redshiftlogs | things and stuff and i might think of a better title later... but probably not

Entry tags:

things and stuff and i might think of a better title later... but probably not

WHO: Cho and you
WHAT: truth gas, running without anything chasing you, spa time, holiday snow fun, and anything else you want (plus one single participant prompt)
WHEN: November/December-ish. What is time?

NOTES: Cho has been keeping up with the communal breakfasts and dinners, though she's been less interactive with them. Rather than chatting with people as they come to get fed, she's been putting out large dishes for people to serve themselves from, and then waiting until the end of the meal to bring them back to the kitchen for cleaning. She's also been spending a lot more time in the lab, and anyone who's gotten used to her super chipper personality has probably noticed that she's very jumpy and quieter lately.

I don't like writing actionspam, so I won't match style, but I don't mind if our styles don't match. I'm currently on holiday with spotty wi-fi on a tablet. It will be a few days before I'm back at a real computer, but I will do my best to stay on top of tags in the mean time. I'm also dropping my prompt for the current welcome log in here, because that page is already giving me trouble when i try to load it.

A - TRUTH GAS (a million years late)

Cho isn't anywhere near the lab when it explodes, but the sound of the explosion, the tremor in the floor, it sends her running to investigate. Not that she thinks she'll be much help, realistically, if something has exploded or is on fire of some of the robots are malfunctioning in catastrophic ways again. Peter might have gotten caught up in it, though, and he's a nice kid, and she's worried. Also curious. Worried and curious.

So she goes to investigate, and hopes for the best.

[[OOC: So the start is really vague, but if you want to have something more specific set up for any point while the gas is active, hit me up on plurk or discord and we can figure something out. This is more of a "Hey, remember that thing that I totally dropped the ball with? Cho was around, you can do stuff!" than anything else. ]]

---

B - Running - assorted hallways/walkways

Ben has been an amazing friend lately. Not that he isn't normally, but even more so lately. He's been patient and indulgent, and when Cho can't sleep in the middle of the night, or just feels too shaken to walk someplace on her own, he's there for her. No judgement, not even the slightest implication that she's a burden, just support. Cole has been just as accommodating. It seems like every time her terror spikes, no matter how stupid the cause, Cole is there.

It spikes a lot. Which is why she's back to going running in the mornings and the evenings, keeping mostly to the more heavily used hallways. It's calming, burns off tension, and it makes her feel a little better. She's not frozen, she's a body in motion. The faster she runs, the better she feels. Which probably also explains why she's running further and more often, a speedy little blur of bright colours booking it through the city.

---

C - Pampering and Relaxation - the spa

The spa is staying in pretty heavy rotation when she can't get to sleep. She doesn't actually expect the place to calm her enough to make that elusive rest any more likely, but it scratches a very particular itch of homesickness. She's been talking more and more about her life with Ben. She likes it, but it's also bringing a lot of things that she's been ignoring bubbling up to the surface. She knows why she's stayed away from Japan for so long, she knows what will happen when she goes back, but she still misses it.

The replication onsen soothes some of that. Floating on her back with her eyes closed, the sound of water trickling down the stacked rocks, the scent of geothermal heated water that they've managed to almost perfectly recreate, she can pretend for a little while. It might not be a perfect solution, but it's comforting. And when she feels up for a little more interaction, she's happy to take advantage of the bots and their wonderful massages and pampering treatments and their only occasional malfunctions that leave her with lime green nail-polish or an unasked for surprise mud mask. She tries to not think about where they get the mud and why it smells like sulfur, and just does her best to outrun them in those cases.

---

D - Holiday Snow Stuff - the park

There's something special about the first snow of the season, and even in a place that doesn't seem to really have seasons, and even wen the snow if definitely not actually part of the weather, it still makes her smile. More so when a bot presses a mug of hot chocolate and a gingerbread man into her hands. tastes like Christmas. Well, Christmas in New York, which has been the kind of Christmas that feels like home for a long time now.

