goneawayworld | Take a Trip Into My Garden

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Take a Trip Into My Garden

Who: Anyone who needs something in the garden, and/or a hug
What: Bunny is at work in his slice of the garden and friends are hanging out.
Where: The gardens, under the oak tree where Bunny and Gadget live.
When: Amid Christmas shenanigans.
Warnings/Notes: n/a yet

Maybe you're here because Jorgmund is a stressful place and the garden is a calm and bright and green refuge against the dingy unpleasantness of the rest of the Rig. Maybe you're here because Jorgmund is stingy with the fresh fruit and you want a snack, and sometimes the easiest thing to do is bypass the cafeteria and go to the source.

Or maybe you are just here to talk to Bunny, who is hard at work applying his plant-growing powers in his small space by the garden's only oak tree, where he sleeps in a hollow under its roots instead of in the room they assigned to him, way back when. The oak tree helps to make up for the lack of space by functioning as a hanging planter, but the rest of the space around it is still built up in stacked tiers of plants efficiently potted to support each other, the dry-loving plants lofted high to drip into the ones that like their toes wet. It's an efficient use of an incredibly small space to grow an incredible variety of magically useful and food-bearing plants.

Right now, Jorgmund has insisted he grow poinsettias en masse for the executive decor, and the inefficient use of his plot is annoying him more than usual. He's applying his power to the oak tree, adding strength to one branch to be able to hang more poinsettia planters from it, when company arrives. Or he's roaming the rest of the agriculture, evaluating that for efficiency and evidence to argue for or against the botanical tactics Jorgmund is already employing, when he comes across company.

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Dan much prefers the garden to anywhere else on the Rig besides the roof. "Do you want me to start spreading a rumor about them being good luck for promotions? Because I reckon I could pull them off."

He grabs some plastic bags he's brought, giving Bunny a questioning look before he starts grabbing rose petals from the humble little bush starting to reach for the sunlight.

"Say, I wanted to ask you about Christmas."

"Ah that could work, if you start it I'll back you up."

Bunny puts the last bit of magic into unfolding a flower, nodding at Dan that he's free to take the roses. At the reminder, he sighs.

"Reckon I've got to talk to you about the same. You didn't get sucked into more of someone else's memories by any chance, did you?"

He wonders if anyone got wrapped up in his. They probably weren't that interesting, given he doesn't do much for Christmas.

"I could probably seed it around the cafeteria. That's where most of my lines of communication come from." And some from technical, and some from janitorial, and some just what the Jorg consider civilians; Dan's not only charming in the short run, but aware of the value of building longterm networks of favors and goodwill. No one else, it seems, has invested so much time in making themselves beloved to the entry-level Jorgmund staff.

He starts taking petals off the roses and putting them into the bag. "Sure did. Not a lot I felt comfortable about seeing but...a few I wanted to talk through with you, if you've got the time and patience."

"I wouldn't mind bouncing them off someone myself." Not the specifics of the kids ones, but simply . . . That they're there, that he saw them whether anyone wanted them seen or not.

Theirs, and Dan's.

"I saw one of yours, for the record. One of yours and Ellie's." He at least smiles a little while he says it. "She seems like such a thoughtful kid. You should be proud."

Dan raises his eyebrows. He was neither expecting nor hoping anyone saw one of his.

"I'm sure that memory was before I was with her long enough to take credit for all her good," he says, trying to as politely as possible make it clear that he doesn't want any more details on whatever Bunny saw. He remembers, clearly, every wonderful Christmas with Eliora. He wishes he didn't. He smiles softly, but even he can't keep it from looking somewhat forced. "Anyway."

He continues stripping the roses.

"Was that the only one of mine you saw? I didn't see any of yours, but I sure did see a few folks who went through some rough Christmases."

"Uh, regret to say, but no. Saw another from your childhood."

He could have lied and Dan would have never known the difference. But lying is not one of his habits - even though he knows Dan doesn't want to talk about his childhood any more than Bunny wants to talk about his mortal life.

So unlike the memory with Eliora, he leaves that one uncommented on.

"I'd be surprised if the ghosts felt any of my Christmasses had been worth showing. Half the time I don't even notice the day." He frowns, thinking of the days he visited uninvited, the insights he got in spying without trying to. Ill gotten or not, he has them, and Dan is as worth trusting to go over them with as any other he might also trust. "Did you see anything, uh . . . urgent in any way?"

His own insight into Tenten's present could be considered such.

Dan doesn't say anything to that, but he is relieved that if anyone had to see his childhood, at least one of those folks was Bunny. He keeps pruning himself some roses.

"Yeah. That's why I..." he makes a gesture at his face, his little bit of a run-ragged look. "I saw that new boy, Kokichi, die horrifying...it was fast, at least."

And he's worried about the kid, and he's picked up that the kid isn't popular in these parts, neither with the hires or the Jorgmund staff and civvies.

"Far as I could tell, he died to save a classmate or something. Beats the reputation he got around here."

