#lampert x reader

Your thoughts are quickly interrupted by the sound of a loud…switch? Before you can process the dangers it could have, the lights promptly turn off making the place nearly pitch black. Confusion wraps around you in circles clearly defined with the expression you hold, and how your antennas shoot upwards. You practically go numb once you notice the light shining from the lamps nearby, it felt warm and comforting. You move towards the lamp closest to you, and reach your hand towards the light.

Only for it to suddenly start moving. You panic and stumble backwards a bit at the sudden movement it made, but it said nothing to you and ran off into the elevator. What. You’re soon teleported back into the elevator, and feel an arm land on your shoulder.

“Dude thanks! Lampert is almost impossible to find during blackouts, and me and my friend really wanted him on board!” A random traveler smiled warmly at you gently squeezing your shoulder, their fingers slightly touching your wings. When they lift their hand off your shoulder they notice the dust that seems to have spread from your wings to their skin. They look at you weirdly before shuffling away from you and seemingly dismissing you before you can respond.

You feel slightly embarrassed, or maybe just a little annoyed at them randomly touching your wings, even if accidental. Either way you brush it off, it’s not the end of the world, and turn your attention to this Lampert fellow. Now that you notice him he does resemble a Lamp, no scratch that, he literally is a lamp! How intriguing, but it would be rather rude to random ask about his existence. Obviously you need to make friends with him first, then you can be weird!

“Hai! I’m [REDACTED], your Lampert correct?”

“…yeah, it’s nice to meet you.” They look at your presence, seemingly expressing shock at your…appearance? before quickly giving you a small smile. Okay, nothing special, after all it’s not everyday you stumble across a talking humanoid moth, no reason to hold grudges against him, yet.

“Awesome!”

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- Sees you share some common personality with K@$pe7(who..?) 1nf3ct3d, making him definitely tolerate you more then he would with most people.

- He does seem interested in your wings, wondering if you can fly with them, but probably doesn’t let his curiosity get the better of him.

- He’s always slightly worried about the ‘dust’ on your wings getting on him, unsure how easily it will get off or if it will act almost like glitter. God he hates glitter.

- ALRIGHT enough yapping let’s get to the fun part;

- The elevator has begun to slow down, most of your passengers and travelers having left to wind down for the day. You had planned to take a rest as well, and it just so happened you were accompanied by Lampert as well.

You kinda forgot about the fact Lampert can simply light up like a…well Y’know lamp.

- You only remember it once the lights had randomly shut down, indicating a power outage most likely.

- Until a sudden source of light comes from one of the corners, while you moths preferred other colors over a yellow hue, it was better than nothing.

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“Ughh..” you whisper under your breath, having difficulty adjusting to the sudden change in light. You grumble slightly finding it rather difficult to see compared to your fellow travelers.

Nearby you hear a click before a light comes on, not the elevator, but rather a the source coming from one of the corners in the elevator. You find yourself moving towards it before you can even process your movements, and eventually find yourself directly in front of it. You feel rather distorted having trouble understanding even what it was you were looking at.

“Um…are you okay…?” A worried and confused voice randomly asks you, slightly startling you with how close in proximity it was.

You stumble backwards slightly, shaking your head causing your antennas to swish desperately attempting to keep up with your head. Your wings fluttering slightly in a swift motion, but you still respond to Lampert with the best of your ability.

“Urm, yes, yeah I should be fine…” you reluctantly answer, finally getting use to the random black out. Only now noticing the lights had already turned on once more, you swear this elevators out to get you with how many times it’s harmed you.

You wince slightly recalling the time you had your wings trapped in the doors until they released them on the next floor. You had remembered panicking, and had it not been for a nearby traveler who saw your struggle, you most certainly would have damaged your wings with the amount of pressure you were putting on them.

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- Lampert def is confused, but mainly worried about what you were doing. He’s never really seen many…well biotic beings until he had started partaking in ‘Regretevator’ as others called it.

- I imagine he’d try to get you to calm down, then leave as soon as you seem partially calm.

- Now let’s say this is a repeating occurrence, he’d definitely get more comfortable with dealing with you, resulting in a friendship forming due to this odd looping cycle.

- Overall he gets more closer too you because of your rather odd yet interesting nature.

