logsinthenight | bee beez in the trap [ partially open ]

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bee beez in the trap [ partially open ]

characters: Sora, Bucky, Misty, Jason, and you!
location: All over Beacon with a focus on the amusement park exploration!
date/time: Backdated to Feb 27th for the exploration, stretching all the way up to the 19th just before the event.
content: March catch-all! (Even though the amusement park exploration is in February technically!) This is the official Sora gives your character a cupcake for his birthday post! Like the Valentine's chocolate, if you want to handwave your character receiving a cupcake, please do so! They're all chocolate, vanilla, or blueberry (the latter courtesy of Soldat.) That will be on the 9th, so if your character was outside when they got their cupcake from Sora, there's a very good chance they got colorbombed by the Birds of Paradise event on that day as well. Also in this post: a dinner, some stops at the gacha machine and the library, some cooking, some crafting, some note taking, some rain.
warnings: Discussion of the cybernetics and the stuff he had to do to get the cybernetics might get a little gross and scary but everything else should be pretty okay!

[ A: Amusement Park (02/27); closed to Bucky, Misty, and Jason ]

Explorations with Team Wolf Pack are for fun only! Imminent death all around notwithstanding, Sora wants this to be a good time! (And maybe a test run for that unsupervised launch into the unknown him and Jason are still planning. Hey, he'd still like to know how far he and Jason can go into the darkness, just the two of them!)

So, here's him, walking along, occasionally striking up a hiking game or asking questions of his fellow explorers. It's not going to be a long journey, but he'd like to keep their spirits up just in case whatever happens to meet them isn't friendly.

Good thing it is. And boy, isn't the amusement park a treat! It's basically all the games at the Night Market and nothing else except for that eerie old rollercoaster, huh? Very picturesque. Let's enjoy the ambiance while we can before heading back home.

[ B: Misty's Cabin; Closed to Bucky and Misty ]

They're almost done getting Soldat's stuff over to Misty's, so they're having one last "hey we should probably eat some of this food since we're going to be serving three instead of four to five from now on" meal. That's a little depressing, but they're a unit and know how to keep that kind of depressing nonsense out of a conversation by now!

So they talk about other things. Like what they're up to in Beacon these days. The B&B! Their patrols! Dancing lessions! The fistbump report! And, like, you know, more small introductory things that they have missed about each other two months into their weird little group dynamic. Like, how Misty's really into gators? And how Soldat's a little more casual with their language now. (Too casual. Misty chides them for using strong language around the child. Sora's like, man, Misty, I'm twenty now, you can swear around me.)

Anyway, Sora is also a cyborg, right? No arm, though. Sora brings up that his eyes are just for aesthetic at this point. (He may have traded the reticles away during the last Night Market, oops.)

"Yeah, so now it's just my heart and lungs that are metal? And my bones are reinforced. And like, everything else. There's a spike in my brain, too, but I don't think it does anything." Sora takes a bite of his pasta and thinks nothing of it. Sometimes, people just have spikes in their brains? It's 2020, do what you need to cope.

[ C: All over Beacon; Open ]

(i. just kind of everywhere)

[ March 9th is Sora's birthday! Or, well, it's close enough. He's having a quieter celebration with the wolf pack + Jason and Naminé later on, but he and Soldat made a ton of cupcakes and he's assuming everyone attending his birthday is only going to have one or two. So, this is an excited dude here with a big Tupperware tub of cupcakes. He'll be stained with bright colors from the bird spirits chucking colored powder in the air, and once he changes into his novelty bongo card shirt, he'll probably get increasingly giddy about it as the day goes on. Hey, it's fun! ]

Hi! Do you want a cupcake? Today's my birthday, I made too many. Here!

(ii. gacha machine)

[ It's the same prompt as i except your character can comment on Sora putting slices of cupcake into the gacha machine and, like, talking to it? Like it's an actual person? What's up with that? He's also going to put a little party hat on top of its little dome and some festive curled ribbon on its handle for his birthday.

Like, really, he is just chatting at this thing about the finer details of his birthday like it's gonna talk back to him. What's his deal? ]

(iii. library)

[ After delivering the Librarian's cake, Sora can either be caught sweeping up (it's a Monday, and Mondays are for cleaning the library) or seen later at one of the tables, still somewhat colorstained but with arms mostly wiped off so he doesn't have to clean the table. He's got a couple of notebooks with him and he's writing in them - letters, notes, recipes, schedules - and switching between notebooks so he doesn't get too bored with any one task. He also has a couple of weird reports stacked in front of him that he refers to every once in a while, wiggling his pen around in some thought.

