cactusy | IC contact for lastvoyages

He'll find her eventually in one of the safety nets off the hull, ten feet down and lying on her stomach, her face squished against the netting so that all she can see are the stars below them. When she hears his voice, she doesn't move.

"Thanks," she says calmly. "But I'm good."

"More for me, I guess. How about company?" He crouches at the edge of the ship's deck, looking down at her through the railing. "Or would you rather I fucked off somewhere else?"

Nothing about her body language changes. She doesn't so much as twitch.

"I don't know."

"Then I'm gonna hang around until you decide," B says, moving to sit, dangling his feet off the edge through the railing. He doesn't want to set off any alarms, but he's not leaving unless he's asked to, either. "Not gonna ask if you're okay. Clearly you're not."

"I don't think I can decide."

She's both very tired, and very focused; all excess is being shed.

"Can you do me a favor, though."

"Probably? Might depend a little bit on what it is." He decides not to open his thermos yet, in case the favor involves going somewhere else.

"Can you call Root and tell here what's going on?"

Root would want to be here, with her, but explaining everything is just so far outside the abilities of her bandwidth right now.

"Oh." B's expression softens a bit. "Yeah, sure, I can do that. If she hasn't seen it, herself. Not sure who all Jedao put on that filter." He fishes out his communicator to make the call.

"Thanks. We found Eiffel this morning, and then he gave us the slip in the infirmary, and it's, uh-- all happened pretty fast. But if Root was on the filter, she would have come looking for me by now."

She's tech-oriented, and Shaw has no doubt that she keeps a close eye on the network.

"Well, I'm surprised he put me on, to be honest," B comments as he finds the number. "Ain't like me and Eiffel really talk a lot, even if I like the guy well enough. All right-- hey, Root. This is B? I'm up here on deck with Sameen, and there's been a thing with Eiffel that she wanted me to explain before you came up here."

"Thanks," Shaw murmurs, and says nothing more.

Yes, Root keeps a close eye on the network. Roman's and Jedao's messages had her on edge already, so as soon as B calls her, Root is ready to go.

"I'm on my way."

It doesn't take long, even though Root forces herself not to rush. She's been operating under the assumption that Shaw needs space, so it's a relief to be specifically called.

Yes, he said there was something to explain before she got there, but she has been itching to go looking for Shaw, so here she is, not smiling, gaze focused, all of her ready to take in the story.

"What exactly happened?"

"Root--" B stops and sighs when the connection cuts off. He climbs to his feet and moves a little ways away from the railing, and Sameen, before Root gets there. Mostly to give Sameen the space she'd seemed to want from the story.

"Hey," he says. Then he runs his hand over his hair and starts in. "So Eiffel apparently got sent home. Briefly. Came back with a chip in his head that markedly changed his personality. There's a group of folks planning on how to get it out right now. Sameen's understandably pretty upset, for multiple reasons, all of which I bet you can guess, too."

"You don't have to stand in the corner and whisper," Shaw calls out, rolling over to project her voice upwards to them. "I'm just kinda too tired to explain everything, that's all."

Oh, that's a lot for Shaw to deal with, yes. Root's brows furrow a little, but otherwise, she maintains a mostly unfazed appearance.

She can't do anything about Eiffel, and it sounds like that's being handled anyway. But Sameen--

Sameen is okay, or as okay as she can be. Root nods to B, in both acknowledgement and thanks, and goes to the railing to look down at Shaw.

"Want some company down there?"

After a nod back to Root, B steps back again, letting Root talk to her wife. He doesn't leave, not yet, but he does let the person Sameen actually asked for kind of take over for the moment.

What Shaw wants is for people to stop giving her questions to answer, but she doesn't say that. She does know that they probably both can't come down, though, so instead of responding to Root's question, she does what she always does when she's ready to come up out of the net: she stands precariously near its edge, does a few test bounces on the balls of her feet, and then launches herself up to grab the lowest rung of the deck railing, which she uses to pull herself up the rest of the way.

"How are you doing with this?" she asks B as she climbs.

Root takes This time where she is not being addressed to look Shaw over and smooth down any particularly errant strands of hair or wrinkles in her clothing. Don't mind her, she's listening!

Aw, that is cute as hell, Root fussing quietly over her gal. He doesn't know whether Sameen hates it or loves it, but it's definitely cute. ~~Steve would never let him do that, he's sure.~~

"Could definitely be better. Eiffel's not one of my closest friends, but it's shitty this happened to him, and... hell. Maybe it's not the same as HYDRA hammering trigger phrases into my head to make me compliant, but it sure feels similar enough to make my skin crawl."

Shaw, perhaps unsurprisingly, doesn't react much either way to the fussing - though she does stay very still in a way that can only help facilitate it, and she waits until Root is done before she reaches out and snags a cookie from B, holding it in her hand but not eating it.

"Think they'll be able to get the chip out?"

"Jedao is leading the efforts," Root chines in, satisfied with the state of Shaw's appearance. "They'll get it out. I'll help if they need some extra out-of-the-box thinking, but I don't imagine that'll be necessary."

"They will," B agrees with a nod. "There are so many doctors and magic-users on this ship, I'd be surprised if they had any trouble at all. And so many of them love Eiffel, so they'll be especially motivated." That's not a thing he's worried about, this problem not getting fixed. The annoying bit is that whenever Eiffel dies, it's likely to come back, so he's going to hope the guy manages not to die again.

"I guess... worst-case scenario, they can ask the Admiral," she says, still considering the cookie. "Kinda curious about this out-of-the-box thinking, though. Just cutting it out isn't always the best plan. As, uh, seen here."

And as seen from her own personal experiences with Decima's fake chip.

"B is right. They'll probably need to make use of magic of some kind. People really care about him. They'll make sure he's good to go."

Root touches Shaw's elbow, offering the comfort of touch if she wants it.

"There was a network post going up about their plans, not sure if you're on it or not, but I muted the whole thing because it was freaking me out," B admits. "But they're on it, they're gonna fix it. He'll be okay. He'll be himself again. Nobody here's gonna stop until that's the case."

(no subject)

cactusy - 2024-01-08 22:24 (UTC) - Expand

IC contact for lastvoyages

Action

Re: Action

Action

Re: Action

Action

Re: Action

Action

want to rope Root-mun into this thread, or should I just hit up her inbox?

I can ping her over if you want to just do his message to her in here!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)