Author's notes: This story is complete, in five chapters. It is not quite a crossover with "Deadliest Catch," since there are no characters in common (NOT RPF). But the setting is Dutch Harbor and the Bering Sea, so there are many, many common elements (a "fusion," as a friend put it). Familiarity with the other show, however, is not required. Hope you enjoy! EB
Land's End
By EB
(c)2007
1.
There's some kind of weird poetic justice, something, to doing a job in Diablo, Washington. Never mind there's no demon involved, just a ghost with way too many of the wrong kinds of notches in her bedpost. It's still kind of funny, the funny that makes him think about calling, thinking "Sam would laugh. He'd totally laugh."
He doesn't call Sam, but he does call Dad, gets his voice mail – big surprise there – and says, "Piece of cake. You still in Mississippi? Call me."
It isn't, strictly speaking, cake time. Or Miller time. He's flat broke, the Impala's in serious need of some TLC, and it's getting cold.
"You want money, oughta come work with me." Larry swigs from his bottle of beer and gives Dean a what-the-hell look. "Lots of it up north. You done me a big-ass favor here, anyway, kid, I owe you. Put in the good word for you."
Dean smiles and gives a polite cough of a laugh. "All due respect, man – me and fish, not exactly a marriage made in heaven."
"Crab, Deano. King crab. Fuckers big as the front seat on that jalopy of yours."
It stings to hear her called that, but no denying she's beat up, and that confident purr of the engine's down to sounding kinda tubercular. Dean looks away. After a moment he asks, "How much money?"
"Depends on the catch, that kinda thing. Lots of variables."
Dean glances over his shoulder at Larry's expensive truck, and lifts an eyebrow. "How much you make last season?"
A slow grin lifts Larry's whiskered cheeks. "Fifty large, and change."
Dean just stares at him. "Get out."
"Greenhorn like you'd be, wouldn't make as much as us. Skipper'll set a fixed rate, but I tell you what: it'll be better money by a long shot than anything you'll find on the mainland."
"You made fifty fucking thousand dollars?"
"And that's just one trip out. There's more than one thing to fish out there. Get on with a good boat, good crew – you wind up working six months out of the year and taking home a couple hundred grand."
Hell, even half of Larry's take would fund Dean and his dad a good long time. They live cheap anyway, always had to, and a serious chunk of change like this could mean giving up the fake plastic for a while, maybe not having to hustle for food and shelter. Be frugal with it, it'll see them through.
He pictures Dad's face, that respect, and even though a part of him is still sitting off to the side going, "I dunno about this, dude," he's nodding. "Shit," he breathes. "If you got the fucking motherlode up there, why aren't more guys lining up for the job?"
Larry takes the time to drink more of his beer, and sets the bottle carefully on the table. "Because it's hard goddamn work," he says.
"Fuck that. For that kind of money? I'd swim after the fuckers myself."
"Not in water that's thirty-four degrees." The smile is gone from Larry's face; he looks harder, older than his years. "It's dangerous."
Dean grins. "My middle name, dude."
"I'm serious. I know you can handle yourself; I seen it." Larry ducks his head once, and Dean thinks about that tangle on the stairs, the cold feel of that ghost's anger, and nods, too. "But it's long hours, colder than you feel like you can bear, and the work's hard. Each of those pots weigh eight hundred pounds. And that's empty. With a catch? Maybe a ton and a half." He lifts his chin. "Outfit I work with, we carry 220 pots."
Dean shakes his head. "I got no problem with hard work. Look, you pay me like that, I'm not gonna bitch."
Larry snorts. "Oh, you'll bitch about it. Everybody does."
"So when do we leave?"
"Can't guarantee nothing." Larry watches him, then gives a nod. "Lemme make a call."
Dean has time to drink most of another one of Larry's beers and spend a little of the money in his head before Larry comes back. Larry's wife Ann is making supper, and it smells incredible.
"So?" Dean asks, watching him carefully.
"Allan Orr got in a car wreck last week." Larry sits, shaking his head. "Gonna miss the season. So I asked Gib, told him I had a guy down here, looked like a likely prospect. Gib said come on over, talk to him."
