everythinglost | IC Inbox

everythinglost

Call for a good time

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From:

everythinglost

Perfect, good place to start. And everyone should know at least a bit about cooking.

How about this, I can teach you how to cook some basic stuff. Or you could ask someone you like, as pointed out, we all usually have a bit of space on our schedules. Anyway, once you got that, you could sign up for working in the cafeteria instead. People use that way more than the infirmary, and it fills up more time.

From:

inflexecutioner

[He has a kneejerk internal reaction against the idea of switching, but controls it well enough. And it's never bad to get more training.]

When should I report to you?

From:

everythinglost

Tomorrow afternoon? We can do after lunch, since I don't know what military time you might use.

I'm down on level six, cabin two.

From:

inflexecutioner

Yes, sir.

[He'll be there.]

From:

everythinglost

'After lunch' means that Fitz has been awake long enough to make himself a cup of tea, and so remembers that he'd extended the invitation that he's not confused when Dogma shows up. Just barely, but he still counts that as a win.

"Good morning."

From:

inflexecutioner

".....good morning."

He thought it was afternoon!!! He still has not figured out the local time. He feels stupid, and he hates it. He can keep up, though. It's fine. He just came from the dining hall so he is SURE he is here at the right time.

He doesn't salute, since Fitz said he wasn't military, but he does stand at attention out of sheer nerves and habit.

From:

everythinglost

"Do you want a cuppa?"

Fitz waves towards the table and kettle. His perpetual slouch isn't more pronounced than usual, but Dogma standing at attention doesn't improve his own posture.

From:

inflexecutioner

Quentin has introduced him to tea, fortunately, and he...likes it.

"Yes, please."

From:

everythinglost

"Good man. Sugar?"

He refills his own cup after pouring one for Dogma. Now that he can see him, the feeling of familiarity is striking even harder.

"Are there other people from your universe on board?"

From:

inflexecutioner

Approval! He got something right in that exchange. Dogma seems to warm, a little, although it would be hard to identify the exact change in his expression.

"Yes, please. My brothers Fives and Tup are also on board." Not to mention Cal, Luke, Hux, and Bodhi, but Dogma has no idea about them.

From:

everythinglost

Fitz grins at him, a big believer in liberal applications of sugar.

"Right, Fives, I -" He breaks off when the second name registers, but manages to restrain the urge to snicker through willpower, and a quick gulp of tea. "I've run into him a few times. Don't think I've met the other one." He would remember. "How's that treating you?"

From:

inflexecutioner

"It's...confusing. I'm very grateful! But."

He stops, swallows, stymied. Dogma is not good at talking about his feelings, but in this instance he definitely has several of them.

From:

everythinglost

"I can imagine a lot of reasons it could be... complicated." Ranging from whatever Dogma might feel about his brothers, to what he feels about whatever position they might occupy on the barge. He's always found family complicated, anyway, and that was without any magic prison ships.

"I don't have any brothers. Don't really have any family left, these days. Well." He waves that last off, it's not important at the moment. "So, it's partly imagining that there are parts I couldn't start to think of. Are you from around the same time?" A new and sudden thought, what a way to learn of a death.

From:

inflexecutioner

"They're from a little bit after me," he says. Really, finding out that he died was the first thing on the barge that made any sense.

From:

everythinglost

"Suppose that spares on conversation." Looking at Dogma, he decides it's probably not the time for a joke about people having to like you more after you're dead. "Though I guess that's assuming. It's millions of brothers or something like that, right?"

From:

inflexecutioner

Fives does like him more now that he's dead, and it is very, very disconcerting.

"Yes. But I did know them. Tup is my batchmate."

Fives is....something else.

From:

everythinglost

"Do you like them?"

From:

inflexecutioner

I don't think I was a very good brother, he wants to say, his throat tight. Stupid, self-pitying weakness.

"I. Like Tup. He's my batchmate. He's - good." But he doesn't want me here, he isn't foolish enough to say. "Fives is. Confusing."

Irritating. Brash. Insane. And he does want Dogma here, and nothing is the way it should be and he hates it and he feels so lost.

From:

everythinglost

"Ah. And this place is also pretty confusing. Not just if you're bouncing out of a war, but that's probably pretty high on the list."

From:

inflexecutioner

"Yes, sir." With a small breath of relief at a simple question he knows the answer to.

From:

everythinglost

"How old are you?"

From:

inflexecutioner

"Nine, I think, sir."

From:

everythinglost

Fitz has seen enough of these sorts of things now that he's not shocked, but he still sighs, rubbing a hand through his hair.

"I'd guess 'messing with aging' over 'mind print', right?"

From:

inflexecutioner

"Yes, sir. We age at double the human rate."

He looks even older than that, his nine years lived hard, but even accounting for genetic manipulation, he's still a fresh 18-year-old jarhead at most.

From:

everythinglost

This is just why he dodged National Service. Especially at eighteen, he'd been unable to call anyone 'sir' without heavy sarcasm. He doubts the military would've taken it better than school. Then there's his extreme distaste for every other part of it, especially the bits that can see you dead, but he likes to think there's place for many facets.

"Did you get... satisfaction out of soldiering?" That's not quite the right word, but 'like' doesn't feel right either.