MAY MINGLE

[etrayamods]

WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: May 17th-31st
WHERE: On Etraya
WHAT: A mingle log!
NOTES\WARNINGS: N/A, please note any needed warnings in threads.

⏵ a hero's return ⏴ As champions exit the Labyrinth, they’ll find that their environment has gone through some fairly drastic changes. Where there used to be larger bodies of water is now thinner rivers going through land; the amount of bridges connecting landmasses has decreased, given what had been individual islands are now much more connected. In addition, Etraya is significantly more green; flowers bloom, birds chirp cheerfully, and there are numerous additional species of insects, mammals, and aquatic creatures throughout the lands. Baby foxes roam through forested areas, bees pollinate the flowers to spread them more thoroughly around the inhabited areas, and it feels brighter. Or perhaps that’s just in comparison to how the Labyrinth had been. There are more areas to explore, new facilities, animals, and Etraya feels significantly more settled than it had before. Aurora’s promise of renovations had been true. And if one looks up, they may notice a city bubble visible on the closest planet that hadn't been visible before. ⏵ coffee break ⏴ After hearing Clarke’s suggestion, Aurora sets up a new cafe close to the apartment complex, and sends out notices to individuals with mandatory coffee hour times listed for them to come to Corrine's Cafe and make a few friends. While the note does state that it is mandatory, there will be no follow-up from Aurora nor the companion bots to ensure those who receive notes do show. Given this is Aurora trying to take suggestions in mind and see how successful they are among the citizens of Etraya, however, following directives may not be a terrible idea. It's up like a modern-day, smaller cafe. One walks in through the front door, and is greeted by a companion bot behind the counter who offers a wave of their hand and a friendly “Welcome! Let me know when you’re ready to order”. The menu offers lattes, mochas, espresso, black coffee, several different kinds of teas, and a few drinks that are a little odd to find in a cafe; ale, canned sodas and coffees, numerous bottles of wine, but only pinot noir. Soft music plays in the background, impossible to place but it sounds as if it may be based on tracks that were popular in the early 90s. Tables and booths are set up to seat two to four, with packets of sugar and small containers of creamer set out towards the middle. There are charging stations set up at every table, which may seem strange considering phones and laptops aren’t widely available, but Aurora’s doing her best. There are also a few bookshelves full of the classics, a few historical fiction, and several written by H.P. Lovecraft. Each seat has a placard in front of it, with a name, and a ‘fun fact’. One might say “Hello! My name is Joe, and I like to paint!” Another may say “Hi, I’m Jill! My sister died tragically in front of me and I’ve never gotten over it.” ⏵ new horizons ⏴ Several of the new bridges found in Etraya now have signs posted just outside of them, and on those signs is a QR code that the earpiece’s HUD can scan. Scanning this with the HUD will bring up a scavenger hunt, listing several items and circling areas where they can be found. Some of these objects will be obvious: find Corrine at Corrine’s Cafe - the companion bot who runs the counter, find a delicious meal at Bangsan Market, break into S.T.A.R Labs, or find room 87 at Point Blanc Academy. Some will be less obvious, like locating a bat, becoming friends with an archer, find a pink shirt, open bagged milk without making a mess, or get a drink at the mutant-friendly pub. Please feel free to make up your own items to find around Etraya! ⏵ NOTES ⏴ Welcome to our mid-month mingle! Please feel free to use this to explore Etraya, put up wildcard prompts (you don't need to use the above!), or use the open prompts to assist in jumpstarting cr. This mingle covers the period from May 17th to May 31st. Our next mission (and next mod log) will not go up until June 7th. ⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Comments

[equivo]

[ There's another of those funny, fleeting crumples he gets around his eyes at odd moments when she slips his earpiece on. He steps in closer, his empty hand rising as he shifts his gaze to the side of her face, like the ends of two magnets slipping past each other against invisible pressure. ]

Then you don't need this.

[ He murmurs, ruefully, as he reaches for his communicator to slip it back off of her ear. It's impossible to do it without skimming the whorls of her ear, his fingers brushing up against her hair gathered behind it, and for a second, it's like he could be tucking a loose strand of it back for her. A small, ginger act of carefulness, out of sync with the moment.

