legionworld | Catchall

Catchall

Who| Robbie and whoever
What| Settling in on the outpost, potential backtagging
Where| Legion Outpost, potential backtagging can be on Legion World
When| In the 24 hours after the move, backtags will specify otherwise
Warnings/Notes| No warning as yet. Let me know if you want a special starter or feel free to make one. Threads backdated to Legion World welcome!!

1. Quarters, shortly after arrival.

The room is small. That doesn’t bother Robbie. Spartan, too, which seems fitting after what they’ve done. What they chose to do. That bothers him, if he thinks about how they voted on people’s lives.

Shitty people, but lives nonetheless. It’s easier to not think about it in a room shared with three others, but the room is momentarily his and Niels'. The cat is beside himself – none of the beds smell like anyone, Robbie guesses, and nothing is identifiable Niels’ either. So Robbie sits on the floor between the bunks, watch Niels headbutt walls and drape himself morosely on each bunk in turn.

“Come on, Niels,” he said as he swatted a bubble at the cat. He wished he had thought to grab a toy. “It’s not so bad. They’ll be back soon, and you can make a break for it when the door opens. You love escaping.”

He would swear that the cat gives him a sardonic look, as if to say he loves nothing at the moment. Robbie sighs and bats a bubble off the door.

2. Lounge, the next day.

Robbie enters with a wave, unsurprised to find it occupied. Everywhere is occupied. He can’t even get to be alone in the shower here, although it wouldn’t be the same anyway. Showers aren’t long and relaxing without water. They don’t help with processing events, and people don’t either. He had a dream last night about the room exploding. His roommates died, and he woke up when he was suffocating in deep space. He spent the rest of the night trying to fall back asleep in his transuit. Not easy, even with it unzipped.

With a weary smile, he drops onto a couch. “How’s it going? Loving the subspacemarine asthetic?“

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's a tiny little knock on the door.

Dipper is... freaking out a little bit. When you're a kid, change is hard, even under the best of circumstances, and this is not the best. Most of his stuff got blown up, like he and Mabel's mission souvenirs. His place on the team is uncertain, because there isn't really anywhere else that's good for him and Mabel to go, but he's not technically on the team anymore.

He also still feels kind of bad for the cultist people because...

Because that was him, at one point, after the Yellow Lanterns had broken him. He'd believed in their cause and turned against the good guys.

He knows he should probably just not care but he can't. The Catastrophists were people that had looked for solace in the face of despair and been manipulated by some really bad people - and that one undercover mission had revealed they had some really messed up initiation practices.

So he's feeling anxious and looking for someone to hang out with.

"Robbie, are you in there? Hey, man, it's me."

The knock takes him by surprise. Who knocks? Definitely not anyone who lives here. He lines up a series of smart aleck responses, chock full of chestnuts like 'nobody here but us chickens', but then a voice confirms it’s Dipper. Okay, that’s important. He likes the kid too much to make sweat about being welcome.

Robbie scoops up the cat – all bribery aside, Niels escaping is a bad idea – and opens the door. “All signs point to me being here. Hey Dipper.”

Leaving the door open, Robbie sits on a bed to keep a better grip on the cat, who sees The Place Beyond the Door and has gone liquid in an attempt to wriggle free. “Come on in. Mi casa es your casa… and Vance’s, and Rich’s, and Grif's.”

Dipper'd put a lot of work into his ruse. He'd tried so hard to act mature and confident, and he'd actually had some reserves of genuine confidence and competence to draw from to do it. He'd survived the end of the world alone for three days, had fought a dream demon, had clung to the side of a spaceship going a hundred miles an hour to save his great uncle, had jumped fifty feet off a cliff and broken through the window of a cockpit of a giant robot to save his sister...

So that's the image that he'd always put forward, barring the times that other things showed through the cracks. Shoulders back, head held high, firm eye contact with others.

But it'd been a lot of work doing it all the time when he'd only felt that way sometimes, and now the jig is up. Now he understands he doesn't have to be that person, totally together and ready to face adult fears - not yet, anyway. So his behavior and body language has changed lately.

It's more, well...childish. Like Mabel's. He was twelve when his summer went to hell - literally. And being taken out of his normal life has made him grow in some ways but left him a little stuck in others.

