Sweet, grounded, claustrophobic home [OPEN]

[leafonthewind]

Reavers.

Of course there were Reavers on the ship. There were teenagers who turned into monsters and viruses that made people crazy and clocks that made people age backward. Why not Reavers?

Following his announcement on the omnicomm, Wash had spent most of his days shut up tight in Serenity. Oh, he wasn't about to have the General come drag him out by his ear, so he still left the ship once a day, but in that time he went straight to the Sensoriums and straight back to the ship.

He was not taking any chances. Miranda was the last time in his life he wanted to see Reavers. Ever.

It was starting to wear on him. Not the close quarters of Serenity - he knew ever door and every switch on that ship almost as well as Kaylee did. No, the ship was the good part.

The bad part was the lack of company, the constant feeling of being at loose ends. Wash paced, more often than not, walking from the silent cockpit to the empty cargo bay to the deserted kitchen and back again.

Needless to say, he could use some company.

Comments

[icanhashat.livejournal.com]

Though it was questionable if Jayne was the kind of company that anyone would want.

He was in the kitchen at the moment and was apparently making a mess of things but a thick pleasant smell was filling the air mixing with the unpleasant choking smoke of cigar smoke.

Puffing away he stirred a large pot of something on the stove and poured something from a flash into the concoction.

[leafonthewind]

"Do you have to smoke that in the same place we eat our food?"

Wash entered the kitchen from the cargo bay, wrinkling his nose at the smell. Well, he mentally amended as he sniffed, part of the smell. Whatever Jayne was cooking smelled... actually good.

[icanhashat.livejournal.com]

Jayne shot him a look meant to wither and grinned rudely, "Yes I do in fact."

He could have turned the fan on over the stove to alleviate some of the smell...but he was Jayne.

"What's you're problem anyway? Way you're scuttlin' around you'd think Mal and Zoe were off on a mission alone again." Another cruel pot shot. Got anymore in you Jayne?

[leafonthewind]

Wash rolled his eyes. Of course Jayne couldn't be civilized for once, that was just too much to ask. "Don't give me that, I know you turn into a little girl when Reavers are involved."

He chose to ignore the comment about Zoe. For once, there was something he just didn't want to talk about.

[icanhashat.livejournal.com]

"Pft, I've killed more Reavers then you've even seen flyboy so don't give me that Da Bien (shit)."

He brought the ladle out of the pot and sniffed it, blowing before he sampled it, he was apparently making stew of some kind, but wasn't to his liking yet because he threw in some more salt and another helping of whatever fermented drink was in his flask.

[leafonthewind]

"Is that even going to be edible when you're done with it?"

Wash walked behind the counter and tried to get a better smell of whatever it was Jayne was cooking.

[icanhashat.livejournal.com]

"Won't matter one way or the other, not like you're getting any." He had more then enough to share but this was Jayne we were talking about.

He had somehow scrounged together enough meat and vegetable looking things from the garden to make a hearty looking stew. The kind that was thick enough it could stick to your ribs and put you in a food coma afterwards. He took a hit off his flask and savored the burn racing through his throat.

"That's what I need." He realized and opened a nearby cupboard seizing a bottle of Tabasco and splashing some into the concoction.

[leafonthewind]

"Come on, now, that ain't right," Wash said, pinning Jayne with an indignant look (that was also kind of pathetic). "I've had nothing but slop to eat for the past few months and even you can't eat that whole thing yourself."

[icanhashat.livejournal.com]

"Ain't my fault you never learned how to take care of yourself. What'd you eat before you got married anyway?" Jayne teased, though his face was entirely serious.

But somewhere deep inside the hulking bear of a man he had the tiny tiny tiny little voice telling him to take care of Wash, knowing what he knew of the pilots future.

[8wings.livejournal.com]

Anwei had passed through the Hangar several times, looking for the man who could help her get the battle data downloaded from the Macross Quarter. So far, no results. But with everyone away on missions, she had more time to devote to the search.

"Hello?" Someone's knocking at the cargo door of Serenity. "Ensign Washburne? Are you there?"

[leafonthewind]

The knocking resonated loudly through the cargo bay and up the hall - Wash winced a little at 'Ensign Washburne.' The General insisted on it, no matter how many times he told her to call him Wash.

Reavers definitely didn't knock though, so he pressed the red button that opened the cargo bay, leaning to look through the doors and wave as they opened. "Hello! It's just Wash - have we met?"

[8wings.livejournal.com]

Anwei waved back and smiled. "No, but I've met Kaylee? I'm Anwei; General Chacon asked me to talk to you about extracting some battle data from the Macross Quarter's systems?"

She looked more closely at the blond man. He seemed a bit worn. "Sorry, is this a bad time for you?"

[leafonthewind]

"What? No! The time's fine - I mean, it's okay." He picked up the remote for the doors and walked down the ramp out of the ship, closing them up behind him. "I'm just - not doing anything, actually."

At least they were a few decks away from the City. And supposedly the Reavers were behind a steel bulkhead.

[8wings.livejournal.com]

"Thanks! Well, I made a datafile from one of the pilot's readings of the Ohm battle, but a lot of it is extrapolated because obviously one person couldn't see everything at once. General Chacon asked me to merge in the recordings from the Quarter."

She looked across the Hangar. "I've never been in the Quarter. Is she sentient, by any chance?"

She missed sentient ships. Well, sentient ships that you could have a coherent conversation with, and some chance of understanding.

[leafonthewind]

"Is she what? Is she sentient? I guess that's not as ridiculous a question as it could be, given the surroundings. No, far as we can tell she's just a boat. Well, a boat that turns into a giant robot."

