psl.

[theycalledmeacurse]

the mutant and the machine.

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[redcosmedic]

He let her down, giving her a new cursory scan to confirm that yes, that does seem to have taken the edge off for her. Knock Out doesn't rise back to standing just yet, simply content to watch.

"You're welcome," he answered benignly, but in response to her question, he adopted that look of honest perplexity which has come up before even in their short time together, the one that said she was doing something unfathomably human and he had no frame of reference for understanding it.

"No?" He seemed unsure in the answer, but only in the sense that he wasn't sure why he needed to clarify. "It's not good for mecha to stay overclocked, it's hard on the system. It seemed reasonable to assume the same of humans. Why would helping fix that make things—?"

[theycalledmeacurse]

Taken the edge off. That's not an inaccurate way of thinking. Ever since they arrived on this version of Earth, there's been a tension in her, a deepset fear and worry that even Knock Out's constant reassuring presence hasn't been able to chase away. The fear for their future is still there, of course, lurking under the surface, but she finally feels relaxed enough that she might be able to really rest and recover from the stress of the last few weeks.

Grabbing her pants, she's in the process of pulling them back on when he speaks, and when she sees his expression... Huh.

"It's a human thing," she explains with a relieved shake of her head. "Having an encounter like this — it's hard for a lot of people to separate that from their emotions." Finally properly clothed again, she lifts a hand to comb through her hair, just to be sure it was behaving itself after what happened between them. "Honestly, sugar, it's times like this I'm real glad you're different from us in the way you think about things."

[redcosmedic]

Comprehension flared clear in his expression. "Ah, I understand. Yes, humans are weird about interface. Sex. Especially considering how much of the time you all spend obsessing about it, to be honest. This was— hm. More like a social favour."

Which was... broadly true, and part of why he'd been able to clear his own sympathetic charge so easily.

(But the way she'd pleaded, said his name like that... Knock Out committed the clip to memory. Just because.)

"I'm glad it helped," he finished. "Though we should get going."