alice liddell (inquisitive) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-03-02 23:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | hoban washburne, plot: switch, simon tam |
WHO: Angie and Lin
WHAT: Hanging out on Serenity and being adorbs
WHERE: IN SPACE
WHEN: Recently
WARNINGS: None!
Lin wasn't normally a morning person. He was a stay-up-until-I-pass-out-then-wake-up-te Winnie was still in the bunk and everywhere else was quiet. There was no pitter patter of psychic little feet on the metal ramparts over the cargo hold, no humming coming from the engine room. There was just Lin, sitting in silence there, staring out at the black that surrounded the ship like an infinite and very heavy blanket. If only he'd managed to snag a book or something before this whole thing happened. At least then he wouldn't only have a bottle of nail polish and the gorram Big Brother internet in Mandarin on his phone to distract himself when it was this quiet. The boy turned to the plastic dinosaurs stuck onto the dash. He found his mind surprisingly empty of criticisms regarding the wonky anatomy and out-of-date appearance of them. Oh. Right. He was a pilot now, not a taphonomist nor a paleoecologist. Just a pilot. “I just love dinosaurs,” Angie sighed from the doorway, soft footsteps walking her forward to behind the pilot’s seat. Though she kept her arms crossed over her chest she couldn’t help but lean forward, trying to not be so obvious (and failing) in wanting to take a closer look. “I mean, this isn’t, you know...” She tossed Lin a knowing look before she tilted her head slightly, mouthing the world real but not quite saying it. It was kind of hard to call a ship or a universe a world of fiction when one was actually in it. “But it’s kinda fun to think that in the future, here but maybe in ours too, that people would still care about dinosaurs.” She stopped right by his seat, hands still to herself because one should not go around touching a man’s dinos without permission, at least she thought so. “But what do I know. I’m on a spaceship,” she still hadn’t mastered the art of now saying that with a tinge of excitement, “without coffee. Nothing I say should be taken with any kind of weight.” A little slow on the uptake, Lin glanced up and turned in his seat just as Angie padded up behind him. He hadn’t had too much of a chance to talk to the woman, but from the little interaction they’d had, he liked her. She wasn’t terrifying, which put her head and shoulders above Olivia. And she wasn’t ...um, River, which put her head and shoulders above March. And she had made a Star Trek reference that one time. That was worth more than everything else put together in the boy’s eyes. Lin smiled at her, watching her trying not to come in too close. “As someone who’s studied dinosaurs for upwards of ten years, I hope people still care about them. I mean, after all, who knows? Maybe the dinos left to colonize other systems. They could’ve been advanced as fuck. Did you ever think of that?” It was his turn to give Angie his own knowing look. He plucked the little plastic figure his brain only registered as a “t-rex” from the dash and held it out to the woman. He spoke in a solemn, ceremonial tone. “This one is very evil. It is for you.” Angie’s hands cupped the toy happily, laughing down to dinosaur, “Because I’m the picture of evil, right?” before heading down to take the empty co-pilot’s chair. Asking seemed unnecessary now. He was sharing his toys. They were practically friends. “Dinosaurs colonizing other planets,” she mused aloud, and with the t-rex in her lap and her fingers drumming gently on its head, her villain-petting-pet stance was complete. “That’s going to break my brain, I just know it.” Then again, hers was suddenly crammed full of advanced space medicine - a feat she was still awed by - so maybe it could take the theoretical notion of reptilian overlords. “But if I could take off and go see other planets, I probably would too.” Looking out the window and seeing the black of space (space!) still humbled her in a way she didn’t want to ever forget. “How are you taking it?” Pausing in her dinopetting she gestured out toward the stars before looking over her shoulder at him. “The whole flying spaceships and suddenly knowing how to do so?” She hadn’t really talked to the rest of the crew much, a mixture of being too busy taking everything in and not knowing what to say to complete strangers in close quarters. But Lin at least they had chatted on their fancy devices. If there was anyone she might try talking to, he was first on her list. The blond hair, the ...er, thinly-veiled desire for world domination that was most certainly there in her eyes, yes. Yes, of course. Angie-cum-Simon was indeed the picture of the purest of evil. Lin laughed both at his own constructed mental image and at the woman’s seemingly effortless transformation into Doctor Claw, the wee t-rex acting as an acceptable stand-in for MAD cat. (That was an Inspector Gadget reference, yes. And, no one could stop him from