milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Wash is once again by the fireplace with his copy of Jurassic Park. He's curled the cover back on itself in a way that makes his book-loving mun wince, the better to try and hide the title; no use in scaring Dr. Malcolm if they happen to cross paths again.

The streak of paint from last night is still on his forehead, though it's quite smudged and much fainter. You'd think technology from five hundred years in the future would be better at getting that stuff off.

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All the better for an Ace to sneak up behind him and give him that tackle-hug she swore to last night. Except, you know, not so much with the tackling, because that would be difficult and perhaps painful in a chair.
"That is for disappearing before I could hug you properly last night." Ace informs him as she drops down by the fire, her sworn duty fulfilled.

"Oof!"

That's a good 'oof,' by the way. Wash laughs and scoots out of his chair so he's sitting on the floor next to her, simultaneously dog-earing the book to mark his place. "A terrible punishment indeed," he teases. "Easily one of the worst I've endured. So what's new with you?"

Ace blushes, and mutters something that might be "I'd tell you, but you have repeatedly told me not to, so I won't." before regaining her composure.
"Haven't really done much today. Very lazy, lots of cocoa, that sort of thing."

He has good ears. Lucky for Ace, all he does is cant his head and raise his eyebrows, silently skeptical. It's one of those looks that says he's not going to push, but implies that she really, really should tell him what's going on.

"Ah, I see there's a startling lack of excitement around here," he says. "Though I guess that in itself's kind of exciting since it happens, oh, next to never."

Ace nods. And Wash is very wise for keeping quiet, since she's only doing it at his request.
"Quiet for me, I should say. One of the gals on security got kidnapped." She snickers. "I'm expecting the kidnapper to show up at any point, getting marched in here at swordpoint."

Blink.

"Kidnapped?"

"Mmm." Surprisingly, Ace doesn't seem terribly concerned. "The gal's Alanna of... somewhere or other, a knight. A real one, with a sword and everything. I take it some pirate got her falling-down drunk last night, and hauled her off before anyone could do anything about it. I'm figuring she's sobering up just about now, and will be rather ticked off."

"...Ohhh, that kind of kidnapping." Wash snickers. "Bet a lot of my old flight school buddies'd be shocked to hear that's what they're calling it nowadays."

And a pause, during which his eyes drift to the ceiling and he taps the book on his knees. "Alanna, I know I've heard that name before."

"Err... taller than me, is a knight, works on security, has a jedi for a boyfriend, has red hair... ringing any bells yet?" Ace tries, helpfully.

He shakes his head, still tapping the book...then the metaphorical lightbulb clicks on. "Oh! Right. Inara mentioned her a while back. Thought it was kind of weird that she kept referring to a woman as 'sir.' An honest-to-God knight, huh?"

"Yup. She's got a wicked sword. I think she still had it on her when the pirate took her, so it should be an interesting return, anyway." She looks downright languid, for an Ace. "So what've you been up to?"

"...Pirate. This pirate wouldn't happen to have big thick hair and a thing for rum, would he? 'Cause I can only think of one pirate here, unless another one's shown up, and the thought of having two people like that in such a small place is kind of scary.

"Anyway." He shrugs and smiles. "Not a lot. Zoe liked the cocoa, and most of the bread's already gone, so I need to thank you again for that genius idea."

"I think that's the one. I didn't actually see it, but Val mentioned rum, so I'm guessing we're thinking of the same bloke. S'gonna be fun when they come back." Of course she didnt' tell Val that, because Val wouldn't have appreciated it.
"See? Told ya. She planning on coming back any time soon, or does she think we're all a bunch of nutters who should be kept as far away as possible?" she asks, grinning wickedly.

"Oh, I'll get her back here eventually. Not a chance she'll be able to resist the call of fresh food after we've been sailing for weeks and weeks." A chuckle. "But, I don't know, she's been caught up doing first mate-y things. Jobs haven't been too hard or big, but there's been a lot of 'em all of a sudden. I'm getting a little wary of all this good luck."

She raises a hand, threatening to smack him.
"No worrying, flyboy. Especially when you technically have nothing to worry about. Sheesh." She rolls her eyes at him.

"It's my job, Ace. Fly, crack jokes, and worry all the time. And can I point out that the last time I started worrying, it ended up being for a very good reason?" Eyebrow.

"It did?" She frowns, and wonders how she had missed this. "Everyone alright?" She gives Wash a narrow look. "You alright?"

Wash holds up both hands. "I'm fine, I'm fine. It was a while ago. 'Bout a month back we had to do a drop in a blackout zone -- they're really dodgy sort of places, you can get arrested on sight if the Alliance spots you in one. So, me being me, I worried. A lot. And then the nav proceeded to break down right as a cruiser was coming in and left us at the mercy of sarcastic interrogators and way-too-thorough cargo searches. Took us days to get airborne again."

