011 - Pineapple Crisp

[deadly_ned]

To kitchen staff and to...


Everyone. I...guess. Everyone on the Barge. Or at the very least everyone accustomed to eating food, I don't mean to be exclusive but I don't know exactly how many that applies to since I've already run into two people who don't have or don't want to have the admittedly sometimes disgusting process of digestion so common to the rest of us and.


....Sorry.


I think....what I'd like to do, in order to make everyone feel more...at home, away from home...is to start compiling requests for native dishes.

Basically..

If you tell me what you miss from your home that you don't get to eat on the Barge, I would like to try a hand at cooking it. You get to feel a little closer to home, I get to expand my recipe book, my team gets to try new skills....everyone wins? I think?

Please let me know if this is a terrible idea and if I should stop.

[Private to Cass Cain, visible to David Cain]

I.

We.

Have something for you.

Comments

[with_my_teacup]

Remind me to get you a list of the responses I got when I asked. There's definitely a few I didn't get locked in right.

[deadly_ned]

You already did this?

If it's a repeated idea, I should delete this entry.

[with_my_teacup]

Leave it up. You're a little more welcoming looking than I am. This was back when I was an inmate, too.

video;

[some_kinda_hero]

Ned, this is so awesome of you! Great idea.

[Sorry, Riddick, she didn't see when you made a similar post.]

Oh, also, Digby's doing well. I took over caring for him while Megamind recovered from Silent Hill.

[deadly_ned]

I don't think you're unwelcoming. Do people really think that?

video;

[deadly_ned]

Is it? I don't usually think of myself in terms of...awesomeness. It's not a, um. An adjective usually used.


He is? That's. That's good. I'm glad he didn't...have to go to that.

[with_my_teacup]

....yeah? I mean, I kind of make it a goal?

[deadly_ned]

Um.


Why?

[with_my_teacup]

General defense mechanism, and I'm choosy about my friends. I like people just a little off balance, is it so wrong?

[deadly_ned]

Speaking as a person who is never on balanced...


It's not wrong.

But it is kind of mean.

[with_my_teacup]

Do I upset you, baby?

[deadly_ned]

You give me occasional acid reflux.

[with_my_teacup]

...I can't tell if that's fear or annoyance.

[deadly_ned]

It's anxiety. A clash between fear and annoyance with an extra helping of misunderstanding of social cues with a dash of concern on the side.

[with_my_teacup]

That's no fun. I want better control of the reactions I get out of people.

[Private]

I don't dislike you. I'll change my act around you, if you want me to, if you'll tell me how. ...and stop pushing your personal space, that's obvious.

[deadly_ned]

Please don't change for me. My personal space is a very, very small place and people can't help but push it.

It's me. It's not you, it's me. I'm not...comfortable. With most things. Change, closeness, touching....any of it.

I've always been like this. There isn't any changing it.

Private

[with_my_teacup]

I like to protect the people close to me. Even if it's from my own game face. Why would that bother you, if I toned it down halfway?

Private

[deadly_ned]

I know. I know you do, and you protected my inmate and me when we needed it most.


I'm just.



I worry about getting...close to people.

Private

[with_my_teacup]

Why me specifically? I don't think I'm the one who you're gonna get attached to and hurt over. You teach me to bake, we work together in a weird technical way. It's not really where strong emotional bonds start.

Private

[deadly_ned]

There is no you, specifically. There's you generally.


I'm afraid of what will happen if I see you die. I don't think I could...take that.

Re: Private

[with_my_teacup]

It's the barge. I'd come back.

[His mouth goes tight.]

Nah, I understand. Same old same old.

Private

[deadly_ned]

You don't understand. But it's because I haven't..provided the pieces that would lead to understanding. Which is my own fault.

Yes, you'd come back.

Private

[with_my_teacup]

Are you sure I don't? Are you sure I haven't seen people die and been shocked that another person could hurt me that way just by dying?

I don't have middle gears. Sociopathic tendencies, the docs in Tangiers called it. That I couldn't formulate emotional attachments. Honestly, I agreed.

They were wrong. I was wrong. It's just rare and it's high gear, when it kicks in. I wasn't expecting to get attached. I wasn't expecting it to hurt like I was dying myself.

Private

[deadly_ned]

[Maybe it's sensing his inmate is about to graduate soon and feeling desperate for more human connection. Maybe it's the fact that Dean Winchester's already guessed it and the Piemaker wanted to tell someone on his own terms. Maybe he misses having that friendly connection, that shared secret with a trusted individual.

Whatever the reason, he finally says for the first time since stepping onto the Barge, in a rush so that he doesn't have to think too hard about what he's saying...]




I can bring dead things back to life.

Private

[with_my_teacup]

[Riddick registers that with a frown, sort of forgets his own oblique pain that he'd been trying to convey, that none of his friends would get close to him, that he still felt alone, some animal thing in him straining for touch and intimacy that weren't civilized.

That falls away. He cocks his head-- as a comedian on Earth said, long long ago-- like a dog shown a card trick.]