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Extra random stuffz;

- You definitely have accidentally followed Lampert to his base on more than on becuase he forgot to turn off his lightbulb

- Let’s say you can fly with your wings, and Lampert stumbles upon you flying, he’d probably be really scared as to how your flying. But he’ll be concerned for your safety too

- Yeah you can’t fly with him around anymore, sad. ;P

- Extremely worried about how hygienic you are, especially considering the cost of ‘dirt’ on your wings.

- Probably had you keep them shut closed, or puts them in a plastic bag… (yknow those plastic bags people wear on their shoes/clothes to avoid getting wet on water rides and stuff? Yeh smth like thst but for your wings.)

- Very reluctant on willingly letting you enter his base on floor 3008, but if you show you can be practical a ghost and not touch anything then he MIGHT consider it.

- If you annoy him he will refuse to turn on his lamp around you. It’s been a big fight? All of a sudden ALL the lamps in 3008 have seemingly been unplugged or turned off.

- probably one of those guys to freak out over small insects (in this case à moth) and telling you to kill/remove them, and you just stare there mortified at what he just asked you too do.

- Ends up having too gift you something to make up for his rather ‘rude’ behavior towards the situation.

-Overall, y’all just a silly pair with one of y’all being extremely clingy and the other not knowing how too respond.

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A/N; tried adding some moth related troubles (lmao idk wut 2 call it) but erm yeh. ALSO THIS IS SUCH A CUTE PAIR??? If I ever make a moth Oc for Regretevator Ik who ima ship them with >:3

No joke I had to do some research bout moths cuz apparently I know nothing bout them…apparently moths have difficulty when it comes to adjusting their eyes? (Takes them like 30 minutes to get night vision and vis versa) the more u know ig??

Anyways I kinda was balling it with this request so it’s probably ooc UmU

Last Regretevator request! All the rest will be Forsaken!! :3

Requests might be opened soon who knows >:3

SIDE NOTE I THOUGHT U SAID MANNEQUIN MARK 4 SOME REASON AND I DIDNT REALIZE IT WAS LAMPERT UNTIL I HAD LIKE 1/3 OF THE ONESHOT DONE 😭

- Initially you created a rather mutual relationship between him, or rather the best you could with him. You showed no interest in his germaphobic nature, always finding a way to work around it.

-Then you started testing the waters, seeing what stuck and what he would shut down immediately

-When you once said, “Cya, Lampert!”

- Now became, “Bye, Lampert! Maybe next time you could stay longer!”

- Lampert was confused, and rather unsure how to approach your sudden friendliness. He chalked it off to you simply enjoying him company more.

- Then you got slightly more… bold, with him. Soon the normal send offs before he left became far more courageous (??)

- Now it became; “Bye Lampert, I’ll miss you…!”

-The shift definitely was obvious, but he couldn’t figure out what it meant and why.

- I imagine Lampert would start to avoid interacting with you, being unsure how to approach your sudden change

- In turn you’d most likely get even more ‘weird’ in his eyes

- If your behavior still doesn’t change he’ll consider discussing your current…situation… with someone like Wallter or a friend

- With how often you seem to be around him though it’s quite hard for him to discuss it in private.

- Now this next part is depending on how far you ‘tease’ him;

- If you take your teasing to a physical level he’ll definitely shut it down immediately, complaining about how unsanitary it is

- If it’s mainly just jokingly harassing poking fun at him, then he’ll probably just begin to ignore you if he gets annoyed

- I think Lampert is definitely someone who needs to register you as a friend/lover before he tolerates your behavior

- If you know him more on a personal level and he knows you’re simply joking then he’ll probably take it a little bit before he begins to bully tease you lightly as well.

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OVERALL;

- unsure how to respond 2 u, but will eventually -as the relationship progresses- reply with a similar attitude

- Will definitely set strict limits to how far you can poke at him, anything physical is a no go immediately

- in total, will follow your lead depending on the situation. If you’re being serious about something he’ll enter a very sincere and honest conversation.

- y’all being lighthearted? Immediately turns into a 180, refuses to give up with out-flirting you.

Safe to say one of you guys are going to end up embarrassing and flustered, otherwise you’d never stop.