However, if he sees another person in the library, he's going to grin and turn away from his work. And yes, he's going to stage whisper at them. ]

Hey! Here! It's my birthday! Have a cupcake!

[ D: The Landmark's restaurant kitchen; Open ]

The spirits are tittering as Sora slides his second pie into the trash, sighing. Okay, so he wants to think he's getting better at this whole pie thing, but clearly the first pie was a fluke. Or maybe he's just gotta make sure he actually pays attention to the pie while it's in the oven? (Good thing no fires can catch in Beacon. That would have been kind of messy.)

There's a passable blueberry pie cooling on the counter nearby, but man, he really did want to have two pies done today so he knows he's got the hang of it before the end of the month. After all, Maes' birthday is important too!

If anyone enters the kitchen and even so much as looks at the pie, Sora will smile at them, looking a little frazzled. "Hey. Want some pie?"

[ E: Patrol (North Beacon); Open ]

[ Sora's doing that weird thing where he collects rocks and stashes them near the torch posts again, except it's only the one near the lake, and he's not doing any further renovations to the torch he already put there. Instead, he's making sort of this weird oblong mound of rocks next to the torch that just keeps getting higher and higher and higher as the days go on. Eventually, it'll start evening out at knee height! What is this thing?

Sora keeps working on it during his patrols, and can also be seen wandering Downtown, checking the storefronts, but the majority of his time will be spent dutifully on patrol, picking up rocks and adding to his weird long pile. Hey, 2020, do what you need to cope, etc.

It also might be raining! ~*Ambiance*~. ]

[ F: Wildcard ]

[ If we set up something for March and want to put it somewhere I'll put it here! Will match format, pm me, etc. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sora has been sitting here, eyes wide, the next bite of his food hovering between his dish and his mouth. Uh. Well! That certainly was not the thing he intended to happen when he mentioned that! As with a lot of things in life, it's just something he's woven into the pattern of his life and moved on with. Nothing hurts when you don't put a lot of thought into it, after all.

"I, uh. Sorry, Misty, probably shoulda." He scratches the back of his head. Soldat knows about this, but he's sort of realized she might be a touch out of the loop. "You know the other guy?" She should be vaguely familiar with the idea of the duality of his situation - it's very similar to Soldat's, except Sora's sergeant fell asleep for his own safety. "He got it done about two, three years ago now. Like, I remember what he did to do it too - he was just." Scared. As you do. "A bunch of scientists and doctors with a place called Thunder Corp. It was... risky, not gonna lie."

As for what it does... Sora shrugs. "Well, I mean... They swore up and down that it was just there to keep things running, so I always guessed it had something to do with the eye stuff? Like the infrared and the night vision and stuff. But none of that works anymore, so like. It shouldn't be doing anything, right?"

"These being the people. Who convinced a child. To undergo extensive cybernetic surgery. Remember what I said about that? Remember that no decent scientist would experiment on a kid?" Whatever Sora says, Soldat will never believe that Skyler could give properly informed consent to anything like that at his age. No decent doctor-- (There's no such fucking thing. No argument from me, pal. No.)-- would even make the offer. And hearing that they put goddamn metal in his goddamn brain is not helping either assessment.

"Brains are. Kid. Brains are. They're delicate. You mess with them in any way, and it. It fucks shit up. I know. I know." They're inching closer to full-on panic, uneven breathing and fixed staring at the table and arm starting to buzz.

Edited 2020-03-10 07:25 (UTC)

On reflex, out spreads a hand in the center of the table. No contact for Soldat, but signals. Approximations. There always ought to be something. Nothing need spiral more than it already is, so soothing him is as much a priority as getting more context. Thus she speaks first to him, in a brittle calm that's born of biting back worry more than anything else, "Breathe. He's okay right now, and this can be fixed. We'll get it out. He'll be right as rain."

Attention then shifts to Sora.

"Let's say best case scenario, yeah? Best case. It did eye stuff, but doesn't anymore. Then it's still a piece of metal in a real tender place, rife to be messed with and knocked around even accidentally. Still machinery near something real delicate and electricity-dependent. Right? Unnecessary. Ought to go."

