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etrayamemes2024-02-23 01:16 pm
etrayamods) wrote in etrayamemes2024-02-23 01:16 pm
Entry tags:
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:
 ⏵ 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. 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. |
no subject
Noelle snaps out of her reverie when Krouse returns, tensing up a little when he approaches her tentacle. He doesn't touch it, which is good. That's what she wants. Whether she misses touch - anyone's touch, it doesn't matter whose - is a separate consideration.
Watching Krouse work is a little bit like watching a robot, a thought that takes Noelle by surprise once she realizes she's having it. Repetitive focus. When Krouse gets the panel off its back, Noelle raises an eyebrow, sizing him up like she used to when he first joined the team.
Huh. ]
I didn't know you were that good with machines.
cw: passive suicidality
He starts when Noelle speaks, the panel he's holding clattering against the side of the robot's shoulder in a way that feels far too loud. A veil of as-yet inexplicable guilt skates over his eyes.
This skill is one of the things that came after. He doesn't want to talk about after, when every minute was one he never wanted and didn't deserve.
She wanted him to have a life. He hadn't known that. It changes things. Contextualizes more of his astonishing selfishness, the luxury of regretting all the time he got that she didn't. Even if what he ended up with wasn't much of a life, it was more than she had. ]
I picked some things up.
[ He smiles, again. He's smiled more in the last hour than he has in the last six months. Every time gets a little bit easier. ]
Had a good teacher. [ And that's a joke just for him. ] Lucky for us. I'm not sure building a computer tower with a guide would cut it here, in terms of experience.
What do you think? [ He touches the robot's open head on the side, away from the components. ] This looks like a central processor to me.
no subject
Noelle has said the wrong thing again. She's also said something strategically important. It's difficult to reconcile the two. For some reason, she thinks about sending emails in the dead of night.
(The guilt is more familiar. Easier to understand. Noelle wishes it wasn't.)
He picked some things up. That's an evasion. Noelle is fairly sure there are no shop classes in jail, and Krouse sure as hell wasn't the type to take shop back when they went to normal school. There's something that hurts to say, which is why he's smiling, so Noelle won't make him say it. Krouse does so much for her. If she adds another obligation, they'll both be crushed under its weight.
So: examining the robot it is. Noelle shifts so that one of the eyes in her lower half is right up against the circuitry. It darts back and forth, and doesn't blink nearly enough. ]
Yeah. Interesting they put it in the head. The face humanizes it for us, but there's less of a reason to humanize it for the designer or the builder. Unless they wanted us to open it.
no subject
He makes do with a look he hopes tells her what he'd want to press flat against her back with his palms, relieved gratitude mingled with second degree pride shining out of his eyes.
Of course she gets the robot. Dissecting how enemy units are constructed is a team captain's job. ]
They probably expected someone to, at some point.
[ Her eye next to the circuits is greenish-yellow, striations of the iris blown up to unsettling thickness. The way he takes care not to get too close to it when he points out an insulated wire peeking through a cluster of boards is mostly about not wanting to poke her in it. ]
That's a power supply. I think there's a redundancy deeper inside, but even so, not making this harder to get at makes me think there must be some kind of alternative secur-
[ There's a difference to how he snaps upright when the hologram of Aurora flares into view a few feet from both of them. His shoulders draw back and tense, feet shifting to give him a more secure base. His grip on the panel changes, subtly, one edge braced against his palm.
But beyond that, he doesn't react as their digital host issues a calm, gentle request to cease and desist from tampering with essential Etraya functions. She flickers out of existence again, and he lets out a breath, dipping his chin. ]
Like that, for example.
no subject
It's a little bit like the look he gave her when they won that tournament. He hugged her then, and it was nice. Noelle does her best to try and remember that feeling instead, and she tries to let that be enough.
He's sitting right next to her. He's being so careful. They both have to be careful.
When the hologram appears, Noelle's tentacles retract. The heads in her lower half bear their teeth. Arms and claws and spikes reach outward. Noelle hunches her shoulders forward and glares at the intruder with drooping eyes set in puckered skin. ]
Shut up.
