( open )

[overclocking]

Date & Time: Several days after the necromorph outbreak
Location: A VR room
Characters: Chrono + Rosette + open!
Summary: Lil bit of coping in-between zombie apocalypses and civil wars, nbd
Warnings: None! KEVIN AND BREAK
Notes: Feel free to tag around also! ♥


[ Chrono doesn't bother to close the door when he finally decides to try one of these rooms for himself. Something about the last few days (weeks) (months) has left him unwilling to stay in enclosed spaces too long, with no obvious path of exist. Too much like a lab or an undead-lined hallway.

But these concerns slowly melt away as he sets about instructing the AI, and the room gives way to a place that isn't a room at all.

Mountains rise up in the distance, framing a blue, clear sky, and a faint breeze rustles the treetops of a thick Michigan forest. Birdcalls ride that wind, and the air smells cleaner, fresher, than any moon base could reasonably boast. Where the blanket of trees ends, a large, glassy lake gleams in the sunlight. He takes care with this part—instructs the AI to make the water a temperature a bit too low to be entirely comfortable for swimming, knowing full well that this won't actually be a deterrent. But it wouldn't be right, otherwise.

He takes his time strolling from one familiar landmark to the next, having the computer make adjustments as necessary. He doesn't miss details, either; for all the times that Rosette brought him to this very place, his eyes had missed nothing. They were wide and all-absorbing, like someone who had been born anew and was discovering the world for the first time.

(Likely because, in all honesty, he had been.)

He stops once he circles back around to the open door—a black silhouette hanging oddly in the landscape, and the only giveaway that none of this is real. It's here that he surveys the scene as a whole, the sum of all its little memory-parts. ]

Perfect.

[ Well. There's still a thing or two missing. ]

... Almost.

Comments

[velveteened]

( revise that, aPPARENTLY SHE CAN FOOL HIM.

well fine!! as he surfaces this time, he is lunging for an ankle or something to pull her back down with. which is not terribly modest but this is war. )

[soul_sister]

[No worries. She wears enough layers to make the pope go "SHIT, GIRLFRIEND, LOOSEN UP A BIT." As it is, the SQUAWK! turns into bubbles as she's pulled under.]

[velveteened]

( REVENGE IS HIS....! )

[soul_sister]

[ALSO A FROG UP HIS SHIRT. TOTALLY HIS.]

[velveteened]

( okay time to leave off rosette to deal with the frog!

DOES THIS COUNT AS CATCHING ONE.... )

[soul_sister]

[DEPENDS ON IF HE CATCHES IT, really.

In the mean time, Rosette resurfaces near shore and waddles her way back to the bank, clothing super heavy with all the water.]

[velveteened]

( while she does that, he's frog-wrestling.

the frog wins, honestly, extricating itself from his fingers and hopping away with an affronted ribbit! he shakes his head at it, laughs, and then moves towards the shore himself — slowly, weighed down by water and only a basic familiarity with how to move in it. he flops onto the ground once he actually does reach it. )

Aah, that was so much fun.

[soul_sister]

[She laughs at his comment, wringing out her robes and skirts.]

I haven't done that in years.

[velveteened]

( maybe he can just let the sun dry him off...it seems more appealing than getting up as of yet. )

This is amazing.

( the room, he means, but doesn't say more explicitly than that. it seems irreverent, like it might break some sort of spell if he draws too much attention to its falseness. lies really can be so much sweeter than the truth. )

[soul_sister]

Mmm.

[She stretches her feet out of the water, and plops her heels on some shale to let them dry.]

Something like this isn't bad, now and then.

[velveteened]

( he's flopped onto his belly, sun warming his back; and he crosses his arms in front of him, palms sinking into the soft earth. )

It'd be nice if we could spend every day like this.

( could like if they really could, if there weren't other problems and enemies to deal with, if they weren't on the moon but even then. what he really means is, it'd be nice if there weren't anything to stop them. )

[soul_sister]

[She shakes her head, smiling wide and bright.]

I'm not worried about tomorrow right now. [She lifts her hands, fingers lazily tracing the shapes of the heavy clouds on the horizon.] This is fine as it is.

[velveteened]

( he can understand the feeling; warm days with such a brightness it dazzles the eyes, keeps them turned on the present and nowhere else. knowing it can't last...but rather, in her case, than hoping it does, to only value that it's here, now. to not run from the truth but take a reprieve from it, if even that.

he makes an assenting sound, gaze still slanted downwards. )

You're right.

[soul_sister]

Of course! [She flashes a grin. Though her tone is back to thoughtful as she continues.]

I'm glad I can share it, though.

[velveteened]

( the surety is reminiscent of alice, makes him laugh )

Me too. This is the place you were telling me about last time, right?

( when she shared her favorite, spoke of one where she'd go with her brother and chrono )

[soul_sister]

[She nods, her hands dropping to fold on her stomach.]

I think that's where he got the idea.

[velveteened]

( for all that they'd teased that day — )

He really is a good friend.

[soul_sister]

Mm. I really can't imagine a life without him.

[velveteened]

( admits, )

I know what you mean.

( funny as it is to say when he's spent more of his life without alice than with, even (especially) here, and if the contradiction makes for a slight frown — he at least most definitely knows which way he's happier. )

[soul_sister]

You've got just enough good luck then, to counter all of the bad. That's what I think anyway. As long as that's left, everything else works out.

[velveteened]

( he looks up at that, over at her. )

Do you think so?

[soul_sister]

I'm sure of it.

[As much as she was half convinced that Xerxes Break was the demon bound to Gilbert Nightray (some details didn't add up, but then again... Break... ) Oz was easy, if she could tell anything by the fiery, smug girl interrogating Chrono.]

It all seems less... impossible, when she's there, right?

[velveteened]

( he'd noticed her interjection, mostly followed it with a laugh at his tablet. so it's a bit of a surprise when rosette mentions a she, but not altogether unexpected either. and — it's only because of how long it's been since they've been together that he has to pause to think at all. not for what to say, because there is of course only one answer, but for the magnitude of nine months to settle slowly, fall and make his shoulders drop as he slants his head and nods, resting his chin on his arms. )

Yeah.

( of war, of battles lost and powers borrowed and grief deeper than he knows how to comprehend (but she would and always has, you're sad for that child), of people come and gone and experiences good and bad but all of it so heavy, of white rooms and scientists with sharp instruments and a(nother) city dying screaming and a dark emptiness so big as to swallow them all whole. )

It does...you're right.

[soul_sister]

[She looks away, giving him some moment of privacy. Almost to the sky, rather than him, she nods.]

That's why I'm sure.

[velveteened]

( he knows the strength of certainty; as someone prone to handing out pretty words just as lenalee's accused of him, he knows the difference — or, as it were, the real thing — when he sees it. conviction is a flower that doesn't grow easily, and not at all where doubts are allowed to roost; it needs light and constant care, gentle hands that don't waver, and a warm heart.

looks downwards rather than at her sky, nods in turn and lets his eyes drift shut a moment. )