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Drifter knew something was on Eris' mind. He was good at reading people, and especially good at reading Eris. She was doing her 'worried about something but trying not to be' routine, which involved a whole lot of putting far too much effort into menial aspects of her work. He got it, there was a lot of things for her to be worried over these days. Especially now that she had her favorite rouge following her around her apartment and throne world. She'd compared him to a cat, making a point to be in the same room as her but keeping out of the way. He was okay with that. He'd be her weird cat.
But what caught his eye was when she started wearing Elsie's shirt. She'd 'stolen' it awhile ago and made Elsie agree to come steal it back at some point, although Drifter had taken it after her death because it smelled like her. He supposed it smelled like all three of them at this point, which was the point of the thievery shirt. Eris had plausible deniability for wearing it, when she stepped out of her throne world she returned to being a physical being, and that being was recovering from having a massive hole punched through her chest. The wound had healed enough that she wasn't going to have to worry about exposed bone and getting everything nasty with blood, but the area was gnarly, scabbed, and sore. Her usual armor was too heavy to be comfortable, and Elsie's shirt was loose-fitting and light. Elsie would probably complain that it now smelled like the various antiseptics that Drifter had needed to convince Eris to let him help her apply when she eventually stole it back. If she ever stole it back. He didn't want to think about that possibility right now, though.
It was about time to change the bandages again, especially since Eris had been spending more time outside her throne world. Drifter watched her chew the back of her pen while she examined the diagram that she had practically finished. He didn't know much about her Hive magics, but he knew when she was trying to get her mind off things.
"How you feeling?" Drifter asked. Both if she needed more painkillers and what she was thinking about. Maybe she was thinking about how she needed to take another dose of painkillers. Probably not, considering her own tendency to forget about the hole in her chest, but Drifter could hope. He'd worry more about being overbearing with her wound care if it weren't for the fact he saw it happen and spent a month and a half thinking she was dead.
"Fine." Eris answered shortly. She leaned back in her chair, forgetting about the other side of her injury, and bit back a yelp when her back touched wood. Drifter noticed the hitch in her breath anyways.
"You can always go back into the throne world." Drifter offered. He stood up from the chair he was in (he'd been calling it the crying chair with no idea what Eris actually considered it to be) and walked over to Eris' desk, putting a hand on her shoulder to gently guide her back to sitting up. He risked a glance at her spine, relived to see that nothing had re-opened.
"You do not have to continue worrying over me." Eris' voice was soft as put a hand on his. "I am here. I am alive."
"I want to worry over you." Drifter rested his head on Eris'. She closed her eyes- her three, uncovered eyes. "There was a long time where you weren't here. It's the least I could do."
"If fussing over me will sooth your anxieties, accompany me the bathroom and help me with the bandages."
"Sure thing."
Drifter didn't like looking directly at Eris' wound. Made him feel sick, thinking about the blood seeping out of her armor as he held her limp body. But he disliked the idea of Eris getting an infection for similar reasons, so helping her change bandages was easy enough. His picture of what hellmouth was like had gotten worse from watching Eris try to manage it herself, she tried to calculate exactly how long she could leave them on until it was dangerous, if not avoid the subject entirely. Getting her to clean the wound was a whole other struggle. She often argued that nothing had happened to justify the use of antiseptic, to which Drifter would point out that she'd been wearing the same shirt for a week specifically because it smelled like her partner's weird radiolaria fumes and she usually stopped arguing at that point.
Cleaning the injury still gave him the ick, though. Eris could handle the exit wound just fine, but she couldn't see or reach the one on her back so that was Drifter’s roll. The first time she had tried stepping into her apartment the muscle hadn't been done regrowing over her spine, a sight that had made Drifter want to vomit. And he did, after dragging Eris back through her portal. She said she had mistaken the regrowth of her bones for a complete recovery, and talking about how she shattered both her spine and sternum had made Drifter throw up again. That was when Eris decided Drifter could no longer handle wound talk, and she wasn't wrong.
"Could you lend an ear?" Eris sighed as she carefully dabbed the antibiotic onto her chest.
"Sure thing."
"I have not seen or heard from Elsie since my death. She is not the type to run, but she is the type to vanish. And there is… guilt attached to her absence."
"How so?"
"I haven't gotten to make her dinner. Technically, I was the one to make her promise to come over, but in having her promise it became my responsibility to continue what was promised." Eris paused, looking at the wound on her chest in the mirror. "I had been telling her that I would come out of our mission to the Leviathan unharmed, when I knew there was a possibility. I feel as though I have betrayed her."