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A/n; It was definitely a trouble w/ this one, but I hope you enjoyed! Kinda regretting not choosing 7n7 cuz OML why is Lampert such a confusing character 2 write 4. (If y’all reading this ima let y’all in on a secret, I have 2 two time requests, 1 Lampert request, and a 1x4 request remaining sooo yeh. I kinda wanted to balance it out so not everything was forsaken, but wtvvv lolz)

Ty 4 being patient while I focused on smth important in my life! As a reward I’ve decided 2 post this early! Since I was originally planning to post it Monday! <3

-Lampert did not actually tell you that night. Woops. He wanted to, and he really thought he was gonna! He knew if he didn’t just get it off his chest there was a pretty good chance he’d end up never telling you and agonizing over how he could for forever. Even then, though, he couldn’t risk blurting it out wrong and saying something entirely by accident. He would be mortified for life if he said something stupid after such a special moment between the two of you. So instead he just made up a story about something he saw at Rokea earlier that day he thought you’d find funny and then stared off into space for the rest of the night. Needless to say, he had to come up with something better, and soon.

-He’s really not sure of where to start. Sure, he knows the cliche romantic stuff people to do confess their feelings, but all of it feels a little … off. It’s just not something he would do, and he’s sure you would notice if he was doing something so wildly out of character for him, which runs the risk of making you uncomfortable or think he’s not being genuine and that’s the last thing he needs.

-So, he’s gotta figure out something you would understand. He thinks a lot about how you two normally hang out, all the places you tend to drag him whenever you’re off of work and have money to spare and the energy to go out. You’ve taken him to a couple of places near your work, a handful of small stores and a restaurant or two, but that’s just a little too casual, isn’t it? I mean, yeah, he had a lot of fun on those little outings with you, but they’re all right by your job. You see them every day– hell, you probably go visit them pretty often!

-You’ve taken him to a few more ‘special’ places, too. There was some clearing at a nearby park you’d showed him, flopping down on the ground to look up at the stars. There wasn’t anything super unique about the place, but Lampert didn’t really remember it for that anyway. He mostly just remembers talking with you there, how you went on tangent after tangent about customers or random conversations you overheard or something you remembered from when you were younger. He didn’t have too much to add, his day had been pretty normal and his childhood was a lot of just him looking at furniture, but it was nice. He liked hearing you talk, the sound of your voice, how much fun you were having. You’d gone long enough that your voice was still scratchy the next day, much to your chagrin. Despite the sore throat, he was sure you had fun too, since you talked about going back there with him someday soon.

- … But that also felt pretty cliche. I mean, yeah, that was a pretty special experience to him, but a “beautiful, starry clearing” felt just tropey enough to make him cringe. He might as well bring a bouquet of roses and a handwritten letter.

-So, that left him with one other idea: your place. Sure, it seemed pretty lame– It’s your house. You go there every day and spend a whole lot of time there, but it felt like the only place really unique to the two of you. You two have spent plenty of nights watching bad movies on your tv or going on about this and that over drinks. Besides, that’s where he was planning on telling you in the first place, wasn’t it?

-He would’ve considered his place, but he didn’t really wanna risk some random passerby overhearing such a sensitive conversation, especially if you didn’t return his feelings. A fort in the middle of a store only has so much privacy, and he wasn’t sure you’d be a fan of the dark of the store after hours.

-Even with a location figured out now, he was a little apprehensive. He really didn’t wanna risk throwing out your guys’ friendship over unreturned feelings, but he also knew he couldn’t really make them go away and you would start to notice something’s up eventually. You probably wouldn’t cut him off just because you didn’t feel the same, but the fact it was a ‘probably’ and not a ‘definitely’ felt like it may as well have been an outright no.

-Either which way, he had to give it a try. If you didn’t feel the same, that was fine, he’s sure he could still be your friend. Hopefully. If you did feel the same, though, then … yay. He’s not really sure how to put into words how happy he’d be.

-You’d invited him over as per usual and the night had been pretty normal for the most part. You two had dinner and were just sitting around talking, but he’d decided to let you take the lead in conversation tonight, since he had to gather his confidence to say this right.

“… You alright, man? Been pretty quiet,” You hummed, looking over at your friend. He’d been sitting pretty stiffly, now that you looked at him. He was on the other side of the couch, facing forward with his hands folded on his lap and looking right ahead, though his eyes had shifted over to look over at you once you addressed him.

“Huh? Oh, uh … yeah, I’m fine. But uh … could I talk to you about something?” He asked, uncharacteristically anxious. That was enough to make you sit up straighter, already dreading what was to come.

“Oh, yeah. For sure. What do you wanna talk about?” You hoped you sounded normal enough, it was a little hard to get those words out through the worry tightening arond your throat.

