A/N: May as well post the second half of this scene straight away. Dean is forced to kneel there, hands bound, while Benny sits on a stool and acquaints him with his plans to start a war...
The Pompatus Box (Chapter 19: Over and Out) by frostygossamer
Dean can't believe what he's hearing. They want to start an intrasystem WAR?
"So what? You're gonna lurk on Emo like you're scared of the sunlight? And you're gonna watch while Terra and Eno duke it out to the death, then jump out of the shadows and claim the victory?"
"Something like that. We're here on Emo because our people on Luna are routinely rounded up and flung in jail or exiled to the darkside, people like my main man Boris. But we're good here. Emoan cops are a freakin' joke."
Dean's mouth drops open. The guy is deadly serious. He has walked into a nest of honest-to-god insurgents. Without backup.
"And Meg knew about all this," he murmurs.
He wishes for all he's worth that he hadn't accepted Ruby's version of Meg's intentions. His captor grins smugly, rows of big sharp teeth making him look like the monster he is.
"We promised Masters Inc. exclusive trade deals with Luna. Masters swallowed it hook, line and sinker. But, hmm, I don't think, somehow, we'll be coming through with the goods when our day dawns at last."
Benny's eyes have gone wide. He shoots up, the stool falling over unnoticed and glares into some imagined future.
"When Terra goes down and Luna is in the ascendant, that'll be our moment to step into the spotlight. I'm gonna proclaim myself President of the whole damn system. President Lafitte. No, strike that. Emperor Benny the Great!"
The fire in Benny's eyes when he says those words makes Dean's heart sink. This guy is a megalomaniac in the making and he means to crown himself the boss of every-damn-thing. Yikes!
"You warmongering douchebag! You're gonna sacrifice the people of two worlds to make yourself a freakin' pissant God!"
Benny glowers down at him like Zeus from Olympus, balls his fist threateningly and snarls.
"You have the nerve to think a worm like you can stop me?"
He lands a punch square on Dean's jaw - Crunch! - knocking him flat on the floor.
Dean pulls himself off of the ground and stares up defiantly, which makes Benny want to punch him again, and he does. The sound of something kicking off means his two crewmen waiting outside run in and they all three lay into Dean, beating on him until he's bruised, broken and bloody.
If Dean has any masochistic tendencies this would be their moment. Unfortunately nothing pleasurable presents itself to his psyche. Even his self-blame manages to stay out of the ring.
When he can't keep himself up on his knees anymore, the crewmen grab him by the shoulders. They haul him into the room where the capuchins are kept in big cages, each secured by a leather collar and a chain. They shove Dean in an empty cage and fasten a collar around his neck too.
He is so screwed!
The surrounding capuchins go apewire, jumping up and down, vocalizing and frantically waving their skinny, almost human hands. Benny watches as his two spacedogs strip Dean of every stitch and lock the cage firmly with a heavy-duty padlock. They don't even let him keep the dignity of his drawers.
"So I guess... you're not gonna tell me... what was in the box?"
Dean sarcastic comment is slurred, his bloody lips already starting to swell up.
Benny laughs. "Gave the box to one of my gofers Gordon Walker to destroy unopened. Why should I give a crap what was in it?"
"Walker," hisses Dean. "That freakin' asshat."
So Dean's fellow flier Walker has been working for these guys all along? That explains the convenient glancing shot that stopped him chasing down the bogey during their engagement. He was running interference while Pirate Benny did what he needed to do.
Like Dean, Walker will happily do most anything for money. Unlike Dean, he has no scruples about who he does it for. Dean has never trusted the guy, but he has apparently seriously underestimated Walker's grade of cojones. Benny rubs his bruised knuckles.
"We'll continue our little discussion tomorrow, friend."
He leaves, closing the door behind him, and abandons Dean to the monkey-funky semi-darkness. Battered and disoriented, Dean can't stop his eyes from closing.
He passes out.
=O=
It's some unknown time later when Dean finally comes around. He's lying exactly where he fell.
He cracks open one swollen eye to find the female capuchin in the cage next to his peering down at him. She's cooing, a concerned look on her tiny simian features, her eyebrows twitching, her long thin fingers reaching through the bars to gently touch his arm. Ladies can't resist this guy.
"Hey there, Kinky Cong," he breathes.
When he tries to move, pain shoots through his body. He grabs his chest. It hurts like a mother. Dragging himself up to lean against the back wall of his cage, he fingers his collar. It chafes his skin but he can't coordinate his fingers enough to remove it. He checks himself over. He's buck-naked and filthy. He looks and feels like crap. His clothes are gone, and with them all his weapons AND the hypo of YED he always carries for emergencies.
That realization hits him in the pit of his stomach.
From the light filtering into the room through the shuttered windows, it looks like maybe half a day has passed. Which means he will be needing that fix very soon, and without his fix it's adios to Dean. Tough luck.
He's not going to make it this time.
Dean sighs and lets his eyes close again. This was always going to happen one day. He knew it was a risky decision when he ran away from the institution they kept him in and chose a life for himself. He lives by and for danger, and one day that choice was always going to turn around and bite him in the ass.
His final dose of YED will wear off very soon. He may as well accept he's going to die chained up in a locked cage with only a friendly monkey to notice it. Talk about overkill. And the irony is, if the Pompatus Box has been destroyed already, he may as well have stayed home on Baby.
He consoles himself with the thought that at least his Baby will be OK. She's programmed to lift off after 24 hours, or if he dies, which seems inevitable this time. He has always hated the thought of his special lady being impounded as salvage, seized by the authorities for non-payment of tax or some such crap. He would rather have her dive into the Sun than end that way.
Fate has proved that he was right to make Sam stay aboard. Soon the errant princeling will be safely winging his way back to Terra and the bosom of his patrician family. That idea strangely comforts him too. When did he start to care about the schmuck?
These thoughts flitter around in his head like butterflies as he slowly sinks into an addled torpor, drifting in and out, his vision a blur. The end will be painful but quick and pretty soon it will all be over for Dean.
Well, he managed to survive a few extra years, but maybe... maybe he was meant to have died with his father...
TBC
A/N: Looks like, whether Benny means to kill him or not, Dean's going to time out before he gets back to him tomorrow. Poor Dean. Fate seems to have caught up with him. More soon.