worthallthis: (wary)
worthallthis ([personal profile] worthallthis) wrote in [community profile] theclipper_tlv2022-08-01 03:00 pm

Not A Safe Space [OTA]

Who: B and OTA
Where: Various, see prompts
When: First half of August
Warnings: PTSD reactions, some disassociation


I. Arrival

The first thing B does upon arrival is check his cabin. Sure enough, there are dogs, cats, goats, a dinosaur egg, and his goddamn left arm in there. The arm's connectors no longer work, but hey, the Nurse thoughtfully left him the arm itself. At least there's a promise he might be able to use it again someday.

He sits on the bed for a little while, hugging confused dogs, petting cats, shoving goats away from his blankets dammit, and trying not to cry. He's not back home. There's a chance the Authority will change their mind. This is temporary. It's temporary.

Then he shoves his backpack and some of those afore-mentioned blankets into his closet to keep them all safe from the animals and treks out to explore his now (temporary) home. He's relatively okay, giving the soft and rounded furniture a look that's more amused than disturbed, until he finds sickbay, and hears about the padded rooms. The forced sedation. The button on his wrist-band that paralyzes people.

Then he disappears for a while into his room to panic.


II. Goat Removal

Okay. He's okay. He'll manage. He's managed with worse. First things first, find somewhere else for the goats, because they cannot live in his tiny cabin room. B spends a while knocking on cabins with doors, looking for one that's empty. If he hits yours, you'll get a sheepish smile, and, "Sorry, just looking for an empty one."

When he finally finds one on his floor, then it's time to remake it all over again. He hauls a mattress out and down the hall to his own room. He requisitions some ratty blankets and some dirt and the closet thing to hay he can get from the Nurse, and turns the spare cabin into at least an approximation of the room they had on the Barge. Then he can be found guiding the goats out of his room and into the new one.

And then doing some cleaning on his room, because, y'know. Goats.


III. Custodial

B enjoys cleaning things, so being put on custodial is fine by him. He spends a solid chunk of his time quietly using his single remaining arm to scrub something, or polish something, or do laundry. He oversees any patients who want to show up for their allotted time leniently. He'll encourage work, but won't force it.

B won't force anybody to do anything. He won't. That's not how you make people happy.

But he does play music sometimes, while he works. Anyone working with him on any given day can scrub to the sound of 30s jazz or 90s pop or occasionally a bit of 70s glam. None of the songs that mention violence remain among his CD collection, but that still leaves a lot to choose from.


IV. Pet Project

The rest of B's time he spends in the common room with two dogs, two cats (the kennel cat came, as well), and two goats, hemmed in with some of the furniture to make a pen that the goats try to climb out of (but B stops them; this is why there's only two of them, so he can keep an eye). "Daily animal time's still happening," he tells anyone who comes by, with a small but friendly smile. "It helps. Promise."

Surely the Nurse can't complain about something that makes people smile the way animals make people smile.

The cats can be found anywhere in the common room, not trapped by the couches and over-turned tables, but B keeps an eye on them regardless. It wouldn't do for someone to snatch one or anything.


V. Falling Apart

B has seventy years of putting on a mask at his disposal, for his public face. Of course, HYDRA didn't want him smiling, didn't want him showing emotion of any kind except occasionally fear, but the skill isn't really much different when you're masking with a smile than a blank face.

It doesn't mean he's not a complete wreck inside. He only uses the big public showers late at night, when hopefully no one else is in there-- and if someone else comes in, he hurriedly finishes up and grabs a towel to wrap himself up in. It's not that he has problems with nudity, exactly... it's that he cannot be naked in a big open space like this without his brain trying to throw HYDRA images at him.

People coming up behind him make him visibly flinch, though he quickly brushes it off with the same small smile he wears all the time and an apology. "Just kind of jumpy today, I guess."

He spends more time staring at the buffet-style meals than he should, tray in his single hand and trembling a little with his tension, stymied by choice again for the first time in years.


VI. Communication - for the Clipper

The Barge was a living, feeling creature, B knows. She communicated. She found ways. B has to wonder if this ship speaks, too, in her own way. Some evenings, he'll wander the halls and tap on the walls in Morse code. Hello, are you there? Will you speak with me? He has no piano, here, but he'll organize the scrabble letters into the same message, or play songs from his CDs in the hopes of conveying the message.

Will you speak, Clipper?
packhound: (pic#15825920)

[personal profile] packhound 2022-08-04 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
"Thanks!" He drops his attempt to sit cross-legged, instead rolling over to lie on his stomach holding it out to try to tempt the cat closer. "I didn't know cats like cheese."
hisblueskies: Blond-haired boy stares slightly off-center, concerned look on his face. He is outside. (serious plotting)

<3

[personal profile] hisblueskies 2022-08-04 08:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Alfredo's issues with the Nurse are rather more philosophical than behavioral, for both better and worse.