extending it a bit further to imagine himself as Penny, sans pigtails.) He approved. “I would too. Especially if I were a dinosaur. Imagine the spacesuits.” The boy fetched up another one of the toys, this one a green triceratops, and juggled it in his hands and lifted it to let it, you know, explore space and stuff. He too paused at the next question. The dinosaur fell, with his hands, into his lap and Lin gazed out the front windshield, trying to comprehend the stars and nothingness that lay on the other side. He sighed. It wasn’t that he didn’t like being on Serenity. It was a dream come true, in some ways - but it was also ...not home. And dreams ended. This didn’t seem like it was going to. And as much fun as it was to zip around the cosmos, he also just kind of wanted to go eat a hamburger somewhere and not worry about all of the universe crashing down on him should something puncture the ship. “It’s cool,” he said at long last, trying to emphasize the positive a little bit. Lin swiveled in his seat to look at his very devious co-pilot and pet dino. He shrugged. “I mean, I never thought I’d be here. Ever. Ever. And there’s something satisfying about knowing I could pull some awesome ass tricks. I do kind of want a hamburger though. I wish there was, like, Yelp or something. But, I do have access to a seemingly infinite supply of Hawaiian shirts. So.” There was another smile. “What about you, doctor?” Dinosaurs in spacesuits. Mental images of high tech bodysuits piloting starships with tiny arms made her giggle, softly at first, trying to hide the sound by pressing her fingers to her lips, but dissolving into barks of laughter when it couldn’t be contained. Moments later it drifted off quietly as she fell back against the her chair, staring off to gaze at the stars as the pilot did. She nodded along in assessment, knowing exactly how he felt, her smile fading in sympathy as she realized there were no burgers and what sort of existence is a burger-less one. Not a bad one, per se. Lots of people went without burgers. It would just take a little more adjustment getting used to her being one of them. “Now I miss burgers,” she said a gusty sigh, stray blonde locks pushed off her face. “But I know what you mean. It’s kinda like being on vacation for a long time. At first it’s great. Then you just want to go home. Or maybe you don’t want home, exactly.” Angie wasn’t exactly missing her work. “But just your… home comforts. You want to eat junk food and sit around in your pajamas. Sleep in your own bed. I haven’t slept in quarters this small since college.” Another laugh fell from her lips as she looked down fondly at her pet t-rex and then over at her new partner in crime. “Think we’ll be able to go home soon? You know more about this weirdness than I do. You’re my expert. Or should we start trying to find a planet with cheeseburgers? Well, or some work, I guess.” Wasn’t that always how the Firefly episodes went? Need food, sought work. Found a fight, usually, but maybe they’d get lucky! Angie's laughter almost surprised Lin, who, sad though it was, had found himself growing somewhat accustomed to the more subdued and somber moods of the crew, most of whom, not surprisingly, couldn't often be bothered to so much as crack a smile. It was sad, really. - So the laughing, once it broke free of the woman’s attempt to stifle it, gave him a bit of a scare, but he recovered quickly enough and grinned at her. “At least you have your own quarters,” he said with a pointed look at Angie. It was no secret, of course, that he was sharing one very narrow bed with Winnie, instead of the regular-sized one that belonged to Wash and Zoe. It wasn’t a sore spot, per se, and he was glad to have anywhere at all, but, damn, if that Jayne’s bed wasn’t tiny as fuck and Winnie wasn’t too keen on his masterful cuddling. (Her loss.) Now it was Lin’s turn to sigh, and so he did, playing some more with this triceratops. Did he think they’d be able to go home soon? Honestly, he had no idea. He bit his lip and distracted himself for a few more seconds with the toy before shrugging. “Idk, man. I’m not much of an expert when it comes to actually switching worlds with these people. This has never happened before.” He shook his head, before brightening a little. “But, the last few - uh, other ...times weird shit happened, it ended after a day or two, so ...I don’t think we’ll be here forever. I do think it’d be good to find something to do, though. Maybe it could be a team-building exercise.” Lin smiled again. Angie shrugged helplessly at his pointed reminder, but she didn’t look too embarrassed by it. If she had really known anyone else she would have offered to share (who would turn down friendly cuddling?). But as it stood, they were all making do, just some easier than others. A day or two, or even three didn’t sound so bad. Once reassured that this once long term, she seemed to relax a bit more, the giggle resurfacing as her mind wandered. “Trust falls in space? I guess it’s a good thing we don’t have gravity on our side.” |