He was fond of the Quarter, and it showed. "Come on, this way."

He always liked going through the Hangar. A good deal of space had been opened up when they moved the fighters to the Quarter itself, so he could see a lot more of the ships and parts scattered around the place.

[8wings.livejournal.com]

She shook her head. "I wish I knew more about electronics. There must be some reason why my universe had so many sentient machines, but I don't know if it was just better code, or some difference in the hardware."

She followed after Wash, trying to keep her eyes parallel as she looked at the other ships. Such variety! But no ships she recognized from her dimension, still.

[leafonthewind]

"Well don't ask me, I only know enough to keep Serenity running and most of that is what I picked up from Kaylee fixing her."

He walked with his hands in his pockets. Every step away from the ship, he felt more exposed. There were Reavers on this ship somewhere and he wanted to be safely behind a bulkhead.

Well, another bulkhead.

"There she is," Wash said - not as cheerful as he normally would be, introducing his boat. She still had quite a few battle scars from their mission in the Trojan system. "We'll go in through the hangar, it's probably open this time of day."

[8wings.livejournal.com]

"Serenity looks very well cared for. It must have been quite a relief to find her here." Finding your ship must be like a lit beacon saying: here's what you will need to do. Here is a bit of home for you.

Anwei felt a little exposed out on the deck as well, her eyes darting about in their sockets. But since she was walking at Wash's side, he probably wouldn't notice.

The Quarter was huge, like a steel skyscraper that had tripped and fallen prone. Huge and silent; her ears kept expecting to hear the bustle of the crew that must be necessary to fly this and keep it flight-ready - right? Much more impressive than the simulations.

"The ship that destroyed an Ohm Leviathan...it will probably go down in the history books."

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

Leave it to Duo to pick the worst possible time to be sticking his nose into things where he didn't belong. While he was still attempting to do pretty much everything he possibly could to forget what had happened- or more exactly, the things he'd revealed while he'd been aged down by that clock, he realized there were some craft around the hangar that he hadn't gone exploring in yet.

So naturally, he'd take it upon himself to go exploring. Without permission.

After a cursory examination of the ship's hull, poking at whatever little things he could find of interest, he at least give the courtesy of a knock and a hollar on the cargo bay door, listening to the ring of metal resounding inside the ship. "Yoohoo! Anyone home?" While waiting for an answer, he looked over the outside of the ship to see if there was any way he could just let himself in.

[leafonthewind]

Muffled knocking reached Wash - Duo was lucky he was doing a pass through the cargo bay at the time, or else he never would have heard it. Not that there weren't plenty of other hatches on the ship that an enterprising, curious guy could sneak through, but that would involve running into Jayne, and Jayne probably wasn't the best person to run into when you were trespassing on his ship.

Wash punched the button to open the cargo bay, craning his neck to see who was standing there. The ramp would lower right on top of his head if he didn't back up, and Wash squinted to see. One of the pilots? "Maxwell?" He thought that was the kid's name. There were few enough of them that he just about had all of their names down by now.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

Duo was just about to start climbing up the hull of the ship in search of an emergency hatch when the cargobay door popped open- stopping where he was, arms stretched up and grabbing a small inlet above his head, one foot on a railing- he stared for a long moment before greeting Wash with a shit-eating grin. Just pretend you weren't doing anything!

"That's the name!" He hopped down from his handhold and dusted off his shirt. "And if I got things straight, you're the pilot of this ship, right? And the Quarter too, I hear?" He stuck out a hand.

"You've got quite a ship, here. Oldie but goodie, for sure." He offered no explanation for exactly why he was poking around.

[leafonthewind]

"Yeah, this is Serenity," Wash said. "Were you looking for me?"

It would make the second person today who had something to do with Command, but Duo wasn't in uniform so Wash didn't think he was late for anything important.

The cargo bay behind him was brightly lit and cavernous, with bits of scrap and crates scattered around the edges. There was a weight bench in one corner and a metal hoop hanging from the ceiling by a string.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

Duo shrugged, head bobbing side to side. "Sorta... I hear you're good." There was a mischievous sparkle in his eye. "I like a guy that knows his way around a set of controls. If he has a nice ship, even better!"

Waltzing into the cargo hold, he gave a low whistle as he eyed the wide open space. "Nice! Big an' roomy. Transport ship, or salvage...?"

Back to Wash for a moment, he eyed the hatch that led the inner ship, before wheeling around on heel to face him again.

[leafonthewind]

"Good?" Wash said incredulously. "I'm the best. Top of my class in flight school - or I would have been if some hacker with a robot complex hadn't changed our grades at the last minute."

Yeah, Mr. Universe wasn't going to get out of that one easily next time Wash saw him. If he was even still alive.

"Salvage, mostly," Wash said, grinning. By the way Duo was eyeing the place, he knew what 'salvage' meant among less-than-reputable spacers. "She's a Firefly class, they have all kinds of hiding places."

/shamefully late .___.

[hellraiser02.livejournal.com]

"Flight school, huh..?" Duo mused quietly, but the smug smirk on his face didn't hide itself very well.

Then again, he couldn't say a 'hacker with a robot complex' didn't sound like a familiarity.

The word 'salvage' was, as a matter of fact, no less than music to Duo's ears. "Yer kiddin'. You got anything good clunking around in here still?" Duo asked, practically giddy with excitement and just about ready to invite himself around to have a peek anyway. "Buddy, you had me hooked about 3 sentences ago. Mind if I take a few to drool over your ship?"