[ 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 vor cabin; oct. 5th

[commontype]

It's a lucky guess that Eggsy finds Miles bunk, lots of knocking, lots of wrong rooms, but he shows up with a grin on his face and Stark by his feet. He knocks on the door, and normally he'd just go in but he's trying to be respectable.

He wonders if Miles is even in, if his roommates will be around, and if Miles will even want to catch-up.

Eggsy's had a crazy month, and even though this ship seems like it isn't that big, he still doesn't see very many people as often as he would think he should. Still, Miles had helped him an awful lot and he'd like to return his gun and thank him.

[forwardmomentum]

When Miles answers the door, he still looks a little bleary and tired, but he's at least depilatated the several day growth of stubble he'd accumulated during his spectacularly black mood. It's lifting now though, leaving him a little drained, but at least he isn't resolutely wasting away in his bed. He perks up a little when he palms open the door to see Eggsy, blinking, and his expression lightens.

"Eggsy," he greets the other man with a nod, and then his eyes settle on Stark. Miles lets out a startled curse, twitching back. "What the hell is that?"

[commontype]

"Oh."

Eggsy glances down at Stark, grin widening.

"Don't rightly know. He's some sort of alien creature thing, and he's mine now. I'm gonna take care of him for a bit."

Stark is smart, super smart. Way more intelligent than his pug back home, but he loves them both anyways. The alien-dog looks up at Miles, tongue lolling out of its mouth, panting, and staring at the man.

"He's friendly. Just tryin' to see what you're like an' all that."

[forwardmomentum]

"Uh-huh." Friendly. Right. Miles inches away from Stark anyway, just to be safe. He doesn't like the look of that thing. It's good to see Eggsy, though. Miles hasn't seen him since their nearly suicidal attack on the aliens from the exuo planet, although to be fair, he hasn't seen much of anyone lately. He discreetly rubs at one of his dark-circled eyes. "So...what can I do for you, Eggsy?"

[commontype]

"Ah, he won't hurt ya. He ain't like a regular dog."

Even though Miles might not have the same sort of dogs Eggsy did.

"Like he doesn't really need me, really. I give 'im food, but he has gotten it on his own before. And, fuck, Miles you should see 'im run. S'fast."

Eggsy glances up at Miles, taking in the dark circles.

"Just came to see how you're doin'. How it's been since, well, everythin'."

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."

the bar...at some point in the month??

[keelahselai]

Tali casually avoided much of the chaos that went on over the past little while. Some mixture of blind luck, studious avoiding of the planet after the first couple of little expeditions...and the gas mask she wears almost constantly, meant most of what happened just rolled over her.

That doesn't mean she's not aware of it. She's painfully aware that this ship she thought was so safe is suddenly not as safe as it seemed to be before. That this looks an awful lot like the biohazard that hit the Neheda not so long after she came aboard (though replace 'exuo' with 'nanobots'), and it makes her think a little too much about where she was before she got here.

And she'd really rather not.

Anyway, the bar is fairly quiet when she walks in one night, mask firmly in place, though her uniform's a bit oil spattered and dusty at this point. The only sound is that of someone behind the bar, out of sight, clanking bottles around in what she's...going to assume is an effort at rearranging them. Or he's just entertaining himself with the noise. She won't judge.

Even leaning over the bar on tiptoes, she can't see him, but she's assuming it's, "Miles?"

[forwardmomentum]

There's another moment more of clinking and rummaging, and then Miles' wizened face pokes up over the edge of the bar. "Oh! Hello, Tali." He sets the bottles in his hands down on the floor and hops back onto one of the crates he'd set up for a booster. It doesn't thrill him to need them, but better that than standing on tip-toe just to see over the bar. He doesn't think his dignity can take that, after the last few weeks.

It's nice to see her again, though Miles is rather glad he hasn't seen her in a while, all things considering. It was bad enough that Niko had. His two broken fingers are still splinted from when Niko'd accidentally broken them, and one of his arms is splinted and in a sling as well, although he's healed up a lot by now. Miles flashes Tali a grin as he rests his other elbow on the bartop. "How've you been?"

COMES BACK FROM HOLIDAY SORRY <3

[keelahselai]

It's easier for her to just jump up onto a bar stool, even though her legs catch the metal bars in slightly awkward ways. She's just gotten herself situated when she looks back up at Miles properly...and visibly starts.

"Me?" Her eyes are visibly wide through her mask as she stares at Miles, and her gaze visibly drags from his arm splint to his fingers, back to his face. "I'm fine. What happened to you?"

COMES BACK FROM..... NOT TAGGING OOPS

[forwardmomentum]

"Oh, this?" Miles' grin goes crooked and he tries not to wince as he straightens up to gesture at himself. Those cracked ribs aren't doing him any favors, either. "It was a crazy week. You should see the other guys."

