#day rambles

First off, they can and have hurt eachother. Hard not to, in a world as fucked up as theirs. Hank is someone who only knows violence, and doc is far too used to manipulating people and circumstances to gain the upper hand. In combat, in business deals, sieges, all that jazz.

But honestly, considering everything ? Their relationship is definitely among the healthiest, most stable in all of Nevada. Mostly cause the bar is all the way in The Nowhere but. y'know.

Both see it as VERY transactional, which, i mean. It is, first and foremost, a business deal so like. Fair i suppose. Hank is very good at their job of killing, and doc is very good at pointing them at nice targets. A sort of  "ah shit they didn't slam the door this time guess i gotta be extra careful pulling all the shrapnel out of their abdominal cavity."

There was never any moment one could consider "feelings realization" or whatever. They're simply incredibly close as a result of just how LONG they've worked together. Neither is particularly keen on asking somethn like "what are we to eachother?" Because it just. Doesn't. Matter to them.

That and like. I am very aroace. Hank is canon aroace. Saw doc fanart with ace ring once and have been rotating it in my brain since. Big fan of non-traditional relationships, man.

It's mostly convenience, methinks. Hank may not need doc to bring them back to life, but it sure does make the process a lot shorter and less painful. Doc doesn't need hank, he has plenty of money and access to many of Nevada's most feared mercenaries. He could find someone else to do his dirty work, if need be.

And yet.

Every moment they spend together is a moment of putting their life in the other's hands. Hank trusts him not to staple their legs on backwards, and doc trusts them to not dome him the moment he turns around. Don't get me wrong, it's not trust in the other, no. It's trusting that the other isn't dumb enough to get rid of a valuable asset.

But frankly, to someone used to nothing but pain and violence, a simple lack of it might as well be a loving embrace.

Theirs is a relationship built off of many years of contracts, of shared goals, of depending on eachother, expecting the other to catch them when they fall. When they crawl back battered and bloodied. When they pass out from overworking in front of their computer for the upteenth time this week.

They'd share a bed simply because both have horrific waking nightmares and huddling together on a shitty moldy mattress helps. A net positive, mutualism. They might seek some affection from the other, but its always self-serving.

Still. Neither of them are sentimental. If the machine took them on different paths, or hell, if they had to kill the other (for one reason or another), i don't think either of them would mourn.

Simply fill their time with the next mission at hand.

Doc could kill hank. They've been under his knife often enough. It wouldn't stick, sure, but he's very much capable of sending them back to the Other place, at least once.

Hank could absolutely kill doc. There's very little stopping them. All it would take is a single hand around his neck and one good squeeze.

But they don't.

They don't, and neither does he. Because at the end of the day, both of them benefit more when the other is alive.

Mutualism.

Henry:

In the TT ending, I like the idea he steals the other two jewels, shrinks them down, and gives them to Charles and Ellie. It’s pretty easy after the Toppats are weakened. Ellie knows exactly what it is. Charles pretends to not know so he doesn’t have to get onto Henry for stealing something like that after being in the government.

Henry, as all of us in this fandom know, can have a million different personalities based on what timeline he goes through. I personally like to have him speak with rather flowery language and elegantly. Why? That’s for you to decide! I make him speak like this naturally (FLT is written with this in mind), but it could be interesting if he began speaking like this to seem more in charge in the Toppats, to be taken seriously, to create an air of mystery, etc.

while I don’t think any of TT is super ‘online’, Henry is the most online of the three. However, he uses it for research for heists, movies, etc., not scrolling really. I do think he has a Twitter to look at news/discussions of himself, lmao.

on the topic of media, I think he likes a good romcom! (Charles and Ellie are action movie people, and he loves those too, but he likes something cheesy and embarrassing once in a while.)

Ever since the Toppat routes, Henry’s loved dressing up and feels his most stylish in Toppat outfits. In the government, he’ll take any opportunity to look nicer or dress up in Toppat “disguises”.

he likes other people and has other friends, but Charles and Ellie are his people, y’know? He dotes on them. The best way to say it is that he’s in love with them in a rather queer and aroace way.

he has lasting guilt over TCW and Valiant Hero. Charles and Ellie sometimes get the sense he’s trying to “make up” for something that never happened.

Ellie:

It’s elaborated upon in FLT quite a lot, but I think Ellie is horrible with the cold. The dead of summer when everyone is dying do heat stroke is her favorite time. Winter is her worst enemy. She always has jackets, scarves, blankets, anything packed and ready for the cold just in case. Because of this, I also think she has Seasonal Affective Disorder- she gets much more depressed in winter. But the boys end up helping her a lot with it by keeping her busy, warm, and around friends :)

It also pairs well with my headcanon that Ellie was in the Wall longer than Henry; Henry almost instantly escapes but Ellie needs some kind of hope or mental push to get out. It gives her a deeper connection with a major faction, as well, like the boys with the Toppats and government respectively. (antagonistic, but y’know!) Dmitri ends up hating Henry more often in the actual games, but whenever Ellie escapes on her own… that’s definitely a personal grudge right there.

Ellie is superstitious. In FLT it’s shown through the prophecy mindset and the idea that the universe operates on rules that keep happening to her. I like the idea that, for all her chill, for how cool and calm and collected she is, she’s still got some hang ups in her mind. It’s not hard for her to believe- she’s literally got psychic powers. There’s something more to the world, she can feel it.

