despitethenora | Sneck IC inbox

[She reaches up, and plucks the Focus from the side of her head. Extends her hand, and gently places it on a desk.]

Don't damage it.

I won't.

[He takes it carefully.]

[There's a few more taps to the clamp with his free hand, but then he reaches for his phone and his phone has touch contact for data transfer and will start the transfer to see if its faster this way or if the rate matches the wireless transfer.]

[He's know the calculation, he has the math.]

[The rate seems unaffected by touch. It's pretty efficient at wireless networking.]

I've been wearing one since I was six. It's - part of how I see things.

Ah.

Yes, that does make removal hard.

[He's watching it for a minute, just to see if there's any adjustment, as syncing computers like to do.]

[Tap tap tapping at the clasp on his shoulder.]

[A shuddering breath.]

[He hits a button on the clasp and there's a hiss and a light thud as the battleshell settles on his chair, loose from his body. He reaches back, pulling it off his back and settling it on the floor, eyes still trained on the progress bars.]

[It would be the first time Aloy has seen Donnie without his battleshell, barring flesh looking heart manifestations.]

[She will get to see the scars covering his back, so much like tree roots, but she's seen the Kraang, how it digs into the body thanks to his heart, so it would be a fairly easy guess where those scars are from.]

[Donnie reaches up for the Focus. His hand shaking. He clenches his fist a few moments, another shuddering breath.]

[He picks up the Focus with steadier hands, and his phone, turning to Aloy and holding them both out.]

[She'll also get to see the deep bruises on his shoulders from his overwearing of the battleshell.]

There is no touch transfer function, so it will be the same rate wirelessly, but it is generally better to not have walls in the way. You should just have my phone in the same room and return it when the transfer is done.

We should also set up your emergency access password to my tech soon.

[He is staring off to the side of her, voice flatter than normal.]

Edited 2023-07-20 03:36 (UTC)

[Ah. Shit.

She recognizes an Action when someone takes one. Kraang scars - she remembers texting him about the marks they carry. They'd been talking about her tingling nerves, but she knows the Kraang were awful enemies. The bruises are news to her, though.]

It can finish when it finishes.

[She's claiming the Focus as soon as it's offered, placing it back on her head. Unapologetic for the priority.]

Donatello. The shell hurts you?

If I wear it too long. The shell is almost as heavy as I am. Usually twelve hours is when it starts to actually ache. If I wear it longer than that, it starts to bruise. I recover during sleep, but even the healing factor in our DNA doesn't get rid of them fully if I pushed for too long.

But...

Well, it's been hard to take it off since...

Since the Kraang. [Voice still flat, not quite looking at her.]

That's why we had to talk in here. I try to take it off anywhere else without one of my brothers nearby, I put myself very close to a panic attack.

If it makes you uncomfortable to have it off now, you should put it back on.

Its okay in here. I've gotten my brain to accept this place is a safe space at least.

One day I'm hoping that all of Robin's Egg will be safe in my irrational mind, even without Raph in easy range.

But it takes time to work through PTSD. Are you familiar with PTSD?

It's an acronym, of some sort. I don't know the real meaning.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

There's a lot of things to it, but it usually means when you go through a traumatic event that, even when the event is over, you can still experience stress responses for things that remind you of the event.

It doesn't matter that I know I can walk around Robin's Egg without my battleshell, or that I could probably walk around the temple grounds safe enough.

Being without it brings back that fear I felt in the Technodrone. The only way to stop it is to put on my shell, or to know I have one of my brothers watching my back.

...Makes sense, I guess.

You didn't need it before the Kraang?

I did and didn't.

My brothers are strong enough to do some serious damage to me that they couldn't to each other. The first version was so I could train and rough house with them without that being a concern.

Then we started the hero work and some mutants could do damage so it was important for that, but it wasn't a strong psychological necessity. I would still go out into public without it at times. I could even do some missions without it.

Then Shredder turned my battleshell to ribbons and imagining what that would have meant for me...

It got less comfortable after that. It took me a week to take it off in our new Lair, after I had at least three different security systems set up. It took Raph arriving to convince my brain I could be safe in here to sleep through the night without it. Because if I screamed, Raph would be nearby. Before that, the only full night's sleep I got was with Hunter and Leo.

Even then, I have to put it on again if I dream of the Kraang if I can't convince myself to sneak into his room.

Edited 2023-07-23 00:02 (UTC)

But it's improving?

....

It has cycles.

Do the cycles have to do with the bad scenarios?

Bad scenarios.

Interpersonal problems.

More interpersonal problems over bad scenarios unless the bad scenario was in particular emotionally harrowing over just a lot of senseless pain. The wed bed behead game didn't have any nightmares after the hallucinations stopped. Mostly likely the dissociation helped since I can barely remember the fallout, but the game itself was fairly emotionally cohesive for a death game.

Edited 2023-07-23 01:11 (UTC)

I guess the dissociation had to be good for someone.

It is the mind trying to protect itself. Dying is rough, but it doesn't....linger. I suspect it's my processing issues, it's too big for me to engage with so it's shunted off somewhere. [Or thrown in a pit.]

It'll probably catch up one day, but bright side for now, no self death nightmares. [Rubbing at the back of his neck.] But this has derailed a bit.

I wanted to talk with you about something, but I didn't want you to feel...caught off foot.

Guess you caught me off the other foot.

...is that a bad foot?

Just off-balance. Surprised.

Oh.

Well.

This is a complicated apology. Because it's an incident where I wasn't in the wrong, but how I went about it was wrong and so the finer points are coming from someone else's interpretation because emotions are difficult for me to decipher.

So I am going to try really hard so I hope you will grant me....wiggle room.

Uh.

What's this about, again?

Our confrontation in regards to the Hunter incident.

...Don't apologize. You were looking out for your brother.

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