just a rabbit who plays the harp

so after Shared Living Space, cell takes off for a while because what the fuck was that but, of course, he comes back around again eventually. and a lot more often. stray cat fr. i just remembered i have this tumblr-only fic that takes place a few months after Shared Living Space, so you can see more of their dynamic there!

either way, they start to understand how to live around each other. cell is learning how to chill the fuck out, how to think of people aside from himself, and how to operate in normal society. felps is learning how to handle him and is realizing that cell (when he's not trying to kill anyone or is plotting murder) is like. actually chill? is capable of being nice?? it becomes increasingly obvious to felps that a lot of cell's aggressiveness is a twisted sort of defensiveness, and cell finds himself increasingly loyal to the guy who's helping him "survive" in this "strange world" (it reminds him of badboy guiding him through the War sometimes; he tries not to think about that too hard.) you can have some fanart that @/rabbit-harpist made for this arc of the au!!! and two asks where he and i ramble about cell and felps' dynamic, as well as some worldbuilding stuff.

now this is the bit of the story that's a little more foggy in my memory but, from what i remember----whenever cell is away from felps, he's moving about the city's criminal underworld, trying to find a way to get his player code officially registered as a person/citizen, as well as under a new identity. this also means that he's having run-ins with shady characters. this is how cell ends up getting shot through the shoulder and winds up stumbling his way back to felps' apartment in the middle of the night. it's your "enemy-shows-up-on-you-doorstep-badly-hurt-begging-for-help" trope except they're not really enemies anymore---and this moment solidifies it for them. felps is genuinely worried for cell, and cell is genuinely trusting in felps. cell is so close to getting all the deals he needs in order, and if he dies and goes into respawn, he'll more than likely wind up respawning not at felps' apartment, but at the server's origin, where he'll immediately be taken into custody. and cell is terrified of that possibility because he actually has something out here he wants to stick with, goddamnit.

in the end, cell lives. he gets an infection from the wound but he manages to ride it out. (fun fact: this is the same shoulder that cellbit complains about "being funny" in Touching Base! it never healed quite right.) eventually, he gets his code altered and finally becomes the official player "cellbit". he still needs to keep a low profile (he's far from the first criminal to get their code altered to dodge the authorities) but hiding will be easier.

so yeah, after that, felps and cellbit slowly settle into their dynamic as seen in Touching Base. weirdest of friendships <33