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Since landing, unwillingly, on the ground Rudo had come across many new, odd, and downright weird... customs, if he could even call them that, that the people on the people there seemed to have.
Admittedly Rudo must have had some habits he picked up on the sphere that seemed strange to the rest of the cleaners, but those all had solid reasoning behind them, that he didn’t care to share with them.
Unlike some of the things he’d seen everyone else doing.
He repressed a snicker at the memory of walking in on Zanka silently strutting around his room with weird wires sticking out of his ears.
Rudo hadn’t wanted to touch whatever that was with a ten-foot pole, so had silently sidled out of the room and gone to ask Enjin what was being served in the cafeteria that day instead.
Money was always a problem back in the slums, so there was little he and Regto could do for fun. He mostly played cards and let Regto teach him when they had free time together.
He wished he hadn’t taken those dull moments of learning for granted now, he would have given anything to share those slow moments with his dad again.
On the rare occasion that the busted up radio Rudo had fixed when he was young managed to pick up a channel, the two would have crappy sing-alongs where they tried to guess the next lyrics of the song, or Regto would start debating a point that one of the news broadcasters
Regto had said that it was impressive they had gotten something on the radio at all, whenever it sparked to life and words came pouring out.
When the two of them had tired themselves out, and Regto had flopped down onto the worn-out sofa, Rudo would always worm his way into his dad’s arms and lean against his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat.
In those quite moments, curled up in his dad’s arms like a cat, listening to their radio slowly fizzle out as regto hummed the last few notes of the disappearing music, Rudo forgot the divide that separated him and those on the other side of the radio.
He could forget about the clean white wall that cut across the sphere, he could forget about the looks that those on the other side of the gate shot any of the tribe's folk when they caught sight of them.
He could forget most things, there in his dad’s arms.
Usually he would fall asleep, with a steady hand running through his hair and another holding him tight. Sometimes though he would stay awake, eyes shut tight, waiting for the moment regto would give in and carry him to the mattress in their shared bedroom. Rudo would snicker as he rolled around in his dad’s arms, something akin to a grin creeping across his face.
Maybe it was irritating for regto, when the boy squirmed about in his arms like a wet cat, but the mock groans and grunts as his dad pretended to struggle just made him wriggle more.
It was those times that Rudo had loved the most.
The quieter, softer times when he couldn’t remember his arms burning, or his head throbbing, or the stares he could feel whenever he went out. He hadn’t felt so numb on those days, some flicker had always sparked up in him in the more silent places.
The silence always left room for him, that's what regto had said. He had made himself small and needed to find more room to let himself be big again, whatever that had meant.
Rudo was never good at the philosophical stuff like regto was.
So Rudo knew that the habits some of the other cleaners had must have been important. He never asked about them either, he wouldn’t want Zanka or Riyou bombarding him with questions about everything that he does differently to them, so he didn't either. Even if the curiosity itched under his skin, trying to claw its way out in a barrage of words.
It was only towards the end of a rainy, cold day, with a, slightly concerning, lack of jobs to do that he gained some insight into one of the ‘traditions’ (if that's what you could call it) of the ground.
Rudo lay on his mattress, sheets littered on the floor. The sky was a light indigo and rain drizzled down the window at the corner of his room.
He tracked a drip as it slowly ran across the shiny surface. It fell across the window in a zig zag, every so often crashing into a trail left behind from a previous droplet and changing directions once again.
Pit.
Pit.
Pit.
The harsh rain seemed to reverberate through his brain, it felt oddly calming to listen to the torrent of rain outside. He was glad to have the distraction too.
The project he had been working on, a broken walkie talkie, had been discarded on his desk a few hours earlier.
There had been nothing else to do that day, the morning had past irritatingly slowly, and nothing had come up. Zanka had gotten bored of training with him after a few too many (justified Rudo might add) yelling matches, excusing himself with the reason that ‘it looked like it would rain soon’.
Annoyingly, Zanka had been right. The rain had come only half an hour later, much to Rudo's irritation, forcing him to scurry out of the courtyard, where he had been messing around with a broken-down microwave.
When he had first come across rain (the sun that persisted on the sphere was seemingly not natural), he had been enthralled by it.
After all, before it had only been something Regto had told him about from books, and, for Rudo, it wasn't every day you saw rain falling from the sky.
Except it was nearly every day at the moment, ‘the rainy season’ apparently. Once the novelty of the rain had worn off, his opinion had done a quick 360.
It was useless, there was always too much, none of it could be used either due to the trash the sphere dropped contaminating it and turning it slightly acidic.
Delmon had loudly complained, many times, about how common acid floods would become more of a problem then trash beasts for them soon. Rudo agreed, over the past couple of days the news of five floods had reached the cleaners HQ, he never thought he would be glad of the hill the building was situated on.
Apart from the floods the rain also meant that he had to change his bandages out every time he went out in the downpour for too long. It was inconvenient to say the least and often left him seething angrily for the rest of the day, trying to ignore the dull, consistent throbbing of hid arms.
