(no subject)

[goldenglasses]

Who: Vash and the world
Broadcast: Yes
Action: Yes if on/visiting the Twin Roses
When: Backdated to August 18th

[Vash's knew a pattern when he saw one. He set his communicator off to the side to make sure he didn't bump it in his scramble to deal with whatever insane item the Atroma was going to throw at him for his birthday this year. Still close enough to call for help if it was needed, but he was not going to have an accidental broadcast this year!

Which is why when his communicator starts to broadcast on it's own this year there's a clear view of Vash and Kitty already kissing each other in the Twin Roses's cargo bay. The two captains of the ship don't notice at all that their private moment is being broadcasted out to the whole fleet. Vash almost doesn't even notice when a small colorful bouncy ball suddenly falls out of the sky and bounces off of his spiky head.

It's enough to give him a bit of a pause. The second time one falls onto his head he knows it's not just a fluke.] Wha- [Looking up Vash takes just enough time to dorkishly scream and throw himself over Kitty as cascade of bright and colorful bouncy balls suddenly come raining down into the cargo bay.

The best thing about your girlfriend casual partner being a mutant means that Kitty phases the pair safely as the balls start to bounce and ricochet around the room. A banner that reads: HAPPY 136TH BIRTHDAY drifts down among the chaos. Soon after a bouncy ball with the Floot Loop logo smashes into the communicator and it tumbles to the floor. Turning off in the process.

But don't you worry! Vash will be back a bit later on his own looking grumpily into the camera as he shows the colorful mess on the floor of the cargo bay. Kitty and the banner now gone.] Anyone want a free bouncy ball or hundred? Come clean them off my floor and they're yours.

[Why no. He has no clue that all that got broadcast! Want to clue the birthday boy in?]

(OOC: I am back from my sudden hiatus! Vash will be the one mostly answering on this post, but if you really want Kitty to respond please say so! Sorry for suddenly needing to vanish for about a month. I will be getting back to everyone who has tagged Vash and Manji canofmanji in August, but feel free to drop any threads. No hard feelings!)

Comments

[goldenglasses]

Eh?! Broadcast?! What broadcast?! I don't even have my communicator on me! [It's off to the side, knocked over from the bouncy ball attack.] Did you broadcast anything, Kitty? [Not that he really cares that much if people know. It's more the lack of control and privacy that's gotten him riled up. That and it's Vash being Vash.]

What did you see? [When did it start? When did it finish? HE NEEDS DETAILS?!]

[passingthrough]

[Kitty is already scrolling through her communicator as Vash protests the idea. She watches...enough and holds it out to Vash to see.]

Not intentional. [That probably didn't need to be confirmed at this point. She thinks of Chekov who knew but definitely didn't need to see. Maybe he won't check his communicator today.] So that happened.

[After a beat.] Seven? Weren't you significantly younger last time around? [She was thinking two or three.]

[unbearablynaive]

Ah, I see. My condolences, then. [Whoops, he's still smirking a little. It's hard not to. Besides, if anything? It'll make him think better of Vash.] I'm afraid I did see it all.

A little over three years at home and two here--closer to five, I suppose. It's difficult to keep track of when the calendars are different and I'm not exactly permitted to keep a running clock in both concurrently.

[One of the more robust bouncy balls passes by him and he grabs it out of the air. Given that there must be a few that are out of sight--] There are a hundred and thirty-six of these, aren't there? [Which means they're going to have to do a count during clean-up to make sure they've found them all. Wouldn't do to have tripping hazards around one of the common areas.]

[goldenglasses]

Yeah. [Vash gives a short, annoyed sigh at the situation.] At least that's my guess. They tend to enjoy sending me an increasing amount of stuff each year. I can't decide if they think they're being clever or funny.

[He looks around the cargo area for a moment before deciding to just tell at the ceiling in a slightly louder voice.] IT'S NEITHER! YOU'RE JUST MAKING A MESS!

[passingthrough]

[She puts her communicator away again, sulking slightly.] You guess how many years you've been around but know exactly how many balls are on the floor? [She did not keep an accurate count—or attempt to—as they were falling.]

[She gives Vash a pat on the shoulder.] They aren't hard of hearing.

We should get some buckets or something. I mean, you don't have to though. It's your birthday.

[unbearablynaive]

Accurately detecting incoming projectiles and determining the passage of time in alternate timelines are very different skills, Kitty. It's not as though we have a sun here to standardize a day. [Yes, the ships have their day-night cycles, but for all any of them know, Atroma is messing with the clocks. And that's not counting events like Calibrations - who knows how much time passes in those?]

Do you know, I think it's events like this that convince me they either are truly only doing this for entertainment, in which case they see such excess as amusing, or that they're entirely inhuman and lack certain contextual markers for appropriate gifts? [This is why he tends to ask for advice from someone else before giving presents. Like Wrath or Kitty, or Wanda or Natasha (or Pepper, if it's for Tony).

Regardless, he starts looking around for something to clean up the balls with. There ought to be a sack with the gardening supplies--there it is.] I'll see if any have reached the higher shelves.

