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[everythinglost]

Call for a good time

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[wildguardian]

"It's really not," Yunlan agrees. "Especially not when that's a place tossing around superpowered time ship level technology."

With a click of his tongue, he adds, "And trying to enslave ships with human minds, at that. Not great."

[everythinglost]

"Yeah, something about how you can't let war make what is expedient be chosen over what's right. Though while it was a pretty good speech, I'm not sure if there were really that many morals there to be thrown aside in the first place."

[wildguardian]

"Uh huh." He clicks his tongue against his teeth again, thoughtful. "Who was giving who that speech?"

[everythinglost]

"The Doctor polished up various parts of it. Though I don't think he managed to ever give them the full thing. But he was more upset about the Madame President when it came to expectation of having at least one moral. They used to travel together. And definitely had a thing, though he'd never admit that she dumped him and then went and got an actual job." Whatever else, despite everything else, the memories lend a fondness to his tone.

[wildguardian]

"So... damn near his whole planet went off the rails about this war of theirs, huh?"

[everythinglost]

"Oh, definitely all of it. Though it also never started. Time travel, it can do your head in."

[wildguardian]

"Stopping the war involved making it so it never started-- that kind of thing?"

He shakes his head.

"--Who won?"

[everythinglost]

"Which is even more of a headache because we came across the war being fought a few times. Which was always awful, in case you were wondering." He shakes his head, too, forgetting to be careful of any headache.

"No one. And I don't mean in a dramatic, Pyrrhic victory way. I mean that both sides of the war now have never existed."

[wildguardian]

Yunlan's eyebrows go up. "And that's not a dramatic Pyrrhic victory? Wasn't your Doctor on one side of that war?"

[everythinglost]

“The universe suffered but I’m still not sure it counts if only five or so people know what never happened.” He lights another cigarette.

“No, he was one of those people who don’t participate on moral grounds. You can kidnap him to try to make weapons and then find you really can’t make him sort of thing.”

[wildguardian]

"Conscientious objector?" Yunlan suggests. He doesn't think "pacifist" actually is the right word, considering.

[everythinglost]

"Yeah, that's the one. He can be a hypocrite, but he wasn't about that."

[wildguardian]

"Stakes like that," Yunlan sighs, "I'm glad he decided not to be a hypocrite about it."

[everythinglost]

"He doesn't like wars, but there are times you have to fight. And there are times when you have to say that joining a fight would be unforgivable. So, he's one of the only ones left."

[wildguardian]

"That's a hard place to be in." His tone is thoughtful, but not particularly pitying. It's also a lucky escape -- getting out before your entire damn species manages to obliterate itself in a causality war.

"Well. Sounds like it's a lucky thing that the universe came out of it in one piece. "

[everythinglost]

"It didn't. But, so far, it seems like it can hold together enough for things not to totally fall apart, despite large holes."

[wildguardian]

"Is that why you need to keep up all the patch jobs?"

[everythinglost]

"Mostly, yeah."

It's not something he could admit on the network, or when he wasn't just a step or so past violently hung-over.

[wildguardian]

Yunlan sighs, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. "Sounds to me like a shitty situation all around."

[everythinglost]

“It is, but doesn’t that go for most things?” He scrubs a hand across his face. “I know there’s stuff Anji thinks isn’t - great,” and she at least knows the Doctor. “But there’s stuff she doesn’t get.”

[wildguardian]

"Nobody looking in from the outside ever really gets it," Yunlan concedes. "Though she's probably got a better view than me -- I've never even met the guy.

"But, you know, sometimes the view from outside spots shit you can't see from the inside, too."

[everythinglost]

"She doesn't know most of the stuff about the war. Not about what happened to the Doctor's people, really. She thinks I'm overprotective."

[wildguardian]

"Mm. Like -- overprotective how? I mean, if that shit already happened, in whatever weird-ass causality way 'already' can happen when you're talking time travel, what's he need protecting from?"

[everythinglost]

"Emotionally, mostly. I'm not the one who thinks grabbing a gun and going after deranged cyborgs to play backup is a good idea." He doesn't like how often the Doctor ends up hurt - how close the line between being hurt and hurting yourself can look - but that's not what he and Anji disagree on. "But she doesn't know what he was like, before. He's - still recovering."

[wildguardian]

"Yeah, all right," Yunlan says with a quirk of his lips. "Just don't protect him over yourself too much, okay? It never works out the way you want it to."