#and i THINK the major character death warning was actually supposed to be for NSH???? i was gon merc the man

[spotsupstuff]

GJDKSLJGLKSDLKMKL alright alright here goes:

-//- “DAMN IT!”

Another futile simulation ends in a failure and his hands fly up to clutch at his head as he attempts to not scream. Well, he ends up relenting to the urge, but it is justified and nobody else is around to hear him anyway.

Annoyed and beyond done, with mix of emotions he doesn't care to pick apart, Pebbles opens up his and NSH’s private message. The both of them have been on this for quite a while now, running simulations and coming up with progressively more and more complicated ideas. And while it felt good to have something to work on, especially with someone who he knows well and here and there manages to get a chuckle out of him, the reason for all the research has been gnawing at him relentlessly.

FP: Attempt 956 B has resulted in a laughably early failure. NSH: I told you it would.

His eye twitches the tiniest bit.

FP: Don't pull this on me. I am already dangerously close to snapping. NSH: You get points for self-awareness, but also- I hate to break it to you- but you are close to snapping every waking moment of your life. NSH: Back when you were turned on for the first time and added to the group chat, the first thing you did was snap at me. Innocence kept teasing me about it for weeks and Wind laughed every time it was brought up. FP: Not my fault you are the definition of aggravating. NSH: Well excuse you! I’d say I'm the splitting image of beautiful perfection. :)

Sigh. Yeah, sure he is. Completely and absolutely. Which is why his jokes usually land good only for Suns, Innocence and… Moon. Because she used to have a side to her that was a complete dork. She used to snort and laugh at NSH’s jokes, especially when Suns joined in on them and they proceeded to build off of each other, despite Pebbles’ own despair.

Suddenly, for no reason that he can identify, his throat starts feeling tight, his chest even more so.

FP: I don't… know how much longer I can handle this. NSH: Hmm? What do you mean? FP: I mean this! This all! It all seems useless. Whatever we come up with, ends up being wrong in some shape or form. NSH: You are giving up too soon, Pebbles.

Is he? It’s been… at least four months now. Four months of continuous trying and trying, prodding on the open wound that is her death. After all this time, he hasn't really gotten a rest. Suns has been still contacting him, talking and giving second, third, fourth chances. NSH, as the group’s medic, has even looked into his Rot situation and started running through theories and simulations of possible treatments to the side of them attempting to find a way to help Moon.

Conversation flew around him and through him, good part of them offering help here and there. But things manage to negate each other and, at the end, all he can think about is another theory that needs to be disproven.

FP: NSH, it all just keeps on coming and coming. I can’t catch my breath. I still haven't even found it since her collapse.

The following silence has him worried. How big is the chance that NSH becomes aggressive again? He can’t tell, with how worn out he's feeling, with how unorthodox this whole situation is.

After an age and maybe some longer- meaning like solid ten minutes- he gets a reply.

NSH: I guess that is understandable. I may have not… been paying as much attention to your mental state as I perhaps should have. You have been talking with Suns about all this, right? FP: Yes.

Suns' words never seem to fail to be comforting, to guide him somewhere, where the sun shines and the moon along with stars twinkle.  Despite their nature to give up on quite the few things surrounding them all and their existence, they have never given up on Pebbles. Which seems… unbelievable. But Pebbles doesn't want to think about the “unbelievable” things, not when he gets to have warm little talks with a lovely and caring sibling.

Lately, Suns has been pushing towards exploring more of his thoughts about the situations affecting him. Sometimes it'd be directly about Moon and her now over-growing ruin of a can, half-way sunk down in a sea. Sometimes, it would be about the Great Problem, even though Suns has been trying to avoid thinking about the thing and its nature in depth.

NSH: And well? How has it been going? FP: Not… too good.

Better to be honest about this, he supposes.

FP: Not like talking with them has not helped! It has! Everything just keeps being a bit too overwhelming. NSH: Overwhelming for supercomputers, huh?

There’s a sardonic joke in that he doesn't care enough to address.

NSH: Go off, take a break then.

And here's some aggression mixed with disappointment in there, it seems to him. And he wants to ask what it is, if NSH himself is feeling alright, but no idea comes to him how he could bring it up without it feeling stiff. So he leaves it be. The other seems to be eager to escape the conversation, too, because faster than he can finish the thought and blink, the other iterator sets their status to unavailable.

you wrote moon without any fissures??????

GJDSLJLSDK YEAH I DID i wake up n look into my emails n see people still kudoing that old thing n get a whiplash every fucken time