George Camarine (cursed_prince) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-02-02 18:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | dinah madani, george camarine |
WHO: George Camarine and Dinah Madani
WHERE: Towel-folding workshop
WHEN: Backdated to Jan 7
WHAT: Learning to fold cute towel animals without destroying anything in the process
RATING: PG
STATUS: log; completed
George had been taught how to fold towels before - but at that time, it had been how to properly roll up a towel to best use as a strangulation device. He’d worked on everything from handkerchiefs to hand towels to giant drapes. He’d done very well at that particular lesson - although he’d gotten points docked for being a little too overenthusiastic in using his towel weaponry on his brother. (That’d been Jack’s fault, though. He really shouldn’t have left that dead rat in George’s lunch bag when it was Turkey Tuesday.) He was doing very well in this lesson too. Contrary to his claims in the network, he had neither set fire to anyone nor destroyed the room. He’d instead followed along very obediently with the robot teacher’s instructions and ended up with an intricately folded bird’s nest complete with mama bird feeding a chocolate covered peanut to her waiting baby. Pleased with his work, he glanced over to see how Dinah was doing. “How’s the sting ray coming along?” Where George had proven to be rather good at this animal towel making, Dinah was not. She wasn’t the creative type by any means. She was a strategist, a soldier, not an artist. However, she showed no signs of frustration with even this simple stingray. It was what it was and Dinah wasn’t going to cry over something so trivial. She also wasn’t as enthusiastic as George. She kept her usual straight face as the robots demonstrated various folding techniques, studying them as they proceeded. Dinah had a tendency to cover up her emotions, and she did it rather well. There were few times she had broken down and expressed herself, this would be no such time because it was a towel animal and therefore just a fun activity. Which is what she tried to make it. Dinah wasn’t the best at the non-adult fun, okay? Guns, fighting, alcohol, sex. Those were her go-to activities. A little grin appeared on her face at his question. Maybe the little stingray didn’t look as elegantly made as his bird’s nest, but it also didn’t look terrible. “Not bad for a first try. Could look worse.” She messed with one of the corners to make it look slightly more appealing. “Didn’t blow anything up,” she added with a smug look on her face. “Really, that’s the main goal here,” George agreed. He didn’t try to flatter her by telling her the stingray looked amazing, because it didn’t. But she’d survived her first towel-folding experience, and no one was dead from it. That was, as the young kids were wont to say, a win. “You want to tempt fate and try another one?” He waved a towel at her. “Cute animals are all and fine, but I’m sure between the two of us we can make Godzilla destroy Tokyo.” For the most part, Dinah was suspicious when anyone used flattery on her. She thought most people were full of shit and she had learned over the years that it was a mistake to trust almost anyone. It had almost cost her her life recently and she was damned if she let that happen again. There was nothing wrong meeting people, sure, but she didn't have to trust them. She knew her little stingray looked okay at best. Hey, at least she had agreed to do something even remotely artsy. Her hands were meant to protect others, not make art for them. “Godzilla,” she said with a considering look and shrugged. “Sure, why not?” She proceeded to take apart her stingray, something she was sure a child would have felt bad about. But Dinah didn't hold much sentiment in these things. It was just a pile of towels to her. “Where do we start?” she asked, waving one of the towels in a surrender motion. “I think we can adapt a monkey shape for it,” George said thoughtfully. He’d just have to change the shape of the snout. “And then use other towels as rubble.” He was already shaking out his bird’s nest as he spoke; he wasn’t the sentimental sort either. Well, not with things, anyway. As he flipped through the instruction pamphlet for monkey-making instructions, he glanced over at her. “Do you get a chance to get into artistic ventures at home?” “Whatever you think’ll work. You're better at this than you claim,” she said with a hint of amusement. She'd follow his lead in this new towel animal adventure, because she was obviously not the best at this. While he flipped through the book she set out some towel in a neat pile. Maybe she wasn't great with the creative aspect, but she did like order. “It's never been very important,” she said casually as she continued to make a pile. “Not much time for it when you're trying to keep people safe.” “I’m just anal retentive about following instructions,” George said modestly. “Ah. Here it is: monkey. We will need one hand towel and two face towels.” He held his hand out like a surgeon requesting tools. “You mentioned you had a partner,” he continued. “Were you in law enforcement?” Dinah stopped herself from saying she was the same. She was to some extent, but when it came to life or death situations she threw caution to the wind to get her people out of whatever was happening. She would follow the rules, but if someone needed help she would be there with her gun at the ready. She had not listened to her superiors on more than one occasion. She glanced at her neatly made pile and picked out what he he asked for and handed it to him. Dinah tensed up at the mention of Stein, her most recent partner. She had had more than one over the last several years. If she was being realistic, she would consider Wolf a partner as well, but he had turned out to be an enemy all along. Technically, she had lost three partners over the last several years. She was beginning to think she was cursed. “Homeland security,” she said. “Former military.” George nodded, curiosity satisfied. She hadn’t struck him as someone who’d been in local law enforcement. He’d encountered his fair share of them, and they didn’t have the same haunted look as Dinah did: that of someone who’d seen war. “My brother-in-law was military,” he said as he worked on shaping the monkey. He had long, slender fingers. Good for playing the piano, his tutor had told him. Also good for gauging people’s eyes out, as Madame V had taught him. “He’s the best man I know. On days when I’m feeling particularly full of myself, I like to think perhaps one day I could be half the person he is.” Dinah didn’t often go into details about her job. It was classified and that’s all people needed to know. Besides, last time she gave more information than necessary it had nearly cost her her life as well as the lives of others. Dinah regretted ever letting Russo into her life. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. Dinah smirked, “Striving to be even a quarter of the good men is noble. Believe me, I’ve tried, but sometimes we are what we are and we can only be as good as we want to be. If you want to be like him, you can be.” Dinah didn’t know his brother-in-law or what his story was, but if George believed him to be a good man then who was she to argue? “Well, there are a few complicating factors,” George said. He didn’t say what they were, though. If she was curious enough, she’d ask. He might even answer. Carefully, he folded up the face towel and adjusted the width of the snout. “Hmm. What do you think? Lizardy enough?” “What are they, if you don’t mind my asking?” Oh, Dinah was always curious. In her line of work she had to be, even when she wasn’t interrogating someone. She could be distant and give few details about herself. So far, she had given more information to George than necessary. She wasn’t going to divulge any more than she felt he ought to know. So far he had been friendly, so she would pay him the same respect. She observed the snout and gave a little shrug, “I suppose so. Then again, how lizard-like can we get with a bunch of towels?” “He’s a much nicer person than me, for one,” George said. Anyone who knew either of them would scoff at that claim, though. Declan was the one in the Red Legion, that branch of the military that took assignments no one wanted to - or could - admit to ordering. George was the one who hated so much to see things die that he’d given up most of his life force to resurrect any small woodland animal he came across. The difference between them, though, was that Declan could see the bigger picture. He did things no one should because he was the Marshal of the Southern Provinces and he was going to protect the people in his care, even if it meant giving up his soul. George resurrected things because he was selfish. He wanted to see them continue to live, regardless of what they wanted. And these days, he killed more than he resurrected. Underlying all that, however, was the fact that Declan was a Blueblood and could do whatever he wanted. George was an Edge Rat. No matter how pretty his manners or how great his accomplishments, he’d never have half the opportunities Declan did by virtue of his birth. And so he’d never be able to make things different and better for people like Declan did. All he could do was work from the shadows. It was hard to explain to someone who didn’t know the politics of the Weird, though. “I think the key here,” he said, directing the conversation back to the towel, “is to use your imagination. It can look like anything you want, then.” And indeed, he had managed to make the snout look more lizardy than monkey-like. An eyebrow raised sharply at that first bit. “I can’t imagine anyone getting much nicer than you.” Thus far, he had been positively pleasant to her in every respect. Friendly, nice, joking every now and then. Of course, Dinah had known charismatic men who had turned out to be psychopaths. There was always room for surprises. She also didn’t know George in a personal level, so she would keep her guard up even if she thought he was pleasant. Dinah knew nothing of his world. She couldn’t recall where he said he came from, or if he had ever said to begin with. She wouldn’t understand how his world worked, that was true. But she had also seen a lot of strange things in her life, especially over the recent years. Her dark eyes gazed at the towel as she tried to imagine it a lizard. If she thought about it hard enough, she could see it shape into what might resemble a lizard. “Perhaps. I’m more technicalities and seeing what’s in front of me. If I were on the job I’d see a towel bunched up into some kind of animal.” But seeing it a certain way… that could potentially help in future investigations. “Criminals leave interesting clues,” she said thoughtfully. George smiled. It made him look positively angelic. The sunlight might’ve even come in at that moment, turning his hair into burnished gold. “I hope one day you can say so to my sister. She’s not entirely convinced, sometimes.” Although most of the grief George had ever given her was on Jack’s behalf. It was impossible to keep his own hands clean trying to keep his brother out of trouble. He continued to tug and arrange the towels as he talked. “But surely even an investigator needs some imagination, at least enough to extrapolate from the clues?” Dinah smirked, “Maybe one day I will. Then again, I don’t know you all that well apart from our brief conversations over the network.” She knew better than to ever let her guard down. She had learned the hard way that charming didn’t necessarily mean innocent. Dinah hadn’t had the pleasure of having any siblings, although she had heard enough over the year about sibling rivalry and competition. She felt as though she hadn’t missed out, as some people said on occasion. She handed him a new towel whenever he needed one, usually a new one in hand as she anticipated his need. “Maybe a little,” she said with a hint of a grin. George smiled at her as he took the last towel. “This isn’t a very big ship,” he said. “And Tumbleweed isn’t a very big town. I’m sure we’ll all get to know each other very well.” He made a few more arrangements, then stepped back to give her a clear view of the scene he’d constructed. Again, for someone who claimed to have no talent when it came to towel-folding, it was impressive. “You may have to use your imagination on this.” That’s what Dinah was afraid of. Getting to know people. On one hand it was good to branch out and meet others, on the other she had been betrayed very recently and her defensive mode had been set ever since. “I suppose we’ll see about that.” Stepping back to get a better view, Dinah instinctively crossed her arms as though she was observing a crime scene. “I think you’ve done this before. Or something similar,” she said with amusement. George thought back to his towel-murdering lessons. “Beginner’s luck,” he said modestly, and he held out the Godzilla structure to Dinah. “Here, you take it. I’m afraid it’d go straight to the the towel rack if I were to take it back to my suite. And as a thank you for coming with me.” He’d enjoyed himself, even if the activity wasn’t as exciting as he was used to. Sometimes, even necromancer assassins needed a break. |