Welcome to Gaia! ::

“If he’s offered a high-five, sure,” Promethei grinned. “I mean, he doesn’t give them on his own, but he’ll return them.” It was cute, that she saw a commonality there. Aspec people had to stick together, right?

… He was nowhere near aspec in either the romantic or sexual perspective, but being around aspec people daily had taught him enough.

Once he finished his piece, he found himself shifting from foot to foot as it seemed like Nikki was thinking about it quite a bit. Was he right to offer that? Did it help? It was unusual for him to plaster his love for other people in such plain text; he usually was content to talk about his husbands and figure that the affection showed itself well enough. Admitting to the hole that Teegan had left behind was hard, and talking about the hole that persisted as he tried to heal from his own hurt was even harder.

It had been so good to see Teegan over the past few days that a part of him didn’t understand himself, anymore.

She was getting up. Was that good?

… Apparently, yes.

Promethei hadn’t been expecting her to rush up for a hug, but there was a part of him that melted into it, especially after she thanked him. (Sometimes, getting personal was the right answer.) He could tell that she was both the type of person his husband absolutely would have followed into the darkness and the type of person who would have fought hard for him on the other side. Maybe it was a piece to the puzzle as to why he had stayed there so long. If there were people he saw as good there, it couldn’t be so bad, right?

He knew Chaos messed with the brain. Maybe it was a way to justify continuing to take energy.

He hugged her back, and despite everything else, he knew he gave good hugs.

The fuzzy puffy jacket probably helped, in some ways, though he knew he had a good build for it. Tobias always had good things to say about them–

“Deal,” Promethei was absolutely willing to accept the help of someone who had more experience than him, both in this war and as a labeled traitor. She was someone whom Emain Ablach was attached to, too, and she was to him. More people to keep Emain Ablach out of the hands of the Negaverse again could only help.

It could help if he ever couldn’t.

“Hey, hey!” Viatrix scampered over, attempting to hug them from the other side. “You can’t have a hug party without the resident Mauvian, c’mon–”

Promethei reached over to rustle Viatrix’s curly hair. “Yes, yes, everyone can have time with the fluffy coat–”

She harrumphed at him, as much as she snuggled closer.

Promethei chuckled. She wasn’t wrong – and neither was Viatrix, who had been very content to be hugged closer to the coat. He wasn’t unconvinced that she wouldn’t have started kneading on it if she was an actual cat– “I have! Once took it off, folded it over, and tucked it under Imhotep’s head. He napped pretty well after that.” Honestly, how fluffy his coat was had some advantages over the winter months for multiple reasons.

… Not so much during the summer, and the first thing he wanted to do on patrol then was get rid of his damn jacket, but anyway.

Promethei let Nikki hop back without saying anything, though he couldn’t quite straighten himself out with Viatrix still there. He’d let her have it for now, patting her on the head. Some of her behaviours made him think of cats, honestly. “Yeah. Sure you got good stories, right?

Viatrix hummed, pursing her lips and pushing them to the side. As she thought about it, ignoring the whole thing about romance because Nectaris was right, it wasn’t something she cared about nor was it her thing. She guessed her bonded was happy enough, but meh. “I mean, can tell you about my apps! Y’all will like this one, I think. It’s a instant messaging chat app!” She pulled her phone out of somewhere–subspace, Promethei guessed–and after messing with it, she lifted up her phone to him. “See?”

Promethei took a minute to watch Viatrix babble at him about what she had made.

… Well, this did seem useful, admittedly. Wasn’t what Nikki had been getting at, but useful!

“She was referring to any fun stories you have, Mauvian apps or not—”

“I can also show you my GPS!” cut in Viatrix, giggling. “I’ve been making it work better for wonders. Can probably mark the lab on here too…”

She wasn’t going to tell him about that getting Teegan’s job back, was she–

Promethei had been sort of hoping that Nikki would try to nudge Viatrix into telling them something truly dramatic, or about how she managed to get Teegan's priesthood back, but he would take what he could get at this point. Honestly, that GPS sounded very useful. Something that could just map what his university in space looks like to be a lot better than just trying to figure it out himself…

Considering how well that was going, and by that he meant it wasn't. Maybe if his husbands wanted to come on an exploration with him, he might have a little more success. Everything about it seemed familiar! It was a university, and he was used to universities! But a space University with words he could not understand was a little bit different.