[goldenglasses]

I don't know if I'll be happy or more upset to hear this was just for entertainment instead of something bigger.

[But that's deeper and darker conversation then he likes to have on the ships that their hosts control.]

I think I did see some bounce pretty high so if you could look up there that would be great. Either way I get the feeling we're not going to find every single one of them.

And there's no way I'm going to sit back and just watch you two clean this up. [He almost makes a joke about how your birthday stops being fun after the 120th one, but that seems a little too real for him to want to bring up right now.]

[passingthrough]

I guess people who don't know how old they are shouldn't mock other people who don't know how old they are either. [Marina time was different than Drift time. She's been assuming Drift time is more "correct." But who is to say she won't end up in some third place and realize it's different still?] I'd be surprised if the Atroma thought this was a good, quality gift. Job well done, you know? [She also doubts they have any intention of any such thing, but she thinks they'd be better at it if they did.]

[Kitty finds an empty bucket she used sometimes for watering the plants in the soil beds and starts scooping up some balls.] If you help I guess that means this doesn't count as part of your birthday present then. [She didn't find out it was his birthday until they were in drift which makes shopping hard. She does have some ungiven gifts in her room... But they were for someone else.]

[unbearablynaive]

Who was mocking? A hundred and thirty-six is a very respectable age. Though it makes me wonder if years are shorter on your planet.

[The Vision floats up to the higher reaches of the cargo bay looking for stray toys. There are a couple that have been rather improbably caught in the shelves and beams, and he stuffs the ones he finds into the sack. Except one, which he expertly aims at the basketball hoop via a floor bounce. Three points!]

We do have more liquid nitrogen than we strictly need, as well. I could use it to make ice cream. [Someone's been practicing with the weird synthetic milk from the kitchen.]

[goldenglasses]

Nice shot! [While Kitty and Vision are being practical and found something to hold the balls in; Vash has decided to just shove them into several of the pockets his has in his coat. Eventually he'll head to Kitty to dump what he's collected with hers once his pockets and hands are full.]

Actually, it might be a bit longer. [The original people who crashed remembered how time was calculated on Earth. Their intention was to try and keep it the same, but slowly that information got morphed over time as survival became more important than time keeping.]

With two sun's our days are a bit longer and we tend to count a year as three hundred and sixty days. [A nice round number to keep track of.] We also don't bother with leap years. That seems so weird still.

[Buuuuuut did hear ice cream?] Yeah? How much possible ice cream are we talking about? [If Vash is one thing, it's a glutton.]

[passingthrough]

Oh, no, I meant me and you, Vision. [Thankfully no one was mocking Vash's age. She knows he's sensitive. She's a little surprised he's talking about it openly, but the secret's out and he probably also doesn't want to seem bothered? Or maybe he just has that feeling about Vision like she always did that he would be understanding.] I'm not sure how long days in Marina really were. I was there almost a year, but I'm pretty sure it was actually a lot longer. I just don't know by how much.

[She glances over as Vash talks about his world, curious about the varied length of year. She hadn't really considered that, but then she shakes her head realizing he's just stuffing balls in his pockets. The mention of ice cream brings her right back though!]

Ice cream is great. We can sacrifice the others of needed. [She knows Vash is a glutton. And she's kidding about not inviting the others. Probably.]

[unbearablynaive]

Ah, I see. [Being that he's friends with Thor, who's well over a thousand years old, the Vision cares less about any given person's age and species and more about how they act. If he's making Kitty happy? That's more important than nearly anything else.

...Though he does wonder if he will need to give Vash the if you hurt her I will end you talk or if he should leave that to Kurt.]

If Marina could also interfere with aging, I can see why it would be difficult to tell for certain. It seemed longer to you, didn't it?

[He grins to himself as he's turned away from them, still looking for more escaped balls. Good, he'd thought that might be a popular innovation.]

It takes approximately five liters of liquid nitrogen to make a pint, as well as the entire ration of synthetic milk for the day. If we could acquire some actual cream, it would cut down on the amount of milk. As for flavors, we can use any of the protein flavors available in the dispenser or anything plant-derived. I've already distilled some menthol, and you can use the dry-solid chocolate protein chopped into chunks to create mint chocolate chip.

[goldenglasses]

[Everyone should threaten Vash at one point in their lives.]

Vision? You are my favorite member of this crew. [Kitty.... who?] I promote you to head ice cream maker of this ship! [As the mostly forgotten about co-captain of this ship he's pretty sure he can do that.]

And I think I could steal-- ah, I mean borrow some cream from work.

[passingthrough]

Considering the tanks our actual bodies were being kept in, they definitely could have slowed aging. It definitely seemed a lot longer there. Years longer, but I didn't realize it until I came here. Pavel noticed the same thing. [Although why anyone would talk about that when they could talk about ice cream?

She gives Vash...a look. Despite also fully understanding and well, would she have really said Vash if pressed on a favorite? She probably would have not said though. Maybe.]

