Fandom Trooper Station, Wednesday

[hatesparadise]

The troopers were already decorating for Halloween by the time Danny arroved with a box of 'lets never speak of that gremlin bite thing' again' donuts.

Which meant Danny was finally gonna have a nice, quiet day. With a cat in his lap.

The station cat was nice after the weekend for reasons that Danny felt were best left with his therapist.

[open!]

Comments

[firstofitskind]

Liam coming to the Station on a day that wasn't Friday wasn't totally unheard of, but the way he headed towards his office without so much as a nod in greeting for Danny or any of the Troopers? That was maybe a little out of character, yeah.

[hatesparadise]

Danny gave it a moment before sighing and picking up the very annoyed cat to set down on Steve's chair. Only then did he follow after Liam.

"Everything okay?"

[firstofitskind]

Liam glanced up from the filing cabinets, where he'd started pulling out old files and stacking them on his desk.

"Sure," he said, flashing Danny a smile that was maybe a little tight around the edges. "Why wouldn't it be?"

[hatesparadise]

Which made Danny raise and eyebrow and cross his arms over his chest as he leaned in the doorway. "Dunno. You tell me."

[firstofitskind]

Liam shrugged. "It's Wednesday, the week so far's been quiet, seems fine to me?" he said as he continued rummaging around those file folders.

[hatesparadise]

"And the ignoring thing before?"

[firstofitskind]

"Ignoring?" Now his expression was faintly puzzled, because he hadn't been-

Liam stopped in his fussing around with files, looking Danny in the eye. "Sorry," he said, genuinely apologetic. "I guess I was a little... focused."

[hatesparadise]

"Seriously, you okay?" Danny asked, giving him another once over.

[firstofitskind]

He was totally fine, Daniel! Just... dealing with anxieties about something by throwing himself into mindless busywork.

While also not entirely acknowledging to even himself that he was feeling anxious about a thing, thus making it pretty hard to respond to Danny's question with anything but obvious confusion.

"Just some spring cleaning." In, you know. October. The spring was metaphorical. "That's all."

[hatesparadise]

Hey, he regularly puzzled through Steve's repressed emotional responses to things, you might wanna try a little harder there, Liam.

"Alright, I'm gonna get you a donut and you're gonna think about that a lil' bit harder and we're gonna try that again."

[firstofitskind]

"O... kay?" Liam said, giving Danny an odd look, because honestly, self-reflection was not his strong suit.

[hatesparadise]

Yeah, Danny seemed to attract that sort of person. It was his curse.

He came back with two donuts because he deserved one too, damn it. "There. Eat. Contemplate."

[firstofitskind]

“Thank you?” Liam said, grateful for the donut even if he didn’t completely understand why he had one. “I’ll, uh, do that?”

[hatesparadise]

"Get any news today?" Danny ventured.

[firstofitskind]

“Nope,” Liam shook his head, going back to flipping through the files as he munched on that donut. “Pretty quiet.”

Besides all the speculative coverage regarding a certain debate that was being televised live tonight.

[hatesparadise]

"Nothing sticking out?" Danny suggested, taking a seat to eat his own donut.

[firstofitskind]

“Not really,” Liam said. “Just, you know. Went for a run. Made breakfast. Scrolled the news feeds. Came into the office.” Boring every day stuff!

[hatesparadise]

"And what was on the news?" Because, well, he wasnt blind to the shit on the mainland, much as he'd like to be.

[firstofitskind]

“It’s October, so... kind of dominated by the election,” Liam said.

So close. So. Close.

[hatesparadise]

"Yeah," Danny grumbled. Because he hated this future so much. "You got something like it back home?"

[firstofitskind]

"It's the same year there as it is here, so yeah," Liam said with a nod. "... Though there's no Donald Trump involved in anything back home." Thank god for small blessings.

[hatesparadise]

"So, hope more for something like your world and less like this one in a few years time," Danny replied. "Gotcha."

[firstofitskind]

"Oh, no, no, you don't want my world either, because my world only exists thanks to years of outside manipulation from an alien species," Liam pointed out.

[hatesparadise]

Danny made a face that implied a sort of 'Yeah, but that guy?'

[firstofitskind]

"Point taken," Liam had to concede. "But still. Last election cycle," or at least the last one he'd been around for, "They orchestrated an assassination attempt on the candidates that resulted in the country being put under martial law for a while, so."

Unpleasant. In a completely different way than the tangerine.