So was he in his room sulking because his hands hurt too much to continue fixing up the walkie talkie... Maybe.
He turned his gaze to the ceiling listening to the gentle pattering of footsteps and clattering of pans that echoed through the halls.
Except... those footsteps weren’t gentle.
Rudo shot up from the mattress as the door to his room was slammed open and Riyou came barrelling in, Guita hanging by the door frame.
Rudo’s mind lagged slightly. Why was riyou here? Why was Guita here?
The rest of the cleaners usually gave Rudo peace and quiet when he was in his room, unless he was needed for something of course. So, what could the two want...
Had a job come up? Maybe.
Did gris want help with food? Doubtful, since the last time Rudo had tried to help he had given gris salt instead of sugar.
They had looked the same! How was he supposed to know!
“Come on Rudo! Movie night time!” Riyou exclaimed, leaning against the door with her hand on her hip.
“What...” He answered cleverly.
Guita launched herself into the room, falling onto the corner of the bed the soft horns on her kaiju flopping onto the mattress beneath her.
“Movie night! We have it set up already, but we are collecting everyone! Enjin went to go and get Zanka so we came to get you! Get up and let's roll!” Gutia said a grin stretching across her face, motioning for him to get of the bed.
Rudo didn’t really understand what was happening, he didn’t really understand what a movie night was either. But if Riyou and Guita had come to get him it must have been important, it wasn’t like he had anything else to do.
“Okay.” He said, shimmying himself off the bed and darting over to where Riyou stood.
“I’m so pumped! It’s been ages since me and dear got to choose the movie!” Guita said skipping over and gently pushing past Rudo to squeeze out of the door first.
“Make it a good one that's all I ask” Riyou shot back, a short laugh escaping her as Guita bounced on the soles of her feet.
The three of them walked down the corridor, Guita more bouncing than walking, towards the common room and Rudo wasn’t entirely sure what had gotten her so excited. Guita usually seemed to be made of nothing but energy, but this was more than usual. Rudo felt slightly overwhelmed at the occasional, excited squeaks that she would let out now and again.
He looked towards Riyou trying to gauge her emotions from the look on her face, she shot a grin back down at him and turned the corner, stepping into the common room.
Rudo paused in the doorway. The entire room looked like it had been bombed by some sort of bundle of fluff.
Pillows lay scattered on the few beat up sofas, with blankets falling off the arms of chairs like cuddly waterfalls. Spare mattresses had been dragged into the room and other blankets and pillows were spread out like supplies for a war. A few stuffed animals lay on their back staring blankly up at the ceiling.
Rudo felt a sort of kinship with them, being unwilling thrown into this war zone. He didn’t even know what he was supposed to be doing here. He could have just stayed in his room for the rest of the night, he wasn’t sure what was even going on either, but Riyou and Guita had come to get him, specifically.
Rudo watched, unsure from the door, as Guita jumped onto a mattress that he now noticed dear was sat on, legs crossed. Riyou followed her into the room and plopped herself down on the sofa above the, sinking into it with a satisfied huff.
“Ah, Rudo you're here perfect.” A kind voice said, Rudo’s head whipped around to the source and saw Bro, on his hands and knees, reaching underneath the other sofa.
“I’m just trying to grab this pillow that Guita kicked under the sofa earlier,” Bro said in answer to Rudo's unasked question.
He pulled his arm out from dusty depth of the sofa and sat up, turning to face the three girls, “Gris is getting some snacks from the kitchen with Follo, they’ll be back in a minute”
“Tomme not joining us?” Riyou said looking over her shoulder at Bro.
“No, she pulled an all-nighter last night, so she said she wanted to get some proper sleep today, Semiu isn’t joining us either, this time”
“Shame, I love listening to her crumble in my ear about the crappy effects each movie has” Riyou shot back.
It sounded vaguely sarcastic, but Rudo wasn’t too sure, he had never been good at reading social cues. He wasn’t really good at information gathering either, but this seemed to be a semi-regular occurrence at least.
“Who is coming then?” Guita said, interrupting Rudo’s train of thought and falling onto her back and lying spread-egal out on the mattress, limbs in a tangled heap with Dear, who grumbled slightly as she shifted around.
“Guita let Dear have some space, would you?” Bro said getting up properly and dusting himself off.
“Sorry!” She squeaked, sounding only the tiniest bit guilty and squirming slightly.
“Don’t worry kid,” Bro replied with a short huff of laughter, making his way to sit with the two.
“So, who’s watching with us?” He began to say, counting on his fingers as he went. “Gris, Follo who, like I said are grabbing snacks, Enjin who is getting Zanka, Riyou, Rudo, me and you two of course.” He poked Guita’s side with a finger, sending her into a fit of giggles.
Rudo watched as she descended into even more giggles scrabbling behind dear to hide from bro, Riyou laughing on the sofa behind them, pulling her legs up to avoid being hit by friendly fire.
