[ catch-all for miles ]

[forwardmomentum]

Who: Miles and YOU
When: anywhere from the beginning of the month to..... eh (wobbles hand)
Where: the bar, sanitation, the vor cabin, WHEREVER YOU WANT
What: Miles being a miserable depressive sadsack and then getting better! Making amends for being a shit during the event! Teaching the new guy how to not break the septic system! Whatever your heart desires!
Warnings: TBA

The last couple of weeks have been disaster. Miles had been so caught up in the effects of the exuo and the eclipse that he'd lost control of himself more than once, instigating a few fights and severely paying for it afterward. The broken arm will heal fine, but the cracked ribs are going to be a pain for a little while yet. Not to mention the whole nearly being sacrificed in the name of bringing back a little sunlight. That? That he can live without.

But the worst thing about it was the knowledge that something -- something was messing with his brain, and he still doesn't fully understand what or why or even how. It'd made him lose himself, hit that edge dangerously close and slip right off it. In Miles' line of work, he can't afford that -- and he's not sure he can live without his line of work. It all gets very...tangled up sometimes.

He's exhausted, after it all winds down. The -- effect, whatever it was, it had him going so hard for so long that as soon as it wore off, Miles crashed hard. His post-mania funks are never pretty, but this one's especially black, made only worse by the stinging memory of some of the things he'd said. He can't get that much privacy in his cabin with Ivan and Gregor, but he tucks a sheet under Ivan's mattress to create a makeshift curtain and resolutely hole up as far in the corner as he can in a miserable little pile of Miles Naismith Vorkosigan.

It wears off after a few days, much to Ivan and Gregor's relief as well as his own. Once the black clouds have passed, though, Miles drags himself out of bed. Time to get back his forward momentum. Time to get back to work. He's got double duty, after all, at the bar and in sanitation, and last he checked, he's got a new guy to train. Hopefully the place is still running alright. Miles feels a bit bad about not being consistent about showing up for work, but now that he's determined to get his shit back together, he makes a project out of cleaning out the whole damn bar and rearranging it, and as for sanitation -- well, he'll make an action plan when he gets down there.

[ this is a catch-all, so feel free to tag in with whatever or request a starter if needed! ]

Comments

the bar;

[heliakal]

The text message is the first he hears of Miles since the Cat Tree Incident. He knows that Miles was among the hostages, and that someone managed to rescue him and get him back to the ship, but otherwise - he has no idea. If he had known anything sooner, he would have sent a message to Greg, but he figures Miles' family has been keeping an eye on him since then.

He comes to the bar hoping to find Miles there. He's busy sorting through bottles when Clark arrives, and Clark does his best to resist the urge to x-ray Miles for remaining injuries. They're obviously not an immediate concern if there are any - if he's honest, he feels guilty that Miles got hurt at all. He'd promised to look for him, but even Superman can't be everywhere at once.

"Hey," he says, leaning an arm against the bar top. "Want a hand back there?"

[forwardmomentum]

Miles has been to sickbay at least once by now, and they've done about all they can for him. The break in his lower left arm will be splinted for a while, but it was a pretty minor one, and he expects it to heal soon -- ditto for the broken fingers. The cracked ribs, though, those'll take a little while to heal. Miles winces slightly as he straightens up a little quickly, a hand going to his side.

"Clark," Miles says in greeting with a slightly pained nod, although he seems generally pleased to see him. He's obviously been through the wringer since Clark last saw him, still looking a little tired from the last few rough days, but hey, he's up and moving around. He climbs up onto one of his platforms and sets a pair of bottles on the table. "Well, I wouldn't say no. The inventory here's bigger than I thought."

[heliakal]

Miles is still in a pretty bad way, and Clark can't help but wonder how much worse it must have been before they'd used all of these fancy machines to patch him up. He doesn't let himself linger on the thought; knows from experience that this isn't going to go down a productive path. He'll just have to be more prepared for the possibility of danger in the future.

"Why don't you let me do the grunt work while you mark off the inventory then? The natives weren't nearly as interested in getting a piece of me."

He picks one of the bottles up, turning it over in his hands. "And speaking of... I'm glad you're back on your feet, Miles."

[forwardmomentum]

"Lucky you," Miles says sardonically, waving Clark around to the back of the bar. He does wince a little to raise his arm above shoulder level -- the damned cracked ribs will take at least six weeks to heal, in his experience. He has Ivan to thank for that -- well, not exactly. Miles can't exactly hold that against him.

