Toys, toys, for all bad boys

At the back of the room stands a singular fireplace giving off some heat. On its mantle lies an array of little figurines, shifting day by day. Right now a small bronze spire and a toy moose seem to lead the tiny army.

From:

pursuedthestars

The only good thing that had come out of yesterday was that he'd gotten some better clothes off a body of some dead guy he'd found in a burned out house.

Everything else? Had sucked. He didn't know what had happened on that version of Earth but between the bugs that he'd seen at every turn and all the dead things, he was glad to be back here, actually.

Right now, he was near the fire, warming up and trying not to think about the fact that he was wearing a dead person's clothes.

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Jack had kept exploring after he left the vampire version of town -- he needed to get those images out of his head.

Eventually, he found a room where he was immediately attacked by a rat the size of a pony. He managed to wrestle it to the ground and discovered it had, for some reason, been guarding half a dozen cans of baked beans. The labels were faded, the expiration dates several months past, but still: It was food. He bashed the cans against the bottom of a torch until they opened and set five of them around the fireplace to warm up. He was eating the sixth cold.

"We have some breakfast," he called. "And I don't think it will kill anyone."

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"You are fantastic," Sam declared emphatically, scooting toward him. She reached for a can. "May I? I'd offer some sort of compensation, but."

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Jack waved the hand that wasn't occupied holding a can of beans. "Go for it. We'll call the compliment your payment."

He might be exhausted and wearing a slightly smelly t-shirt blotched with baked bean juice, but Jack was still going to flirt.

"Should I know you, by the way? I don't think our paths crossed until now."

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"Thank you," Sam said, claiming the can appreciatively. "And no, I'm new. I just came to town on Friday."

She sounded calmer about the sudden change in setting than she actually was, but that was par for the course for Sam.

"Samantha Traynor," she added, holding out a hand.

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Ah, Traynor. That name rang a bell.

"Jack Priest," Jack said, setting his meal aside to take the hand and give it a firm shake. "I'm Lieutenant Commander Alenko's housemate -- he mentioned you to me. Hell of a welcome to town, isn't this? I promise we don't do it for all our new residents."

Edited Date: 2013-04-10 08:19 pm (UTC)

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"Lucky me," Sam said wryly. "Though I suppose it could have been worse. Er, somehow."

She'd come up with something. Maybe. Not right now.

"Ah... how are you enjoying your stay here in paradise?"

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"Quite," Jack agreed. He wasn't doing this on purpose, but the crispness of Sam's accent had him dropping some of the blurriness caused by almost four years in America out of his own. "Not that I want to challenge it by speculating as to how, but ... things can always be worse."

He smiled over. "Anyhow, I have something to eat and no one's actively trying to kill me. I give it three and a half stars. It would be four if there was a private bath."

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In a very basic way, Sam found the similarity between their accents a bit comforting, so... keep it up, Jack.

"Or a public bath," Sam added. "Or even a supply of toothbrushes. Something that doesn't scream 'unclean dungeon full of people who haven't bathed in several days.'"

Sam might have had a thing about cleanliness, maybe. She missed her toothbrush.

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"I'd settle for a fistful of baby wipes and a stick of gum," Jack said, and smiled. "But you sound rather hygiene-focused for a soldier. Id have expected you to be used to roughing it."

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Sam's chuckle in response was a little bit awkward-sounding, but it was still a chuckle. "Oh, I'm not a soldier, really," she clarified. "More of a... lab technician." She sounded a little bit sheepish. "All of the roughing-it I've done was a weekend camping trip with some friends in university, I'm afraid."

Sigh.

"Are you a soldier, then?" Considering that he knew Commander Alenko and all?

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"Not in the least. I only know what I've seen from other people," Jack said. "I'm ... well, mainly I help to manage a nightclub and teach a class."

Which he'd missed today for obvious reasons. All that research on selkies he'd done to prepare, out the window.

"What kind of lab work do you do?"

Re: Camp One - Fireplace

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From:

filleauloup

As it happened, today was not one of Éponine's more "together" days, so while she was good at scrounging up food and supplies, it might take some careful persuasion from anyone who thought of recruiting her for that job. (She'd wandered out into the maze and come back with a few things yesterday, and she'd have kept them all for herself if there had been a decent place to hide them, but being unable to find one she dumped it all in a corner as if she'd meant to share but kept hoping people wouldn't notice.)

She was fascinated by the figurines on the mantelpiece this morning, and lingered by the fireplace for a long time just staring at them while she sang broken little snatches of French nursery songs half under her breath.

"Funny, I don't think I recall you leading the charge yesterday, monsieur le capitan with the queer horns," she told the toy moose.

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"It's a moose," Kaidan offered quietly.

He was not often the first to instigate conversation with someone he didn't know, but... she seemed like she could use something. He wasn't sure what, but something.

From:

filleauloup

"Moose," Éponine echoed absently, still peering closely at the figurines. "That's a funny name to go with a funny-looking creature. D'you suppose it has a name, though?"

She was mostly fine, really, just . . . halfway off in her own little world.

She drifted a few steps to the side to examine the figurines from a different angle, singing to a tune that might be recognizable as "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star:"

"Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman,
Ce qui cause mon tourment?
Papa veut que je raisonne,
Comme une grande personne . . ."

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So... she was French. Kaidan didn't speak a great deal of the language, but he could make out the accent - and that song.

"I doubt it, unless someone here named it," he said. He sucked in a breath, racking his brain to remember words he'd learned before the universal translator.

Really should've gone to bed with his omni-tool.

"Comment... Uh. Comment allez-vous?"

He was aware he sounded painfully not-French. And wasn't sure if that was right. Wasn't it 'ça va'?

From:

filleauloup

"He ought to have a name, now he's an important officer in the army," Éponine decided, but she turned toward him looking surprised, if pleased; no one ever did anything but skip right to the informal address with the likes of her. (Well, Marius had showed her that courtesy for a little while, until she'd been stupid and showed him where Cosette lived.)

"Très bien, monsieur, et vous?" She was trying to make her voice sound lighter, but she never did succeed at that sort of thing; it just cracked more. She tried, though.

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The formal address had stuck by Kaidan when the informal hadn't, for reasons that had everything to do with why some people called him polite and other people called him stuffy.

He could parse that, though, and awkwarded out a, "Bien, merci." He rubbed the back of his head. "You... don't sound okay."

Because he wasn't going to chance that notion on his scraps of high school French.

From:

filleauloup

That was all right.

Éponine smiled, staring at some indeterminate point just past him. "I've work to do, and I'm not there to do it," she explained distractedly, as if this made perfect sense. "And anyhow, I don't like it here -- it's so dark and unpleasant, like when . . . well, never mind."

It reminded her a bit of being locked up at les Madelonettes.

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"Yeah, it's..." What, exactly? "They could've at least given us some chairs. Maybe a rug. Some tiles."

He wasn't even completely joking.

From:

filleauloup

The corners of Éponine's mouth twitched upward and she laughed. (It sounded just a little bit off, like it usually did.)

"It seems like such a little thing, doesn't it? I don't care to stay here forever, but if we have to I suppose a little furniture might make things almost bearable." If she sounded like she was trying to resign herself to the possibility of being stuck here, she was.

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"I'm heading out there again in a while," Kaidan said. He pointed towards the rug/carpet/blankets-- whatever they were-- he'd picked up yesterday. "There's some blankets left over. If there's... anything you need, I won't mind keeping a look out."

Re: Camp One - Fireplace

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