Bad Handwriting and Everything [Open]

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

The upside to using paper and pen instead of data pads for taking notes on patients is that it's intuitive and you can fiddle with things. The downside is that, at the end of a shift, a lot of the notes have to be shredded for privacy reasons, and the details have to be entered into the data pads anyway. Despite his usual devotion to efficiency, Howard doesn't mind this. It's a nice way to review the day and cement anything he might have learned.

The Quarantine's mostly empty now, which is a definite plus. All those kids were getting Howard crankier and antsier than usual. He brought in a box of toys from the Warehouse, though he didn't bother to check the age ranges for them, so he hopes someone who cares a bit more will take out all the choking hazards before any of the children regress to toddlerhood. He doesn't want anything to do with children; he had enough of that back in that dystopian nightmare he called home. All they do is cry and scream and demand things and kill each other and eat all the food and lie and burn down buildings and generally make life unpleasant. Not that adults are always better, but at least someone's around to enforce order here.

He hums a snippet of Cliffs of Dover to himself, chewing on the end of a Tinker Toy, and starts typing in his notes.

Comments

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"Hard at work?" Zouichi had decided earlier to drop by and see how things were going in Medical, maybe catch Howard or Anwei in a spare moment. He looks around. "It's emptied out quite a bit since I was last here."

Alan Turing is perched on Zouichi's shoulder once more. In fact, more of his feathers have grown in by now; he now looks like he's in the process of transitioning into a rather handsome bird. Also: he knows it, at least from the look he casts Howard before returning to preening his feathers.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Yeah, thank God. I was worried we'd have to keep a bunch of elementary schoolers in the bubbles. I fricking hate little kids." He gives a little wave and looks up at Alan. "Your bird looks better. Does that thing have a name?"

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"Alan Turing," Zouichi says, scratching the parrot's head affectionately. "'Better'? Oh, you mean his adult feathers? Well, I suppose they have a certain charm, too..."

But he's biased. He is quite fond even of ugly baby Alan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn9NtlHaMmc&feature=related).

"I didn't know you hated children." After all, Howard is still a minor himself.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Is he named after someone or is that just a name you made up?" He puts the Tinker Toy down and puts a paper in the shredder. "He had a bit of a gawky teenager phase there. How old do they get?"

Howard snorts. "Are you surprised?"

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Zouichi blinks. "You've never heard of Turing? Cracked the Enigma's code in World War II? Described the Turing machine? He's a pretty famous historical figure from 20th century Earth. Anyway, the man who sold him to me said twenty, thirty years. Species like his are apparently rather long-lived."

For animals, anyway.

He thinks it over for a moment. "No, I suppose not. But you're not that much older yourself."

[encourage]

Sakura hadn't recognized half the toys that came in, if she'd been able to make sense of most of them. A few tripped her up, which might explain why she was heading back to Howard with one of them in hand now. Skip-It seemed straight forward, if she couldn't imagine how this was much of a game. Did this little counter count... what? Revolutions?

Was this also minor weapons training? Kind of a flimsy bit of plastic tying the ring to the larger round end with the toy's name. "Is this a toy, or some kind of torture device?" she asked, holding up the object in question.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard looks up at it and squints. "I got no idea. Isn't it one of those things you stick around your ankle and try to break your other ankle with? None of the kids in there knew how to use it?"

Clearly, Howard was a kid who spent more times watching movies and playing videogames than being outside with toys ordered off TV.

[encourage]

"You literally just skip over it?" She quirked her eyebrow up, shaking her head. "Didn't seem to hit it off with anyone. Outside of maybe converting it into a blunt force trauma case waiting to happen. Not that I blame anyone."

She lowered the contraption to her side. "When I first saw it I thought it might have been a child-safe version of a flail." She looked serious for a split second before her lips quirked up at the corners. "At least you recognize this from somewhere. Anything more advanced than a jumping rope, and I'm lost."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I...think so?" He pokes at it with his Tinker Toy stick, then snickers at her comment. "I honestly don't know what most of these toys are. I found them in the city and grabbed them thinking they might be useful someday, and lo and behold, suddenly we have kids running around. Really annoying kids, for the record."

He furrows his eyebrows at her jumprope comment, then digs a Simon Says out of the box. "So, where you're from, this sort of toy would be ridiculous high technology, right? That one's pretty much the only one I was ever good at. Think I even beat it once."

[encourage]

"At that age, who couldn't be annoying?" She doesn't hold it against them, considering her own recollections of how she and her peers acted at that age. (At least not much. She tries to remind herself why patience was a virtue. Sometimes it works.)