He seemed to pick up on it, though, efforts be damned. He’d suddenly turned to you then, fully shifting to face you and waving his hands, “Don’t worry! It’s nothing bad! I probably should’ve worded that a little better, sorry, it’s just sort of … big? Complicated? I dunno.”

You relaxed at that, but still kept an edge of uncertainty, unsure of where this was going. There was a pause for a few moments, each of you waiting for the other to say something more. “Well … you gonna tell me about the big news or what?”

He smiled at that, scoffing a laugh, “Yeah, yeah. Sorry. But … do you remember when I asked you if I could tell you something?” He paused, looking at you. You stared back blankly, lips pulled into a straight line. “That one night? The one where you got those wires for me? I followed it up with some like, dumb story or whatever.”

“Oh! That night! Yeah, I remember, what about it?”

“Well,” Lampert took a breath, looking off into the side and folding his hands together again, “I wasn’t really … honest, about what I wanted to tell you.”

“I didn’t just wanna tell you about some stupid guy at Rokea,” he continued, leaning back against the arm of the couch, pulling his legs up to fully mirror your position, “I was thinking about something else and just kinda panicked once I’d actually said something.”

You blinked at him, and he took another breath, tensing up as he physically braced himself for the point of no return. “So, I was actually kinda thinking about … ugh, how do I say this? Us? Like, ugh, no, that sounds so …” he trailed off, rubbing at his eyes hard, “I don’t know, I just … I felt so safe, y’know? I don’t really like other people touching me, much less sticking their hands in me like that, but I didn’t mind it when it was you.”

“I always kinda felt like that, I guess, but I just never really noticed it until then. And it’s not just that, either. You’ve always been there for me, you’re funny even if you’re being annoying, you always think about me and you’ve done so, so much for me and I just–” he sighed, letting go of held breath, “I really appreciate you, I like having you in my life. You mean a lot to me.”

He risked looking at you then, meeting wide eyes, “You can say no if you want to, of course. I don’t wanna lose you over some stupid confession. But … if you’d want to, I’d like to go out with you.”

You didn’t respond for a few seconds, blinking at him. Okay, clearly you didn’t feel the same. That’s fine, okay, he can deal with that. He should say something, he opens his mouth to speak again.

“Lampert I’ve been dropping hints for like weeks now.”

“Huh?”

“Dude,” you were laughing now, badly biting them back, “Do you think I invite anyone over this much? Why do you think I took you to that one stupid, fancy cafe a while ago?”

“I- Well,” Lampert stammered, struggling to wrap his head around what you were saying, “How was I supposed to know that?! You never said anything!”

You threw your head back, laughing harder now. If he liked you any less, he would be walking away right now. Instead, he was sitting and watching you laugh at him like an idiot. “Man! Whatever, who cares. But yes, I’d like to go out with you too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You mean a lot to me too, if that wasn’t obvious.”

…

“But for the record, I knew you were bullshitting that story in the first place.”

“Dude, just gimmie a second,” you cut them off, half-muffled behind the hands trying to rub some coherency into you, “I never said no, I just … wasn’t really expecting that.” ‘Wasn’t really,’ was an overstatement. Maybe even more than an overstatement, more like a huge-massive-hyper-statement, in your opinion. This was about the last thing you’d expected Lampert to be asking for at the early hours of your shift. There was no, ‘Where’s your replacement cables?’ or ‘When was the last time you guys dusted?’ Sure, you didn’t hate some surprises on your shift, it kept the day interesting, after all, but this was an entirely different kind of surprise.

“I mean, like,” you started hesitantly, only now dropping your hands back to the counter with averted eyes, “I could give it a try but, I’m not really an electrician or anything. I mean, I know how to fix some stuff but I don’t really work on uh …” You made a fluttery, trailing motion with your hand.

“Sentient light-fixtures?”

“Yeah. Yeah that’s uh, that’s a little out of my usual work.”

“I assumed as much, but it’s not like I’m just gonna tell you to ‘figure it out,’ and have you dig around in me,” Lampert laughed, some short little exhale that tugged at your heartstrings. You were surprised he was being so lighthearted about this, but you were also surprised he’d asked you in the first place, so maybe you were just thoroughly mistaken on your assesment of your friend.