"I know, I know, I." Sorry, he guesses he wasn't thinking. He didn't think about it. He hasn't thought about it since. It just wasn't a part of the tapestry of what was important to him. See, this is easier when he has plainer priorities, a set goal, a mission. Or if something hurts enough that he tries to follow it. Pain's always real. If it doesn't hurt, or if he doesn't realize that something should hurt, then it wasn't real enough to worry about in the first place.

Pain's real. Pain's always real. Soldat's is real. Let's start there.

"I don't know that it's ever hurt me, and I don't know if it'll ever hurt me in a way that matters." Sora shakes his head. "But I know that's only so far. I guess I've never thought about it." Or himself much, really.

As for Misty... Golly, she's really saying that like he needs convincing, huh? He puts his hands up. "I - it's okay, um." He bites the inside of his lip. "I wasn't hiding it, I just. Forget sometimes. That things happen to me and that they're bad. You're right. You, um, both. Are." He puts his face in his hands. He really is just that dumb. Honest to God. "I just don't know about any of all this and I've never been able to do anything about it. Is all."

They know both the signal and the tone, gulp back the threatening panic, adamantly refuse to relive brain surgery memories, and shut their eyes to focus on folding paper. Frog, this time. Frog, for Sora and his bounciness and good nature and offended puffing. Fold this way, and that, and another.

They listen while they focus. It helps, both things.

"I know. Sorry. Not your fault." Soldat makes the specific decision not to get into the memories. It's not important, and Sora seems upset enough. The point had not been to upset, anyway. "But it. It can't stay in there, kid. It can't. Ain't safe for you. And I can't. Can't let anything happen to you, okay?" They've lost Crowley and Aziraphale. They extracted a promise from Misty to do her damndest not to get killed. Now it's Sora's turn.

Long gazes at both boys at the table. No speaking further until a pause has been reached, and it seems clear across the board that everyone is calm. Little mired in their own knee-jerk reactions at present, she included, but none have jumped the deep end. Good.

"Even if it's not soon, we have to look into it. The science types could...take some kind of glance, with me supervising." Because, hey, no trusting them as far as they could be thrown, but head cracking would best be done with at least one or two preliminary tests. "There's just no way that's better in there than not. The way this place messes with people already, we don't need any extra."

(Ribbit.)

Putting this in context with how he could hurt other people is probably the best way to get Sora on board with this, so Sora tries that. He doesn't feel like anything's wrong, personally, but he looks at Soldat and knows that if anything happened to him, that'd wreck them. With Misty? He doesn't see her being terribly happy with that either. And no matter the intensity they care for him, he's not sure if he'd be able to keep it together if either of them started falling apart on his account. So. That's a start. Motivation. Believing in something he can't see or feel because his friends asked him to. He can do that.

"It's okay. I know you're just worried." Rhys would know what to do, right? Cybernetics guy. He'd ask him. "Do either of you, um, know a guy named Rhys? He's got cybernetics too, been meaning to ask him about stuff." He continues to worry the inside of his lip with his teeth. There's always the possibility that it keeps more than just his eye stuff running. It's his heart and lungs on the line, too. He could stop breathing if this all goes south.

Nah. No need to catastrophize. He's given them enough to worry about. Let the science-y people put in the final verdict on that.

"Met him once. Taught him some Morse. Ain't seen him much since." Soldat does not really trust anyone with this. Maybe not even Misty. But maybe if they do a lot of research. Talk to people, ask around. Trade something to the Night Market if they have to.

Yes, there are lots of potential uses for that spike in the brain. But they're pretty sure it's not got anything to do with the his heart and lungs. Maybe removing it would kill him, but more because it's brain surgery than because of his other cybernetics.

Opening their eyes, looking aside, at Misty, they say, "It's an option. To talk to. If he seems okay."

"I have very real doubts it'd do serious damage to take out, it's really just needing second opinions. Can't say I've met a Rhys," which should, all things considered, be incredibly predictable. "What's he like, exactly? Who's he run with?"

Because there are individuals in Beacon she would be just as reluctant to allow that kind of access as she would whoever put the damn thing in.

Sora is now looking at Misty with some flagrant disbelief on his face. He's kind of a doofus and doesn't know what's good for him, but even he knows that this is kind of like a brain surgery thing? A thing that Soldat's right to be sort of losing it over. He doesn't know the extent of Misty's powers, or even that she's offering to take part in it here, even though the implication is right there. This is all... very... confusing?

