ss_noanga | A Day in the Life of... [OTA]

A Day in the Life of... [OTA]

WHO: Donnie and you-ie
WHAT: Mall'in and ship things
WHERE: Space Mall, Spaceship
WHEN: Uh...during space mall days
NOTES: Will match tag format preference!

I. Too Good a Thing (space mall)
Given he doesn't know how often they're likely to come across a good mall, Donnie doesn't want to waste the opportunity to grab anything and everything he can. He's loaded up on books and found a very nice percolator. He's even found some rather sumptuous coffee grounds. He's found a better plant shelf and a few pieces of furniture- namely a desk and chair, and a bookshelf to house his findings.

And once he finds a nice out-of-the-way spot, he activates his holoform disguise so he can set up an account at what he deems a renowned space-bank. Unfortunately the only disguise he has loaded is a certain tiefling one, but he uses his favorite moniker: Othello von Ryan.

Although it does start to dawn on him that it seems the mall is rather dominated by elves. Is that...weird? Are they in elf space or something? He tucks that thought away for later research.

What all else was he needing? There's a pharmacy but he's sure there's a few items on Leo's list that aren't over-the-counter. Well, time to falsify patient information. Clothes? Oh, definitely. Tools, right, he'll need more of those...

If his crewmates don't catch him shopping, they might also find him at one of the food courts. They may not call it pizza, but there's no denying what it is, and no one should at all be surprised when he later brings a sizable stack of boxes of it back onto the ship.

II. I'm Onto You (around the ship)
No, he doesn't trust it at all, that suddenly the replicators have magically decided to work. That's really the problem, that he's sure magic or something must be involved. He's been in the guts of those machines. He knows their inner workings make no sense! So they shouldn't magically decide to work without question one day, save by exactly that reason: magic.

Ugh, he hates that reason, even if he's by now had more than enough experience with it.

Perhaps one will find him, elbow-deep in wiring and whatnot as he decides to delve into one of the machines again, just to see if there's been any visible changes.

Alternatively you may find him pulling a cart towards a room that has glitter tracked all over the floor by the doorway. Or you might catch him walking away from it, glitter sparkling off the wheels and the bottom of his space Chucks as he pulls the cart down the hall, laden with an assortment of technical equipment. A trained eye might deduce that they seem to be for a computer.

III. Anything Else?
((OOC: Have anything else you'd like to do with Donnie that's not covered here? Tag away!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

They’re here to have fun, no need to put too many rules on it. As for tiring, Day hasn’t managed to truly exhaust himself in a long while. Even with his health issues he’s at a level most humans would need rigorous training for.

He starts to turn the moment Donnie snatches the ball, intending to get ahead of him and then get it back before he reaches the goal.

Donnie's beginning to see how this could be a problem, having a one-on-one. Actually keeping the ball close like a hockey puck isn't exactly favorable when you have no one to pass to, so when Day gets ahead, Donnie strikes the ball again, sending it skittering opposite the way Day's coming in from.

Granted he gets it past him, the turtle keeps low on his board as he continues after it, stick outstretched to pick up on getting the ball moving in the direction he wants once again.

With his brother it'd been more shooting back and forth to train reflexes, it's becoming clear that for a proper game they need at least two more players. Still no reason to give it up though.

Day intends to just go backwards - shove the board in the opposite direction, do a little jump-and-twirl to face the right way again. Spare himself the time of doing a full curve. But that sudden movement turns out too much for his head to handle, the sudden bout of dizziness having him fall backwards, despite having landed on the board. He'll need a minute before he can even think about getting up again.

Donnie looks back at that telling sound, forgetting about the ball as he circles back.

"You all right?" he asks, brow knitting as he skids to a stop and kicks the board upright to grab.

"I need a moment." Probably more than that, with how the world is spinning. "Not a concussion. Just..." he gestures vaguely to his head, closes his eyes before sitting up. That'll help a little, until the forest magic eases this back into a working balance.

That gets a frown. Not a great explanation there, but given Day's like a walking landmine, Donnie's afraid to ask for details.

"We made a lot of progress today, we can probably call it," he suggests. "You picked it up a lot faster than I figured."

He comes with his own permanent health issues, they're just harder to see than Leo's.

"Told you I'm good." That has him back to smiling, tho he'll stay sitting some moment longer. "Just get dizzy easier and worse than I used to. Don't think I'll ever adjust to that, but if that's the worst after-effect of brain surgery..." Could've been so much worse.

"Yeah, mmmmmaybe we should downgrade from hockey if that's the case. We were only just starting, but there would be no guarantee that I wouldn't elbow you or ram your skateboard in the long-run."

That's just how the game goes, my dude.

