bunch of civvies.” Maybe, but would you put it past him? “So, whaddaya want? This ain’t a courtesy call is it? Does da lownley widdle captain miss his buddy Winchester?” He mocked Drake in an over-the-top kiddie voice, before putting aside his cleaned Chainsword and began working on a sidearm.
-
“Well when it put it like that, I’m starting to think that I’d be fine without you, jackass.” Drake said jokingly, remembering a quote from a show that he’d watched as a kid. One of the few fond memories that he had of his dad had been his quality choice in television. “And ‘when you control the mail, you control... information’. “ Drake smiles, content with his surprisingly accurate Newman imitation. He gave Winchester a moment to get the reference, and then continued on. “But you’re right, this ain’t a courtesy call. Like I said, I’m getting the crew back together, and we’ve got a killer new ship that didn’t use to belong to some hookers. It’s actually pretty nice. Thought you’d maybe be interested in checking it out.”
-
“[i]Seinfeld[/i]? Really? Gotta give ya props, though. That’s some ancient shit. I was more of a [i]Whose Line Is It Anyway[/i] kinda kid.” Winchester mulled over the main proposition, however. He had been away from his crew for some time. He began to consider hypothetical scenarios in his head if he did return. The Crew’s reaction, his own, etc. Of course Winchester missed them. Drake had always been a good drinking buddy, Sawyer was as much as a misanthrope as him, and Alpha was almost like a daughter to him. He was silent for around 30 seconds, the wetting of the washcloth breaking the spell methodically. “Ya know what? Fuсk it. I’ll stop bein’ antisocial and get back with the boys.” A grin spread across his face. Damn. He considered the crew his friends. That being a luxury people like him aren’t prone to having. Who ‘people like him’ are, is entirely relative. Winchester considered those people to be his crew. Lowlifes, scumbags, pirates, psychopaths and sociopaths and everything in between. All shaped by some trauma or another. Or, maybe, they just needed to get by. “And you said it [b]wasn’t[/b] stolen from hookers? Quite the upgrade.”
-
“Yeah, I know, right? I mean, there’ve been hookers onboard since then, but technically we didn’t have to steal it back from them.” Drake said enthusiastically, relieved by Winchester’s acceptance of his offer. Right now, he was exactly what the crew needed: muscle. And moreover, he was a good friend... and more importantly, a good drinking buddy. “I’m glad to have you back buddy.” He added, in a good mood despite his current predicament.
-
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get too chummy, Daryl.” Winchester did this quite often. When he felt that people were getting too friendly with him, he’d call them by the wrong name to throw them off at his faux sense of not really caring for them. But he did care for his crew. ‘Course, he’d never say it aloud. “So what’s the plan? Where do I need to be and when?” Winchester rose and plucked the pencil from the man’s eye socket. A sickening squish acquainted the removal of the improvised weapon. Somehow it wasn’t splintered. He tore a sheet of paper from a clipboard and sat down again.
-
“Well... haven’t figured that out yet.” Drake scratched his head with his prosthetic hand, unbeknownst to Winchester. He was making a steady approach to the landing site Alpha had marked out for him, and his nerves were rising once more. “If I don’t get shot in a minute, I’ll give you some better instructions, fish up the coordinates of the Arrowhead, [i]*’cause they gotta be lyin’ around here somewhere.*[/i]” He looked back, and idly rummaged through a compartment in the back of the cockpit. He trailed off at the end, preoccupied with his redundant task—Drake was making busywork because his nerves were killing him, and that probably wasn’t a good sign. “.‘Til then... I dunno, pray for me, do some oriental witchcraft, I dunno.”
-
Winchester scoffed. “Alright, dude. Don’t get yourself killed, aight? Lie your way out. It’s what you’re good at.” Winchester grinned and chucked his note-taking materials across the room since he had no need for them now. “Till next time. Imma go get some dough for this bounty. See ya.” Winchester hung up the phone and stuffed it in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. Picking up his sundry weapons, he exited the post office with a kick through the front door. He began to walk down damp and moist streets after midnight when no one was around. He whistled a jaunty tune, realizing that pretty soon he would make his homecoming.
