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Entry tags:

(no subject)

Who:

p2iioniichacker
Where: Goldenrod City Inn, presumably.
When: Tuesday right after 4th Wall weekend.
Summary: Watanuki and Sollux and shenanigans.
Rating: PG-13 for Sollux's potentially foul mouth.
Log:
He had no idea how he'd wound up there, suddenly in a strange hotel with no recollection of the last three days. His employers back in Violet seemed completely unperturbed at the development when he called them; they assured him his contract was over, when Watanuki was certain he'd had a day or two left...

Either way, he was free now to do as he pleased. As it turned out there was one person he knew in Goldenrod, whom he'd been looking forward to meeting for some time. Finding him was simply a matter of asking Akiba to track down the coordinates of his 'gear.

Which was how Kimihiro Watanuki wound up on the doorstep of Sollux Captor's inn room, giving three polite knocks.

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Sollux had pretty much just been sitting around in his newly shared hotel room and feeling sorry for himself when he heard the knocks. Really, his life was just about the worst thing around right now, and everything sucked, but he wasn't just going to ignore whoever was at the door. Probably someone for Rose, since he hadn't bothered telling anyone that he'd changed rooms - not that anyone other than Karkat had even known where his room was in the first place.

It took longer than necessary for him to get up to make the short trip to the door, and Watanuki could probably hear the sounds of Sollux managing to stumble over things because he didn't bother with his Houndoom for the short walk, before he finally opened the door, looking pretty much completely apathetic and listless.

"If you're looking for Rose, she isn't here right now."

He paused as the door swung open, revealing Sollux looking more run-down that Watanuki had seen him in some weeks. He looked the way he'd looked before he'd gone back to his world and lost his eyes, which alarmed him. Gently, Watanuki reached forward and brushed his fingertips across Sollux's knuckles. He itched to touch his hair, to ask if he'd been sleeping well, had he been eating, had he even left this room? He kept himself in check.

"I'm not here to see her, Sollux-kun." He hefted the package under his arm, still warm. No doubt that Sollux could smell it. "I woke up in town and thought I'd pay you a visit. I made you a pie."

"WN...?" Okay, now that was a bit more unexpected. Of course, Sollux really couldn't bring himself to care that much right now, even though normally he would have been happy to finally meet his friend in person.

"Sorry, I'm not hungry. Now isn't really a good time."

Watanuki peered right past him into the dark hotel room. Of course Sollux didn't need light to see by, but surely sitting alone all day was no good.

"Do you have a refrigerator?" Didn't most inn rooms have them? "It'll keep. Your friend can have some. How have things been, Sollux-kun?" Another worried brush across the younger boy's knuckles. "You look sad."

"I don't know if there's a hull, I just moved in with Rose earlier today. But there should be one, you can put it in there if you wanna go find it." Sollux moved out of the way to let Watanuki in, pausing at the second brush against his hand. Comforting touches are somewhat foreign to trolls outside of redrom, so it makes him stop and think about it for a moment before he gets back to the other question.

"...KK disappeared today. He's my best friend."

Watanuki had never been a physical person--someone more readily intimate wouldn't have hesitated to hug Sollux, but Watanuki wasn't that person, and he'd only ever hugged Kohane-chan back home. While Sollux was only slightly older than her, his temperament was enough to stop Watanuki. No doubt that if he were to find out what Sollux's view on comforting touches was, he would shriek. Certainly if he felt any attachment to Sollux, it was fraternal in nature. He doesn't ask why Sollux calls it a 'hull', but shuffles the word away for later.

At the mention of Karkat, Watanuki's face twists in sympathy. He's sharply reminded of Doumeki's departure and the inadmissible pain he'd felt. "I'm sorry I've come at such a bad time," he offered. He pushed past Sollux into the room, figuring he might as well leave the pie, if nothing else. "Should I leave?"

Luckily with how troll romance works, it wouldn't be nearly as bad as Watanuki might assume; Sollux might have had the tiniest bit of a crush, but it was very pale in nature, closely resembling that of a human familial relationship. Not that either of them would even know that or discuss it. Relationships sure are weird!

"No, it's okay. I don't really care if you're here, I'm just not... really in a good mood. That's all." Sollux looked lost as he said that, not really even sure what to think about anything but not in a mood to offer up his own feelings. He made his way back over to the sofa after Watanuki came in, just collapsing there and not seeming to care what else went on.

Watanuki nodded absently, opening the mini-fridge and shoving the pie inside. He watched it a bit mournfully; if only Sollux had gotten to taste it warm... Straightening himself, he found a pen and a pad of memo paper and hastily wrote a note to Rose, inviting her to the pie when she returned. He stuck it on the fridge, and turned to where Sollux was slumped on the couch.

"Well, I hope I can change that. Are you free this afternoon?"

