Blue Jay Way

[everythinglost]

Who: Fitz & open
What: Getting the lay of the land
When: Early August
Where: around the Clipper
Warnings: tba if needed

Fitz is well aware that it says something about his lifestyle that the Clipper reminds him of several places he's ended up over the years. On the other hand, being chained in a dank basement would also remind him of many places he's been over the years, so he generally figures it's not worth thinking about. The familiarity isn't a good thing - and the lack of cigarettes, drinks or a fudging door just rub in a short list of what he hates about it. But it does stop any particular outbursts of anger. He's not resigned to it, so he keeps his cool.

For the most part, he goes through the motions of playing along. He slouches, half-asleep in the common room during singalong, wincing occasionally. He reads in an overly comfortable chair, trying not to roll his eyes too often at the content. He tries to find someone to sit with during meals, and even actually enjoys the bathhouse. But, while he usually can't muster up actual cheer, there is a certain focus under the surface, which can be rare to see in him.

He's also doing his best to keep an eye on his friends, to see how they're handling it all. After all, part of 'familiar' also means knowing how much it sucks to play along - and some of the consequences to failing to play the part.

Comments

[wildguardian]

"Hey, Fitz," Yunlan calls from a position sprawled dramatically over one of the couches, raising one hand just enough to make it visible over the back cushions. "Where're you off to?"

He, personally, has decided to spend this afternoon flat on a couch unless someone makes him move. He has no job. He has no reading material worth the name. And he can't even get a freaking drink.

It is wearing on him.

[everythinglost]

Fitz wanders over to lean against the back of the couch.

"I was planning on a fun adventure of visualizing I have a cigarette so hard that it would appear in my hand. I might have to put that off, now that I see you're trying to steal my pose."

[wildguardian]

"Your pose? I got here first. My couch, my slouch."

He checks his coat pockets. Lollipop replenishment, still damn near the one decent thing about this hellish ship.

(Lollipop replacement is one; his cat is the other.)

"Lollipop?" he asks, voice dust-dry. "It kind of helps with the cravings."

[everythinglost]

"Your couch, maybe, but don't think I don't recognize an afternoon of not moving because of the pointlessness of everything. Ten cents to me and about six billion teenagers."

He looks at the lollipop with great distaste, before taking it with a slight groan.

"If the Nurse wants to see some freaking smiles on some faces, lack of nicotine is not the way to go. Now, if they want to inspire temptation to violence in a usually peaceful soul..."

[wildguardian]

"Maybe you could talk them into a nicotine patch. Seems like they're all in favor of better living through chemistry around here, just not the recreational variety."

Yunlan unwraps another lollipop for himself, not even bothering to lift his head from his couch-cushion sprawl.

"I'm thinking," he adds, wrinkling his nose at Fitz.

[everythinglost]

"I have a strict policy about not accepting non-recreational chemicals from people I don't trust."

He raises an eyebrow.

"Oh, really? What great boulders of cognition have got you waylaid this fine afternoon?"

[wildguardian]

"You accept the recreational ones from people you don't trust? Fitz, Fitz. That's not the right set of priorities at all.

"Anyway, I'm just musing on the obvious things," he adds with a wave of one dramatic hand overhead. "Revolution, the nature of justice, how long it'd take to cut down a big-ass tree with a butter knife."

[dragonwithagirltattoo]

Louise inches closer to Fitz during singalong, and starts inserting words under her breath as replacements when she thinks most people can't hear.

She gets her most leverage out of a song about foods. 'Big butt' for 'doughnut'. 'Poop chute' for 'grapefruit.' 'Stab' for 'crab'.

It's the little rebellions that make her happy.

[everythinglost]

Fitz raises a hand to cover a yawn, and a grin. Always nice to see children with a proper attitude towards the world.

"Pure art, kid."

[dragonwithagirltattoo]

"Thanks." She whispers back, bored out of her skull.

She reaches across her back to shake Fitz's hand, hidden.

"I'm Louise. You a Barge Bunny?"