The fact of the matter is that you can't grow up normally if you're putting all your energy to acting like you already are grown up.

So now he lingers in the doorway like a kid that isn't sure if he's welcome in an adult's space and then when he's sure he is (and closes the door so the cat can't get out) he stands there with his hands in his pockets, shrugging his shoulders self consciously.

"'Sup."

The words are casual, but the truth is he feels like he's just in everyone's way, especially with how cramped the outpost is, and especially with having his membership technically revoked. And he's feeling insecure and scared after what happened, so he just wants to be near one of the adults that makes him feel less afraid.

If only Robbie hadn't been a teenager or been surrounded by them for the last 11 years, Dipper might've stood a chance with his simple 'sup. Don't mind me, I'm as nonchalant as beige, if only I hadn't forgotten my overcoat, etc etc. Yeah right.

Dipper came here, without a reason or invitation or explanation. Sure, that last one might just be 'I'm bored', but there are at least three rooms on the outpost that are immediately more interesting than Robbie's. They wouldn't have required knocking or explaining.

Instead, Dipper is suffering through a short what's up and a whole lot of shyness - not that Robbie would know what real shyness feels like, but he sure as hell can tell what it looks like. Dip's a row of bangs away from being Veil, and that's worrying. Dipper's smart and reasonably self-assured. Not as crazily confident as his sister, but he's carrying himself so... small, with his hands in his pockets like that. Robbie used to do that, when he felt dumb or awkward as a teen. He'd try to make himself even smaller physically without thinking about it.

From this end, it doesn't work at all. Dipper does not disappear or get less attention as a result. Robbie finally releases Niels, who bolts to a higher bunk with a growl, and gestures for Dipper to sit on one of the lower bunks.

"Let's see. I'm sharing a room for the first time in ever, which sucks. Niels hasn't eaten today cause sweet potato is not appealing to a cat, and I'm trying to ration the food that I salvaged off Legion World... which I've been trying not to think about because this place is too small to go around freaking out on my teammates. How about you?" Robbie tacks the question on at the end carelessly, like it's an automatic response, to test the theory. It's been awhile since he was trying to learn how to be a teacher. He could be rusty.

It's exactly what he needs. Someone acknowledging that things are messy and tumultuous and worth being nervous about. He immediately plops down to sit next to Robbie on the bed, and leans in close, making it clear he wouldn't mind a companionable arm around the shoulders or something. If he doesn't get one right away, he'll resort to doing a classic teenage headbutt into Robbie's shoulder like a cat.

Everything he's thinking starts coming out in a bout of anxious blurting.

"All our stuff is gone - and not just our personal stuff, but all the stuff that was helping us actually be equipped to fight. And I hate how it seems like we're just running and hiding because I've done a lot of running and hiding." Especially back in Gravity Falls. "And I feel like one of the only people that think it was wrong how we blew up all those people, because the way the Catastrophists recruit people is so messed up. After what the yellow Lanterns did to me, and after the Faceless messed us and a bunch of other people up, I know how easy it is to get drawn in like that..."

For the yellows, It'd taken rewriting his memories to make them uglier to put him in that state of despair, but it meant he knew how easy it was for a damaged person in that state to be brainwashed and bludgeoned by rites of initiation into the kind of nihilistic hopelessness that would make someone attack others.

For the Faceless, it hadn't taken much, just tapping into his fears and putting him through some mental headfuckery.

"And I talked to Kid Q and she said that if everything explodes and gets really bad and it's like the universe is about to die, that she won't say no to me and Mabel helping, because at that point, it's like self defense and she understands how bad it'd feel just to watch everything die without doing anything, but unless it gets that bad we're not allowed to fight."

His eyebrows furrow and he looks at the floor.

"And I know I figured out I shouldn't fight anymore, but I hate how it means I can't help all my friends and teammates. And it feels all weird and awkward that I'm even here, and..."

He lets out a sigh.

"I'm basically just freaking out a little right now?"

But he also at least is better about accepting he's allowed to be a scared kid, and is comfortable going to the adults he trusts, so...here he is, trying to not deal with it all on his own. Robbie was the natural choice to go to. Dipper knows Wash would've been willing to comfort him plenty, too, but he has a feeling that Wash was probably a little more comfortable with blowing up the Catastrophists, and he really needs to talk to someone who probably was as uncomfortable about it as Dipper was. And also...