Sakura examines what Howard has pulled out of the box, not recognizing it in the slightest. "Basically," she admits, having gotten used to the fact most people in medical are better experienced with technology than she is. "What is it? Or more to the point, how do you play?"

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Eager to get back t work and, she'd admit, more than eager to play with the little kids, Kaya was in fact looking through some of the toys herself, checking through what was what and who would be all clear to play with what toy. It started out pretty straight forward, but as Kaya had never heard of most of these toys, had to actually try out some of these herself just so she could get a better idea. It might have looked ridiculous, a teenage girl fiddling with an etch a sketch or staring suspiciously at a football, wondering its function.

Glancing at Howard, she made a face. "You know, this is actually one of those times I think I'm actually jealous of not being able to take notes. I'm all for taking care of patients, but this is harder than I thought. Do you know most of what these things functions are?"

*omg Kaya with an etch a sketch lolling forever*

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Why can't you take notes? I don't think you'd have to shred basic directions for Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. Here, I have an extra clipboard." Howard ducks under his table an tosses a clipboard and paper up onto the table. A slightly-chewed pen follows it a second later.

"That one's a ball. You throw it," he says, with a face that says he doesn't think all that highly of Kaya's intelligence for not being able to figure out a football. "As for the rest...I understand maybe half of them. There are a few in there that I'm not sure if they're toys or cheap plastic weapons, so, you know, we should probably figure that out before we give them to kids. Just to keep them from running crying back to Med Bay when they blow their hands off."

He's joking, mostly, but he's seen plenty of kids get injured in accidents back home and since he has no magical healing capabilities, would really rather avoid it.

Re: *omg Kaya with an etch a sketch lolling forever*

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

"Rock em Sock em" WHAT? Kaya has no idea what he's talking about, but takes the clipboard anyway. She's seen robots (thanks to the ship) but never in robot form. Why were they punching each other in the first place?

"Ok, you're serious about this thing being a ball?" Kaya blurted out, not able to keep her skepticism to herself. "Then why does it look like that? Aren't balls supposed to be round? Anyway, I'm just trying to sort these out: I thought this de-ageing thing was only going to be temporary, like all of the other things that affected the crew, but it looks like this thing is in for the long haul. I didn't know we'd be playing babysitter in the med bay."

Not that she minds, sh really liked it, but that didn't mean she wanted everyone to know that.

Re: *omg Kaya with an etch a sketch lolling forever*

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Those ugly blue and red things in there," Howard points them out. He honestly doesn't know why they're punching each other either. Hey, are those Bionicles? And a boomerang?

"I don't know. I didn't invent football. Think it's pretty stupid, actually." Said like someone who was never very good at sports, although being the shortest boy in his class never helped that. "Yep. Can I just delegate all my babysitting shifts to you? If I have to watch any kids, someone's going to end up eating lead paint or sticking a fork in an electrical socket. I don't do kidsitting."

He can tell from the way Kaya talks about it that at the very least, she doesn't hate kidsitting like he does.

Re: *omg Kaya with an etch a sketch lolling forever*

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Kaya eyed the said toy, poking at it a moment, then pressing the button and seeing one hit the other. She sniffed derisively, as of to say and they call ME the primitive one? What a strange toy.

"Well, not that I mind babysitting a whole lot, but what's so wrong about kids? Well, except Marco, you can HAVE him kid or 'adult.'" And she emphasized that last part. "You were one once, right?"

Yeah, Kaya doesn't have a big problem there. Even leaving her tribe to pursue greater things didn't really her whole mother mentality when it came to these kind of things. Granted, she didn't want to stay with them forever (or god forbid have one, getting a boyfriend was hard enough). She preferred having what little free time she had to herself.

[8wings.livejournal.com]

Anwei was also quite relived at the exodus of the child population. She was down to using one workstation instead of two (even if she was using that one in split-screen mode). On one side, she was writing out a list of standard questions to ask people who might be de-aging ("Do you remember your thoughts on waking up from the pods? Were your memories of where you had been just before that time different than what you remember now?); on the other side, she was rotating a diagram of a small rectangular sensor package, picking it apart with her eyes and her cursor, trying to see if it could be made smaller, more efficient. And adapted for monitoring human-standard brains.

She glanced over at her co-worker, typing his notes in. He was not chewing on a pen for a change; instead he was chewing on a wooden stick. "How's your schedule today, Howard?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Anwei creeps Howard out fifty percent more when she's doing the split screen thing. Today is no exception. He barely glances up at her, instead putting another finished paper in the shredder. "Why, you need me to do something?"

