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 Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2017 7:32 pm
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Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 7:24 pm
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"I don't know about you but I've never played this game."
Sometime between shifts on ships, Mahmud had found himself some free time to unwind. Grueling injuries from before made anything too extreme an impossibility. Well, not quite an impossibility. Just a very, very, very big ouchies. So while he was busy being on recovery, he had to find something to do. Too hurt to work, too restless to rest... now that he could walk again the idea occurred to him. Why not try a new game or something? There was plenty of break room to go around.
When he ran into Nictor on the way there, it had been fate. Nictor was kind, and... erm... gentle. Or tried to be gentle. And he seemed really distressed, so why not a pick-up game of something with him? Besides, they'd get to catch up. As they were doing now.
Holding the ping-pong paddle and twirling it a bit in his hand, he smiled up at his pal. "It shouldn't be too grueling to do, right? Only because I'm still recovering..." As if to emphasize, he pointed at a cast on his left leg and a crutch under his left arm. Stupid leg had refused to heal quite right yet, so he was still waiting on that. "But this is great! What are the odds we run into each other?" he said with a big, stupid grin on his face. This was nice. This was very nice! Nothing could go wrong with table tennis!
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Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2017 9:18 am
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“Wha-” Nictor started, pulling his head up from where he’d been having a stare down with the vaguely threatening paddle in his hands. Well, Nictor sure as anything hadn’t ever played ping pong either. He looked back to the paddle.
If Mahmud didn’t know what he was doing, and Nictor didn’t know what he was doing, then who was flying this metaphorical plane? This smacked of a disaster in the making and Nictor was pretty sure the not so innocent ball hitting device in his hand would be part of instigating it.
He shouldn’t be thinking like that, but it was, well, Nictor didn’t have the presence of mind to be thankful for it. But this was an improvement for sure over slumping against a hallway in an offshoot hall feeling like reality was slipping through your fingers and like you were choking on nothing. Nictor may have fairly well full body spasmed when Mahmud appeared next to him in that deserted corridor. And nearly hit him and had made a grab for a bo staff that wasn’t there which he felt a gut churning shame over, somewhere beyond the absent feeling that permeated his thoughts. They really needed to stop meeting like that.
The normalcy of interacting managed to temporarily supercede the encroaching pressure inside Nictor’s head. At least to some degree. He couldn’t muster up the frantic energy his think pan usually ran on, feeling listless most of the time from his body trying to remain hyper vigilant. It wasn’t necessary off the ships but the tension wouldn’t release. It wasn’t safe enough here.
It was all just a big jumble in his head and it wasn’t leaving but it wasn’t doing much either and it left Nictor just sort of sadly existing. The mundanity of fumbling his way through socializing managed to draw him out of that weird headspace, at least to some degree and was a welcome distraction, or as welcome as it could be.
Nictor liked Mahmud, felt more at ease interacting with him. It just would have been a lot nicer if he wasn’t just now finding out Mahmud had a ceiling crush him and Nictor was seeing him most of the way through recovery. The thought made his insides squirm and emotions that were hard to grasp buzz unhappily in his head. He didn’t like feeling this way. He liked even less what was causing it. This is the kind of thing that had made him pull Polair out of the way of a daywalker, that made him rush to keep incoming daywalkers off or Punkie, to try to help Tevini after she’d helped him. But his friend still got hurt and it seemed there was nothing he could do.
It didn’t feel right.
Nictor wasn’t sure if it made it better or worse that Mahmud was so blase about it, but at least he was recovering.
His expression still pinched when Mahmud brought attention to the injuries, but his expression still pinched further as he once again had to look at the wooden paddle he held rather gingerly.
Sure it wasn’t as bad as giving him, say, a two by four, but this still stank of bad idea. Nictor didn’t really trust himself with this thing, but he still took it when Mahmud shoved it into his hands. And he still followed Mahmud to the breakroom. And he hadn’t made a sound of protest, though his face likelier than not told of some of the bemused thoughts in his head.
It felt a little too late now and he was bad at saying no. He was happy to accompany Mahmud, don’t get him wrong, it’s just, he really didn’t want to cause him more trouble than he was already having.
The exasperated resignation to impending trouble eased with Mahmud’s obvious delight, and Nictor felt himself smiling shyly in response. It was a warm balm on his nerves and it made his shoulders relax. Maybe it would be fine? Hopefully? He’d try at least.
“Ahh, y-yeah. M’ still s-s-orry a----bout, uh, nearly h-hitting you,” Nictor said, grimacing a little. He just had to go bringing it up again. Mahmud was in such a good mood too and it made Nictor want to share in that, not drag him down to his level. “I. I d-don’t r-really know anything a-about p----ing p-pong either?”
He rubbed his cheek with his palm, lips tugging down slightly at the aggravated sting from his healing bite wound. Nictor wasn’t kidding when he said he didn’t know anything about ping pong. Like at all. Hmm.
“D-do, uh, do I g-go o-over there?”
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Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2017 11:46 am
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Save for nearly having his face punched off, Nictor seemed more than pleased to join Mahmud for a bit of the old… paddle-smack, or whatever people said in regards to this sport. How were they supposed to play this game anyways? ”Nah its cool, I really need to learn to like… not sneak up on you.” Well, sneak up the best he could have with a big freaking cast and crutch on. Mahmud was quickly learning that he’d have to be delicate with Nictor at all times, as if he was a freshly plucked flower whose petals threatened to fall off. Giving a bright grin, Mahmud turned to look at his pal and waved his paddle around a bit in place of the occupied hand. ”Besides, there’s no fruit here to mess up. I think we’ll be fine.”
As he hobbled into the recreational room, Mahmud slowly came upon the realization that oh. Oh s**t. Neither of them knew how to play. That’s right. Nictor was asking for directions that he couldn’t quite give. How did one play this game? Poor guy over there looked so nervous to even start.
For a good amount of time Mahmud was silent, staring at the paddles. There had to be a reason they had paddles right? Was there… ”Okay I think I’ve got this.” Slowly nodding to himself, Mahmud twirled the paddle in his unoccupied hand and then looked up to Nictor. Even as he tried to say these instructions, there was an air of doubt to the whole matter. ”I think… we score points if we knock the paddle out of each other’s hands? Because why else would we have these big paddle things.”
Continuing to explain, Mahmud shuffled around the edge of the table to his end. ”The table is an obstacle, and we also have to bounce this ball off the table to distract each other.” That made sense… right? Right? ”Or maybe we have to hit the ball and the paddles?” The more and more Mahmud spoke, the less confident he seemed about the whole matter. His mouth screwed up into a cute little frown, and he began to lean into the crutch a bit.
”We… if you don’t know, and I don’t know, I mean… darts seems pretty easy to catch onto too…” Yeah! Darts was a viable option! Only sharp little things you threw at a board, get close to the center. You see, that was easy! Kinda! So long as it didn’t end up stabbing anyone.
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