You stammered for a few moments, struggling to find the words. Part of you wanted to just throw caution to the wind, to say yes. You might not be a surgeon, but you’re also a lot more familiar with electrical parts than you are organs. Another part of you said throwing caution to the wind when ‘caution’ was ‘I don’t want to destroy my friend’s body,’ was a very stupid thing to be thinking. “I get that, I just … Do you really trust me with this, man?” Your hands were digging into your head now, physically holding yourself together.

He paused for a moment at that, taking a breath. While, normally, this sort of hesitation would be enough for you to instantly call it off, you knew to give it a little longer. Well-spoken as he was, you’d talked with Lampert long enough to know that converting genuine, sincere thoughts to words could be hard for him.

“I’d say so, yeah,” he’d shrugged, hand coming up to fidget with his pull switch, “I’ve known you for … however long now, and it’s not like you’re a total newbie to this sort of thing.”

You sucked in air through your teeth, eyes unfocusing as you thought this over one more time. On one hand, you wanted to help your friend out and you knew you’d bend over backwards for him. On the other, you really weren’t sure you wanted to risk pulling the wrong wire the wrong way and frying him. You’d spared him a glance, meeting his awaiting gaze for only a few seconds. You knew you could say no, that he’d assure you it was fine and then find someone else. The problem was, you didn’t really want to tell him no. A sigh scratched its way out of your throat as you squeezed your eyes shut.

“Ok.”

“Really?” He’d perked up at your response, chain left swinging as he let go of it in surprise.

“Yeah, I’ll give it a go,” you muttered, “But you have to promise me you’ll help me out, I usually don’t have to worry about hurting people’s radios or anything.”

“Yeah! Of course, don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

A comfortable silence fell over the two of you, Lampert smiling to himself while you worked on clearing your head. You still weren’t totally sure about this, anxiety weighing heavy on your back, but you wanted to try. It’d save him some time and energy (and money, probably), and it’d give you an excuse to hang out with him for a while. You were lucky nobody had come in while you two were talking, you weren’t sure you’d be able to differentiate a one and a one hundred dollar bill in your daze. The dim overhead lighting kept buzzing and an incoherent ad played over the store radio.

You’d watched in silence as Lampert stuck a finger out to trace over part of the countertop, leaving a fingerprint behind in the dust. He grimaced.

“You really touched your face after putting your hands on this?-”

“Oh my god dude I do not get paid to clean this place.”

This suddenly felt like your first time ever stepping foot into your own apartment. Your space felt barren, like someone had been slowly robbing you for the past decade until all you had was their leftover blankets and pillows. You’d done your best to make a comfortable enough mattress out of your sheets, but it still felt like you’d just thrown Lampert onto a pile of rocks and told him to get comfy.

“Fuck, umm … I might have some more blankets under my bed or something,” you thought aloud, worrying the inside of your lip between your canines while trying to catalog every forgotten shirt or notebook you’d crammed under your bedframe.

You had your back turned to Lampert, who quietly watched you devolve into a pacing mess on the floor. Truthfully, he stopped feeling the hardwood about 15 minutes ago, but never found a good spot to interject with that info.

“I really don’t think that’s necessary,” he hummed, watching for the slightest of shifts in the tension of your shoulders. You’d never been bad on the eyes, but this seemed to be a particularly ethereal look on you, despite the way you’d slowly gotten more disheveled and still had yet to get out of your work uniform. He couldn’t really tell what it was, he’d been over to your apartment enough you’d told him where you kept your spare key, and he’d seen you in your uniform just about every day in all states of distress.

You finally shot him a look over your shoulder, frantic gaze meeting his own relaxed one before darting away again. Your shoulders lowered a little, fidgeting in place for a few moments before you’d finally turned around to face him.

“You sure there’s nothing I can get you? It’s no trouble,” You’d asked for the third time, grabbing at the back of your neck.

“Well, you could maybe help me with this wire thing I’ve got going on, I might’ve told you about it before.”

That’d gotten a short laugh out of you, more an exhale with a brief, flashed grin than anything. “Yeah, alright, man.” Despite the snark, you’d kneeled down by his side, hands sitting by your side. “So how do I uhh …”

“Oh! Let me just …” Lampert mumbles, unbuttoning his shirt to open himself up. Instinctively, you’d turned away, busying your eyes on some uneven paint on the wall. You knew there wasn’t any real reason to be shy, there wasn’t exactly anything there, but it felt more polite to do than not. You wondered if you should’ve put music on, the thudding of your heart in your ears was starting to feel migraine inducing. No, it probably would’ve been distracting, it was for the better you didn’t. Probably.