Miles shrugs, pulling himself up onto a barstool with the data pad he's using to take inventory. "I bounce back quickly," he says blithely. He wonders if that's merely a comment on his injuries, or if Ivan had mentioned the several days he spent mired in the pit of depression to Clark. Better not to ask. Miles is downright allergic to pity. "I've suffered through worse, and with less competent medical personnel to clean up afterward. D'you know I had my first break before I was even a full day old?"

Just the first of many more. As anyone with an X-ray could see -- or, say, X-ray vision -- all of Miles' bones are riddled with the evidence of old breaks, hair-thin patterns that stand out against the brittle bones. Except for the ones in his legs, of course. Those he'd had replaced with plastic synthetics a couple of years ago, finally.

[heliakal]

Clark grins a little. "Well, sometimes it pays to be uninteresting."

He gives Miles a sympathetic look for the wince, but he doesn't linger on it. He doesn't take Miles for someone who's particularly interested in pity. He does do a quick x-ray to glance at the remaining injuries, just to be sure, but even a glance is enough to see the truth of what Miles is saying.

Maybe a human would think of Miles as fragile, in that he's easier to injure than some, but to Clark, the world is made of glass. Miles isn't all that different. And really, within three seconds or so of meeting him, fragile is not a word that comes to mind.

That planet was only their first stop, and he wonders if the next will be similarly dangerous. He likes Miles, and Ivan too; he doesn't want to see them hurt, and he doesn't want to have to lie to them if things become difficult again, either.

He comes around the bar and starts shifting bottles around to organize them for easier inventory. This is something he's actually done before, at least.

"Miles," Clark says, glancing over his shoulder. "Every time you tell me something about what you've done, I feel a little more sorry for Ivan. Granted, I'm hoping some of the ones that happened after your first day were unintentional. And declassified."

[forwardmomentum]

"I'm the one here with the broken bones, and you feel sorry for him?" Miles remarks, raising an eyebrow at Clark, but he calls that off with a scoff. Better not to mention that some of those broken bones are thanks to Ivan. He's not sure he could really explain that to Clark, the nuance of what went down that day, beyond the influence of the exuo and the eclipse.

"Oh, they're so rarely intentional. Just because my bones break easily doesn't mean they hurt any less when they break, and I'm no particular fan of pain." He sets the pad on the desk so that he can use his good hand to tap at it and swings a leg up to tuck it under the other. A declassified story, eh? Well, Miles does love to tell a good story. He flashes a grin at Clark, eyes glinting.

"But if you want a declassified story," he says, eyes flicking over Clark's work, "I could tell you about one of my and Ivan's adventures when we were back at the Imperial Service Academy. It's a very good one."

[heliakal]

"I never said I didn't feel sorry for you, too. I can't imagine what that's like."

Up until a few months ago, he hadn't even experienced pain in any real way - he's got no idea what a broken bone feels like, even now. But just like any other kind of pain, he doesn't need to experience it to understand that it's difficult to bear.

Miles doesn't seem overly bothered, but he suspects that it has more to do with experience and determination than the actual amount of pain he's in.

Clark holds up two beers and inclines his head, inviting Miles to have one while they work. At least he seems interested in telling a story - more than interested, from that smirk. Clark shakes his head, but he's trying not to grin too much. "...That expression is exactly why I worry for Ivan."

He can't help but be curious about Barrayar, as well as Miles and Ivan both, so he nods for Miles to continue.

[forwardmomentum]

Miles' smile tightens for a moment at that -- he'd asked for that offering of pity in one way or another, he supposes, but he'd meant it only in an offhand, joking manner. He's got no interest or use for anyone's pity. Save it for Ivan, Clark, he actually needs it.

But he'd rather skip right on over that and get to the story. Miles grins again, leaning against the bar from his stool, and his speech starts to pick up that pressured, rapidfire pace at always does when he gets excited. "Ivan and I were in the Imperial Service Academy together -- we're only a few months apart, you know. It's about what you'd expect from a military academy, lots of lectures and theory and training on every god-damn piece of military or ship tech they've got -- not to mention the physical training. But it was the drills and the simulations I really liked. They'd give us a scenario and assign us our roles, test our ability to think under pressure and attack the problem, that sort of thing -- and they'd sit back and watch it play out while we watched us try and figure it all out, or until someone buggered the whole thing.

"There was this one exercise, in our first year -- track down an enemy soldier in unfavorable territory sort of thing. Ivan was assigned to lead a squad of our fellow cadets to track down a hidden sniper -- me. We were in a swampy area during the wet season, so pretty sticky conditions. Anyway, in pursuit of me Ivan led his squad on a brave charge onward -- right into the mud." Miles' eyes glitter with suppressed laughter. This is his favorite part. "They managed to wade in about chest-deep before they got stuck. They had to call a lightflier to lift them out."