[ OPEN ] Hot Springs Episode!

[shri]

CHARACTERS: EVERYONE
WHERE: The Second Flight
WHEN: DAY :022
SUMMARY: The Sauna!
WARNINGS: Nekkid times.

[ A few hours after the murder, she hasn't blown the ship up, and here they are. Another knock knock on everyone's brain: ]

( For those of you that are interested - I have secured us a place at the Sauna. Free for us to be use without interruption from outsiders.

You are to be clean before you come in. )

[ Maybe you're here because she bullied you, maybe you want to soak - maybe you're the poor bastard that is standing guard at the door. Either way, welcome to the Suana, have fun. Or don't. ]

Comments

[raw]

( Good to know we're on the same page, then. )

[ And apparently that's all he has to say for now, walking away into the steam, disappearing like a spirit dispelled, though the scent of cigarette smoke still lingers.

-- Always leave them wanting more, right kiddo?

But probably only Elliot hears that.

Elliot, who is still under the influence of those sweet, numbing chemicals, leaving him sluggish and euphoric in the warm water. His adrenaline spike at realizing he was somehow projecting Mr. Robot hasn't really dissipated so much as been smothered, a sensation he's kind of struggling against — this is definitely a higher dose than he'd usually take.

Still, it seems important to convey at least one thing to Hadrian, emphatic: ]

You can't trust him.

boop

[stilettoes]

[ peter wants to know, one day, where this page goes. it's never been in any book he's written for himself. thousands of first rules in grifting and talking to men who disappear like smoke right before your very eyes, disappear into steam, wasn't really one of the lessons.

He watches the flicker of elliot's eyes, feels the sweet curl curdle alongside the fact that he is most definitely disturbed by elliot's strange hitchhiker? what's the word for this? for now, only mr. robot. he files the name away carefully, fingertips along the edges of something you don't want to get prints on.

peter dips his ankles into the water, towel wrapped loosely around himself as elliot parts a thick and velvety panel along their connection, rich to touch, soft to the palm. he grabs fistfuls of it because he can and it's there. he reaches out with a finger and taps him softly on the tip of his nose, leaning in. ]

Don't worry yourself, darling. [ the touch leaves, but he remains close, drawing an invisible line with his finger in the air between them. ] Though I didn't realize it wasn't just the two of us.

clutches my face

[raw]

[ The little nose tap is so sweet that Elliot doesn't flinch away, not even subconsciously. It's nice, having someone who can touch him without the nausea-residue or ingrained paranoid discomfort that a lot of other people evoke. He leans, drops thoughtlessly sideways to rest against Hadrian, letting that and the morphine and the warm embrace of the water combine to soothe him.

(Probably putting your head in another person's lap has some pretty intimate connotations but there's not even a flicker of that, just trust, trust like Elliot didn't know he was capable of. ]

I didn't think you'd be able to see him.

[ Like that's any sort of excuse. Mr. Robot is a consistent presence in Elliot's life: even without the mind link, everyone meets him eventually. The drugs just exacerbate, as they always have. He should have thought of that — but can't quite summon self-recrimination right now. ]

[stilettoes]

[ elliot’s head in his lap isn’t something he anticipated whatsoever, full of a dozy warmth and trust that makes peter give a visible pause between the two of them—one that tastes like blood in the air, like electricity, like somewhere dark meant to be a place to rest, but in reality is just a place to wait and fester. the last time he had someone’s head in his lap, there was a sense of exhaustion about it. this is far less dire (in one way). he swallows and lets a hand rest on his hair softly, thumbing the base of where his hair fades to a cut that looks as thought it will need some maintaining at some point. it’s another idle thought that’s runs as though the first hadn’t tainted it with its taste.

his fingers curl through dark, thick hair absent-mindedly. ]

He said he had only your best interests in mind.

[ which makes the animal thing in peter curl it’s lips back just a bit. there’s something in the symbiote that doesn’t like the claims fed to it. it wraps around the connection with a soft heartbeat of a touch, squeezes a little the way you might grip a hand gently in the dark. ]

Is that true? Does he keep you safe at least? Whoever he is?

[ a thought betrays a fraction of gentle hadrian, a brief cut of steel, something in him tightening: i could keep you safe.

he pushes away the loaded spring trap, voice tender, but edging on clipped at the end. a declaration. ]

I don’t like him.

[raw]

Elliot gives a soft little rasp of a laugh, his eyes closing against the affectionate and soothing scritch of fingers across his scalp. Despite Mr Robot, this suddenly feels like it was a good idea, the kind of sweet contentment he has so rarely experienced in his life.

"You don't like him." The irony there is obvious. Elliot doesn't really like him either, but what does Elliot like about himself. But he does have to concede that Mr Robot can be particularly unlikeable. Mostly because he doesn't seem to give a shit about anything.

Krista had postulated that a split personality originated from some kind of self-defense mechanism, though Elliot straight up never told her enough about himself for her to postulate what he might need protection from, beyond his own anxiety. But Mr Robot doesn't keep him safe. Mr Robot drags them both into trouble, time and time again.

"Listen," he manages. "Don't worry about it, okay? He's basically powerless, except for talking shit." Slightly less powerless if other people can see him, but maybe it's just Hadrian.