He and Robbie been in a broken place once. Together. They'd felt existential despair and hopelessness during the Silent Horizon mission. In the face of all that overwhelming horror, even as Robbie had fallen into the dark, he'd still chosen to protect Dipper as much as he could, even as he'd turned into a monster, too.

And he had. He'd chased enough people away that Dipper hadn't gotten a chance to hurt anyone, and he'd chased other monsters away before they'd hurt him. This the safest place he can be right now, and it's a safe place to be upset over the choices everyone made.

Edited 2018-01-07 04:39 (UTC)

Admittedly, he’s surprised when it all works so well. Robbie wanted Dipper to talk; turns out Dipper was a dam waiting to burst and is now verbally flooding the room. Robbie does his best to catalog the issues, but he’s probably missed some. The mental effort is why he misses the first cue for contact. The headbutt gets a near ingrained reaction (because cat-dad), and his arm moves around Dipper, the hand landing on Dipper's shoulder.

Human contact's not a bad idea when he's decided to handle the worst things first.

“You aren’t the only one feeling sick about the cultists. Look – sometimes, it’s the only way. I know that, and I don’t get preachy when that’s the case. But you’re not wrong if you hate what happened yesterday, or if you want to yell at the ones who voted to blow it up. Dialing it up to 11 was a shit response from a team that's got too many war veterans who see everything as us and them because, if they had to think about deaths as people and not numbers, they'd go nuts."

Robbie holds back on saying that he saw bodies of Catastrophists during the evac - that Legionnaires had been killing them before the explosion. It's too distressing, for both of them. He further hesitates a discussion about what it feels like to get your head messed with, but maybe Dipper would feel... not better, but less uneasy if he was reminded that Dipper's not the only one who's been recruited in with mindfuckery. "I was on a team that was really messed up once, Catastrophists on steroids. On some level, I knew what we were doing was fu- was awful, but I was in such a bad place myself that I just... didn't care. I rationalized it. But nobody killed me, and nobody killed you. I just... wish we could have given them the same chance."

What else had been in the flood? Oh, right. "Kid Q's right, and she's being a lot nicer about it than I would be. I would've sent you and Mabel somewhere safer, maybe home with some staff family, until we had a better base. Not because I don't think you can help, I know you can. Because I can't handle anymore dead kids. You know that."

His hand gives Dipper's shoulder a squeeze that might be too hard for comfort. "But you're still a member of the team in spirit, and I think we'd all be worried about you just as much if you weren't where we could keep an eye on you. It's not awkward that you're here. It'd be weird if you weren't. So... freak out if you need to. Don't dent the walls, and nobody ever has to know you were upset."

The validation of his feelings helps a lot, because all he can really do is try to figure out how he feels and move on from there. He's still trying to see it as worth it, but he can't. Apokolips was crippled, yes, but not even entirely destroyed. They don't even know if the explosion killed the Herald. But being told he's allowed to think it was wrong, that his own personal takeaway is allowed to be "I'm not okay with this" helps. Because this isn't about judgment or him confronting anyone else about it, it's about him deciding how he feels and figuring out what kind of choices he wants to make in the future.

So he looks reassured when Robbie says it's understandable that he feels that way. There are times he's been willing to kill, too, but it still feels different to him. When he'd killed those mercenaries in Murderworld, during the road war, they weren't broken, mentally unhealthy people getting used by someone, they were trying to kill them for money. Big difference.

But apparently, it's okay to feel that way, to feel differently about broken people.

He also looks comforted when Robbie points out how their teammates aren't necessarily evil, they're just very used to fighting in wars and very much about survival. Us vs. them. It's hard to reconcile seeing something as wrong with knowing the people that chose it are good people, but it helps to remember how hard they've all had to fight to even survive up to this point.

"Kid Q thinks it's still safest for us here. Apparently, we could go to some UPgov bunker somewhere, but only Timber Wolf's son Cub was allowed to go into the special one with the president, because she's his grandma. And Brainy says the security on the other one is--"

He makes an iffy gesture with his hand.

