revivalproject | Trying Not To

Entry tags:

Trying Not To

WHO: Donnie and you?
WHERE: Between and within Orange, Blue and Green
WHAT: Wall
WHEN: Late September
WARNINGS: I was in a write-y mood

It's hard to fix things when it seems that people don't care about having things fixed.

Back home, when things needed to be fixed, there'd be no peace until the problem was corrected. Donnie had slotted himself right into that role and performed it without complaint, and he prided himself in keeping things in working order and up to date. His family could live in comfort and despite having to live apart from humanity, was still fully connected to the world around them so long as the wifi was working.

So of course when he'd found himself dropped into the late snows of an alien planet, once it became clear that there was a problem to be attended to, Donnie assumed that his purpose here was obvious. Could a fourteen-year-old possibly be so arrogant to think he was the solution to fixing the problems of a displaced alien race?

Yes.

Admittedly, after being here for a year and with little actual Storm experience to show for, it had started to temper his ambitions, but Donnie had been much too stubborn to give up. He couldn't give up, because that meant never going home, and for someone who had never been away from his family for so long, this simply wasn't an option.

He'd found his drive again, in spite of the things that had happened, and in other instances, because of the things that happened. He now had his brother to lean on when things got difficult. And things had certainly gotten difficult.

This whole murder witch-hunt however is wearing down on him in ways he'd never considered. The confrontation with Stu had been a disaster so far as he had seen, and the more that had been said, the less he'd felt that putting in an appearance then would have helped matters. All the jumble of emotions had balled up so tightly in his gut and he had no name to any of them, save that he could probably do without the experience. He wanted to be sick, he wanted to just not be there, but every time someone said his name, it just felt like couldn't leave. Maybe he shouldn't have told anyone else. Maybe then things wouldn't have gone so horribly wrong. Again.

What was the point of it all? Any efforts made to try and get them any closer to figuring out what was going on with this planet and their mystery-watchers were being effectively waylaid because someone decided they were going to try killing people for the heck of it. Maybe that was evidence in itself, maybe they didn't really take the situation seriously. But did that really matter? Words hadn't resolved anything yet, which is why Donnie usually let his work do the talking. His confidence was always in his work, and in getting things done. And yet that had brought up another realization.

What's the point of being the tech-guy when anyone can fix things or code things with the touch of a sphere and an instant upload into your brain? It feels like his abilities were cheapened. Sure, he'd been ecstatic when he'd gotten Leo to figure out how to work with and understand code, and it was bad enough not being able to do two things that otherwise went hand-in-hand so far as he was concerned. But those uncomfortable, familiar insecurities have been working their way into his thoughts.

Is he even really needed here? If anyone can figure out how to fix or put together machines or program a tablet with a data point, then where did that leave him? It's a crippling thought that hurts even more than admitting to himself how bad he is with people. It swirls and builds with everything else like a steadily building cyclone and trying to pull anything from it to make sense of it has been an exhausting cycle in itself.

The emptiness that eventually rolls in after is almost welcoming. Maybe that's not quite what it is. Can someone get tired of feelings? Not his area of expertise. At the moment he doesn't particularly care so long as it saves him the discomfort. He has... Well, he thought he had things to do. He doesn't feel very motivated to continue them at the moment, but with the power being unreliable of late due to the strange storm patterns, maybe it doesn't matter too much.

So it's outside that he goes.

It's cloudy out but for the moment it doesn't seem like there's any rain just yet, not that the wet weather particularly bothers him so much as the hints of Storms with a capital 'S'. But with the instability of tech that comes with such Storms, that also means it's probably better not to fly around. Crash-landing from equipment failure seems somehow more embarrassing than getting caught walking around alone despite all the insistence from people not to, but it's one of those rare times where his overthink's not running wild, and he wants to enjoy the silence while he can. The walk out to the space he's planted his test garden is a long one given it's on the opposite side of the city and it's only longer if he doesn't cut through the city center, but at least he's more or less managed to regain his usual stamina since the accident aboard the Agrii ship.

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Leo catches the backpack and starts filling it with things they need.

"Hmm, sounds like that makes him weird to me!" Leo grins, filling the bags with snacks and then making his way over to the clothes. "But hey, gotta be at least a little weird to be in this family."

He looks over the pile, thinking. "Mmm... Do you think it's going to start getting cold?"