Bunny was prepared to give Dan space to ignore his comment, to gracefully opt out of discussing his own history. Bunny already knows so much of that so well after all, and so much of it is painful, is private, despite the fact that it was laid out for him to see, like Dan's past was being flayed open before him. He didn't ask for that. Neither did Dan. But at least these latest memories were relatively harmless.

Relatively. He sees the way Dan deflected from talking about Ellie right away.

His ears perk up again at Kokichi's name, but there's barely time for Dan to observe that it's a concerned perk even before Dan finishes his thought and Bunny goes wide-eyed with dismay, as Dan succinctly confirms every fearful suspicion hes had about Kokichi.

"Oh, strewth -" he never wants his worst impression to be right, but here it is. Bunny turns fully away from the poinsettias.

At least he doesn't have to put on a calm mask for Dan, which isn't something he thought would be a boon when his own past was being flayed open for Dan's understanding. But turns out it is.

"I suspected something like. I didn't want to be right." He pauses, running through the questions he has to triage. "Was it a spur-of-the-moment, or had he planned something? Have you told him what you saw?"

The questions are just gonna keep coming.

Dan bites his lip and nods, takes a deep breath, and turns away from the roses with his arms full of them - and sits down in the grass, because this is going to be a conversation, and they're both going to be feeling some kind of way about it.

"I couldn't reckon- it was something planned at least a bit. It was two kids, they were both all beat up, and there was a hydraulic press, and..." Dan sets his armful of roses down and closes his eyes for a moment. Somehow it wasn't as horrible to see as it is to reflect on later. "It looked like his friend faked his own death with the hydraulic press with a video camera, and then Kokichi swapped himself in at the last minute for, ah, verisimilitude. I think he was trying to help the other kid hide from something."

He rubs his hands over his face. "I ain't met Kokichi yet. I just know he got a reputation around here fast that seemed uncharitable before I even saw all that. I want to seek him out."

"Yeah. Seemed pretty clear he was doin' it on purpose. The purpose was less clear but I got to figuring it was meant to shock people out of complacency."

Bunny doesn't know what a hydraulic press is. He doesn't want to know what a hydraulic press is, in this context, so instead he just sits next to Dan and - hey - because he likes Dan, and Dan is delivering him some valuable intel on a kid who needs help, and the current ferment is going well, and Dan is obviously rattled, he hands Dan a small leaf packet. The banana leaf wrapping is lined with rose petals around a chocolate square made milk chocolate with coconut cream, and studded with tiny pieces of candied ginger.

"He comes around here sometimes. Wants me to help him with some sort of hiding-things project."

Bunny pulls out his communicator to review his video conversation with Kokichi, tilting his communicator so Dan can observe and hear too. Perhaps Dan can point out any red flags he missed, but he already saw so many.

"Thanks." Dan watches, feeding himself the chocolate with one hand while the other absentmindedly kneads at the grass, not tearing any of it up but feeling it against his palm in a soothing way.

"He weren't joking about it being kids killing each other at his school. I picked up that much when...And he's...this is a thing kids do sometimes. Easier to be the one who sticks out as the brat than the one everyone forgets. Or the one everyone worries about."

He takes a deep breath. "He's just scared of being seen."

Which is ironic, coming from Dan. "What I saw, I don't know if he'd have sacrificed himself if he weren't already so beat up. But it still says something of someone, especially a kid, to use what time they got left to help someone else."

"If he knows where the line between getting attention and crossing the line is, he doesn't care, but he could be too young just not to know." Bunny pauses, processing information. "He threatened to call an exterminator on Gadget. Not the sort of comment you let slide. But I thought the school where kids killed each other was a little too on the nose not to be something."

Bunny takes a long deep breath, working the problem. "He's trying to keep people at arm's length. Know them better than they know him. That's just good survival sense, but it does mean he's not going to have many friends in the process."

Not many places to seek comfort or feel safe. What a hard situation for a kid to feel is the best course of action for himself.

Dan nods, continuing to nibble his chocolate, knead the grass like a cat seeking comfort. Funny, in parts of that, Bunny sounds like he's describing Dan more than Kokichi, in trying to know others better than they know him, keep them from closeness.

But Dan's an adult, not a kid. It's easier to skim by socially when you're fully independent.

"I don't reckon he has a great sense of self-esteem. The well-adjusted kids usually don't threaten people with death and try to antagonize everyone." He lays on his back in the grass. "You think anyone's gonna be watching out for him except us, or has he alienated the whole lot of 'em?"

"Can't expect a kid who's had to arrange his own death to be as deceptive as possible to be all that well adjusted."

It's Dan's use of the "us" that gives him a moment of pause, makes him think out clearly what he was unaware until this second he was operating on. "To be honest, I thought it was gonna be just me," he says, and after a moment, claps Dan on the shoulder. "Nice to have someone else around who gets it."

Without the other Guardians he didn't expect anyone here to take nearly as much of the attitude of protecting the kids, naughty and nice as he planned to.