He palms his communicator with his thumb as he pulls his hand back, clipped and efficient, and pivots on his heels to head for the kitchenette. ]

Not quite what I was getting at. [ He explains, his back to her, as he reaches for the cupboard she didn't open to stash a jar inside. ] Although - fuck, who knows how much it matters.

[ But even as he says that, he's rummaging through her dishware. A short, squat glass cup, a ceramic bowl with a higher lip than the cup is tall. He collects both and closes the cupboard back up, going to the sink. Communicator in the cup, cup under the tap, bowl inverted and set on top. He leans against the edge of the counter, his hands flipped to the grip the edge as he looks down into the black mouth of the drain. ]

And what I'd actually need here is a Faraday cage, and even then - [ another half-laugh, all inhale without release, and he leans over to twist the sink on, water sluicing over the top of his little echo chamber ] - well. Work with what you have, not what you want, as they say.

You should put yours in the bathroom. Break up the noise a little.

[skaikru]

( oh, this isn't about to be an expose of compelling, explanatory, condemning footage or voicemails? clarke had grown so accustomed to profound pieces of revealing information coming into her shiptalk phone in the form of shared messages or photographs, and only truly grasps she'd read the room wrong when he reaches out to gently pluck the communicator from her ear, and she freezes. the only muscles that twitch are the ones in her face, eyes fixed on his while her expression butterflies from blank alarm, to pinched confusion, and with the slight tickle of fingertips against the shell of her ear — the beginnings of understanding. oh.

embarrassment is minimal at best but still present, but will have to wait to be processed. she can feel a little stupid and adjust to be better going forward later, krouse is already moving towards the kitchenette. and despite this being her apartment, clarke follows in his wake like a student shadowing a professional in a medbay, watches him rifle through cupboards and start up the sink, her only prevailing thought being — huh, that's clever.

too clever, perhaps? how often has he played tactical defense against outside listeners before that he hadn't even fumbled the glass? what's a faraday cage? and again, what are you so scared of?

but clarke has never balked at the opportunity to learn. for the moment she's focused more on the stream of sink water and trying to imagine what the feedback through the ear piece would sound like on the other end than she is on krouse himself. and when he prompts her to get a little more distance than just shoving her earpiece in her pocket, clarke obliges. )

Okay. Give me a second.

( she retreats towards the bathroom, and spends a solid few seconds just looking around the cramped room lit by fluorescents. this is supposed to be one of the few places aurora wouldn't infiltrate in the name of surveillance unless absolutely necessary for a mission, but they'd just had one and are currently in the recovery period; the calm before the third wave of a storm. the span of time where, if they were back on the serena eterna, everyone would have been picking up the pieces and licking their wounds; taking comfort from their friends or steeling themselves with hollow resolves like hope and the sentiment that next time won't be as bad. recharging their batteries, so to speak. fooling themselves.

there's a cup that houses her toothbrush and toothpaste on the lip of the sink, but more appealing is the bathmat just outside the shower. she stoops for a moment to shove her earpiece beneath heavy memory foam and absorbent cotton, and for good measure turns the shower on full blast and flicks on the vent fan before slipping back out and closing the door behind her. the latch clicks into place at her back, and clarke drifts back across the apartment floorplan until she reaches the couch-bed — a good middle point between bathroom and kitchen, gives them the most distance.

she doesn't move to sit but stands at the arm and tilts her head, equal parts inviting him to join her here and finally spill whatever this lead up has been angling towards. )

[equivo]

[ Krouse nods as Clarke heads to the other room. He waits until the sound of her footsteps shift before he leans further over the sink, closing his eyes as his hair falls short of hiding his face. Under his bandages, his left arm lights up from the pressure he's putting on it. He shifts to his right late, the ache lingering. ]

Okay.

[ He says to himself, drowned out by the rush of water. A deep breath to fill out his lungs, another small nod, and he pushes off the kitchen counter. ]

Okay.

[ Back to the doorway, where he thinks about whether or not he should take off his shoes, a fleeting hangover of long instilled conscientiousness about carpets. Clarke hasn't, so he probably shouldn't. It's a stupid little thing to have come to mind, slipping in between the checkboxes of every real concern he should be keeping at the forefront of his thoughts.