At least he knew who would be here now and that was all well and good, but he still didn't know what was going on.
A shiver ran up his spine, and he jumped out of the door to see enjin grinning down at him. Zanka stood beside the older cleaner and rolled his eyes at Rudo.
“Jumpy much?” He said sarcastically pushing past Rudo to take up a seat on the empty sofa, leaning Asistaff against the back of the sofa.
“Shut up shit-face!” Rudo squawked indignantly.
“Alright that's enough, no fighting on movie night, save it for another time” Enjin cut across, pushing away from the door frame that he had been leaning on, making his way through the explosion of pillows, clambering past Bro, Guita and Dear to let himself sink down into the sofa, next to Riyou.
Zanka only rolled his eyes but did not shoot back any more teasing remarks towards Rudo.
Rudo felt rather irritated, he didn’t know what was going on, no one was telling him and he couldn’t even get an outlet for his pointless anger through his usual back and forth with zanka.
“Come sit down Rudo.” Enjin said, patting the spot next to him.
Obediently Rudo walked over, it was more of a stalk or a prowl then walking but frankly Rudo was too pent up to care.
“What’s with you? I can literally feel the irritation coming off of you in waves, its suffocating.” Zanka said as Rudo smushed himself into the spot enjin had left for him.
Rudo huffed angrily, “No one has told me what's going on so yeah, I just don’t like being in the dark, got a problem with that?”
“We have said multiple times Rudo, we are having a movie night.” Riyou said with a light laugh from the other side of Enjin.
“Ye, well I don't know what a movie is, okay? And no one has told me either!” Rudo said his volume slightly louder than usual.
“You don’t know what a movie is?” Guita said turning to look up at him from the floor, Rudo’s anger fizzled out at the wide-eyed expression she was giving him, it was hard to be irritated with Guita, she just seemed to smush all bad emotions down.
“No... What are they?” Rudo said unsure, everyone in the room was looking at him now, varying levels concern and curiosity on their faces. He didn’t like being stared at, shrinking back int the sofa slightly.
“Did you not have them up on the sphere?” Zanka asked, all traces of mockery gone from his voice.
“No.” Rudo said again, “What are they?”
“Shit kid, how do I explain it...” Enjin said sling an arm around Rudo, letting his hand rest on his head, Rudo felt himself relax, his muscles untensing as the weight on his head grounded him.
“You know what a play is?” Bro asked as Enjin thought, Rudo nodded. “Well, they are sort of like that, except you can watch them over and over again on the TV.”
“Except with special effects and lots of explosions!” Guita said as dear nodded making a grunt of agreement.
“Not all of them have explosions though,” Riyou added reaching down to take a blanket Dear had been offering her, “Only the ones Gutia and dear choose, because they love actions movies.”
“It’s a certain type of genre, that just means what type of plot or story type the movie has.” Enjin muttered, Rudo could tell he was only supposed to hear that, as he threw a bright green blanket over himself chucking Rudo a fuzzy pale blue on.
“That sounds... Cool... I guess.” Rudo said, running his gloves over the fabric, watching the slight colour change.
The group settled into a comfortable silence apart from the quiet muttering of Gutia as she communicated with Dear about what movie they should watch.
It was nice, Rudo thought, quiet and peaceful. He was glad the others had wanted to share this with him. They put up with his outbursts and for that Rudo would be for ever grateful. These people looked at him not with disgust, but care.
It was definitely nice. His hands pulsed for a moment, a warning about the voice of his mind, that threatened to rear its ugly head.
“We’re back!” Follo called merrily, cutting across his thoughts. He was carrying a tray with four bowls full of something fluffy looking, with Gris following carrying his own tray, this time with five bowls.
Follo set his tray down in a clear patch on the floor, taking a bowl of his own, he slumped onto the sofa next to zanka.
He was glad for the distraction. He didn’t need that voice talking to him right now.
“And we brought the popcorn.” Gris added, copying Follo and taking a seat on one of the empty mattresses.
“Yippie! Me and dear have chosen the film too! So, we are already!” Guita exclaimed, happily taking one of the three bowls that Bro had taken.
The lights flicked off, Dear having taken the job upon himself, as Zanka handed him a bowl of his own.
“Popcorn is basically just fried corn cornels, the type you have also has sugar on.” Zanka said as Rudo took the bowl from his hands.
It was warm, he could feel that through his gloves, it had blue and white stripes running down the sides and the smell of the slightly melted sugar wafted up into his nose, it was Brilliant.
However, even with all this a tiny part of Rudo yelled at him, complaining that he was intruding. That he didn't belong. That he should just skulk away and continue working on that walkie talkie.
But as the light of the TV came on, and he saw the sun rising over a little, weird looking village, with people rushing about like in the markets at canvas town, he couldn’t help but let out a small,
“Wow...”
“Heh,” Enjin said back quietly. “Enjoy the movie kid.”
Yeah, the walkie talkie could wait.