Think before you blink and you might just make it

Yeah, well, that was another swimmin' edition of 'Too Close to the Bone'. I hope you got your psychiatric meat out of that cause otherwise it woulda been traumatisin' fer no good reason. And we all gotta scrabble fer that, else, we're never gonna get out of 'ere.

Charmin'.

[Spam for the Pub.]

[So he'd graduated. He'd walked into his bathroom and found a bath. He'd stared at it and sighed. Bloody thing was dirty.

It was a couple of hours of not deciding where to go (even though the answer was creeping at the back of his mind, he knew where) before he got himself up and headed up to the pub.

All by myself, he childishly mimicked in his head.

He was going to get plastered and go.]

[Public, last thing after the pub]

Right, I'm off.

[Here's Slater in his usual long coat and 'you're all a pain in my backside' expression.] Listen, I don't know where you new lot are coming from, but stay out of the way unless you know what you're doin'. Unless you do know what you're doin'... in which case just don't get in my way, all right? Enough trouble...

Just here. [He sends the latest intelligence of what's going on.] Don't leave a mess.

[Slater is in no condition to go to work or do anything much at all. Returning to himself, he was left with a vague feeling of Del Boy's feelings and as odd as that would be in of itself, what Del had been feeling made him feel even worse.

It was only when he realised that his bottle had been empty that he pulled himself together enough to reach for his communicator.]

[Private to Hannibal]

That was your sister, right? Didn't make it, did she.

[Private to George]

Seeing as you're up. Get me a bottle of Paddy's whiskey. Actually, you know? Make it two.

No questions.

[A tubby, smiling (if a little nervously) man with a big coat appears on screen. It's askew, because Del Boy and technology are not a good mix. It's frankly a wonder it's not smoking or something. He shrugs his coat into proper position.] All right? [His voice is too loud for it, and he shifts.

Then a smirk.] Here, anybody know 'Roy Slater'? Grumpy old sod... [He spots a picture off to the side.] Looks like this?

[Slater is sitting back at the library's desk, reading Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay. He's just at the start of the book with a 'I haven't decided whether or not I'm taking this book seriously' look on his face, although he's fairly absorbed in it.

His job is to sign out books. He does this with a leery eye and and unimpressed look: the kind that anyone with previous dealing with police-like services is going to interpret as the look a cell-sergeant gives you before he hands back your belongings and lets you back into the wild world. You'll be back is a threat a little out of place in a library, but the implication behind it reminds the same. You'll be back here because you've failed: either at graduation or graduating someone else.

If he can get away with it, he'll say nothing to you beyond telling you when it's due back before shoving it in your direction. He continues staring at you as he reaches for his book and sits back. Properly seated, he returns his eyes to the page he left off. Consider yourself dismissed.

If you're the kind to walk out without going through the paperwork, it'll seem to the casual observer that he doesn't notice, such is his interest in his reading, but the more observant among you will notice his eyes flick up and watch you as you leave.

What'll come of that? Well, nothing, unless he can think of way to work to his advantage.]

What did I want? Flagg offered me a deal an' I took it. Not because I believed he'd live up to 'is end, 'cause that's dumb. Someone can't promise ya something concrete, they ain't going to deliver. A 'wish'? [Snort.]

Yeah, I wish to be outta here. And mebbe that's what got people into it. I got into it because I didn't wanna get eaten. I get dragged 'ere against my will, I'm not goin' to stick my neck out for you lot benefittin' from it. And no matter how many 'bonding exercises' the Admiral's going to put us through, I ain't going to change that.

And no, I didn't live up to my end neither.

[Brilliant, bloody brilliant! Slater had kept a low profile, he's good at that even at this age. Except right now his low profile doesn't allow for food, so eventually he hazards a head outside his door and makes his way out. His elder self had the foresight (or paranoia) to leave something of a map which not only included rooms of people he should avoid and the best way to get to important areas. Including the kitchen. So at least when he emerged, he'd a good bead on where he was heading.] [OOC: Feel free to intercept him between levels five and one or in the dining area, I would have posted yesterday, only John Sullivan passed (he was sixty four).]