But for all the things he's trying to think through, he's calm. It's how he gets when he's committed to seeing a decision through. His doubts don't ease, his pulse doesn't slow, but they fade into a static he can tune out.

He flashes her a smile when she comes out of the bathroom, clean and easy reflex. Crossing over to the couch is just a few steps. Taking a seat at her invitation doesn't feel like crashing into the earth. ]

Can't be too careful.

[ Maybe that's another joke, lightly said as it is. He's not dwelling on it. The butt of his gun is digging into his hip. He adjusts so it stops. ]

She's good with computers. [ Funnelled cash, background research; he doesn't know how much of that was true, but it was enough. ] Better with information.

I know who she is. [ As if it's not obvious, but it's better to be clear. ] Back where we came from. Which is a problem, because I can't tell you how. And that's why I'm hoping you're still keeping an open mind, even though this sounds like a load of absolute bullshit.

[skaikru]

( there are times where the suspense is worse than the reveal, and times when the reveal makes one long for the tense moments from before — when they didn't know the full depth of what they were dealing with and could at least pretend it wasn't that dangerous.

and clarke ultimately can't tell which court this conversation is going to lead them into. she can feel her heartrate tick up, feel her chest squeeze, and the beginnings of an adrenaline based response making her legs feel heavy and her palms tingle. she almost wants to stay standing and faced towards the door, but he seems an even bigger wreck, and he still sits. )

You're making me a little nervous, Krouse. Just — tell me.

[equivo]

[ You should be more than a little nervous.

He's not going to say that. He doesn't even want to say it. What he wants to say, watching her tense up on the brittle edge of fear, is that there's nothing to worry about. That he's got it handled, all of this lead up for nothing but the common courtesy of letting her know that, one occasional ally to another.

More than he wants to say it, he wants it to be true.

But he's been trying not to lie to her about the things that matter. Do better, his own choice of words that keeps coming back in a bitter curdle of acid at the back of his mouth. Maybe if he'd done worse, they wouldn't be here. ]

She's a parahuman. I'd say 'like me', but that's sort of the fundamental issue. She's not like me.

Powers tend to come in types. Most of them change the things you can do. Some of them change the way you think. [ The twist of his mouth tightens. ] She's one of the latter. They call them 'thinkers', creatively enough.

I don't know exactly how her power works. I don't know how much it's working here. But to give you the gist of it, she knows things. Things she shouldn't be able to know, things she shouldn't even be able to guess. She can look at someone and tell where they came from, what they're planning, if they're going to pull a trigger. Give her a phone call between two people, and she can figure out a whole criminal conspiracy. She's not always right, but she's right enough of the time.

If you think about all the things you wouldn't want someone to know about you, well. She probably does. Or she can get close enough to mess with your head, push you into giving her more. Or just push you.

And that's what she does. She pushes until people do what she wants, or they break. Or both. She doesn't really give a shit.

[ He managed to keep his voice steady up to that. It's not nothing that it only crests into a rough waver there, a fraying bow dragged the wrong way over steel strings pulled too far. He pulls his fingernails out of the denim over his knees and makes his hands still. ]

That's why I can't tell you as much as I want to. Because anything I tell you, she's going to figure out I told you. The more you know, the more she's going to think you're a threat. And -

[ This is the bad part. She'll be able to see it in the way he stops looking at her, a contortion of guilt and shame and hot, black hate passing over his face. ]

And I've fucked you over enough already, because I gave you my fucking gun, and her and me - we're really not on great fucking terms.

[ It almost seems like he's done, his head tipped down and shoulders pulled back and together like there's a knife slipped neatly between them. ]

I'm sorry.

[ The two most useless words in the English language. ]

[skaikru]

( the past few moments had been filled with suspense and clarke had wanted answers. and they are subsequently provided by krouse, but it's like... no matter how much he talks, no matter how carefully engineered the answers are to ward her off asking follow up questions, there's still holes. she wants to ask for more information about thinkers, a sudden new brand of power to be envious of because how convenient would it be to have something more than instinct to go off of when confronting someone new? she wants to ask for more specifics on what it means to be pushed by someone like that, and if there are any surefire ways to circumvent it — like teleportation powers that don't work when one's stuck in the depths of a well — and she very, very desperately wants to ask about those not great fucking terms the two of them are on.

but, resoundingly. overall. perhaps a bit undermining considering how severely krouse hunches his shoulders, all clarke really has to ask at the end is, )

...that's it?