"And they won't even let Merl and Valeria at either of them, because apparently they have them on some kind of government watch list so they're not allowed in secure areas near heads of state?"

He and Kid Q had a long talk about this, about where he and Mabel should go.

"And staying with one of the staffers is like no security at all, and considering the bad guys would probably love to come after us as a message or something..."

Yeah, that doesn't seem like a good idea to him. If anything that'd mean bringing bad guys down on some poor defenseless staffer's house, and...Dipper's brain is morbid. He could see the bad guys coming after them so they had kid's dead body to toss at the Legionnaires somewhere as a message.

"To get at us here, they have to go through at least some of you." He shakes his head. "But I'm not scared of that. I'm... I'm not anymore scared of the bad guys than I was before."

His decision to be honest and cut himself off from heroing hasn't been fear of the bad guys so much as wisdom. Knowing he can't mentally take many more hits like the ones he's taken.

"I'm more scared of bad things happening on any of the missions I can't go on. To the people who are still fighting. That I could help with if I was there. What if...what if not helping you guys means someone dies? When I could've stopped it if I was there?"

"Maybe she's right," Robbie said after a moment.

He looks doubtful, though, because his idea of retiring from superheroing involves moving far, far away from anywhere. Mexico or Montana or anywhere that isn't a big city and especially not New York City, the epicenter of all superheroics. That's what Kid Q has let the twins do - retire in the universe's greatest hero hotspot.

She might as well be daring them to get involved. "But Merl and Val could get into trouble wherever they were. With them, it's about preventing intergalactic incidents. With you, it's about everyone's peace of mind. I don't know where I'd feel better with you two being."

If they're not supposed to fight, they're supposed to be protected. Robbie was already guilty of looking after Dipper when he thought he was fourteen and an "adult" by this universe's standards (yeah right). Now Robbie knows he's thirteen, and, despite having all the sympathy in the world for Dipper, that changes the situation. They're in some strange Power Pack child hero territory that makes Robbie tremendously uncomfortable.

He can understand why Cap turned him down when he was 15. There's apparently a line where it becomes Too Young. "It's not my call, though, so I'll settle for being one of the ones they have to go through, even though I'm scared of the bad guys."

It seems important to point that out, despite Dipper supposedly done with being a hero. Robbie can't tell if Dipper is blustering or not, but he wants him to know that being scared isn't necessarily a problem in life. 'I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.' He spares Dipper the historical quotes and pulls his legs up to sit cross-legged on the bed. "When I first started doing this, I was in high school, and I was scared of the bad guys. Maybe not the alien cats, but all the rest, and with good reason. A few years later, I was too cocky to be scared, and that's when everything went to hell, because I wasn't asking those kinds of questions before. I only asked them after, and it was too late."

Stopping the lecture, Robbie considers the questions themselves. They're basically unanswerable. They're the kind of questions that keep him up at night. "What if you could've stopped a murder on Rimbor last week, on a mission that never existed? What if you were in New New York, hiding, and pushed someone out of the way of a falling piano? You're one person. You can only be in one place. Don't beat yourself up for the things in other places, Dip, or you'll never be done punishing yourself. You're only responsible for the situation in front of you. I've had people tell me 'I'm sorry I wasn't there for you', and it makes me feel like a turd. Because my gut reaction is to apologize for not having been better in the first place, you know?"

... maybe Dipper doesn't know. That would be for the best. Robbie presses his lips together and takes a deep breath to ease the thrumming in his ears after working himself up to his own little tidal wave of thoughts. "On the bright side... civillians never apologize."

Edited 2018-01-07 22:12 (UTC)

"Yeah, except even if you can't be everywhere at once, you can still be somewhere. Helping someone. So if you can't save other people, fine, but you save the ones you can. You save the ones in front of you and go places that are going to put people to save in front of you in the first place."

He struggles to explain the conflict that's going on inside him.

"I have that." He points to himself. "I still have that, man. That hasn't gone away. And I still have the powers that would let me do it."

The spark. The whatever it is that makes people put on a goofy spandex outfit and shield them from bullets.

