rekindleme | How long was I out?

Who: Krok, residents of apartment 2-01, Ratchet, other invitees
Where: Building 4 apartment 2-01
When: Backdated to 01 October, mid-morningish.
Summary: Krok finally wakes up from stasis. He feels like death on toast.
Warnings: None as of posting? Clingy robot.

Wakefulness comes slowly, in little bits and pieces. Krok is mostly aware first of light – dim and soft even on his scoured-raw optical circuits, mostly blotted out by the curtains. It's hard to tell quite where he is for a few moments and the disorientation makes his fuel pump twist in a weird and painful way. Immediately on the heels of this revelation comes the fact that he can't really move much, body not quite back under his control and stiff from too long spent still. It's several agonisingly long moments before he can turn his head even a little, just enough that he can see a bookcase on the far wall.

One of his bookcases. In his room, in their hab suite in the strange alien city of Saeng Seong. Krok sighs and sags back into the bed, relieved and a little light-headed. He can't quite recall just how he got here when the last he remembers, Spinister asked him out on a walk–

Oh. Memory flickers back in distorted snatches of dialogue and pictures, slowly coming together out of order. They'd put him to sleep, hadn't they? Anxious, he looks around again, then to the door. He remembers the nightmare – remembers it feeling different from all the other times, wrong; he doesn't remember much else. Did he really sleep? Krok blinks dully at the ceiling. He's sure his chronometer readings are off, looking at the date and time, but…

No, it's too hard to think that critically about anything.

"…Spinister?" he croaks, voice harsh and low from lack of use, as he tries to sit up.

By the time Krok leaves messages for both Diarmuid and Kit – the only friends he can think of immediately who might be worried by his abrupt absence, given how consistently they'd spoken just before – he's had some energon and two checkups and even been allowed to walk himself to the living room. Spinister hovered the entire time in case he stumbled or collapsed, so he'd stubbornly carried on all the way to the sofa, his chair just a few steps too far.

He's paying for it now with aching hips and weak knees, but seated and reading, he doesn't much care. The book is more to pass the time than anything because all Krok can do is keep glancing up at the door, vaguely anxious. He rather hopes the little ones accept his invitation; he actually misses them.

All he can do in the meanwhile is wait. And try to plan out his responses if Misfire or Fulcrum pops up to poke him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Spinister told him where he stayed. He said the AI could come by if he needed to. And... well. He doesn't really need to. But it can't hurt, right?

It's probably better to go and have some sort of contact before he ends up like he was before.

Knocking is something he's not terribly used to. It should be. He needs to get better at these things. So it's really more of a few taps from his fingers, rather than a knock.

If the apartment wasn't so quiet, Krok might never have heard that faint noise at the door. It's no knock, certainly, much too soft. He sits up a little, curious but a little too gunshy to be eager. It's never occurred to him that anyone he knows would be that… tentative.

"Who's there?" he asks, the added volume turning his sandpaper-raw voice thick and gravelly. There's no reason to be alarmed, he tells himself; Spinister is barely a shout away. But he's starting to wish he could at least get up to lock the door.

That's... not quite the voice he's expecting. And he almost leaves. He almost ducks back down the hallway. These living robots don't need the added bother of a shadow. He can do this on his own.

Right?

"Kagerou," he says, a little louder than his normal deadpan volume. "Should I go?"

Kagerou? Krok frowns faintly. He remembers… someone… he was so tired at the time. Wings and a frightened face. Lonely.

"No, no, please," Krok says hurriedly, "don't go. Come in?" Kagerou, new to the city a month or two past, he thinks. Flighty and twitchy and alone in the world and too raw for an exhausted Krok to help at the time. And even now, he's still a mess.

He blinks, a little surprised by the offer. There's a long hesitation before he reaches out, and pushes the door open, just a crack. He peeks in, debating, still.

Then steps inside, wings flared, posture tense and worried, like he thinks he's trespassing, even with the invitation. He ends up staring at the Cybertronian, blank expression shifting slowly to concern.