"You don't betray anyone by dying. Not like how you did. You fought like hell. I'm certain she knows that." Drifter didn't mention what he'd said or done to Elsie in Eris' absense. To be honest, he'd mostly forgotten about the night he spent in Elsie's hut, the whole ordeal was muddy from alcohol and grief. He remembered waking up hungover in Elsie's bed, though. He wasn't proud of running off in the early morning as Elsie started to stir, but he supposed she would have probably done the same thing.
"Have you heard from her? Ikora confessed that she was not keeping track of her, although I doubt that would have made a difference if she did not wish to be found." Eris returned to taping fresh gauze over her wound. Drifter wondered what to tell her.
"Ahh… twice. She was at your memorial service. Had a spat with Ikora and then made herself scarce."
"I was aware of that. Ikora told me when I asked about Elsie." Eris paused again. "What happened the other time?"
"I visited her on Europa. Said some things I shouldn’t have. She had every right to kick my ass back out into the snow, but she didn't." Drifter looked at the floor. "I'm not a good person. You know that, Moondust."
Eris sighed. "And you know I disagree. She likely disagrees too, seeing as she did not 'kick your ass back out into the snow', like you said she aught."
"…Yeah. I guess you wouldn't cuddle me to sleep if you were pissed at me, either. She was real torn up about you, too."
"Which is what is concerning me." Eris tied her bandages in place, then pulled Elsie's shirt back on.
"You're gonna have to wash that shirt eventually." Drifter commented. Eris huffed. He knew she'd rather not, and he supposed that she had a good enough reason, since it sort of still smelled like the missing robot. Not really, though. She did need to come steal it back soon.
"I do not intend on wearing it near visitors, and you are equally unhygienic." Eris snipped back, standing up and returning to her desk. Drifter grinned to himself over her implying he was a long-term resident. He yawned and returned to the chair in the corner. Eris continued her half-work.
"Does this resemble the respiratory system of a Hive to you?" Eris held up a diagram. Drifter squinted at it.
"What am I looking at? Ribs?"
"Branchial chambers. Each contains a set of branchial appendages- similar to our crustations. However, drying out does not seem to be a concern, instead, Hive have an unusually thin membrane to allow oxidation of the blood without hydrolysis. I am attempting to illustrate that process for a report."
"That doesn't answer what I'm looking at. Is this a bit you can eat?"
"It's how they breath." Eris sighed. "And also you can eat it. However, there are far better sections of Hive when it comes to consumption. Branchial appendages in Hive are almost completely comprised of capillaries, without the hemolymph there would be almost nothing to eat."
"Only eat if needed and eat it raw, got it. So kind of like lungs? I can make lungs eatable."
"If Elsie were here she'd ask if you'd ever caught a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. Fortunately, I doubt one would have much effect on you."
"Ey! Language." Drifter huffed in mock offense, clicking his teeth. "It's rude to swear at your partner."
"I am merely saying words about you."
"That's also what swearing is!"
"How do you know that those words were improper if you do not know what they mean?"
Drifter shrugged. They'd had this play-fight dozens of times. "Dunno. You've got this aura when you're cussing someone out. Like your words are enough to kill. Knowing you, they probably are now. Hey, can we try that next time we're out on a mission? You killing things with words?"
"I can kill with Hive Magic. Which often has a verbal component." Eris chuckled. "So, in a way, I could kill things with words. But it would be what I am summoning that does the killing, not what I say."
"Close enough! Aiat, or whatever you say."
"Yes, aiat. It would make my life easier if I did actually possess the ability to kill with words, though."
"How many do I gotta tithe to you to make that happen?" Drifter grinned at her. She couldn't help but smile back.
"A sizable amount. However many is required to allow me to surpass the Osmium Siblings. They may be powerful, but not quite as powerful as you are describing."
"I'll call up the vanguard and tell them to get to it. What's the point in having a vanguard if we can't be powering you up even more?"
"I think we both know someone who would disagree with you."
"Ah, well, she's not here right now, is she? And anyways, you wouldn't be eating the sun or anything, right?"
"Hmm. I have been craving large masses of plasma recently." Eris mused. Drifter laughed.
"I mean, Maybe have a cup of water with that. The sun's pretty hot, I hear. I haven't eaten any plasma yet, but I'm sure there's a way to cook it up good. And then you'll get to absorb IX's power too, and that'll be fun for everyone!"
"Indeed. We certainty don't need the sun for anything."