It's real pleasant not to be doing it alone.

That said - "given his comments about the kids having to kill each other, I do wonder if he has killed before. Or would here under certain conditions."

If Dan approached this from any place but watching out for Kokichi he wouldn't have brought it up at all. "I don't mean I think he needs anything but protection. He's been victimized. Cornered animals do what they can to survive." He would know. "Jorgmund may use it against him, though."

Dan's goal is to protect everyone, naughty and nice, but it's true that that includes the teenagers first and foremost.

"Sure can't." Dan smiles as Bunny claps him on the shoulder, and then that smile fades and he sighs. If this were anyone but Bunny - who's seen so many images of Dan's little girl, his little sister, his closest friend - he wouldn't delve into this topic at all. If Bunny hadn't seen Dan's adoptive daughter crush two innocent people into bloody paste in an act of fear and desperation

"You saw what Eliora did when she was threatened. Kids that kill are kids anyway. And...I agree. It could be ammunition used against him, if he did kill someone. The Jorgmund could use it to turn more folks on him, or blackmail him."

"For now I can make him welcome here, if he takes that, but he can't go back to that world. I'm not crazy about the idea of Stacia's or Tenten's or most of the rest of theirs, but it seems like they have SOME support systems set up." Stacia and Kennedy have packs, purposes, Tenten has an exploitative job that could get her killed but . . . triage here. "Did you get any more facts put of talking to him? I haven't bothered to try."

Dan seems better at talking to people in general than he is.

"No, he sure can't." Wherever Kokichi's from is no place for children. Few of these worlds seem to be; Dan's heard enough from Saturday to sufficiently horrify him. Bunny's, thus far, is the only world acquitted.

"Not particularly. I got impressions, but you see how much misdirection he throws up." Dan taps his lower lip in thought. "I wonder if there were a way to start some sort of club for the kids, make it think it's there idea, so they can bond and get the squirrelly ones like Kokichi and Jack involved."

This is a good idea but Bunny still stares off into space for a moment over it. "Are any of the kids letting him in to bond? Maybe I should ask Stacia."

He can pretty much count on Stacia to tell him whatever he actually needs to know, as far as his impression of Stacia goes, and Stacia does have more than a slight knack for getting into other people's business and politics.

"I got no idea. I'd guess it's more likely he's got an in with the kids than the adults. They're all closer to that life stage of forcing folks away, they understand it better."

Dan likes Stacia. She seems a very nice kid, with a lot of those same subtle social talents that Dan knows he has.

"Yeah. I'll ask her what the deal is."

But that seems to be where they're at, needing to keep several of the kids from going back to dangerous places, needing to provide a safe space for the kids to be kids a bit in this place that is unsafe in almost every way, and with a particularly challenging personality on top of it.

Not a lot of ways to make fast progress about it.

"I can arrange some supply plants in ways that give them a little more privacy, a little more warning time knowing someone's coming their way, but -"

He doesn't want to be crass, but, well. Some of 'em will use it for bonding all right.

(Adora and Catra. He's talking about Adora and Catra. Which is very sweet of them, being young and in love in a war zone, but.)

"It's gonna be hard to give them all a safe space they'll use for community reasons only."

"Right, right." Dan's never organized teenagers like what he's thinking, a particularly unpredictable age range. "Hard to give them a safe space at all."

With everything on the Rig enclosed or monitored, but adding teen hormones in is definitely a factor.

"Although, if teenagers and the like are going to be making out anyway, maybe it's safest that they have a space that's supposed to be discreet. You know, so the Jorg don't catch on."

"Who's gonna get them preventatives if any of them take it any farther?"

Frankly, this is getting out of his wheelhouse . . . a little bit. This isn't his age group. But it's not necessarily something he has no ground to speak on.

"I can grow wormwood and I can grow Queen Anne's lace but I can't consult with a kid's doctor about administering it and that's shifty territory at best." Sure he knows the ratios to bodyweight perfectly but it's best not to underestimate how much he is not a doctor. Jorgmund seem to have selected for same-sex couples so far but -

Bunny shrugs. "Telling teenagers just not to go along with their feelings doesn't work. These are just the questions that come after also wanting them to have their own safe place. Then there's the question of how much Jorgmund is willing to punish them for any proof of activity." Bunny shakes his head. "If it makes it easier or harder for them to punish children, I can't say which it is just now."

"Oh, contraception's easy enough on the Rig." Dan, rather than thinking natural remedies, is thinking about his quite thorough knowledge of whom does and doesn't carry condoms and dental dams in the Rig secretarial pool. "Although I ain't procuring it for them. I don't want to build no reputation as the fellow giving out condoms and teaching teenage girls to poledance."

But it's possibly a conversation that's taking them into "meddler" territory; Bunny's right, it's possible that trying to make this space could incur blowback on the kids, and that's the last thing either of them want.

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Take a Trip Into My Garden

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