legionworld | [ OPEN ] Just like that Highschool Class about childcare.

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[ OPEN ] Just like that Highschool Class about childcare.

Who| York, Delta, and YOU! (special guest star: egg)
What| Knocking around Legion World, carting about a mysterious egg.
Where| Observation Deck, Mess, Training Rooms
When| After THATH/OM/GOU
Warnings/Notes| N/A

(A) - Observation Deck

All this calm quiet is oppressive on occasion- too familiar to the absolute nothing that he can distantly recall with a chill down his spine when things are too still. Too dark. But after long days full of people and noise and life? When he's almost overworked and overstimulated, all but vibrating out of his skin? It's soothing. As long as he doesn't stare too much. Today between monitor duty and Flight Ring training and his own programs running around in the back of his mind he needs that quiet space. His most recent meeting with Dr. Ry'kerr's left him with a lot to think about and a small package he's been told to keep warm.

So.

Sitting in the middle of all this quiet with a handheld heater wrapped in a green scarf as he contemplates both the stars and the strange football sized egg now in his care. Delta perches on his shoulder, running through a few encryption puzzles.

(B) - Mess Hall

Vague countdowns with indefinite deadlines are the worst. Not knowing when or how this thing'll hatch is killing York- but not so much that he'll obsess with research too much. He carries both the wrapped egg and Delta to grab lunch, minding it with one hand while poking through a catalog of cybernetic eyes. Medical tech being what it is he could just get a new one grown or...something? He's not familiar enough and the idea gives him an odd sense of vertigo he thinks about it too hard. Something that'll let him see without trying to be his? That's easier to hold onto. D offers his two cents here and there between dissecting a platter of fruit for York's perusal, nudging his hand away from the things that are probably some kind of caustic.

(C) - Training Room

Delta's in charge of keeping the temperature even around the egg, sitting next to it, not on it, despite York's promising that the egg can probably take it and that it'd be damn cute. York focuses on range time. It's not entirely unlike the leaderboard drills for speed and accuracy at close, mid, and long range. He alternates between his charged, thrown marbles, handguns, shotguns, and a stun variant of a battle rifle that has the right weight and kick to it. Running these numbers against Delta's on board backups of his scores when he had both eyes and just comparing the two.

Gathering data, more or less. Trying to make up his mind.

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"They also-" Because beer is not really Locus' bag. "Have a house made cider."

Which may or may not be against regs but hey, a treat's a treat. He tips his head up to grin at Locus, infinitely pleased that, well, he's pleased. He knows his audience, after all. "You'll probably need something warm, it's cold down there this time of year."

"Hm. Then I will prepare accordingly. I have clothing that will suffice."

He pauses after that, just looking at York, at that grin, and his brow earns a faint little wrinkle. Nothing comes out, however. He just stares, a little awkwardly but maybe not as intense or as intimidating as his usual stare.

Maybe, a little softer. Maybe.

"Guess I'm shopping alone, then, cuz I got nothing." Not for that level of laid back chill. He'll figure something out, easy. For a moment he's content to sit and lean and not think about the implications of sitting and leaning. He's tactile, Locus doesn't mind.

There's that softness around his eyes that rings a very distant bell- but it's distant. "How'd your last op go? Mine was- a ride."

Odd, pretending to be married.

"Preventing an assassination is nothing new. It went well enough."

One eyebrow raises, however.

"Yours required...more subterfuge than I generally like."

Lying about being married to anyone was not his preference. And if it was to someone he actually had feelings for? The problem would have only compounded itself. No. Better to avoid that entirely, stick to what he knew.

"Apparently I play 'bumbling but well meaning spouse' pretty well. Reminds me why I quit dating." Keeping up with the girls had been exhausting. Parker can lie easy as breathing and Marjara? He'd been out of his depth in more ways than one.

"It was kinda fun, though. Pretending to be in a relationship. All the fun, none of the anxiety." And it is an anxious thing, being with someone, trying to keep them happy.

"I will take your word for it."

Locus immediately frowns, glancing back to the egg as though he suddenly found it intensely fascinating. Absolutely for the best he'd had nothing to do with that entire mess then.

"It was a nice change of pace, really." From the sneaky spy shit and the eldritch horrors and the ghosts of christmas past crawling up their collective asses. He wouldn't mind another relatively chill operation like this again. "Did feel like a bad rom-com though."

"So, a rom-com."

Someone apparently had very strong feelings about that genre of movie.

And while he could understand wanting a break, while he never wanted to face Felix again in any form and would happily never encounter anything like Silent Horizon again? He understandably favored missions that required his particular skill set.