The other guys being Ivan, Niko, and a couple of really handsy aliens. They're all doing pretty fine, actually. Miles was kind of disappointed that the good punch he'd given Ivan had done more harm to him than his cousin. "I'm fine. I've suffered through worse, believe me. So -- can I get you anything?"

[keelahselai]

Maybe she's just imagining a slight stiffness to the way he moves in general, but the concerned look on her face is almost entirely hidden by her mask. Maybe he can see something if he squints.

Tali hasn't heard anything from Niko - nor Ivan, when it comes to that, but she hasn't met the latter yet - so, "I'll take your word for it." And there's something of a fond grin in her voice. She's found herself taking a quick liking to the human...even if it already looks like he's going to be yet another friend of hers she has to constantly worry about the safety of.

"Hearing you've had worse doesn't make me feel better," she says wryly, and then, "Ah, do you have anything dextro? They've got dextro meds and food on board, but I wasn't sure about drinks..."

Weirdo aliens need to get drunk too, damn it.

backdated to last week

[forwardmomentum]

Miles thought about a lot of things while he spent several days brooding miserably on his bunk, and his altercation with Ivan is chief among them. He'd done and said a lot of nasty things that week, but he'd done and said the worst to Ivan. And he's paying for it -- the cracked ribs are going to take several weeks to heal, he knows from experience, and he feels it every time he moves or breathes in deep. It isn't the right price, though, not for that. He owes Ivan a...well, a talk, at the very least. God knows they haven't spoken since Miles dragged himself back to his bunk after that fight. And then the whole kidnapping thing'd happened -- everything was so crazy -- and once the effects of the eclipse and the exuo had worn off, he just felt...empty. Totally drained. And disgustingly depressed.

He's barely emerged from the little private space he's made for himself by tucking a spare sheet under Ivan's mattress, only to drag himself to sickbay to get his injuries checked out and a few scant shifts at the bar he managed to convince himself to work, but he decides it's time to properly emerge. It isn't that he feels a whole lot better, but he needs to be done wallowing in his own misery now. He needs to talk to Ivan.

Moving hurts like hell, especially the kind of moving it takes to pull aside the makeshift curtain and lean out from his bed to peer up at the top bunk, but he grits his teeth against a pained grunt and raps on the top bunk bedframe with his good hand. "Ivan?" he tries, but his throat is dry and cracked from general disuse -- he hasn't spoken much at all the last week -- and he clears his throat and tries again. "Ivan. Can we talk?"

[whatdidisay]

Maple mead. The worst thing to come out of the Vorkosigan district since great-Uncle Piotr himself; Ivan theoretically hates the stuff, preferring the vintage wines in the cellars of Vorkosigan house over the hell that's maple mead. But when he's been gifted three kegs of the stuff after the past few weeks he's had, Ivan isn't going to argue with it. What he is going to do is steal glasses from the bar when Miles isn't there, and retreat back into their room to drink it -- Miles is doing that thing where he closes off from the rest of the world and pretends that they're not there while the rest of the world attempts to pretend not to be worried about him. So that's fine, it's almost like he isn't there at all.

He and Gregor had shared looks when the sheet went up, and Ivan had done his best to shrug a it's not my fault at the Emperor. Part of it probably is, but Ivan's not thinking about that.

Which is why he's surprised when he returns from his venture for appropriate glassware to see Miles up, and looking for him. Ivan clears his throat from where he stands in the door in order to redirect Miles's attentions to him. "You can talk," he says at last, and gestures with an empty glass towards the kegs sitting off to the side. "I'm going to get drunk. Vorishly drunk," Ivan adds, in case there was any lingering doubt.

[forwardmomentum]

Miles' head swivels toward the door and he blinks, registering the kegs -- how long have those been there? Well, it's not like he's been paying much attention to the world beyond his bed lately. Miles recognizes the glasses from the bar, and for a second he thinks the kegs might be, too, but no -- they're...almost too familiar. He squints at the kegs, but he tears his attention away, back to Ivan.

"Right," he says, and it's not quite the response he was hoping for, but Ivan could've refused to talk at all. Miles tugs the makeshift curtain halfway out from under Ivan's mattress, clearing his throat again, and trying not to wince as he moves. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and leans forward, his splinted arm cradled against his chest in a sling. "Mind if I drink and talk?"

Getting drunk right now sounds like the best idea he's heard all week, to be honest.

[whatdidisay]

Ivan is trying his best not to look at Miles, knowing that if he does the guilt he's planning to drink away will come smashing back into him. It will tomorrow morning, but at least the time between right now and then will be filled with a distracting hell. If his cousin wants to talk then he's not going to be shaken off easily; Ivan doesn't have the energy to even attempt to do so, nor the heart. Not after what happened last time.

"Go ahead," is his answer as Ivan turns his full attention on opening one of them and pouring himself a generous glass. He does the same for Miles, and holds it out to him while letting himself fall against the wall. Sliding down until he's sitting, Ivan figures he's just bypassed an important step in getting drunk properly. Everyone had to remain upright for as long as possible during events back home, this feels like cheating. "Guess it's mail time again, only this time instead of the frigging kitten tree it's maple mead."

