Commander (the_commander) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-04-10 11:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, commander tyra shepard, montgomery scott, varric tethras |
"Its a rattle that occasionally knocks."
Who: Shepard and Scotty and Varric
What: Shepard needs her hummer fixed! And then Varric shows off Bianca, and there's magic vs science talk
Where: Mad Monty's
When: A day or two ago!
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-13
Porthos' ears perked. He bounded down the stairs and peered at the door, as if waiting. Two minutes later there came a knocking. Porthos barked!!
"oh bloody hell. Gaiiiiiilaaaaa? Someone's at the dooooor." So yells mister still in bed for day two. He's getting twitchier. And quite possibly whinier. "Gaaaaaaiiiiiillllllaaaaaa...I cannae get it...."
There was no answer from Gaila! She didn't appear to be there!
"...Gaila?"
She appears to have stepped out!
"GAILA!"
Seriously? Scotty's face was now like O.O in a classic 'WHAT DAE I DAE?' sort of way. Ah, yell louder!
"WHOEVER YE ARE, COME BACK LATER!"
Problem solved, courtesy of Scottish hollering. He grinned and settled back against his pillows, laptop in front of him, and continued playing a card game.
Porthos got louder, and the knocking got more insistent. Whoever it was couldn't hear him over the dog!
"Bloody hell, I CANNAE GET OOT OF BED! And especially not doon the stairs." Because Gaila would kill him if his leg rotted off, and took other parts of him with it. "PORTHOS! BAD DAWGIE! SHHH!" He waited to see if the dog would shush, and then if there was a pause, yelled out, "COME BACK LATER! LAAAAAATE~ERRRR!"
Porthos pawed at the door, forcing it open. A blonde woman was standing there. She scratched his head, "I hope you're not the mechanic..."
"Bloody, bloody, bloody hell. DAWG! I WILL KICK YER ARSE BACK TAE..." Its own dimension. "THE BACK ALLEY YE CAME FROM, I SWEAR TAE GAWD!"
"That must be the mechanic," Tyra said. She shouted up the stairs, "I'm sorry! The sign said you were open!" Somewhere, Gaila would be going 'oops'.
"CLOSED! It should be CLOSED. I cannae work on anything, if ye want tae come back in two days, then fine! DAE that, but until then, NAE. I cannae work on anything. Be a lambikins, flip the bloody sign around, and close the door behind ye as ye leave!" Scotty rolled his eyes and shook his head, before glaring at the screen and swearing sometimes Gaila would forget her arse if it wasn't holding her legs onto the rest of her body. "Pity's sake."
"Damn it." She raised her voice, "You okay up there? Need anything before I leave?"
"Nae! Doin' fine, cheers! Sorry for the inconvenience! Have a fine day...easter...whatever it is." Fuuuu...Gaila. Fuuuu...!
She looked down at Porthos, "I guess I'll see you in two days." Porthos snorted, bounding past Tyra to..adjust the sign so it said closed. She stared at the dog, a profoundly 'wtf' expression on her face.
"Fuck it. What'd ye need fixed?!"
He turned off the laptop. Maybe he could do something quick, if it was something simple.
"I have a hummer with a knocking on the engine! I think I ran over something!" Like the median. But the knocking was older than that. But she changed the oil regularly....
"Och! Aye, that might take some looking at," he said more to himself than to anyone else. "Did ye change the oil?! Just...come up the stairs! Please dinnae have any weapons, or I'll have tae try tae headbutt ye and that'd just goin' tae get all sorts of terrible!"
She headed up the stairs, amused at the pink curtains, "I change the oil regularly." She said nothing about weapons, but she had a permit!
"Right, well that rules that oot. Did ye run intae or over anything?" Luckily the bedroom door was probably left open too, so he can lean and see the woman through it. He probably didn't look amused, though he was pushing himself up more so he could sit upright. "Because ye couldae gotten something jammed up there. Like..say...some wood, or pieces of an animal. Is it a rattle or a knock or a ping?"
"Its a rattle that occasionally knocks." She peered in, "Oh you're laid up. I probably ran over one too many medians."
