How could this happen? (afterparty)

[folkscallmewander]

[Wander has reeled back from this execution faster than Mulan's. This murder wasn't an accident, but it was still terrible all around, and it wouldn't have happened under normal circumstances. Knowing that Tadashi planned this out made it...a bit better, but it still made something awful eat at his stomach.

Speaking of which, everyone needed to eat something light today. Right after the trial, he heads to the kitchen and prepares twenty bowls of fruit salad and mixes together ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. While they're cooling off, he slides a note under everyone's rooms.]



There's fruit in the lounge, cookies coming soon. We should stick together, especially after this.

♥ Wander

Comments

[sixfingeredstan]

Yes. Yes, I can do this.

[He nods, furrows his brows, tries to think. There's no shortage of good memories, at least on Ford's end, but...]

Your cube. Your Cubic's cube, do you remember? I used to scramble it for you, every time I saw it lying around. And every single time, you'd solve it within seconds. It always made me realize the differences between you and I. Or, well...how well we complement each other. Each with our different strengths. But together...we made a damn good team.

[There's a tiny, fond smile on his face, now. It's nice, thinking about those days.]

[terribibble]

Yes... yes. I remember. I remember every time I'd solve it you'd wait until my back was turned and wreck it all over again. It got to be kind of a game.

[And acting as mad about it as he did was part of the game, at least partially (there was absolutely real frustration mixed in).

It was also probably flirtation but he won't allow himself to think about that possibility. What possibility? No possibility. It's fine. It was only ever friendly teasing. Friendly.]

You remember how we'd find the most improbable science fiction inventions we could and try and reverse engineer 'em to make sense?

[sixfingeredstan]

[Ford chuckles, and ducks his head to hide the fact that he may or may not be getting a little misty-eyed.] I knew you'd caught on to me, of course, but...it was, it was a game. I thought more than once about taking it apart and putting it back together in a way that was unsolvable, but I'm sure you'd have found a way to solve it regardless.

[It was absolutely flirtation, a fact Ford would never deny. How else do you flirt with a married man when you're a socially stunted genius?]

Those were some ridiculous calculations we had to pull, but we did manage to make sense of one or two Willy Wonka inventions, didn't we?

[terribibble]

[Yes, well. That's the thing, isn't it. Even back in college before he was a married man a certain non-zero amount of their time was spent discussing girls and the methods by which one might manage to obtain a relationship with one. He was studiously ignoring Ford's stunted attempts at flirting even then. That he had a ring on his finger later only made him doubly determined. It wouldn't have been kind to lead Ford on when he was taken, and straight, and very monogamous. And anyway Fiddleford has done a lot of questionable things in his life but he's not an adulterer.

Not that it matters now when she doesn't want him and will never take him back and their marriage ended with a homicidal pterodactyl robot.]

I would've. I would've solved it anyway and then thrown it right at your thick head.

Still sort of wish we could really build that elevator, though. That one was actually plenty probable if you just conceptualize it more like a rocket.

[sixfingeredstan]

[That makes Ford laugh properly, his shoulders shaking with it.] And I'd have absolutely deserved it.

[The elevator makes him snort, and he bobs his head. That one had taken them weeks to work out, but he agrees it could have been done.]

It never seemed quite worth putting a hole in the roof, but I think so, too. Maybe we could do it here. Send us all right through the damn attic and out of this shithole.

[terribibble]

I, ah.

[He pulls his notebook out of his pocket and flips to the very back of it.]

It's not an elevator exactly but -- whenever I'm stressed I, y'know. I design things. And if it weren't for the total lack of material I'd have got us out by now.

[The pages are absolutely crammed with diagrams of machinery. Some are fairly straightforward: a punching arm designed to knock down a wall, stuff like that. Others are more... imaginative. Others, perhaps, have rather a lot more lasers and buzz-saws than one might really need just to break out of a house.

He has to get his stress-relief somewhere.]

Wish I could. But there's just nothin' I could make with what we've got to work with that'd be powerful enough.

[sixfingeredstan]

[Ford leans forward a little, very curious to see exactly what it is Fiddleford has been working on. He's not surprised, exactly, to see the over-the-topness of some of these designs; this is the man, after all, who built a giant underwater monster robot for attention. Who turned his house into a giant fighting robot.]

I've been thinking along the same lines, honestly. We're both geniuses. With access to the proper materials we could have figured this out by now. Makes you feel damn useless, doesn't it?

[terribibble]

Yeah. Yeah, it does.

[He traces the curve of a purely-hypothetical blast cannon pensively with one finger.]

You really, really think we'll get out?

[sixfingeredstan]

[holy shit Fiddleford is absolutely not doing that on purpose but Ford can't stop staring—

string theory, okay, there we go, back on track. He nods.]

I really do. No four walls can hold me for that long. Not to mention Maui. One of these days I swear he's just going to shoulder through the front door.

[terribibble]

[He isn't doing it on purpose, even. He's just fidgeting, honest. Better this than him pulling out another chunk of hair.]

Y'know I'd pay to be there to see that happen.

Alright. [Deep breath in, deep breath out, slow.] We'll be... alright. If you say we will then I'm goin' to do my damnedest to believe you.

[sixfingeredstan]

Well, I will alert you the minute I catch wind of it happening.

[Ford smiles, reaches forward and puts a steadying hand on Fiddleford's skinny shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze.]

That's right. We're going to be just fine, you and me. Like I said...we make an excellent team.

[terribibble]

[Fiddleford reaches up and puts his hand on Ford's wrist. It's not tight, barely a grip, but it's grounding.]

Thank you. This... helped.

[sixfingeredstan]

[That just warms Ford's weird old heart, right there.]

Any time, old friend. Any time at all.