"He's, um, my friend. He lives at the Landmark, sixth floor. Real smart. Um. I don't know who his other friends are?" Does he have any other friends? Oof, Sora's been slacking. He'd better find out. "I don't know any other people who could help. I can find out, though!" He is one of the more outward facing members of their little pack at all. If he doesn't know, and Bucky doesn't know, there might not be any one else to help besides, uh, possibly Dr. Solis, who has better things to do, surely.

"Used to talk with Angel. When she was here. Haven't seen him around much lately. Other too, maybe." Daylight knows robotic first aid, maybe he'd have some insight. There's also Rosalind Lutece, but Soldat doesn't know all of her qualifications beyond what's in her lab and her intense interest in their arm and rifle. The Inspector trusts her, but that isn't necessarily a reason to believe she can handle a spike in someone's brain.

Soldat has a slow breath again, then gets up from the table to collect a notebook and a pencil. Time to write down some plans. On the way back, they can't help but take in Sora's posture and frown a little. "Kid. You didn't do anything wrong. Okay? Just. Just. Thank you for telling us."

The look is, for better or worse, mostly disregarded as a habit. It's her wheelhouse. The long and short of it.

"We think about it, we ask around, we plan. Tackle it just like anything else."

Beat.

"Dinners are...tense here."

Sora's face falls at the mention of Angel. She lived in the library at the same time he did, disappeared when they moved to the Landmark. He still thinks about her now and then.

Still. His back straightens at their assurance, then when Misty mentions that dinners are tense... right. Right! His job here isn't to bring down the mood, especially when this seems mostly out of his hands for now. (Not entirely. He knows, now. He needs to talk about this with people. Lots of people!)

He's the one with the third option. And if he can't break tension to save his life, he's at least gotta get the ball rolling on it. So he just sort of smacks his face with both hands. No more dwelling! No more!

"Everything's okay!" How does he lead into something funny without being self-deprecating? Can he even do it? "I got this! And if we can take it out, that means I'll have more brains for actual thinking, right? I could be a secret genius." ... No, he's not going to be, but he's going for the absurd here.

Soldat's response to the comment is immediate contrition. After all, it got all tense and terrible because they melted down, here. So the look they cast Misty is absolutely apologetic, and they settle back down at the table with the notebook, finding a clean page near the back to start writing down options.

"Sorry. I'll try not to freak out again. Having a plan helps." They write down the three names they'd thought of at the top of the page, first, for Misty to see-- Rhys, Daylight, Rosalind Lutece-- and then give Sora a sidelong look. "It's possible. Sure." Yes, they recognize the attempt at humor. Yes, they are tackling it with their own dry blandness.

They start writing things they know about each name under their heading. They need intel. Gotta see where their holes in knowledge are.

Seemingly the only person at the table feeling no need whatsoever to compensate for any hypothetical derailing of the meal, Misty meets them both evenly with a relaxed, appreciative little stare. You're both fine, hush.

"No one freaked out. It's kind of a bombshell, we reacted how we're gonna react. Nobody jumped a gun, here." Soldat's immediate note taking receives an approving little nod, but she taps the side of his plate regardless.

"Won't be an overnight solution anyway. Everyone make sure you clean your plates. We're all good, we're planning, and we're all already plenty smart."

Hence this swift planning.

Killing it.

Sora bites his lip because he's not supposed to smile at their reply - key word is huffy, key word is offended - but it's nice to get back to the same pattern. He's just a clown. He likes it when people play along.

"A bombshell, huh." Sora closes his eyes. Of all of the nonsense he's been through, he realizes that him thinking that that's probably the least of it would probably make his entire life something of a torpedo. Several torpedoes.

Eyes open again at both of them, and maybe a little contrite smile. "I'll make a list next time. Ease you guys into it." A list of things he's past that don't feel like they hurt, but maybe they should a little. (Misty doesn't know about Hollow Bastion yet, does she? Or Rage Form. And neither of them know what happened the first time he died. Or the second. He isn't sure about the third time, or the fourth, but the fifth was kind of. Bad. Probably.)

"Promise that there are no more cyborg things." And there aren't! For now.

