voidtreckerexpress | [Closed] He isn't too old to sulk

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[Closed] He isn't too old to sulk

Who: Senku and Gen, and Senku and Tidus.
Where: The quiet carriage, the kitchen
When: Horseshoe 17
What: After what can only be described as a diastrous bit of social interaction, Senku is not only in a terrible mood but he's isolating himself. At least, that's the plan.
Warnings: Tentatively, nothing.

[For Gen]

The first thing Senku did when he walked away, was look for somewhere private, which led him to the quiet car cubicle. He shut himself inside, flopped on the bench and did, what could only be described as sulking. He hated that. He'd much rather throw himself into a project.

He didn't have some back-breaking physical labour on hand though, he was on the train and it was much better to ignore his feelings with something to do. Feelings didn't matter, he told himself. They didn't accomplish anything.

Eventually he pulled out a pen out of boredom and looked at the ceiling. He reached up on the wall of the cubicle and tested the waters with a pen he pulled out of the arms band. It wrote okay, but it wasn't very clear. He needed a distraction.

He could be spotted briefly walking over to the art supplies and heading back with a couple of black markers in hand towards the quiet carriage.

[For Tidus.]

When he was finished with his redecorating, or vandalism project likely due to someone's perception, he'd moved onto doing something else to distract him.

Senku was back into the art supplies, at least, he had one of the sketchbooks on a table and in his hands a ruler and a pencil from his open, orange pencil case.

He didn't just draw for fun, nothing cute here, but instead he was drawing up blueprints for a fictional space station. He was working on the basic form, and if he still needed a distraction later, he might continue on to make separate inside spaces.

Technical drawing was different in that he wasn't doing very much freehand, not since he had a ruler. He could but why make it inaccurate? He started with the biggest shape that looked like a nonagon, but he also drew a miniature version up in the corner of the page that had more faded lines within it, he was intending it to be a dodecahedron.

The only indication that Tidus might get that he was still in a mood is that when he glanced up to see who was in his space is that he didn't stop working, his eyes went back down to the page as he divided his space station into sections with two vertical lines.

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Inigo feels awful as he drags his feet over to where Tidus let him know Senku would be. Not since he doesn't want to - of course he wants to talk, apologize, explain.. whichever. Tidus mentioning something about helping Senku out too, but today may be a little too soon for that, with how raw all of Inigo's emotions still feel. But he knows he has to at the very least talk with the other. He had already wanted to the moment he saw Senku walk away, misunderstanding, but Tidus had told him to cool down first.

So he had. Or. Well. Not really. Inigo still doesn't feel very much less anxious than back there as he's heading towards where Senku is. Even with Tidus having explained the situation to him, he still worries he'll do something wrong - because Inigo always does. It feels like an inevitable fact of life, especially lately.

.. but he has to try. Inigo knows. So he sucks in a breath, trying to toughen up.

"Senku..?" He says once he's found the other, though keeping a respectable distance. His own voice feels foreign to his ears. Like he's having an out of body experience. "Do you.. have a minute? Is it okay if I talk?"

After speaking with Tidus, he had made more progress with his fictional space station, having added several 'floors', and he'd begun adding accents, the whole bottom area was for the engine room and the machinery. The floor above it was all three spaces devoted to storage.

He'd been contemplating the temperature control and whether or not he wanted to put gardening so close to the mechanical components or not.

He glanced up when Inigo came in and blinked at him.

"Sure." He set his tools down again, to give Inigo his attention.

He hesitates. Not because doesn't want to apologize, but because he's so worried that whatever words he will say will be the wrong ones.

So for a moment Inigo is still quiet, gaze nervously darting over to Senku's little space station, but then looking back at the other before Inigo actually speaks up.

