Horseplay p2 - Let's Do The Time Warp

Let's Do The Time Warp

The bed was warm and comfortable, Jessica lie behind him, playing with his hair. It felt good. She slipped her hand down his back and over his chest. He turned and pulled her over himself kissing her soft, plump lips. She pushed him onto his back, sat astride him and looked down into his eyes, sultry, her gently waved hair cascading from her tilted head like a chestnut waterfall, caressing her right shoulder. He smiled up at her.
But the scene changed, they were in the same position but the smoky, loving expression had been replaced with one that was harsh and spiteful. He suddenly knew then, that she knew. And oh smeg, she was going to wake the kids.This wasn't fair on them. And it was his fault.
"You ASSHOLE!" She screeched "how could you? How COULD you?" She began hitting him about the head and chest.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" He said, shielding his face with one arm, groping to try and pull her shaking form down into an embrace with the other.
"I was stupid. Baby I was so stupid..."

He was showering, alone, aboard ship. He didn't know if it was before or after the accident. The water was cold and he wanted to get out. He pushed at the door but it wouldn't open. Suddenly Holly's face appeared in the plexiglass panelling. "Sorry, Alex, you have to stay here, for THREE MILLION YEARS" The computer laughed unkindly, before the familiar face turned into another, that of his brother. It was still laughing.
"JACOB!" The face retracted from the door and Jacob was in his quarters, beyond. "Thought you were..." Alex tried the door again, desperate to get to his brother. It didn't yield. He grabbed the shower head, smashed the panelling and stuck his head through, but instead of his quarters, and Jacob, there was just space. Lightyears of empty, black, space. He ducked back into the shower which felt completely normal as if still in his quarters and then back out of the opening. Still space. It was sickeningly disorientating. He kneeled down and tried to look under the cubicle, but lost his balance.
And then he was falling....

He was somehow watching Jay run around the ship, like a spectre, in a white vest and grey sweatpants. He had no boots on and his bare feet slapped the floor as he ran. His face was deathly pale, his eyes tired and sickly. Niples wheeled himself into sight at the end of a corridor. Jay's pace quickened and he pelted up to Seymour who screamed. Jay bit him and ran off. Seymour lurched from his chair, neck bleeding, and pulled himself along the corridor, his movements jerky and inhuman. Jacky emerged from a side room and the now grey-faced Seymour bit his ankle. White Wolf sped down the corridor as if to help but Jacky leapt onto him and took a chunk out of his fur. He bellowed in pain and was suddenly a fully human Native American,
who threw a tomahawk Alex's way...

<snip>... he flicked his lighter on and shot her a sideways glance, her eyes, washed crystalline green by her tears, colliding with his in the gaslight for a brief instant before they both looked away</snip>

Alex opened his eyes, breathing heavily, sweating.
He shivered in the darkness and pulled his covers about him.

"Time" he croaked, leaning towards his bunk-side stand.
"The time is Oh Seven Hundred Hours, ship time!" came the chirpy voice of the alarm clock on his PalmPuter.
He dropped his head back on his pillow "... smeg."

---
Time Drive Meeting 07:30am.

Everyone wanted to use the time drive. Everyone. Each one of the crew had a particular time and place they wanted, or wished, or "had" to be.

It seemed logical to Alex that they should send themselves back before the accident. That way they could pick up where they left off, instead of suffering this unforgiving three million year displacement. Some suggested the same, others fancied the idea of experiencing famous periods and places throughout history, which they said offered a host of benefits. While the travelling idea was somewhat attractive to Alex, as was the thought of plundering wealth from certain historical figures, he was far more concerned about reuniting with his children. Wouldn't the STCP put a stop to the machinations of a ragtag bunch of time pirates anyway?
Everyone was being stroppy. Justin, Jacky and Plisken hadn't bothered to turn up and Cass was, of course, absent.
Alex didn't like the thought of the meeting taking place without Cass's input, but at least she wasn't being ejected like a garbage pod, just yet.

"Okay! Okay!" Seymour shouted above the rabble. "We'll put our ideas into a hat and select our destination that way."
No-one was particularly keen on this idea, but, they reasoned, at least it was a way to stop the arguing.

Not for the first time, Alex wished they had a proper captain. Somehow, though - his tired brain couldn't remember quite how - events had lead to the natural formation of a weird half-Jay half-Seymour coalition and the Dwarfers took orders from both, though the two men seldom agreed. It put him in mind of that thing, the, uh... the pushmi-pullyu in another story his dad had told him and- ow, not now.
That seemed to be about as far as leadership aboard the awoken, wounded 'Dwarf had managed to limp, aside from the occasional direction from Cass and White Wolf.
They were the Lost Boys, and Girls, and not in the cool sense. It was smegged up. Alex moodily pushed a vacant chair with his foot and wondered if things really were as negative as they felt, or if he just really needed a fix. He settled for a smoke and one of Bedge's too-strong teas.