Viatrix's eyes lit up at the interest that Nikki and Promethei were showing in her stuff. She was very proud of her apps, and she honestly couldn't wait to release them for everyone to utilize. The one that she was talking about came from one of Nikki's suggestions!

“Yeah, it'd work for knights too! Once you get all the senshi compatibility stuff installed on your ring–which you should have–it'll pop up like a hologram.” Viatrix grinned. “So handy for both of you!”

Promethei snorted. “That sounds very handy. I have the writing of a doctor and you can tell.”

Nectaris and Cybele were witnesses to that when he was helping Ransomite get out…

Anyway.

Viatrix's attention suddenly swung when Nikki mentioned maximum science vibes.

“Yes! Show me the lab!” She bounced on her toes. “I'm so ready.”

“I want to see it too.” Promethei chuckled. “The heart-to-heart was needed, I think, but I do want to see some space science.” Maybe even compare a bit of it to Mercurian science…

Viatrix giggled. “It’s true, I wouldn’t.” Her steps were mirroring Nikki’s, a happy skip down the minute-long path through a blooming wonder, its butterflies and its bees. “Besides, I think Encke might have my head if I didn’t actually give you an easier way to talk to everyone…”

Her gaze suddenly snapped toward Promethei when Nectaris mentioned the concept of him not having the upgrade. How much did he talk to senshi? He had to have at least a few times considering he managed to get Cybele to come purify Emain Ablach, though that was partially through Nectaris. Had Promethei met with any Mauvians afterward?

– Right. Fan. That was what they were going with. Promethei didn’t thirst for certain actors pretty openly and Ignacio Araya definitely wasn’t one of them. This was his sister. He would probably find that weird. She would almost definitely– “Don’t think I know what you’re referring to, actually–”

Viatrix gasped, scampering over to Promethei and reaching her hand out. “Gimme your ring. I already got it installed on Emain Ablach’s, but not your other husband’s–Imhotep? Yeah, if you don’t have it he probably doesn’t either.”

Promethei cautiously pulled his ring off and handed it to Viatrix, who ran toward the space lab with it to get it fitted with the proper upgrade. While she did look up to Nikki when she showed them all what she recognized and didn’t recognize in the lab, she didn’t quite throw herself into it until she forked the ring back over to Promethei. “All done! This place looks great, Nikki!”

It really did. Promethei was used to how pristine labs had to be kept for proper experiments to not be contaminated, but if this place had been sitting for a millennium, he wouldn’t have expected something this clean. She and Ignacio had done a really good job at getting this back to the state it should have been, though, “If you want this place to be operable to run experiments and tests again, I do know lab cleanliness standards pretty well. Can probably grab some stuff from DCU to help get this place up and running again.”

But even if she just wanted to have it for what was honestly a pretty lab–the windows were nice to look through–it was fascinating. “Do you mind if I open some of these cabinets? Curious as to what the scientists here were working with.” It might offer them some concrete insight as to what was happening there–

Well, besides for entomology studies. The butterflies, bees, and enclosures made that one obvious.

Promethei found himself briefly rubbing his finger over the upgraded ring as she asked if they really thought she could run experiments– “Of course you can. Honestly, if you’re curious about something and you try to find out what that answer is, you’ve running an experiment.” He grinned. “Saying experiment makes it sound fancier, but it’s about finding an answer to a question and trying different methods to find it.”

Viatrix blinked.

… Huh. She supposed he was right about that. She guessed he was a professor…

“Yeah! What he said,” she replied, scampering after Nikki to check out the cabinets she was going to. “No reason why you can’t!”

Promethei was excited to see what was in the cabinets. The glass stuff caught his interest. Honestly, minus the dust, he wondered if he could analyze the beakers to figure out what else had been in them. “Might be able to study those to figure out what they were exploding.” If anything, though there may have been some interesting observations he could find. Decay over a millennium would have likely impacted his ability to decipher much quickly, but he might have been able to tell what else had been done there if he could…

Unless everything had been sterilized.

Clearly not everything was if there was rust. Then again, it had been a millennium. “The tweezers and knives were likely used for dissection and analysis, considering what it seems had to be done here. Entomology, right?” He paused. “That’s the study of bugs.” That he could take an easy guess.

It was likely the microscope was for the same.

When she walked away to sneeze, he approached the fourth cabinet. Whatever was in there had long fallen apart, but could he figure out what these had been?

