[Open] Beat The Heat

[doubled_speed]

WHO: Tommy Shepherd, You
WHERE: Temba Fountain, Beach
WHAT: Tommy's Gone Nocturnal Creature
WHEN: Mid July
WARNINGS: None (Unless you count Tommy replicating a Super Soaker)

I. Don't Play In The Fountain | Temba Fountain
Midday. The hottest part of a stupidly hot summer. Sometimes it was just important to cool off. And given Tommy's been working hard all day in the greenhouse and diner, he needed a method to cool off so desperately.

Maybe there was somewhere else he could go, something else he could do. But damn, that fountain had been looking good each time he walked between the greenhouse and the diner. Until finally Tommy couldn't help it.

Which was why he was currently floating in the fountain, eyes closed, trying to keep his stupid body's accelerated metabolism and thus body temperature a bit lower in the hottest part of the day.

II. Stars Over Sands | The Beach
Night. The coolest time of the day, and probably the quietest. Which of course meant it was a time that Tommy absolutely got into his own damn head. There was problems that came from being a guy who only needed four hours of sleep on a world with a thirty hour day. So he had to take up some new hobby to handle the nights when he really wasn't able to sleep.

And there was something that was making going 'home' harder to do. So here he was, stretched out on a towel on the beach, just beyond the high tide line. His eyes were raised toward the stars, watching them. He doesn't even move when he hears the slide of sand that might mean someone approaching.

"Can't sleep?" he asks, his voice soft. Maybe he accidentally asks it of a lobster. But if he does, who could ever know?

III. Water Ambush! | Around Temba
Usually replicator rations should be used rationally in Tommy's opinion. Usually he used his own for getting food products for the diner. But for right now Tommy needed something for fun. Which was why people might come around corners and find themselves suddenly getting sprayed from an orange and green super soaker. And there was Tommy too, grinning and laughing.

The good news was that Tommy's speed meant that he could read things easily when someone came around a corner. In what would be a second or two for another person he had hours to experience, which meant he could come around a corner, make sure the person wasn't carrying something that would be ruined with the spray of cold water, and so his targets weren't going to have that to complain about.

Complain in general, though, that's possible. He even grins and winks after squirting someone.

"You're welcome for cooling you down."

IV. Frustration | Pink 10
The best way to deal with frustration, in Tommy's opinion, was toying with powers he doesn't trot out as often. Running was supposed to be freeing, comforting. But fuck it was too hot, especially at night, to be dealing with that too much. So instead, in the hotter parts of the day when he's got nothing better to do, he sits back under an umbrella he's rigged up from some massive cup leaves and toys with explosions. Given no one lived near this area or passed through as much, Tommy didn't see the danger.

So here he was, every now and then rushing into the mess of the ruins of this area, piling up bits of rocks and other things into structures, and then he would return to his shade. From there, well, he raised a hand lazily toward the construction, focused, and soon there was a loud noise as things blew apart in small scale explosions or crumbled apart, depending on the material.

Until, of course, he heard someone approaching.

"I can't really keep it down," he says without looking for whoever's arriving, "if that's what you're after. Explosions are noisy."

Comments

[spinsandneedles]

"There were probably more, I only ran across a couple people though."

He probably could have looked harder. Don't worry about it.

"It was so unimportant that I already forgot about it, I guess. So what about the thing I did hear you say? Are you like, okay, or..."

[doubled_speed]

The thing about Tommy was that he was in no way used to people being fast enough to really see him when he reacted to things. His expressions could be there and gone in picoseconds, and until Wesker and Sonic showed up, no one could see them. No one but the two of them would be able to see the dark and pained look that flashed across Tommy's face. The fear and the pain and the stress. He wants to run. He wants to run.

And since he's so used to it, he forces a smile so fast that it was all anyone else would see.

"I'm fine man."

A lie. Such a fucking lie.

[spinsandneedles]

Yeah no, Sonic manages to catch that look, brief as it is. He won't directly call Tommy out on being a lying liar who lies, but Tommy can probably tell by the way Sonic sighs and crosses his arms that he's not buying that story for a minute.

"Sure, well, if there was something bothering you, I couldn't really force you to talk about it. You're a little too big for me to put in a headlock."

[doubled_speed]

Dude, he's not used to people who can actually see his bullshit written on his face.

