voice: midnight ramble

[rickitikitarr]

[Ricki's insomnia is not getting all that much better. There isn't anything to do around during the day, exactly, either, but it's even worse at this hour in the morning. All he can think of is the library, again, and the network.

Today, it's;]

Who knows what about fruit hybrids? Did you know they've invented something called a pluot that's halfway between an apricot and a plum? I'm not an old fashioned bloke but that strikes me as a little ghastly.

[Flipping the age of his book.]

A plumcot. A pleacotum. This can't be real, it must be nonsense- here. Limequats. That, at least, is properly illustrative.

I'm pleased to see you haven't squandered the future that past generations won for you. Additionally, I think we should request all of these for the kitchen, immediately.

Comments

Private

[formerself]

[Hmm.]

Yeah, no, think you might have a point. Taken, mental or - well, you're probably too old for everyone here 'cept Iris.

[Who is taken and possibly also a bit mental.]

Private

[rickitikitarr]

What? Iris is a time traveling alien, possibly centuries old, I'm not even forty, most of the gals here are in their twenties, and somehow the margin between her and me isn't the problem?

Private

[formerself]

Never said she wasn't too old for you.

And you definitely need more sleep if you can't tell when I'm takin' the piss.

Private

[rickitikitarr]

I'm just making a logistical point.

[But yes. Teasing, for the most part. Maybe does sort of need to get laid, though.]

It's too late to go to sleep. I'm just going to roll through to tonight.

Private

[formerself]

Yeah.

Shit, we'd better get the Enclosure back soon. Can only run so far on a treadmill 'til you pass out from boredom.

[A beat.]

Sorry, can't whinge.

[He did, after all, choose to be here.]

Private

[rickitikitarr]

I'm going to go around the bend.

[He admits, because it's bad, it's really bad- and no, he can't leave, he's a prisoner here and that does make it worse.]

Private

[formerself]

Anythin' I can do?

Private

[rickitikitarr]

Nah. Nothing that wouldn't be incredibly stupid for me to try, in this state. Don't let me convince you to get me in the gym until I've had four hours.

Private

[formerself]

No worries. Feel bad enough beating up a thirty-nine-year-old as it is.

[that's obviously what 'not forty' means right??]

Private

[rickitikitarr]

That's funny, because I don't feel terrible at all for nearly drowning a puppy.

Private

[formerself]

Oi.

[Eggsy you are a puppy, a puppy who kills people, just own it.]

We'll see who nearly drowns who next time.

Private

[rickitikitarr]

Me. It will be me. Every time, probably for a year or so, because you have some wonderful, wonderful training, Eggsy, and you can trounce me any day of the week on solid land, but trust me. It will be me.

Private

[formerself]

....Four months.

[Ricki, you are actively creating a monster.]

Private

[rickitikitarr]

Wager on it?

Private

[formerself]

Yeah, alright.

[sweetie you should probably discuss terms first.]

Private

[rickitikitarr]

Well, that was open ended. Possibilities, possibilities- if you take me down in or on water inside four months...

Private

[formerself]

You said there was some stuff you wasn't gonna teach me.

Private

[rickitikitarr]

Did I? Did I specify what it was?

Private

[formerself]

'Interrogation stuff', you said.

Private

[rickitikitarr]

Torture. Let's call it what it is. You want to know how to torture something out of someone. Eggsy, darling, I'll have you on my side of the bars in no time.

Private

[formerself]

[He almost wants to argue this. Almost.]

...alright. Forget that.

Dunno what to ask for when I don't know what you've got. That's all.

Private

[rickitikitarr]

I could teach you how to stand up to it.

[He offers, with a little shrug.]

But you might not want to be my friend any more, after that.

Private

[formerself]

[--oh. Well, he'd kind of assumed that both sides of that equation were being taken off the table at once, but now it's there?]

No, that's.

That'd work.

Besides, you seem pretty fuckin' sure it won't come to it, so.

Private

[rickitikitarr]

The creature comforts I'm never going to ask you for, otherwise. A carton of cigarettes, a box of ammunition, and- a very nice suit.

Private

[formerself]

Alright. Deal.