"Y'know, it's a shame that the Nine didn't count dwarf planets, because then you could make sure that there's only one Eris in town."
"I believe the pyramid ships took care of that particular issue already."
"If they have, they did a piss-poor job of it. I was there last month! Don't ask why."
"I won't." Eris would have laughed, if she didn't know the reason for his visit to her namesake was likely depressing and likely involved her death.
"Great, don't want to ruin the mood. Are ya hungry? I bet you're hungry." Drifter stood up to walk to the kitchen before Eris could respond that yes, she was hungry.
"Is this your way of changing the subject?"
"Just naturally progressing the conversation, and all that. It's dinner time anyways."
"It is." Eris nodded in agreement. She got out of her chair to follow Drifter to her kitchen, gingerly hugging him from behind, careful to not disturb her wound. She nestled her head against his neck, sighing deeply.
"You missed me, huh?" Drifter spoke as he checked what was in the cabinet in front of him. He briefly frowned at the unimpressive selection, then selected two packages of ramen. "…You wouldn't happen to still have any vegetables kicking around here, would you?"
"…I have not left my apartment since my death." Eris spoke, realizing how absurd the sentence was as she said it. "If we return to my throne world, I can conjure ingredients."
"You need to get some food back in your kitchen, even if you wanna mostly operate out of the throne world now. You know damn well that Elsie's going to spook the first time she sees the portal, I wouldn't be shocked if it takes her awhile to actually go inside."
"Hmm. You have a point. And I do not invite just anyone into my throne world, although there are few that I would allow to enter my apartment that I would not allow in my palace."
"What's in your fridge, though? Like- shit, that thing's probably a biohazard now."
"Did no one clean it out?"
"No, I don’t think so. Cleaning out a dead person's house is kinda a personal thing, and no one really thought about your perishables. I sure didn't, and I doubt that Sloane or Ikora did it, and I don’t see guardians going rooting through your fridge. This place is kinda… sacred, y'know?"
"I do not know and am now incredibly worried about the state of my fridge."
"We could just chuck the thing and get you a new one without even bothering to open it. That way we won’t have to air out your apartment."
"No. That is a waste. This is a consequence of our actions, and we must bear it. Also… I do not wish to curse whoever takes it apart at recycling with it's contents."
"Really wish Elsie were here. She can't get sick."
"Elsie is an innocent party, do not bring her into our strife."
"A shared burden is half a burden."
"We are already sharing this burden, so we would each have one-third a burden. Which is not a great enough difference to be worth further stressing her."
"We can let that mess sit another day and just get take-out."
"Where will we put the leftovers?"
"Shit, yeah. I guess we need to deal with your fridge."
They both silently stared at the aforementioned appliance. Eris sighed deeply.
"We should obtain bleach from the city first. I will put on clean clothes." Eris left first. Drifter sighed in resignation.
"Yep. City-trip. I'll find us dinner while we're out. Probably before we start carrying around bleach, the smell of that is pretty strong."
"Hmm."
"And I think if we try to do this while hungry we'll give up before finishing the job. Don't say anything about the smell, if we get some peppermint oil or something else that's strong-but-nice we can rub it in under our noses and the worst of it'll be covered. Only if we wear masks, though."
"This is why I did not want to bring Elsie into this."
"I think the lady who dragged my rotting corpse around at one point can take it, but this is a different timeline and all that."
"I don't think she'd appreciate the mention of your rotting corpse."
"Well, apparently it's happened a whole lot. I'm just happy we're both still kicking around in this timeline."
"As am I."
The trip into the city was mercifully brief. Eris dressed in her baggiest, 'don't look at me' clothes and glared at anyone who dared to approach her. She was quite good at scaring off strangers, a skill gained from having three eyes and improved by being a well-known powerful entity. Drifter had been tempted to match her energy, but didn't feel like putting on the act right now and just happily followed Eris while trying to look as generic as possible. People weren't going to look at him when there was a grumpy Hive God who had been incorrectly assumed dead for the third time on his arm, anyways.
Eris hustled her way to a trusted bodega, not stopping to window-shop, meander, or socialize like many were doing at this time in the market. She split off from Drifter upon entering, allowing him to explore the establishment on his own. Of course he'd been there before, it was a damn good bodega run by an eliksni who used to sell his old fireteam (the one he'd killed on Europa) various makes and flavors of drugs. He was glad that they'd found a respectable life for themselves doing something other then selling drugs to criminals who would ultimately kill and eat each other. Hadn't exactly been a stable customer base.