The sledding doesn't interest her much, but the skating looks wonderful, and the incredibly lethal looking ones the chef bot is handing out are actually precise enough to allow for some fancy footwork. It feels childish and silly in a fantastic way, and it makes her smile.

As do the snow cones, their rainbow of mystery flavours. When a dragon with beautiful swirls of blue and white along its body, veins of shimmering silver making it look like a living geode, rears up on its haunches and paws imploringly at her leg with its front paws, she immediately surrenders every shred of remaining dignity and the rest of her snow cone, bending down to feed it and coo over how precious it is. Has it found itself an easy mark? Absolutely. Is she now almost completely invested in feeding it flavoured ices and earning permission to stroke along the shimmering scales of its neck? You bet she is! These dragons are amazing, and she's taken enough with it to set aside most of her own issues in order to get as much time observing them as she can before they retreat back to wherever they appeared from.

---

D2 - sub-option open to the first taker (and technically before the option above, but who's keeping track?)

Cho wakes slowly, unwillingly. Her sleep was fitful, her dreams unpleasant, and it's so cold, all she wants to do is burrow down further into her blankets and get just a few more minutes before she has to emerge and figure out why it's so freezing cold in her room. That lasts for about a second and a half, before she's sitting up so quickly that she'd probably have knocked herself unconscious on the bottom of the bunk above her if she were a few inches taller. If she's this cold...

Her breath is fogging the air in front of her as she shoves her feet into her fleece boots and begins quickly rushing around her room, checking the containers with the glowing animals she's been studying. Marmalade immediately claims the warm spot she's vacated, only to be unceremoniously shoved aside as she begins stacking up the small acrylic cages in that space, doubling up animals that she knows will not harm each other. When she's made her stack, she throws her blanket over them all, trying to keep the heat in, and her cat just glares at her and shoves his way back into the warmth.

Something is wrong, but things go wrong all the time, and maybe they haven't gone wrong everywhere? If she can find a place that still has heat, and get them there quickly enough, they should be all right. Peter gave her that generator the last time the power went out, for her lab, to keep the work she was doing there from being compromised. That includes climate control. It's the first time in quite a while that she hasn't felt any hesitation being out on her own, concern overshadowing fear. She runs all the way up to the agricultural area with the bio-lab and hatchery, bursting through the door and into one of the labs. Not warm, no, but warm enough, it'll do. So she immediately turns around and starts running back, ignoring the shivering and feeling pretty dumb for not taking thirty seconds to grab her coat on the way out.

---

! - WILDCARD

Want to start something else? Go nuts! I'm sure there are things that I talked about wanting to do with people that I've forgotten. As always, feel free to hit me up on discord or plurk if you want to plan something out.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The entire lab system isn't in perrect shape, but Cho keeps a good portion of it clean, enough of the rooms useable that she can spread out when she needs to, keep projects seperate. Once upon a time she'd lamented, in her quiet moments, cramped conditions and egotistical colleagues. Now she's lonely. Serves her right for the unkind thoughts. It's nice when Annie and Finnick are around. Finnick tends to stick with the repairs and building that needs to be done outside, but Annie has a sharp mind, and she can understand a lot of what Cho is doing. She's good company.

In the time it takes Hanzo to unload the animals he transported so carefully, Cho has ducked into an adjoining lab with a spare set of light purple scrubs and changed. Her hair is still a bit of a disaster, pulled hastily into a messy bun on top of her head, with too much of it unable to be contained by the few hair ties she has up here. It's out of her face, though, which is what actually matters. Considering this man's opinion of her couldn't possibly get any worse, it makes it easier to not care that her hair is disgraceful and she's not wearing any makeup and the sugar glider has relocated from the neck of her top to her breast pocket, though she wishes the lab was a little warmer or she'd thought to leave a bra up here, too. Which is a problem for another day. Hopefully a hypothetical one that never actually comes.

