[log] sorry about that time I hit you with a shovel [closed]

[ecks]

Characters: Ecks, Will Graham, Gregory House, and James Wilson
Location: Split Tunnels and Industrial Zone, various
Date: Days 291-292 (may expand later?)
Summary: Ecks has friendship questions. Everyone probably has radiation poisoning. Norfinlife.
Warnings: Norfinlife.

Comments

Night 391 | Ecks and Will | Building 267

[ecks]

[When it was functional, this was definitely a pretty nice bus station. It's fully enclosed with several benches, and there are holes on the ceiling and vents near the floor suggesting that it used to have light and heat. It doesn't have these things anymore, but it does lock up at night. There are even two vending machines, and, while all their electronics have been gutted and their doors ripped off, appropriate food and drinks are still restocked regularly! You may stay here overnight; however, food will not restock overnight while people are staying here. Be careful not to run yourselves out of food! "ALPHONSE ELRIC, DAY TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX, FOR ANY ASSISTANCE PLEASE CONTACT @LELRIC." and "ALPHONSE ELRIC, DAY TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY FOUR, FOR ANY ASSISTANCE PLEASE CALL @LELRIC." is written on a wall.]

[ecks]

[Ecks is a fairly stoic traveling companion, all things considered. She has tended to retreat to corners and hidden spaces in the evenings to surround herself with stuffed animals and either read the network or retreat into some imaginary world as she moves the animals around in a silent, stilted form of play.

Tonight, though, the night before they are to reunite with Doctors House and Wilson, Ecks is more fidgety than normal. She finds a corner for her bags but does not unpack the animals; instead she paces the bus station, getting powdered sugar all over her hand as she stuffs miniature donuts from one of the vending machines into her mouth. She eyes Will with each pass; her expression is as blank as it always is but these are the hallmarks of an Ecks who wants to talk about something. Eventually she comes down to it, abruptly changing course to come to a stop in front of him.]

Will Graham. How many friends do you have?

Night 391 | House and Wilson | Building 220

[ecks]

[A completely empty room. The walls are light purple, and the floor is carpeted in a darker shade and miraculously dry, so it's not altogether awful to spend the night in. There are rows of empty shelves on the walls with doll stands glued to them. Neither the shelves nor the stands seem to be able to be destroyed. "ALPHONSE ELRIC, DAY TWO HUNDRED AND NINETEEN. IF YOU NEED ANY ASSISTANCE, PLEASE CALL @LELRIC." has been written on a wall.]

Afternoon/Night 392 | Together Again | Buildings 254 and 274

[ecks]

Afternoon meetup:
[254: This skyscraper is half-ruined: the top of it has clearly collapsed. Still, it's large enough to work as a landmark, what's left seems stable enough, and the doors still work. Going inside reveals a fairly standard-looking lobby. The marble floors were probably pretty once, but are now dusty and cracked. Any signage indicating what this building was for is long-gone, and instead graffiti speaking of the prophet and eye symbols dot the walls.

The elevator shaft and the door to the stairs both open, but there's no elevator car, so it's best to take the stairs. Most of the doors here are ruined, crushed by rubble and debris and impassable, though there wouldn't be anything of use in crushed floors anyway. The top floor, however, is intact, and stepping in reveals what was probably once a floor for offices, though now everything is empty. There was a symbol of the prophet drawn in red paint on the floor by the door, but it's been marked over with more paint, turning it into the shape of a violet flower with a green stem and some leaves. In the paint from the original red marking, a line that can be followed in one of three directions. Each one leads to one of the three skybridges in this building. In black paint, the following has been written: "EAST: Blocked off corner with sealed building. WEST: Warehouses with bodies and metal bricks. SOUTH: Go this way for entry to Radiation Zone."]

Evening/Night:
[274: This building is covered in prophet symbols. The top floor, where the skywalk connects, contains one the size of the entire floor on the ground, and judging by the way the floor looks, it's clear walls were torn up to make room for it. In the center is a pile of ashes and wood, like a well-used funeral pyre.

Follow the staircase down and you find the remains of an office building, though the three accessible floors all look similar to the top floor, with a giant prophet symbol on the floor and wood and ash in the center. There are human bones and teeth in the various former fire pits, but they've been buried respectfully beneath the ash.

...There's a working public bathroom on the ground floor, though! Also, all of the prophet symbols have been scribbled on ridiculously, given eyelashes and scribbled over in chalk, so maybe it's a bit less ominous. One of the symbols has had the scribbling removed, and instead an X has been drawn over it in red oil paint.]

[rubikscomplex]

Meet-up
[House is just happy to be out of Hsiaoke Pass. The place always spikes his blood pressure with how it sounds and looks like it's going to collapse at any moment. He's had several close calls in there with Will, Wilson, Ecks, others he's traveled with for more than a few days at a time. But he and Wilson are out with more information, if not anything particularly exciting to show for the effort.