[ Noelle hadn't meant to say that out of more than one mouth. It happens anyway, words hot and slick and sizzling. Aurora disappears, and Noelle continues to glare at empty space. Her human hands make tiny little good-for-nothing fists. ]
They brought us here. They designed the robots. Play our game, but play by our rules. Make new friends, but only on our terms. Be a good little pawn, and maybe your world gets to fucking live.
[ It won't stop. The tide rushes in. ]
Fuck them. Fuck them. Asking me to be good, when they couldn't even fucking bring me back right.
no subject
His body remembers that before his head, the discrepancy a matter of milliseconds. It's his spine that tenses, his stomach that knots into a hard stone, even as his shoulders unhitch into purposeful ease. Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine. Deep breaths. Listen to only one voice, human and small.
The hot stench of forever-spoiling meat rolls over him, vehement and wet. He mistimes, gets a lungful of it, the oily cling smearing over the roof of his mouth and flooding his nose. It sinks into him, slipping down his throat to curdle in his bile.
They couldn't even fucking bring me back right. ]
Fuck them.
[ The bolts in his hand and the wrench in the other bite into his palm when he squeezes down. He barely notices, his face screwing up in bitterness. ]
Fuck this. Fuck all of it. Who fucking cares?
[ He's as quiet as he'd be if he were telling her it's okay, voice wrung out to a pale wash of exhausted anger. ]
They can fix the whole fucking world, and they can't help you? Then what's the fucking point?
no subject
But even in the face of her anger, Krouse doesn't flinch. He makes his own little fist, and it's like they match. Like they're a team. ]
The people who can fix things - they're always like this.
[ The robot has stopped moving. It waits for instructions. ]
Coil was involved with the people who made our powers. He knew them. And he didn't fix me, because he needed me to be a bomb and you to be his servant. And they didn't fix me because they didn't fucking care.
[ She can't crush the robot in her claws. As angry as Noelle is, she doesn't want Krouse to bear more consequences of her destruction. So she digs into the dirt, and hopes the gouges she leaves in their stupid, pristine city are never filled in. ]
Used to think the anger wasn't me. That it was the thing growing in me. But I don't know if there's even a difference now.
[ The old Noelle's long gone. You have her memories, nothing more. She's not Noelle anymore. ]
I think I just hate them.
no subject
She hates the people who could fix things because they won't. Maybe she doesn't hate him because he couldn't. Because he can't.
He can't. ]
So do I.
[ Krouse slaps the panel on the robot's head and slots one of the bolts back in roughly, his hands only shaking because they don't know any better. Metal cries weakly in its socket as he grinds the threads until they shudder home.
He can't even know if it's possible, what it'd even look like. It's just one last surge of denial pretending to be hope. He shouldn't even have thought about it, and he needs to stop. This is it. They're past the end of the line. He's accepted that. ]
And maybe -
[ He bites off the first formulation of what he was going to say, replaces it with the clink of the next bolt slapped into place, and then something kinder. ]
You have a lot of reasons to be pissed, No’.
[ Maybe there never was a difference. Maybe they just wanted to think that she was angry for any reason other than the truth. ]
no subject
It's embarrassing, Noelle thinks, that she's so far gone that she'll throw a tantrum over not being able to mess with the new city's infrastructure. Of course someone told them to stop.
But it was also going to be fun. Something for her and Krouse to be nerdy about, like they used to. Krouse has a new moveset, even if he learned it in the worst of circumstances, and he doesn't even get to show it off, and Noelle doesn't get to pick it apart.
Noelle stops moving sometime between the first bolt and the second. She holds herself together - literally. Krouse starts to say something, and then he pauses, falters, changes directions. Can't risk upsetting the monster. Even though he says he hates them, he's saying it so quietly. ]
What were you going to say? The first time.
[ The way Noelle says it, it's barely a question. She used to be better at scrubbing the feeling from her voice. Not too much, to where people noticed, but just enough, so that they wouldn't. It's a skill that's hard to forget, like riding a bike. ]
no subject
He wants to kick the robot, or throw the wrench. He wants to sink into a crouch and breathe into his knees. He wants to go back in time half an hour or two years, and he wants a cigarette, and he doesn't want to talk about this. He doesn't want to hurt her, and he always ends up hurting her when he opens his stupid fucking mouth.