The problem is the rest of him hasn't caught up yet. He has 13-year-old's mind, and because of the strange arrested development this place caused, only a 12-year-old's coping skills. He hasn't even really managed to push it to having a 13 year-old's coping skills like he should have - everything got too hard, went too fast, and hurt too much. You can develop healthy ways to copy with stress and trauma when your brain is getting barraged by trauma all the time. All it does is make you develop unhealthy ones.

"I know I'm not ready. That I - I can't be like all of you in how I deal with the bad stuff. With getting hurt." Because getting hurt is an inevitable part of a vocation that involves self-sacrifice. "I'm not strong enough to deal with that yet and I know... I know that's normal. That I'm not supposed to be. Not until I'm older."

He still gestures at his chest at the whatever it is that's in there.

"But it's still here. The... the 'I-need-to-do-something.'" He talks it about it like it's some kind of solid, tangible thing, like an organ. "And it's not just me wanting to be cool and grown up, and wanting to be seen that way, it's... I saw so many scared people and I made them less scared. It's about them."

Superheroing had started cool, and had been about him wanting to be seen as heroic, but the selflessness, the wanting to help, it's gotten as genuine as it gets.

"What do I do with this?" He taps his chest. "For however long it takes me to be old enough to do this again? I can't be everywhere at once? Okay, fine, but how do I live with being nowhere at all? Not helping anybody?"

He tears up just a little bit.

"What am I supposed to do? Just go back to school and learn geometry and play the tuba in marching band or something?"

“Yes,” Robbie says softly. “If you’re smart, that’s what you’ll do. You’ll volunteer at Habitat for Humanity or a hospital to take the edge off, to feel like you’re doing something. I still do that. When you’re 18, you can join the army or be a cop if you want. Better yet, be a doctor. They help people all the time, and they live longer than superheroes.”

But he doesn’t sound insistent. Robbie worries the option doesn’t exist for people who understand how addictive the feeling is. It’s not only the adrenaline rush – it’s the high of good deeds and pure good will that push it beyond feeling incomplete without a superhero identity. He barely believes he exists without Speedball anymore. It’s his entire life and everyone he knows. “I don’t know what to do with the need to help people. If I had some cure, I’d give it to you and what’s left of my friends. I’d stay away and let them be normal with fantastic, boring lives.”

Because being normal and retired only works if contact with heroes is cut off. Robbie’s seen enough family and friends get involved to know that much – and that Legion Legacy about the Pines twins made it clear that there is just as much demand for heroes as there seems in Robbie’s universe. The need is what makes it so hard to walk away; normal people don’t know how to deal with that kind of crazy, and you do. It feeds the do-gooder compulsion until it grows into a Messiah complex that says 'only you can save them.’

Robbie wraps Dipper in a hard hug that’s as much for himself as the teary-eyed teen. “I’m sorry, Dipper. I know you wouldn’t take a cure if it existed. I wouldn’t either. I don’t want to know how to stop – there’d be nothing left. If you want advice on how to balance being a teenager and a hero, I’m your guy. But stopping? … I know maybe two people who quit for good, and they weren’t anything like you.”

He stops then, before he can tell Dipper what an amazing job he’s done as a Legionnaire. This isn’t the time for positive reinforcement. Robbie would only be confusing him more.

If you think it's cramped for a human, Robbie, try being a 20-foot-tall robot. The only place Drift and Megatron can really comfortably hang out is in the hangar, which means that -- unfortunately -- they are almost constantly in each other's company. Luckily, Drift has his holomattar avatar; it's really the only way he can comfortably move about the outpost, and the most recent holomatter updates included much more refined sensory feedback. Plus, if he happens to need anything from elsewhere in the outpost, he'll be able to bring it back himself. It has the added bonus of most people not recognizing him, and thus not directing any curious stares in his direction.

Drift's not really out for any reason other than people-watching, and getting away as much as he can while technically staying in one spot. He gives Robbie a little wave, or at least the silver-haired woman he's projecting does.

"It's a little cramped," Drift admits, and gives him a smile. "Hi, Robbie. It's me -- er, Drift, that is. I didn't think you'd recognize me without the wheels."

Woah. Robbie had waved at the girl - robot... guy? when he came in, but he hasn't really given her a hard look until she responds. He had just assumed it was Dreamer, from the hair, but he is extremely grateful that he didn't make the mistake calling Drift Dreamer. Awkward.

