[catch-all] Now that I'm making this align

[benhargreeves]

Who: Ben + anyone
What: A catch-all
When: End of January through February
Where: Anywhere!

[ Poke me at platoapproved#9602 on discord or platoapproved on plurk to plot something, or feel free to leave a starter!]

Comments

for cole

[benhargreeves]

It's not that Ben doesn't notice the little thing following him around. It would be hard to miss it, even for someone less observant than himself. But it didn't seem to be in any distress, and he had seen others being followed by the little things, around the Anchor. So he quietly accepts that this is just, apparently, a natural behavior for these little... blobs.

He goes about his day, the same as he would otherwise. Since the power outage, Ben has trying to educate himself as much as he can about electrical systems or... well, really any skills that might come in helpful for technical issues around. It's not easy, but there are a few books in the library that are helpful, and so his reading lately has been half educational, half for pleasure. He's trying to make his way through a thick, water-damaged textbook about electricity and currents (though Ben isn't sure how helpful it really will be, it seems like it was written in the 1950s at latest...) when he first catches a movement from that little fleshy blob much higher than he expected.

It is no longer rolling along the floor around the library, but seems to have perched itself on the back of a chair. It looks... darker in color than Ben remembers, and seems to have little legs, now, that it is using to grip the chair and balance. When he looks at it, he hears, thinks he hears a distant, muffled:

"...boring..."

A furrow forms between Ben's brows. But there are no other sounds, and no one else is in the library, so he shakes his head and goes back to reading. He's struggled his way through another five or so pages when he hears a faint, petulant murmur of:

"...got it wet because the writing's dry as shit..."

This time Ben's head whips up, looking around for the source of the sound. A hidden mic? Something about his device? It seemed to be coming from the same direction of that small creature (does it look a bit... shinier, or is that just him?), but he isn't sure.

Carefully, he plucks the device from his pocket and sends a little text to Cole, asking him to come to the library. Ben still doesn't feel right, in moments when he doesn't need Cole, just summoning him by thinking hard about him. It seems so... demanding. He doesn't want to do that. He wants to make sure Cole knows this isn't any kind of an emergency, just a tiny, tiny mystery...