the experiment

[instar]

When Andi has gotten one of Charlie's friends to give her a ride to the grocery store and the unauthorized residents of the house can come out of hiding, Bella goes looking for Trouble, so to speak, and finds him in the kitchen.

"Hey," she says, "I have some more questions that I'd be asking Aspret if she was here. Charlie didn't have answers; Esclan wasn't the talkative type or the experimental type."

Comments

[instar]

The rearranging of the ear is over before she figures out how to sink in around his brain. The two-hemisphere setup takes a moment to work out, and then -

<Damn, I thought the anaesthesia was going to be automatic, I didn't realize - apologizing would apparently be pointless - hi?>

[aeskhyne]

<Hi.> Yeah, that. She's so cute, he loves her so much—for a moment it's all he thinks about, if 'thinks' is even the word for this flood of affection.

[instar]

Bella gets up from the floor, pulls out a chair, and - sits down, makes him sit down, whatever the grammar is. <I'm going to wind up being high on that and not take any notes,> she says with the lightest possible reproof.

[aeskhyne]

Trouble is so entirely not sorry.

And he gets another rush when she moves him. It's so different from hosting Aspret it almost doesn't remind him of her at all; for one thing, hosting Aspret never got him off like this. Hosting Bella is like - like freefall, like orbit, like falling falling falling and never hitting the ground. The metaphor flashes through his mind in immersive detail—falling isn't something you do, it's something that happens to you, something out of your control, tumbling through icy winds with your eyes closed, scared and hurting, but you're safe, because in this metaphor there will never be anything to hit. There is only the fall.

And he really likes it.

[instar]

<Your brain works so, so - I already knew it worked differently from mine but this is something else again seeing it up close,> Bella says. She picks up her pen, twirls it around his fingers a little. Turns pages to a blank one and titles it in symbols he doesn't know.

[aeskhyne]

In his own little corner of his mind, Trouble giggles. Of course she couldn't have known until she saw it for herself. Bella is very, very good at being Bella and not remotely good at being Trouble. The only person who is good at being Trouble is Trouble.

He warned her that he could theoretically guess what she might write down, but in fact when it comes to it he doesn't even try. He is far too caught up in the physical feeling of her writing with his hands. It is very, very nice.

[instar]

She writes, and writes, and writes. Occasionally she stretches out his non-dominant arm, thoughtfully, then writes more.

[aeskhyne]

Trouble sits in the back of his mind and enjoys himself thoroughly.

Not completely thoroughly; there are some physical reactions missing from this equation. But pretty thoroughly all the same. Being cut off from even involuntarily affecting his body doesn't interfere at all with being in love, and it doesn't dampen the rest all that much, either.

[instar]

<I would definitely not be getting any note-taking done if I were letting you pilot the autonomics,> Bella remarks.

[aeskhyne]

<Pffffffffffff,> says Trouble. He loves her some more. (He has never really stopped, but the amount of attention paid waxes and wanes.)

[instar]

<I think I have separate control of whether I let you bleed through in that respect or not, but it is not part of the scope of the current tests.>

[aeskhyne]

<Yeah, you do.>

This is a thing he learned from Aspret. And now he's thinking about it. They are nice thoughts.

[instar]

Bella taps her pen on her notebook, distracted. <Paying attention to two entire brains at once is a trip. The morph is equipped for it, but I'm not sunk that deep into it so I can still notice how very weird it is.>

[aeskhyne]

<And here I am being distractingly into you. Or would it be just as distracting if I started thinking about cake?>

[instar]

<I think concentrating on me is more distracting, though possibly not by much.> She resumes ciphering. She crosses his ankles.

[aeskhyne]

The way she moves Trouble's body is not the way Trouble would move his body. It's the way Bella would. He notices that for the first time, and appreciates it very, very much; it's an amazingly intimate thing, to not just see the way she moves but experience it directly. He loves it and he loves her.

[instar]

Bella squirms, when she observes this thought going by. (Probably unintentionally, it is an awfully Bella squirm.)

[aeskhyne]

...If Trouble was piloting the autonomics, that could have gotten embarrassing. At least for Bella. Trouble does not really embarrass.

(He loves her so much.)

[instar]

Now she is wiggling his toes, experimentally, and taking notes, which are probably on that but could be on anything. There are more than twenty-six symbols in her personal cipher, for one thing, and at least eight of them seem to be allowed to form single-character words.

[aeskhyne]

He wonders, more or less idly, what she's writing about. More importantly, he wonders if she accurately predicted what effect wiggling his toes would have on him. (It's the obvious one.) (Science!)

[instar]

<Is there anything I could be doing in here that would not turn you on?> inquires Bella archly.

[aeskhyne]

There probably is, but he's not going to think about it, because that would be depressing and potentially traumatic. (And most of the depressing and potentially traumatic things would probably still turn him on.)

She is Bella, and she is being herself, and she is wrapped around his brain controlling his every move while he helplessly watches. Of course he's going to be turned on. He couldn't not. It's too perfect. And now he is thinking about the feeling of her wriggling into his ear again, mmm.

[instar]

<Shall I also omit the anaesthetic on my way out, now I know it's not automatic?>

[aeskhyne]

Well, if she wants to deliberately do something that's going to turn him on more, then yes. Absolutely. Also, he loves her.

[instar]

<Is it going to be awkward if I skip anaesthetizing you and then you're all worked up with your own autonomics while I demorph?>