71 Serendipity Place, Saturday Morning

[chosehumanity]

Life on Fandom, Mitchell could get used to. All the vampires with none of the bloodlust, a room full of good kids every week he'd so far not even felt the slightest urge to harm, and a housemate that didn't send his senses into overdrive.

Even if the housemate in question was a twat who could use a good smacking one of these days, but Mitchell was choosing to look at things from the bright side. For one, he now had a credible excuse to make a mess of the place - it upset Arnie. That kept him in good spirits.

That was the entire explanation why he was spending his morning eating old Chinese food from the fridge on their beaten-up couch, surrounded by an old pizza box or two. Life was good.

[ open to housemate and visitors! ]

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[chosehumanity]

"Did they, now?"

Mitchell even managed to sound somewhat interested. He wasn't making any points, however, towards whether the curiosity was genuine caring, or merely set-up to mock him more.

... Arnie did make it very easy.

[uptheziggurat.livejournal.com]

Arnie had been mocked for five years by experts in the field. Even the innocent seeming interest wasn't trusted.

"Oh no, I see where this is going. I tell you a story about my childhood, trying to prove my point, and you twist it around to make some stupid joke of my experiences. No, no no, I think I'll go investigate dental surgery instead, thank you."

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell would like to meet these experts. Might make life a little easier on the lot of them.

"Calm down," he said again, wisely. "No one's putting you through dental surgery. I'm just asking."

[uptheziggurat.livejournal.com]

He paused on his way back up the stairs, having forgotten what he'd come down for due to Mitchell's mess and indecision scuttled across his features like a constipated crab.

"They did," he said, still clearly wary.

"Everyone knew my name, in fact," he continued.

[chosehumanity]

"It's a proud name, Arnie."

Even Mitchell wasn't sure if this wasn't actually genuine curiosity towards the person he was living with. Who he may have to live with for quite some time. So he took to it with his usual, distinctly un-Rimmer-esque sense of aplomb.

It involved a lot of slacking artfully.

[uptheziggurat.livejournal.com]

That got a sideways glance of suspicion before he launched into a story.

"Why, when we had our gym classes, they practically fought over me. 'You get Rimmer!' 'No, you get Rimmer!' 'I can't have Rimmer on my team'."

He sighed out, lofty on nostalgia.

"They were all so worried about making sure they didn't look as if they wanted me for their team. To be fair, of course. S.s.c isn't just for show, after all..."

[chosehumanity]

That, in turn, got Rimmer a somewhat sympathetic look. "I'd hate to tarnish your memories," Mitchell said, reaching into his pocket for his packet of cigarettes, "But that sounds a lot more like bullying to me."

He snagged one out of the packet.

[uptheziggurat.livejournal.com]

"Boys will be boys," he said, dismissing any charges of being bullied, "and my father always used to say it was good for me. Kept me from getting a big head, he'd say. Though you'd think he wouldn't mind, considering."

What with the man being too short to actually make it into the Space Corps. While evidence supported that his brothers were actually the children of his Uncle Frank and that he was the only biological child of the man he'd called father (before divorcing him, of course), there was the height issue. Rimmer had that going for him at least.

[chosehumanity]

Those would've been audible ellipses.

"Considering," Mitchell repeated.

[uptheziggurat.livejournal.com]

"The man was short. Minuscule. Couldn't actually make it into the Space Corps because he wasn't regulation height. Made him half mad with my brothers and I. Stretched us on the rack out back to make sure none of us had the problem.

"My brother Frank was 6'5'' by the time he was 11, if that tells you anything."

He started looking around the den for any more of Mitchell's mess.

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell's face clearly read well that's the most horrible thing I've ever heard. "Yeah," he said, looking for more of a reply to that and coming up with precious little in terms of words.

As for his mess, Mitchell's empty bags of crisps had empty bags of mini-crisps. He didn't feel it needed a lot of his attention.

[uptheziggurat.livejournal.com]

Rimmer snatched up the bag, ignoring Mitchell and his expressions. Much more important things to do.

"Thank you very much. Should I just place a dumpster in here for you? Make it nice and homey? I hardly see why you're paying rent for a house when you seem to prefer a garbage dump."

[chosehumanity]

He shook off whatever it was that Rimmer had put in his head. "I didn't want to deprive you of getting to do the hovering," Mitchell said, with some semblance of WTF still tinging his syllables. "Spend time with your friends."

[uptheziggurat.livejournal.com]

"Oh, very droll."

He'd read that in a dictionary once and he'd come to like it.

"Well then, I have business to attend to" like the beginnings of what he thought might be a stomach bug even if that didn't make any sense to him being a hologram and all "and you... perhaps you could just try and throw things away? I know you move, I've seen you do it. Take the crisps bag, move, and put it in the bin from now on. Are we clear?"

[chosehumanity]

"Not remotely," Mitchell told him, shooting him a shit-eating grin.

At that, he lit up his cigarette.

[uptheziggurat.livejournal.com]

The Stilton face was back.

"Smegging idiot."

At which point, he promptly retreated back upstairs.