Starter for @captxcanary
Life on the Waverider was...different. And that was a very mild way to put it. If he had to be honest, John wouldn’t have been able to find a single word that could have summed it up. He was used to be on his own, having one, seldom two people around, and now he had found himself constantly sharing his “residence”, assuming that such term could have been used to describe the timeship, with six people. And only one bathroom, but that apparently was a well-recognised problem among all the crew.
The magician reached out to rub his bare shoulders, flexing the muscles slightly. His fingers lingered on the scars and the tattoos that covered the skin, reflexively tracing them out of memory. His skin was littered with ink and marks left by old wounds, and yet he knew the meaning behind each of them. And he also remembered well, at time far too well for his liking, how he had got them. Some of them were the physical reminder of events he would have eagerly forgotten, given the chance, but he was damned to carry them to the grave, and then, later, in Hell, together with his rotten soul.
Rolling his eyes, he reached out for his trench coat, pulling out his cigarettes. He wasn’t going to light one up, no matter how much he wanted to, because Gideon would have instantly ratted him out to Sara, but at least he could chew the butt a bit. It soothed the restlessness a bit and it allowed him to resist the urge to start drinking till after he had eaten breakfast. There, another thing he couldn’t stand of his new life, maybe even more than the constant crowd that surrounded him. The bloody rules they had imposed him. No smoking, and not only on the ship, but in general. No drinking before midday, even if mostly managed to get away with not following that one. Mandatory team bonding time, and no strangling Ray and Nate during it.
A groan escaped his lips. He had attempted not to give a damn about all that and to keep going as he had always done, but whenever he tried to smoke or drink around the members of the team around, someone always reached out to snatch the cigarette or the glass out of his hand or away from his lips. It was beyond frustrating and it almost made him regret his choice. “Almost” being the key word, because no place was safer and more strategic to stay out of Neron’s arm’s reach than a ship that floated outside time. Moreover, Palmer’s face every time he walked on him doing yoga naked in the library was priceless.
The thought brought a smirk on his face. It wasn’t his fault if his assigned room happened to be the library, since all the actual bedrooms were occupied. After all, he usually closed the door, so if someone was at fault, it was whoever entered without knocking and not him.
Sucking in a breath, he hooked the cigarette above his ear and grabbed his nightgown. No reason to linger any longer. He had woken up at an ungodly hour and he knew that he wouldn’t be falling back asleep any time soon. He might as well exploit the fact that everyone else was still sleeping to enjoy a walk in solitude...and maybe to take his time in the shower for once. Yet another luxury he had been denied since he had moved in.
The metal floor was cold under his bare feet as he made his way along the corridor, heading for the kitchen. The ship was almost nice, quite and empty as it was at that hour. Pity that it wouldn’t have lasted. But a bloke had to take what he could get his hands on, after all. And that was the policy that had allowed him to go as far as he had, against all the odds, in the first place.
“And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know you’re going to fall, tell ‘em a hookah smoking caterpillar…has given you the call…” He sang under his breath, sinking his hands in his pockets, but his voice quickly trailed off as he noticed the light that was coming from the common kitchen area. It seemed like he wasn’t the only early bird that day.
“Trouble sleepin’, luv?” Was his greeting as he stopped on the threshold, crossing his arms on his chest and leaning against the jamb. Sara. All considered, he had got lucky. It could have been Charlie or, even worse, Rory.