"You look awful."

Krok pauses for a long moment at that abrupt greeting, not sure how to respond. Then, the sound harsh but genuine, he chuckles.

"I'd imagine so," he murmurs. "You're looking better than the last time I saw you, I think. Come sit? We can talk." Krok makes no efforts to disguise how much he wants the company right now, too exhausted for prevarication.

His wings flutter at the sound, unsure of how to really process it. Was... that a good sound? Or--

The words make him relax a bit. He wouldn't be invited in if he'd said the wrong thing. Would he? Why did everyone have to be so confusing. He nods his head slightly, and pads over. Instead of taking a seat in any chair, he just sits himself on the ground.

Looking up at the other bot.

"What happened?" he asks, after a moment.

For a few seconds, Krok remains silent, puzzled, looking at Kagerou folded up neatly on the floor like that when there are perfectly good seats. Maybe it's just a thing he does?

"I've… been ill," Krok explains haltingly, not sure how else to describe his condition the last few months. An illness of the brain module, certainly. "But I'm recovering. Please," he adds, patting the sofa beside him, "sit with me? How've you been?" Because stalling for more time to put together his thoughts is something he's unaccustomed to needing. Krok normally thinks on his feet – so to speak – much more easily.

Normally, he isn't recovering from medical stasis.

To him, the floor is a good seat. It makes sense. Chairs are for humans, or living robots like Krok and the others. He sits with his legs folded under him, hands in his lap, neat and compact.

He tilts his head. Illness... is something else for human beings. He didn't know of any AI capable of being so. "Was it a virus?" he asks. That's all he can think of that might "infect" a robot.

But then there's the offer. He hesitates a little, mostly out of confusion. Very slowly, he unfolds himself, easing up next to Krok like a dog getting up on a sofa it knows damn well it's not supposed to be on. He still sits in that compact little position, though.

"I'm... all right," he admits. "I met Spinister. He's very kind. He said you were his captain."

Krok's smile as Kagerou gradually shifts onto the sofa is for both the odd bot and Spinister, who seems to have been taking care of nearly everyone while Krok wasted away with exhaustion and insomnia. A little more at ease with Kagerou at his level, Krok lets himself sag back into the sofa cushions. The ache in his back just will not go away.

"I don't know if I've ever heard anyone describe him as kind," says Krok with affection he can't hide, "but he is. And yes, I'm… technically his captain." De facto make-do stand-in captain until they run into a higher ranking Decepticon, anyway.

He tilts his head, watching the way the other bot moves. Watching how pained his motions look. He lifts a hand, for a moment, before settling it back down, unsure of what to do with it. He feels uncomfortable on the same level as the living robot, but if this is where he's expected to be, he'll deal with it.

"Well... he has been. To me, anyway." The affection isn't missed, though it makes him blink slowly. "Even though he said something about fighting candles." His wings flick.

"Why technically?"

"Technically," Krok answers wryly, "because of our group, I was merely the least unqualified for command at the time. They all sort of decided I should be the captain." He rests his chin in one hand and doesn't quite smile. "I suppose if we ever run into an actual officer who even wants us, I'll no longer have that responsibility." And he suddenly finds he doesn't like the idea of them being taken from him at all.

He seizes on a less troubling topic before he can sour the mood.

"As for the candles," he says, and he doesn't quite sigh or chuckle, but does both at the same time. "I'm not sure why he does it because he's never explained it and I've never asked him, but Spinister seems to have problems with lights sometimes. Unreliable lights more than anything else. He hates when they flicker."

"Why would someone take your friends away?" His heads draws back, his wings flicking. The notion of someone alive having their friends forcibly taken away is... it's unthinkable. He was scheduled to have his only friend in the world completely erased from his life. And it's nothing he wants to wish on anyone else. "You're alive. You have... you're a living thing."

His weight shifts. The topic change is appreciated, especially when it's to someone he likes.

"I guess it is a little annoying," he admits. "And hard to see. Maybe that's why he doesn't like them."

How long was I out?

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