wrackful | saltburnt inbox

[There's a sense of awareness, acknowledgement, quicker than some might manage. As if he's used to that kind of contact, even if he wasn't expecting it.]

Be kind of awkward if I said no, wouldn't it? You just knocked on some random guy's brain.

[hm. interesting. koby files that away, lets his mental presence linger, wondering how murphy perceives it -- to others from his world, koby reads as a bright, bubblegum-pink light, teeming with power and potential and earnest eagerness. murphy is a flame, flickering, warning, but vivid, even from a careful distance.]

I thought it might be you. You feel like Danny, and you're near where he and Jem are. It wouldn't be the first time I've knocked on someone's brain by accident, though. I'm still figuring this all out.

[There's a pause, a minute before he replies, because he doesn't quite know what to do with feel like Danny, turning it over. Tucking it away.]

But you can't just talk that way? In people's brains.

I suppose I could?

[then, unspoken, unwritten, more image and thought than words:] Seems rude though.

[He can't help the spike of relief as Koby's message slips into his mind, immediate, instinctive. But it's only a brief spark, a split-second. The constant pain of his symbiote doesn't allow for longer, the not-Nest of Koby's mind giving no real reprieve.

Still, he talks more like the Nest than they had in Rubilyk. The connection there hadn't run deep enough, dropped people in and made them swim before they could walk. They'd needed to guide their minds along the shapes they already knew instead, forming voices, text. So Murphy had done the same - first to hide what he was, then out of habit, ease. It made most people uncomfortable, talking in his true voice, his mind as it was to himself, the Nest.

Maybe it would make Koby uncomfortable too, if he didn't do this much. Maybe Murphy should be hiding it again, or at least making sure he could trust Koby before he let him see more. But he'd asked for this, in a way. Trade.]

( Maybe for other people. I'm used to it, though. More used to it than phones. )

[the relief bleeds through, stark and vivid, speaking of something koby can't quite parse the shape of -- murphy's mind slots into it, neatly, familiar and alien at once, like a different dialect of the same language. it's still very new to koby, communicating this way, though it comes as effortlessly as breathing or blinking.

it's not common, this sort of dialogue but it's similar enough to what koby's come to depend on (shanks's haki, quentin's magic, all dependable, safe, effortless) that he settles in, puts his feet up, makes himself comfortable. metaphorically.]

(Are you? Why? Because of) [a curious nudge around the shape of murphy's thoughts, his mind, his essence. a presence, inorganic, a connection, severed -- koby grazes his unseen touch over each.] (this? Or does everyone talk like this, where you're from?)

[There's something like a flinch.]

( Okay, the poking around is a little rude. )

[It comes with resistance for the first time - not harsh enough to push Koby away entirely, just a hand up, a quiet that's enough.]

( Yeah, it's because of my bug. Best the place I'm from had was radios. Apocalypse took out the other options. )

(Oh, sorry.)

[immediately, the presence moves back, the equivalent of sitting politely, hands folded, no longer touching anything. the curiosity remains, eagerly focused on the slight bit of resistance, like koby can barely keep from reaching out and pressing back.

he does, though, focusing on what’s being communicated instead:]

(Radio’s more or less what I’m used to, to. Well, psychic snail radio.

Also -- bug? Apocalypse?)

saltburnt inbox | @murphy

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