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[everythinglost]

Call for a good time

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[everythinglost]

"Really? I thought that was partly to make it easier to put a hat on. Or do you just use ear muffs? I've gotten some terrible hat hair, but better than not having ears."

That's philosophy.

[crab_rangoon]

"No. I endured it for the sake of not looking like a goddamn idiot," he tells him. "And I just didn't go out in the winter months. Really, seems like an idiotic option."

[everythinglost]

"That's certainly the shut in option." He shrugs. "Your hair does look good, but I like hats. Not when you always have to wear them, that's a pain, but they can really offset an outfit."

[crab_rangoon]

"I was born in the sixties. I can appreciate a good hat," he tells him, like that has any meaning. "But None of the functional sorts are the ones I want to wear. Fitz, please have some dignity."

He's completely lost the plot at this point, but if he's being honest with himself, he prefers this. It's a nice distraction, they're having fun, and it's nice to simply be silly.

[everythinglost]

"Every time you say that, it's like I can see time for a moment. I think I could pull off being eighty, but also I'd definitely be dead before then." He waves a hand. "I have style, I have never claimed dignity. There's vague sort proof that some gods might exist, claiming that could lead to being hit by lightning. That wouldn't do anything for my hair."

[crab_rangoon]

"Eighty," he sighs. "Why is it that so many of my friends are time traveling strangers?"

He uncrosses his legs, switches them. "What was it like? Before you went gallivanting off with your main character hero?"

[everythinglost]

"Maybe it's because you're such an old soul. Or because this ship has highly unusual percentages. One or the other."

He's just going to ignore that description of the Doctor, "Awful, just completely awful. Maybe someone was having a good time in 1963, though I can't imagine who, but it certainly wasn't me. 'Dreary and monotonous' are almost in the category of positive adjectives in comparison to most of the other ones I'd use. And I was twenty-seven then. Being a teenager in the 1950s was even worse."

[crab_rangoon]

"That depends on where in the 1950s, doesn't it?" he challenges.

[everythinglost]

"Does it?" He honestly kind of skeptical. "Well, if there was a pleasant version it sure as fuck wasn't the one where you're in London and don't have any money. Obviously, being in the fucking country or something would've been worse but I've never needed comparisons for something to suck."

[crab_rangoon]

He laughs, but he understands. "That would have been my mother. She fucked off from London to Hong Kong and found my father, who did have money. So the late 50s weren't so bad for her."

He points to Fitz. "That was your probably. You needed someone like that. What do they call them? Sugar mamas? Sugar daddies?" He leans forward. "Is that what your doctor was?"

[everythinglost]

He nods, "That's the way to do it. The best I usually got was the woman who worked at the greengrocer's down the road giving me good exchange on the fruit and veg. Which isn't the most dramatic story of advancement in the world."

Since he doesn't have anything else, he throws his handkerchief at Pagan, proving his mother correct in it being good sense to make sure you always have one to spare. "Fuck off," he fails at sounding annoyed, if that's what he's attempting. "The Doctor's the guy that lets me be a total freeloader. Pretty sure there's a difference."

[crab_rangoon]

Pagan just gives him a long look, watching the handkerchief flutter down in front of him.

"No, my boy. I don't think there is at all."

[everythinglost]

"There is!" Fitz insists, he doesn't need anything to support him when he decides to sound certain.

[crab_rangoon]

"How?" he insists.

Better back up that bullshit, friend.

[everythinglost]

"We don't have sex, so that's basically the whole definition gone right there." He's not sure what the actual definition is, but he's still pretty sure he's right.

"Plus, it's not really like the Doc pays for stuff with his money, exactly. Don't think 'better at confidentially stealing shit' counts."

[crab_rangoon]

"I don't think it has to do with sex," he points out. "But you think what you want."

He also isn't completely convinced Fitz and the Doctor don't have sex. But that's not something he's going to get out of Fitz at all.

[everythinglost]

"If it's not sex, what's the point? If you're going beyond a single escort for an event or whatever. And even that seems to encourage blurred lines."

He makes a face, actually, no, not something he wants to think about. Permanently not thinking about Carmodi is always for the best.

[crab_rangoon]

Pagan holds up a hand. "That is entirely out of my experience, honestly. That's something that I was never into."

He shakes his head. "Even as a young man, surrounded by the other old men of my father's time? That was their business. Not mine."

[everythinglost]

"The money's usually much more worth it than other jobs. And I don't think it's just because I hate work, thought I definitely do. Man, status symbols can be kind of weird, can't they. I don't know if it's more or less when you're talking groups like organized crime."

He tilts his head.

"What did you want your business to be? I know you didn't want it to be like your father, be part of the future, but that suggests something before going off to be king of this different country."

[crab_rangoon]

"I was going to reform it. Expand. Fashion it more like the mafia instead of just a bunch of fucking thugs beating each other for power and money." He shrugs. "It was 1988 and they wanted to do business like we were still in the 60s. They wanted to invest in bullshit. They wanted to keep all the money in Hong Kong. But the place was opening up. They built the rail line. There were talks with the US. But they wanted to keep everything to their old friends and their old ways."

He shrugs. "They didn't think any of my ideas were worth considering. That and I spent a good portion of my father's money hiring mercenaries because I knew those fuckers would turn on me. They didn't seem to like that."

[everythinglost]

"I'm shocked they weren't fans of that. Amazed, really. Could even get to mildly surprised, but that would probably be pressing it."

He shakes his head.

"I'm not surprised, but wanting to do business like its the 60s is always a warning sign. And the older generation always seems to have a real problem with change. Which isn't surprising, either, but even if it always seems to be that way, part of me still feels that when things have changed enough that you can carry around a mobile telephone, then they've changed enough that people should have to admit it."

[crab_rangoon]

"But they didn't! Their minions had phones, but they didn't. I had a phone. Big fucking thing that it was. But it existed!"

He sighs. "Well, it doesn't matter. I left and I still got to keep my title. Just pushed the drugs from Kyrat to Singapore and cut them the fuck out of the deals."

[everythinglost]

"I'd hope you'd at least have a phone." Pagan had still been young, which, as Fitz had said, does sometimes do his head in a bit when he thinks of where he'd be in the '80s without time travel. "They clearly lacked proper paranoia." Personally, he doesn't think he'd be keen on not having a phone when his minions did. Seems like just setting yourself up.

"Are you still thinking of going back to Kyrat?"

[crab_rangoon]

"Yes." The answer comes out steady. "There is nowhere else for me to go. And I am too old to try for another world."

[everythinglost]

Fitz nods, seriously. "It's true. You are getting up there in the whole age department."