etrayamemes | TDM 001

Entry tags:

!tdm

TDM 001

⏵ arrival⏴
Arrival goes as anticipated. Characters awaken in the pristine, new hospital, greeted by Aurora and potentially getting a rundown of what's happening depending on their approach to being dropped somewhere new. The door to their room opens, and new arrivals are left free to explore their new environment.

Or what exists of it anyway. Exiting the hospital will show that there isn't much of anything just yet. Generally, Echo can build new facilities before new arrivals awaken, but it appears that this time… well, it didn't happen. The apartment complex exists, standing just beside the hospital, and there are a few facilities that are half constructed, companion bots carrying around rebar and other necessary bits and pieces, but they're not quite ready. Oops. But maybe, just maybe, one of those half-built facilities is familiar - a childhood home, a favorite supermarket, the run-down garage they worked at as a youth, a grounded spaceship in the middle of one of the massive bridges connecting land over rivers.

The companion bots will offer quiet apologies if approached; they were expecting new arrivals to touch down, but not quite this early. They'll be ready soon! A few more days at most, they promise. In the meantime, do not stray too far from the hospital. While most of Etraya looks habitable, they have not finished verifying that it's safe for its new inhabitants.

The apartment building and hospital are safe, and the land directly around them is fine, but beyond that? Stay away. But hey, the hospital's cafeteria is fully stocked with cuisine from across the multiverse! Please feel free to settle in, choose an apartment, and get to know your new friends.

⏵ water you doing?⏴
Decide not to listen? Well, the companion bots had offered their warnings.

Etraya is a new establishment, one that received newcomers before it was ready. And as such, the land has not quite been prepared for their arrival. Wandering off the land the apartment building and hospital are settled on comes with very, very poor results. Take a step down into the river below, and you'll find yourself uncomfortably hot. Or cold. Or hot and cold, because whatever that 'water' is, it wasn't meant to be played in. The only way to resolve the temperature regulation issue, as Aurora informs, is finding a buddy to cuddle up with. Those who are lucky may have a nearby friend they're familiar with and don't mind leaning a shoulder against. Those that don't? Well. . . have fun having a very uncomfortable conversation with a stranger, asking them if it's alright if you lean into them or hold their hand for a bit. Any physical contact will do, as long as it's directly skin-to-skin.

Except that's not where the contact stops. Characters will find that, for the next several hours, they'll feel everything that their companion feels. Frustration, anger, amusement, homesickness that comes from being so far away from their families and friends - all those feelings? They're not your feelings, they're our feelings now.

No explanation is given for how the empathy bond and the temperature regulation are related, but it may have to do with how since they had decided not to listen, it was time to test how well they could cohabitate with their new friends.

⏵ bonding bingo ⏴

Maybe it feels a little too much like Obi-Wan had when receiving Leia's message, but all new arrivals are their universe's only hope. Except they're not the only ones arriving, and not the only ones who are trying to keep their worlds safe. Instead, they've arrived with several others who carry the same weight on their shoulders. And they aren't meant to go through this alone. The people they've arrived with are both their new companions and their competition. Both comrades to fight beside and enemies to battle against, depending on what the specific mission of the month is. But currently?

They're here to bond. It's important to get to know those who they'll be spending the next unspecified but lengthy amount of time with, isn't it? To that extent, Aurora's hologram waits just inside the hospital's front doors, offering bonding bingo cards to those willing to participate. It's not necessary, but she does specify that this is one way to get ahead: cooperation is important, especially given what they're going to face together. Bingo cards are three long and three across, and offer a multitude of activities you can do to check each box off.

Some examples include:

Learn someone's biggest secret

Get into a fight

Tell someone something that you've never admitted out loud to

Throw a drink on someone

Win a game of pool in the apartment building's recreation room

Cheat on a card game without getting caught

Hug a new friend

Get stabbed

Steal something important to someone

Pull off an elaborate prank on a stranger

⏵ matchmaker ⏴

When the earpiece is put on, a nice green HUD(head-up display) lights up in front of new arrivals. It asks them for their name, which is fairly standard for these.