A mission like that? He would have only been a liability.

"Hey- some are enjoyably bad." Some. Not all, but some. "French Kiss is pretty good."

Old as hell but- a cunning con man, Meg Ryan at her most Meg Ryan, good music? His kinda bag.

Locus just gives him a disbelieving look before shaking his head. "As long as you are pleased with the results, it is just as well."

Something else caught his notice, however. Something that might prove of interest. "You are no longer engaging in romantic relations?"

"You saw my Legacy, right?" When everything's laid out so neat and plain it's enough for a guy to take a good look at the pattern. The variables, the constants. And the one constant? Wasn't that hard to pick out.

"I did."

That's...something of a relief, actually. He remembers Sombra's warning, his duty to keep York from getting himself hurt, but he's already disinclined to do so? That makes the task that much easier.

"I'm good how I am. I got Delta, I got my bros, and yeah maybe I'll get an itch for something physical down the line but I'm not a twenty year old fuck truck of a human being anymore. Shouldn't be hard to just dip out and find someone for a night." Easy peasy. He's not unattractive, he's funny, he can probably swing it without getting attached.

"No doubt there would be many interested parties. Be wary of whom you select, should it come to that."

Not that he's got any personal stake in this, oh no. This is just a 'bro' looking out for his friend. Nothing more.

"This is where I say 'I know how to be careful' but again- you've seen my Legacy." Clearly he does not have the best judgement. Looking back the best relationships he'd had were with Jack and, well. North.

But North is solidly a 'bro' and changing the comfortable solidity of what they got is...it's scary. He's not willing to risk that.

"We'd all like to think so, wouldn't we?" He's had his share of trusting the wrong people, getting involved more than he should. No. No point in any of that.

He values what he has. That's more than enough.

"I'm self aware enough to know I'd probably make a dumb choice. So." He shrugs, gestures to them. "Bros. Bro dates. Pretty sure I used up all of my actual game a few years ago anyway."

"There's nothing wrong or lesser with simply having friends," he opines after a moment, shifting where he sits but careful not to dislodge or discomfort York in the meanwhile. He's become more conscious of his weight when he does this, just this casual lean that means he's comfortable.

"They can mean a great deal. Without any sort of...additional physical attachment involved."

"Considering the fact you and Azucar have all but literally become my sanity security blanket? Yeah." There'd been a few long stretches between disasters that were cut out for brevity in the Legacy- but he was older now. Wiser. And if not wiser, more aware that he makes Poor Life Choices (tm) and needs to simmer his ass down.

Saving the collective universe comes first. "Only reason it's not literal is I drape myself all over y'all."

There was almost a chuckle. "Yes, well. I take it you've noticed neither of us mind terribly. When it is you."

Sombra might be more free with physical touches, on her own terms, but for Locus those were still lukewarm waters. York managed it because how could he not? After everything they'd see together so far? It seemed only natural. Disaster and danger ended up forging some fairly strong bonds.

For better or worse.

"Yeah, I've managed to not fuck this up." He lifts a hand in a little 'hooray' flip of the wrist before going back to tracing the odd swirls and ridges on the egg in his lap. This is- it's good. It's important to him, he hasn't screwed it up, he remains both good with people and good with Locus without using his charm abilities.

That's worth plenty.

The moment is quiet and calm and not somber but not- it wouldn't be a mood killer, he thinks, to broach this subject. "So I got- well it's a little heavy but we've been thinking about it for awhile, Delta and I. What'll happen to him if I bite the dust here."

It's a possibility. It's always a possibility, one they've even come close to in the past. Locus says nothing in turn, just turns to look at him, brow lifting in invitation to continue.

He's listening, attentively.

"You don't have an implant, not like I do." Or cybernetics that will let Delta slip in quiet and cool as anything like Azucar- "But. Delta's getting used to being on his own, unattached to a human mind. If I go down and he doesn't go down with me...Man, he's better at asking this than I am."

At Locus' elbow, Delta rests a small hand against his arm, helmet tipped back to peer up into Locus' face. "I would prefer to remain with someone that knows what I am. That understands me- someone that knew Taylor."

"Of course."

It's not a question, he doesn't even pause to consider. Instead, he lowers a hand to let Delta climb up if he likes, so he doesn't have to crane his neck upwards.

"We look after our own, do we not?"

What little tension that'd been coiling in York's shoulders eases at that, Delta hopping onto Locus' hand without a second thought. There's trust here. They have, perhaps, an understanding that runs counter and deeper than the one shared with Taylor.

What it is to be broken. To be monstrous. "We do indeed."

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