littlegreengirl (littlegreengirl) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-03-04 21:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, gaila, montgomery scott |
The farther along it is the easier it'll be for me to test the programming."
Who: Scotty and Cass (Gaila)
What: Phone calls and fighting! And discussing robot building
When: Friday
Where: Mad Monty's Repairs and Gaila's home
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
To call or not to call, that was the question. Cass was still a bit confused and upset, and she poured herself into her work. Computer first - she'll need it to load the program into the bot's system. Once satisfied with that, she started tapping away at her keyboard. Fiercly. Clackity! Clack! Anger typing!
Somewhere in a very brightly lit garage, hanging halfway out from the inside of a battle robot that could house a midget, was Scotty. He had his welding goggles on, a nice affair with very well tinted weldling lenses (flippable!) and two side lenses that were adjustable for fine wiring work. They had been his convention goggles, and he'd had them a good long while, since university, brought over from Scotland. So he was very sentimental where they were concerned. And he used them a lot, even going as far as to repair them himself when necessary.
As for right now though, he had just finished welding the last of the outer reinforcements to the inner framework, and had not felt his phone do the buttcheek vibrate thing, all day today. He supposed that meant Cassie hadn't wanted to talk, or was busy, and maybe that was for the best. Because being around her tended to make things muddled and confused, even if he tried to make a fine job of covering it up with joking insults and bickering with her.
He scooted his way out and sat up, setting the turned off torch aside. No harm in checking the phone, was there? Maybe he hadn't felt anything because he'd been laying back on it, or sitting on it? He pulled it out and took a quick peek. Nothing. Hm.
Well, he wasn't calling first, that was for certain! He'd left the option open for her to call or stop by if she'd wanted.
He put the phone back into his back pocket. If she didn't want to talk or anything, then that spoke volumes, and - also - was probably for the best too. Or so Scotty is telling himself that, while pushing himself up onto his feet and shaking the thick welding gloves off his hands.
They were fantastic goggles. More than once Varric had offered to buy them off of Scotty, for some very outrageous sums, but the Scotsman had never taken the bait. He'd tried again, today, in fact, but had left goggleless. Those goggles? They certainly did something.
Cass had never been called Cassie before. She still wasn't sure if she was irritated, or not. At least he hadn't called her Gaila. He didn't even know that was her first name and she planned to keep it that way. If she ever talked to him again. She glanced up from a particularly troublesome piece of code - of course she'd have to speak to him - she had to test her code out. The programmer groaned.
Clitty lay on her couch, paws wrapped around her phone. He kept poking at it with his nose. The terrier succeeded in making it do something! Because several miles away a butt started to vibrate.
The butt was indeed vibrating! Luckily, he hadn't been holding anything at the time, or he would've dropped it and it likely would've landed on his foot. Or, worse, broken the part. He pushed the goggles up on his forehead - they were never for sale! - and got his phone out.
Well! Speak of the red-headed devil. He answered with a cheery 'Hello!" but then heard a lot of heavy breathiness into the phone, and held it away from his ears with ever widening eyes.
"...that's awfully forward of ye, lassie," he joked, unsure what to think. And not knowing it was the dog's nose as the source of the breathing.
The nose hit something, and the phone switched to video. A gigantic tongue licked the screen, and the dog's head pulled back far enough to be visible. With a curious whimper, Clitty tilted his head, staring down at the familiar face. He pawed at the screen, and yipped.
"Shh, Clitty. I figured it out!" She didn't look up from her work. She'd finally figured out what she was missing, and she had to concentrate!
“Aww, ye missed me. Poor unfortunately named doggie, that'd been better off called Bob," Scotty was saying, with a wry smirk twisting at his lips. Figured the DOG would call. Well, any occasion for a social visit was nice, he supposed. And so, Scotty began to hold a conversation with the dog. "How was ye'r day today, lad? Did ye get out, sniff around a whole fat lot? Find any hot girl doggies tae paw at?"
Then he proceeded to make a kissy face and smoochie noises so the dog would be compelled to lick the phone. That'll teach her to leave it laying around!
The dog barked again in answer, sitting up and giving him a big doggy smile, before drooling all over the phone again. After a few seconds, the phone teetered off the edge, sliding down the side of the couch and showing him a Cassie bent over a keyboard. She hardly looked glamerous, her hair pulled back and clad in sweats.
Glamor was subjective, and - while he tried not to stare for too long - he thought she looked just fine like that. He simply wasn't about to go saying so, outloud, or it would draw attention to him...you know...noticing.