But she asked, and he doesn't want to keep lying to her, either.
Krouse steps back from the robot and squares up his shoulders. ]
I was going to say. [ He shakes his head slightly, like a dog with a wet muzzle. ] It's not like you started being angry after this happened, is it?
[ It's hard to make himself look at her now. He does it anyway, fixed calm bolted to his face like he tightened it on with the wrench dangling from his hand, his dark eyes punctures of resignation. He doesn't say it like a question at all. ]
This just made it harder for everybody to keep pretending you weren't. And it's not like we - like I didn't give you a lot to be fucking upset about. Or like you didn't tell me about it, when I did. I just -
[ He scrubs at his face with his free hand, crumpling his eyes shut. ]
It made you so scared, getting mad. Even when you were right. Especially when you were right.
[ Like she is right now, curling in on herself until it makes her small, no matter how big she is. ]
cw: eating disorder, vomiting, ableism, fatphobia
Were they pretending she wasn't angry, before? Is that what was happening? Only Mars knew what was really going on, before Noelle took that half a vial. It was nice to pretend that the rest of them thought she was more or less normal. Shy, at worst. But if there were signs for Krouse to pick up on, it stands to reason the rest of them picked up on them, too.
It doesn't matter. The rest of them are gone, and Noelle will never see them again, and they're lucky enough to never see her.
It's not like you started being angry after this happened. Noelle clutches the base of her hospital gown, fingers weaving through the fabric and making a fist. The thing inside her shows her a memory, and Noelle takes the opportunity to be anywhere but here.
She'd been angry at herself the most. Angry one night, when she'd eaten too much pasta for dinner, on a day when she hadn't even walked home from school. Angrier still, after she'd thrown it up, leaving nothing but bilious hatred and shame over what she'd done. Relapse is another word for failure.
So she locked herself in her room for the rest of the night, and when she logged onto Ransack, Krouse was already there. Practicing, or something. They played all night, and he didn't ask why she was going so hard on the kids from Australia, or why she was still online at three in the morning, or what was wrong with her. He didn't even ask her to turn her camera on. ]
Yeah.
[ Noelle says, her voice dusty and quiet. She doesn't know how long she checked out for. Krouse still waited for her.
Noelle looks down at him again, finally, and when her eyes crumple in mirror image of his, she realizes she's forgotten how many calories are in a cup of spaghetti. The realization is as light and cool as the breeze in her hair. ]
I wanted to tell you I was sorry. During the fight. That it wasn't your fault. [ Noelle releases her grip on the gown, tucking her arm around her side instead. ] I was scared of being mad because I was scared of being big, and loud, and of people looking at me, and seeing - seeing what I saw, I guess.
[ Noelle laughs, but there's no mirth to it. What she's saying isn't funny. But she doesn't know what to do. ]
And then everyone found out anyway. So I guess I should have just told you from the beginning, huh?
cw: eating disorder
Alone with the part of her that she hates the most, Krouse breathes out shakily, scraping his knuckles under one stinging eye of his own. He latches onto one of hers, green-glass clear with an hourglass pupil, and he doesn't know what it sees. Doesn't know what it thinks, if it thinks anything at all, his worst adversary and closest ally. The only thing in the world that wanted her to live as much as he did. ]
Be nice to her. [ He tells it, half-hopelessly, with a crack in his voice he doesn't have to try to patch. ] Just - give her a break, all right?
[ By the time Noelle comes back, the robot is toddling off to the wall he took it from, coaxed to its feet and sent on its way with the wrench closed into its empty hand. Krouse's eyes are reddened and glossy again, and they sharpen into one hard wince when she laughs like that. ]
No.
[ It's not her name, this time, but he says it as gently.