"That'd dae it. Yer alignment’s probably shot, if not yer axle. That's probably yer rattle, especially if it gets worse when yer accelerating. And tae be honest, that's not goin' tae help the engine much either, since, ye know, it's what makes things gae vroom." He shrugged at the laid up part. "Dae ye know how tae drive or not? Because if yer running over medians, I'm goin' tae say ye dinnae, and shouldnae treat yer vehicles like that. They're bairns, ye should treat them as such."
No, he did not care who she was, not even if she was an axe murderer. Or a president. Or the alien queen from another planet, entirely. She's getting told not to treat her stuff like that, running over medians. Because that's dumb. He says so. And he's looking at her like that, too.
Tyra grimaced. That wasn't what she wanted to hear. That sounded EXPENSIVE. But then again she was pretty much a terrible driver okay driver, "I know how to drive. Point A to Point B. It's a former military vehicle so it's designed to take punishment. And median is better than running over somebody's prius."
"If it was driving over medians, lassie, then that's beyond point A tae point B, that's point bloody retarded." He might stuck in bed, but he could be just as obstinate when it came to machinery abuse as ever, a scratch from a bullet wasn't about to stop him.
"Stop doin' that. This isn't a warzone. Use yer breaks sae yer not on top of the Prius, and if ye managed tae give it a rattle as well as a knock, then ye fucked it up. Stop doin' that. If ye want someone tae pat yer back an' tell ye it's okay, then find another shop, otherwise, I'm tellin' ye...I'll repair it, but if ye ever bring it back here again in that sort of condition for running over medians? I'd just as soon scrap it and put it oot of it's misery, than let ye get yer hands on it again."
Both arms folded over his chest, and he said, with finality, "It'll have tae be this week, I'll probably be taking things with a bit of ease, at first. Sae come back then, if ye want." He waved at her like bai bai!
Tyra could be as obstinate. She shrugged a shoulder. Cars were tools, nothing more. Now her guns, those were fine tools that she cared for as though they were her children, "He pulled out in front of me." She folded her arms, "I've driven those things up mountains, a little median isn't going to scare me."There's a reason no one let her fly the Normandy.
"Whatever, avoid the medians. Because ye said MEDIANS, not MEDIAN, meaning plural, not singular, and that means ye've ran over more than ONE. Nae geet oot!" He pointed in the out direction, with a scowl. "I cannae be crawling around under or intae anything, come back on...bein' conservative, Tuesday, an' it serves ye right, tae wait that long. Maybe ye'll be careful with her!"
She held up her hands, laughing, "Got it, I'll be careful." Someone needs to make Shepard go on that Last Chance Driving School tv show
Seriously, it sounds like she could use it! And Scotty, having so much affection for all things mechanical enough to think of the world's collective machinery as 'his babies', was not having reckless abuse take place. Not on his watch. He's eyeing her like she's a very bad woman, and should be ashamed of herself. Enough of that though, and he was slumping back down against the pillows. "Ye know the way oot, lass. Dinnae let the doggie oot either, if he'd be sae kind. See ye on Tuesday."
"All right." She nodded her head and headed down the stairs, passing a short man carrying an...elaborate crossbow. They eyed each other, then Tyra was out the door and walking to her hummer.
"Tinker! You up here?"
"Aaaaaaaye," Scotty said, and off goes the power on the laptop. He didn't sit up though, because he simply didn't have the energy to do that a second time, especially not after his crappy night's sleep, with stupid dreams that keep popping up again and again. Even with pain meds, he still woke up off and on. "Where else would I be? It's not like I can gae anywhere."
Varric lifted the crossbow and fired above Scotty's head, "Take a look at THIS beauty!" He walked over, taking the bolt out of the wall and sitting on the bed next to him, "Look at the detail work. This is real silver, real craftsmanship. Look at these gears!"
"What the fuck, hole in the wall!" Scotty cried out, pointing up at the hole that he now has to add onto the list of things to fix. "What's the matter with ye?! And aye, it's very nice. Glad ye bought a new toy, very impressive, DINNAE GAE SHOOTING HOLES IN THINGS, would ye?!"
Pity's sake, Varric could have MISSED and the last thing he needed was being on bedrest for longer.
Varric laughed, "I can't help it. I keep wanting to fire her, and I haven't missed yet." He kissed the stock, "Meet Bianca. The real Bianca. I can't explain where she came from, but here she is."
Scotty frowned at that last bit and was immediately wary.
"What dae ye mean, I cannae explain where she came from."