He and Wilson arrive first, so House sets about messing around with his own paints. He doesn't have a brush, so he's using his fingers to paint something like a sunset over the ocean in front of the door leading to the sky bridge. It's blue, orange, yellow, and red, and his fingers are coated in paint before long. He'll probably regret this later, but it's a bit of a manic action, something meant to be distracting while they wait for Ecks and Will.]

Evening
[Well, he regrets finger painting.

House spends most of the evening in the bathroom, fingers under the icy water as he tries to scrub them clean. If one of the others wanders in, he'll happily complain in their direction.]

Red dye should be illegal. Why is it always the red that won't come out?

Meet-up

[ecks]

I am behind you and coming closer.

[Ecks generally moves quietly, but with the large duffel she's carrying and the extra layers of clothing it's dubious whether she would have snuck up on Doctor House if she didn't warn him -- and it is meant as a warning to avoid startling him. She's just not very good at making those sound like anything other than vague threats.]

Is that a picture of the ocean?

[rubikscomplex]

[He looks around at her voice, fingers smearing more red and yellow across the sunset sky.]

Where I come from, yeah. More the sunset, though. I'd need with to really make the waves pop right. I'll be done in a few minutes.

[ecks]

I like it. I did not put any sunsets in my coloring book but maybe I could.

[Serious thought here.]

[rubikscomplex]

[House turns back to the painting to keep going.]

You ever actually see many sunsets?

[He knows most of her life was spent underground.]

[ecks]

I saw one sunset before I came here. It was very good.

[Thank you for remembering, Doctor House, that's very thoughtful of you.]

[rubikscomplex]

One. [He really can't imagine that level of... deprivation. This is true deprivation, not the hyperbolic kind that most people mean when they talk about a deprived childhood.]

Was it these colors or were there any others for your sunset?

[Might indicate other gasses in the atmosphere where she comes from.]

[ecks]

[She has to think about that for a long moment, squinting a little at his picture.]

It was the same colors but with more yellow and orange and much less red.

[So a similar atmosphere with fewer particulates in the air.]

[rubikscomplex]

[Interesting.]

Where'd you see it? On one of your missions?

[ecks]

Yes. It was one that was very far away. I could not come home in the same night and I hid and I saw a sunrise and then I saw a sunset later.

[rubikscomplex]

Any preference? Some people like the sunrise more.

[House is not one of them. That's far too early.]

[ecks]

I like both, but I liked the sunset more because it was dark afterward and I could move again and go home. After the sunrise I had to hide all day and it was too warm.

I would not mind that now.

[rubikscomplex]

You and me and everybody else, kid.

[He'd move to Ecuador at this point just to ensure he's never cold again. Although... maybe he'll ease into it. The few times the temperature hasn't been awful here have preceded some horror being inflicted on them.

House adds a few more daubs of yellow at the center for the sun.]

Finished. My piece de resistance! Mwah! [He holds his fingers close to his mouth, all together on one hand, then flares them out to an open palm as he pulls away.]

[ecks]

[Ecks watches the gesture, her left hand coming up to halfway imitate it out of curiosity, though it never reaches her mouth -- she just bunches and then unbunches her fingers the way he did.

How strange.]

What is a piece de resistance?

[rubikscomplex]

[House pulls out a dish towel from his pack, wets it down and starts wiping his hands off.]

It's my masterwork. Best painting I've ever done here.

[Because it's the only one.]

Only true artists have them.

[ecks]

Are there untrue artists?

[rubikscomplex]

Yep. They're the posers, the guys making millions off some crap they didn't pour blood, sweat, and tears into.

[Ecks should stop taking him at face value, honestly. She should know better than this at this point.]

[ecks]

[She opens her mouth to ask millions of what, then closes it again, deciding that's not the part she wants to ask about. Instead, after a long look at the painting:]

You did not pour blood, sweat, and tears into that. Its color properties would be different if you had.

[rubikscomplex]

It's a metaphor. It means I put my all into it, babe. Gave it 110%. Use it on someone. They'll get you.

[ecks]

One hundred and ten --

[110% is more than all. But she's catching on; that's...not a metaphor, probably, but also not a thing to be interpreted literally.]

I understand. Are other bodily fluids also applicable to this metaphor?

[rubikscomplex]

No. Other bodily fluids get you to a very different metaphor. Ones the grown-ups would tell you are gross and crude.

[Those evil, evil grown-ups.]

[ecks]

[Ecks grins. It's a slow, unpleasant development.]

I understand.

We should make camp.

[Now that he's finished painting and all. Ecks will lead the way; House will be expected to eat and sleep and all kinds of terrible things like that tonight.]