"I really wanted to apologize. Nothing I said back there was about you. I just.." He swallows. 'I'm having a really hard time and am kind of struggling with just living,' he wants to say, but Inigo sucks at sharing that sort of thing, so he carefully tucks away that part of the explanation. "I thought Tidus was making fun of me with the whole talk about hugging, since I felt like he thought I'm strange for being so touchy with people. That's why I got upset. I didn't mean to say anything about you with that-- since I meant what I told you before. I don't mind you having boundaries. And I really think you're normal. Nothing about you is broken, we're just.. you know. We're all people with different personalities, right..? That's normal."

Even though Inigo definitely still feels like the weird one here, but he's trying to shove that feeling down as much as possible, so it won't get in the way of what he's trying to say here.

"So I'm really sorry that, even just for a moment, I made you feel like something about you was wrong."

Ugh. He sounds like Tsukasa. Senku couldn't help but think, because that was the last person who tried such a dramatic apology on him and while he'd essentially told Tsukasa to be quiet and skip over that, he didn't think Inigo would take that the same way.

He didn't hold lingering resentments or grudges against the other man, and he'd done a lot more to him than he and Inigo disagreeing. He wasn't really even upset anymore, as was normal for him.

"Alright." Senku answered, although was that really going to be satisfactory for Inigo? Based on observation, he didn't think so.

"I'm perfectly aware I'm a strange person." He refuted. "It's not a surprise to me, and it's always been that way. I don't particularly care. It makes it hard for me sometimes, because I don't think like other people do but..." He trailed off with a shrug. "I didn't mean to get frustrated, and much less act on it. It didn't accomplish anything which is why I do my best to avoid that." He was still human in the end, so sometimes that was part of the deal.

Edited 2020-10-10 14:03 (UTC)

".. well.. As long as you don't think it's a bad thing.."

Then Senku can think he's a strange person all he wants. And sure, Inigo may think Senku is a little odd in.. quite a few ways, but aren't they all in their own ways? He has a friend back home with split personalities, so really, he's used to it. But it seems that Inigo would just be a lot more bothered by the idea of someone thinking he's strange than Senku is.

His hands awkwardly fidget with the bottom of his hoodie, trying to do something to keep themselves occupied with all the anxiety running through Inigo's veins.

"Um, Tidus also told me that I'll be helping you out.. A-And that's fine, but.. is it alright if that isn't today? I'm still a little.. um."

He contemplates lying like usually, but what if he does that and just screws up more? So he doesn't.

".. you know. Emotional. But I'll help you with whatever you want once I feel better.."

He shrugged. "It's not a good or bad thing, it's just how things are." Senku responded.

A lot of people thought he was odd, and for the most part, he was fine with that.

"I wasn't planning on doing anything today anyway, I'm working on this." Senku said, tapping his probably unusual project, but then again he'd always had odd hobbies.

"I need to do some baking later on, if you don't want to help you don't have to, but he said you'd rather that than me trying to give you something. Which I mean, that's fine." He shrugged, he wasn't great on dealing with people. He seemed to believe that his value to others was his ability to give them things they needed or wanted.

Senku really has a thing for giving things to people, doesn't he. Even Inigo is starting to realise that now, with how the other had tried to give him tea after the mission, and then now apparently already had the idea to give Inigo something again?

Though Tidus was pretty on the mark, Inigo thinks - he just would have felt guilty if Senku tried to give him something after an incident that Inigo feels was his own dumb fault. He's a little less sure about Tidus volunteering him like that, but maybe his friend just thought he could use the distraction..

"No, I.. um, I can bake a little bit. Unless you were looking for some expert baker. I'm still trying to get it right."

Senku was not strong, or fast, he couldn't fight, and survival on his own was nothing if not a full-time job and then some. The simple fact was, he needed to prove his worth, so people didn't get it in their heads to take him out. He would be an easy target, if someone truly wanted to hurt him, because there was nothing he could do to defend himself.

It was one of the ways he and Gen were not dissimilar, although Senku brandished his scientific inventions and food to ply goodwill out of people, and that goodwill did get him places. It got results.

It was maybe not the best way to deal with actually making friends, but it was how he started nearly every friendship he had. He proved to them that he had value. He demonstrated that there was a point to dealing with his abrasive nature, his blunt and misunderstood words, and his crazy ideas.

