[Open] Some Rats Don't Go Into Mazes

[work_wife]

WHO: Robin, Open
WHERE: Warrens Common Areas
WHAT: Anxiously Waiting For Results, Learning To Own A Dog
WHEN: November
WARNINGS: None

1. Back In The Same Maze

The Warrens. The last time they had ended up here Robin had still been new on Agra-10. Now here she is in the underground, looking worn around the edges, bruises around her throat existing as the faintest ghost of a memory, and hoenstly, looking annoyed. This time she doesn't have her things. She doesn't have all of her friends because some of them went and disappeared into the depths to explore (seriously, Eddie, why?).

Still doesn't make her feel any less worried. People are scattered and separated again. There's still a threat out there. In here. With them. Probably.

To say that Robin's jumpy is a serious understatement. While she's coming out of the shower area she jumps almost half a foot when she hears someone approaching. Well, more like when she hears Little Bear's excited boof over hearing someone approaching. At least the dog serves as an early warning system.

"Who's there?"

2. Exploring The Side Passages

At least there were ways to distract herself without her friends around. Sure, going off on her own had already made trouble for her in the past. In the recent past at that. But staying still in a single place had never been her style. Sure she hadn't been popular in Hawkins, but she had been used to wandering around town and biking places she wanted to go.

Being cooped up was never her style.

Thankfully she wasn't wandering completely alone. She had Little Bear on a makeshift leash at her side, the dog's tail wagging excitedly as Robin stopped them at an intersection off of the main Warren's area. She pauses, runs her fingers over a scratched in name on the wall. Something Billy Hargrove left here last time, when he named corridors based on streets he remembered from California. It made her feel closer to her absent friend.

"So, what do you say, Little Bear, left or right? I mean, we should probably double back, but you're clearly still excited to stretch your legs."

The dog just does a tappy little dance of excitement.

"Such a conversationalist," she sighs. "If only we could teach you english."

She needed someone to talk to before she went crazy.

Comments

[work_wife]

Portable what player? She looks so confused. But hey, in a few months he won't need to worry about it, what with the Hawkins kids getting a full set of projector, DVD player, and movies.

"Itty bitty screen? Like the communication devices? How do they get so small?"

[crystalmaster]

Radley quickly realizes his mistake in not explaining about it.

“It’s a kind of tech in my time,” he says. “It makes it a lot more convenient for watching things on the go.”

[work_wife]

"I mean, you go places to watch things. Things don't go with you to be watched," she points out. It doesn't make sense to be anything else.

Though she guesses there is space technology here now.

[crystalmaster]

"In my time, they do," Radley says. "People like to watch movies in the car on long trips and things like that."

[work_wife]

"Seriously? That's weird. I didn't know you could do that. I thought everyone was doomed to music and terrible travel games."

Wouldn't it be hard to drive with a movie on?

[crystalmaster]

Radley laughs. "There's still those things too. Scotch likes to combine them into terrible travel games about music."

Driving with movies playing certainly does take concentration.

[work_wife]

"Oh, that one I'm sure I'd have learned growing up from having hippies for parents."

And she didn't want to play them, thanks.

[crystalmaster]

"Yeah? That must have been interesting," Radley says, genuinely curious.

[work_wife]

"It really wasn't," she assures him with a sigh. "Mom's often in lala land, or doing yoga, or her best impression of a stay at home mom. Dad's... Well, let's just say the two of them are too chill for me."

[crystalmaster]

Radley ponders that. It still sounds better than his home life was.

“Do they pay good attention to you, at least?”

[work_wife]

"Honestly, both not as much as I wanted, and too much at the same time."

They believed in letting her be a free spirit. And she had wanted something more than that. But at the same time, they came down hard on specific things she never expected.

[crystalmaster]

“It sounds complicated,” Radley says.

[work_wife]

Of course it does. She nods and sighs. That was just how life went.

"I need to go check on my friend Max. You gonna be okay out here?"

[crystalmaster]

“Sure,” Radley smiles.

[work_wife]

Robin offers a brief wave and then walks off, ready to see if she can't find Max.