"That's what the helmets are for." He just wants to feel normal. Doesn't matter if he will never win because of this, but they'll hardly find a sport that excludes sudden movements and isn't mind-numbing boring. "I'll be fine. You only really should call Aen'kae over if I don't react for some minutes."

That gets an unimpressed look from him. "Doesn't look like it helped much. I didn't even touch you."

Donnie sighs. "Is that supposed to be reassuring? Because I'm sure if anything does happen that requires outside assistance, I'm going to get an earful along with you."

Yeah, there's a reason Day didn't mention this before they started. "The helmet's there so I don't get a concussion on top. It's... it's not going to go away. Sometimes it's enough if I sit up too suddenly or turn around a corner too sharp. I can't just spend my life avoiding every little risk."

"True, but you know you have limitations. I don't see how doing something that you know will potentially trigger them can possibly be fun." He folds his arms. "It will definitely not be fun for me if I have to make sure you're not having an emergency every time something does happen."

Edited 2026-01-21 09:15 (UTC)

"Dizzy isn't an emergency." he argues. "... If I get the ok from Aen'kae, will you be alright with it then?" Not that he'll dare to ask anytime soon. But at this rate Donnie won't let him skateboard on anything but a flat hallway either. Or participate in basketball or anything else where he might end up with someones elbow in his personal space.

"No, but dizzy could be a precursor to one," Donnie argues. "Why didn't you tell me? So I could have a heart attack if something did happen because I didn't know there are things I should be aware of?"

Yes, he's a bit upset, more so that Day is treating this like nothing. "This is why I asked Leo to let me know what I should, what meds he needs and stuff, because I don't know. And I don't want to be caught flat-footed if my brother ends up having some kind of emergency that I wasn't aware of because he's from an alternate universe and went through things the Leo I know never had!" Some of his frustration leaks through there. He's always felt a strong responsibility for his family's well-being. He knows his alternate variant has probably done everything and anything he could for Leo, and he'd hate to drop the ball on that simply due to ignorance.

He hasn't really talked with anyone except Esmeryl about Leo not being exactly the Leo he knows. It's not like it's changed anything in how he's acted towards Leo- it's actually startlingly easy to just pick up and treat him like his brother, because he is his brother. But it's also hard to ignore the obvious difference, making him feel guilty for reasons he can't quite explain.

“Because I know it isn’t!” It’s been months, he had all sort of check-ups, he isn’t in pain, he didn’t even pass out. None of this is half as serious as Donnie makes it out to be.

“I didn’t want you to say ‘no’ to something I’ve actually been excited about. And it’s not like you asked at any point.” They’ve been swimming, he knows how many scars Day has. Did he really think they came with no lasting damage? That all his ‘depressing’ reactions are just personality? At the mall they’d talked about not just accepting things, of exploring and trying new stuff – wasn’t this what they’d been doing here?

“I’m sorry about your brother.” he adds softer. “Do you want to talk about it?”

"I'm not saying we wouldn't have tried things. But it would be better to be aware of what to be on the lookout for. Head injuries in particular are not all that uncommon for many sports and that's even with people wearing helmets."

The simple answer is that he just hadn't thought about it. Asking about people-matters just isn't something that readily comes to mind, because people are so much more difficult to decipher than tech, all those feelings things going into gooey territory that he can't even begin to comprehend.

In his mind, the scars meant that they were things that had been gone through and dealt with. Donnie has plenty of his own marring his shell, and he knows he doesn't want to think about them, so it only stands to reason not to ask someone about their own. He knows from what Day's mentioned that the guy's past is rocky territory, but all he has to compare to are his own terrible experiences, and in his opinion they had been the worst, and within the small handful of years he'd been absconded by an alien robot spaceship. But he'd clawed his way out of whatever sort of mindset he'd been stuck in, particularly after he'd seen how badly it had been affecting his brothers. He thinks he's 'gotten over' things. But perhaps he just doesn't really know.

He grimaces, looking away with a sigh. "...what's there to talk about. He's here. He's my brother. There's just... It's weird. Having things I don't know about my own brother."

"I do know how that feels like." The years of watching his family from afar, worrying every time they broke the routine he'd grown up with. Not being able to ask anyone what was wrong. Not really knowing how to help.

"...would you rather hear my depressing medical history? But only if you won't make the decision of what I am capable of for me." Donnie would just have to trust him that he could handle a little hockey and knew how to keep his problems in check.

In his mind it's a fixable problem. He just needs information. Information makes the biggest difference.

Donnie's own expression is almost undecipherable, but he's not sure how to feel about someone being able to relate to that. Not knowing your own family. Because previously, that's been such an unfathomable thing.