Instead, he looked like he was trying to see around the corner of the screen to where the dog was. No such luck, the dog was out of view. Instead, he cleared his throat as loudly as possible while rolling his eyes up to look at the ceiling, and then coughed a couple of times, hoping she could hear him.
Exasperated, the woman turned, "Clitty! What is so interesting over there! You better not have gotten into my good shoes again!"
Her face twisted into a confused expression, then a surprised one, "Scotty?"
The dog had called Scotty. She gave him a dirty look. The dog, not Scotty. Scotty got a different dirty look, as if she was accusing them of conspiring against her. It had to be over the nuetering thing.
Scotty only peeked so he was sure it was okay to actually look, and she appeared fine, if not irritated. She shrugged sharply, holding the phone away enough that she could see him doing so, and then scrunched half of his face up. It was semi-sheepish, and mostly snarky. After all, it wasn't his fault. The dog had started it.
"Aye, yer mutt nose dialed. Ye'd best keep the phone up where the wee pup cannae get tae it?" He stopped half-wincing and brightly smiled instead like that was a novel idea! It was great and splendid, even!
“Great, its a conspiracy against me. You told him what being nuetered means. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get him his shots yesterday?" She picked up the phone, wiping it on her shirt and then setting it besides the keyboard before getting back to work. She hadn't gotten her confidence back just yet, but wasn't about to show that to him.
"How's the build coming?"
She looked just fine to him, but he wouldn't have been sure why she'd lose her confidence anyway, to begin nor end with. Even so, he was willing to cover up the whole 'hey your dog dialed me' thing, especially since it was a bit of a downer that she hadn't done that on purpose.
"Be a gude dog an' dunnae let her chop off ye'r bawbag!" he called out, so the dog could hear and be reminded that yes, there is a brotherhood of those who were against the snip. There! That was done, and he had a somewhat evil little smirk that let it be known that - for now - she'd been undermined. "The build? Gude. Pretty well actually. Got the hull done an' put in the inner welds, got a few parts put in...wee drive train, some gears slapped in ready for the motors. Jus' need some good parts, but I'll fill in the blanks when I'm sure of how much room I've got left o'er an'...this' probably boring ye, innae."
It had just been too long since she'd done anything on this level. It was hard, but exhilirating too. She'd skipped right to programing the bot, figuring she had no time to play around, and would simply retrain herself the hard way.
She opened her mouth to argue the virtues of neutering, the thought different of it and let the subject drop. For now. She shook her head, "Not boring at all. The farther along it is the easier it'll be for me to test the programming, since I don't have any robot arms, just an old RC car."
"That'll do, though. I s'pose if ye just think of forwards an' back, then side tae side. It's really just changing those to up an' down on one of those big bloody remotes," he noted, happy to talk about shop stuff rather than personal stuff. It was always easier that way. "I think I left ye enough room there, Cassie, for the components. I'll text ye the measurments though, so ye know the depth an' width of it. Also need tae get one of those great big bloody huge remotes, but I haven't gotten tae that part, just yet."
He plopped down on a stool at a worktable and propped the phone up as well. That done, he pulled the goggles down over his eyes, flipped the welding lenses up, and pulled down one of the lenses so he could get a better look at a gear assembly and make sure there really wasn't any trace of rust that could hang things up. He'd been careful to sandblast the rust off, but another once-over couldn't hurt.
He was certain to ask, though, as she looked just as engrossed with what she was doing, as he was, "Any luck with the programming, then?"
"I can trim the board only so far, but there's room to play," She assured him. "It'll be best to get a real one and not try to build one from scratch. It would take me months to get right."
The tapping of the keys slowed a bit, and she glanced over at the screen and flashed a grin, "Yeah. Its like sex. You don't do it for awhile but then when it matters you remember all the right moves at the right times."
And there went the gears. All over the table top. As well as all semblence of him trying to cover it up, when he paused and then said way too loudly:
"BLOODY SPIDER. ON TABLE. AHH."
Scotty slapped one hand down and then wiped his hand on the table like he was smear-cleaning it, of terrible, terrible invisible bug guts.
There was a long, awkward silence. One in which he began to slowly gather up the little gears and screws and things, as well as a screwdriver that had gone scuttling off where it shouldn't have. That done, everything into a neat pile again, he grinned like everything was REALLY BLOODY FINE AND GOOD at the phone screen.
"Well I'll bear that in mind. Thankie muchly for pointing that out. Yay, goo yew!" He made it look like he really was highfiving the screen that time, a total highfive move without actually slapping the screen, before settling back and smiling like everything was right as rain and safe as houses.
