(Untitled)

[championoftime]

Who: Seven and whoever...
What: Zero gathering post. For those coming in to see their inmates or whatever.
Where: ...Zero
When: Today
Warnings & Notes: None as of yet, but who knows. As usual, tagged starting posts.

Comments

[dominie]

Dr. Smith entered Zero with a bowl of pumpkin soup and a sliver of preserved meat. No spoon or anything, just the plastic bowl and a bit of paper to keep the meat from touching his hands. He went to the Joker's cell, slipped the food through the slot along with the meat, and then went to sit in the space beside of his cell.

He'd just, wait here for a while. Until someone needed him, that is.

[ahahaaahooo]

Joker was wrapped up in his coat and jacket, the blanket having disappeared when everyone else did. He was freezing down there, literally moments away from full body shivering and chattering teeth, not that he was going to tell Seven that. He unbent slowly as his warden approached and made his way over to the slot stiffly. Leaving the meat where is was, he wrapped his hands around the soup, making himself sip it slowly, instead of gulp down the whole thing.

[dominie]

He listened as his inmate drank slowly, continuing to sit quietly for a moment or so. His hands fidgeted with the hem of his coat pocket, just idly doing something.

Finally, he reached into his pockets and started shifting everything into his pants pockets. They were equally deep. They could hold it. Clattering item after item until the depths of those dimensionally transcendent storage units were barren.

He removed the scarf and kept it loosely hanging around his shoulders. The coat itself he shoved between the slats the cell bars. "Take it. My core temperature is lower than yours. It's mostly for decoration anyhow."

[ahahaaahooo]

He stopped moving. Things had changed, down here, the screaming pain every night, and then every day left to himself in the dark and the cold. He felt almost feral. Well, more feral than usual.

He blinked blindly in the low-light. "What do you care?" He made no move to accept the coat. He stuck his fingers inside the cup, not bothering to remove the gloves, and sucked the dregs off them, the taste tainted by the leather. Then he reached over for the meat and swallowed it down.

[dominie]

"If I were to explain why I cared, I would suppose it would only make you more inclined to shiver and shudder in silence. However, I'm hoping you're greedy enough for your life that you'll take advantage of the generosity. The death toll is no longer in effect. Any ill moves you make at this point would be adventurously suicidal and perhaps permanently so."

He pulled out his pocket watch, looking at it's hands in the dark. Pointing toward where the Joker was in the cell behind him. The items were still working.

He would probably have let him out, if he didn't know that he would take advantage of the situation once he'd warmed. It was too great a risk to everyone's lives. The most he could do was spend his spare time down here with him. And spare time, well... it seemed that he had an excess of it, didn't he?

[ahahaaahooo]

Joker walked over and picked up the coat, wrapping it around him and leaning back against the bars. He flicked up the collar, let his hair fall over his face to curtain his eyes from his warden.

"You don't know why this is happening, do you?"

[dominie]

He made a face in the dark. "No... Not a clue. I suppose if something does happen to me I might regenerate, actually. I know who follows me. Very ill-fit dandy. I doubt you would be partial to his like."

He tucked his knees up, folding his arms across them. "They think it's a test of sorts. Possibly... He might be incapacitated. Or this might be his version of a funny little game to see how we'll react, scurrying like ants beneath his magnifying glass. But then I've known gods with better sense of imagination."

[ahahaaahooo]

"Is he here?" It was strange, having alternate versions of the man on the ship. He hadn't interacted with many of them so far, but maybe he should seek them out. There might be some sort of link he could exploit.

"Isn't that what every port and flood is? Maybe he ran out of ideas."

Strange, how everyone seemed to dislike the Admiral, inmate or warden, they were all at his mercy. "All that power and this is what he chooses to do with it."

He shrugged, then slid down until he was sitting on the floor, mirroring the Doctor's position.

[dominie]

"No, he's not. He's just a shadow in my head at the moment." He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the thin strip of wall between the cells.

He didn't care much about the Admiral, one way or another. He wasn't fond of him, and he didn't loathe him. He was there, a means to an end to achieve what he wanted. And oh so humorously gifted him a man nigh on irredeemable. At least, though, if this were his last ride into the unknown, it was an entertaining one.

