Captain Harassment [Open]

[sugarforteatime]

Characters: L Lawliet (Ryuzaki Coil) and the crew of the Winding Way
Content: New Captain get
Setting: L's office - Winding Way
Time: After L's become captain
Warnings: Candy!
Notes: Hey, this is the log for harassing the new captain. Come get a measure of him, ask for thingies, etc.

Comments

[smilin_through]

Much as she liked Vash, Tohru got the feeling L would do a much better job as Captain. Not to mention the fact that in his journal entry he had promised to get rid of the one aspect of Winding Way life she'd never managed to get quite comfortable with.

All in all, she was very grateful to L for taking on the job - she was sure running a ship like this must be very hard work.

So L rather needed rewarding. That is to say, Tohru had made him a cake. Balancing it carefully on one hand, she tapped on the office door with the other.

[sugarforteatime]

His morning had been a little more quite than he had expected. To be honest he had thought many of the crew would come to test him or at least see that he was appropriate for the job. It still wasn't unexpected that he would have visitors though, and he took the opportunity to get up and stretch and go to the door.

Cake! He hoped it was for him. Tohru made amazing cakes.

"Tohru. Come in." He held the door open for her. "Is there something you need?"

[smilin_through]

Tohru hesitated on the threshold for a second before coming into the office. "No, no, everything's fine, I'm sure you have enough work to do without me bothering you...I just wanted to bring you this!"

She smiled at L, indicating the cake and looking for a clear patch of desk to set it on. She didn't want to move any of the papers, in case they turned out to be important.

[sugarforteatime]

He was always ready to make room for cake, and he picked up a few less important papers to clear off some space. Hopefully the cake did not have something unpleasant in it. That fit very neatly into the category of things L thought might be used in some elaborate hazing ritual. The fact that the deliverer was Tohru spoke against that likelihood, however.

"Would you like to have some as well? I believe I have plates." He dug around in one of his drawers.

"How are you feeling about the new changes?" He wasn't going to get a good feel for the crew by holing up in his office.

[smilin_through]

There certainly wasn't anything nasty in the cake, unless someone had sneaked something in behind Tohru's back. Unless you counted large quantities of chocolate and nuts as unpleasant, which L definitely didn't, from what she knew of his eating patterns.

"If you don't mind...I mean, it's your cake, you don't have to share if you don't want." She wondered briefly why there were plates in his office, but it was a good thing if there were - she'd brought a knife, but no plates.

"You mean the change of Captain or the changes to what we're doing?" she asked, with a smile that suggested she wasn't too dreadfully unhappy about either.

[sugarforteatime]

L always kept plates in his office, mostly ones he'd cleaned off when he made an escape from the kitchen with a piece of cake, pie or some cookies.

"I believe it would not hurt to share a slice." He had candy there to share, as well, after all. He dug around to look for forks, also cleaned after use.

"Both are important to the way we work in the future. We will need many new sorts of jobs and we will need to 'clean up our act' so to speak." The detective in him really couldn't abide by the previous stealing. There was no way he would have let it continue. "I must know how the rest of the crew feels about that."

[smilin_through]

Tohru didn't fail to notice the kitchen's plates - Watanuki didn't seem to have noticed any missing, but if he did, there could be another incident like the one with the spoons...she made a mental note to get them back to the kitchen once they were finished with the cake.

"Thankyou, then, Captain," she said, playing with a strand of hair as she listened to the rest of what he had to say.
"I don't know about the rest of the crew, I think a lot of them enjoyed the not-clean part...I like that idea, though, even if we are going to have to work harder to make up for it."

[sugarforteatime]

He'd suspected as much. It would take a good deal of getting used for for them.

"It seems as though hard work has never been a problem for the crew. I remember the effort they put into the fair, it provided a great deal of money to repair the ship."

He cut and served two small slices of cake before he handed one off to Tohru.

"As I said over the journal, I hope the 'Gunsmoke' will provide a steady source of income when we are in towns. A great deal of the responsibility will fall on the cooks to make the restaurant memorable." He took a bite of the chocolate and walnut cake, it tasted very good. "I do not believe desserts will be a problem, but I would like the cooks to come up with a menu that is designed to be attract many guests."

[smilin_through]

Tohru smiled at him as she took her slice, nibbling at the edge of it before she answered.

"We can do that!" Tohru said, confidently. "I couldn't by myself, I'm better at just making things than deciding menus, but that sounds like something Mr Watanuki would be really good at."

[sugarforteatime]

Watanuki wasn't one of the cooks he wasn't as familiar with, but he was certain everything would be fine. "I am certain it will be a good menu." He continued to eat in earnest now.

"I hope you are prepared for more adventure, as well. Stealing from the rich is often much easier than making an honest living." L had spend most of his day, the parts not dedicated to finding ways to squeeze more money out of places it didn't exist, looking for work that one adventurous crew could tackle.

[smilin_through]

"It might be easier, but easy isn't always good, is it?" Tohru said, taking a mouthful of her cake and chewing it thoughtfully.

"Have you got plans for what we're going to do next, then, Captain?" she asked after a minute, his mention of adventure sounding somewhat as if he had something in mind.

The 'Captain' came out naturally, which surprised her a little: Vash had still been 'Mr Vash' in her head, even after he'd ended up in charge, but the title slipped right into place when it was L.

[sugarforteatime]

"Things that are easy and things that are right are rarely the same."

He left the fork in his mouth while he considered her question. He didn't have something specific yet.

"I am hoping that we will be hired after the holiday for an adventure. If that is not the case, I believe I have a possible adventure in mind." There was one thing he wanted to do for himself, now that he was in charge. It was not terribly selfish, but it wasn't exactly what the Way should be spending their time on. "I will make an announcement in either direction after the holidays. For now, we must make them successful and prepare our restaurant."

[smilin_through]

"That seems to be the way it usually is, yes." Sometimes it was fun and easy to do the right thing, but a lot of the time it seemed to be hard and complicated. That was why Tohru never wanted to have to be in charge - getting it right was hard enough just for yourself. She hoped L wouldn't find it too hard to do for the whole crew.

She took another bite of cake, crunching a piece of walnut between her teeth. "What sort of adventure is it you have in mind?" she asked, before realizing that he might not want to tell her and backtracking with a hasty "of course you don't have to tell me if you want to wait till your announcement!"

[sugarforteatime]

"It is very hard to know the all of the possible repercussions for your actions, as well. It is easy not to consider those possibilities and much harder to predict them properly." L was used to thinking about all of that, he would just need to consider this on a remarkably different scale now.

"None of the details have been finalized." That was true enough. He would hardly want it to be spread around - even innocently - what they had planned when he wasn't positive himself. "I had hoped various business men or adventurous souls would commission us for any number of tasks. Afterward, I believe the tales of such exploits would make for good entertainment for our guests while we are in cities."

[smilin_through]

"You can't ever really know all of that, I don't think, can you?" Tohru said, toying with her cake. "Even if you do the best you can, sometimes it makes waves you don't want making."

"I'm sure someone will commission us, Captain. We've got a good reputation, even if it is for theatre not adventuring."

[sugarforteatime]

Tohru was correct, of course, but there were many ways to predict even the most unpredictable events. He had become something of an expert over the years, especially where it related to the criminal mind and the repercussions of criminals. "You can make a variety of predictions, however, and all but the most unpredictable consequences can be accounted for.

"Our reputation is a good one, and hopefully with more work we will find ourselves in even more demand. Our exploits on Kagatau, at least, have received some attention. It is unlikely we will be known only as a theater ship for long." That was his hope anyway.