[ Hierophant is here again. He's cleaning, in the sort of way that implies that if he wasn't eliminating dirt he'd be eliminating people. The dishes weren't even dirty. He just openned the cupboard, took them all out, scrubbed them all clean anyway and put them back. He's scrubbed every surface, put the world's third angriest batch of cookies in the over, taken the first and second angriest batches of cookies off the cooking rack and into a tin, used the mess from baking as an excuse to clean the entire kitchen again. He's cleared out the racoon's litter tray every time the poor animal so much as looks at it funny. Left laundry airing from every window.
There isn't enough chaos in the world for him to make enough order from it to calm the fuck down. He's tempted to make more. Flip everything the wrong way up just so he can put it all back. He needs to burn more energy. Make more things right. But Adrian isn't a messy enough person. So it's just more cookies. More completely unnecessary cleaning. More rearranging every. Little. Thing. Until. It. Is. Perfect.
Hierophant doesn't like making noise, and so there's no explanation coming from him. It's only a few hours in to this storm of order that any sort of hint arrives in text form. ]
Fuck Dio.
[ ... ]
That was a statement and not an instruction please do not do that.
[Being a human is honestly kind of shitty. Adrian hasn't been a big fan of enduring the consequences of his eating habits, so he's trying to do better until this thing wears off. The mountain of cookies does not help that impulsive desire for sweets, though.
Well. Fuck it. One cookie should be fine.
Eventually, he looks at his device after he receives the message.]
Don't worry. I'd never think to.
[He says it out loud, expecting Kakyoin to hear him through Hierophant.]
Do you... want to talk about it? You can keep texting me.
[ It's far, far too hot. Even in the shade, even with the air conditioning on, even sipping at ice water he's about ready to melt. It's bad enough that he can't think, that it takes him an extra fourty seconds to pick the lock and he almost has to resort to knocking just for appearances sake, because apparently hanging out outside someone's apartment staring at the door is suspicious and weird or something.
But nobody passes by and takes notice, so he does eventually break in.
He does, this time, actually announce his presence. Sends Hierophant ahead of him to snake through the apartment and get Adrian's attention. ]
[For Adrian's part, he'd just finished up brushing out Trevor's coat as much as he could, which ended up being a lot of fur. As distracted as he is while washing his hands in the sink, he pauses when he sees Hierophant slithering across the floor.]
[ The text chain so far has largely been about classwork. Comparing answers to problems, thoughts on how they might be able to implement chroma-based mechanics into Adrian's initial designs for the prosthetic arm. There's a long discussion of a collection of designs he found on the internet for a prehensile strap-on that reads intended movement through the chroma powering it that might be applicable to a less sexy project. They're in the middle of a discussion of the merits of a single, all-purpose design against a more modular system of parts that can be switched in and out to better fit the needs of the situation. ]
If nothing else, a more modular design might be appropriate while he's still growing. It would allow for replacing parts over time, rather than needing to rebuild the entire thing as he outgrows it.
[ And then, as if it was the most natural thing to follow that up with- ]
[Honestly, he'd been ready to follow up with I appreciate you being so forward thinking to save us extra work, but the sudden added comment makes him pause.
It’s that he doesn’t know what to do and failure is upsetting and he can only bear so much of it before it gets painful to keep trying. The pranks stop, little by little. He hasn’t turned everything in Adrian’s apartment upside down or put plastic spiders in the coffin in over a week now, since he stole his game console and replaced all the flowers on his island with skullblossoms. He shows up every few days either as himself or Hierophant to make a batch of cookies and then leaves again. That’s about it.
Really, he’s only trying again because he’s hit a wall on this fucking arm. He’s been working from Adrian’s designs, doing what he can to turn them into a working prototype. But that means that, much as he hates to admit it, he can’t fix this problem without help. ]
Get out of the box, asshole.
[ There’s not much fire in it. Hierophant passes a limb into the coffin but just rests itself flat against Adrian’s hand instead of coiling around it, nervously anticipating rejection instead of curious and affectionate. ]
[There's silence for a moment. Adrian doesn't even quite react to Hierophant right away, but eventually he does turn his hand to curl his fingers around the tendril. It's amusing how tender Hierophant is with him when Kakyoin is more abrasive by comparison.]
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