The cold-blooded animals are the ones she worries about first, wedging open the door of an incubator and stuffing it with clean toweling before turning it to its lowest setting and placing the reptiles inside of it. She doesn't know if they will be all right, but she's hopeful. The problem is that she doesn't have enough incubators for everything. Some of them will be fine just being inside the lab, but it's still what she'd call brisk. She needs heating pads that she doesn't have.

"Thank you," she says to the man, though it doesn't feel adequate. "It would have taken me too long, moving two of them at a time." The hedgehog should probably be the next one to get an incubator home. She starts to work on that. "My name is Cho Takahashi. I'm very grateful."

Unloading the reptiles is a simple enough task for him to assist with, though one of the snakes remains cradled against his chest when it seems a little more sluggish than the rest. A more immediate source of heat seems best, if it is to survive.

And opening the containers for the rest of the animals to be accessible is not a difficult task one-handed. Again, where the animals are concerned, Hanzo appears to be taking a great deal of care. It's only when Cho speaks again that the slightly softened expression on his face shifts, hardening to a more neutral appearance.

"I am Hanzo," he offers, holding open the lid as she reaches for the hedgehog. "And you are welcome. It would not do to let these creatures freeze."

As he speaks his thumb rubs the top of the snake's head, where it lies curled around his hand, soaking up the warmth of his palm.

It's much easier for her to do quick wellness checks on everyone when they're so easily accessible. Marmalade has taken up a spot on top of the incubator she's propped open, and seems content enough. She doesn't think he'll give up the warm spot to try and hunt any of the small rodents, so they're good there.

Seeing that touch of warmth melt from Hanzo's features as soon as she calls his attention stings, but not as much as it might have once upon a time. She has something more important to focus on, and it's not as though the idea of being loathed is a new one for her. She has no illusions about her place within her family's hierarchy. It's familiar, and she can deal with familiar stings. "That's Hoggle," she offers, nodding her head at the albino hognose currently enjoying Hanzo's attentions very much. "He's a sweetheart. Would you maybe, if you don't have any other place to be, could you stay and help me? I don't have anything to heat them with, but we could adjust an autoclave to heat up a load of dry towels. That machine on the wall there." She nods her head at a cabinet with a heavy metal door. She's currently still checking the animals, and his extra pair of hands (hand and a half?) would not go amiss. "If you load it with clean towels, turn the temperature dial all the way down, shut off that water flow pipe next to it, and leave the door open, it'll heat the room a little and the towels a lot without making them damp. You'll have to wedge something in the door catch so it thinks it's closed, then press the green button. Don't stand in front of it or you'll scald yourself."

Is she about to get glared at again? Told off for trying to give him directions? She honestly can't read anything in his expression now. She might have just really pissed him off, but even if he gets mean and storms off, at least he's helped her bring them this far. Worth it.

It is less that she's giving him instructions, and more than she barely spaced a breath between asking for his help and flat out telling him what to do. And even if he was inclined to continue to help -- which he is -- that assumption is somewhat irksome.

So yes. He glares. But it's hardly for any of the reasons she thinks, and he does not storm off. Mostly lacking anywhere better to be, for the time being. "Very well," is all he winds up saying in response, before moving to do exactly as he she asked.

All while continuing to hold the snake, who seems to be responding well to having somewhere warm to curl up for the moment.

Cho shrinks visibly under the force of the glare, but she goes back to what she's doing. He's still helping. She can't ask for more than that. It's so much easier to hide her emotions when she doesn't care, almost impossible when she does. So it's simpler to not look at him, to not be so painfully easy to read. Two people are more useful than one, and her comfort doesn't matter. She just keeps telling herself that. She's made her own bad first impression, no one else to blame, and she feels as though she'll keep adding to it, the wild swings between being unable to form words at all, and unable to shut them off. Too much, or not enough. There's probably some deep insight there, but she doesn't care to look at it now. Maybe not ever.

