Nuke the whole site from orbit [Open]

[unrecovered]

Who| Wash, Chief, and anyone else who wishes to join
What| Movie night! Chief has never seen Alien or Aliens, and Wash aims to fix that
Where| A lounge somewhere on Legion World
When| During Unification Week, in the evening

Somehow, Wash was still boggled that Chief hadn't seen Aliens. It was a classic, right? Then again, he just might not be that into action movies, or movies in general.

(It was not at all lost on him that he was showing two movies about fighting homicidal aliens to someone whose career and reputation were built on exactly that.)

But he'd proposed a movie night, and he was determined to follow through. He'd found a lounge with a big screen and a lot of fluffy but solid shapes, some of which were vaguely recognizable as sofas and chairs and other various furniture and some of which weren't recognizable as anything. He'd obtained shitty vegan pizza and soda and popcorn with salt and shitty vegan butter, because you really couldn't have a movie night without popcorn. Against all odds, he'd managed to find both Alien and Aliens, and he'd set Alien up in the projector. (He'd even told a few other people about movie night, because why not?) And then he'd waited for 7 PM to roll around.

Comments

Pre-movies mingling

[unrecovered]

[headinjuries]

Sam had actually just been looking for an unoccupied lounge to watch some splatterball. He'd been getting some good distractions out of the sport, first from figuring out how it even worked, and then from the fact that the Thrbkk Cup (which he still couldn't quite pronounce) apparently had a lot of qualifying rounds, so there was a steady stream of games to watch.

And, you know, distractions were pretty great when you were trying to remember that you couldn't just throw your fanbase out a window.

So when he found the first lounge he ducked into already in use, for a moment he was ready to turn around and head back out to try a different one, but that was for the two seconds before he noticed -

"Ooh, pizza." He leaned over the back of the couch to try and reach the table, because that was clearly far too much pizza for the number of people already in the room. By the time he actually managed to reach it, he was less leaning over the couch and more halfway crawling over it, feet in the air, because Sam was way too short to reach otherwise, but pizza was worth the momentary indignity, even if it was crappy vegan pizza.

"So, what're we watching?"

[unrecovered]

He's seen this maneuver before. Grif did it, and it broke the sofa. Luckily, it's a kid, which means the sofa is safe and the quest for pizza is kind of funny instead of massively irritating. Wash waits until the kid has gotten ahold of a slice or two, then grabs the back of the kid's shirt and hauls him upright back the way he came.

"Alien." He quirks an eyebrow - someone doesn't look over 18. "Are you a horror fan?"

[headinjuries]

Someone is definitely not over eighteen, but when has it ever stopped him?

He makes a slightly indignant noise when he's hauled back over the couch, but there's only so indignant he can get when there are more important matters at hand, like pizza to be eaten, so his mouth is full by the time the question's been asked, and he's left trying to answer around a bite or three.

"S'okay?" He swallows before adding, "I mean, I like straight up action better, but horror's fine."

[unrecovered]

Classy.

Wash gives him a long look, and then shrugs. "Okay." He's not this kid's parent, and if he watches horror movies, then Alien shouldn't be too much worse than what he's already seen.

[headinjuries]

And Sam plants the hand that isn't holding his pizza on the back of the couch and vaults over it, landing on the end and shifting to a sitting position.

Nobody's getting him out of here regardless of whether they think he can handle Alien.

[prettycoolguy]

And at seven, like a grainy bigfoot sighting on a forgotten trailcam, the Chief appears.

He's still not entirely sure how this happened to him. He agreed, though, so he brought this on himself.

It's not that getting invited to do something isn't nice, it's just weird and he doesn't have much practice being a person that gets invited to do things.

He drifts in and, for a moment, looks a bit like the kid that walked into what is clearly a philosophy lecture while trying to get to Calc I.

[unrecovered]

If Wash is going to be completely honest with himself - which he rarely ever is - there's a part of him that's worried that Chief isn't going to show up. Wash can't hold it against him - he seemed a little off when Wash proposed this whole thing - but still.

So it's a relief when Chief does show up, even if his expression is just this side of Deer In Headlights. Wash gives him a nod. "Hey. How was the rest of the con?"

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief would be lying if he said he hadn't considered bailing, but that would have been a) not keeping his word and b) pretty rude after Wash went to the trouble of setting things up.

"It was..." the Chief briefly searches for a word. "Busy." As before, he's diplomatic in his choice. Tone conveys a lot, though.

There's a moment's hesitation, but he helps himself to some shitty vegan pizza. Like a normal person.

If he's going to do a thing, then by god he is going to do it.

[unrecovered]

Wash smirks. Currently, tone is everything. "And now you know why I left."