An unseen scar just as deep as the ones on his forehead, a remnant of his world, for a guy who was just trying to survive as best he could.

"Nah you don't have to be an expert. I wouldn't say I am one, although Francois really did put me through my paces." He admitted with a little huff of amusement. "I know enough for us to figure it out anyway. I'll probably have to modify the recipe a little bit, but it'll be fine."

This conversation is going a little better so far, isn’t it? Sure, he may be scared that it could change any moment now, but the only thing he can do right now is try. Just stay on this track, trying to keep breathing regularly, trying to calm down his racing heart.

“I’m pretty good at making the dough, I’d say. Mixing, kneading.. that whole deal. It’s the baking part itself that I’m slightly stuck on, since I’m really not used to the kind of equipment they have here on the train. But I’m sure you of all people are good at that instead.”

If anyone can figure out weird devices, it’d be Senku, right...

"Well, as I've been told, the kneading is the most important part in stollen." He grinned. "But it'll be a bit different because we don't have nuts, at least those that aren't ground but...that should make it easier. Nah, it'll be fine."

Senku was more focused on his thoughts for a moment. "Oh! The stove is pretty standard to what the modern ones were like, they're fairly easy to use because the temperature stays regulated." He said. "As opposed to an open fire or a fire-based clay oven."

"Yes, I'm only used to the latter two.."

Honestly, not even that much to a clay oven. Not much had been left standing after Grima's attack, after all. And while open fires are definitely Inigo's speciality, he is well aware they wouldn't exactly be very practical in the middle of a train.

But figuring out this modern kitchen equipment mess? That's way beyond him. So he's glad to hear that - as expected - Senku has that part figured out. Before Inigo has to try and use it himself and only make an even worse impression on the other.

"My world is rather.. um, I suppose people here have called it backwards before compared to this place, so please just assume I know nothing about any of the equipment here."

"Don't worry." Senku told him, shaking his head. "I'll show you how it works. Ovens are pretty interesting and useful. It's a lot harder to regulate temperature in anything fire based, including an open flame. It's a lot easier than that."

He was all too happy to instruct, and Inigo probably couldn't stop him if he tried.

"Ah, well my world, was once more modern than this train, but after the petrification, we were thrown back to the stone age. Do you know how hard it is to start a fire? It took me a couple of days to figure that out." He groaned. "Definitely was not made for that kind of thing, in my cushy modern world. But I'm an expert at survival stuff now. I have all these tricks because I'm not very strong so I've got to manage with science." Senku may have gone off on a tangent, he did that.

Petrification?! Senku, please, don't throw these things around so casually! At least it kind of answers what happened to his world, but sweet Naga, that's wild. It's a concept Inigo is definitely going to have to process later, because thinking about both that and his social awkwardness at the same time may just murder him on the spot.

Let's stick with the relatively easier topic for now and see if he can navigate his way through that.

"Starting fires isn't so hard though, is it? I've done it all the time back home!" He pauses, seeming to only now realise that kind of makes him sound like an arsonist, and quickly adds-- "I.. I mean, to cook over, or for warmth, you know!"

Please don't assume he's some random criminal.

"I'm much better at that.. ah, 'survival stuff', as you call it, rather than dealing with anything here on the train. But it seems you're capable of both."

~~Clearly Inigo was some kind of arsonist.~~

Senku hummed a bit and shook his head. "It's not so hard anymore. In the modern world we had things like matches and lighters, and it wasn't any trouble to pull one of those out and start a fire. Man's had combustion forever, after all."

"But there were survivalist theories about things like rubbing sticks together to use friction to cause fire, right? So I started trying with a stick in a bit of wood, using my hands to turn it back and forth." He mimed it. It was a decent technique at least.

"But I'm not strong enough to keep that up, and my fingers aren't quick enough to spin it consistently, so it was a total failure. Knowing the theory only helps if I can do it."

He grinned. "But I know how to make tools, so I made a bow drill and that, while challenging at first, at least eliminated that problem."