[everythinglost]

"Fitz. And Barge Rabbit, at best. Do you get to be Clipper Cats?"

[dragonwithagirltattoo]

"Sh-yeah." She nods, preferring the name to any other.

"So what are you? Patient or Assistant? Or transitioning?"

[everythinglost]

"Oh, patient all the way. Completely off my head."

[consolidator]

The Doctor is most certainly not playing along, not this time round. He's generally polite, because that remains his default, but there's no attempt to suppress snarking, eye rolling, or the occasional nerve pinch. (Does it ever end well? No. Is it worth it? Yes.)

His interest in the sudden flood of new arrivals is both immediate and blatant; there's no need to pretend something like that isn't intriguing. Naturally, he waves one of them over when he's looking for a place to sit. Black velvet, leather jacket; neither of them match their surroundings even slightly and he finds that very appealing.

"Settling in all right?"

[everythinglost]

There's something familiar about the man. Fitz can't pin down exactly 'what' at just a glance, after all, traveling as he does, he runs into a lot of things and people that feel vaguely familiar. It's not accompanied by alarm, so he doesn't hesitate to join him, putting his feet up on a low table that wasn't meant to have boots on it.

"Not so bad. I won't say seen one sickly saccharine space prison seen them all, but there are similarities. Long term resident?"

[consolidator]

There's a reflexive grimace, before he remembers where he is and why; then it morphs into a wryly approving grin.

(He's not going to do it himself. But he approves.)

"Unfortunately." Not the whole truth, but it doesn't need to be. "You're from another ship, aren't you?"

[everythinglost]

"Yeah, formerly of the Barge, like the rest of new maniacs you've no doubt noticed running around the place. What did you used to do before you were scooped up by the Nurse."

He refrains from jazz hands, though he doesn't think they'd be totally inappropriate.

[consolidator]

He can't help it; he glances upwards and says, "I was a Doctor" with all the righteous indignation he can muster.

Then he takes a decidedly grumpy bite of his sandwich. "And yourself?"

[everythinglost]

Perhaps it was seeing him talk with Iris, perhaps it's the faint memories of leaning over Sam's shoulder as she tried to explain that all the pictures are the same person, perhaps it's just that, whatever the face or voice, he'll always recognize that righteous indignation.

On first impression, people have described Fitz as shifty, unreliable looking, perpetually sardonic, and worse. On the whole, this is because people are pretty good at forming accurate impressions - even if they might later gain some, possibly deserved, depth. The second impression many people get, especially in times of trouble, is that Fitz has a friend called the Doctor who is extremely important to him.

He grins, the shadows erased from his expression for a moment, leaving him looking younger and much happier. "Oh, you know, I was just doing a little traveling around the universe with a friend. Actually, it's all his fault I know what these sorts of places are like. He gets into just shocking amounts of trouble, a terrible influence."

[abrightboy]

"It's Fitz, right?"

Malcolm is wearing a crisp suit and has a file under his arm. It isn't Fitz's file; he's not assigned to Fitz. He just sees taking a general interest in the well being of all the patients as part of his job as an assistant.

"How are you feeling today?"

[everythinglost]

"That's me."

Fitz is leaning back, as much as he can given the 'safety' constraints, in a chair, feet up on a table. He looks Malcolm over, making the great concession not to just close his eyes. Even with that question.

"Deeply traumatized," delivered cheerfully, and with finger-guns.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm breathes out a huff of a laugh.

"By this place or is that why you're here?"

[everythinglost]

"Oh, definitely this place. It's the feeling of being dropped into the nut-house. You know one of those, I always knew it was coming but doesn't make it any better sorts of things."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm steps around to sit down opposite him.

"What makes you think it was inevitable?"

[everythinglost]

He taps his right temple with a finger a few times, in the not necessarily international sign for crazy. "Runs in the family and so on."

He shrugs. "Of course, then it turned out to be aliens, but that doesn't mean shaking old assumptions of what your future would be."