[8wings.livejournal.com]

She's glancing with both eyes at once, just to be polite.

"I'm writing up a debriefing report on Epicurea - which I'm sure you remember. Hopefully, someone will have a chance to learn from it, and not have to go on a mission there as blind as we did."

"Would you like to contribute anything to the report? I've got a draft here," she says, holding up her omnicomm.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Aren't you considerate. How debriefed are we going to be?" He can hold a grudge, but if he's being honest his irritation with Anwei over her selling Zouichi and her solipsism has mostly left him. He peeks over Anwei's shoulder.

[8wings.livejournal.com]

"Well, it's more of an informal report than a debriefing. But I still don't want anyone else going to Epicurea not knowing anything. And for all we know, the Orb of Enlightenment was the only thing holding the planet together, and once we took it the whole world collapsed. Whatever we write might be the last record of them."

She's sort of joking about that. She thinks that Stacy probably wouldn't condemn a world to die for the sake of owning a shiny golden bauble. Probably.

She takes the list of question and sends it to Dr. Henderson with a note (Doctor, I'm brainstorming a custom admissions checklist for de-aging people; I think this could be a good start). She shoves the sensor package screen aside as well, and starts looking for her latest draft of the Epicurea report.

[theboywhowaits]

"You're still here?" Which really, was more of the pot calling the kettle black, but he was at least licensed. And not fifteen. He would never get used to this ship and its predisposition to teenagers with far more weight on their shoulders than teenagers ought to have. At least, he thought so anyway. Fifteen was an age where you should be out doing crazy things, not holding down a job.

He'd been pouring over his own notes for hours, trying to find anything he might have missed, anything that might help Conner or the others. But so far, absolutely nothing. He'd only got up for a cup of what passed for caffeine in this place. "Coffee? The box claims it is, anyhow. Not sure if I buy it."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Why, gonna kick me out for loitering?" he says, glancing up and then back down at his data pad when he recognizes the nurse. He's seen him around before - Rory, maybe? he hasn't learned everyone's names yet, especially not newer people - but hasn't really talked to him yet. They've managed to do almost an entire shift without exchanging any words, both hunched over their notes.

The mention of coffee catches his attention, though. "You have coffee?" he asks. His voice has the tentative fervor of someone who expects to be told 'yes, but you can't have any'.

[theboywhowaits]

"No? Why? You've got as much right to be here as I do." Ah. Right, the kid who knew about kids. Younger than he thought he would be. More hostile too. So, where did that put him?

He didn't see a problem with a quiet shift, though, working in silence was easy.

"Yeah, I got a pot and a few bags of the stuff back at port. Enough to last, hopefully, until next landfall. It doesn't taste right, but it will wake you up. Want a cup? There's even some sort of sweetener." He glanced at the teen out of the corner of his eye, watching the reaction.

So, knew about kids, was used to being unwelcome, and used to being told there were things in the world he couldn't have. Unless he missed his guess, he was dealing with one of the kids who came into the hospital wild eyed and hording packets of apple juice and sugar with no trust for the adults responsible for their care. Though he couldn't tell yet if it was abuse, neglect, loss or some combination of the three. "Tried to get a few things to make it more comfortable, for us and the patients."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"It was a joke, man," he says, sizing Rory up the way he does anyone. So far Rory's pleasant and generous enough, which may mean that he's a genuinely good guy - which would be a good resource to have on this ship, since Howard feels no compunction about leeching off of others' generosity. He doesn't miss Rory's glance though - he can tell he's being studied just as much as he's observing back.

"If it's edible, I'll drink it. Or potable. Whatever the word is." He isn't lying, either; there were days back in the FAYZ where the only meal of the day was half a tube of toothpaste or tiny packets of mayonnaise. There are very few, if any, things Howard hesitates about eating. "I'm not picky about taste. What's your name?"

[theboywhowaits]

"Ah." He smiled, relaxed and at ease as he poured a second cup. "Haven't had much cause for that around here. Sometimes I forget. Sugar? Or whatever this stuff is? The coffee tastes a bit like curry, cocoa and a sack of coffee got mixed together somehow. Bit off-putting at first, but you get used to it. And it wakes you up, and when it comes to hospital coffee, that's really the only thing you need to worry about."

He kept himself relaxed, knowing he was being judged. It was almost funny, in it's own way. After everything;monsters, dying, creepy fish people, tentacles...and here he was being sized up by a teenager. Normal. If the wall wasn't breathing he could have been home right now. "Rory. Rory Williams. And yours?"

He could add 'not used to having a regular food source' to the list. So either an orphan with bad fosters or something else.