"Misty, you know I don't ever leave food," Soldat says absently. Especially not since the last death. Which they aren't talking about at all right now, because tonight was already plenty traumatic.

They'll even have a bite while they keep writing. Soldat is capable of multi-tasking, see?

"I'm not sure if easing into it would've helped here, kid. Ain't on you, but I'm pretty I would've reacted badly to that no matter how you brought it up." At least they're all on the same page with having died multiple times, it seems.

"But hold onto the list idea. We're gonna need it eventually. Bulleted on paper is probably better than just jumping into conversation." Poor Soldat really isn't going to be much better for it, but it would feel more contained to her, at least. Thought out. Harder to backpedal on.

Soldat is spared the fretting gaze, for now.

"It's good if we can get out ahead of stuff, mostly. Good to know before anything did happen."

"Ah. Right." ... Yeah, okay, there probably were worse ways to spring that on them, but Sora can't help but wonder if there was any way that could have gone better. (Might need the weird stuff list anyway for that.) Blame it on his need to fix everything, even in hindsight.

He goes back to eating his food. Hey, Soldat has the right idea. He hopes nothing has happened? He doesn't know if anything has happened, unless whatever it is is so subtle that it didn't matter much in the first place. (Unless he's a totally different person from what he remembers, and that's its own can of worms. These are questions for later.)

"Thanks," he says, and then has to think of a reason why he's thanking them! It just seems like a good time. "For looking out for me," he says finally. That's a good one. It's true, at least.

Soldat glances up from their writing. "Well, yeah. What else am I gonna do." It's not precisely their job, they've moved on from saying that, but Sora is still a Very Important Person. He's not gonna not look out for him.

And now they're out of things to write. They don't really know that much about the three people listed there. Or, well, about this. So they push the notebook over to Misty and Sora to review and focus on food. It reads:

Rhys: cybernetics knowledge, computer knowledge, cybernetic arm and eye, good memory // not much social interaction, don't know if can trust
Daylight: absolutely trustworthy, can speak to machinery to diagnose or learn about, knows robot first aid // basically a child, extremely large and not as dexterous
Rosalind Lutece: medical knowledge, interest in cybernetics and machinery, Inspector trusts her // from an earlier time period with less advanced technology, scientist

Scientist on Rosalind's list of cons is underlined twice. Soldat has biases. They are aware of those biases. But they still can't get around them.

"Always with the thanking," she utters, not unfondly. But attention diverts quickly to the list; still a problem, warranting urgency even in the brainstorming stages.

"I think there's a very clear winner here." Trustworthiness, in her estimation, beats out technical prowess - not even entirely because of the healing abilities she's ready and willing to volley at this until things balance out.

(Making Soldat uncomfortable is a heavy strike.)

"Daylight seems like our guy."

Sora smiles in response. It's better than apologizing, he knows that much.

"Yeah, hard same." Sora nods! "I like Daylight, he's a good guy. Didn't know he could talk to machines." He looks at the cons list and laughs a little. Basically a child, huh? It's just a funny way to put it. "You're right, he's like a little kid. Not in a bad way."

"Talked to the arm when it glitched. After the ferry. It was weird." Soldat smiles just faintly, remembering. "Sarge wanted to learn how. He's really into that sci fi shit." They finish off their dinner and settle back with the accompanying mug of coffee, resisting the urge to lick the bowl. It was plenty of food. The remaining hunger is just the Bottomless Pit. They know this. "Daylight just kept talking about gardening and soil testing, though. I was kinda overwhelmed. I'll talk to him."

They still think they might need to loop in one of the others, too-- Rosalind, most likely, for the medical knowledge to possibly open up someone's skull without damaging the brain-- but Daylight is a good starting point.

That's ridiculously cute, Sarge.

Why limit that to thought?

"That's cute-- but, right, good, we picked it. Whenever it works, steamrolling him into this wouldn't be wise. Stressful for him, and all."

Sora raises a hand sheepishly. "Real confused here, Misty. Is Soldat the one stressed out or me? Or Daylight?" Because he totally agrees that the less stressed out Soldat is, the better, but he's honestly all for steamrolling himself into this, if only because his sense of danger is 100% non-existent.

"We should ask Daylight if that's a thing you and me can learn." Yeah, talking to machines! Machines can totally be friends too.

bee beez in the trap [ partially open ]

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apologies: cw for potential panic attack?

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