Except it seems it wants them to put together a profile to help pair them off with other new arrivals. For some, this information may autofill with what Aurora was able to discern about them from watching them in their home worlds. But some lucky individuals may catch their profiles before they're posted live, and have the opportunity to edit out information included in fields, even if they're not able to clear it out entirely.

Welcome to Aurora's idea of matchmaking. Have fun getting paired off with a buddy or four, with your profiles exchanged between one another. Maybe they're the perfect match. Maybe this is a nightmare in the making.

⏵ OOC ⏴
Welcome to our first TDM! We're excited to have you here. For more information on character arrivals, click here. For any questions relating to the TDM please reply below. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ.

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Krouse rolls the end of the grass braid he was working on between thumb and little finger. Just something to do with his hands, repetitive motion with a quantifiable output. It evened him out. He's not sure if it calmed him down.

And he's not sure if hearing her voice makes him less calm. It's more like it turns up the contrast, blurred details snapping back into focus. She says she's scared, and he can think about whether he is. He can think, period, working outward from a pool of clarity surrounding her to other, less important things.

So he asks himself her question, and comes up with an answer. ]

I don't know, either.

[ His smile gets a little weaker, a little more tilted. He starts to lift a hand towards his face before he remembers there's nothing to brush back, which leaves it hanging awkwardly before he lets it fall. ]

I'm still - processing, I guess. [ Processing, like that's even close to the word. ] Telling myself this is real. I know it is, it just doesn't...

[ He drops his chin slightly, half-closing his eyes. It's a break that lasts only for a second before he pulls himself back up. ]

Both still scared of the same things, huh? Some menaces to society we are.

[ Before - in the warehouses and the stolen homes and the locked rooms - when Noelle expressed any kind of hesitation, Krouse would swoop in. He'd tell her everything would be all right, and Noelle would never believe him, and that was more of a wedge between the two of them than any bar on the door.

He's not doing that here. Krouse is scared and uncertain, like she is. When he says, in so many words, that he's not all the way sure whether or not this is real, Noelle knows exactly what he means.

Noelle shifts a little closer. She uses a tentacle to make a ring around where Krouse is sitting, not quite touching, but enough to shield him from anything that might hurt. Anything that isn't in his own head. She's still not sure what's going on there. Krouse always tried to give Noelle her privacy, so she'll try to give him his. ]

Yeah.

[ Noelle agrees, her voice softer than it ever was on Bet. She's quiet for a little while, after that. Thinking. One of the eyes in her lower half watches Krouse's braid. ]

We weren't menaces to society. They were menaces to us. [ Not yet, Mars. ] The shit Coil made you do. The place he kept me. You didn't talk much to Eidolon, but he was awful.

I'm not going back inside the hospital. [ Noelle decides, firmly, right then and there. ] Not going to save the world, either.

[ If the rest of them get to retire, so does she. ]

[ The protective curl of Noelle's tentacle makes Krouse's chest do something funny, compressing like she'd wrapped it all the way around brought it in to squeeze an ache down to the marrow.

He couldn't protect her. He still can't. He can't even say it to her, even though they both know it.

Noelle is trying to forgive him anyway. Looking after his feelings, like he never wanted her to have to, and kept happening anyway. She's always been nicer than she should have been. ]

We don't owe them anything.

[ He meets her assurance with his own, his smile slipped away when he wasn't paying attention.

Krouse could leave it there. Take what she's offering without making it into anything more. It might even be the right thing to do. Let all those eyes stay soft where they land on him. ]

...and you don't owe me anything. [ He spins the tufted splay of grass at the end of his fingers, words quiet. ] I know you know that. I just - I want you to know I know that.

I didn't tell you that enough.

[ Noelle knows what Krouse is trying to do. He's decided he's the bad guy, and he thinks he knows why. He wants to pick that ledger back up, like there's any way that it could make up for anything. A familiar surge of anger rolls up Noelle's spine. Her tentacles pull away, and she forces all her eyes to look at the horizon.

