IC inbox (pumpkin hollow)

[lovethyneighb_or]

Mulcahy here! Leave a message.

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[lovethyneighb_or]

[ Here to unhelpfully incite further brotherly teasing, ] Well, Rex, perhaps you would like to name it?

[ Come on, give them something good. ]

[blindwatchersees]

“Shepherd, shepherd, shepherd… you’re baying like a wolf. Don’t you know, you shouldn’t frighten your flock. Here they are, gathered to listen.”

With a broad gesture of his cane, he indicates the stones. They’re still sitting there, outside of Mulcahy’s reach, like a group of tiny people gathered far, far down at the base of the mountain on which the good father stands.

“Go on, now. Preach.”

He’s speaking so quietly, so calmly, as if Mulcahy wasn’t just having a meltdown.

[rexthebuilder]

[ Oh ho. Oh ho ho ho. Rex's mood immediately becomes jubilant. ] You're right! He's taken so long to name it that I get to name it now.

[ A laugh from César, who apparently isn't going to stop him, and Rex sticks out his tongue audibly before continuing. ] Those are the rules! Okay, so. It's gotta be a name that's mostly lame but vaguely cool.

[lovethyneighb_or]

I’m afraid I can’t suggest much; I’ve only named pets and animals, and most Catholic terms might be a bit too cool for what you’re looking for. Well, how do you name a… ‘soda can lab?’ Not like a dog, I assume.

givingstide

[not_a_traitor]

Among Mulcahy's Givingstide gifts is a tidily-wrapped box. Inside: the nicest collection of tea Gaeta could assemble from Blackwood Brews, along with a small teapot and matching cups.

An equally tidy note tucked inside the box reads:

Mulcahy,

This feels entirely too inadequate for what you've given me these past nine months. I've become very used to bearing up alone, or for any extended kindness to be punctuated by loss at best, devastation at worst. That you've kept some of my worst memories and nightmares at bay -- literally and figuratively -- has given me hope that I might do more than just survive, eventually. I haven't had hope like that in a while.

Maybe next year, we'll both be able to drink this in the daylight, and not at three in the morning after our respective rough nights.

Happy Givingstide.

All the best,
Felix Gaeta

[rexthebuilder]

Yeah, dogs are way cuter. And it's a vehicle that can fly in space so. I dunno, USS Famous Science Person? This is going to take some thought.

[He sounds very happy to have this task, though.]

[pineapplesalmon]

You can think?

[The pillow beating resumes immediately, followed by César's laughter.]

[lovethyneighb_or]

[ That gets some more laughter from Mulcahy's side. ]

Perhaps you can take some inspiration from the things--or people--around you, [ he hums. ] But remember, you can always change it later if you come up with something better.

[lovethyneighb_or]

A letter arrives at Gaeta's door the next day.

Dear Gaeta,

I've received the gift you so generously gave me. You realize, of course, that I couldn't possibly indulge in this its first time without your company.

Visit again soon.

Mulcahy

[rexthebuilder]

[Rex pauses in his pillow beatings to consider this.] You are a cool priest. César doesn't have it here. So there's plenty of time to come up with something obnoxiously awesome!

cw maladapted spirituality from religious abuse, light reference to child abuse, suicidal ideation

[lovethyneighb_or]

"Shut up!" he hollers, still having a meltdown in fact, "How dare you! How dare you! You know what I am! They, they know what I am," he gestures to where the Banekin may or may not still be, he isn't looking, and then gesturing down to Powell's still-present beaten and bitten and bloody rotten corpse, "he knows what I am!"

He brings up his hands, his bloody fingers, laughing into them--a shrill, demented howl. "Preach," he gasps, "preach what? What invests me with the right? After what I've done! I didn't even know! I don't remember it!" His gestures are wild, clawing at the air because he cannot claw his chest, cannot pull at his hair. "I had to guess! I had to be told what I did! Because like an animal I couldn't help myself, and no matter how much I try to be good and practice patience and fidelity and mercy, that is who I am! An animal!"

He presses his hands to his eyes. "Of course any man has a right to defend himself. I learned how to box for it. But--I joined the priesthood for a reason. I'm meant to set the example. And think about the men I was surrounded with on Earth. Doctors. The sick and wounded. Hawkeye--he might give someone a black eye, but at no moment would it ever occur to him, from the bottom of his heart to the top, to murder someone else. I know this--I saw it, spirit, he died beside me countless times for it--" his voice strangles as he searches fruitlessly for another stone, "--and yet, after decades of preaching His word and surrounding myself with healers, nothing has worked!"