[forwardmomentum]

"Wait, really?" Miles is momentarily distracted from the decidedly morose atmosphere that's settled over the room as he inches a little further off the bed to peer at the kegs. That's why they're familiar -- he's seen those kegs in the cellar of Vorkosigan House at Vorkosigan Surleau. Seems cosmically appropriate here. He could use a little taste of home, he supposes. "Well, better this than any further feline genetic experiments showing up."

The humor in it is muted, though, cautious in a way that Miles usually isn't. God, this is uncomfortable. He and Ivan have had spats before, sure, but -- that? That had been unprecedented. All the more reason to bring an end to this.

"Look," Miles starts, actually wincing this time as he limps over to take a glass of his own and pour himself some maple mead. For a guy with a broken arm and a couple of broken fingers, he does a pretty good job of not spilling any. He realizes that started like the beginning of some kind of objection, a defense, and tries again. "Ivan," he says, staring down into his glass, and he lets out a deep sigh. "Last week, that whole -- that shouldn't have happened."

peridot - october event

[forwardmomentum]

This whole business with the masks is weird, but then again, so is everything to do with this damned ship, so Miles is taking it rather in stride. If the masks are anything like exuo, they're in for...some kind of something, although they seem fairly innocuous at a glance. Miles had tried his on for about five seconds before feeling ridiculous and immediately taking it off. He shoved it back in the box and stuck it under his bed and went about his day as usual.

He's curious about the storm, though. That's what interests him far more than the masks. He's curious about damn near everything on a normal day, but it seems particularly acute. But depsite his suddenly intensified urge to skive off work and socialize -- Ivan would call it nosing around, but he's always been a stickler for semantics -- Miles' sense of responsibility still prevails, so here he is, standing behind the bar propped up on a crate so that he can actually see over the bar. He's finished taking inventory and the place is looking pretty tidy, and now he's feeling fantastically bored, so he's taken to seeing how many shot glasses he can stack into a pyramid before it either topples over or he runs out of shot glasses. The captains probably wouldn't be too pleased if he broke them all, but somehow Miles thinks they'd find more somewhere.

[peridork]

"Hmmmm."

That sound is coming from the weird green girl that just moseyed into your bar, Miles. Not that her arrival was very stealthy to begin with. It's kind of hard to be, when you've got metallic leg extenders hitched to your actual feet. The unfortunate thing about not needing sleep or food is that Peridot finds herself with way too much free time when she's not on duty, which she has, lately, taken to filling by poking around every damn corner of the ship.

This is a room she hasn't been in before, occupied by a human that she hasn't seen before either. The expression on her face is actually rather apathetic, all things considered, with her usual arrogance spiked to an all time high thanks to a certain mask that she tried on earlier.

She doesn't even say anything, she just kind of... gazes imperiously at the man, blinking slowly, like she's trying to decide if engaging with him is worth her time or not.

[forwardmomentum]

All right, Miles has never seen a girl quite like Peridot, he'll give her that, but after a couple of months on this ship, that sort of thing is starting to faze him a little less. She's got an air about her that Miles already finds a little irritating, though all he does is raise an eyebrow and stare right back at her as he places the final shot glass on top of the pyramid. He breaks eye contact to survey his own work with an appraising nod, finding it satisfactory, and turns back to Peridot.

The thought comes into his mind suddenly -- not his own, and that makes him frown. Just a vibe, he guesses. "Listen," he says to Peridot in an accent that sounds vaguely Russian, if seven hundred years removed. He rests his good elbow on the bar, although he winces slightly as he leans forward. "Either I'm worth your time and you order something, or I'm not and you find something better to do than gawk. Isn't there a rec room on this ship? I hear we've got a killer Fine Arts instructor now. You look like you've got a finger painter in you just waiting to come out."

[peridork]

She's rather taken aback by the directness of that statement; it's almost like this small human just read her mind??? Surely not...

Normally Peridot would be more hung up on the numerous terms he just used that she does not understand, but being predisposed to behaving more aggressively superior as she is right now, she puffs up and scowls. How dare this insignificant pebble tell her what to do?!

"This is a public space, is it not?" She intones, folding her arms over her chest and scowling. "Besides, I can go wherever I please, and "gawk" at whoever I wish! So be silent!"

[forwardmomentum]

"No, it's my -- " Miles starts, annoyed, but then she tells him to be silent and he abruptly snaps his mouth shut in obedience. It catches up to him after half a second that this is not, in fact, something he actually wanted to do. He looks a little more annoyed, then alarmed -- then really annoyed when he opens his mouth to try to speak but can't. His throat works, with little effect. Son of a bitch. Miles gives her an indignant look demanding explanation, hitting his fist on the table.