She just wanted to sit in the sun. Nobody ever lets her. ]

Stop it.

[ Noelle says, too tired to summon any anger in her voice. There's just a resigned exhaustion. ]

Like you said. I know. And I know you know.

[ I’m okay with it. I enjoy spending time with you, and I didn’t get any impression you were having that bad of a time, either. ]

It wouldn't have made a difference, what you did or didn't say to me. Wouldn't have gotten me out of that cage.

[ As much as he likes to call himself an asshole, Krouse has always been good at coming up with the right thing to say. Or better than Noelle, at least. It's something she's always been a little jealous of. ]

So I just -

[ There's something she has to say. It's terrible. Her stomachs churn. Her tongue feels thick and heavy in her mouth. Noelle closes her eyes. ]

I want to enjoy this, okay? I don't want to hate you. Spent enough time doing that.

[ This should hurt. He thinks it does. Another fuck up, another moment ruined, another time he just didn't get what he was supposed to. He wants to make it up to her, like every other time he's wanted to make it up to her.

So he doesn't know why it is that this feels like a shoulder being wrenched back into socket, a burst of panic at the crest of the hurt when it seems impossible that this could be how it's supposed to feel, then the crashing ache of realignment. Like a terrible magic trick, stuffing the mangled rabbit back in the hat.

When she says it wouldn't have made a difference, he doesn't think it's true. Krouse has thought about the things he could have done any other way long before it ended. They've taken up a lot of his time. What he hears, what matters now, is that it won't make a difference.

They have a lot of past tense behind them. The future tense won't last long. If the only person he's apologizing for is himself, what's the point?

Maybe they can just be here, as long as that lasts. And then it'll be over, and he'll be okay with it. ]

Right. [ He says, an untethered looseness in the rise and fall of his sternum, scar tissue snapped off clean. ] Sorry.

[ He used to apologize like it wasn't the end of the world every time. That's what he tries for. He doesn't think it sounds that far off. ]

So...what do you want to do?

[ He coaxes a smile out of himself while she's still not looking. ]

I looked around before. There's a river that's pretty close. We can't go in it, but it's nice. You can see more of the woods from there.

[ Krouse apologizes, and Noelle tucks herself in a little, waiting for the rest to come.

It doesn't. What do you want to do, he asks, instead, and Noelle opens her eyes. The ones in her lower half look at Krouse. She tips her face towards the sky, and breathes.

There's no rage left. Noelle doesn't have to keep it from bubbling up like bile. Which means - maybe - it's safe to want. Just a little, before the end.

The Leopold Center. They used to go on nature walks. Noelle used to spend time at her uncle's cabin. This was something she liked, once, even before the tournaments. ]

Yeah. I want - to see that. The river and the woods.

[ She'll follow him down there, although Noelle's in no great rush to move out of her sunny spot, either. ]

I should've believed you. The first time you told me I didn't owe you anything.

[ It would have saved them both a lot of grief. Noelle makes a funny sound, a choked half-laugh. ]

I just - knew how bad I was at being your girlfriend. Even before. I mean, I could barely hold your hand, and I didn't understand why you'd want to spend time with someone like that.

[ Noelle shakes her head. She tucks a few of her legs underneath her, preparing to stand. ]

It feels so dumb, now. Whatever.

[ Krouse isn't making moves to follow her. He's stuck where he is, frozen, all the warmth of the sun drained out of his face. ]

It's not dumb. Or 'whatever'.

[ There's a firmness to his tone even with the crack running through it, something broken and shored back up.

He knows what she's talking about. It's one of those things he's gone over a thousand times, trying to figure out how he could have handled it better. The attempted break up, and all the reasons she had for it, most of which he'd put together way too late. All of it his fault. He could tell her that, try to take the blame, except that's exactly what she doesn't want to hear any more of.

So that leaves him having to figure something else out, because he can't bear to let that stand. ]

You want to know why I wanted to spend time with you?