What pronouns does Drift use? Robbie would've used he before now - the swords seem like overcompensation - but it's probably best to avoid pronouns if it possible. "Hey, Drift. I'd recognize those pistons anywhere."

After a moment of silence to fully appreciate how far his mouth is willing to go, he nods towards Drift's not-so-huge body. "So, car, robot, human? How does that work?"

Drift raises an eyebrow at that joke with a small, amused smile. It might not be his usual appearance, but his usual cheerful demeanor translates well to his holoform.

"Not really human," he says with a wave of his hand, as the holoform flickers briefly. "Just a holomatter avatar -- solid holo projection. My actual body is still parked back in the hangar. I don't use it that often. It's mostly useful when moving through places that aren't, er, strictly friendly to inorganic life." The anti-Robotica sentiments here are plenty familiar to Drift. Most of the galaxy back home hates Cybertronians. "It's coming pretty well in handy lately, though."

Small and amused is better than a big unamused scowl. "Oh. I get it."

He doesn't, but an explanation of how it works is probably going to give him a headache. 'Holo projection' he gets, but is this Drift's consciousness? Or is Drift piloting around a holographic r/c avatar? What happens if you kick his body? Too many questions. "And yeah, it's a little tight. It's not all that friendly for organic life either. I've had skateboards wider than my bunk."

Drift makes a face. Despite the face being totally different, the expression is the same. He'd be happy to answer any questions, he's getting used to them, but the kinds of things humans like to ask always bemuse him.

"That can't be comfortable. I'm not a fan of sleeping in my alt mode, but at least there's room enough in the hangar to stretch when I need it." He pauses for a moment, the silence hanging awkwardly in the air. He was a newcomer to Legion World, and its destruction had been a bitter pill to swallow. It has to be much worse for people who'd been there longer. "How are you holding up?"

"It could be worse," Robbie says with an impish grin, side-eying Drift. "I could be sleeping in the hangar."

He saw a chance to inject a little mirth. He took it.

Because the rest is... probably as bad as Drift is afraid it is. Robbie puffs out his cheeks in a long sigh.

"I'm... okay. I'm alive, my teammates are alive... that's a good day in my books." He doesn't sound very keen on the past 48 hours. "You know I've been living on that stupid space station for a year now, and there were two places I'd call home on the Habitat Deck. I know a lot of people lost more, so... I'm okay."

This is no big deal. Just hanging out. With Vance. Alone.

They’ve done the same thing hundreds of times. It’s not even an exaggeration. They’re going to chill and watch some TV and eat whatever’s not nailed down, maybe talk a bit.

It’s ridiculously normal behavior, when Robbie ignores the possibility of physical contact or having to explain why he's agreed to this date. He’s not opposed to either, but the fear of messing up one or both has supplanted nearly every other source of anxiety since he kissed Vance. Maybe the fear of losing his best friend is still around… but it overlaps with the kissing and feelings worries now.

And that’s the third time he’s nonchalantly passed the door to Vance’s quarters and struck a carefully leaned pose against a wall just down the hall. No one is going to accidentally bump into him and invite him in. Certainly not Vance, who had Robbie’s biometrics keyed into his door months ago so he could let himself instead of lingering in the hall like a doofus who wore a zip hoodie on a date.

Maybe he should go change real quick – no, just go inside, idiot, he thinks harshly. Vance doesn’t bite. Squaring his shoulders and fumbling to unzip his hoodie so it doesn’t feel so buttoned up, Robbie palms the lock and ambles inside. “Hey, it’s me.”

The door whirs shut behind him, louder than normal, as if signalling that he has definitely and finally Arrived. This is officially happening. How do people do this all the time?

It's not actually that different from anything else they've done a couple hundred times. At least, that's what Vance keeps telling himself. Because, yeah, this isn't something new. It's not even new to being here.

Nothing's changed about what they're doing except them. Except, possibly, the purpose. Though the fact that it's so usual for them is part of the reason why Vance had suggested it as a first date. There's also the fact that it's private, so that neither of them is having to put on masks for others or worried about putting on a show for the people around them.

It doesn't stop Vance from pacing in the least, though he at least has enough warning to be able to straighten up before the door opens and Robbie comes in. "Well, nobody else can just let themselves in, so I kinda figured."

