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[beejfu]

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[beejfu]

"And up! And down! And up! And down! Stretch those abs!" Crows the woman onscreen of the small tv in front of the chair. Betelgeuse reaches up skyward, then back down, then starts to run in place in time with the blasting music. Gotta work out to stay in this bad a shape.

He jumps about a mile and a half - and really, jumpscares? wow, Hange, he didn't think you had it in you! - when his new warden appears practically on top of him.

"Whoa whoa whoa Hey. STOP!" He roars at her when he's dragged alongside her by the hand, fighting to pull free.

[14thcommander]

“Betelgeuse!” His name emerges a low, irate snarl. Hange does stop her scramble, but now all her attention switches to pulling at her hand, agitated. That he isn’t trying to cling on her and is in fact also struggling to get free doesn’t escape her notice, but the realization waits behind the starting line for now.

“What did you do?”

He gets summoned when his name is called three times, she was just... summoned...? It’s strangely similar enough to ask.

[beejfu]

Righteous anger is not a thing BJ is used to feeling. Selfish anger, sure, that's easy, but when someone is blatantly accusing you of something you didn't do, he's going to get pissy.

And when BJ is pissed, he turns all the lights in the house red. For aesthetic purposes.

He stops dead, watching her pull at their attached hands, and gives a sarcastic little smirk.

"Yeah. You got me. I orchestrated the whole damn thing."

Sarcasm is a valid form of communication.

[14thcommander]

Hange pauses in her struggle and looks up at the lights. Red, alright, but it's just lighting. A light can't hurt you. These powers were returned so he could blow off steam and telegraph his emotions without doing physical harm to people.

"It's a valid question." She leans back against their grip, letting her whole body weight fall against it. That's about two hundred pounds of soldier to bear up on and the stickiness doesn't waver. "You get summoned... I get paired with you... I get summoned..."

[beejfu]

He watches her lean back, unamused, and wishes he had the power to just drop her. BJ stumbles forward once but holds her up.

"Yeah, except you've got my file. Where in there does it say 'sticky powers' are something ghosts have?"

Pause, and then he's opening his mouth to tell a really dirty sex joke. Stop him.

[14thcommander]

"I didn't get to finish reading your file," Hange admits grudgingly. Yanked 2 Ford's 2 soon.

Otherwise she just looks at him, expression hinting towards resignation. Go on. Lay the awful sex joke on her. We embrace the filth here. We wade right in. Hell has arrived! Tell the sex joke!

[beejfu]

He pauses, staring at her like he can't believe this is going to be happening, before saying in delight;

"Wow. Usually people cut me off before I have a chance to let loose. Uh! All right. Speaking of stickiness, what's a ghost's favorite porn category?"

[14thcommander]

"I don't know, Betelgeuse."

Hange, still stuck to him by the hand, flops her head backwards and stares at the sky, then wonders why she's doing it. Why do humans look at the sky when they're exasperated, or in need of guidance? God isn't there. Heaven is empty. Humanity suffers and struggles alone.

"What's a ghost's favorite porn category?"

[beejfu]

He announces proudly, the red lights dimming away back to normal;

"Boo-kaki."

[14thcommander]

Hange contemplates the ceiling for a solid couple seconds and then calmly announces, "I don't get it."

[beejfu]

"....what, really? Jesus, Hange, that would've had 'em rolling in the Netherworld."

He holds up their joined hands.

"So what are we supposed to do about this."

[14thcommander]

"I don't knooowwwwwww."

And this is very terrible. It makes her a little uncomfortable to touch people for sustained periods of time!

"AaaaAAAaa."

She tries to put one foot up on his stomach and use it as a brace to push harder away from him.

[beejfu]

He immediately shoves her foot off of him and to the side, unhappy to be used like a vaulting-off step.

"You wouldn't vivisect me and yet you don't even know how to brace yourself against someone? Jesus christ. Here."

He crouches a little, bending his knees so that Hange can plant her foot on his kneecap instead.

"Right here, kid."

[14thcommander]

She plants the foot. She shoves against him fiercely. It succeeds in nothing but making her wrist hurt. Pressure is maintained for a couple seconds, a good college try is given. Then she's forced to give up. Hange dramatically slouches down and then crumbles to the floor, still stuck to BJ by their stupid, stupid, traitorous hands.

[beejfu]

He starts to laugh, then gasp with pain as his wrist starts to pop. A few more units of pressure and they might dislocate it.

He stares down at her when she collapses on the floor, grinning at her plight.

"Hey! Look on the bright side; you're stuck with me. Sleepover parties!"

[14thcommander]

A sigh. A sigh again. And one more sigh. Hange gazes into space, a thousand yard stare like a veteran who's seen too much war, which she is.

Then she shakes herself out of it. Okay! No point being gloomy about it! Game face on! She gets up.

"Wow, great, amazing!" Her hand is limp like a dead fish, just to be an asshole about it. "We're starting this partnership off right, with going everywhere together and never letting go of each other for an entire week. This will be so fun! I expect you to attend me during my thrice-weekly cliff jumping sessions into the sea."

[beejfu]

"What?" He asks weakly, suspicious at first and then downright pale in the face.

"Whoa. No. No, no, NO Hange. No water. You don't just- we are staying here."

He drops down on the chair in the Mystery Shack, heedless of any effort to get him to move.

[14thcommander]

Gottim. Hange takes a seat on the arm of the chair and his hair fondly with her free hand.

"No water and you're gonna behave yourself at least to a certain extent. I understand an ambient level of bullshit is natural and normal for you."

[beejfu]

A little nod, like a surly toddler who's just thrown a temper tantrum and is now coming around because he misses physical affection.

"Yeah. Yeah, fine. Deal."

[14thcommander]

Hange takes a moment to sit there in silence and think about how all this might go. Also, since her hand is ruffling his hair (not for much longer because hey, what's CRAWLING on her), she realizes the hand clasping his has slipped free. Not hard, since she doesn't want to flip that skull back this time, she pulls at the hand on his head - this one's stuck now. She reaches out with her now-free hand and wiggles her fingers.

"Hand."

[beejfu]

"Hand?" He repeats, questioningly, before blinking at the hand he's now holding up, free of Hange's.

"Oh, shit. Look at that." He takes her hand in his, grasping it and drawing her in for a sudden attack hug.

"Gotcha!"

[14thcommander]

Stiffening, but laughing at the same time, Hange gets swept into the hug before she can resist. For a couple seconds she allows it, but doesn't return the embrace, before she leans in, folds her arm, and uses the elbow as a prod under his throat to push his head away.

"Enough."

[beejfu]

He gulps, and lets her go before he gets bruised further.

Most of her, at any rate. BJ's hand is still fastened to Hange's own.

"So, uh. What do we do now?"

[14thcommander]

"We're gonna hang out, I guess."

Hange nudges him over through some contrivances of elbows and hips, and wedges in the armchair next to him. This is a lot... closer than she'd normally get with someone she wasn't 1) trying to intimidate 2) intimately close to but they're warden and inmate now, intimately close is probably part of the package, like it or not, never put it in those words to Betelgeuse.

"You asked what I like to do before. I do a lot of training - which I guess gets put on hold this week. I explore in the enclosure from the almanac. We can go some places you like if you want. I favor wilderness myself. I paint what I see while I'm there, I work with clay in the art room, I read a lot..."

[beejfu]

The stripey demon rolls his eyes and starts using his hand to mime Hange speaking.

"Yap yap yap boring. We're not doing ANY of that."