What It All Comes Down To

[doubled_speed]

WHO: Tommy Shepherd, OTA
WHERE: Around Temba
WHAT: Coming Down From It All (Post House of Billy)
WHEN: The first week post event [Forward Dated]
WARNINGS: CW: Referenced sexual encounter in thread with Kyle, Referenced child abuse in thread with Kyle.


A. Keeping The Diners Supplied The Diner
"Delivery of fresh produce."

Tommy's tired. Perhaps that's why he's coming in later than normal with supplies for this meal shift. Perhaps that's why he looks frazzled and his hair is limp and he's not racing in with all speed. Clearly it's not the heavy crate loaded down with all sorts of foods from the green house, because that's never slowed him down before. But sleep after something like what they'd gone through was... Well, unlikely.

"The cyanana harvest is starting, so I'm thinking about trying to figure out how to make some sorta pudding out of it. That's a thing, right? Banana pudding or something."

He'd been enough out of it on entering that he didn't even know who it was he was talking to. Like hell he'd thought about how the kitchen help rotation was working now. Nor did he care. He was too tired from all his dreams to care.


B. Healing Power of Horticulture The Greenhouse
If there was one place that Tommy often found peace, it was the greenhouse. Today Tommy was trying his best to work there without getting too complicated with other people. For this he'd done the best thing he could do: working the mint wing. The advantage that came that the specific wing was sealed off from the rest of the greenhouse to keep it from spreading too much. Tommy moved slowly through it with a woven rush basket, humming quietly under his breath some German pop music he remembered from back home. While he moved he clipped little sprigs of mint to pass on to Glownies as a treat.

The advantage of the sealed area was that when the doors opened, Tommy knew someone was there. He could hear it. He turned to look at the door and frowned.

"Can I help you? I thought I was soloing the mint today."


C. The Solitary Island Closed to Aeon
It took a while for him to find her, but Tommy had wanted to have an excuse to get away, but he didn't want to be put into a position where his stupid brain could interrupt him. There had been someone interested after all, and so he'd raced through the city until he found her.

"Aeon," he said, offering a hand up for a high five. "You doing anything? Because if not, island time."


D. Wild Card
[Feel free to hit me up on Discord or Plurk to discuss places Tommy could get cornered. Or just have someone come to his actual home. Other options are to find him lazing by the fountain, on top of a tall building, or hiding out with the glownies which he normally does not visit.]

Comments

[lionunchained]

Shiro smiled, coming over to take the offered basket.

"Thanks. Great minds think alike I guess," he said with a chuckle. "Yeah, I don't know what happened to them either but I went to check on them not long after we got back and they all seemed to be doing well. Of course, not as well-brushed but other than that..."

[doubled_speed]

"Well, I'm not much of a glownie brusher," Tommy offered with a shrug, before grabbing another basket.

"We should get more. Dry some or something. I think I remember how to make dried herbs now. Because of weird shit. How you doing after that anyway? I apologize, on Billy's behalf."

[lionunchained]

"It's fine," Shiro remarked, kneeling to help gather mint. "I don't mind doing it. It's kind of relaxing actually. They don't really fight you and will pretty much wait to be brushed, especially if their treat comes at the end of it."

After everything he had been through, having the company of animals helped more than he would be able to accurately explain... since he didn't even really understand it himself. Just that it did.

"I think drying them would be good. They last longer that way. A lot of the foods packaged for space travel were dried or dehydrated. At least on Earth, they were."

The Alteans had food goo, but that was another story.

"I'm doing okay." He smiled. "I'd say that isn't the weirdest thing I've experienced... but that one was certainly up there."

[doubled_speed]

"Yeah," Tommy said. "Sound like perfect pets. Not that I'm a pet guy."

He's never had one and doesn't know that he should be trusted with pets. Plants recover if he messes up.

"I've got string, left over from when I was first hanging stuff to dry. We just need to find a good place for it, and the greenhouse isn't it."

They could find something.

"What's weirder than a whole other world created by the whims and suffering of my twin?"

[lionunchained]

"I never really thought I was either. Didn't have much time to keep them what with training at the Garrison and then going on missions. But they kind of grew on me."

Shiro thought about that for a moment. "Somewhere warm and possibly in the sun would be good. I think a lot of people used to dry herbs in kitchens. Not sure the ones in the ships would work well if nothing else because it's a communal area and possible not everyone would appreciate that."

He shrugged. "I've seen a lot of stuff I'd consider weird. Perhaps... collectively, it's not as weird. But as a single event? Yeah, that was pretty weird."

[doubled_speed]

Yeah, he supposed missions, no matter what they were specifically, would allow for pets. So he guessed Shiro deserved some now.

"We could try the diner I guess. It's a kitchen, and I've got most of the glitter cleared away at last. Put it near the stove."

