"Wave to rabbits in the moon."

It takes a few moments, but Sawtooth eventually finishes his drag, huddled in his own perching gargoyle-esque position, squatting and holding his knees as he watches all of the figures below wander past. Deep breaths.

He closes his eyes and is certain his pulse is thrumming in his ears, shaking slightly, and yet he feels somewhat numb he is unsure.

“…such a high frequency of…” He breathes, and it’s obvious he’s suffering from anxiety, and with such little experience with any emotion, he’s not handling it very well. “…individuals…” He realized the potential of running into many people, he just didn’t expect such a reaction from himself, one where his muscle seized up and flight initiated itself. Digital entities were one thing, but this…

He buries his face into his knees, calculating the number. Each with an inquiring pair of eyes, as he was not an individual who could blend in easily with his height or appearance.

His assumption was correct then--Saw had become overwhelmed by the contrast of the countless people filling the city's sidewalks. There was little Seb could do about them, organics and inorganics alike roamed at all hours after all. But perhaps if he chose his streets carefully, maneuvered through the emptier alleyways, that would help, and that was something he could do if nothing else.

The frequency of people begin to increase slowly and then suddenly very rapidly, taking the cyborg by surprise. At first there is an overwhelming sense of numbness to the foreign, but Sawtooth wasn’t stranger to his own breakdowns when it came to the unknown, and having been isolated for the entirety of his life, speaking to individuals on on one for…basically the entirety of his secluded life.

It takes a while for it to really impact the cyborg, how many people there were.

He starts to recede in his own ways. His steps become less quick and precise, searching for a path of least resistance, the brushes of them on his arm making him uncomfortable and pull back, sliding away from the foreign touch and trying to focus himself away from all of the sound. 

He seizes up, pulls his hand away, freezes on the sidewalk, much taller than most who pass, but stiff as a board, eyes squeezed shut. No. Nope.

His gaze flicks upward.

Solace.

Without even thinking, he takes note of a tall building and leaps up into the fire escape, flash-stepping to the top, crouching and huddling in on himself hands shaky and tucked into his pocket, breaths leaving his lips in quick succession. The thrum of a heartbeat pounds in his ears.

Too many people. Too many. So much stress. 

He’d almost forgotten about his guide he’d absconded from, but before he wanted to face all of that, he needed comfort, and decides to tug the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket to light with one of torch finger, taking a shaky puff. That was just as nasty, but something about the heat reminded him of the barren, warm embrace of the desert, and so he pushes through, huddled in on himself on the corner of an apartment complex, puffing and huffing, and coughing away the anxiety.

It doesn't take a genius to piece together the fact that Saw had become terribly overwhelmed by the numerous stimuli of the city rubbing up against him. It's a stark, blatant contrast to the lonely desert. The city is cramped at best, with no comfort of the wide, barren terrine the other seemed accustomed to. When his hand is abandoned it isn't completely a surprise. The look on Saw's face coupled with such stiff posture says all that is needed to be said. And when Saw flees the way he does, Seb makes sure to watch where it is he decides to go for momentary reprieve.

Sawtooth had grown accustomed to drastic temperature changes, and so when the sun had finally set and the heat began to taper away, he didn’t seem to notice it, allowing the much smaller of them lead him around without issue. He takes care to look at the things that are directed to him, taking a slight interest and absorbing everything that is being shown to him, much of which he’d encountered before, but if he was decent at anything specific, it would be humoring others.

They make their way to the city, and that’s where the real curiosity lay, but also a layer of fear accompanied it. He’d never been around a large quantity of individuals before.

It wasn't hard to tell when they were finally what could be officially cosidered 'in' the city, as the noise of people going through their every day lives is almost overwhelming--heck, the mass quantity of organics and inorganics alike is overwhelming in and of itself.

Seb glances up at the other as they join a busy sidewalk, watching closely for any change in his expression--a reason to dart out of the chaos or step further into it. He didn't know where exactly to take this stranger, and briefly he wonders if he could hide him somewhere in the home he shared. But that was probably not a wise choice. So for now, he leads him to a diner, one friendly to cyborgs of course, although it is admittedly on the sketchier side of the city. Seb had come and gone there often, some of the people willing to humor him with their interaction. He thinks that at the very least, this person he's toting around should get a decent meal and all the water he can gulp down.