"....." Wow, his brain definitely isn't in full gear if he'd walked so easily into that one. But he supposes he can't really argue the latter point, but he can't let things go without at least some sort of response. "Sigh."

Donnie picks up the bag he usually brings along whenever he heads out to Sh'ka, checking what's already inside before packing other things. He pauses as he looks at his tablet before sliding it in. Probably should take that just in case. Probably.

"...maybe," he says, glancing over at the pile as well. "Weather's been weird in general, but at least it isn't cooking outside. Probably couldn't hurt to bring something, but I don't expect it to be there to be a blizzard or anything anytime soon."

He sure did, and Leo is going to look satisfied about it even with that reaction.

Leo doesn't say anything about the addition of the tablet. It's probably a good idea, just in case. For safety, and stuff.

He goes ahead and grabs a couple light coats, and of course a blanket for himself. A few other things into the bag and soon he is ready to go!

Donnie goes to pull on his battle shell before he slings his own bag over his shoulder once he's got his own things together. Lastly he makes sure he's got his tech-bō and his phone. Sure can't leave without those.

He walks over to the purple bot that's been tucked off to the side in sleep-mode, tapping it on the head.

"Wake up, we're going on a trip."

Yellow optics flickered to life, the crab-like bot rising up on its spindly legs. "A trip! I love trips!" he spouted, giving a slight wave of his arms about excitedly.

At least someone here is genuinely happy and excited. Leo can't help but smile a little at the bot's enthusiasm.

"Come on, little buddy. It's adventure time."

He looks at Donnie then.

"Ready?"

Even Donnie can't help for a smile. While Scuttle did tend to get easily distracted from his directives, he's otherwise tolerable company. He turns, the ticky-tak of the robot's legs against the floor sounding behind him.

Looking back at Leo, he gives his brother a thumbs-up. "All set."

"Then let's go!"

He'll open the door and lead the way to the shuttle terminal.

There's something about just knowing that there shouldn't be anyone else around that helps to ease a lot of the weight Donnie hadn't realized he'd been figuratively carrying around. His shoulders ache a little as some of that tension loosens up, and he rolls them back as they step out of the hangar.

"All right, so basically the layout of the city here is flipped from Temba, although the locations aren't necessarily the same. It does have a hotel but not nearly as many serviceable rooms, not that I think that'll be a problem since I'm pretty sure no one lives in them. Usually I stay over near the power station when I'm out here."

Leo takes a moment to soak in the scenery, since he's never been over here before. The first thing he notices is that it's a lot more humid here, the air thicker even as they're moving toward winter. Maybe they won't need those jackets after all.

The stone buildings are also eye-catching. It's definitely different, though Leo doesn't know enough about architecture to truly appreciate all the ways in which those differences matter.

"Huh. This is a rockin' place." Leo grins, hiking his bag further up his shoulder and nodding at Donnie. "Lead the way, hermano!"

"You're going to make me regret this, aren't you?" Donnie groans, pinching the space between his eyes. He shrugs it off, shaking his head as he starts down the road. Scuttle brings up the rear once the two get ahead of him.

"We'll head to the hotel first since it's a lot closer. Also, if we go to the roof, you'll have the best view of the city. Still no New York, of course, but it's something to see."

“Cool.” Leo nods, following Donnie as they go. They have to pick around more rubble and debris here (why do so many of these rocks look like leaves dropped off a tree?), but it’s easy enough for Leo, young and fit as he is.

“How much have you been over this way?” He knows Donnie got forced to spend a few weeks here during the mermaid fiasco, but he means before that.

At least things aren't too bad, and the little plant guys have cleared out a lot of the overgrowth most of the ash from the volcanic eruption.

"At least a couple times a month once Robotnik got his workshop set up. There are a lot of interesting plants here- it's where I got the vines that are growing up the side of the wall at our place," he grins. He means the prickly ones that apparently absorb blood.

"Not too often since..." -being stuck here for almost a month with no communication from Temba- "Well, anyway, I've had enough to do back at in Temba."

Right. He tries not to touch those weird things.

"...Well, that just means you've got plenty of things to do here, now." Leo stretches his arms above his head. "And since I'm the best brother in the whole world, I'll help you out."

Donnie did call him his champion, after all!

"Welllll I suppose that's true," Donnie concedes. He doubts Leo will have a whole lot of fun with bot maintenance, although the offer is surprising, whether it's sincere or not. Too late to take anything back though!