[ He gets up, for the sake of the tiny difference it makes in getting closer to her. Even with her face turned away, she can see him, and he wants her to see this. He wants her to see how much he means it. ]

Because I liked it. More than anything. Just being around you, talking - or when we didn't talk, and I'd still get to be there. I liked figuring out how you thought, and what you liked, and just - you, No'. Everything about you.

All that other stuff - that wasn't why I wanted to be with you. I was happy with whatever you were okay with. You were figuring things out. I knew that. If I'd had a problem with it, that would've been on me, but I didn't. I really, truly didn't.

You weren't bad at being my girlfriend. You were pretty amazing at it, from where I'm standing.

[ He takes a breath, the first one he's thought about in a minute. There's a tremor running through him, but not a bad one. ]

That's kind of my favourite person you're talking about here, you know. Think you could try going a little easier on her? Because she's sort of had a hard time, lately.

[ There are a million things Noelle could nitpick, like pressing a thumb into a bruise. He barely got to figure out how she thought, because she never showed him. Any you he liked was a fraction of her, cut up and made small, served up and surely scrutinized. She never let him in - not really - until it was too late.

But it would be unfair to say any of that out loud, not when she's just told Krouse to stop blaming himself. Just like it would be unfair to ask Krouse to hold her hand through the fabric of his jumpsuit. She broke up with him. She doesn't get to lead him on.

So Noelle is quiet again, but by now, Krouse knows how to read her silences. There are a lot of them, but they aren't all the same. In this one, Noelle hasn't gone somewhere else, hasn't walled herself up inside her own head. The only vacancy is a faint wistfulness that crinkles the edges of her eyes. Noelle ducks her head, and she fidgets with the seam of her hospital gown.

When you insult yourself, you're also hurting the people who care about you. There were plenty of therapists to tell Noelle that, one summer, but it didn't really land. It sounds different coming from Krouse. It buries somewhere in her chest, like a little seed.

They're going to go down to the river. They'll look at the trees. Maybe the seed will get a chance to grow. It's a nice thing to hope for. Noelle didn't know she still could. ]

I believe you.

[ It's not I love you. It's not even I liked spending time with you. Maybe it's still better than nothing. Noelle picks her head back up, looks down at Krouse again. She gives him a little nod, captain to captain. ]

Yeah. I can go easier on her.

[ Relief blooms in Krouse like a desert opening up under a sunshower.

There were so many things he left out, elided for the sake of setting aside his faults. If she'd wanted to pull it apart, he could have given her a list of his own to start her off, like she'd need it.

But Noelle believes him. She still doesn't want to hate him. In the forever lopsided skew of how he feels about her and how she feels about him, that's coming out ahead. If he can help her feel better, even for a minute, then he's doing more for her than he maybe ever has. ]

Great.

[ It's not I love you, either. He won't put that on her. Knowing it is enough for him, a fizzing jolt that still catches him off-guard with its sharpness and intensity.

Your knight in shining armor, Eidolon said. Krouse carried that with him like shrapnel. When he picks it up now, it cuts as much as it did then. He just doesn't care, not in the face of her wistful thoughtfulness. It's not slaying a dragon, but it's not nothing, either. ]

She deserves it. [ He nods back, heart a gentle, insistent throb in his chest. ] What do you say we head out?

[ He rocks on his heels, pulling back his shoulders, a puppyish cant to the tilt of his head. ]

Maybe we'll see some of the robots on the way.

[ Krouse used to be good at making her smile. It was a skill Noelle never expected him to have, especially not when they first met. Even Noelle knew about his reputation for being annoying at best, and an asshole at worst.

Later, after everything went to shit, Krouse stopped being able to make her smile. That skill became calming her down, instead. Maybe that meant that Noelle wasn't the only one who'd changed.

Krouse might look different now, with his short hair and tired eyes and repetitive movements, but there's something about his last sentence that reminds Noelle of the old Krouse. Maybe we'll see some of the robots on the way. He used to be excited to game with her.

