Mech Pilot who wants you to shut up about pile bunkers and come join this pile in the bunker.
"Here's what happens now:" the Cap said. "Whatever local sightseeing the two of you would like to do, if you had a week of leave booked, go and do that. Stay out from under my feet while I do some digging. You're a target, Beeper; don't expect to be kept in the loop." So Fletch and Beeper have hired a civilian All-Terrain Quadruped and gone on a camping tour of historical sites.
Fletch has the walker belly-down, canopy popped, busy repositioning the bench seats into their camp bed configuration, while Beeper rambles around what's left of a derelict fortification doing a turn-by-turn follow-along of a milhist account of the bunker being breached.
"Beeper," Fletch calls over casually.
Fletch says most things casually. Fletch goes through life effortlessly relaxed, effortlessly cool.
"Yeah?" Beeper says, picking at the corner of one of her nails.
"That's the third time in an hour you've explained the specs and tactical doctrine of the MMW-44 Pile Bunker to me," Fletch says, squinting. "What's up?"
Long pause. "Sorry," Beeper says.
"Hey, I'll happily listen all day," Fletch says. "You just repeat yourself when you're nervous," and Beeper wishes the bunker was still standing so she could just sidle into it and stay there out of sight.
"Just," she says. "Everything," and Fletch nods.
"Come and sit down," xie says soothingly, and usually Fletch is soothing. But lately Beeper feels ready to crawl out of her skin, and Fletch...well.
Beeper thinks Fletch can't help with this.
She trails over to the walker and leans on it, hands in her pockets, eyes on her boots.
"You know this might finally get your ex off your back," Fletch says quietly, digging around in their supplies.
"Yeah." Beeper shrugs. "It's — I want that, but it's actually scary, you know?"
"Unexpected freedom?" Fletch pulls out a bag of milk mochi and rustles it at Beeper, face innocent; they're only one of Beeper's indulgent little vices, that's all, only something Fletch must have secretly packed just for her. "God, it's not going to turn you into another wild ladykiller like Carol, is it?" xie adds teasingly.
"Gimme those," Beeper says, making a little grab for them, and Fletch leans out of reach.
"Come and sit down," xie says, and Beeper can't actually tell xer any good reason why not, so she reluctantly hops up and swings her legs over the side of the cockpit. There's basically no space left once it's set up for sleeping; she kicks off her boots in the footwell and perches warily.
"Beeper," Fletch says softly, legs stretched out in front of xer on the bed, and pats right next to xer, so Beeper slithers over and sits there, settling herself with a sigh. "There you are," Fletch murmurs, looking sideways in a funny sort of way, and lets her have the mochi, so at least Beeper has something to do with her hands.
Then xie casually puts xer arm round Beeper's shoulders, which. Is nice. Nice enough to be a problem.
"Already told you," Beeper says to the bag of mochi, moodily picking one out to unwrap it. "Ain't the type."
"Yeah you did," Fletch says, and xie says it—
the word in the front of Beeper's mind is tenderly.
She viciously bites the sticky little snack, and wonders if, sleeping on the walker's single padded sleeping platform in, like, a bunk and half of actual space, Fletch will sleep soundly enough for Beeper to hypothetically get herself off without disturbing her. Which, she knows, the answer is fucking no, because Fletch is an excellent scout and xie'll wake up if a vole steps on a fucking twig.
"You wanna talk about it?" Fletch asks.
"You wanna hear about the practicality of pile bunkers as a field weapon again?" Beeper says.
