You have been in Equius’s respiteblock for some time now. To be perfectly honest, it’s really starting to wear on you. You’ve had the husktop in your lap for a while, carefully avoiding the sore spot where the biometal merges with your legs – it’s still sore, when you push on it, but it isn’t so bad and at least you have legs again! – but Vriska gave you her advice an hour ago and you still haven’t complied. Advice is always such a loose term when you’re talking to Vriska, because when she ‘advises’ you to do something that usually means ‘do it, Pupa! Doooooooo it!’ And you aren’t one to argue with her, which in turn makes you a weaky weak failure!!!!!!!! so far as she is concerned. Sometimes you’re positive you should stand up for yourself, but that always goes so badly that you just embarrass yourself, so you try to avoid it these days. That makes you sad to think about. You’re going to stop that now.
The point is that you’re still in Equius’s makeshift respiteblock, which is really just a worktable and a robot pile and a tiny space in between because lowbloods don’t have nice big hives like you’re sure he’s used to. You keep meaning to leave, you really do! But you don’t want to make Equius angry, because you’re pretty sure he’s unstable as it is; he’s been staring at that wall for a good half hour, and you’ve had a conversation on Trollian and daydreamed about Rufio who doesn’t exist but you like to pretend he does, and tried to quietly flex your toes and feet and found that you can. And Equius hasn’t moved.
He did say something, though, under his breath. You couldn’t make it out, but it had been so sudden after all that silence that you’d nearly jumped a foot into the air. Scaaaaaaaaredy Pupa! Weakiest, lamest Pupa! says the Vriska in your head, so you try to collect yourself as best you can. Unsurprisingly, the Vriska in your head is not very much help.
She is considerably less help when Equius unfolds himself from where he’d been sitting, broad and tall and a lot scarier than meager little you. You’ve filled out some as you aged, sure, and wheeling yourself around all that time wasn’t for nothing! But he’s still a lot larger than you are, and quite frankly with all of that talking to himself he’s been doing you really don’t want to be anywhere near him. You don’t even have your strife specibus with you, because you are an idiot, holy shit, how did you forget that. You sigh, inwardly, and only some of it is with relief that Equius seems to want you out as much as you want to leave.
“I can, definitely try that, at least,” you reassure him, shifting away as best you can and then pushing yourself up. And oh, holy fuck does that hurt, the biometal has merged just fine and everything is working but your nerves are still raw and you don’t think you want to do this too much. But you can’t stay here, you know you can’t- you force a shaky smile and nod a few times, and hey holy shit it might hurt but you are standing. “Yeah, I can probably, definitely do this! Wow, these are- these are really great!” And you aren’t kidding, because holy wow you are thrilled right now.
You aren’t as tall as Equius, but you might be around Vriska’s height with these legs, and you aren’t sure how she’ll feel about that. That’s okay, you figure, if Equius will just fix it later. You’re pretty sure you would have been taller if she hadn’t crippled you, anyway. “Should I, uh. Go, then?”