There's only one thing she has to not screw up right now, and it's in her hands, cold and cranky, but safe. She moves down the line. When she notices the vine snakes perking up, she takes them from the incubator, letting them twine around her wrists, and moves some geckos in, Marmalade following her movements with sharp blue eyes, and mewling unhappily when she doesn't linger for pets. "Do you--" Cho shuts her mouth with an audible click, clenching her teeth together. No! Do not try to fill the silence. She clears her throat awkwardly and checks out a container with the two remaining mice that did not want to leave her when she was done observing them.

There's more than enough to be getting on with without talking. When she cuts herself off, he doesn't pursue.

Instead, he works on gathering up the warm towels for the animals to lay upon. The residual heat sinks into his joints, stiff from the lower temperature, but priority remains with the small creatures. If she's reaching in to pull them out, it leaves enough room for him to slip them in, rather than having her try to juggle both at once.

It'll get done. It's a process, done over and over again down the line. It's easy to just...not think on anything else, for now.

Very easy, with the extra hand in the mix. It makes the process so much more efficient, and Cho pushes herself away from the desire to fill the silence, to fix it, in favour of just being quick about this. It makes it easier to slip into work-mode. This time, as she moves down the line, she closes each case. Hopefully everyone will be warm enough soon to be more alert and energetic, and she doesn't want to have to deal with a jailbreak up here. A lot of them are used to being able to roam her room freely while the door is closed. The snakes have all been fed recently, and shouldn't be interested in more food for a while, but why tempt things?

The activity is enough to get Marmalade to give up his perch on the incubator, which is warm, but not soft. There is a stack of lovely warm towels accessible, and he's very interested in that, and also in batting lazily at Hanzo's hand each time he comes to retrieve more of them for the other animals. Inside her case, the little purple kitten starts trying to climb out so she can go join him. She's not successful. "That's Marmalade," Cho says, pointing to the purring ball of ginger fur. "I can move him, if he's bothering you."

"He is not."

And it's the truth. Marmalade is indeed taking a playful little swat at him every time he reaches for a towel, but he's not using claws, and he's not actually impeding his progress at all.

Then again, he's never really minded cats all that much. Often enough wherever he happened to be staying temporarily for a mission would have a stray cat, lured in by quiet and warm and the smell of fish and rice in the mornings. They made for pleasant enough companions, though he'd never truly been tempted to try to keep one himself. They were their own creatures, and did as they pleased.

So if Marmalade sees fit to pat him on the hand when he comes closer, that's fine. Certainly not disruptive enough to make a fuss over.

The corner of Cho's mouth ticks upward, just for a moment, but her eyes are happy this time when she turns away, less worried. Cho forms a huge portion of her opinion of people based on how they treat the animals around them. She wasn't sure if Hoggle was an outlier, but now she thinks maybe not. That's good. She knows that there is still a lot about people that she doesn't quite understand, but people with compassion for animals make more sense to her, relatively speaking.

She reaches the case with the kitten in it, her fur's glow diminished in the low light of the lab, but still perceptible. She looks like a grey ball of fluff that someone's shined a black light on. As soon as Cho removes her, she gets even more vocal and starts struggling to get out of her grip and get to Marmalade. She becomes momentarily distracted by loose tendrils of Cho's hair a few times, spending a couple of seconds trying to catch them before remembering that she has an honourary uncle to get to. "Do you mind if I put Sumire over with him? She'll keep on trying until I do. He's sort of... teaching her how to cat, right now. She still uses her claws a little. It doesn't hurt. She mostly goes for sleeves." Cho won't move the kitten over if he doesn't want her to. Kittens are a bit of a tougher sell sometimes than an adult cat with some chill. The little fluff ball is, however, still mewling plaintively in Cho's hands and struggling to get to Marmalade.

Hanzo squints at the oddly hued kitten before shrugging.

"Do as you wish."

If her priority is getting the animals warm, and she doesn't see letting the kitten out as a problem? He can work around it. It's not as though he'll be stopping what he's doing to pet either of them.