"I'm a lot too big for you to put in a headlock," he laughs. "But thanks for considering it. Though I'm not sure... I'm ready to talk about shit. Never ready actually. Sorry. I know it's a buzzkill."

[spinsandneedles]

Better start adapting to it then, huh pal.

"Look, I could totally do it if I felt like it," he just doesn't feel like it right now, so there. "And I totally get it, there are some things that you shouldn't rush, as unnatural as that feels to say. If you do get to a point where you need an ear, I'm around."

[doubled_speed]

Does he have to though? Like, even his speedster uncle isn't much of a presence in his life, so he's never had to deal with this.

Still, he laughs at the speed joke before rising to his feet. He lifts his towel, shakes out the excess sand, and sits back down.

"I was... forced to relive some of the worst memories of my life. Kinda just trying to process them. You'd think that guys like us, we'd have all the time in the world to process shit. To compartmentalize. And... it still comes back."

[spinsandneedles]

That's fine, he doesn't have to adapt. He can just continue to be surprised when Sonic calls him out on his bullshit.

"Sorry to hear that, dude. That really sucks." Sonic will just continue to stand around next to Tommy, as he hadn't been planning on spending time on the beach and therefore hadn't brought anything to sit on.

"Y'know, we may be faster than everyone, but in the grand scheme of things, there are really only just as many hours in our days as everyone else's. Maybe we can 'process' things faster, and pack them away in the back of our minds and ignore them quicker, but that doesn't mean that it's all gone. The bad stuff is still there, and I think it's because we don't take the time to get to the bottom of the problem and actually work it out. We just wanna get over it as fast as possible and move on because there's always so much to do, right?"

He sounds like he thinks about his a lot. Don't ask him why.

[doubled_speed]

Yeah, he will continue to be surprised. But he does move aside a bit on the towel so Sonic could choose to sit by him if he wants.

"I mean, there are just as many hours, but I experience them differently," he says. He's gone through weeks of time to think in minutes."

Shouldn't that mean that he's had decades in the space of other peoples' years, so surely he should be able to handle things better. But it's true. He does choose to ignore the pain a lot more.

"Dude, how are you so fucking smart?"

[spinsandneedles]

Hell yeah, his butt is on that towel. Now he doesn't need to worry about getting sand in his fur!

"Huh... I don't experience time any different than anyone else, I just get impatient pretty easily. Whatever you've got goin' on, it's speed on a whole other level, bud."

Which is impressive! And he'd be speed-nerding out about it if he wasn't busy having a serious conversation about serious things right now. He waves a hand dismissively and turns his gaze skyward.

"I don't know if it has anything to do with bein' smart, and that's the first time anyone's ever asked me that... It's just, a lot happens, right? And we've all got things we've been through, and some of 'em have real bad memories attached to them. I guess it's just experience more than anything, and lately I've been trying a little harder to learn from mine."

[doubled_speed]

It is? Tommy... sighs. He doesn't like thinking that Sonic, the person that is closest to being able to understand him, still can't. He pulls his legs up against his chest, wraps his arms around them, and puts his head down. This sucks. And in a time where he already feels frustrated and isolated, it's not news he likes to hear.

"I don't think there's a lot for me to learn from the things I was forced to relive. Beyond fuck life sucked when I was younger."

[spinsandneedles]

Oh nooo now Soinc's getting the feeling that he might have said the wrong thing. Which thing was it?? Sonic quit fucking everything up!

"Without knowing your story, I can't really give like, advice advice, but... Well, you've already lived through all those things once, right? And yeah, it absolutely sucks to have to go through something bad again, but would you say that you came out a stronger person the first time around from it?"

[doubled_speed]

Nah, Sonic didn't say the wrong thing. He just made Tommy realize he'd made an unfair assumption.

"No, man. I don't think I came out stronger. I came out messed up. Badly."

[spinsandneedles]

Damn, Sonic was off track with that one. HOW DOES HE RECOVER THIS??

"No kidding? I never woulda thought that at all."

He's no stranger to giving pep talks, but they normally aren't about problems that are this deep. Whoof, buddy. Sonic is way out of his element here.

"I'm sorry, man. I don't wanna like, say something wrong? Sure am disliking the Agrii a little more with each passing day, though..."

[doubled_speed]

"The words were too complex."

The words, Tommy realizes a moment later, would make no sense to Sonic. He hasn't been here long enough. He doesn't know.

