HARK! How the bells, sweet silver bells...

[piper90npcs]

Who: Everyone
What: Holiday Events
Where: Piper 90 - The Rig
When: Post-Rose Tattoo
Warnings/Notes: Holiday cheer, smooches, tactical snowball action

It's the Holiday Season in the Gone Away World and on the Rig in particular! Though they claim to be open to any cultural celebration of this time of year, the dominance of Santa Claus, reindeer, and elves in decorating really kind of blunt that claim. But the PA system, when not blaring alarms or fuzzy announcements for working party C to show up at the maintenance bay, play Christmas tunes of all sorts at inconvenient volumes. Decorations hang limply from the walls. And every worker with children has been issued a shotgun and a bandoleer of shells loaded with pellets of cold iron.

Just in case.

Comments

[credit_not_blame]

Nice to meet you, Tucker. Wish the circumstances were better, but...eh.

[Stacia has a firm, professional handshake, because that's the sort of thing she's been taught is important.]

I think I've seen you on the comms network. You're Wash's friend, right?

[fuckingaqua]

[ Her handshake is at least twice as professional as his. He's just vibing. ]

Yeah. We're teammates back home.

[ Be found family, refuse to admit it: the RvB story. ]

Uh, look. If he was a dick to you, try not to hold it against him too much. Like, feel free to hold it against him if you want, an asshole move's an asshole move, but usually he's the chillest guy we have. He's kinda got some stuff going on.

[ Wash is basically the only person with the Reds and Blues that Tucker would even try to cover for re: instances of being an asshole to strangers.

The rest of them are assholes, one way or another. Wash is less so. ]

[credit_not_blame]

[Stacia giggles again.]

No, he wasn't a dick to me. I kind of surprise-snuggled him and he almost fell off the bench he was sitting on, so I'm just kinda giving him space now.

[She frowns, nothing but innocent concern on her face.]

Stuff on top of being kidnapped and enslaved by an evil corporation. Yikes. Is there anything I can do to help? He seems like a pretty nice guy.

[fuckingaqua]

[ At least that sounds more modern-dork-Wash than feral-new-to-Blue-Team Wash. In these trying times, it counts for something.

People are so weirdly nice around here. Well, not Jorgmund employees, mostly. New Hires, though. Tucker's not on his best social game, but he's picked up on that much. A lot of... sincerity and good will and manners.

Truly as alien as any currency out there. ]

Eh, I don't think so. It's complicated. And I'm not into putting his personal business out on the street. [ Least of all his potential something was done to him business. ] Just keep being chill with him, I guess. He sucks at being chill, so I think it helps to crowdsource it for him.

[credit_not_blame]

I guess that's fair.

[It says good things about Tucker that he doesn't want to spread Wash's business out everywhere, even if it means Stacia has to put forth a little more effort.]

Anything I should keep an eye out for while I'm helping crowdsource chill? Behaviors you want me to mention to you if I see?

[fuckingaqua]

[ Hmm. Both good questions. He sees no issue with outsourcing some watch-Wash's-back duty. He does what he can to stick with him, and he guesses York probably does, but Wash is Wash some ways no matter how fucked up his memory is. He gets annoyed or all melodramatic "they don't know the real me I'm not the guy they know" and up in his head about it, it's a hot mess.

There's something going on. Something happened to him, and it's fucking shady. The more people on call who give a crap about him doing okay, the better. ]

Uhh. If he has any really weird intense moments and gets a nosebleed, that'd be cool to know about? 'cause I guess that's a whole thing. Or like, if he starts spacing out a lot and loses track of what you guys are doing. That's a sorta-related thing. Long story.

As far as chill goes, you pretty much just have to keep turning back up and not totally suck. I don't think he's figured out that he's super easy to win over yet.

[credit_not_blame]

[Stacia is good at asking good questions. It's technically her job -- though she only gets paid in the satisfaction of seeing the other person realize that she's right and they're a moron.]

Spontaneous nose bleeds and zoning out. Easy enough to remember.

...Do you think someone did something to him? [She let's the question hang there, then continues before he can answer:] Right, I know, long story that's not yours to share, sorry. But those sound like pretty worrisome symptoms.

[fuckingaqua]

[ His face provides an obvious enough answer for her in that little moment of question-hanging. It's a very "Tucker absolutely thinks that someone did something to him but he doesn't know exactly what and he hates the whole enterprise" face, because he couldn't be subtle to save his life. Possibly literally.

Wash said it outright, that time in the infirmary. He hasn't brought it up since.

It's good that Carolina turned up, because Tucker feels un-fucking-qualified to try to figure this out. ]

No shit it sounds pretty worrisome, dude. There's nothing not worrisome about this. Why else do you think I want a heads up about it for?

[ There's no real venom to that.

Well, at least none that's directed at Stacia specifically. Complaint by rote is the best way to express being worried. ]

[credit_not_blame]

[Stacia reminds herself that there's no venom in that, and that it was a pretty stupid question. No reason to take offense. Do Not Growl At The Nice Human. She breathes through the Rage spike.]

Yeah, okay, fair enough. Should I tell other people to keep an eye out for it too, or sit on it and let you pick the people you think are trustworthy?