"I dreamed about her." Varric shook his head, "I was...It was odd." He wasn't sure to begin. Which dream. He started with Bianca, it was the least disturbing, "I dreamed about this crossbow. About holding her, the way she felt when fired, the impact of the bolt in flesh.."
"...ahh, sae ye've gone odd in the head. Well done." Like that was something to be commended, but even Scotty did not have dreams about the way a crossbow bolt would impact in flesh. That was just weiiiiiiiiiiiiird. So that is the look that Varric is getting, while he's simultaneously worried even more that other him from other dimension has otherwise caused this mess, and it's spreading more. And there has to be some way to stop it.
"That wasn't the only dream, or the oddest. She's in the others. But I woke up and..there she was, waiting on my mantle." He stroked the stock again, "Like she was meant for me."
"Oh. That's. Brilliant. Sae happy for ye." Ugh, there had to be SOME way to contact other him and at least take the damn dog back so maybe some of this other stuff would be set right again, or send HIMSELF back over to where other him WAS, except BACK in THAT time, and tell him NOT to do it, because of how badly it was fouling up HIS timeline by introducing this chain reaction weird-arse bollocks and shittery. Someone is just going to sit there and be very thinky and very worried that the world is going to implode soon, and not enough people realized it was going to happen.
Still, better to not cause a panic, Scotty mused to himself, so he was just nodding along at Varric, like, sure, that was lovely and worked.
Varric was still trying to sort out what was in his dreams, "There was more. These..creatures attacking. Something called Darkspawn. Bianca loved killing them. I carried her everywhere, even into an underground highway system plagued with those things. I was with...Sal was there. And some others. I don't remember too much about them, just their faces and we were all fighting those creatures. And worse things." He frowned. The dream had clearly disturbed him.
That did sound disturbing, but Scotty was still under the impression that dreams were just dreams, and were very annoying and troublesome, like brains gone wild. Ultimately silly, but still meaningless.
"Sounds like yer brain had quite the adventure," he commented.
"Sounds like it. You have anything odd lately? LIke that dog, I swear he let me in."
"Ahh, well...aye, the dog. It just...popped up," Scotty was saying, looking a bit distracted, as his mind was trying to systematically piece together how any of this stuff was happening, with items just popping up. At least that wasn't a lie? "Just a dream about a sci-fi con. Ye werenae there. It was nothing, really. Annoying, that's all."
"Popped up," Varric repeated, staring at him. "Like my crossbow? Or that odd little torch I saw sitting next to your sub?" Torch, what plasma torch?!
"Dinnae know about any torch, nae. But, aye, popped up." Oh, if there was something down there, then the timeline was going to end up beyond repair. He might as well build a time machine, go all the way back to cro-magnon times, and start slaughtering everything, because - at this rate - things couldn't get much worse.
"It was yea big," He held his hands apart. "Didn't look like any welder I've ever seen."
"Oh gawd. Really. That's...that's just something I left laying around, that's all." He waved it off, even if he was worried, already. No use calling attention to the new potential crazy thing, and he'd just tell Gaila whenever she got back, so there wasn't any fuss. "Newest latest thing, I'd splurged on. Ye know, since it looks like Faiza's goin' tae win everything. Anyway, aye, I'm glad ye got a crossbow that's not a shite replica. Please dinnae run about, shooting it at everything? And, ye know, maybe ye should write that dream doon, sae ye have it written. Maybe it'll make sense, later."
Although, probably not later, because Scotty was considering they might all be dead or something.
"Still doesn't make sense, even written down. You asked me if I'd been having any strange dreams, remember? Have you?" He squinted at Scotty, still stroking Bianca.
"Nae, just the sci-fi convention one, that's all," he plainly confessed, and he was being utterly truthful as well, because it was a huge annoyance, but with everything going on lately? It was simply possible he was worried about something in particular he wasn't aware of yet, and it would keep happening until he figured it out. That's all. Certainly no bolts meeting flesh or anything called dark whatevers or highways or some such. "It's not even that strange. Just bloody stupid, nothing tae even bother over. Same thing, I'm late and in trouble for being late, like I'd shown up for school without me clothes on. Ye know, one of those sort of dreams. Doesnae mean anything."
"It sounds like more than a convention. What was the setting like? What were people saying?" Varric leaned over, "Recurring dreams usually mean something."