Ask. Don't bring down the wrath of Nami on this ship. Or I could check with Crowley.

[unbearablynaive]

Ah, it's a true joy to have a rank again. I shall try not to abuse it.

[Yes, he's smirking over at Kitty. Don't think he won't forget the video evidence of who Vash's real favorite is. Besides, the Vision has a lot of lost crew-bonding time to make up for. If some simple food science can help, there's no reason not to try.

--And this way they can tell him if the recipe needs tweaking before he presents it to Wanda. Flawless plan.]

In either case, there's currently enough for several servings, and it only takes a few minutes to prepare. We could call it a reward for cleaning up this mess?

[goldenglasses]

I think that sounds like a pretty nice reward to me! [Suddenly Vash is moving a lot faster to pick up those stray balls.] You know, maybe they didn't send over a hundred this time. We probably have them all already!

[passingthrough]

[Oh god, why is Vision smirking at her? Okay, she knows why. It's making it worse. She ducks her head to avoid such gazes. She doesn't know how to handle the private side of moving on from Winn much less the public side and of course it must seem normal to other people by now. It's been forever since he left even if Vision was gone for most of "forever" but she hasn't been so great at letting go.

She spooks easy.

Also she's seeing an ancient child trying to skip cleanup to get ice cream faster. On the other hand...ice cream.]

There are still balls sitting in plain sight. The ice cream isn't going anywhere.

...Right? [Because if there is a chance they should have ice cream now and then finish. It's the mature thing to do.]

[unbearablynaive]

[It's a very strange mix of forever and no time at all for him. His whole life has turned upside down at home, and yet during all that time he didn't remember any of this, anyone here who really mattered to him. So the time to process things like Winn being gone is in this odd limbo place, and how much she has or hasn't moved on is a mystery to him. On the other hand, if a light teasing makes her too uncomfortable, maybe they do need to talk about it.

But not now. One person here was Captain long enough to get a sense of responsibility about it.]

Oh, I'm afraid the liquid nitrogen is quite inaccessible until all the bouncy balls have been accounted for. It's a tragedy.

[Okay maybe he just picked up a little too much trollishness from Tony Stark.]

[goldenglasses]

I'm pretty sure there is no correlation between bouncy balls on the floor and liquid nitrogen. [Said with the biggest and 'manliest' of pouts.]

Besides, doesn't it being my birthday mean I get to do what I want today? I'll just ask people to come take as many free bouncy balls as they want later.

[passingthrough]

[She enjoys Visions trolling ways. She's even kind of proud of him? Hopefully that isn't too condescending. Of course if he does try to talk to her one-on-one about things with Vash he might just get too much information because she needs to talk about it and hasn't really confided in anyone. After all, two of her closest friends here have also had crushes...or more on her, so this isn't really an area she can discuss and she wants to talk to Kurt, but sheisn't sure he won't do something...unnecessarily violent or threatening.]

Wow, I let you off the hook and you were all ready to be mature about it and up for helping and now this. Pick a mood. [Says the girl who can turn on a dime.] Vision was generous to offer.

[unbearablynaive]

[If Kitty did pour out her mess of emotions to the Vision, it would be perfectly fair as long as she got to hear I Have Complicated Feelings About Wanda, Vol. 2.

But for now he just half-laughs, still gathering up some bouncy balls. Really, complaining about it only makes it take longer.]

You see, Kitty and I are the ones with access to Engineering and the skills to safely use the liquid nitrogen, and I am the one with the recipe. If we're occupied cleaning up, we can hardly make the ice cream. And if you don't wish to help, why, it will only take us longer to complete the task.

[goldenglasses]

Aw, I don't get any respect. Even on my birthday! [He whines and complains, but there's a smile playing at the corner of his lips. So it should be pretty clear that he's not overly bother by their teasing.] I'm still picking them up! I'll probably be the one with the most in the end at this rate!

[He's picking up his pace to try to make that statement true.]

[passingthrough]

[Vision is such a space dad. She smiles at him fondly, having missed his presence on the ship.]

I'm not getting competitive over bouncy ball collection duties. [Nope. Not working any faster just to shut him down. Although as the bucket gets more full it's harder to toss new ones in without having them just bounce out again.] I'm keeping some of these for Seeker. [The direwolf pup would love this.] I mean, if that's okay. [She supposes she could ask. They are technically Vash's.]

[unbearablynaive]

[The Vision is still picking out the oddballs that are away from the main mass, seemingly having no difficulty finding them. There are no doubt some he's missing, but anything he actually managed to see the trajectory of earlier is still tracked. He'll end up with fewer total because he's taking more time for each one.

Seeing that Vash is at least still working through the complaints, his smile stays in place. He'd hardly be the only one the Vision knows that gets the job done despite the complaints.]

There we are. Is the ground level looking clear?

[goldenglasses]

It's clear! [It's not clear. Vash needs to take a moment to go empty his pockets into Kitty's bucket.] Let's make some ice cream! [Just ignore those few balls still scattered around.]