"No trouble, sir. B," he amends, reaching up to firmly-if-gently take those folded blankets.

"I'm Alfredo," he adds, once they're moving again. And, a little later,

"... Did anyone talk to you, before you got here? To offer a- deal, of some kind?"

The preteen's voice is quiet, heaviness behind the words like the memory of a storm.

"Or were you just brought here?"
wildguardian: (actual deduction)

[personal profile] wildguardian 2022-08-05 12:56 am (UTC)(link)
"There is a cartoon. Kind of old -- 80s vintage? -- and I think it's Japanese," Yunlan muses. "You're probably right about the wipes, but I'm not big on the scent, either."

It's not that it's citrus that bothers him; it's the artificial edge to it. Shen Wei'd used some kind of natural cleaning product with a much nicer odor.

"And I have to admit this all seems just a little like bullshit to me."
goosethief: (Default)

[personal profile] goosethief 2022-08-05 06:52 am (UTC)(link)
"I'll be here!" he promises brightly. "I can help with milking, too. I'm real good. I can get it in the cat's mouth from the other side of the barn!"

Nevermind that the goal is to get the milk in the bottles.
Edited 2022-08-05 06:52 (UTC)
whippersnapped: (almost smiling)

[personal profile] whippersnapped 2022-08-05 06:54 am (UTC)(link)
"I'm Marsh."

He still feels weird, sometimes, telling his name to someone he doesn't know, an adult at that, even though there's no way to tell just from the name that he's a half-breed, or that anyone else here cares.

"I know it can be a big change, for - depending on where you came from. But this is a good place."
thenurse_tlv: (clipper)

[personal profile] thenurse_tlv 2022-08-05 06:58 am (UTC)(link)
The tiles fall; many of them are upside-down, showing only blank backs. Some letters are in isolation. Near the center of the pile are a few clusters of face-cup letters, pointing the same right way up, in only slightly crooked lines.

II I

CLP

SSHP

OWRU


hisblueskies: Blond-haired boy, eyebrows mostly straight with a serious expression. (A Serious Boy)

[personal profile] hisblueskies 2022-08-07 02:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Alfredo gives B a knowing look.

"That's true," he says softly, though the tone isn't as easy to discern.

"It's easier not to get a deal here, than to see it through. I'm not sure the Nurse knows when to stop looking after someone. Even if a Patient graduates all the way and goes home... they don't always stay that way."

It doesn't sound exactly like that's what has happened to Alfredo himself, but he has been here long enough to see it happen a few times.
wildguardian: (distance)

[personal profile] wildguardian 2022-08-07 02:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Yunlan's silent for a long moment. "Well, isn't that one heck of a nostalgia trip," he says at last. When he glances up at B, his gaze is dark with understanding.

Yeah, he remembers what B had told him about the place he was before the Barge.

"I can't say I've been having much fun here," he adds, with a sharp-toothed smile. "But then, I don't think you can cure angry with nice. I think you have to cure angry with justice."
whippersnapped: (Default)

[personal profile] whippersnapped 2022-08-07 03:09 pm (UTC)(link)
"Okay. If you need a break sometimes where people won't see you, I can let you use my room," he offers.

Sometimes Marsh needs to be furious and miserable where no one will see - usually not because of the Clipper itself, but just because of the unfairness of it all, and how bad he misses Kel, how worried he is about ever getting back - but at least he already knows how to cry very quietly.
goosethief: (orly)

[personal profile] goosethief 2022-08-07 03:13 pm (UTC)(link)
"Barn cats can have a little milk, as payment for catching all the barn mice," Jedao explains.

"And I've got great aim. I can get a river dragon in the eye at 200 paces! Nurse won't let me have my gun, though."

From the brief pout that takes over his relentless excitement, this is an old point of contention.
thenurse_tlv: (clipper)

[personal profile] thenurse_tlv 2022-08-07 03:52 pm (UTC)(link)
This time, it's not the letters. It's the shape of all the tiles as they fall. Two little piles, one long arc, and a connect-the-dots curving shape all the way around: a happy face inside a heart, a little lopsided but unmistakable.
Edited 2022-08-07 15:53 (UTC)
packhound: (Default)

[personal profile] packhound 2022-08-08 12:50 am (UTC)(link)
"I don't like cheese," Mikodez informs him, seriously.

"Apples can be okay," he tells C, resisting the urge to try to pet her just because she's in reach.

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