"You want to know something very bizarre. You're... reprehensible. Terrible. Occasionally dare I say even abominable. You've no shortage of terrible habits and a contemptible hunger for death and destruction. ...And for all the Admiral's short-comings, I'm still glad he gave you to me. You've an interesting mind to follow."

A pause. Another face, another face with a slight sneer to it. "....Has your grease paint wore off?"

[ahahaaahooo]

Whiplash from the subject change. He creased his face up into different expressions. He could still feel the greasy, stiff feel of the paint on his cheeks, but his lips were likely licked clean. He turned to face Seven. "You tell me." There was a spark of challenge in his eyes, but other than that he didn't rise to Seven's goad. He wanted to be let out of here. That wouldn't happen if he pissed the man off.

He's not going to return the compliment-not-compliment. Even if he has enjoyed their cat and mouse, so far.

"What's it like, having other versions of yourself around you. Do you feel, responsible?" Not very subtle, that. Blame the cold.

[dominie]

He angled his head to better look at him through the bars. "I can't see that well... I do see you're still pale but that could be the cold. The dark rings are still clearly visible."

The question got a brief pondering, before he smirked slightly. "Always..." Because he did, even for the acts that his other selves had committed, the losses they carried over with them. Responsible, but not necessarily regretful. What needed to be done needed to be done. "However, these bodies serve little more purpose than as a containment vessel for memories and a personality to wield those thoughts. We end up squabbling like siblings most of the time when we're stuck together.

"How does it feel knowing of the other version of you that exists somewhere?"

[ahahaaahooo]

That was actually quite reassuring and he turned away quickly lest Seven should read his expression.

"So it's a clone thing, but you said he was a dandy, different from you. How does that work? A different personality each time?"

He shrugged at the thought of his other-self. "I didn't believe it at first. Thought maybe it was an imposter, a copycat. But then I saw the old journal footage." Couldn't argue with that. Of course, that doesn't quite answer the question.

[dominie]

He thought he may have caught a hint of... something there, maybe. If it was, it was a strange sort of vanity, or a fear of losing control completely. He couldn't know anything for sure right now.

"Different personality each time. An excellent way to prolong one's lifespan and simultaneously drive oneself to the edges of madness."

He furrowed his brows slightly, watching the slim bit of... hardly anything of the Joker's face that he could see. "Was he much like you? Personality wise? Or were the variances surprisingly extreme?" He knew little of the Joker's previous self. Just the one that he'd encountered. He didn't want to interpret the actions of one off the other when they possibly had little bearing.

[ahahaaahooo]

Joker grinned. "Sounds like a good plan to me. Wouldn't want it to get boring." Strange way of preserving life, but there was an appealing sort of randomness to it.

"How old are you?"

He kept his face turned away, aware of Seven's eyes on him. "I've heard different accounts." He shrugs. "I don't remember it. He's not me. Whatever he did means nothing." Of course, that's rather simplistic. Other-Joker lives on in people's memories, which affects how people react to him. But since he can't change what the other-Joker did, he sees no point dwelling on it.

[dominie]

"Getting close to 900 in Earth years." Sometimes he wasn't even sure. He'd lock himself away in the TARDIS for so long and lose track of time, waiting for boredom to get the better of him. He looked away finally, supposing correctly that it didn't. Mostly he supposed Other-Joker served as sort of a warning, depending on how he behaved.

"Earth children are so very frightened of clowns on occasion. I had a companion that disliked them quite a bit. Retain the fear well into adulthood. Gallifreyan children have other creatures that haunt their nightmares." He turned his voice a tad darker, a bit more articulated as he drew out the words of a nursery rhyme he'd been told as a child.

"Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed, And eats you while you're sleeping. Funny sort of a poem to recite to a Time Tot before they drift off to sleep?"

[ahahaaahooo]

"Why hasn't it become boring?" He can't even begin to imagine living for that long.

"People don't trust laughter. They like to conserve it, dole it out only on special occasions. Always so serious, never getting the joke... or maybe it's the make up." He shrugs, he'd never really understood the instant fear people had of clowns, that's not to say he hasn't made use of it before.

"Very, funny. But your people aren't the only ones to sing scary rhymes to impressionable young things." He tilts his head towards Seven. "Who's Zagreus?"