( that isn't the right response, that feels like it demeans his very obvious fear. clarke cobbles her incredulity back into herself; takes a deep breath, and allows the familiar facade of competency to settle over her. she is unbothered by the warning lights he blares, but not unsympathetic to why he'd sought to raise the alarm. she smiles at him, though it's tempered and diplomatic more than sincere. )

So she's another Aurora. Or, Echo I guess.

( another captain, another friday. another a.l.i.e. just another in a long list of more capable creatures than her, who would still cry when they're half drowned.

clarke had seen enough of the labyrinth's effect on powers when natsuno'd had difficulty shoving aside the hurtles they'd been forced over with a hoard of zombies at their heels. and she'd weathered tattletale's seemingly instinctive need to lash out when pushed into a corner, just to find it lacking. )

If it's the gun you're worried about, there's nothing wrong with the truth. We were stuck together in the middle of the maze, we traded weapons, we got separated before I could return yours. Nothing about that's out of the ordinary, or means anything significant.

And — ( as for tattletale potentially perceiving her as threat? she is far from the first, and will not likely be the last. clarke snorts lightly. ) — I'm not particularly scared of her, Krouse.

( turns out, for all his effort, she does not quite Get It. )

[equivo]

[ Krouse looks back at Clarke when she says that's it?, a sheen of resignation already across his eyes. It stays there while she goes through a neat, practical assessment of what he's told her about the threat, what they can do about it, and caps it off with polite, slightly dismissive assurance.

His mouth twists when she's done, expression creasing at the edges in a way that could be the cusp of all sorts of things. Frustration, hurt, desperation - or, as it turns out, a short, dry laugh as he drops his head and brings his hands up to press fingers along the sides of his nose. ]

Yeah. [ He says, voice threaded with a hairline crack. ] Okay.

[ He squeezes his eyes shut as he makes a quiet, tight noise at the back of his throat, digging his fingertips into soft corners at the top of the bridge of his nose. Then his hands drop as he straightens back up, landing on his knees. ]

I'm not asking you to be scared. I'm saying you shouldn't underestimate her, because even if she can't get to you? She'll find another angle to come at you from, if she decides you're a target she wants to focus on, and nothing pisses her off more than people not being impressed by her schtick.

[ There's a dozen things he could tell her that might make her understand. He can't use any of them. Not unless he was sure that she was going to end up a target, and the only way he'll know that is if it happens.

What he can say is something he's been doing his best not to allow, let alone admit, even to himself. But it's the crux of why they're in this situation. The thing he's done to her in exchange for a handful of moments of feeling like -

Like there could be something more to him than the sum of his mistakes. A rounding error in the math where he could hide this one small, warm thing. ]

And it meant something to me.

[ He's smiling again, faintly, because what the else is he supposed to do? ]

Not trying to get sentimental on you. I'd just rather you hear it from me first. [ His smile tilts, achingly wry. ] I like you, Clarke. And if she doesn't have a problem with you after the labyrinth, she's going to have a problem with that.

[skaikru]

( it's a semi-regular event, to find herself in disagreement with someone despite them both trying to tackle the same problem. clarke's got plenty she'd like to hide away about herself, but history proves she can take most accusations on the chin and keep going anyways. lisa's mask had cracked beside the siren pool, and she'd spat vehemence like a wounded snake directly in clarke's face while also trying to break her wrist; if it's just a more extreme version she's slated to face now, she thinks she can take it.

but krouse strikes paydirt with the mention of alternate avenues. her friends are her weakness, start with — some of the levity, the mark of the easy dismissal, drains from clarke's face as her vivid imagination strikes up. she could see natsuno proverbially flaying himself alive just to spite a blonde who thought she could use him as a tool, and shrugging off any bodily grievous consequences with the snap crackle pop of bones shifting back into place. but rita is easy to rankle, easier to hurt. and octavia... well, there's still what feels like distance between them, stemming from differences on earth and cemented by a two year gap since they'd last seen each other. the latter two would be easier to manipulate if tattletale set her mind to it, but all three could be doomed to suffer just by virtue of being associated with her.