"Nae, they dinnae, just means a person's annoyed or worried enough over the stupid things, tae let them continue playing oot, that's all. A dream is just a dream, ye know. Nothin’ tangible, just figments of the imagination, run amuck."
And he very thoroughly believed that, as he was a mechanical and science based person, raised in a no-nonsense household. It was fine like japanese cartoons and fantasy movies, but they weren't real, and believing one's dreams were real kind of fell into that category as fantasy. If the dream itself popped up around him in spinny lighty cocoons with windchime noises, then maybe he'd believe it. But it being only a fragment, a blip of something happening, even on repeat? He wasn't buying into it. Yet.
"I was thinking maybe ye could use yer dream in a story, perhaps, if ye wrote it doon. That's all. Since those sorts of things are flights of fancy. Aye. Nothing more, nothing less."
"Or it could mean something." Varric laughed, "Like you're seeing the future. Or it's a memory of a past or future life. Or a memory from an alternate dimension. They're all plausible. Yes, Bianca, he is being stubborn."
"That's daft. That dunnae happen in yer brain, it's not possible or plausible. That's like saying reincarnation is real, when really, ye die and ye rot or are burned up, and that's the bloody end of it. Dinnae pass gae, dinnae collect two hundred." He shook his head and squinted at Varric, like he needed to be institutionalized. "And stop talking tae that, it's only a crossbow and it cannae talk back."
"I believe in reincarnation, Scotty. Besides, magic is just science we don't understand yet. Half the shit you work on was magic fifty years ago. Or science fiction. Look at cell phones? Take it a hundred years back, and magic." He got to his feet, "For example. The brain operates on energy. That's basically your soul. So where does that energy go when you die?"
"Technology evolves as time goes on, with technological advances. It's man made. It's not magic." Now Varric is just getting a flat out 'you are one insane bastard' stare, because he is not having that. "And that sort of energy isnae infinite, like a battery that's been burned oot and isnae the rechargeable sort? It's burned oot and useless. Ye cannae put a spark in it again. Once our wee internal batteries putter oot? Poof, yer dead, yer gone. No clouds, cherubs, sparkly lights, look there's me grandmum...none of that. But I'm not about tae sit here and have some utterly daft debate about theology or philosophy. Believe what ye want. It's fine if ye want tae believe yer soul gets recycled, but the only sort of recycling I believe in is the sort that involves bottles, cans, and reused parts. Cheers. Nae, are ye goin' tae keep pestering me about this, or is there something else ye wanted tae talk about? Och, I think I need another pill."
"Still magic," He replied. Not that they haven't had this conversation in the past, "Matter converts to energy. I'm not saying there is or isn't a heaven, Tinker. Do you believe in alternate dimensions? Magic."
"Drop it, because that's utterly retardiated." Well, now he was being blunt. It's retarded. The end. It was possible to explain things with math, which was hard science, and he was not about to go wasting precious air trying to explain that to someone who was trying to call it magic, which was just ultimately quite dumb. "I'm goin' tae take another pill and play with the laptop that is made of parts and components and not run by magical leprechaun that glow and sparkle and shoot lightning oot of their bums, behind the screen. Goin’ tae dae that until I fall asleep again. Cheers, Varric. Happy for ye with the crossbow. Sorry about yer weird dream that was only a dream. And I'll be up and around in another day at least."
Laptop on his lap? Indeed. Turning it on now. He made a gesture with his hands like 'ooo magic' and then looked profoundly unenthused at it, because it was not made of magic at all.
"Being shot makes you crotchety, Tinker." Varric laughed, "Or that's your normal state of mind."
"Perfectly normal," Scotty replied, starting up another game and tapping away at it. "Ye should try it sometime!"
Varric shook his head and laughed, "Crabby ass. I saw Cass coming out of the drug store. She looked ecstatic." He saluted, then Bianca saluted, and he turned to go.
Oh that was great news about the drug store, so Scotty lifted his arms up in an exuberant \o/ and then gave Varric a wave goodbye, and didn't notice anything that would have been a crossbow saluting since they don't have arms and can't bend their invisible arms to salute.
"Talk tae ye later, short and hairy. And aye, ye should maybe use that shite in one of yer stories, ye know, yer fantasy dream thing. Because it sounds almost like something ye'd see in one of those movies about walking or some such. Buh~bye."