He Holds His Crayon Rosary [Open]

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

It's been a long time since Howard engaged in some harmless graffiti. Two years, if not a little more. He's exhausted from a long shift in Med Bay and then hitting the Media Library for his new Leon-appointed position, but it seems like the urge to vandalize things has been pent up for so long that he has all the energy in the world to do this.

The memory-statues and painting under the giant lit-up head in the Art Hall are as good a place as any. Using permanent marker, some pink spraypaint and his knife, he starts to carve and mark things into the shifting wall.

DGIG KILLED 1ST CREW

STACY WIPES MINDS

DON'T TRUST THEM

The paintings and statues shift and mold to his memories, images both calm and terrifying, images he remembers and ones he's long forgotten. There's him playing basketball in his driveway. There's Orc's face torn open by flesh-eating worms. There's a massacre, and there's a busy cafeteria, and there's Disneyland, there's the first time he broke his nose and there's him sleeping in math class. The statue becomes a child's corpse and then an impatient P.E. coach and then his grandmother. On the wall, the images keep shifting, but the marks he's making stay where they are, black and pink and chiseled.

WRITE IT ALL DOWN

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[lastgallifreyan]

"It's a good idea," the Doctor admitted. He hadn't bothered, of course. Although he'd been on the ship for a while now, the Time Lord still had an overabundance of faith in his own abilities. He'd remember everything that he needed to remember and he'd find a way to fix the mess that the Daligig and the Ohm had managed to make out of the universe.

"Of course, anyone clever enough to control putting us in and taking us out of the pods is probably clever enough to get rid of these sorts of messages. But it's still a good idea."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"You'd think, but no. They weren't clever enough to get rid of all the hints we found along the way, especially the hologram. So maybe this'll get washed away, but that doesn't mean it all will. The more we put out there the more they're gonna miss."

Maybe, in a past life, Howard was an anarchist fighting against established government. Who knows.

"Anyway, what's your name, Crazy Eyes?"

[lastgallifreyan]

"Or may there is another reason behind it?" he suggested, "Maybe they're playing with us, just like we think we're playing with them. Maybe they knew exactly what they were doing when we found the hologram."

The Doctor wasn't merely being objectionable. He was a Time Lord. The last Time Lord. He'd defeated armies, saved planets, survived a war that had decimated most of the universe. The people with the power to bring him here and trap him here had to be more than just a bit clever. They couldn't be the sort of people who made such obvious mistakes.

"I prefer the Doctor."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Maybe. But if we're playing our odds out, I'd rather go with us being paranoid than complacent." Howard squints a bit, figuring he must have messed that word up when he said it like 'comm-plake-int', but not sure what he would correct it to.

"That's a stupid name. You're called Crazy Eyes now." What is it with all these people calling themselves The Doctor? It's like the lamest superhero name ever, and thus Howard anoints The Doctor with a brand new annoying nickname.

[lastgallifreyan]

He could tell what he meant and it was a good answer. The Doctor nodded.

"Well, it's probably not the worst thing I've ever been called," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. Donna had been particularly fond of creative and insulting nicknames. "Do I get to know your name?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Yeah. You're lucky. I give some people awful nicknames." He bites his nail. "I'm Howard. And unlike pretty much everyone here, I'm normal."

[lastgallifreyan]

"It's still not a brilliant nickname," he muttered, though he regarded Howard with interest when he described himself as normal. He'd met a lot of humans who had said much the same thing and they had all been extraordinary. "Really? What makes you say that? Stacy must have thought you were useful. She did wake you up."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I didn't say it'd be brilliant. It just has to stick. The stickiness is what makes a great nickname, Crazy Eyes." He scribbles another something on the mural, which is turning into a picture of a daycare overrun with coyotes. Closer inspection reveals dead children, and teenagers with semi-automatic weaponry. "She likes to use me as her cannon fodder."