Still, it comes with an easy enough smile as Vance shoves his hands into his pockets. There's a pile of various snack foods on his desk, along with some sandwiches and...several different kinds of drinks. Including some decent alcohol, if they wanted it.

He'd obviously done his best to plan for any eventuality with food...and had possibly gone a bit overboard.

"Really?" Robbie shoots a curious, interested look at Vance. He hadn't expected that no one else is on the list. He hadn't thought about it, but it's - it makes him less of a friend and more of an other.

He is an other, right now. The food and the way Vance's hands are buried in his pockets. This isn't their normal, and talking about little things like locks is more usual. "I guess I figured Rich and Sam would be on there. Homesick and the whole... squid puking thing."

With a glance towards the food, Robbie laughs. "Uh, sorry about talking about puke before lunch."

It's not their normal, no. Vance is trying for normal and overshooting, but that's not unusual for him, either. Not in times of upheaval, at least.

This is emotional upheaval if nothing else.

Vance snorts slightly, the corner of his mouth kicking up as his shoulders relax. "Don't worry, I'm used to it. And...Rich hasn't really come to me at night concerning nightmares or anything and I don't think I'm Sam's go-to person for much of anything. I'd let either of them in if they showed up. It's just..." He goes quiet for a moment. "It was easier to allow you access so you could just come in and get some sleep on bad nights. So you got access to the room that nobody else has."

“Awesome. My parents never taught me to share my toys.”

It’s just one of those things to say to fill the dead air and loudly to cover how quiet Vance is. He doesn’t give it much thought other than maybe, if Robbie is lucky, Vance will laugh, and everything will suddenly be as it should. Jokes do miracles with awkward moments.

And then the embarrassment kicks it up a notch, because Robbie just implied that Vance is his toy, which is wrong on several levels, and that he won’t share him, which is inherently right. He’s not very keen on that idea, so he doesn’t bother trying to fluster a backtracking explanation. He just lets it sit there like a weird conversation turd. 'Not interested in sharing.’

After a moment, he picks the conversation back up. “Yeah, if I’d come over and someone else had been here, I probably wouldn’t have come back. I wouldn’t have wanted to be what made them not get help the next time, you know?”

It's only a little awkward. It's not even that Vance notices the 'toy' part, mostly because it's not the important thing in that sentence. It's the part about 'not sharing' that gets to him.

So. A little awkward. But it does prompt him to laugh and shake his head. "That's the thing about being only children. Nobody was ever around to make us share." Because...yeah. Vance hasn't always been good at it himself, though in different ways. He was less good at sharing things like responsibilities than things. He knows the reasons why. But the reasons aren't important right now.

Vance makes his way over to the couch, still smiling. "Well, the difference would have been that they and I both would have likely been awake. Or one of us would be sacked out in bed and one on the couch." Because the only person that Vance is able to actually sleep with in the same bed is Robbie. "And I doubt either of them would have had a problem with you coming in and sharing a cup of coffee or tea or whatever, as long as everybody was awake."

The exclusivity portion is, well, because it just doesn’t seem appealing to get something decent and stable and offer it around. Robbie thinks he’d want to hoard the relationship, if it happens, but in a nice way that wouldn’t be too demanding. At least, he hopes it wouldn’t. He really doesn’t want to ever be indifferent about Vance. It’s either serious enough to want to protect the relationship and get every last drop of attention or … there’s no or. If it isn’t that important, then he shouldn’t be bending his own rules to be in the relationship. He does not want to be either of his parents.

Robbie follows him to the couch, nodding as he perches on the nearest arm. “Maybe. I mean – you definitely know how you’d react, and maybe you’d talk me into staying. But I’d get it stuck in my head that someone else might need you, and I can deal, so it’d be better if I stayed in my own quarters in case they wanted to go to yours. I know it’s stupid, but sometimes I’m too tired to fight how my head’s wired.”

For his part, Vance pretty much flops down on the couch. He could sit properly, sure, but that wasn't as comfortable. And, frankly, this is all bordering as close to uncomfortable as he wants to go.

"Yeah, I get it. But that's one of the reasons why I gave you access to my rooms and nobody else." He looks over at Robbie. "You're always welcome here. Though I know that brains are terrible things sometimes, so...you know. If you ever need somebody to fight it along side you, I'm available."