He thought he'd understood, a little, before it all spilled out where everyone could see it. When he tries to remember, what he understands now bleeds over it, tainting the recollection with hindsight. He just knows he didn't know enough. Not enough to get that telling her he always liked what he saw didn't help, and probably just made it worse. He doesn't even know enough now to not want to tell her that here. Only enough to not do it.
He figured out too late that it wasn't about what people actually saw. It's what she says it is. It was always that. ]
Don't. Don't do that. If it's not my fault, it doesn't get to be yours either. You were doing what you had to.
This didn't happen because you did something wrong, or you didn't tell people every little thing about you, or because you got sick. You didn't make any of that happen. You didn't want it. You wanted to get better, and you were trying. You tried so fucking hard. Nobody could have tried hard than you did, after all the shit you went through.
I know you're sorry. And if you need me to forgive you for anything you actually did wrong, I will. I do. But I don't want to forgive you for being a human being, Noelle.
cw: eating disorder, self-harm, ableism
Krouse isn't covered with vomit. All his limbs and organs are intact. Noelle has still hurt him. She can see it in his eyes, two red, glassy things refracted through dozens of Noelle's own.
His voice is nothing but gentle. He starts out by being fair. If he can't blame himself, neither can she. The logic checks out.
Except it doesn't. There's a mismatch between Krouse's words and what Noelle feels, in her gut, to be true. She takes in his support like she's starving for it, and when it hits her stomachs, it doesn't settle there. If she tried so hard, why didn't she get better? If she's a human being, what does that make her lower half?
He had a three year old girl called Noelle. Didn't want to associate her with something like you.
She can't slip again. She can't. It wouldn't be fair. She used to care about things like that. When people are nice to you, you're supposed to be nice back. She was never very good at doing what she was supposed to do.
Vacancy threatens to cloud Noelle's expression. She screws the eyes in her face shut, shakes her head like she can shake it off. Digs fingernails into the skin of her upper arm, like that's enough sensation to distract from her lower half. ]
Is that what you think I am?
[ Noelle's voice comes out thick, clotted, wrong. Her tongue feels weird in her mouth.
If she's scared of people seeing her, maybe it's brave to ask Krouse to look at her. Maybe it makes up for some of it all, that Noelle gets to try to be brave, one last time. ]
A human being?
cw: eating disorder, ableism, self-harm, dehumanization
Shut up in a sequence of rooms getting worse, the world glimpsed in transit between windowless vans and closed doors. The day she stopped fitting into anything below the waist, and the day she stopped fitting into bathrooms. The sponges and the buckets and the laying down tarps. How every intimate thing about her body became an open subject of discussion, when anyone could bring themselves to talk about her at all.
They treated her like a sick animal that bit. Like a monster to appease and enclose, the minotaur in her maze. Like the first thing she took between her teeth was herself, and all that was left of Noelle was the thing that ate her.
He did that. He can't just say that he let it happen. He did it, one supposedly temporary measure at a time, and told her it was for her sake.
I bought your promises. Your hollow assurances.
Does it matter that he didn't mean for them to be hollow? How could it matter? Does he even want it to? ]
Yes.
[ He wants to take her hands off her arms and tuck his thumbs under her ragged nails. If she has to hurt anyone, he wishes it was someone who deserved it. ]
I know you are.
[ His mouth doesn't know what to do with itself, wavering on a thin-drawn line. ]
I shouldn't have tried to pretend you weren't.
cw: eating disorder, ableism, dehumanization, suicide
It doesn't work like that. Of course it doesn't. Neither of them have ever been lucky. Krouse's apology burrows its way into Noelle's heart, and it wrenches it open.
When did he realize he was pretending? Was it only after Noelle died? Was that what she needed to do, all this time, so that the rest of them would be kind to her again? She'd told them all she didn't want to be a memory, but maybe that wasn't her choice to make.
He's saying this all too late. In another world, maybe it would have mattered. In this one, Noelle starts to feel the first twinges of hunger. She'll see if he really means any of this when the hunger gets worse, when it becomes difficult to sit still and polite and wait for the next slab of meat like a dog.
