Career change? Nope. (Dean/Open)

[samus]

Life worked out in the strangest of ways sometimes, and it wasn't the first occasion that Samus had wished she had the full measure of the same abilities that her adoptive parents had possessed - it would have made things so much easier, and allowed her to have avoided many of the mistakes that had led to where she was now. When she'd first taken the job to investigate the BSL labs, Samus would have never imagined it would have led her to being a fugitive, forcing her to flee known space and hide on a rock in the middle of nowhere - more than that, one that was inhabited by people far less technologically advanced than even the most primitive of Federation client races. Not that it was a bad thing - every culture had something to offer, but it certainly made remaining anonymous that much more difficult. Her gunship wasn't exactly a viable means of transportation any longer - sure, its stealth systems would fool anything that this planet used to watch their skies, but the moment someone actually paused a looked upwards, there would be problems, and leaving the world wasn't exactly an option, at least not yet. Until the vessel managed to finish repairing itself from whatever had knocked out the FTL engines, the most she could really hope for was to travel to one of the other planets in the system, and those did her no good at all.

With at least a few months' worth of free time on her hands, her only options were pretty much to either wait back at the landing site for the ship to fix itself, or to actually get out and around, find a way to kill time. The former, however, did not appeal to her - too many painful memories, so she had chosen the latter. Good exercise getting to and from the city, but without any of that world's currency in her possession all she could really do was talk with the locals - ironically enough, though, that had led to a rather interesting talk about two weeks ago in one of the seedier bars on the outskirts of the city. It had been rather funny how the word "hunter" caught the attention of a few people passing through the bar every now and then, whenever someone had asked what she did for a living - her stance and build weren't exactly normal for a civilian, but normally they would either simply nod and move on, or make no sign of acknowledgement at all before moving on. The last person, though, had taken note of her choice of wording, and of all things had offered her a job - not that it paid well (or at all, really), but it was something to do, something to keep her occupied. The job itself hadn't exactly been all that much in the end - just hunting some creature roughly an hour's flight north of there - but it had turned her onto a community of individuals like her, people who had also called themselves hunters. More work, and more to keep her busy, something that she had greatly appreciated both then and now.

Not all of said jobs were as clean cut as she'd had initially hoped, though - almost as soon as she completed one job she was onto the next, and as time went on she'd started to look for harder and harder ones, hunts that would actually challenge her. Hunting monsters was a good way to keep her mind off things, but after a while they stopped being so easy to find - what had started to pop up more recently, though, was something she hadn't liked at all. After Aether and SR388, the rumors she was hearing concerning possessions was news she took very seriously - while she didn't put much stock into the other hunters' claims of "demons", she'd seen enough of the Ing and X to know that there were things out there quite capable of accomplishing what the other hunters she ran into every now and then claimed them to be capable - vastly increased strength, regenerative abilities, and that harming the host would often do nothing to the creature inside. What she hadn't been prepared for, though, was the reality of actually tracking one of the things down, one of the few things her precognitive abilities seemed at all good for anymore these days.

As she stood on the city sidewalk, doing her best to casually blend into the crowd at a bus stop while clad in green, utilitarian clothing, Samus waited for her target to exit the building he'd entered - a normal looking guy, probably in his mid forties, but who'd set her on edge ever since she'd laid eyes on him, her instincts telling her to just turn and walk the other way. She hadn't been sure of it, though, until she'd found the man's workplace - the front doors, always surrounded by the frame of retractable iron barring used as a security measure at night, were never used, the man always taking the back entrance into the building. She hadn't thought of it as any more but coincidence until she'd begun talking to the neighbors, though - until about a month ago he'd always used the front entrance, reserving the back one for deliveries to the shop. While she still didn't put much stock into the other hunters' claims, though, it did match up with some of what she'd been told by them - the only question now, though, is what she'd actually do with him when she caught him.

As the back door to the building started to open, the end of the work day having rolled around, Samus shrank to the back of the crowd, remaining out of sight as the man exited the building, locked the door and left the alley, beginning to move down the sidewalk and back towards his apartment. Whatever she did, it wasn't going to be in public - too many eyes and ears, and as he began his trek back home, Samus subtly moved to break from her place at the bus stop, casually following him from across the street and taking pains to stay out of sight.

[dean]

Another day another demon hunt. At least, that's what it felt like for Dean, especially since Lucifer was out of the Cage again. With all these demons running around, he barely had time for anything else. When he did have time, it was usually spent hunting other monsters or at a bar looking for jobs. Hunting wasn't exactly made easy by those rifts, which were constantly bringing in new monsters for Dean to hunt. Today, it was another demon. This one was apparently hiding more than the other demons usually did, considering that most demons ran around doing whatever Lucifer wanted.

From what Dean could tell, his target had been possessed about a month ago. Pretty recent possession, considering he knew some demons who had been possessing the same guy for a year, or even a few years. The demon had continued on with his shell's regular life {in some ways}, which was sort of weird. On the other hand, Dean didn't really try to understand demons too much. The only thing he wanted to know about demons is how to kill them - and he definitely knew that. For the time being, Dean was waiting outside the building in the Impala. Soon enough, the work day would be over and he'd probably leave. As much as he'd love to kill the demon right there with the Colt and end it, that would attract too much attention. He'd have to follow the demon.

Soon enough, the demon left the building and began walking down the street. Dean started driving after him, which proved to be a bit inconvenient, considering that the work day had just ended and everyone was trying to get back home. But follow him he did, unknowingly following Samus as well.