"Oh." Robbie looks cheered by that revelation. Special accommodations due to his messed up brain - he's used to that. Exclusive access because Vance is harbouring secret feelings for months? That's daunting.

"My brain's actually feeling pretty solid right now. Nerves plead the fifth,” he says with a half smile. “But we don’t need to go digging for brain worms.”

He waves a hand at the vid screen and then vaguely at the food. “You’ve got a plan. I’ll follow your lead.”

The cheerfulness wasn't unnoticed and Vance laughed softly. "I didn't actually realize how I felt about you until after you had access to the room. And it was as much for me as for you because I didn't have to wake up enough to get the door."

Sure, he could use his TK to open the door, but he needed to be a little bit awake to manage it.

He reached out, picking up his omnicomm and brought up a list. "I downloaded a bunch of movies. Wasn't sure what either one of us would be interested in, so I got a lot of favorites and some stupid action stuff. Most of the latter is recent stuf, so I have no idea what the quality is like."

“It’s because I’m so adorable when I sleep.” Robbie caught a glimpse of a familiar, comfy spot and slid on in. Teasing and a little saucy, but it’s nothing new. He can breathe easy. “Since you didn’t have to waste all. That. Energy. Walking your lazy butt to door, you had the time to notice.”

He slides off the arm of the couch, smudging himself between it and Vance for a better look at the Omnicom. Robbie wants a comedy really, something engaging, but he wants something to pay attention too and ignore Vance. That’s a lousy date. “Stupid action stuff sounds good. I don’t think I’m up for a lot of heavy plot, unless you really want us to get sucked into some depressing subtitled flick.”

"Who walks to a door when I can just hit the button with my TK?" Which...actually required him to be far more awake than actually getting up and getting the door. Even if it did mean he got to stay in bed.

He shifts the omnicomm over a bit so that Robbie can read it more easily. "Technically, since we have the Babelfish upgrades, nothing needs to be subtitled." And yes, he did just make a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference. He doesn't feel bad about it. He touches a couple of things on his omnicomm. "Something from this time period? Probably still not much plot, but at least we won't have seen it."

Robbie is sure a movie version of Vance would move the Omnicom further away, so Robbie has to move closer still.

Vance isn’t like that though, which is… more confusing than helpful. It doesn’t make this feel different – it’s so normal for them. Rob can barely keep the surprise off his face when he realizes that, yeah, he wants this to feel different. To the point where he would prefer the awkwardness of two minutes ago to this bland normality.

“That looks good.” Robbie hasn’t so much as glanced at the choice. He’s taking the opportunity to watch Vance intently, like staring will suddenly explain him. “Something new and light. Something your nerdy butt can’t quote, Arthur Dent.”

Grif pokes his head in the door before the rest of him.

"Is the cat situation controlled?"

He knows how this could go.

Robbie has already lunged for the cat (who is lunging in turn for the open door), and there is great, cartoonish struggle between man and feline going on for Grif's amusement. After a few swear words that are so muffled by gritted teeth that they might as well be in a @%$!# bubble, the cat flees back to the bunk and proceeds to clean itself.

"It's..." Robbie trails off. Niels is never truly controlled - Robbie is lucky he doesn't have to regularly chase him through cities anymore. He has a certain amount of machismo at stake though. "He knows who's boss."

Niels is boss.

Grif laughs, because other peoples' misfortune is still funny, but he shuts the door behind him to prevent another attempt.

"Got it. So who are we making sleep on the floor?" Because obviously, the cat has dibs.

Maybe the reason they're all here is goddamn terrible, but Grif's dealing with it the way he always deals with things.

The laughter doesn't bug him. He'd laugh too, if it was someone else wrestling a cat.

Robbie shrugs at the question, looking at the flat, gray floor. Totally sus. The dust of the ages could be on a floor that color and you'd never know. "Well, I'm not sleeping on the floor."

He side-eyes the cat and then sighs. "I guess I can double up with Vance. It's not like we haven't been on the same piece of furniture before."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Catchall

1

Re: 1

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

2

2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Vance, pre Legion World explosion

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1

no subject

no subject

no subject