Noelle smiles. ]

Maybe. If we see one, it would be cool to learn what it runs on.

[ Noelle stands up a little straighter, picks her head up so she can see a sloping valley in the distance, one that surely leads to a river. She starts in that direction. The eyes in her lower half watch Krouse, to make sure he keeps up. ]

Did you see any fish? When you first went down to the river.

[ Noelle's smile makes Krouse get the cliches in every poem he thought was overwrought in English class. It is like the sun coming out of the clouds, or the first pale green shoots of spring, or stepping from the cold into a warm place where they're glad to see you. It settles something soft down in his chest, dandelion puff fragile.

Maybe he'll see if he can get a panel off if they do come across one of the robots. He doesn't think it looks that hard. Then he could trace out the inside with her, like building a tower together. It was one of the things on his old list of somedays and maybes.

Or maybe he won't, and they won't have to talk about how he can do that. It's not important.

He follows her on light feet, skimming over her watching eyes on the way to the firmed line of her back. ]

I didn't. But I wasn't really looking.

[ Fish, he can try to figure out. Fish don't have connotations. ]

They'd probably be pretty unusual fish. I'm not a hundred percent sure that's technically water. [ He grins, struck by a thought. ] Maybe they'd be robo-fish. Fish of the future. Giving new meaning to 'and chips', right?

[ They used to be so careful about what they said to her. It happened slowly, over time. Conversations growing more tentative after her first crying spell, her first fugue. The first bone she broke. By the time Noelle finally killed someone, there wasn't much left to say.

They stopped talking about food early on. Noelle always wondered if Marissa told Krouse to stop taking her to Culver's.

But here, on their walk, Krouse makes a shitty joke about fish and chips. Like it's nothing. It barely even lands, but Noelle's little smile stays on her face. She turns her head to see him, so that she's not just looking at Krouse through her lower half. The gesture matters, even if the eyes in Noelle's upper half don't see as well as the eyes in her lower. ]

Yeah. Maybe the river's made of fuel. I think they did that in a movie once.

[ That Pixar movie about cars? Noelle can't quite remember. ]

What's wrong with it? [ Noelle asks, in the sharp, focused way she looks for information. ] You said we couldn't go in.

[ There are gaps in the filter Krouse used to sift everything he said to her through, worn away by lack of repetition and torn wider by the overflow of relief at being able to say anything to her at all. He wants to be careful, but his carefulness is being taken up by other things.

After everything, it might not be so bad to just talk. She doesn't seem to mind, and so he doesn't notice his own lapse. ]

They did?

[ It doesn't ring a bell for him, but he hasn't seen everything Noelle has. He almost asks which movie it was, so he can go find it later, and the absurdity of that want sparks off-kilter fizz in his stomach. It's not bad. Just a little funny. ]

And I don't know, exactly. It screws with temperature regulation.

[ This next part, he is mindful of. His thumbnail teases the strands of his grass braid, and then he brings it up to start working on it again, not looking down or breaking his stride. He won't look away from her face. ]

The fix is touching someone else for a while.

[ And he doesn't need to elaborate on why that means they should be careful, and he can't help the flicker of want that comes with it anyway. But there's another reason, besides the ones she already knows all too well, their reminder stiffening in a crumpled heap in a room they won't go back to - ]

It makes you feel what the other person is feeling while it works. Some kind of empathy effect. I don't know why that's linked. I don't - [ he takes a shallow half-breath, shaking his head ] I don't get what's going on here.

[ Maybe he shouldn't admit it, but he can't tell her more lies she won't believe. He's not wasting whatever time they have like that. ]

[ Messing with Noelle's temperature regulation doesn't sound that bad. She can take Eidolon's force field. Being a little cold or a little hot is nothing.

Then Krouse tells Noelle about the fix, and the interest immediately leaves her expression. Her face goes dull, flat, but at least she doesn't look away. That may or may not be better.

