Snowblind Body Shenanigans

[armoured]

This is an open post for anyone set in Norfinbury. It's a random scenario where @Admin has (for mysterious meme reasons) decided to give Al his body back. This isn't game canon, obviously, I just wanted to play about with Al in his body as it will never happen in game. Action and network responses are welcome, as well as fudging the locations of characters.

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[Al has become used to his periods of unconsciousness during the night now. He still can't think of them as sleep, not without dreams or his real body to rest in, but they're at least predictable. Usually he wakes quickly and without any grogginess that would come from real sleep, but today everything has changed.

He wakes up slowly that morning.

As soon as he wakes up, he knows everything is different. He can feel the wooden flooring under his back, rough and splintered, and hear the thud of his heart beating in his ears. He lifts one stick thin arm in amazement to stare at it, almost uncomprehending as he looks at his fingers splayed out in front of his eyes. This must be a dream. It has to be a dream, his first one in years, but... God, it feels so real.

He's in a state of shock as he pulls up to unsteady feet and scoops up his tablet automatically. He can barely keep hold of it, his fingers have none of his usual dexterity and his hands are trembling violently. It's this trembling that causes his fingers to slip and activate the video feed. The camera is at a strange angle, but it shows the upper half of a teenage boy in an extreme state of emaciation. His ribs are protruding and his stomach is concave. He has long blond hair that hangs down over one eye, the other one is wide and staring in surprise.

His legs seem ready to fold almost at once, but he forces himself to walk to the door and open it. The sunlight on the snow almost blinds him, and the wind causes goosebumps to raise on his skin immediately. He sets one bare foot in the snow and gasps, a delighted and amazed sound.]

Wow, it's so cold...

[He laughs softly, unable to stop the sheer wonder bubbling out of him. Is this real? Can it truly be so?]

Comments

[lancingintherain]

[Freya is in the other room trying to coax a fire from a small pile of kindling when she hears someone shifting around. At first, she dismisses it, but since their team had split for a day to cover more ground, the only other person in the house with her was Al—and that doesn't sound like Al. It sounds quiet, which is everything that Al isn't. There's no scraping of metal against wood, no clanking of him standing up or walking his big metal boots across the floor.]

[she's on her feet in an instant, frozen stiff and listening intently. The door opens. And then there's Al's voice.]

Al!

[she dashes out of the room; if there's an intruder, she's going to kick their ass. Or help Al kick their ass. Or just ask them politely what they're doing coming into people's temporary houses without asking—]

[she stops short in the middle of the room. Al isn't here, but one human is. A very, very sick-looking human, wearing no clothes at all and standing just outside the door, in the snow. For a moment, all she can do is stare in bewilderment.]

[forfeits]

[ ...Ed has only seen that face in his dreams. He's only been able to see the bright eyed boy beyond the large, heavy doors of Truth, where he remained, unattainable and unreachable.

so when he's flicking through the network, trying to keep his mind occupied, and that's what he sees and hears, his blood runs cold. he's sure it's just an illusion, that it's just the cold and the hunger finally doing him in for good. he's too afraid to get up and go check, to turn the corner to the front door and see nothing there, to find Al still sleeping, still shiny armour and all.

Ed takes a deep breath before turning on his own feed, his voice cracked and quiet. ]

A-Al...?

[baymaxing]

[Of course Hiro knows Al. He and Tadashi have since managed to rejoin with his previous group he'd been traveling with for safety, and he wasn't about to argue on that idea, once they had figured where to meet each other again. He'd been surprised with the armor, but it didn't take long to adjust to. Even if his neck hurts just looking up at the tall armour, given it's a good two feet taller in comparison to the tinier teenager.

He's initially in the other room with his own tablet, checking up on things since he woke up as to how the rest were doing when he hears the noises, hears the other's voice. But it isn't accompanied with the usual clanking movements of Al's armor, which has Hiro frown. Should he be worried? He's not sure, but surely it is better to check just in case, right?

So he does, distracted from the initial video feed showing the stranger, the other teen with the long blonde hair that he now sees in front of him in the snow. Apparently without clothes.

Or shoes. What the hell is he thinking?]

Of course it's cold, it's snow. I'm not saying you can--wait, Al? That you?

[He honestly actually had no clue what the other really looked like, given he's just seen the armor prior to this. But he thinks that's who it is, from the voice. The hair and eye colour are similar enough to Ed's to make that guess, at least. Excuse Hiro as he stares for a bit in surprise and initial confusion.]

Bullshit assumption that Zack's actually friggin' around!!

[heroproceeding]

[ Zack's been out on a supply run since very early that morning- earlier than Al, himself, had awoken. The store's not too far from where they are, too. Which makes for a fairly quick trip there and back. He needs to be quick anyway. They'd all done their run the other day and designated a time for them all to pack up and leave. And while he doubts they'd just leave him, he knows there's a lot of ground to cover. The sooner they set out, the better.

Of course, then, he would expect to have company on his way back to the house they'd all shacked up in for the night. He just... certainly didn't expect a young boy standing at its threshold, testing his foot in the snow and looking absolutely thrilled by it. ...Never mind the boy's buck-ass naked and looks like he hasn't seen a meal in ages. And that's what ultimately gets him darting forward- what the heck is going on here? ] Hey! Are you crazy? You're gonna freeze out here!

[maskintape]

[ Scrawny shirtless teenage boys are not something Tim ever expected - or wanted - to see on the snowhell network. So his immediate response, delivered in glorious video-o-vision, is as follows. ]

What - what's wrong with you? Put a coat on.

And eat a sandwich.

[ It's only then that he notices the network ID, at which point his face goes from "uh what" to "WAIT WHAT THE FRICKETY FRACKING HECKIE?????" within the space of a second. What. What? U wot m8. WHAT. ]