The Eliksni, who was named Raawik, clicked in greeting at Drifter, choosing to ignore Eris. They knew when a customer wanted to be left alone. It was the sort of skill gleaned from years of working with people who might take their head off if they made a wrong move. Drifter figured Eris probably wouldn't be so harsh but he also understood that Raawik wasn't going to push it.
"Hey there, sibling." Drifter, lacking in anything else to do while Eris scrutinized cleaning products, sidled up their counter and flipped a jade coin between his fingers. "How ya living?"
"I would say 'sorry for your loss', but it appears you have lost nothing, so I am not sorry. Do you wish to buy something or just keep my eyes away from your companion?" Raawik chittered. Their voice was playful, but a genuine question. He'd heard others say that Raawik had shockingly good (although heavily accented) common, even though to Drifter it made total sense why they'd know it. Not many humans had made a point of learning Eliksni until recently, and humans tended to be more lenient with their glimmer.
"I ain't exactly the type to find people who enjoy be'en the center of attention, so both." Drifter flicked the coin past their head, ricocheting it off the wall and bouncing it perfectly into their tip jar, where the coin spun on its side like a top for a few seconds before falling still. Raawik didn't react.
"Tips only count if I can use them." They chittered, expression unchanged.
"What, was the show not enough?" Drifter smirked as he dropped a handful of glimmer into the jar. "You could use the coin, though. With participating vendors."
"You're the only participating vendor and I'd rather buy weapons with legal registration."
"Well, I think you could probably hand it in to Moondust for something these days. Besides, I got all my paperwork sorted out! Everything's totally legal in gambit. Otherwise it'd have been shut down by now!"
"Ah, yes. That's what decides that sort of thing." Raawik briefly looked away to check on what Eris was doing, then returned their gaze to Drifter. "Spill Hive guts on the floor?"
"Eh, she's delt with plenty hive guts, it's worse. Y'know how everyone thought she died a few months back? No one touched anything in her apartment. Including the fridge."
Raawik briefly grimaced at the thought. "Ah. Unpleasant."
"Yeah. We're, ah, dealing with the issue. We thought about asking for help, but-"
"We refuse to involve anyone else in this matter." Eris finished his sentence for him, depositing her choice of sprays and wipes on the counter. "This can be handled by two people. I would do it myself, but Drifter insists upon helping me."
"He probably needs the company." Raawik starting ringing Eris up, scanning each item and placing them in a paper bag in a fluid motion. It only took a few seconds, their task sped up considerably by having four arms.
"That he does." Eris handed them a bag of glimmer, then dropped some more in the tip jar. She left wordlessly, while Drifter bid Raawik farewell in Eliksni.
Back at the apartment and armed to the teeth in cleaning supplies, Drifter and Eris stared down the fridge. Neither particularly wanted to open it. While Eris rarely used the full fridge space, it had gotten far more use once Drifter started staying over more often after Eris' rise to godhood. She'd felt obligated to make sure that she'd be able to feed him something adequate, although she was rarely the one cooking. He usually just wandered into the kitchen and made them both food. All the more reason she had to keep a decent amount of ingredients handy. Of course, this backfired when no one touched the kitchen for two months, but that was neither here nor there.
"And you're absolutely certain that you can't call Elsie to help?" Drifter asked as Eris slowly opened the fridge door. He cringed at the sight, but Eris didn't say anything, shaking out a trash bag and moving the first no-longer-identifiable object into it.
"Yes. This is not her battle to face." Her voice was muffled slightly from the respirator she wore. Drifter usually carried a few in his Ghost's inventory. His was still loosely hanging around his neck, and he pulled it up when the smell hit him.
"I think she'd be happy to see you, personally." He spoke as he walked closer to help.
"Perhaps. But our reunion should not be overshadowed by the dreary state of my living quarters. I wish to allow her a vulnerable space, as I did for you."
"Say'en cleaning out your fridge can't be vulnerable?"
"Do you consider it to be so?"
"I mean, not really. All the squishy vulnerable feelings is because you're letting me hang around your house and change your bandages and cuddle you to sleep. This is just like… a normal chore."
"I feel as though you probably do not allow things to mold quite this badly."
"Derelict's a big ship and a whole lotta people hang out in the transmat room every day. Don't clean it out as much as I should. Guardians drop their apple cores and junk and if it falls under the grate I don't see it until the room starts smelling funky and I remember to clean the place out. And don't get me started on the stuff I've left elsewhere. I've seen videos of these mold-sniffing dogs, and now I'm trying to convince myself that Elsie can't smell mold so I don't get worried she's gonna wander off at some point and find some mess I forgot to clean up."