"Nobody's got a hat" Phil pointed out.
"Justin has."
"Yeah but we can't really use that and he's not here anyway."
"Wort abaht dis?" Bedge supplied them with a large, empty, family-sized bean can.
Seymour squinted into it, disgusted. "Couldn't you have washed it first?"
"Yes, Marster" he confirmed. Seymour waited, but that was apparently all he had to say on the subject.
"I- Uh, well quite." He shook his head a little, confused, and made a mental note to issue the reformed simulant with a (handwritten, by himself) pamphlet regarding hygiene and cleanliness.
"Anyway, here, everyone, write down your idea and put it in the tin."
He tore pieces of paper from his clipboard and handed them out.
He waggled one in Alex's direction but the silly, scruffy-haired man merely gawped at him like an imbecile.
"Well? Take it, Mr Solvay."
"What, now? D'we'ave to?" Eugh, sometimes he sounded so common.
"Yes! Of course!" What a fool.

Alex felt a layer of sweat breach his skin, it wasn't so much the inevitability that they'd end up somewhere ridiculous and smeg up the space-time continuum - though, that was of course a concern - so much as his sudden nausea at one of his very private matters on the verge of revelation.
He didn't want them - or anyone who didn't already know - to learn this particular secret. It was something he'd become pretty adept at keeping hidden over the years. Thank smeg for machines, lovely non-judgemental (bar Holly) computers with their blessed Auto-Spell-Correct functions.
Luckily he wasn't too bad at reading - a little faltering on a first read, perhaps - and while a bit slow at it, he was all right at writing via machines. Paper and a pen, though... yeh, not so hot.

Unless it was to doodle a cat. He was smeg-hot at cat doodles.

He had to get out of it. "Nah. I actually gotta go-"
Phil looked at him, no sign of his recent concussion, unfortunately. "What the smeg? This is quite important, don't you think?"
What could he say?
"Yeah... sorry."
Phil shot him a funny look and went back to his scribbling.

Alex felt his throat getting tight, he looked at the others, all poring over their own paper, who'd be the least mocking? Jay? Perhaps, but there was quite a lot up with Jay at the moment what with the recent dramas and the fact that he was obviously ill. Why wasn't anyone doing anything about it? Poor bugger. Seymour? Uh, no. Would Jelena be ki- Er, where was Jelena, anyway?

"Marster?" Bedge boomed in his ear.
He jumped a little "Yes?"
"Marster Seymour ga'e me some paper."
Alex looked at him for a while, then at Seymour, then back at him.
... Interesting. Alex still hadn't forgiven Bedge for Gomez, and couldn't yet bring himself to consider him as part of the crew. Though he did cook a mean egg.
"Yes, he did, didn't he?"
"Shall I-"
"Bedge, just smeg off a minute, would you? Trying to think."
Garr looked as if someone had just shot his new kitten.
"Yes, Marster. Sorry, (you 'orrible tissue tube)."
Alex thought a second. "Wait! Bedge..."
"Yes?" The sim turned back, a look of genuine hope gracing his coarse features.
Alex stood to get closer to Bedge's aural receptors, and lowered his tone "How..." He stopped and coughed, awkwardly, "How d'you spell 'original'?"
Bedge's brow knotted and a rumbling sound came from deep within as he considered this. "I don't fink I know." He turned to Seymour.
"Marster Seymour..." He began.

Seymour looked up, about to respond but that goon Solvay was attempting to wrestle or rugby tackle the very large, very solid, very bemused Bedge to the floor. Niples shook his head and threw in an eye roll, feeling as though he were observing foolish, rowdy children. Which - he sighed to himself - in some ways, he was.
"This isn't the time for horse-play and frolics, Mr. Solvay. Come on, get on with it, would you?"

Bedge looked down at Alex who, for some reason, appeared to be hugging his mid-section. "I fought you wanted to know how to spe-"
"Forget it." Alex let him go.
Bedge made to return the hug.
"Geddoff."
"Smeg's sake, get a room!" Phil smirked across the table.
Without bothering to turn his head, Alex flipped him the bird.
"Rude."

They all finished and put their suggestions in the tin.
"We can't wait for Justin and the others." Snapped Seymour. "Probably sensible" someone muttered.
"Okay, here we go!" Seymour dipped his hand into the can and pulled out a bean-juice stained piece of paper. "Let's see." He unfolded it.
There was a tension filled silence, then:
"Is this some kind of joke?"
The others frowned. "What d'you mean?" said Phil.
"What I mean is, which bloody joker put this in?"
He held the paper up for them all to see.

It was a doodle of a cat.

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<Sorry for another 2-parter :/>