KEYTAR.

Eno whines softly, ears drooping. He doesn’t want to leave, though. He takes Sung’s hand again. Feel safe, he mouths.

Eno pauses, thinking, and then shrugs. He’s not sure if it’s safe or not, but whatever. He takes Sung’s hand and smiles, swinging their arms between them.

Bajillian huffs and follows him again. “What if you reach your limit, and it fucks you up??” She realizes she’s raising her voice, and chooses to go with a more gentle tone.

“You’re already barely eating and not making sense, and I’m worried about you. I don’t see how this is beneficial.”

Eno shakes his head. He pokes at Sung’s core, mouthing the word again as he does it. Not healthy.

It’s the first time Eno’s dimension hopped since the split, and he’s just been watching Sung talk, his head spinning.

At the end of it he hops off the counter and steps up to Sung, fingertips brushing the dark circles under his eyes. Tired, he mouths.

Bajillian follows Sung and tries to get him to sit down, but he’s moving too much, so she just watches with a worried look on her face. Ready to catch him if needed.

“That’s not a good reason to find out,” she reasons. “That’s like if I said… if I’ve never downed a beaker of pure acid before, how can we know if it’s bad for me?”

“Well, because we know that your nondescript ‘pure acid’ would be highly corrosive and would most definitely destroy your insides,” Sung says, “Science tells us that. People have tried it before, and statistically, it hasn’t gone well.”

He turns on his heel and goes right back to pacing.

Bajillian sniffled and moved her hand, keeping it out of her sight. She wasn’t sure if she was bleeding, but she didn’t want to know. “I was tired, and that takes so much energy,” she whined. 

At his second question, she shook her head with a little pout. “My head hurts, n’my vision’s blurry.”

Sung swallows, trying not to breathe as he stares down at him. The core seems to…calm down a little at Sung’s touch almost, the flashing slowing down a little. He doesn’t really want to dwell on what that means, other than it being helpful.

It happened to be on a late night when Porter got the text. It was simple, vague, and very distressing- and coming from Adam, the more reserved of his friends, it only made his mind race. He left for Adam’s place as fast as he could, jumping behind the wheel and waiting until he arrived to finally slow to an acceptable speed, stop the car, and get to the front door.

He knocks a few times, loud and clear. “Adam? Adam, it’s Porter.”

Adam’s already at the door, so he opens it within moments of the knock. He looks... distraught, exhausted, trembling with teary eyes.

“I’m ready,” he answers. “I trust you, Sung. It’s just gonna hit the underside of my jaw at worst, it’ll be okay…”

“Alright, if you’re sure...”

“I’m gonna be real, I just want the damn thing off’a me, Doc. I don’t care how you go about it, but at this point I’m ready to just pull it off and face whatever happens.”

Sung takes a deep breath, eyeing Phobos’s neck. Why did it have to be there, of all places? He glances around the room, taking note of anything he could use to help the situation if he somehow hits a major artery or something and things go south.

Bajillian was sitting on the floor, surrounded by some of her tools and various metal scraps for future projects. She was holding her head and blinked a few times to try to focus her vision - her glitches looked a bit unclear as well. 

“I w-was trying to… to get something on the shelf,” she mumbled. Her speech was a bit slurred and shaky, probably because she was crying a little. “I stepped on… on one of the levels to try to get something n’everything fell on me.”

Phobos tries not to squirm, or make any sudden movements. He focuses on his breathing, listening to the metal be cut away, hoping it can be easily removed; but he’s not sure if it’ll be that easy of a task in the end. This helmet has always been a little tight on him, and he’d spoken offhandedly about needing a larger one.

Sung spends a good few minutes sawing away, a look of concentration on his face, but he barely makes a dent. Eventually, he just lets out a frustrated huff and sets the scalpel aside.