clarke is already digging metaphorical graves for her friends in the back of her grey matter, reopening proverbial blisters on her palms from how tightly she grips the shovel and silently berating herself — fuck fucking shit — when krouse drops in with another gut punch.

it should be a nice thing, to be liked. it should be nice to mean something to someone. but it's not. the admission resonates in the air between them, then sets free a swarm of... not butterflies, but moths throughout her abdomen. anyone who decides to like her, trust her, follow her is just another person to inevitably let down, or hurt, or see dead at her feet the next time she makes a mistake. natsuno had at least made an informed choice when it came to befriending her, she'd told him everything. rita had wormed her way in after months of trials and loathing each other. octavia was grandfathered in after having been at clarke's side for most of her atrocities. krouse on the other hand, has no idea what he's getting into by deciding hers is an orbit he feels comfortable existing in, and that's scarier than tattletale.

or at least it's a danger she's more readily aware of. )

Oh —

( the kneejerk reaction is to batten down the hatches here. clarke tenses visibly in the shoulders; takes a deep inhale through her nose while readjusting against the back of the couch, suddenly viscerally uncomfortable but with no easy avenue for escape considering this is her apartment in the first place. there is a patch of rough skin on the inside on her cheek, and she bites into the ridge of scar tissue. if she shakes her head a little bit, it's an unconscious warning signal — then the pieces of her mask slot into place like tectonic plates.

the smile she offers back is wincing at best, but her tone is steady. calm. decided. assuring in its capitulation. )

Okay. I won't underestimate her. Promise.

( but there's a belated flare of... is this indignance? anger? whatever it is, it makes it easier to press her lips into a thin line and shake her head. she does not know this girl's name, and in the grand scheme of things, this is not the biggest problem staring them all down. ) But I'm also not going to allow her "problems" to dictate who I can and can't be friends with. And you shouldn't either.

[equivo]

[ This is where Clarke is going to tell him to get the fuck out. He's sure of it as he watches her tense at a warning that finally gets through, touching on a vulnerability he has access to from that one terrible night in the woods where he'd thought he'd done enough to keep both of them insulated from this.

She'll be polite about it. No reason to alienate him for nothing, however angry she is with him for his presumptions. That'd be a wasteful move, and she's not prone to making those. He wouldn't hold it against her either way; in fact, he might actually prefer it if she did go off on him, but that's as selfish as liking her was in the first place.

But he's the one underestimating her, this time. The flawed composure he'd been meeting her shifting expression with cracks again like she took that metaphorical shovel up to tap him between the eyes. He pulls back slightly in his surprise, uncertain of how he should take her - acceptance? Defiance? Whatever it is she means by the line she's drawing in the sand, and whoever it's about, between him and Tattletale.

So we're friends, now? is on the tip of his tongue, a little acid curl of skepticism that would reinforce the distance he'd expected they'd keep each other at, his personal failings aside.

That's not necessarily what she's saying. It's not really how he wants to answer her, either. It only feels safer because it'd be easier. But in foregoing the easier option, he's left with something worse, spilling out almost by mistake. ]

That's not the only reason I'm sorry.

[ He winces from his own honesty, holding his hands still so they don't fidget. ]

I'm not that great at being a friend. It's not just her, it's - a lot of things. [ One of which is so much of one that he doesn't know where he'd even start with it, so - the graspable and the mundane. ] I'm better at being an acquaintance. Less room to disappoint, or get you involved in all of my bullshit.

But I'm not going to leave you out to dry on this, either, all right? If that's what you're thinking. She was my problem first. So you do what you have to do, here, but if she starts anything else with you, you're not dealing with it alone. You don't deserve that.

