keepsthemsafe | SIXTH ENTRY

Gimme ten and I'll be down. Unless you'd rather meet somewhere else?

[Dean isn't sure what to feel about most things right now, and this definitely tops the list, so he just goes with professional mode for the time being.]

[Professional mode. Shane can appreciate that.]

Didn' figure wardens would let an inmate choose. You don't have a sit down room here?

[Dean notes that comment for what it is, decides not to bicker about it right now. They can figure out how Dean, at least, isn't like other Wardens later, once they have a better measure for each other than twinkies and a haunted hotel.]

Not really. My last inmate wanted to walk around and talk. Most use one or the other's cabin, or a neutral public place. S'up to you - anywhere but the deck.

[Because fuck the deck.]

Deck's off limits.

[His voice is soft. Sure okay.]

Gimme ten and meet me in my room then. You young? You sound young.

Old enough. See you in ten.

[Depends on what scale they're using, but Dean's not gonna play this game either way. He clicks the feed off to get his shit together and finish the last page of this file.]

Uh huh.

[Dean follows behind, keeping only just enough attention on Cashmere to make sure she's leaving. Once he's sure of that, though, he turns his full attention to following Shane into the room, hard edges filtering in around his smile as it fades.

He really doesn't like that look.]

Okay, so, first rule, and I don't give a shit how unfair you think it is, you stay away from women. Period. Got it?

[Stay away from women. All he can hear is Rick's voice, and there's a real moment of palpable rage on his face.]

This were a real prison they wouldn't be here at all. You know what that bitch has done? What she claims she fuckin' did?

[Shane's face changes; Dean's does too, jaw tensing, figuratively toe to toe if not literally.

He closes the door behind him.]

Well tough shit: they're here, and it doesn't fucking matter what she did. She doesn't concern you anymore.

[Shane's neck is tense. His lips curl into a sneer but he doesn't say anything, just stands and folds his arms across his broad chest - standing in the middle of Rick's hospital room.]

Is that why I'm here?

[He could get angry now] Because of Lori?

No, you're here because you are one dumb sonnuvabitch.

[Dean's considered how to work this, tried to think ahead, plan for some kind of unified front with himself. Problem is that once he's faced with the problem all of that goes right out the window and he moves on instinct instead. He could sneer back, mirror the posture, wait for Shane to break this little tantrum.

Instead Dean glares at him for a moment, then breaks eye contact to look around the room, begins pulling his jacket off. He has to go carefully over the right sleeve, revealing a plaster half-cast over his wrist and hand as he peels the leather jacket off, but other than that his attention is fully on his surroundings - and subtly on his new inmate.]

Okay. We're gonna start over. I'm Dean, I'm your new warden, and here in a minute I'ma hand you your file and see what you think about it. But first thing's first: You need anything?

[Shane laughs, noting the cast and trying to take measure of the man. He sits.]

The guy who draws on walls. The guy who uses a shotgun.

[His lips press together]

Nope. Fine and dandy. [He sits heavily on the bed before gesturing to one of the plastic chairs in the room] I've got everything that I need right here - except I don't understand why I have to be the guy living in a hospital room while other people get their shit...stored out and shit.

But that's fine. I don't need anything. And being as how I'm dumb like you said...

[No. He can't bring that sarcasm in. His hand extends] Let me see my file. You read it?

[Dean hasn't quite figured out the trick to rooms yet, or what they look like. Yeah, it's weird, but he'd figured...

He doesn't know what he figured. That Shane is clearly either as confused as Dean is or upset by it, enough to bring it up anyway, makes him look at it again while he completely ignores the jabs. That was a port, and a shotgun is a perfectly respectable weapon - it'd been enough to kick Shane's ass, even half out of his mind with crazy. That's how Dean remembers it, and he's going to continue to do so.

The answer is too off-handed and grudge-y. Dean makes a note to just keep an eye out, make sure he's wearing different clothes, that sort of thing.]

'Course I did. Don't tell me you made a habit of sleeping through shift briefing. [Because Dean sure has no intent of letting resources literally dumped in his lap get away from him. The hunter tilts his head so he can glance over at Shane, opens his mouth to say something, then catches sight of something else that gives him pause.]

You already got a girlfriend here? Who's sending you flowers?

[Shane? Shane laughs. It is the laugh of someone not entirely himself.]

Man those ain't mine.

[He studies them intently for a moment] I sort of figured I'd ignore um. Pretend they weren't there. Came with the room. [Offhand remarks are a good way to cope with anything. He can't be honest with this man who is supposed to keep watch on him. Not yet.

However anyone with eyes can see that they represent something very serious.] You want um? I figured the vase was pretty fucking ugly when I first saw it at the station, but you don't look like a guy with a lot of taste.

[The slip is very subtle but it's there. If called on it? He's going to ignore it. Deny it.]

And they're still alive?

[That's the first thing that pops into Dean's head, and it would've been enough even without Shane's slip to raise flags as to the significance of them; Dean is a moron, but he's always been good at what he does. It's while he's crossing to investigate that they are, in fact, real that he catches up with it.]

Wait, what? [He couldn't care less about the dig - there was something else, though, and he glances back from poking at the petals.]

[They're still alive.]

Ironically. Yeah I know I'm the "zombie" guy but they're sort of hanging on somewhere between dead and alive so..

[zombie flowers dean. You heard it here first. He catches the wait what.] What do you mean wait what.

I mean what did you say? Go back to...