"Yes," he says almost too quickly, but only because that's the only answer there is in his mind, depressing or not. "The better I understand it the better prepared I can be." This is the way of Donnie. This is how he's always operated, trying to anticipate and avoid or prepare and most importantly how to FIX problems, trying to fill his family's needs, trying to keep them comfortable and safe.

Day’s turn to sigh, as much as he expected that reply. “Might want to sit down for that. I’ll try and spare you the worst of… well. Everything around it.” And he will wait till Donnie does so, can’t really bring himself to talk about this while looking at him, no matter how often he does.

“Most goes back to the Trial. Y’know, when they sort kids based on their scores. When the failing ones get put on a train to a lab.” He picks at the hem of his shirt. “Gave me something so I couldn’t move. Stuck a needle in my eye and heart. Cut through my knee. Did something to my head that had me pass out – don’t know. Knee never healed right and I’d get these horrible headaches that no painkiller touched.” Here he taps his prosthetic knee. “That came later, after a shotwound got infected so badly I almost died.” Vague taps to his wrists, upper arms, the now-hidden bands of scars there. “These are from shackles.”

So much for Republic. “Turned out that thing in my head was a… a tumor or such. Something festering. Went through months of chemo to try and make it go away. Then I had a seizure and there was no choice but surgery. And now I’m banned from driving a vehicle, just in case. Sometimes there’s migraines, but Aen’kae can stop those. My balance has been off since, it’s just… not as good or overreacting like just now. Some memory issues.” Nothing that really could be fixed.

Not that there's many places to sit in an empty hallway, so Donnie just sets his skateboard down to sit on that, draping his arms over his knees.

His expression shifts drastically once Day starts, because there really is no build-up, just diving right into it.

"Wow, what the frag is wrong with your world???"

Bad enough they decide the ones not good enough aren't worth anything else, but then they are basically lab experiments? What? The things humans do to themselves... Which is a lot of why they as mutants have made it a point not to be discovered, because as cool as it is to hang around in the human world, they're well aware that they'd probably just end up in a lab somewhere otherwise. Well, another lab.

"Okay, so...that all sucks."

“It’s home. It is… was… still home.” he snaps back. Sure, he only ever talks about returning to the gas station, but that’s because he has so many complicate feelings on the topic that are impossible to put into words.

“You know what sucks? I didn’t fail. Had a perfect score. The first person to ever get one. Just was worth more to them taken apart so they could replicate what makes me different.” Sometimes he badly wishes June never would’ve told him that. Better to live and believe himself stupid than worry every little ‘no’ means his best isn’t good enough.

But as much as he kept his tone neutral till now, talking about it drags up too much else, Day blinking at tears. Wiping his eyes to keep that from derailing even more, taking some shaky breaths and focus on the forest squirreling the memories away again.

The turtle stares for a good moment or two before shaking his head. "Sorry, but you can't really deny it's messed up. I mean who does that???"

Day had made it sound like he just hadn't been up to this screwy Republic's standards, or at least that had been Donnie's interpretation. Oh great, he's crying again. Looking over at him, the turtle fidgets awkwardly before offering just as awkward a pat. He really is not good at this sort of thing.

"Look, I cannot guarantee that if I ever met these horrible people who did that, that I wouldn't just blow them all away."

Of course it's messed up. He heard the reasons of how it became this way and Day absolutely doesn't agree with them. Still, for 16 years it was home, had he fought and questioned to make it better, believing that the ordinary people in it could be good if only given the chance.

A pat is enough, he doesn't want to cry, only needs a moment. At that words he gives half a laugh. "You'll have to get in line for that. And I'd still tell you all that nothing is worth killing over. But thanks for offering." It's only meant well. "Anyway. I'm somewhat broken and left with a lot of baggage that tends to spill over. But I don't have any sort of medical issue where it's not either minor enough that you'll just have to trust me or... well, with the bad ones all you can really do is fetch Aen'kae. Don't bring me into the medbay. Having a panic attack on top won't help anyone." Donnie can figure out why he reacts terrible to any sort of doctor, there's enough pieces of information.

Donnie shrugs. "It might make me feel better." Hard to say if he's joking or not because his tone always has that sarcastic lilt to it. He may have his own list of beings he wouldn't mind annihilating, but those were all in the other universe he'd previously inhabited.

"Well, you're speaking coherently and able to focus so I don't see any reason to drag you anywhere. But I think we need to rework a few things because two people chasing each other down the hall on skateboards will get old pretty quick."

"Yeah, heard that one before too." But these people are all a good two worlds away and he has no intention of returning there. Not if he has a choice in it.

"Should invite more people. What about this basketball? Think Leo would like that?" Or they can just work on adding ramps and such.

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CW: medical trauma, torture

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