[skaikru]

( alright, so she'd been the first to cross her own line in the sand when it came to the f word. friends, like an endearment; friends like a death sentence. if clarke grapples with her last statement, she can reason that she didn't actually mean to include herself in that category, that it'd been meant as a broad statement meant to encompass anyone else on the entire planet krouse may be worried about

but she'd said what she said.

and now has to sit here in abject, dumbstruck silence as he rattles off sentiments that may as well slipped off her own tongue. what had she told natsuno all that time ago, recline on the roof of a summer camp cabin in horrifically short shorts and accompanied by his trusted flamethrower? i end up hurting a lot of my friends. and i don't want to add you to that list. and she'd meant that, she'd tried, but best intentions don't hold a flame to consequences and in the end they'd both been stuck in prison stripes and doomed to be auctioned off at the next port. natsuno had stood beside her despite it all, to his detriment. he'd stand beside her if it meant his permeant, un-resurrectable death if it came to it, and that's a heavy burden on already tired shoulders — to add krouse into the mix might just topple her.

but he'd sat with her in the woods. he'd given her his gun. he'd gritted his teeth through unmedicated field surgery instead of asking her to venture back out in search of a healer. he'd kept her name off the network. he'd warned her. he'd never questioned, always just managed to understand...

it is remarkably hard, to tear yourself away from what seems like something you'd want. but that is what leaders do, time and time again. at some point during her listening, clarke's mouth had slipped open; a sliver of teeth and the dark of her mouth on display for several long moments before she realizes and pulls up her lower lip. krouse hits her with the wild idea that she doesn't actually deserve the consequences of her own actions, and it takes another moment to properly formulate an acceptable response. )

I'm not a very good friend, either. But there's got to be a middle ground somewhere, right? ( this time when she smiles at him, there's none of that pinched reservation around the edges; it's a real smile, if not tired and resigned when it reaches up to brighten her irises and accentuate the bruise like bags beneath them. and clarke offers out a hand to shake. ) Maybe we can just call each other allies.

( with vested interest. because be it mutated monsters, lisa wilbourn, or whatever else echo deigns to throw at them, she'd never leave him out to dry either. )

[equivo]

[ It's hard to believe Clarke isn't a good friend. Maybe she's not gregarious, or effusive, or easy to get to know, but none of those things are what come to mind when Krouse defines what makes a friend a good one.

She's loyal, and she's brave, and she's kind - kind in the hard-fought, battered way only people who are making a choice to stay like that are. She's been better to him than he could have asked anyone to be, and she takes all the fumbled gestures he makes to return that with surprise that gets him a little bit every time. When she smiles at him like that, he can't imagine who wouldn't be thrilled at the privilege of being on the receiving end of it.

He closes his hand around hers more gently than the prelude to a handshake. Holds her fingers in his for the half-second it takes to search her eyes for any sign of hesitation, or maybe just to study the gradation of blues in them, and then gives her a firm, light shake before he lets her go. ]

Allies.

[ It's a concrete term. Something with a hell of a lot less baggage than friend, and a role he likes to believe he wasn't half-bad in when circumstances allowed. Relief comes away with him as he leans back into the couch, huffing out stale air from the bottom of his lungs. So that's settled, says his slight shrug, like that'll cut through the threads of tension strung through this whole conversation. ]

Thank you for hearing me out. [ He strings out a slight pause, still looking at her with clear-eyed thoughtfulness. ] I appreciate it. If I were in your shoes, I'd have made this a much bigger pain in the ass.

[skaikru]

( he thinks too highly of her. or his bar for friendship is set at ground level. both realities are problematic ones, but since the two of them are in a set habit of keeping their inner compliments to themselves, clarke has no conversational foothold from which to further dissuade him. krouse takes her hand lightly, looks her directly in the eyes, and she thinks this may be the easiest alliance she's ever sought because at least it isn't built on the backbone off the atrocities she's committed. there's no levying wanheda above trickster, and this isn't a battlefield they're standing at the edge of — it's just her apartment, her slept-on couch.

they shake, and just like that — allies. cemented in words, if not blood under the fingernails.

clarke manages to remain optimistic even as they drop hands. hers withdraw to her lap, fingers fiddling over themselves until threaded like basket weavings and forced to be still. she still smiles in his direction, and shrugs in deference to gratitude. )

Any time. ( it seems proven through experiment that clarke will always take his words to heart. whether she chooses to follow his guidance in the end, though? an appreciation of amy dallon and disinterest in falling for tattletale's tactics speak loudly, but they've moved past all of that now right? krouse provides the mental break of imagining the roles reversed, and clarke half-snorts. )

I really hope the shoes never switch, and that you never meet any of my old enemies. ( most of them are dead, not that it means anything in the multiverse. the others? well, it'd be fair to say they still scare her too.

a beat, then as almost an entirely separate thought: )

Should I have made this more painful for you?