"Gib?"
"The skipper."
"Boss, huh."
Larry's smiling, but it isn't an easy look. "More like God."
Dean gives a slow nod. "I can work with that."
"You sure about this? It ain't something you can just walk away from if you change your mind. Not unless you like swimming in water that's just about freezing."
"Dude, you think what I do is easy?" Dean snorts, looks away. "Get my ass kicked half the time. I can handle it."
"All right, then," Larry says. "If Gib likes you, I'd say you got a job."
"Rock on," Dean whispers, and drains his bottle.
Gib Fallows is a big guy, tall and looks heavy, but Dean gauges solid muscle under the layer of blubber. Gib also has what Dean's pretty sure is a vanishing tolerance for bullshit, and the few thoughts Dean has had about making up some kind of fictional fishing history go flying out the living-room window. He's never even baited a goddamn hook before, and Gib can tell.
"So Larry tells me you can handle yourself."
"Yes," Dean says without hesitating.
Gib nods and looks away with a shrug. "Hard fucking work, and you got no experience." He exhales smoke. "You screw up out there, we all pay for it."
Dean nods. Gib's a little like Dad, hard in a lot of the same ways, unsmiling, blue eyes chilly and hard to read. It goes weird with the nice house in the 'burbs, the good-looking wife and the cute kid, still staring raptly at Dean from his perch on a chair across the room. Kid's got his dad's blue eyes, and his mom's red hair.
"Look," Dean finally says, uneasily, "you want a resume, I don't got one. Larry tell you how he met me?"
Gib's looking at him again, clear cold gaze like an x-ray scoping out his bones. "Yeah. He did."
"You believe him?"
"Doesn't matter. This is a business, kid, not some big-seas adventure. You won't need guns and crap where we're going."
"All right, what DO I need?"
The flicker of a smile comes and goes, fast as a minnow flashing through a brook. "Guts. Muscle. Balls."
Dean grins. "Those I got."
"What's that?" The red-haired kid is suddenly standing by Dean's knee, reaching out to touch the pendant dangling against his shirt.
Dean looks down at him. "It's an amulet. For protection."
"From what?"
"All kinds of things."
"Bad things."
Dean nods gravely. "Pretty bad sometimes, yeah."
The boy's blue eyes blink slowly. "Does it work?"
"Yeah. So far."
"My dad needs one of those. Mom says it's really dangerous on the boat."
Dean glances at Gib, sees him watching. "What can I say," he says lightly. "I'm a good-luck charm."
That quick-gone smile appears and leaves again, and Gib sighs and stands up. "All right," he says. "You get seasick, kid?"
"No idea," Dean replies honestly. "This mean I got the job?"
"It means we head out day after tomorrow, and that's a week where I see if you got any sea-legs, show you a thing or two."
"Fishing?"
Gib snorts. "Season doesn't start for a couple of weeks. Call it a shake-down cruise. You got gear?"
He has no idea what kind of gear a damn crab jockey should have, and Gib looks at his face and gets a kind of disgusted look. "Larry'll tell you what you need."
"If it takes green," Dean says slowly, "it ain't happening. I'm busted." Kind of hurts to admit, but it's pretty much impossible to lie right to Gib's face. Almost supernatural, how the guy seems to compel the truth.
Gib thinks about it, then says, "All right, then. Larry knows where to take you. It's coming out of your pay."
"All right."
"Look, kid." Gib lights another cigarette – Dean's counted three so far, and this conversation's only lasted about ten minutes – and tosses the lighter on the coffee table. "Every season somebody loses a guy or three. Last year it was eight, and six of those on a ship that went down. It wasn't because somebody wasn't doing his job; it's the em job /em ." He leans forward, smoke curling from his nostrils. "You think this is gonna be easy money, don't you?"
"No, sir," Dean says stiffly. "I don't."
Gil watches him, and leans back in his chair again. "Get your gear. 5:00am Saturday, you miss the boat, we're gone."
"I'll be there."
Cont. in ch 2