Viatrix tried to go up on her tiptoes to see just as well around him. “That looks like wood…”

He plucked a piece up. “Yeah, that’s true.” His brows knit. What would they have used for wood in here, though? Well, they were entomologists. Maybe… “Think these were used for displays? The wood surrounds the display, the debris is … something else.”

Well. If he and Viatrix were thinking of the same thing, the debris was probably just … bug.

“You definitely are!” And in a lot of ways, that was a compliment! Being curious, even if it seemed infinitely so, was very important to the sciences in general. It was how some of the greatest discoveries have been made in his opinion. Even if that channeled in ways that seemed fancier than simple curiosity, curiosity was what drove it.

Hell, he was pretty sure his curiosity was what blossomed into his insatiable nosiness, but that was another issue…

“Yeah!” Viatrix giggled. “Maybe you have some kind of museum in here?”

“Or just notable creatures they kept for observation.”

Viatrix tapped her chin. “Suppose so. Would be kind of cool if it was like Animal Crossing though, and you could enter this whole area and it was a whole museum with summaries for all the creatures…”

“We might be able to backtrace the chemistry of what was in here, at least,” noted Promethei, glancing down at the debris as if it would tell him something. Maybe he could pick out the pattern of a wing or something for starters … “We could likely use some radiocarbon dating to point out how old these things are, and then it comes down to examining the items themselves to figure out what molecules they're made out of. Maybe even playing with radioactive decay …”

“Wait,” Viatrix bounced, “are you telling me that there may have been radioactive bugs here?” She squinted. “Or something like that. Not sure how that works.”

Promethei snorted. “Well, maybe.” He pulled his head away from the debris because the dust was a bit overwhelming. “But it's mostly identifying the chemical breakdown of what we're looking at. Might give us some clues.”

Especially since if they were dealing with alien creatures, there may not be any easy way to point out what they were. The fact that there were already bumblebees and butterflies on her Wonder certainly gave them a starting point though.

“Willing to bet a bit of this might match up with your bees and butterflies though.”

Probably not all of it, though.

Viatrix loved that her idea was agreed with, and shot Nikki a grin from ear to ear. “Yeah!!” She bounced on her toes, adding, “Look, if you want someone to help you make this all Animal Crossing I'm down. Like you could have little areas with summaries of what was there…”

Yeah, she definitely needed to look into making an app to help categorize what people found on their homeworlds too. That would eat. (Was she using that right? Anser said things ate a lot and it was a compliment…)

She tapped her chin. “Bet I could make a robo talking owl though. I could do that.”

And maybe it wouldn't decide it needed to steal a starseed to get a starseed. There had to be a better way to endow inorganic life with starseeds. Maybe it could help the Velencians figure out Caedus too…

While Viatrix was off in her own thoughts, Promethei found himself answering about the mass spectrometers. “I would actually be surprised if they had any up here, but they might! Though to be fair, it's also possible they wouldn't be useful for us, considering another common element they used to use for that was potassium, and uranium. But those are harder to do that with now because…”

Well, anyway.

He cleared his throat. It might be interesting to try and do it with uranium honestly, but he would know best how to do it with carbon. And hilariously enough, his husband would know even better.

“I mean, maybe I can find some way to sneak the equipment up onto your wonder…” That actually sounded like a bad idea. He probably shouldn't do that.

“Do you doubt me, Nikki!” Viatrix projected her chest forward with all the confidence in the world. “I will make you a robot. Blathers and he will not be creepy! Don't worry, there's been so many creepy robot movies recently, I definitely don't want to do that. We're going to do cute!”

They were going to do cute, and smart, and maybe had a secret friendship with some other robot somewhere else who was the one who actually made the coffee… oh could they put a little Cafe up here too? That would be cute!

She was getting ahead of herself, this was Nectaris' wonder!

But maybe if this worked, she could pilot the idea to other people. She bet Encke would be down-

Promethei laughed. Right, that'd probably been part of what had been spread out on the floor when he had come home to Diryas and Livie chatting about something. “Right, exactly. But I do think we would need to sneak this to the college…”

Or to his husband.

Actually.

“Enlisting Dise is not a bad idea.” He grinned. “Organic chemistry is kind of his whole thing. Getting to play with space organic chemistry that wasn't somehow creepy would probably be entirely up his alley.”

And by probably he meant definitely, just like how he probably really liked leopard print. No, probably wasn't necessary, he definitely really liked leopard print.

He cracked his knuckles.

“Suppose I got something that propose to him when we get back to Earth.”

“And getting his ring updated!”

“Right, that too-”