rickitikitarr | 4. voice

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4. voice

All right, this is all good fun and games, kids, but I'm going to be the one who spoils it by asking the question.

What the hell is going on?

And, for that matter, if we're the ones apparently running the show now, is anyone steering the boat?

[Ricki does not want the barge to smash into a sun and everyone to burn up, even though he's currently in the inmate-reclaimed bar and part of him is rather enjoying the fiddling.]

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We ought to do this more regularly.

[Deciding, just because of that same sense of pure relief.]

I've been thinking, you ought to know how to run an old-fashioned game.

[And if Eggsy will spar with him, Ricki will teach him how to be a spy with nothing but shoestring technological support.]

[Eggsy sits up, propped up on his hands, and looks at him.]

Yeah?

[He really likes his toys and he gets the idea that not much in the twenty-first century spy game gets done without twenty-first century tech support, but that's not where they are right now. His training has touched on what happens in the event of a catastrophic network outage but that's considered the exception, the crisis situation. Here and now, he doesn't have that kind of support at his back and he's not proud enough to deny a gap in his knowledge that needs filling.]

Yeah, I'm up for that. Deal.

[He grins, and then drops his head back down to the mat, eyes shutting as something pent up in him finally relaxes.]

If my new warden decides to put me in solitary for brawling, you're going to need to know how to sneak me books.

[Is is other stipulation for the day, as his fingers lift up to touch a tender spot on his cheek. He's kidding. Except he isn't. Except he's too tired for there to be any real rancour in it. Anyways;]

You've had the physical training, and I'm not up for teaching you most of the interrogation stuff. But I do know people. How to apply the proper emotional pressure for an effective bit of blackmail, how to string together a slow pass to get a piece of paper untraced from the wrong side of the Berlin wall all the way to hands in London. How to thoroughly disappear into a local slum with nothing but the clothes on your back if you need to move out in a hurry.

[A quick, reflexive aside:] Fuck your new warden, this ain't brawling.

[In Eggsy's opinion it's only brawling if you're actually, maliciously trying to hurt the other person. Anything up to that is just fun and games.

But Ricki talks, and he's fascinated. This isn't the stuff of Bond movies, and maybe it's not even the stuff of Kingsman; as far as he can tell they tend to go in fast and hard (and, where possible, quiet) when the slower, more ponderous work of the 'official' agencies isn't working. But it's stuff he wants to know, wants to understand, and there's only so long he can spend on solo study in the library when what he'd like a lot better is someone to teach him. If the last year has done anything, it's forced him acknowledge that he's got a capacity to take things on board and synthesise and apply them and he's spent too long just letting that go to waste. Or to sum that up into a single brisk nod and four words:]

I'm a quick study.

[He grins at him; bless his loyal heart. For the most part Ricki is deeply suspicious of wardens, but Eggsy is okay.]

I can tell you are. Wouldn't offer if you weren't.

[He would have recruited Eggsy in a heartbeat back in his own world, if the timing had lined up.]

[And Eggsy would have gone trotting along after him, because apparently getting rapidly invested in spies who cut their teeth during the Cold War is just His Thing. Not that he's genuinely conscious of that, and it's an oversight he's going to pay for one of these days, no doubt.

He gets up to his feet, bending backwards until he feels something pop. That's better.]

Wanna use my shower?

[Because while he spent months having precisely fuck-all privacy re. personal hygiene, it wasn't his choice and he wouldn't wish it on anybody.]

I knew you were worth being friends with. I can't relax in prison showers.

[Eagerly scrambling to his feet.]

Nasty spot to get cornered, after all.

[Reminds him of far too much, besides.]

[Eggsy just pulls an extremely meaningful nah bruv sort of face, because his understanding of what goes on in prison showers is more informed by pop culture than it is by the experience of a handful of mates who have actually served a bit of time. At least on the Barge it's individual cubicles in there, or so he remembers from briefly sticking his head in.]

I'm down on Eight. C'mon.

[He leads Ricki downstairs to his front door - still a bit scarred from the April clusterfuck - and then through into his home. It is, and looks like, a fairly shitty council flat. The place is littered with boxed TVs and kettles and microwaves - standard 'fell of the back of a lorry' shit for flogging down the pub, he really just needs to get rid of them - and the bathroom door to the right has been patched up with a sheet board since his mum hacked a hole in it with a meat cleaver. Otherwise it looks a lot tidier than it was when he wasn't the only one living here.]

Shower's through that way. [He nods at the door.] There's towels in there, use whatever you want, yeah?

Do any of these pick up a signal?

[Ricki can't help but ask; what must space-tv rays be like? The bathroom door makes him raise his eyebrows just a little bit more, and yes, this is the second weirdest warden's quarters he's been in, after Iris's bordello in pink leopard.

He traces a thumb over the patch, and makes a mental note to see if he can find something to fix that up for him, before glancing back over his shoulder at him and giving him an eloquent nod in return, of the 'this means a lot but we're not going to talk about it' variety.]

Nah, nothin'.

[He returns the nod. Gentleman's accord, mate. They'll never speak of it.]

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4. voice

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