He keeps up the chatter while Chief goes for the pizza. "I might go back tomorrow without my armor, though. I don't think anyone will recognize me without it."

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief doesn't laugh, not because it isn't kind of funny but just because the Chief doesn't laugh. Spartan. He seems to relax just a little, though.

"It wouldn't work too well for me," he says. Not that he has a great desire to go back, but mostly because he knows he's pretty obvious with or without the suit. "Enjoy your anonymity while you've got it, they'll probably figure you out soon enough."

[whyarewehere]

Junk food. Soft furniture. Movies about space being awful. These things will summon Grif, no pentagram or latin chanting required. One second there's a perfectly empty alien chair, the next he's sprawled as obnoxiously as possible across it, halfway through a slice of pizza with another waiting in his free hand.

Did he say hello? No. Did he ask? Definitely not. Speed powers, man.

If anyone approaches he arches his eyebrows in greeting, chews mightily for a second, then offers a muffled (and crumb-infused) "Sup?"

[unrecovered]

Wash pauses. He had definitely been just about to sit in that chair.

Super speed. Right.

He looks at Grif for one very long moment, ignores the greeting, and heads for another chair.

[whyarewehere]

There's a vaguely Grif-shaped flurry of motion.

He wiggles his fingers casually from the other chair, as if he's been there the whole time.

[unrecovered]

Super speed. Right.

Wash closes his eyes for a moment - this is a social event and he will be calm - and heads for the couch. It's a big couch. There's no way Grif can take up the entire couch. Right?

[jonesiseverywhere]

The smell of pizza, even awful veggie pizza, is enough to overcome even the worst injury. So what if Casey's depth perception is shot by a massive black eye right now, it's not hard to follow the scent. And the wall.

Of course, his normal pole-vault-over-the-couch-and-sit maneuver seems like a little more than he's up for right at the moment. He can snag a few peaces, go around, and flop his butt down-

And catch someone else's plate with his heel, flipping their slice of pizza up in the air. Catching it one-eyed proved to be a bit too much of challenge and it splatted on the ground.

"Whoops." Guess there's nothing else to do but shrug and pass his second slice to whoever it was that belonged to.

[whyarewehere]

Grif is just about to yell about how hey, he was eating that when the pizza is replaced.

Well then. No harm, no foul.

He gives Casey an it's-cool nod, settles back into the cushions and eyeballs the slice now lying sauce-down on the floor a few feet way.

"Not it," he says.

[jonesiseverywhere]

"Not it," says Casey, with the instinctive reflexes of a life-long responsibility shirker.

"So what're we watchin'?"

[whyarewehere]

"Alien," Grif replies. The pizza on the floor, having been officially Not-It'd according to the ancient code of being an asshole, is now completely outside his concern.

"I haven't seen it in years."

That's one thing you miss when you're stuck in a box canyon in the space army: anything and everything fun whatsoever.

Post-movies mingling

[unrecovered]

[unrecovered]

The problem with showing people Alien is that Wash really doesn't like horror movies. He might have been a little twitchy during that one. Just a bit.

He does better during Aliens, because action is obviously the superior genre, and he grins a bit when it ends. "So, what'd you think?"

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief's been making a sort of game out of it deciding what he'd do, like he's watching helmet cams. It's a hell of a space monster, he's sort of impressed.

And glad he's not going to have to deal with that thing. Fuck that. It has acid for blood.

"I think the blood could be contained with shielding," he says. "Nothing for it to erode. It would take some doing to set that up, though."

"Plasma would probably be more effective than ballistic weapons on the creature if fire is. We could take it down, but it would get messy very quickly."

Chief. Chief he was asking you if you liked the movie.

[unrecovered]

Wash blinks. Okay, maybe he needs to be a little more specific next time. "Yeah, that's one way to do it."

A pause. This, Wash reflects, is the problem with showing movies about fighting aliens to a guy who's probably never seen a movie and has spent the past few years fighting aliens.

"...did you like the movies?"

[prettycoolguy]

Oh. Oh.

"...Yeah."

That was kind of fun, really. It's weird to make himself stop and not focus on working for once.

Today he went to a convention, talked to people, and came back and watched movies. It's stranger for him than any of the days he's spent fighting aliens and parasites and doomsday devices.

But it's also sort of nice? He really can't let himself get used to this, that would be bad, but...

"Thanks," he says.

Wash didn't have to do this just because the Chief missed a movie reference.

[whyarewehere]

Someone's snoring.

It's Grif.

He's curled up in his seat, head on an armrest. There's some pizza sauce on his face because of course there is.

It's not that these movies are boring, but they're familiar and it's kind of nice. He's comfortable. He's well-fed. He settled down and shut his eyes halfway through Aliens and they just didn't open again.