Of course Sollux couldn't watch what Watanuki was doing, so while his friend was occupied he just went back to his tyical self-deprecation. His blindness may have softened his moodswings and left him defaulting into a happier mood, but an event like this could still easily put him into a depressed state. When his friend returned, though, Sollux was quick to come back to attention.

"I'm never really busy, I can't really work any more and my friends are all kind of occupied. So yeah, I guess I'm free. Why?"

"Well, you could always try learning Braille?" He suggested. "At least you'd have books to read." He paused a beat, before adding: "And I was planning on inviting you to come to the department store with me. Akiba wants to evolve."

He wouldn't press, but he had the feeling that getting out of this stuffy room would do the young boy--and his pokemon--some good.

"Braille? What's that?" On a planet where everyone with any sort of disability is summarily killed, things like Braille aren't really necessary. If you can't take care of yourself? You get culled. Actually, you got killed for just about anything - not having your quadrants filled, crossing the wrong person, not taking care of your lusus - but that's just the way life works when your entire species leaves their children behind on a monster-infested planet to fend for themselves.

"Isn't Akiba your Porygon? I didn't think they could evolve."

"It's a touch-based script that allows the blind to read," Watanuki explained. Doubtlessly if he were to find out just how harsh conditions on Alternia were, he'd be appalled, but plenty of young Earth children don't know what Braille is, so it didn't occur to him to ask.

"As for the Porygons--they can evolve twice. Porygon2 and Porygon-Z." He quoted the information in the catalogue, "You download disks into them and trade them. I've heard the second one is a bit troublesome, though..."

Edited 2011-06-07 07:06 (UTC)

"Humans have something like that? That's weird. I guess it would work until I can figure out TZ's way, though." The thought of some sort of touch-based thing wasn't quite as fun as smelling and tasting your way through life (because really, just being able to tell someone what they smelled like or amusing yourself by licking things seemed hilarious, even now), but Sollux did have to admit it was probably more practical. Especially without a telepathic dragon teaching you how to smell colors.

"That's actually kind of cool. I wonder if Disasterisk would get any smarter if I traded it. Not that it could get any stupider, it doesn't even seem to recognize its own name any more when I say it."

Taking that to mean that Sollux was alright with the plan, he began to lead the way to the door--and paused.

"Ah, do you want to use your Houndoom? I could hold your hand, if you want..."

But he somehow doubted that the independant-minded Sollux would let himself be led around by the hand like a small child. "Oh, and we can look for audiobooks to teach you Braille, while we're there."

It was probably as close to agreement as anyone was going to get at the moment, since Sollux wasn't really in a mood to do much of anything. That idea made him give just the tiniest bit of a smirk, though. "If you really want to lead me around like a little wiggler I'll let you, but using Hellbeast is probably easier."

He grabbed his backpack off the couch next to him, grabbing the correct pokeball and letting his Houndoom out before standing up to let the pokemon lead him after Watanuki.

"If you really think it would help, I wouldn't mind trying."

That smirk was oddly reassuring; if Sollux was feeling good enough to smile, even meanly, he'd be alright.

"I definitely think it would help," Watanuki declared, shutting the door behind them. "With Braille, you'd have your basic literacy back. You could even see about text-to-voice things, that could be helpful. Who knows, you might even be able to program again."

Admittedly, he had no idea if Sollux found that desirable at all, but it was an option worth considering.

"Ehehe, I actually already have a text-to-voice program, I wrote it a while back. It's come in handy a lot already since everyone from our universe pretty much always uses text instead of anything else. It does sound like it could be useful to learn still. Although if I really do need a book I can always just ask Rose, she likes reading."

Sollux followed along, with helpful nudges from Hellbeast, as they made their way out. Really he still felt like shit, especially now that he was thinking about how wrong he had probably been about everything being okay now, but at least this was a distraction from that. Which was better than nothing.

"Why do you use text instead of talking? Isn't the second much faster?" he asked as he led the way out of the building.

When the sun finally hit Watanuki's face he felt better, and he realized just how claustrophobic that little room had been. Surely Sollux would feel better after a little vitamin D. He didn't know his way around town very well just yet, but the Department Store was hard to miss, so he was just making a beeline.

"Well... I think it's just a habit now, you know? We didn't all used to be close to each other though, we all lived pretty far apart so we just always used messenger programs to talk. And in Sgrub it was really the only way to stay in contact since most of us were on completely different worlds from each other. So it's just what we're used to, I guess. And at least for some of us it isn't any slower, I've always been a fast typer."

Sollux made a bit of a face when he first felt the sun (after six sweeps of avoiding the sun due to his species' complete intolerance of it, it was still strange to get used to it not being a problem), but just continued following along. It's not like he could be helpful at all with navigating at the moment.

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sorry for taking so long!

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responding from my ds, sorry for any typos/default icon!

what NO defaults are NOT ALLOWED D<

:c you're mean

Typos are also NOT ALLOWED. FUN IS NOT ALLOWED, KYA.

man, I must be in big trouble with all this fun I'm having, then.

/slaps into handcuffs, leads away

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