"Of all of the Agrii, Ga Re speaks the best, the most understandably. The rest have serious difficulties, you only ever hear weirdly broken sentences, like they are speaking a language they learned second or third hand. This one used good sentence structure, good grammar, three syllable words. No, that was the Atroma again. The bad aliens. To the Agrii we are heroes. To the Atroma we're jokes and toys."

[spinsandneedles]

If your goal was to confuse the absolute fuck out of Sonic, you did it! Good job!

"Then... why did the Agrii drag everyone off and throw 'em in a cave and screw with 'em for a month? That was the Agrii, right?"

[doubled_speed]

"That's what I'm saying. Calibrations isn't the Agrii. It's the Atroma. They're the ones that torture us. I'm sure of it."

He personally carried Ga Re to an Agrii infirmary to be taken care of while they were on her ship. He's had lunch with Agrii children. Celebrated his birthday in the Agrii ship's greenhouse with Sundaes and Agrii guests. If he's sure of one thing it's how harmless they are.

[spinsandneedles]

"Wh-why, though!? I Don't-- ugh! What is wrong with this place!?"

Frustrated, he hops up like he's going to go do something about it, buuut there's nothing he can do about it. Like where would he even go? There's nobody he can punch about this!

He pauses awkwardly, paces around a bit, and ultimately just plops his butt back down on the towel with an immature huff. Hey fuck this yeah?

"Okay, fine, more aliens! Now we have two groups of aliens fighting over us, or something? Great! That's-- that's fine. Just perfect."

[doubled_speed]

"They aren't really fighting over us like that," Tommy says with a sigh. "The Agrii, just want us to fix things. The Atroma? They're the reasons Agrii even know about other alien species, you know? Shit, we really need to do a brief for you newer people about that whole 'Drift Fleet' thing and the Agrii and the Atroma."

But they can't put it on the network because no one who knows better trusts the network for that stuff staying there.

[spinsandneedles]

Sonic manages to reel his annoyance in for the most part, but still flops dramatically onto his back while Tommy goes on about weird alien shit.

"Feels like I can't keep pace with anything around here..." he grumbles mostly to himself, but after pondering quietly for a couple seconds, he sits back up suddenly with a mischievous grin on his stupid blue face.

"Well, you can tell me all about it when we go check out that weird hill that popped up outside of town!"

Why yes, he did just recruit Tommy for ADVENTURE. The best way to deal with heavy topics is to abruptly change the subject, clearly.

[doubled_speed]

"Well, you can't keep pace with me," Tommy teases with a grin. Which amuses the hell out of him, just so he knows. Granted he's saying it in the same challenging way they've got, because what racer doesn't bullshit, you know?

The other thing though... Huh.

"Maybe we should," he says, thoughtful. "But maybe we should wait until tomorrow night. Get some food packed and emergency supplies, just in case? Billy's the only doctor that can teleport, and he can't always get to where you're at if things are weird, so it's better to be read."

[spinsandneedles]

"Hey- them's fightin' words, pal." Sonic sees that grin and fires back with one of his own, just some good natured speedster trash talk.

"But yeah, I don't wanna go out there with nothin' but the quills on my back. Think we'd be out there more than a day?"

[doubled_speed]

"And you know we'll throw down on those words later," he says with a grin. "We haven't had a backwards race yet. Or the climb one."

They're owed a race up a side of a building he thinks.

But at least they're playing this smart.

"Possibly. I don't trust the Atroma to not trap us without powers. Storms can roll up out of nowhere."

[spinsandneedles]

"Lookin' forward to it."

After all the shit happening lately, they both deserve a goofy backwards race.

"So, maybe we oughta plan for about a week, then? Just to be safe. That's at least one tent, sleeping bags, better grab some matches... Hey, you know if anybody's catalogued which plants are safe to eat yet? We won't have to pack a ton of food if we're able to forage."

[doubled_speed]

They really do. Tommy deserves some flash of happiness and he's been bad at seeking it out lately.

"Yeah, just to be safe. But we won't need to worry about the plants. I have the Agriculture point. I'll know," he says.

[spinsandneedles]

Sonic lives to entertain! And go fast.

"Ahh, right. I forgot that was a thing. That'll be real handy, but man, I'm kinda wary of letting more weird stuff get downloaded directly into my brain."