I also think Ellie has a deepset fear of abandonment. (Perhaps this is a residue memory from Henry abandoning her, as well as symptoms of larger issues.) Unfortunately, this sometimes manifests in pushing others away for her own perceived safety. She didn’t feel truly close to and completely comfortable with Henry and Charles for a while. Eventually, though, after repeatedly seeing Henry and Charles choose to stay by her and be with her, she relaxed. She’s getting better about those issues.

Ellie isn’t the biggest fan of carbonated drinks and will instead opt for things like tea, hot chocolate, and lemonade.

I headcanon her with two siblings: Jacob Rose, and an older trans brother who named himself Elliot after her. Elliot has a fiancé named Amanda Honeybone. They both think she’s dead. She got into a lot of trouble when she was younger and vanished in her late teens/early 20s, spurring Jacob into police work. Amanda is a reporter and does stories about the paranormal on the side, and is curious about the strange stories Elliot keeps telling her… I have several events in AUs dubbed “Ellie’s Family Reunion” where Ellie, now a member of TT, must travel back to her hometown to stop a Toppat conspiracy, re-meeting her family along the way. Perhaps my most out-there or worldbuildy headcanon for her, but I have a lot of fun with it.

Ellie is touch-averse! This does not pair well with two very touchy people. Henry and Charles were the first people she was really touchy with or comfortable with, after working on it. Now she’s incredibly comfortable with the both of them, which is basically a survival skill considering Charles is extremely physically affectionate and Henry acts similarly toward his partners.

Charles:

He’s unequivocally banned from caffeine by anybody who makes the mistake of giving him some. While the details of any caffeine related incidents are unknown, it’s usually so bad or chaotic that even Ellie and Henry have prevented him from doing so. Charles thinks he does his best work on caffeine. Perhaps this is true, but who would dare test it?

(CW for discussion of suicidal ideation) as I’ve alluded to in FLT and other fics and posts, I think Charles has what I’ve dubbed apathetic suicidal tendencies. He just doesn’t care if he lives or dies, and is almost disappointed if he lives. Henry and Ellie, however, help with these tendencies. Part of his issue is that he feels nobody really cares about him, and Henry and Ellie make it incredibly obvious they do. It makes him feel a bit better/worse that people would miss him. You can find my other posts about Charles in my rambling tag, I’m sure, so I won’t go into detail here.

Charles is an extremely touchy person. He loves throwing his arms around people, hugging people, generally being in contact with others. He’s more delicate with Ellie considering she’s touch-averse, but she doesn’t mind Charles now :) Henry will take whatever he can get lmaoooo

One of my oldest headcanons is that General Galeforce sees Charles as a son, and everyone knows it except for Charles himself. Galeforce is a little crazy, but it’s a reason he gets away with so much shit.

Collective:

If you know anything about me, you know I like to keep sexualities vague. To me, it’s more impactful for a character to just… do what they do instead of subscribing to hard and fast labels. Plus, I think identities can be much more fluid that the boxes many people put themselves and others in, and that bleeds into my headcanons. Regardless, they’re all some flavor of aroace/queerplatonic with each other. Henry leans slightly more romantic, Charles and Ellie lean slightly more platonic. Their relationship, however, is undefinable. They’re just Triple Threat! It’s frustrating to explain because it’s more a vibe than anything, but hey, that’s what TT is for.

their shared apartment was originally Charles’s. After the airship mission, Henry stayed for a while until he got his own place. After his kidnapping and the Wall, now a team and with Ellie, they crashed at Charles’s place so often they eventually just moved in together. The others were taking bets on how long it would take.

they sleep in the same king-sized bed. Charles runs hot, and so they make him sleep in the middle in his tank top and shorts. He also snores some. Ellie steals blankets and sleeps in a hoodie and sweatpants and socks (see aforementioned cold hatred). Everyone wonders how she doesn’t sweat to death. She also sometimes uses her psychic powers involuntarily at night, which is always fun to wake to. Henry has one of those pajama sets that you’re actually meant to wear in bed, but he always ends up cold because Ellie drags blankets off.

they have a personal game of Cursed Uno that’s gotten horribly out of hand. How I and my friends play cursed uno is adding a rule every round won, done by the winner. It becomes rather chaotic once you start implementing multiverse rules and stupid names you have to call everyone. Anyway, I think TT has bonkers rules because they’re insane and also have powers, and missions can get really boring when there’s downtime. Stuff like a fistfight on every game won between the losers, any time Ellie uses telekinesis and the boys don’t catch it she can fling them across the room, Charles’s favorite rule of Nuclear Destruction where he “flies a helicopter” (destroys the game by smashing into all the cards) and instantly infuriates everyone. They also don’t think it’s weird because they’ve been doing this for so long.

Ellie is the designated driver of the three not because she’s good, but because Henry risks getting quick-time events and Charles isn’t allowed to fly anything but a helicopter because he acts like he’s above and immune to other people, road signs, the law, and life itself. He treats the car as helicopter.

However, Henry is the best cook. He loves making elaborate dishes. Charles cooks decently with simple meals because he’s military. Ellie would eat cardboard if it was nutritious; her tastebuds will take anything after the Wall.

Charles drives Ellie and Henry to their heists and pretends he doesn’t know what they’re doing. In his mind, if he can’t see it and he never sees the stolen items, it doesn’t exist. Plus, it makes his partners happy, and it keeps them from committing more serious offenses that might get them kicked out of the government. In compromise, Ellie and Henry don’t tell Charles about their heists and keep them to a minimum.