Noelle wonders what will happen to its body. She's never had to wonder about that before. Krouse and the team took care of all her pre-rampage clones, and after her breakout, nothing mattered except clawing at a little, worthless scrap of revenge. Do her clones rot? Will someone burn its body, like she was burned?

This train of thought isn't getting her anywhere. Besides, Krouse is still talking. Noelle rallies by the time he says empathy effect, focusing on him so that she has something to focus on. It's good that she does. Krouse almost never admits that he doesn't know something. It's a little frightening that he does so now. It's so much better than a false promise.

The profile was meant to pair them up. The river seems to do the same thing. Noelle is good at spotting pressure - pressure to talk, to touch, to be nice and likeable and good to look at. What this place is doing isn't much different from any other city Noelle has lived in, weird robotech or no. ]

They want us all to get closer.

[ Noelle says, her soft voice not as dulled as it could be, but not thrilled either. Matter-of-fact. As she keeps looking down at Krouse, an urgency creeps into her voice. ]

I know you've told me this before, so you know this already, but - you don't have to play their game.

Edited 2024-03-27 03:22 (UTC)

[ The conclusion is clear enough that Krouse wonders how he missed it. It's not like him to take things at face value, or it didn't use to be. He could pin it on the conditioning, if he wanted to, but the surge of dull aversion that comes with the articulation of the point makes him suspect this is something he obscured all on his own.

He looks at the grass he's weaving, fragile bruised strands melding together in a green-staining cord. Bringing people together isn't that different. Cut them off at the roots, soften them up, and twine them into a whole. He knows plenty about that.

His smile slipped somewhere after Noelle's. He brings it back, a nearly cocky smirk creasing the corners of his dark eyes as he lifts his head. ]

Come on. [ He cajoles. ] You know me. Since when did I ever do what people wanted me to?

[ The joke's cutting edge is turned back on himself, a slit of bitterness that goes against everything he's trying to achieve here. Noelle will be able to see the regret that follows it in the flash of him looking away, getting a grip more reflex than choice.

He hears the you. If there's an implication, he's keeping it where he kept the realization about the river. ]

Hey.

[ He brightens, the light only half-artificial, as he nods at a biped rising up from behind a growing brick wall with a bucket and trowel in its metal hands. ]

There's one.

[ Noelle doesn't mirror Krouse's smirk. The eyes in her face crumple at the edges at his stupid fake joke, and when he points out the robot, Noelle can't wait to look away.

She said the wrong thing. She just wanted to help, to take the pressure off, but she keeps fucking it up.

After New York, Krouse was the best to talk to. He was the only one who was gentle with her, and even though he was afraid, he did the best at hiding it. He'd still come see her even when it wasn't his turn. But talking to Krouse was, and apparently still sometimes is, this: Noelle thinks of something. She tries to wrench it from her no-good, loser mouth. It comes out wrong. He doesn't get it. Repeat.

Noelle is grateful to see the robot, at least. It's saving her not-life right now. Something to do that doesn't involve talking about things that are hard. ]

Can you flag it down?

[ Even though the robot is probably more of a computer than a person, it's still more likely that it'll react more positively to an invitation from Krouse than from her. But she does still want to see it. ]

[ There's another unwanted apology at the tip of his tongue when she asks the question, rescuing them both from the start of the spiral. Just because he deserves to beat himself up doesn't mean she enjoys having to see it.

He thinks he used to be better at remembering that. The moments where he'd say something pointed about himself, meaning it to be funny, and she'd twist up with concern it took him too long to realize wasn't for the state of his sense of humour. Where she kept caring, sometimes, well past when she should have stopped. ]

I'll do you one better.

[ His hand comes up to his forehead, fingers brushing past an invisible brim to land on his bangs instead, which he sweeps aside. Then, to his own stupefied passenger seat embarrassment, he winks.

He steps sideways, and then steps through, and teleportation has rarely felt like such a convenient trick. He'd been weighing up the bot as soon as he spotted it, layering mass onto his own skin to match until it felt like a heavy, thick blanket, and he sucks in fresh air as soon as he's on the other side.