He blinks as his hand is taken but allows himself to be led about, impassive. What little communication that occurred led him to believe these things were necessary, and he couldn’t physically feel his hands regardless, and so it wasn’t a complete discomfort. Intimacy so soon might be, but the action was a friendly one in hopes of helping and so he keeps his mouth closed.

He’d embarrassed himself enough verbally, anyway.

For a long while, they're just walking, inching their way closer and closer to more bustling parts of the city. The sun eventually decided to lay for the night, not up and active as it had formerly been, and with that came a pleasant chill over what were usually unbearably hot lands. Seb seemed to be almost giddy the entire time, as if there was this little bounce in his step that just screamed 'Hey look everybody, I've made a new pal!' or the like. He never once relinquishes his grasp on Saw's hand, though every now and again he would point to things he thought were interesting--a snake far off, slithering around in the dirt or a building that somehow managed to grow flora over it.

The bunny-like android was not threatening in any way, and therefore Saw calculated no reason to be weary– even bitterness to life could only go so far when one suffered a life in a desert for a month. When Sebastian offered his hand, there’s a moment where Saw declines with a raise of his hand, wanting to rest. Long walk, his face said. Not that he didn’t wish to go, his chassis didn’t allow for overwork as his other one would, and the limitations were always frustrating.

A long moment of silence passes over him as he stares off, organic lips pinched into an exhausted frown, and he ponders the capability of the other’s speech. If he was incapable of proper vocal communication, he wondered if he was capable of binary– usually soft chirps in one or two quick beep successions to emit the significance to ones and zeros.

The thought passes and after a long while, the cyborg rises, because Saw is a stubbornly incisive brute and figured if anything, the payout would be worth the suffering, and towers above the other when he stands.

Seb is patient when it comes to Saw. He realizes that the other is probably exhausted if nothing else, so he doesn't mind waiting. He stays in place, silent save for the scuffling of his shoes against the sand every once in a while. He, indeed, is incapable of proper vocal communication. But binary he would definitely be able to understand, as well as a bit of sign language he'd managed to pick up. But other than that, he has to rely on simple gestures to get his points across.

He furrows his eyebrows at the laugh, slightly put off by the response before the other settles, obviously much smaller than Sawtooth, the scorpion skittering anxiously across his shoulders before he finally relaxes and shivers close to his neck, clambering into his hood to nestle against the skin. It’s a gentle comfort.

Saw’s firstly suspicious of the canteen, eyes flicking over the individual, processing the sweatshirt, the size, and overall demeanor of the visitor. Eventually, he takes the canteen and carefully takes a sip, visibly exhausted. He’s lucky to have a darker complexion, or he would’ve surely burned severely by now.

He hands back the canteen with a nod of thanks.

Seb's smile brightens when the other accepts his offering, skeptical as he may be. The very fact that he trusted him enough to take a sip from his canteen made the smaller male feel a sense of joy--or perhaps it was even pride? When the other is done though, he gladly takes it back, returning it right to where it belongs. Then he stands and offers out his hand--the gesture silly considering their contrast in size, but meaningful all the same.

The touch sends the cyborg jolting up to an upright position, mouth pulled into a defensive scowl, if not of the utmost surprise. “JESUS, SHIT!”  

He scrambles backwards, brows knitted, mouth pinched into a frown as he glares at them behind shades. “For what purpose does one find it acceptable to approach and startle a dehydrated and delirious man.” His tone is rather stern, low and pointed, irritation always floating in the cyborg’s chassis.

The way the other jumps, so easily startled is enough to draw a wheezy laugh from Sebastian's lips. It was almost too easy to startle the clearly larger male. But regardless of the reaction he received, Seb settled himself down on the dry earth in front of him, sitting with his legs crossed. For a moment his teeth sink into his lower lip as he removes a canteen from his oversized sweatshirt and holds it out, offering it to the stranger with a wide, innocent smile.

A desert that should be filled with salt.