"That definitely sounds like you."

Of course Senku would just make the decision that clearly he needs to invent things to make fire with, whereas most people would just keep trying somehow - or try to get stronger or faster in the first place.

Not that it's a bad thing. Not at all - Inigo is very careful to not suggest anything bad about Senku right now, okay, lest he screws up again. It's more just typical.

".. Yet you still need other people to help you make bread?" It sounds more curious than anything else. "I'd assume you would have made something by now that would let you make bread easier."

He chuckled a little bit. "If I didn't come up with stuff like that, it would've been game over. I'm not exactly the kind of guy you'd think could survive on his own." He'd done it, though, through ingenuity.

"Well in modern times, sure, bread got made by machines and things, but I don't think I need to mass produce the bread." Senku hummed. Did he need help? Not exactly.

"I'm only making a few loaves, so I could probably do it myself, but it's still a lot of work." Tidus had asked him for a project that Inigo could help with, and this was his first thought.

"I've learned that just because I can, in theory, do everything alone, doesn't mean I should do everything alone." Senku said, making a self-observation, and he'd learned that through the practical lesson.

Ah, now that lesson sounds familiar, doesn't it. Isn't that the exact same thing Roland ended up telling him after the last mission? Though Inigo supposes that the nuances behind the idea are slightly different, considering his and Senku's vastly different personalities. Like the lesson is the same, but the reason they need it is different.. maybe.

Inigo only lingers on the thought for a moment though before nodding.

"Alright then. Just.. let me know when you need the help."

"In a day or two, hopefully, I'll get some pineapple in my jar of alcohol." Senku said thinking about it. "So in a week maybe? I just want to give it a bit of time to let the fruit soak up the alcohol for preservation purposes." It would be better longer, but it was doable on a smaller scale, it just wouldn't be as good for as long maybe, but he did have the arms band now.

"Then we can bake bread with it."

Another nod.

It's only now that Inigo seems to realise he must be coming across as more lifeless than usually, and so he sucks in a breath, forcing his face to emote a bit more. A slight smile.

"That works for me." He's so not in the mood to work today, anyway. Hopefully he'll be better by then. Or he'll just tough it out. "Let's hope the train doesn't do anything to interrupt us before we can get to it."

Inigo was a bit subdued, enough that Senku noticed that, but he wasn't deterred. He understood, his own moods had been affected by everything, not that he was willing to indulge in them as much. He was already letting them out in creative ways, if one could call redecorating one of the quiet rooms creative.

"I suppose that's a valid point, but the fruit will keep so it if does, we can do it it later. The alcohol preserves it, which is why you use it in stollen, so it can last a long time. If I let it sit in the alcohol for months, the stollen could last for months more. That's what we were using it for, on my world, because we were going on a ship, to sail halfway around the world."

"That does sound like we should be good for now."

Although he still hopes the train doesn't throw something their way all the same. Please, Inigo has already had such a rough time lately, the last thing he needs is things getting worse somehow..

But that's a thought he's sure to keep to himself, hidden behind that small smile.

"I should go for now." Since this social interaction is going.. relatively alright so far, and ollying out of it is the sole way to make sure it stays that way, Inigo figures. "But you'll know to just look for me once you need me."

"Sure, I can do that." This social interaction did go fairly well, in the end and Senku at least felt a lot less confused by it which helped his mood considerably.

He picked up his ruler and pencil and went back to drawing his space station, having decided that his plants needed to at least go up another level so the heat from the equipment wouldn't cause difficulty in crop yields, or kill the plants.

Inigo might notice just how quickly, his singular focus was on his drawing and not on Inigo, but it wasn't personal, he was just thinking.

At least Inigo isn't offended by the sheer speed at which Senku returns to his work. If there's any point that Senku has gotten across by now, it's the fact that he isn't the best at all these social things either - though in a wildly different way than Inigo's own social shyness.

So he just glances at the other for a moment more before turning and leaving.

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[Closed] He isn't too old to sulk

sneaking in here with my special prompt

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