Krouse turns around and starts walking back more slowly than he really wants to. He can give her a break for a few seconds. He's better in measured doses. ]

[ Noelle sees the wink through one of the eyes in her lower half. She doesn't turn her upper to face him, but a brief smile does flit across her face. Captain Noelle, ma'am! It was cold outside, but warm in the shop, and when Krouse held her hand, it didn't even make her feel bad.

Then Krouse is gone, with a robot left behind in his place. Noelle lets herself linger in the memory a little longer, her eyelids heavy like someone about to fall asleep.

Welcome to Etraya, chimes the robot, and Noelle's eyes open. She stiffens, and the thing waves at her like it would anything else. Definitely a robot. But she should still check and make sure. Noelle used to read Wikipedia articles late at night when she couldn't sleep, which was often, and the one on the Turing test was always a classic. Make a machine prove it's human. Not that Noelle has any right to do so, with what she's become.

Noelle bends the limbs in the front part of the lower half, pitching herself on her lower hindquarters so she's a little closer to the robot. Several sets of eyes blink. A spindly, blistered limb ending in a three-fingered talon reaches out, palm side up. The robot whirrs and steps closer.

There are so many things she could ask it. Are you afraid of me sticks in her throat like a tumor, but she already asked Krouse that one. ]

Did you bring me back to life?

[ We're so happy to see you, chirps the robot. We didn't expect you so early. ]

Okay.

[ They can disassemble this one. ]

[ Krouse watches Noelle hunker over the robot, bent into an arch like a fossilized spine towering over the cool marble floors of a museum. The full scope of her is somehow easier to see at a distance, her presence up close cut into segments depending on where he looks.

Almost everything about her is changed, warped and rippled from her head to her many toes. He sees that. But what he notices is how her hair falls around her scarred little face, a bronze-shot tumble of messy brown that she was always absently tucking behind her ears when she stooped over anything interesting and complicated she wanted to take apart.

He's glad her attention is elsewhere. He doesn't want to think about what he looks like with his bruised heart a warm, skittish flutter in his throat and a wanting buzz in his palms he tries to wipe off on the rough weave of his jumpsuit.

Whatever she's asking, it's too quiet for him to hear. He quickens his steps slightly, anxious over missing anything. ]

Kind of cool, right?

[ Like he'd point out a comic book he thought she might like, or show off a clip of some strategy he'd been working on. Her approval was always better than anyone else's, because he could trust when it was real.

He couldn't have given less of a damn about the robots until he had her to show them to. They're cool if she thinks they're cool. ]

They don't say a lot, but they're complicated. General purpose workers, I think.

[ When Krouse returns to her side, Noelle doesn't turn her head to look at him. The eyes in her lower half take care of that. A few look at Krouse, while a few more scan the rest of their surroundings, while the eyes in Noelle's face continue to watch the robot. Noelle tucks a few strands of hair behind her ear. ]

Mm.

[ Noelle responds, soft and a little absentminded. She's thinking. It's easier not to talk when she thinks.

The robot doesn't walk into Noelle's outstretched palm, so she retracts it back into her mass of limbs. Instead, it continues over to a nearby patch of grass, where it starts to dig a little hole. ]

Is that why you're digging?

[ At Noelle's question, the robot stops what it's doing, spins, and waves its little trowel at the two of them. Yes! We are preparing the city!

Noelle nods, and finally turns her face towards Krouse. ]

It understands questions. It's not programmed to answer anything difficult, though.

[ Why am I fucking here?

Krouse nods, thumbs tucked into the folded waist of his jumpsuit, expression mild and interested. The robot gets back to digging, evidently content with its relocation as long as it has something to do. ]

That and the faces...they're probably trying to get us to anthropomorphize them early.

[ It's a design trick. He's read about mostly in the context of games and getting players to identify with NPCs, but he thinks the extension works. She'd know better than he does, so the pitch is a soft one, undergirded by the slight questioning roundness of his eyes as he glances between her and the robot.

