[b]The Park.[/b]

3V has never ever ever been good at this ever. She's a good enough person to know that her visceral spike of "there is something [i]wrong[/i] with this person" isn't something she should let anyone see, but she's not good enough to know what else to do with it but let it spin inside her like a blender. She shouldn't stare. She shouldn't pointedly look away. She's an asshole for staring off into the middle distance and pretending she doesn't notice. She should know what to say.

Instead she gets up and puts on her Streamer Smile and says: "No problem, let me help." Her blood is roaring in her ears just as loudly as it is in Ferris's own head, one stuck in the mortification of vulnerability, the other stuck knowing that she's not doing the right thing, whatever the right thing might be. The silence is incredibly awkward, but she's not going to try and crack a joke. She knows that much, at least.

Orange juice has to be mopped up. She doesn't know the right thing to say, so all she can do is show sympathy with a dishcloth. She's young, she's got better ankles than either one of them, don't you dare tell her not to help. And maybe she could figure out how to show sympathy in a way that Ferris could understand, could parse, could accept, if her stomach wasn't treacherously clenching up, and it always does this. She had to be out cold for both her hand upgrades because the sensation of not having a hand would have killed her, it would have rotted her open from the inside out, and she's always like this with people in wheelchairs and folks with cerebral palsy and anything, anything that makes their bodies and their minds out of sync, and she's lucky enough that Elodie doesn't trigger that response in her, because her prosthetics are [i]interesting[/i], fluid, transhuman, it's more acceptable to stare, to flatter, to ask questions.

It isn't until the end that she manages to pin down a lie that feels right. That gives Ferris an out. "Sorry for keeping you up last night," she says, wringing the orange juice out into the sink. "I'm used to screwing up my sleep schedule, but I didn't think about how it would affect [i]yours[/i]." It's a lie, but a kind one. Makes her a heat sink, lets Ferris possibly assume she stayed up late talking, lets her know that Vesna isn't going to get soppy and "how long has it been like this" and pushing her, pushing her, making her focus on that growing lacunae.

How long before it stops being awkward for her to leave?

***

[b]Aevum![/b]

Is it narcissistic to be attracted to that sort of echoing? Because on the one hand, weird. On the other hand, weirdly flattering? [i]My own clone! Now neither of us will be virgins![/i] Like, like attracts like, right? To be seen, to be read, and to have that integrated into the life of the collective-- that's a hell of a thing.

"You mentioned living expenses," 3V points out, locking up the door. "What are your living arrangements like right now, if you don't mind me asking? You're always busy, busy, on the go, but you've got to have somewhere to put your feet up and charge the battery packs, right?" She gives the sunflower-yellow girl a meaningful look. "Do you have an apartment? Which one of you, sorry, which part of you gets [i]really[/i] domestic?"