Cho steps around Hanzo to place Sumire next to Marmalade, and the older cat immediately draws the younger one into his warm blanket nest and begins grooming her. The unhappy yowling stops just as quickly, as though someone has switched off a stereo, sound dying mid-warble, and the purring from the pair of them intensifies. They're happy, and she's happy to see that they're happy, and her smile is a little bigger as she goes back to getting the warm towels into the cases with Hanzo's help.

Luckily, the little puff ball is far too happy being doted on to take more than a cursory swipe at Hanzo's sleeve each time he returns for the towels, far more interested in her snuggles. The work moves quickly again, the pair of humans falling into an easy rhythm, and Cho can easily see right on down the line just how much of a difference the change in situation is making to the first few animals. It's good. It's really good. That tight knot of worry and tension behind her sternum loosens with each deep breath, and as the sounds of activity return.

The antics of the cats are largely ignored, as well as whatever swipes might be taken at his clothes in halfhearted interest. And before long, it appears as if most of the animals are situated in containers that should keep them suitably warm. They are at the very least no longer in immediate danger.

"If the temperature remains at this level, this will not suffice for long." He glances towards Cho with a thoughtful frown. He has no idea if there's anyone in this place who'd even know how to fix it, much less whether or not they're working on doing so.

They may have just bought these animals time, but there's no telling how much.

"But it buys time," she says, echoing his unspoken thought. Timing is important. They're alive, and now she just has to keep them alive. The towels will work for a little while. The autoclave did its job-that-was-not-actually-the-job-it-is-supposed-to-do beautifully.

Actually, maybe it can do another one? Cho goes over to the cabinet, turns up the heat, and allows a small amount of the proper water flow to resume. Just enough to keep from melting certain components. She wedges a piece of an insulated filtration unit in the door to diffuse the heat. Then she looks around for something long enough to press the button while she's far enough away from it to not get second degree burns. She can't find anything suitable, but she does snag a box of calibrating weights. They should be heavy enough. She also puts a few more towels down on the floor in front of the cabinet, fully expecting to miss. A lot.

Back by the counter with Hanzo, a safe distance away, she throws the first weight at the start button. And misses by almost a foot, wincing at the metallic clang before it falls harmlessly onto the towel. Her second attempt is closer, but still misses the mark. She bites her lip, and looks over at her companion. More specifically, she looks at the quiver of arrows on his back, something she's actively been trying to avoid thinking about, because it makes him just one more person she would not be able to run away from, one more person who could definitely hurt her if they had the slightest inclination to. Now, though, it could be extremely useful. She gets the idea that asking if he would let her use the bow and an arrow would go over like a lead balloon, but: "We can't get any closer than this. It'll be hot enough to hurt us. If we-- put something on the tip of an arrow to blunt it, do you think you could hit that button?"

Some people will go through a great deal not to have to ask for help. It's a sentiment Hanzo can certainly appreciate. But one wonders where the line must be drawn, when so absolutely keen not to ask for that help that one winds up looking ridiculous as a result.

Thus does he watch Cho assemble a number of little weights to hurl at the machinery. The effort is somehow even more pathetic than her shuffling around in her pajamas, earlier. It takes him a moment to even realize what she's attempting to do, and once it sinks in? He gives her an incredulous look.

It's both ingenious and incredibly stupid. Somehow.

"You could have asked before," he points out dryly, before reaching for one of the weights Cho had been hurling like inefficient pebbles at the button. Then, with a measured look and time to weigh the object in his hand, his wrist flicks forward.

Smack!

"And you are not sticking one of my arrows in that," he adds, turning his gaze back towards Cho with a look of clear annoyance. "These are not simply bits of wood and metal."