It reminds him of something specific. His smile's still wonderstruck glow gains a little twist of amusement. ]

Like Companion Cubes.

[ That was more of the kind of game he was into before he got interested in the team. Spatial problem solving, figuring out all the tricks of a versatile but focused set of capabilities, and a darkly funny story line. ]

[ Noelle nods in agreement. It's all part of the same system. Manufactured friendliness. If she thinks about that for too long, her skin starts to crawl.

Fortunately Krouse intervenes with a phrase Noelle hasn't heard in years. She looks down at him, a little baffled for half a second before smiling. A quiet huff of laughter escapes her. Noelle schools her face back in line, so she can reply with the gravest and utmost sincerity that Krouse's analysis demands. ]

The cake is a lie.

[ The robot doesn't react. It just keeps digging its hole. ]

Do you want to take it apart?

[ Any sentimentality they feel towards it is just part of this place's strategy. Disassembling the robot might give them an edge. Also, it'd be cool. ]

[ Krouse ducks his head as he laughs, a soft, self-conscious ripple that takes him by surprise twice - that he'd laugh at such a played out reference, even one he helped set up, and that he'd laugh at all without a trace of anything other than humour.

Maybe it's just because she laughed first. He likes hearing her laugh. He'd like to hear it again, as many times as they can coax it out of her. ]

Yeah.

[ Caution thrown to the wind. Whatever he might or might not have to explain, whatever consequences ensue from messing with the local infrastructure, it's something to work on together. He approaches the bot with an easy amble, stooping over its back to get a look at how it's held together. ]

Hey. [ He says, in a tone reserved for strange children and stray dogs. ] I'm just going to take a look at how they put you together, okay?

[ The bot doesn't answer this time, or stop digging when he touches the bolts anchoring a panel on the back of its head. His expression shifts to evaluative distraction, smooth and clear. ]

I need a wrench, [ he assesses, mapping out the distance of one face of the bolt ] can you keep an eye on it while I check back over there?

[ After Brockton Bay and New York and Richmond and every shitty Earth Bet city in between, this place cannot hurt Noelle in any way that matters. What are they going to do if it's a crime to mess with the bots - shoot her? Lock her up? They'll do that on sight anyway. Might as well see something cool before it happens. As Krouse takes a look at the robot, Noelle's heartbeat quickens a little, a feeling that she recognizes depressingly late as excitement.

Krouse, meanwhile, seems to be really into this. Noelle isn't sure if she's ever seen him focus like this before. Maybe he did during games, but that happened so long ago, to someone else. ]

Sure. [ Noelle nods. Once Krouse has stepped away from the robot, she winds one of her longer tentacles around its periphery, in order to make sure it stays digging in place. ] Good luck.

[ It's not like watching him leave for a mission. This time, Noelle means it. ]

[ There's only a brief moment of half-startled double checking before he blinks it away and renews his smile. ]

Thanks.

[ That good luck has him practically floating back to the worksite, fizzy warmth blending smoothly into technical calm to produce even-keeled euphoria. He's doing what he's supposed to do.

The search doesn't take long. There's an adjustable wrench set next to a stack of uninstalled plumbing. He tosses it for a spin when he picks it up for the mindless satisfaction of the slap of cool weight against his palm. If only his shop teacher could see him now.

When he comes back, he barely skirts her tentacle to get to the robot, focused on the most efficient route. ]

Okay. [ He exhales through his nose and sets the wrench to the first bolt, mechanism clicking as he spins it to fit. ] Here goes nothing.

[ He applies a pulse of steady pressure to the wrench handle, feeling through the feedback. His forehead gains a new, faint line as he nods, then braces his hand on the robot's shoulder as he shifts his grip on the handle down half an inch and pushes, muscles of his arm standing out taut. Nothing happens for a few seconds, and then the bolt twists. Krouse grins.

What are you doing? The bot asks, politely, trowel buried in the earth. ]

Diagnostic check. Don't worry about it.

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cw: ableism

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