You waited for a few more moments of shuffling, “Alright, this should work fine.”

You’d looked back at him then, already scripting some conversation that ended up going unwritten and unspoken once you’d processed the scene. It wasn’t anything you hadn’t seen before, technically speaking, but it carried a different weight here. The light from across the room barely glinted off the collage of wires neatly lining his insides, a sea of blacks and greys in his chest. You could make out parts of a metal framework, only a little more complex than a skeleton, interestingly enough. You supposed it made sense, given his relatively humanoid body. It allowed his skin to move freely in some places, more akin to the way yours would in the soft of your forarm or the curve of your stomach. Something like a chestplate, the outermost layers of his torso were sitting beside him, resting delicately on his discarded shirt. Whoever made him should be proud.

“You ok?” Lampert suddenly spoke up, concern clear in his voice.

“OH,” you started, “Yeah, yeah. Sorry, got a little lost in thought.”

“You sure? It’s ok if you changed your mind, I know it’s a little weird,” he’d reassured, struggling on the last few words. Admittedly, he was nervous. He didn’t know why, this wasn’t fear of something going wrong, but more about how you felt about all of this. Sure, he didn’t have any reason to believe you saw him as some freak of nature, but something was nagging him to cover back up. It felt vulnerable in an entirely different way to show you everything like this, to be so unforgettably other to you.

You shook your head, reaching out to rest your hands on him. He tensed up at the touch, freezing to watch for your next move. “Nah, I’m all good, promise, but uh … I don’t really see the issue. Everything looks pretty well kept.”

“Oh, yeah, the top part should be fine,” Lampert explained as he pointed to the topmost layer of wires, feeling more relaxed with the near clinical conversation, “I’m usually able to handle tidying everything back up every now and then just fine. It’s just that I’ve got this knot at the very back I can’t get to.”

You made a little noise at that, staring down at his chest with thought. While you were busy making a mental map of how to go about this, he took the opportunity to study his surroundings a little more. He’d been here plenty of times, but something always seemed to be added or moved around every time he came over. Usually, it wasn’t anything huge, and if it was you tended to make it a point of conversation, playing it up like a grand unveiling. The changes all felt natural, a physical show of changing times. You had a few photos along the wall, mostly of some of your friends you’d introduced him to before.

He can’t quite remember how you’d roped him into it, but he had a feeling you made some kind of bet or favor. That tended to be the case. He does, however, remember a lot of the night after that. Namely, he remembers you making some sweeping, grand gesture with your hands when you introduced him, like you’d just thrown a grade-A celebrity in front of your friends. He remembers one of your friends telling him it was nice to meet the guy you’d been talking about so much, fully sincere in their words. He remembers ending up sleeping on your couch, too tired to walk back home that night, while you took to sleeping on the floor right beside it, insisting it was just like a sleepover. He also remembers almost stepping on you in the morning, but that’s neither here nor there.

He can’t help the smile that crawls onto his face at the memory, all the stupid little things you’d done for him that night and the dumb jokes you made that got snickers out of him without fail. Something flutters in his chest, hands readjusting idly on his lap with some spark of pent up energy.

“Lampert.”

He snaps to attention at that, head whipping over to look at you. You’re fixing him with some odd, wide-eyed stare, lips set in a thin line.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Dude, you cannot just go all still and quiet on me like that. I was so sure I like, ripped something.”

“Wh- I was smiling! Why would I be smiling if I was hurt?”

“I don’t know!” You retorted, hands giving a stifled jerk in his chest, carefully carded through the wires. If it weren’t for not wanting to really rip something this time, you would’ve thrown your hands up in the air to really show him what exasperated looked like, he was sure of it. “Maybe you just got stuck like that?”

“’Maybe I just got stuck like-’ Oh, whatever. I’m fine, thank you for checking in,” Lampert sighed, looking back up at the ceiling. You just stuck your tongue out in response. He felt a little more aware of what was actually going on in the present, now, able to pick out the feeling of your fingers gently pushing cord after cord aside. His ability to feel things was significantly less expansive than yours was, but he could feel the dull warmth of your skin brushing up against cold metal, a foggy pressure on his frame.