He scratches the back of his neck. "Plus, Simon and River had to hide here so they wouldn't get caught and we wouldn't get charged with harbouring known fugitives. That was a whole other level of nothing even resembling fun. But everything's shiny," he amends hurriedly. "Like I said: a while ago."

"Whatcha reading?"

Wash glances up. "It's called Jurassic Park. Ever heard of it? Great book. Apparently not so much with the fiction, though."

With a smile, "Don't think we've met, have we?"

Iris grins. "Icy. I remember that book. I liked the compys best."

"No, I"m very new." And bound. "My name's Iris."

"Thought so. I'm Wash. Nice to meet you." He offers a hand. "And...sorry, the what?"

"Nice to meet you, Wash. You know about the paint right there?" Gestures to her own forehead.

"The little scavenger dinosaurs? The...er..."

Tries to remember. "Procompsognathids."

Is proud that she remembers. "They call them compys in the book."

Wash rubs his forehead, smiling wryly. "Yeah. I know. My wife so kindly informed me last night after she'd stopped laughing. I can't get it off."

And then he sighs in exasperation at himself and adds, "Right, right, those. Sorry. For some reason I was thinking compys, computers, I don't know, my brain's a weird and confusing place sometimes."

Meanwhile, his mun makes yet another mental note to read the bloody book already. *headsmack*

She chuckles. Aw. "Happens to the best of us. Are you an artist?"

"Understandable. I named my first computer Compy because of the little dinosaurs." Her older brother teased her relentlessly when he found out, but that's another story.

*patpat* Her mun has read that book more times than is sane.

"Artist?" He laughs. "Hell no. I'm a pilot. Best I can do with art is draw a mean stick figure and shatter small panes of glass when I try to sing. The paint's from the renovations they're doing back there." A gesture with the book in the vague direction of the staff quarters.

"I'm sure there's someone out there who has made a living drawing mean stick figures and shattering glass." Probably a super villain. Iris' father always had lame-ass villains.

She glances in the direction he indicates. "Icy. Are they finished painting? I'd be willing to help." One of the more useful aspects of being a speedster.

Apologetically, "Yeah, everything's pretty much done, I think. But you could try talking to Bernard -- you met him yet? 'Bout my height, red hair, wears black all the time, kind of the guy in charge around here?"

Shrugs. "I'll ask him. That's all right though. Maybe I'll paint my room."

He grins. "Or there's always that option.

"So where're you from?"

"Well, if I'm going to be living here, I might as well make the best of it."

"Late 21st century Earth."

"Another one? You people are everywhere." Clearly teasing, though. He wiggles further upright in his chair and adds, "Twenty-sixth century here. I despair at ever meeting someone from my time who's not on my crew."

Iris chuckles, not taking any offense considering he's teasing and anyway it's so very true. "You can never have too many."

Pats his shoulder before sitting down nearby. "Sorry, Wash. If I do find someone from that time, I'll make sure to let you know ASAP.

What's the twenty-sixth century like anyway?"

"In under ten words? Less with the Earth existing and more with the space travel." A beat as he does the mental arithmetic. "That's eleven words, isn't it. Damn. Anyway, we've moved out and colonised a bunch of other planets -- at least a couple systems' worth -- and like I've been telling everyone else, just 'cause the Earth's gone where I am doesn't mean it's going to go boom where you're from."

Rapidly adds up words on her fingers and nods. "Yeah, eleven."

Iris nods hesitantly. "Well, I haven't been here long but I've noticed that timelines get very screwed up here."

Wash snorts. "Don't need to tell me that. I'm not even going to get into the part where I was here for five days and, when I finally got back home, found out that I'd been gone for less than an hour. It's enough to make you lose all faith in the basic laws of the 'verse."

Iris wrinkles her nose. "Ugh. So what is this place? The Anti-Narnia?"

Eyebrows go up. "If I knew what Narnia was, I could tell you."

"Hoo. How to explain Narnia..."

This is very much like trying to explain Leprachauns to Anthy. Iris needs to be more careful about her cultural points of reference.

"It's a magic land that you can access in many different ways. Some children visit it through a wardrobe. And when they return home, they find that only a few seconds have passed.

More complicated than that but...it's a very good series of books. Slightly religious overtones but it's harmless."

"Huh." Wash's brow furrows. "I dunno, sounds a lot like this place to me. Really kind of disturbingly like this place, actually...."

He glances around the bar, almost as if expecting a big sign to pop up that says 'WELCOME TO ~~MILLIWAYS~~ NARNIA!'

Well, if a talking lion shows up, we're all doomed, Iris thinks but there may in fact be a talking lion and she doesn't want to confuse Wash so she doesn't say that.

"Hm. Thinking about the later volumes in that series, you might have a point."

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