Room 205, Monday Morning

[got_hijacked]

Rhys had been blissfully unaware of anything weird going on in town this past weekend. He'd been engrossed in finishing up the work on a rudimentary arm so he could at least have two hands to build a better one. Or maybe another ECHO eye...

Whatever. It'd get made.

If he could work out how to get this arm slotted into place without having to contort himself like a circus performer.

"Son of a bitch, c'mon," he muttered, having to reach across his body with his arm in an attempt to see what he was getting hung up on. Which meant a lot of frowning and jamming his hand into his shoulder socket.

Of course.

[Open, yesss]

Comments

[faithseesred]

Fine, but only because he looked really pathetic doing it himself.

"Just know this is the weirdest thing a guy has ever asked me to do," Faith let him know as she manhandled his arm into place. She probably could have been a little more gentle with it, sorry Rhys. "And I've lived in dorms with guys since I was seven."

[got-hijacked.livejournal.com]

Faith, that was his base state of being.

"Hey, last time I had this done involved doctors." Or at least people in lab coats. Same thing, right?

He made a high pitched squeak of surprise when it finally slotted into place and then both the arm and he jerked like they'd been shocked. Nervous systems syncing up and all.

[faithseesred]

"Wait, what?" Except then the arm slotted in and her half-second of alarm that she was doing something that required a doctor was for nothing. She stared at Rhys, specifically his shoulder socket area, and did her best to look cool and calm about this whole thing.

"So I gotta ask, why'd you take it out if you can't put it back in?" THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.

[got-hijacked.livejournal.com]

Damn it, if only narrative could highfive.

"Longstory," he wheezed out in one quick sentence.

[faithseesred]

Oh, right, it probably hurt to have a hunk of metal shoved into your shoulder. Nerve endings and all.

"Suit yourself," Faith said. While just observing his whole... process here.

...It was a little awkward, just watching him, but this was a weird, interesting spectacle.

"I'm just saying, maybe you could work out an arrangement with your roommate. They shove your arm back in, maybe you... sweep or dust every once in a while or something."

[got-hijacked.livejournal.com]

"Ha! Ha. Yeah, no," Rhys replied. "Kuzco and I aren't exactly pals."

[faithseesred]

"Ohhh," Faith said, putting two and two together. In this case, the first 'two' was the rant Kuzco had given in class about how much he hated his roommate and the second 'two' was Rhys. "So you're the guy who banished his roommate to the common room. Okay, okay..."

Hey, she wasn't judging. She was more like amused.

[got-hijacked.livejournal.com]

"He did it first!" And Rhys couldn't figure out why no one believed he was actually an adult.

[faithseesred]

"No, I mean, I can't blame you," Faith said, and now she was grinning a little sheepishly. "He's really... loud."

[got-hijacked.livejournal.com]

Rhys snorted as he flexed the fingers on his new hand, checking to see everything was working right. "That is such an understatement." It was precious how nice she was being here.

[faithseesred]

She grew up in dorm style living, okay? She knew bad roommates. And, true, she never tortured them or banished them, but she certainly understood the impulse.

"Does he always whine like that?" she wanted to know. "It's a lot."

[got-hijacked.livejournal.com]

And Rhys hadn't had to dorm with anyone since college. Which made this even worse, really. "Apparently he's an emperor," he said, rolling his eyes.

[faithseesred]

"What? No."

...That was about all she had, yup.

[got-hijacked.livejournal.com]

"Yuuuuup."

They were so dismissive of poor, poor Kuzco.

[faithseesred]

KUZCO COULD DEAL WITH IT. While stroking his silky robes in the common room.

"This school makes no sense," Faith muttered. "Or is this just how high school is? Because I have no frame of reference, but this makes no sense."

[got-hijacked.livejournal.com]

Wait until he was a llama.

"High school is nothing like that," Rhys replied vehemently. "College isn't even like this."

First of all, where were the crippling student loans and anxiety inducing standardized tests?

[faithseesred]

Faith raised her eyebrows. "How do you know about college? Older sibling?"

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"Remember that long story?" Rhys asked, making some crazy eyes because his life. His life. "I'm supposed to be twenty-nine. Not sixteen."

[faithseesred]

Faith squinted at him. Just when they'd agreed that the weirdness in this town was unacceptable, he turned around and was really weird himself. That was rude, Rhys.

"You look sixteen," she pointed out. Dryly. "And you sound sixteen."

[got-hijacked.livejournal.com]

"I noticed that one too," he whined. Like a sixteen year old. "I just need to find a New-U station and fix this, but if there's no Hyperion here, there are no New-U stations."

[faithseesred]

"What's that, some kind of rapid aging machine?" Faith said, while hoping very much that was not what it was.

[got-hijacked.livejournal.com]

It was a spawn point.

"No, it... reconstructs people if they die. You know, for money. Hyperion tech."

Based off Dahl tech. Probably based off Eridian tech.

[faithseesred]

Lucky. Her canon didn't have save points! It was crappy about auto-saving, too.

"Yeah, that's pretty weird," she said, impressively mild as she took that in. "Does it cost a lot?"

HER PARENTS WERE DEAD.

[got-hijacked.livejournal.com]

Oh god, was she Batman?

"Yeah, a ton. Usually only vault hunters can afford it."

He was pretty sure it only worked for him because of Jack.

[faithseesred]

She was like an AU Batman who was an Asian teenage girl with face tattoos. She even hated guns!

"Okay, I'm gonna stop asking you what things are any minute now," she promised, "but what the heck is a vault hunter?"