He envied your heightened sensitivity at times, how you’d differentiate velvet from satin or comment on how soft something was. You’d try describing it to him sometimes, usually devolving into incoherent, if not poetic, rambles that went nowhere and left him with a very abstract idea of how silk felt. Some night where you’d both been out of it and desperate for some connection to someone, you’d traced his skin and called it smooth, and then you’d carefully touched the side of his head and said it reminded you of linen. He could understand smooth, could imagine how the visual translated to the physical, but linen was different. You’d stumbled your words for a few moments, starting and restarting multiple times over. Eventually you said linen usually felt scratchy, but got softer over time. Part of him wanted to feel insulted about the ‘scratchy’ bit, ignoring the connotations he knew from how you used it to describe texture that it usually wasn’t pleasant, but he couldn’t find the irritation at the time. He was too tired, too busy thinking about why you included how linen got softer with time, too busy thinking about how that related to him, what you were trying to tell him. In the end, he was mostly just too tired, and ended up falling asleep and forgetting about it in the morning.

He could feel you digging deeper into him now, leaning further over him to better reach without putting too much strain on other wires.

“Tell me if I’m pushing too hard,” you murmur, carefully parting the layers of copper and plastic to look for the tangled wires. “Mm, actually, can you hold that for a sec? I think I need a flashlight.”

“Oh, yeah,” Lampert hummed in response, quickly replacing your hands in himself. It was an odd angle, putting a little more strain on his arms than comfortable. As he’d moved to replace your hands, he’d brushed them briefly, registering that warmth again. He couldn’t tell what your skin felt like, if it was rough and scratchy or smooth and soft, but he could uniquely identify just how hot your hands felt against his.

It was the one sense he seemed to trump you in, given how your perception of it was limited to your body temperature. You’d be burning something awful and he’d have to tell you to lay back down, since, according to your temperature sensitivity, you were perfectly average. It made sense, you’d often make jokes about not knowing how he didn’t feel too hot whenever his light was on too long, referencing how you’d burned yourself on a light when you were younger. In the moment though, he was usually too baffled by how you’d managed such an injury to think about it. You’d complain sometimes about your hands being cold in the winter, tucking them into the sides of your neck for warmth, but he rarely ever picked up on it. Though, in fairness, you’d usually jolt in surprise when you felt how cold his hands were after being outside, a clear result of metal’s ambient temperature. No matter what you thought, you always seemed to be radiating heat, and he’d always be leeching off of it while you two sat together for some bad hallmark movie.

“There!” You blurted out, finally locating the bundle of wires bunched together among the ocean of identical strings. “It doesn’t look that bad, actually. Shouldn’t take me long,” you hummed, more to yourself than anything. You set your flashlight aside, leaning closer to his body to get a better handle on him.

As you started to delicately pry every last cable apart from one another, Lampert turned to studying you again. There was a light a little ways behind your head, leaving your face obscured in a shadow while it cast a halo around your form. He imagined you were probably fixing him with some intent look, tongue partway sticking out to focus on the knot, the same way you tended to whenever you handled someone else’s electronics. He didn’t stick around for too long whenever you were working, it didn’t look great for you if you were talking to someone for too long on your shift, so he tended to dip out after a minute or two. Sometimes, though, he’d end up talking to you about something he’d seen walking around that day while you were fixing something up. He admired how careful you could be with things as fragile as decades old circuitboards and crumbling watches, how much effort you put into making sure things didn’t get damaged any further.

That was probably part of why he’d asked you to help him with this, you were by all means technically skilled, no doubt about it. But maybe he also chose to ask you because he trusted you, beyond your skill. Asked you because he knew, on some intrinsic level, that you were someone who he could rely on. He’d done it in plenty of other regards, trusted you in moments where everything felt so disjointed and nonsensical like you were the only logical thing in the world. Without asking, you’d offered him friendship and understanding at every turn, given him a shoulder to lean on before he’d ever mentioned needing one. You’d given him your heart, and, in some way, he’d given you his.

The cables slipped back into place, the dull, constant aching in his back finally receding. You were grinning, pulling back out of his vision with some comment on how you’d been expecting worse. He hummed in response, not entirely hearing what you said, still lost in his thoughts. He followed you blearily as you got up, stretching your arms far over your head, starting into a conversation about if he wanted to do anything else while he was here, offering up a few suggestions that he didn’t catch. His hands found their place on his lap again, readjusting twice before he felt settled enough to answer.