And it was less likely to see them shut out if ships rearrange. But he nods at the agreed weirdness.

"Dude, I can agree on the weird. But hey, we're back. So we've gotta think forward, right?"

[lionunchained]

Shiro couldn't help but laugh at the mention of the glitter. Oh man, that was a memory... He swore he was still finding glitter randomly around his room. Like one here where you had just cleaned... one over there...

"That's good. I think it is the best place to try. If it doesn't work this time, we can find somewhere else the next."

He nodded his head. "Yeah. No point in dwelling on that too much. There's no point in it. Back to working on this world."

[doubled_speed]

"You're a more positive person than I would have expected," Tommy said, smirking as he moved carefully through to get a variety of mints. But man this was nice to feel like he had control of his life.

"Alright. Positivity and forward thinking. I'm gonna have to take lessons in that from you, Shiro, because I'm shit at it."

[lionunchained]

Shiro sighed for a moment before smiling again. "Honestly, with everything that's happened, if I didn't try to see the good in it, I don't know what my life would be."

Depressing probably. Everyone in their world knew he had reason enough to be.

"It takes practice for some. If you need help with it, I can try to help with finding something positive."

[doubled_speed]

Huh, positivity for survival. Tommy had heard of the approach before. Hoped it worked for Shiro too.

"I tend to find plants something good. They just... they keep going. Things pushign them down? Grow up around them. Things munching on them? Put out more leaves. Bugs harassing them, develop whatever makes hot peppers hot. I think that's supposed to drive off bugs?"

Plants, there is motivation right there.

[lionunchained]

Pretty much. If Shiro wasn't positive about everything that had happened in his life, he might just sit down in a corner and not want to get up again. He had learned long ago that this was not an effective way to live.

"That's definitely something and yeah, a good example of perseverance. There are pictures of trees that came up close to barbed wire fences where the tree grows around the fence. Yeah, I believe peppers are hot to keep them from being eaten."

[doubled_speed]

"I love those," Tommy answered Shiro, pausing and looking around at the plants. "I never told people back home, but my phone was full of pictures like that. Of places where nature took back over, or made its way in spite of humans."

IT was a sort of sentimentality that no one back home would believe on him.

[lionunchained]

Shiro smiled. "What a coincidence that I mentioned that. There is always something interesting about that. Trees trapping fences, plants taking over buildings. Nature is stronger than we give it credit for."

Shiro didn't know how he was back home so he wouldn't have thought any different. That was one of the benefits about this place. One could be anyone they wanted without others knowing everything about them.

[doubled_speed]

"I like the instances of rocks that are tangled in tree roots," Tommy offered with a grin. It was nice, like that, the strength of growth and change.

"Guess we don't have a lot of that here. Or maybe we're spoiled with it."

[lionunchained]

"Those are interesting to look at, I agree. I guess we don't really have much that here. Not compared to some of the ones back home."

He was quiet for a moment as he thought. "Vines growing on temples was something that I always thought was amazing when I was younger. All those powerful symbols of other cultures, but in the end... the plants take them over again."

[doubled_speed]

Huh. Vines on temples. That sounded majestic as fuck.

"I can't give you vines on a temple, but there's a place here. An island off the shore. I think the Agrii used it for something like resort vacations. The way it's overgrown is just beautiful. Maybe you could come see it sometime. I could carry you."

[lionunchained]

"Really?" Shiro paused a moment to picture that in his head. "I think that would be an interesting place to explore. Yes, let's do that sometime."

[doubled_speed]

"You probably have some good Gs resistance, right? Will be useful for the speed."

Maybe Shiro might be one of the people that could handle the experience of being carried by Tommy.

[lionunchained]

"I think I've got that. I've done plenty of training for space travel and G force training is one of them."

Still being carried by a speedster was something completely different than what happened back home. Still, he thought he could handle it.

[doubled_speed]

"Sounds about right," Tommy grinned. "You got a strong stomach? Some people get sick.":

[lionunchained]

"I think so. I guess we will have to see when it happens." But he was fairly confident. "Had that happen much?"

[doubled_speed]

"So much. And don't even get me started on what people are like when I take them through walls."

Because that one make people sick more often than not.

[lionunchained]

Shiro kind of... stared at him for a long moment when he said that last part.

"I will try not to. That sounds incredibly painful to me."

[doubled_speed]

"Painful? Wow, only if i fuck up and run into one," Tommy agreed, frowning and biting his lip. "Actually, I haven't tried it much except on the Agrii ship. I don't know if I can do it here."

Which means he should probably experiment.

[lionunchained]

"I'm sure you know how to do it, but it just sounds impossible to me... which I can't believe I'm saying that since I was stuck inside a robotic lion for a few months."