"Excellent! Then you won't mind checking the coding on the security bots," he says, smiling brightly.

...Oh no, he already regrets this.

"Awww, come oooon. There's gotta be a more fun job than that!"

Stupid datapoints giving him the ability to code!

"Hey, you're the one that said you'd help out! And what else do you think I'm going to be doing around here that isn't technically related?" Donnie points out.

"Scuttle, you go on ahead to the workshop. We'll catch up with you in a bit," he says, shooing the crab-bot off. Scuttle gives a salute and then goes skittering off almost happily. Knowing the robot, Donnie's sure they'll probably even get to the workshop faster than he will for how distracted Scuttle can get.

"Anyway, you won't have to worry about that right away. Here, we're close enough," he says as he turns back to Leo, holding his hand out as his battle shell activates. While he knows they'd have no trouble navigating a broken, incomplete staircase within the hotel to get to the upper floors, why bother when you can fly?

"I dunno, maybe I could go... explore a cave, and fight swashbuckling skeletons or something!"

Huff! But he does take Donnie's hand when it's held out. He's getting more comfortable with this whole flying with Donnie thing since they've been here. He's getting why Mikey hitches rides so often.

"Take it away."

"Plenty of time for that!"

Donnie probably won't try and go through all the robots. If he's being honest with himself, he still doesn't quite feel up to dabbling, but maybe at least doing two or three with Leo will help. Also, it's fun throwing his brother off like this, it makes things feel more normal.

But this is fun too, and once Leo grabs his hand, Donnie grins and flies them up. He sets Leo down once they've reached the rooftop before dropping beside him. The hotel isn't nearly as tall as the places they're used to but here it's definitely the tallest thing and with the nearby stone trees having lost most of their leaves, their view of the surrounding city isn't too obscured.

Leo's always loved being up high with a good view, and he can't help the smile that comes to his face with this one. The landscape is alien for sure - maybe even more so than Temba, with all the stone buildings. While it's nothing like New York, it's still cool in its own way. When Leo thinks about adventures in space, this is the kind of stuff he means: things you can't see on Earth.

He walks out to the furthest edge of the roof. Then he cups his hands around his mouth and lets out a loud "WHOOOOOOOOOP!", listening as the echo bounces off the stones below. Some of the stress of the last few weeks chips away as the sound fades, and he feels himself start to relax.

The sudden noise sends a few small avians scattering from some of the lower trees.

Donnie can't help but laugh. This is the sort of behavior he'd expect from Mikey, not that Leo is completely exempt of such, as proven just now. It loosens that knot that had only been tightening into something he'd otherwise figured impossible to untangle, something he's desperately needed.

Leo loves making his brothers laugh. That's his favorite sound in the world; maybe especially coming from Donnie, because it's so often harder to achieve.

Leo allows himself a private little smile of victory before he schools his expression into something more casual, though still a grin. He turns back to Donnie, folding his arms over his chest.

"So where's the power station from here?"

Donnie sighs, looking out at the city, missing that little smile from Leo as he allows himself a full-bodied stretch. Maybe finally, finally he can actually...well, relaxing for him is rare even on good days, but something closer to normal seems attainable, and that in itself is a relief.

"Huh? Right- power station. It's way out across the city. See all those trees there? It's on the other side of that forest."

"Oh, huh. That's a big trek." Not that Leo minds, because unlike Donnie, he doesn't hate cardio. "Hope there aren't any spiders in there..."

He doesn't want to get bit again, thanks.

He turns to look the other way, taking in the stone buildings and...

"Whoa, what happened over there?"

He's talking about the rubble that used to be the palace.

"Definitely a walk," Donnie acknowledges. At least being able to fly has certainly been a plus there. "No spiders that I've seen. But there are some concerningly large tracks from something. Quadrupedal, and way too heavy by the looks of the track, so at least it's nothing that's bound to sneak up on you."

Blinking, he looks over towards whatever's caught Leo's attention then. "That? I...am not sure. It says palace on the map, but well...that's all there is. And unlike most of damaged buildings anywhere on this planet that we've seen so far, this one was thoroughly demolished."

"Huh... a space monster..."

He sounds intrigued. Even if it's probably just some animal that's native to this planet and only exciting because they don't have them on earth.

The destroyed palace is also an interesting mystery. "Wonder if it got demolished by the big quadruped."

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Time jump to Sh'ka?

*thumbsup!*

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thumbsup!