Noelle lets go of her arm. She wraps them both around what's left of her stomach, as if she can make it quiet down for a little longer. That's one thing they both have in common, she and Krouse. They're just looking to buy a little more time. ]
Yeah. [ Noelle agrees, solemn and soft. ] You shouldn't have.
[ The vial wasn't his fault. The skills he picked up in the Birdcage can be his secret. But this is the one thing Noelle isn't sure she's ready to forgive, not in her first hours of freedom: he put her in a cage, and he told her everything was going to be okay.
Noelle looks at the peaceful woods and sloping hills, away from Krouse and however he needs to feel. He never wanted to feel that much in front of her, Noelle is fairly certain. That's okay. She understands. ]
I'm going to the river. [ Noelle says, quiet and decisive, like it's a strategy. ] I don't know how much time I have before I get - worse. Again.
You can keep me company. If you still want to.
[ He treated her like a monster, an advancing sickness that only consumed instead of thought. But he also kept her company. He was the only one who kept her company, in the end. ]
no subject
But it's the first time it's been this, and first time she's taken it with the steady calm of the truth. They're standing at an autopsy, the gore dissected down to clinical cataloguing. There's nothing that can put it right.
And it cuts through him as clean as a scalpel, flaying back layers of diseased tissue around the heart of the rotten tumour at the core. It hurts like relief.
She's not going to try to forgive him, so he doesn't have to watch her try. He doesn't have to talk her out of it. All he has to do is accept it, and he doesn't even have to do that for very long.
He lets his head fall as she looks away, linking his fingers around the back of his neck, and breathes through the crush of his chest. He's only nearly surprised to find his eyes drying out as the terrible, welcome weight of the end settles in. ]
Always.
[ Krouse lets his hands slip, dropping back to his sides, and looks up at her with a slight, secret, sorry smile. ]
cw: eating disorder
Small can mean all sorts of things. The physical is most obvious, and can be achieved and maintained with enough of something Noelle might have once called willpower. But that's just one aspect of an entire way of being. There are small voices, quiet and soft, that speak in short, direct sentences. There are clothes that hide a body, so it isn't noticed. And, crucially, people who are small are not burdens. A relationship with them barely weighs anything at all. So light it might not even exist.
Noelle lets Krouse bear a little bit of the guilt. The real guilt, not what he wanted to turn upon himself. Not the status of being the bad guy. And he doesn't buckle, and he doesn't leave her.
She uncurls her shoulders a little. There's less of a crushing weight pressing against them. Noelle's heart hasn't mended, but Krouse's probably hasn't, either. They can have one whole heart between the two of them. Noelle returns the smile, just a secret, and just as soft. It's only for him. ]
Thanks.
[ Noelle starts off in the direction of the sloping hill. She trusts Krouse to follow. ]
I don't think it's far.
[ Unless Krouse pipes in to speak, Noelle will spend the journey in relative quiet. She can't be silent - her lower half snaps too many branches, scrapes against too much bark and wheezes with exertion. But this slight forest, she thinks, is still peaceful nonetheless. ]
no subject
The fleeting lightness of his feet has abated. He follows her with each step connecting to the ground, his heart syncing into steady rhythm.
Maybe this is the difference between being stopped and stopping, this acceptance. He's not having anything taken away, but he's not letting go of it either. The guilt that winds through him like vines nestles more gently around his bones. If you rip away a scar, all you do is open up a wound anyway.
The river is prettier than he remembered. He can see it more clearly now as he comes to a halt at the top of the bank next to her, the thousand breaks of light shining off the turbulent surface. He contemplates it for a second or so, then sinks into a crouch to examine the ground to look for flat rocks.
Might as well, while he's here.
That he's only feet from a bulging limb gripping the soil and whistling on each heavy exhale seems wholly unremarkable. He has the imprint of her little smile tucked against the part of him that might have cared, ice wrapped in a soft towel over a hard bruise. ]
no subject
It still doesn't prepare her for actually seeing the river. Memory rolls through her, like she's been swept up by the river itself. Her uncle's cabin, by the lake. The St. Croix, on a school trip. Brockton Bay, right before the fight began. She'd taken the Vistas there. A couple of them liked to dig in the sand, while the others huddled up against Noelle as she watched the waves.