Cho's not really sure how she was supposed to just know that, but he's hit the button, so it's not the most pressing concern. Her mental five second countdown began once he did, and she wraps a towel around both cats at the last moment, clutching them to her chest just as the autoclave groans and belches out a diffused wave of heat and humidity, upping the temperature to something approaching comfortable, if a bit muggy. As soon as it realizes it's unable to maintain its pressure, it shuts off, but it's worked pretty much the way she wanted it to, and she puts the cats down. They struggle their way out of the towel, look mightily offended, and then almost immediately curl back up on top of it and begin grooming one another.

There's a question in Cho's mind, as she looks down at the box of weights. Is it really that ridiculous to try to do something yourself? How will you know what you can and can't do if you never try? Her whole life spent with her family, she's been scolded for failures, and scolded for giving up, for trying too much and for trying too little, all according to some unwritten set of rules. She knows that this man is not Grandfather, and getting an answer from him will not be the same thing.

Still, she has always wondered, but never been brave enough to ask... "If I had... asked you to do it for me-- before trying those first two myself... would you have thought less of me for not trying to solve the problem on my own before turning to others?" Her voice is small an hesitant, but her question is genuine, and she can't make herself look at him. It's something so deeply embedded in her mind, to keep her eyes down, to feel the shame of not just knowing.

Is there a correct answer? Was there ever a correct answer? Or was the whole point of her childhood just to fill her with that shame?

"No."

That's the simple answer. But there's clearly more to it than that. Something else weighs on her mind, though he can't imagine what. And truth be told, he doesn't really want to delve into it. He has enough to try and process right now on his own.

But he does sigh, and elaborate. "I am already here to assist, am I not?"

Clearly, she was out of her depth to begin with. More important that the thing get done, than worry about what he thought of her.

Cho considers this as she takes an ambient temperature reading. So there is a right answer. It's just the one that makes her feel like little pieces of her are dying. Is it worth it? There is a very small part of her brain that knows that this isn't at all logical. She can't get her answers here, because this man isn't her grandfather. A few similarities does not a stand-in make. Still, emotion is hardly the most logical thing in the universe, and when will she get another chance?

"I like that about myself," she says, voice quiet and a little weary, but not faltering. "I like that I'll take two extra minutes to see if I can do it myself before I look for help. I like-- that I take chances that might not seem appropriate or dignified. I like that I fail, because it means that I'm trying. I like that I want to figure out who I am and what I'm capable of. And I know... that you don't know me and all this doesn't matter to you. I know it seems silly to tell you any of this. The thing is... I'm probably never going to get the chance to say it to who I really want to say it to. Even if I ever make it back to my version of the universe, I don't think he'd ever let me talk this long without having someone come and... correct my emotional outburst. So you might be the closest thing I'll ever get." She nods her head, and looks at him now. It's barely there, in the set of his mouth and the grey at his temples and the look in his eyes. "I like that I try first, and I'm going to keep doing it, because sometimes-- sometimes I find out that I can do it, and those are the best days. I wouldn't trade them for anything. Not even--" Not even the love that's been dangled in front of her like a carrot for her whole life. Which she has just enough presence of mind to keep to herself. She clears her throat, and hurries over to a small ladder so that she can make a start of closing off the vents near the ceiling. "You have been very helpful. I do appreciate it. I'm sure they do, too. I'm going to have to do redirect the generator in a minute. Would you be willing to stay with them until I get back?"

The sentiment is not on its own a terrible thing. To want to do things yourself first, and to have such conviction for it, is admirable.

Less so the desire to seize upon the first person you see to disgorge all of your long-held baggage. He has his own issues, his own baggage to work through, and he has absolutely no desire to participate in whatever catharsis Cho is currently seeking. Though obviously, whether or not he wants to is of no concern to her.

And oh, how he has tired of being used.

"If you are quite finished."

And with a cold stare he returns his attention to the snake curled up against him, the lines of his face once more arranging themselves into a scowl. Hopefully, this states his displeasure with her well enough that she doesn't attempt something like that again.

Perhaps he'll be blessed with silence, while she attends to whatever else she needs to.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

things and stuff and i might think of a better title later... but probably not

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

no subject