Cassie's laughter rang over the phone, her typing stopped briefly. Spider her ass. She couldn't help it, she delighted in flirting. It was one of the things that vexed her mother - and the nuns at school.
Who highfives a screen, really? She shook her head, and the tapping started up again. She gave him an impish grin, "Don't lose something. You've precious little hold on your screws as it is."
"Oh, ha ha, ye'r sae witty," was the dry reply, while rolling his eyes up so they looked ready to get stuck that way. Even so, he was grinning just as much as she was, and knew that his incredibly lame acting skills hadn't fooled her. But it was better than having to acknowledge that sex metaphor, wasn't it? Suuuuuure, it was! "Hate tae lose a good screw or twooo...."
The moment his mouth shot that out, he wanted to take the wee screws and stab his tongue with them.
"I've lost a few in my time," She replied, ruefully. "There was this boy I was sneaking out to meet. Mother Henrietta caught me before I could get very far." She scrunched up on eye at the memory. Henrietta was a tiny, bony woman with the sort of temper that made irishmen cry. She also had uncanny strength.
The young woman had visions of another girl flying through the wall at her and her other eye scrunched up.
"Cannae imagine that ended well," Scotty noted, sneaking a peek up at her while trying to reassemble the pieces back together. He stopped and watched her for a moment, and then reached out and tapped a finger against the phone screen, a couple of times, very lightly.
"Earth tae Cassie. Come in, Cassie," quipped Scotty, in a light and lilting voice. It was almost as though he was asking if she was all right, without blatantly asking, for once. If all else failed, make fun of it, somehow. "Ye're ready for a landing, I think. Planet side."
Perhaps he'd bothered her enough already, and this wasn't supposed to even be a social phonecall that was intended. It was accidental. He decided to let her off the hook.
"Ye need tae go? Finish what ye were doin', maybe?"
"I still have the bruises," She replied, cheerfully. "You can bet I didn't try to sneak to see a boy for a while week." Her grimace turned into a cheeky grin, "I don't think I'm ready yet."
The grin faded, and she peered at the phone, her brow furrowing, "You really like getting rid of me, don't you."
She cut off anything else she was going to say, changing the subject, "Text or email me those specs when you get a chance. No rush yet, I've probably got another sleepless night or two until I'm ready for a field test. And then we can start working out the kinks."
Why oh why did she use the word 'kink' instead of bugs?
True, he'd had his mouth open to reply, but the word 'kink' had tripped him up, momentarily.
Why'd she think that he wanted to be rid of HER? That was strange. Scotty blinked once, twice, and then firmly shook his head, very bluntly saying to her, "Nae, wasn't trying tae be rid of ye, lass. Just thought it might be the other way 'round. I'll be up tae, so I'll text ye the specs as soon as I get a better spacial estimate. Talk tae ye later, then? Aye?"
Scotty pushed the goggles up away from his eyes, and gave gave her a thumb's up like all was well even if it wasn't and there was nothing to worry about. Yay!
"I'm not trying to get rid of you! Just had some memories of high school, thats all." She scowled at him, positively scowled, "Don't you go turning this back on me, Montgomery Scott. You're the one that practically chased me off in some bizarre misunderstanding and now you're in a hurry to chase me off the phone."
She reached over, grabbing the phone, "If that's what you want, you win. I'll see you tomorrow." With that, she hung up, then threw the phone into her couch. She walked to the fridge, pulling out some beer and heading back to her desk. She needed booze inspiration.
What the great hopping Jesus on a blazing rubber crutch was that about?! Scotty stared at the screen like he'd been slapped, kicked in the balls, punched in the stomach, AND had someone stomp on a kitten right in front of him, all at the same time. Turn it back on...wait, what?! He shook his head like he was trying to clear cobwebs out of his head, and worked his way back through the entire conversation like he was trying to find some piece of the equation that was out of place, where he should've carried over a number or the power of something wasn't multiplied properly in the sequence.
His brain drew a blank. All he could come up with, was he had tried to be considerate for BLOODY ONCE and ended up getting hung up on. He hadn't even chased her off the phone either, but had merely asked if she'd wanted to go, to save her any awkward...you know what? BLOODY WOMEN!
"...I think I need a drink," Scotty announced to himself, after at least another three full minutes of staring at the blank screen of his phone. He pulled the goggles down so they were dangling around his neck, and got up so he could lock up and turn off the lights.
That "at the pub" sign was up in the window, a minute after that.