This is better than Brockton Bay. Their conversation still weighs heavy in Noelle's heart, but it's not the worst kind of heaviness. It's the weight of an anchor. When she slips into her memories, she doesn't leave completely. She's still able to drink in all that dancing, glittering light.
In her periphery, Krouse crouches down. It takes Noelle a moment to realize that he's setting up another kind of game. He's finding pieces. Noelle might not have the fine motor skills to skip rocks anymore, but she's especially well-equipped to dig. Wordlessly, Noelle joins him, clawing up a relatively small fistful of dirt, and then picking out a few ideal candidates with a tentacle. These she stacks beside Krouse, and it's another little game to see how many she can get without the tower knocking over. Turns out it's only three, but that's okay. She can keep trying. ]
Think you can beat my record? [ Noelle asks, a lightness in her voice that only ever showed up during practice. ] I used to do this with my cousins.
[ Used to doesn't hurt as much out here. ]
no subject
Their friendship died slowly. He thought he'd come to terms with it. Just another of those mistakes.
If he'd known those would be the last times, really known it, what would he have done differently? ]
I highly doubt it.
[ He smiles at the dirt, building a less organized pile close to Noelle's own. He'll share his rocks with her, obviously. It's less fun if you get picky about whose ammunition is whose. ]
I actually kind of suck at this.
[ He wasn't as good as Luke was, at least, and he assumes Noelle is as good as that, if not better. If she wanted to get good at skipping stones, she'd have practised until she was.
Luke's power didn't work for this. Every stone he threw with it sliced into the water with barely a splash. They'd been trying to see if he could slow it down, and when he couldn't, they'd just tried to see if he could stop. When the first stone finally skipped, Luke had laughed like something popped in his chest.
Maybe it'll work again. ]
So, you want to go first? Show me how it's done?
cw: suicide mention
Instead, Noelle's heart stutters when Krouse suggests that she give the rock skipping a shot. Instinct kicks in first, informing Noelle that she should deflect. Should turn him down, because he knows better, just like he knew that the compound would be good for her. Noelle is several feet tall than most people. She can't get low enough to skip a rock.
The moment passes. Krouse apologized for the cage. The cruelest thing Noelle could do now would be to walk back in it.
Noelle runs a tentacle over the pile, and once she finds one she likes, passes it up through various limbs in her lower half until it reaches a hand she was born with. She palms the rock, running her thumb against one of its sides, flexing her wrist back and forth to call upon some long-lost muscle memory.
There is a one hundred percent certainty that Noelle is going to absolutely whiff this. For once, she doesn't care. Noelle spreads out the limbs at her base, careful not to touch Krouse, but coming dangerously close. She arcs her spine forward, hunched as low as she can go. Her jaw is set, her eyes narrowed, and she's even chewing her bottom lip a little, all focused and intent, sizing up the field, like she used to get before games.
Noelle flicks her wrist. The rock sails in an abbreviated little arc, and then plops unceremoniously into the water. The spell of Noelle's concentration breaks, and she gives Krouse a halfhearted little shrug.
It doesn't feel bad. Noelle expected it to feel bad, and it doesn't, and that feels almost good. ]
It's all in the wrist. [ She makes the movement again, this time without the rock. ] Like this. But you need to be fairly parallel with the surface. You should be able to get at least one.
cw: minor self-harm
It's not that he's staring. Just an automatic glance as she gets closer, the way they eyes are drawn by any motion in the peripheral vision. He refocuses on the intent arc of her bending out towards the water, watching her teeth worry her lower lip. He remembers the shiny pinkness that would peek out between flaking dry skin during especially demanding games, little gnawed, vulnerable patches to commemorate her effort.
Images overlap like projector sheets. Then, later, now. He wants to hold as much of her in his head as he can, now that he can, greyscale fog pulled back from his brain. ]
It's the surface tension too, though, right?