[There's something there, and it's one of those moments where Dean would probably shoot someone if it meant he could have Sam here to bounce ideas off of, Sam's ginormous brain to store important details in so he doesn't have to remember them all. Dean holds up a finger to forestall any more questions or comments, eyes narrowed suspiciously as he glances around the room again, looking for whatever's set him on edge.

Some of it's been moved; that's why he didn't catch it, not at first. The chair should be in the other corner, the clock's been switched, the bed used; but the rest of it. He's familiar with the rest of it.]

Hold on. [Dean was going to dig the file back out of where it's curled in his coat pocket anyway, but now he grabs it up pointedly, already flipping it open and scanning.]

...Professional man. Real professional. But I gotta give you credit, you may be the worst dressed fucking wannabe detective I've ever seen but I expected a fucking clock upside the head.

Is that my file?

Yeah. [Dean just flat out ignores Shane, not even perturbed by the insults. He grew up with two men, with everyone he met thinking he was a delinquent and a failure, and Shane isn't in any kind of position to get under his skin just now.

Finding the passage, he squints up to double check that he's right, but he's no rookie. He makes a noise in the back of his throat, stares at the flowers again, then looks at Shane.]

You're sitting in your best friend slash partner's hospital room, have been since you got here, and you're asking me what you're here for?

[There's a pause, and he stares because wait what? His hands unclench and set carefully on the bed before he glares at him.]

This ain't Rick's room. You're full of shit.

[Except it is, because his file has a long description of the events of Shane abandoning his best friend to - in effect - die. Key events, subject helped Rick Grimes to the hospital, subject remained by his bedside for almost twelve hours without trying to move.

They get less detailed, visited on this date, visited on this date, began relationship with Rick Grimes's wife on this date. Until the day that the hospital was overrun. Desperate, Shane Walsh blocked the door hoping to bury his friend and give him a sort of funeral despite not confirming if he was alive or dead. Rick Grimes did not exhibit any discerned life signs.]

I don't care about the fucking magic space boat, this ain't Rick's room. Why the fuck would I be in Rick's room?

[Why? because you are dangerous Shane Walsh. And the file says that.]

I barred the door. There weren't any tables blocking this.

[The admiral initially felt that you could not be trusted with a room after getting used to making weapons out of anything.]

Why the fuck would the same flowers be here?

[because you needed to be reminded of what you were to each other, and that is there too. All there for Shane to read.]

[Normally, Dean is quick to jump on the vocal option; he's fully capable of bantering his way around to whatever piece of information he wants, quick to deflect verbal attacks on him, steer the situation how he wants it.

Now, though, he just waits Shane out. He already knows the answer, it's right here in his hands; he's been dealing with the impossible back home too long, been right too often to doubt his own conclusions now just because someone tells him he's wrong. He believes his own eyes, ears, hands, and logic.

And sure enough, Shane works himself around from outright denial to justification right there under Dean's steady gaze.

The hunter holds out the file wordlessly.]

I don't need to look at that shit. That isn't - that ain't right. It ain't kind. It's fucking cruel for a place that's supposed to "help" people.

[He curls, pacing away from him.] I don't deserve this. To be treated like this no matter what I've done.

Whatever that shit says I did.

[and then he moves forward quickly and snatches it out of Dean's hands reading over it. Everything's there, his family history -sketched out in brief. his relationship with Rick. Becoming a cop because it was something his friend did...All of that. Shane's expression turns from confusion to disgust to anger to the briefest flicker of fear to loathing in the blink of an eye]

You fucking spying on me? Spying on a man doing his business? With his wi-

[Nope. Lori's not yours.] with his friends?

[Dean is in the process of shrugging and retracting the file when Shane changes his mind and snatches possession of it; that's the second fucking time an inmate has snatched their file out of his hand and he's kind of getting annoyed with it. If he had both hands he might have tried to keep it or take it back, but as it is, he just makes an impatient gesture with his now-empty hand and moves around the bed to study the picture on the wall.

And he rolls his eyes when Shane comes to the brilliant conclusion, but he gets the rest of that, remains wary of the loathing from behind his easy manner.]

Yeah, sure, you see a lot of that going on around here. Half a dozen of us at a time just perched on the railing, peering over the side.

It was the Admiral.

And what he thinks that I've done something wrong and I'm worth something better.

[he peers at him. Honestly it's not even the "there's something wrong with me" he's used to being wrong, having people think he's wrong. It's that people think he needs to be fixed. He'd be fine being unfixable.

Especially the way this system is run.]

...I don't suppose the admiral gave y'all the gift I asked for all the wardens. Book on how to correctly run a prison.

[No. he's horrible like that.]

[Dean shrugs; honestly, he doesn't buy into the philosophical side of this. He helps people when he can, doesn't stop to wonder about how redeemable they are. He'll help Shane, too, if he can because he's been promised Sam; he'd help him with his zombie infestation anyway, and it has nothing to do with worth or wrong.]

You're missing the point: this ain't your regular prison, and I'm not your average warden. There's no rule book for this kinda thing, just the go-flag and the finish flag. How we get from one to the other is up to us.

Capiche?

I don't deserve to be fixed. That's all there is to it. And to be frank. I don't fucking want to go back to a place where people are going to fucking kill me.

[His voice is blunt and hard] and if people are going to try and kill me here I want a goddamn weapon. Like with you.

...they at least give you weapons? [He nods to his wrist] fucking broke like that?

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