( because she can be a huge pain in the ass when times warrant, and if an opportunity for stubborn survivalism had been missed here, she'd like to remedy it going forward. )

[equivo]

[ Krouse blinks, and then laughs, a grin slicing over the tension he's still holding in his expression. He leans back against the couch and props his elbow against the top of the frame to make a support for his head, palm pressed against his temple as he takes a second to marvel at her.

She really does keep working the angles, whatever the circumstances. Just another quality to add to her list of admirable traits. ]

Oh, absolutely. You could have wrung me out for assurances, caveats, promises of future favours...maybe thrown in some subtle hints about crossing the aisle to feel out the competition?

I'm actually not sure if I'm flattered or insulted you didn't think you needed the leverage.

[ He's neither, but the flutter of reassurance flitting around his chest is closer to the former than the latter by miles. It's oddly uplifting to be able to joke about this, his free hand coming up to wave lightly through the air despite the pangs that shoot out from his stitches when he does. ]

For the record, though, I don't usually extend this kind of offer. You've just been exceptionally reliable.

[ Which falls short of the things he wants to say, but she wouldn't appreciate him dragging sentimentality any further into this than he already has. He is capable of keeping his goddamn mouth shut occasionally. ]

Which is why I'm also hoping no one holding anything against you shows up, either. Hard to imagine them as reasonable people.

[ His smile fades to a sharper, closed mouth version, his levity deliberately held steady. He's not going to jump ahead to pledging to fight hypothetical battles for her, because that's another thing he's sure she wouldn't appreciate.

He'll just do it, if it comes up. For the sake of allyship. ]

[skaikru]

( it isn't a comfortable thing, to be marveled at when feeling like you're just doing the bare minimum. krouse laughs and readjusts on the couch, and for a second clarke can feel her back locking up — but he just continues on in his usual fashion, laying it on comically thick. and the answering groove between her eyebrows is nowhere as severe as it could be, the tension interwoven between her spinal chord effectively sliced by humor, even if she cannot muster easy words to deflect in kind. after all, what competition?

but sure, okay, next time she seeks out a potential ally they will be met with more scrutiny. and a little leverage never hurts to have in a back pocket, it just also never felt... necessary here.

here, and here only though. in previous instances, on previous worlds... )

They —

( there is a long, awkward pause after that word slips out unbidden; the beginning of what would be a very long story. they could mean bone marrow drilling mountain recluses she'd left to rot, as easily as they could be the inhabitants of the serena eterna that she'd left rotting in cages. and regardless of which tale she could tell him at this time, clarke is never the hero. her teeth snap together and her lips press tight; there is an self deprecating sort of smile tugging at the edges of her lips, and in the end she admits: )

They were. All of them, just... In their own way, you know? I liked plenty of them, we just happened to be on different sides.

[equivo]

[ Clarke's sobriety tempers his levity, even if it comes with a tight smile on her part. He can't decide what it means, not with the breadth of ambiguity that just happened to be on different sides can cover after a hesitation like that.

But it's not pulling back on her end. There's an extension of more tentative trust, wrapped around a question she might not even know she's asking. ]

Those are the tough ones.

[ He turns his head slightly with his gaze, leaning further into his palm as he studies a seam in her couch upholstery. Unsurprisingly, there's no revelatory insight hidden in the stitching. ]

It'd be convenient if more people were completely irrational idiots, wouldn't it? I know it'd be a weight off my mind.

[ He hasn't liked most of the people who have been on different sides. Tattletale happens to be an acute case in point, but also an exception, in her own way: she doesn't have friends on her own side either.

Then again, neither did he. Some people just aren't built likeable. ]

Maybe if they show up, they'll exercise some of that reasonable self-interest to realize it's not a great idea to fuck things up for themselves over old grudges. [ He shifts his focus back to her, mirroring the tired ruefulness of her still ambiguous smile. ] Nothing brings people together like a common cause, right?

Or so the theory goes.