(To stop being his father's son. He got his awful temper from him.)

He seethes, "I hate him! I would kill him again, I know I would! I would kill 2! I am an angry, hateful creature, I dream of vengeance more than mercy, and I don't know what is so wrong with me that I failed to change this! Spirit, what is there to grow from such poisoned roots? The thing to do would be to rip them out and--"

... he stops, suddenly, eyes wide, shaking.

[lovethyneighb_or]

Such as the USS Super Awesome Soda Can, of course. [ He still has no idea what this lab even is or looks like, he's just guessing. ] Or the USS Canned... what do you do in your lab, César?

1/2

[rexthebuilder]

A little bit of everything!

[pineapplesalmon]

[At the exact same time, snickering at the names as Rex laughs at them.]

A little bit of everything—heyyyyyyyyy. [Another laugh from Rex.] Less experiments and more engineering, often on a microscopic level. But I have equipment for 3d printing, welding, programming of machinery, some circuitry stuff. And also it can go 99% to the speed of light.

[lovethyneighb_or]

[ 3D printing and 99% the speed of light, Jiminy Cricket. ]

The USS Can of Peanuts, then. Because you're both nuts!

[ And the snake-in-a-can-of-nuts prank is as old as he is! ... Wait, hang on. ]

... Do they still make snake nut cans in your future?

[rexthebuilder]

[A moment as Rex processes this, then.]

USS SNAKE NUTS!

[HOWLS. HOWLING. DEAD.]

[pineapplesalmon]

NO! [Also laughing.]

[lovethyneighb_or]

The Korean War would've ended three years earlier if you two had been there.

[ It only lasted three years. (He's had it spoiled for him already ages ago.) ]

[rexthebuilder]

[Rex needs a moment to breathe before he can respond to that, and he responds enthusastically.]

Dude, you have no idea. I can make technology like aircraft just not work anymore, but César would be the one you'd need. He could make an unconscious bomb or something. People can't fight if they're all unconscious, right? César totally walked into Providence looking for something, and I let him 'kidnap' me. Like high security military base and he just walked through the front door 'cause he had something that could open it. Was totes nuts.

[pineapplesalmon]

[César is much more aware of the Korean War and what happened, and the laughter in his voice when he speaks up dies away quickly.]

I would've done that, yes. I designed something that renders people safely unconscious for a few hours, which could be used on a grander scale. Enough time to land aircraft and take the most important portions of enemy territory with only a very minimal loss of life. Providence hired me in part because no one got more than a headache. But I'd hesitate to put such technology into military hands. It'd be overused immediately.

[lovethyneighb_or]

[ ... Right. He'd been mostly referring to the fact that they would've fit far too well in with the 4077th and the collision of Hawkeye, César, Rex, and Trapper would have been utterly catastrophic to the brass, but... right. ]

Oh, without a doubt. But that's... that's all very good to hear. I'm glad you had that. Us medics could have certainly made use of that more than once, too.

[ Anesthesia's such a tricky thing to balance, and they came dangerously close to running out more than once... they probably did, though Mulcahy can't recall. ]

[pineapplesalmon]

[Off-screen nudging of his brother, trying to change the topic to something happier because this isn't the time for a history lesson.]

Rex, tell him about some of our modern medicine advancements. Basically anything that uses computers or chips.

2/3 whoops

[rexthebuilder]

[And the comparison is literally lost on the both of them because they're both the same type of idiot.]

Dude, we've got like robot limbs and can regrow organs and stuff! And artificial wombs. And uhhhhhhhh... vaccines and antidotes that we reverse engineer and make in hours. And also a whole body scanner that can show everything that's going on in your body. Also I've worn a little band watch thing that's supposed to record your stress levels. We've got so much stuff! My phone can even tell me things about my oxygen levels. And those really tiny babies that are born too early make it most of the time now.

[Rex does pay attention to those sorts of things.]

[pineapplesalmon]

[It's a solemn sort of happy in César's voice.]

It's a small silver lining... but the knowledge medic, doctors, and surgeons gained from saving and treating soldiers became the backbone of saving the lives of tomorrow.

[It's one of the truths that drives him to remember that there's good in the world.]

[blindwatchersees]

“You’re ashamed of being an animal, are you? What’s you rather be, a houseplant?”

It’s hardly the first time he’s heard this particular mortal complaint, and it isn’t even an especially hard bit of guilt to work out, but it gets him every time.