othellovonryan

[ She'd be helping more if she wasn't a broken mess of a human being!! ]

Hm...

Check in with me after five minutes? If I'm hazier than this, start tapping.

[And they would need less help if they weren't also broken so!!!]

I can do that.

Thanks ...

[ she closes her eyes with a sigh, and tries to stop focusing on the staticky overheated skip-skip-skipping mess that is her brain right now.

breathes.

tenses and relaxes one muscle group at a time, every single one, from top to bottom and bottom to top.

lets herself feel donnie's weight on her back. his breathing. his scent. the familiar sense of comfort and safety, of pressure release. it was hard to melt into the brr before, but it's starting to get easier now, little by little ]

[Donnie watches the time at the edge of his goggles, mind idly pondering better ways to assemble the Egg daggers. The current design works, but it never hurts to have an easier way to shift between the two spells. Allow it to take long for the fittings to loosen and start exposing the spells, that sort of thing.]

It's been five minutes, Chocochi.

Mm?

You with me?

Mmhm.

[ flexes her fingers, and then, carefully, her wings ]

Yeah. I'm here. Day 108, Dee-kun's room.

Correct.

Do you want taps?

Think 'm okay without. Fifteen more minutes?

Okay. [Kisses the back of her shoulder.] Take your time.

Thanks …

[ Nestles into the pillow with a sigh. ]

[ By the time those fifteen minutes are up, she's pretty much a puddle, as floppy and melted as she usually gets when he squishes her. If it wasn't for the rhythm of her breathing, and the faint , it'd be easy to think she'd fallen asleep. ]

[He had grabbed some of those pieces to fiddle with them on the corner of the bed over her shoulder, slotting and taking them apart as he waited for the minutes to pass.]

You feel a lot more relaxed.

Brrrrrr.

That's good. [Another kiss to her shoulders.]

Mm. [ her wings do a lil fluff-puff. more subtle than usual, but still, it's there. ]

No more skippy.

That's good.

[Another kiss.] Did you retrieve the thought you lost?

[ bird purr. it isn't a churr, there are differences - more content/relaxed/puddle time ]

Play the recording again?

Okay.

[Time to replay the conversation.]

- Oh!

[ paps her hands against the bed!! ]

Yes?

I remember.

[ folds her arms under her head ]

She was thinking you could use the boon on Aloy-san. I pointed out that you weren't likely to do that without explicit permission first, since — well … [ his girlfriend and his brother both have significant trauma around the whole thing ]

But then she reframed it as offering Aloy-san a bond.

And then ... with the especially-especially ... I was going to say that she really didn't go long. She said the right things in the right way, and I could tell that she was genuine. [ she tilts her head around as best she can to peer up at him. ] I'm not mad.

You're being protective, it's sweet, but I don't want this to drive a wedge between you and Tryse-san, okay?

Oh -

And then I was going to say, uhm, yes please to the thread analysis, actually, 'cuz I think a facts-based might make it through easier. You're not an unbiased source, but you are objective.

Raph has a trauma. And you, but she knew about Raph to an extent. Don't tell him she brought up the weaponization, it'd probably wig him out.

But considering the whole 'Aloy shouldn't be pushed' and the 'invasion of space' are things SHE said, it seems kind of obvious an even deeper invasion would do the exact opposite of anything helpful. And it's not as if I can pretend I suddenly can understand people and keep it on the down low.

That is conversation, not something I should just do, especially when I care about the consequences. Recordings have me engaged, at least what's shared are things I'm already given permission for.

[He grumbles.] My annoyance is not a wedge. I was never the one trying to make a wedge in the first place. Me getting annoyed or angry isn't a reason to push people away. If it was, I'd have no relationships. I swear, it's like Raph and I are the only Eggs who know how to have fights with people we like.

My bias is focused entirely on less concrete factors, like personality and force of will. That may be a little too much credit, MAYBE.

Raph-kun and I are too same hat about this kind of thing. [ A quiet huff. ] Definitely not mentioning it anywhere he might hear.

[ Unfolds her arms, reaches back, and gives him a careful li'l scritch under the mask tails. ]

Getting used to arguing with people can be tough. Kaito n' me could fight like cat and dog for hours and hours and then suddenly it's like nothing ever happened, but I have one heated exchange with someone on Sparrow and I get so anxious I wanna throw myself in the lake. [ ... accidentally dropping the korone lore. she's touched on it very briefly with sorawo, but she's never admitted outloud just how "OH GOD" things can get. ]

... I agree, though, that it's gotta be a conversation. There's a logic to what Tryse-san was thinking — that is, I can see what she meant and why she suggested it? Little nudges instead of pushes, with the boon to scope out whether you need to change your approach. But. No. I couldn't ever condone using the boon that way.

[ drops her hand back down ]

Spreadsheets me later, Dokkun.

At least he's still all right with the mindmeld.

[He grumbles again, but arches into the scritch.] I don't have that. I'll argue with everybody. I go over it later and then I might get anxious if I realize I let my anger take hold too much, but then I would usually just make or do something and then they'd get it. But making things is harder here and I don't know as much of what people like. Or if they would even understand.

...do you argue with Sparrow much?

I'd risk it for a new relationship. Not when the whole reason of the misunderstanding was about crossing boundaries. You don't apologize for eating someone's pizza by eating pizza in front of them. A little worrying if she didn't see that already.

Can do.

That's part of your whole thing, right? As brothers — as family. Makes sense it'd be different.

[ sssshhhe pauses, though, at the question ]

… Complicated. I like Sparrow a lot, but I wouldn't say I'm close with most of them? "Friendly but not friends," and some I barely know at all. And … well, between some stuff in my past, and … my approach to games is shifting away from hers, but there's still some overlap — and then team politics and differing priorities - [ flappy hands ]

I spend a lot of time feeling like an outsider? … Ah, that makes it sound bad. It's a me thing and I'm working on it. Anyway.

[ flappyflappyflappy, but then she sighs and lets her hands rest ]

Mmmm ... Well, now she knows that you'd have considered that an invasion of privacy. I also pitched the idea that maybe you guys could give the boon a try sometime? Prob'ly not immediately, but somewhere down the line.

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