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Who: Princess Nuala and Dean Winchester
What: Look, you just don't leave a Princess chilling in the arrival room.
Where: The Valhalla Inn to start, then journeying to Hellsing's guild hall.
When: Right after Nuala's arrival post.
Notes: This log's special guest star: Baskerville.
Warnings:...contains Dean Winchester.

By the time they reach the Valhalla Inn, Dean is mostly over his oh-God-it's-a-hellhound-oh-my-god-augh kneejerk reactions. You really can't blame the guy; he sold his soul and dogs like these are supposed to come ferry him across the border one of these days.

With their teeth.

One even came after him in Bete Noire. And his contract, if you count the passage of time in a linear fashion from when he got shanghaied out of Colorado, has been up for a few months. So indulge him his discomfort.

Though that's fading--if Baskerville was going to eat him he'd have done it by now. And he has to admit seeing the crowd thin in their path as they got off the el train was kind of funny. Also the Princess was downright delighted to hear the dog was coming; he can't deny her that, especially not for some dumb reason like the dog scares the crap out of me, ma'am.

"Arrival room's through there, man," he says as they cross the hotel's entry.

...Fine, okay, Baskerville probably already knows that or he can smell the Princess or whatever. And shut up about talking to the dog, he's used to having some giant being at his side when he's on the job, it was a natural reaction to talk to him.

"This way." And there they are at the arrival room, only this time, Dean's on the other side of the doors. He straightens up to his full height and pulls open the doors. "Your Highness?"

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Dean raises his eyebrows, sparing a glance at the Princess. Forgive him if this is forward--Dean doesn't know how to be anything but--but he can't help asking.

"Did your brother come here too? I haven't seen him yet."

Nuala doesn't pause - this is something that's already come up and that she's been prepared to answer to more than just Dean since she arrived - but her jaw does tighten, momentarily. "No; I have come alone."

She sounds certain; of course she would be.

It's Dean's turn to pause. The expression on his face doesn't change; he's a good soldier, raised right, with a job to do right now. He can't afford to drop his eyes or let his attention falter.

But he's sympathetic. God, he can't help but be.

"So did I."

They pass two more blocks before he speaks again. "Turn here, Your Highness. The train station is at the end of this street."

Nuada is and probably always will be a complex subject, but Nuala isn't going to pretend as though she doesn't simply miss him; she has for centuries. It's just that these days she doesn't seem able to miss him any less when he's nearby - there is so much changed between them. (She wonders if she could have averted disaster if she'd only gone with him, instead - it eats at her even as she harbours the resentment of the abandoned.)

"Thank you," she says, briefly, as she follows him; for coming to fetch her, for asking after her brother, for the sincere sympathy that he offers to her now.

Dean would be sympathetic to all that, too, if he knew. He'd been through it himself. He loved his brother more than anything, more than his own life, even, to offer it up to Hell in return for Sam. But as much as he loved and needed Sam, there were times when he looked over at him in the passenger seat or across a diner table and wondered who the hell he was anymore.

He knew it was a mutual feeling at times; he recognized the look in his brother's eyes. Dean's time was running out but the gulf between them just seemed to grow wider and wider sometimes no matter what he did.

He casts aside those thoughts as they enter the station, ever watchful. As before, the crowd parts a bit at the sight of Baskerville--the creepy dog turns out to be useful, who knew?

Dean pauses to let them catch up those few paces he'd put ahead of them. "Hopefully there's not a long wait. I haven't... exactly figured out time or the time tables for the trains yet."