[ He hangs his arms over his knees as he stays hunkered, turning over a rock shaped like the one she took for herself. ]
Or how the angle of the rock hits it? Whatever makes it bounce instead of sink. [ He pushes up to his feet with a little bounce of his own at the start. ] I'm just saying - environmental factors.
[ It doesn't sound like he's making an excuse for her. It's the thoughtful cadence of analysis, from those times when he'd come to her with ideas of varying levels of practical in-game application to vet them. The two of them against a problem, captain and hopeful lieutenant.
He mimics her throw, flicking his wrist as best as he can. He's got the confidence, but not the angle. It plunges into the river, and he shakes his head, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth as he tilts his head to glance up at her sidelong. ]
...I'm realizing it's possible we're just throwing rocks into industrial robot coolant runoff.
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Probably. [ Noelle doesn't know much about the underlying physics. But she can analogize to boats, and the wings of planes, and other things that glide through fluids. ] We can't change the surface tension, though, so maybe try a different angle. Upwards, instead of flat horizontal.
[ Maybe that'll counteract gravity? Something like that.
Noelle watches Krouse give it a shot and miss. It's nice to know it's not just her messing this one up - nice enough that Noelle returns a smaller version of Krouse's smile.
Krouse probably didn't mean to get her thinking about their ill-fated bout with robot science. Noelle thinks about it anyway. About not getting to do what she wanted to do, about an apology that came too late. They're not supposed to go in the river because it might mean Noelle has to touch someone. But that didn't even feel bad. It was killing the clone that was hard.
Noelle sits with the idea for a while, watching the gentle flow of waves and any other stones Krouse chooses to skip. It's important that she makes sure this is what she really wants, before she says it out loud. There's a good bit of shame and guilt to sift through first. ]
Hey. [ Noelle says, at last, soft and a little rough. ] Can I ask you something kind of shitty?
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[ It sounds like it could make sense, at least, which is good enough.
He really is just throwing rocks into whatever this not-water is. As much as he tries to implement the concept of upwards in trajectory, he's not sure he's getting it.
It's the kind of repetitive failure he usually gets frustrated by fast, but this seems to be an exception, like all of this has been to a lot of things. Bend, pick, straighten, toss, plunk. After the first few, he experiments with throwing them farther, aiming at the centre of the river instead of the edge.
The sensation of wind skimming the back of his neck creeps up on him again. All the open space around them, a sky that looks like any sky overhead. No smell of cleaners or human bodies closed up together, endlessly recycling each other's air.
It occurs to him that Noelle must be feeling the same way about it, and that's a new ache in his chest that's not a wholly bad one. Nothing he'll say aloud, but something he can know. He was always looking for things they had in common.
When she speaks up again, he pauses at the top of a throw, lowering his arm as he shifts his attention back to her. The lingering sense of harmony informs his answer, but more than that, it's the lull of acceptance they've dropped into that makes him say, without worrying what the next question might be: ]
Yeah. Go ahead.
[ He throws his next rock barely looking, just to get it out of his hand, and half-startles when it bounces - once, twice, and that's it. He blinks after it, then laughs, quiet and surprised. ]
Lucky throw.
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The stone skips. Krouse laughs. Noelle murmurs, quiet and genuine, like it's the easiest thing in the world. ]
Nice.
[ That's not something she says a lot, but she means it every time.
Noelle lets Krouse's victory linger for a little while, as warm as the sun on her skin. This sun isn't the kind that burns.
She can't leave Krouse hanging forever, especially now that she knows he'll wait as long as it takes. She still wants things to be fair, even though fairness, like hope or two legs, is something that was closed off to them a long time ago.
But maybe there's still something that isn't. ]
What if, [ Noelle starts, slowly, working up the confidence as she goes ] we just didn't kill them. The clones.
[ There's too much of a plea in her voice. Noelle pauses, regroups. When she speaks next, it's as a captain. ]
I mean - we know they listen to me. And it's not like either of us are trying to save the world.
[ It's not like either of them have that much time, before it all inevitably falls apart. If there's one thing Noelle knows how to expect, it's that. ]
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cw: eating disorder, ableism, fetishization
cw: eating disorder, ableism
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cw: minor self harm; body horror