[PRP] Doom Buggy Test Drive (Barth + Christof)

[Toshihiko Two]

Barth knew that he did not venture outside his own room very often, except under cases of dire emergency (or class) and it made it easy to...lose touch with other students. Like Alwine. He had only visited three dorms besides his own. Two were in the demon dorms. One was his sister. One was next door to him.

And the other...he had braved in a fit of not being dead. He was patient, certainly, but with prom and his exams both looming everything had taken on an urgent shade. He also had a Stair Climber, which helped considerably.

This visit, for once, was not a reflection of anything particularly urgent. If it had been, he could always have Called Christof. He had in the past.

Barth, admittedly, was curious about what Christof's room looked like.

So, he had looked up the room number in the student directory, folded the Stair Climber folded under one arm (just in case), and navigated his way to the Undead Dorms. Christof's room, as it turned out, was on the ground floor and after a little searching, he found himself standing in front of Christof's door and...unreasonably nervous.

But he wasn't going to walk all the way back. And there was no place to sit in the hallway.

He knocked.  

[Bilious]

Christof was unused to visitors. Sure, they came by now and then, but it was usually Calder wanting to harass him, or Amrita wanting to check on him... Figuring it was the annoying Kelpie, he gave a disgruntled sort of noise to indicate that the door was unlocked, still hunched over his workbench to figure out just WHY this stupid part kept belching smoke instead of... well, WORKING.  

[Toshihiko Two]

Barth was not entirely sure what the grunt meant. He waited patiently by the door.

"Err," he said, "you alright in there?"  

[Bilious]

Christof dropped the screwdriver and the flashlight, eyes going wide. Was... was that...? But it couldn't be, Barth NEVER came out of his room, except in dire emergencies and...

He immediately leaped from his workbench, only to trip over a small pile of spare limbs. Gathering himself up, there was the sound of scuffling throguh the door as he madly tried to shove a few things away to at least make more walking room before pushing his way to the door and peering through breathlessly.  

[Toshihiko Two]

Barth was still waiting at the door, looking..well a bit, awkward, but otherwise unfussed.

"Hello. Not interrupting anything, am I? I just err, thought we might take the Doom Buggy out for a test run."  

[Bilious]

Christof glanced around, brows furrowed as he realized there was no emergency. Still somewhat baffled, he shook his head and held the door open for him.

Suddenly, he was gripped by a severe sense of self consciousness. As a**l retentively as he cleaned and organized Barth's dorm, his own was... well... a lot closer to what Barth's would have looked like if he hadn't spent so much time fighting the Slothishness.

Half finished projects, old projects, new projects, and countless body parts littered the floor, it looked more like a store-room than even his bedroom at home, and it was questionable how he managed to get any work done. Perhaps that was why he had been working on his own personal project outside behind the Undead Dorms completely. There simply wasn't room here. He had unloaded some of the spare body parts, at least most of the female ones, to the local Parts Pawn, but still the place was a wreck.

Firth had taken to snoozing on the windowsill like a horrible undead and rabbity cat, while Scruff perked up from where it was gnawing on a spare foot at the sight of Barth, yapping in excitement as it hobbled its way down and towards him excitedly.  

[Toshihiko Two]

Barth was self-conscious, for separate reasons. He bent to give Scruff a pat.

He was surprised to see that Christof's room showed...well, the same levels of project clutter his own room tended towards. He wondered if he should be that surprised. There were more body parts, certainly. Barth's interest in the biological was...mostly limited to certain attractive female Reapers.

But what he had seen of Malodore and Christof's projects was, while outside of his areas of expertise, still intriguing.

"I'll need some help getting it out of my room, but, err..." he trailed off into a non sequitur. "...these dorms are a bit earthy, aren't they?"  

[Bilious]

"Some-nicer-than-mine. Master-Malodore's-" He spelled out the name letter-by-letter, "Much-more-comfortable-than-this. Suppose-Master-told-school-what-I-was-used-to." He signed nervously before running a hand through his hair. Ultimately, he nodded, "Testing-yes. Good. Needs-testing." Subject changes were also good. Although still it was... odd. Surreal, seeing him here. Almost as surreal as his visit to his home. "Is-that-all-that-brings-you-here?"  

[Toshihiko Two]

"Oh. Nothing else, really. ...I wanted to talk a bit? About some things. If you don't mind."

Barth readjusted his grip on the stair-climber, seemed to realize he was holding it (forgetting for even a moment being an acknowledgable feat), and set it beside the door frame instead.

He looked past Christof. He mostly wanted to...see Christof's room, but he wasn't sure how to voice that.

"...Is that part of a marine engine?"  

[Bilious]

Christof nodded, flushing bit as he signed, "Found-it. Did-not-work-as-intended," before turning to try to tidy things up in a fit of self consciousness.  

[Toshihiko Two]

Not exactly the conversation starter he intended, but he assumed that Christof's turning away (and not hurriedly shutting the door and insisting they go fetch the doom buggy) was...sort of an invitation inside?

He wandered over the threshold.

There were things he wanted to discuss...the permission slip for field trips was still an unwelcome addition to his coat pocket.

Right now, however, he was bothered by the nagging thought that he had never been here, not even once. It was, at least, made somewhat homier by the projects. Christof's space at Dr. Fell's was lacking in the comfort department. There were a lot of parts....a lot of parts. Not just replacements.

He touched a distinctly feminine arm.

"These for anyone in particular?"  

[Bilious]

The hunchback glanced up at what Barth was talking about before flushing hotly. His hands flailed, vaguely signing something unintelligible before he snatched the lady's arm from the Sloth's claws and quickly shoved it under his bed.

That done and still flushing, he turned back to meekly clarify, "Old-project. Ready-to-test?"  

[Toshihiko Two]

Barth didn't hold on to the arm. Did Christof...repair himself here? Barth noticed the new shades and shapes occasionally. More important were the mechanical devices. They meant Christof had been working with them independently.

"Yes. Err. Whenever you are. I'm not in any hurry."
 

[Bilious]

It seemed what used to be a desk used for homeworking had long become covered in piles of spent notebooks- the only decently organized place was the wooden work bench. Old diagrams and torn out book pages and photocopies from other book pages once he realized he could do that instead for creating a Lepus had been torn down or covered up by new print outs and photocopies of... engines... and a two-wheeled contraption. Bits and pieces of which lay in careful piles on the paper he had taped into place, a series of tools sat nearby that looked awfully familiar.

Noting where the Sloth's attentions had slid, the hunchback shifted in renewed anxiety. Really, only Calder and Amrita had seen much of his room. Riley had only been there once, and it was a long time ago and she had had more on her mind to take in his sleeping quarters, really. He swallowed thickly, suddenly stepping towards it to partially hide what hodgepodge blueprints he was working from out of view.

His hands jerked into sensible motion, "Borrowed-few-tools. Hope-that-is-alright,"  

[Toshihiko Two]

"Oh no, I don't mind." Really, all this was good. Very good. Barth would have been worried if the place had been empty. Printouts, plans, machine parts.

The only thing he realized he didn't understand was the body parts. But Barth discovered time and time again when it came to ducking work, information was valuable. Combining flesh and machine might be able to save work in ways he hadn't thought of yet.

"You'll err, you'll have to give me some basic physiology lessons sometime. I'm afraid the only thing I know about these bits is from err...a gluttony demon's perspective."