[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

[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.]