"From how she is able to pinpoint how old even trace scents are, I feel as though she is quite capable of smelling mold."
"Thanks, Eris. Real comforting."
"If it was comfort you were after, allow me to point out that it is likely she would have to be able to place the scent of Conidia first, and I doubt she would comment on it unless she was able to narrow down what she was smelling to a specific group. Which, if anything, is more reason not to ask for her assistance because then she'd definitely be able to smell mold and could search your ship."
"I think she's learned what most things smell like. Shit got moldy during the Dark Ages. Not to say that shit doesn't get moldy now, we're looking at proof of that, but the collapse just happened and there was a lot of junk just laying around 'n growing fungus."
"I somewhat doubt that there was a genuine increase in fungal growth during the Dark Age. I would expect that would peak during the Collapse and remain mostly the same."
"Well, probably. But I was looking at more of the stuff back then. Eating it, too. Once you've figured out which ones won't make you drop dead, mushrooms are great scavenging. S'pecially when traveling. If you're walking thirty miles a day you're looking for every bit of food you can get. It's nice when the woods has fun 'lil treats for you."
"If I may ask, how many times have mushrooms killed you?"
"Ehhhh, dunno. I stopped eating 'em after the first two times-"
"Two?"
"Had to be sure! Then I saw other people eating them and I was like 'okay, there's gotta be a trick to this' and my Ghost was like 'there is but I don't wanna tell you because blah blah' so I went asking and found a book. Then I had to learn to be hella careful because even with the book I still got mixed up sometimes and that was another… seven? Eight? something like that."
His ghost manifested to beep twice and vanished before he could wave it away.
"Fine. Ten times. Weren't close together or- hey, get back out here! You can move stuff into bags, you can help!"
If a mute, shaky, hodge-podge Ghost could look bashful, then that was the emotion it presented as it floated forward. The thing almost never intentionally drew attention to itself. Its eclectic shell was bound together in red cord with coins hanging off the areas of slack. Eris squinted at it.
"Will it fall apart if it takes the cord off?" She asked. "I would like your ghost not to risk its fibrous component."
"Nah, it'll be fine. It's the duct tape that's keeping it in one piece." Drifter shrugged. The Ghost made a beep in response and moved behind Eris. "C'mon! You know that was a joke, I replaced all the duct tape the moment we got off Iceball!"
"Hold on." Eris stepped away from the fridge to briefly shed her gloves and unwind the red cord from the Ghost. She stepped away to set the decoration on her desk.
The Ghost trailed after her while Drifter kept working. He didn't say anything, but did glance over his shoulder to eye the little drone.
"Is this yours or his?" She asked it as she carefully wound the cord to keep it from tangling.
The Ghost bobbed in the air, then returned to helping with the fridge. Eris risked turning over one of the coins. She didn't recognize the symbol. She put the coin face down and went back to the fridge, pulling her gloves back on as she walked.
"Drifter," Eris started as she held a bag open for the Ghost to shove a spoiled yogurt container into, "when's the last time you… spoke with your Ghost?"
"It can't speak, Eris."
"You know well that there is more methods of communication then with a voice."
"It doesn't have anything worth saying." Drifter grumbled. "It wanted what it got, and it was for the best, anyways."
"Hmm." Eris didn't press more. She knew it was a sore subject. She wanted to know more about it, though. She knew that was a silly desire based in Vanguard culture that Drifter didn't subscribe to. She was used to lightbearers knowing each other's Ghosts. But he acted like he barely knew his (or, rather, it didn't know him), and she had no Ghost at all. The three kept working in silence.
"And that's the last of it. You can go now, I'll re-cord you later." Drifter spoke as soon as his Ghost shoved the last container off the shelf. It didn't vanish, and just floated over to its cord on Eris' desk, settling on top of it like a nest. He sighed. "It's not gonna move until the cord's back on. It's got real strong opinions about that ratty old thing."
"I see. It can stay there, for now. I do not mind its presence."
"As long as it's not trying to make me burst an eardrum with that beeping, or getting in my business, then it's tolerable." Drifter shrugged. He picked up one of the cleaning spray and applied a generous amount to the shelf he was working on then handed it back down to Eris. There wasn't much more conversation, there didn't need to be. They both had a job to get done, and they both knew how to do it.
After it was clean, the Ghost had been re-wrapped, and the trash bags brought down to the dumpster (a task that Drifter insisted he do himself), Eris had taken his hand and led him back to the throne world, where she could curl against him without fear of brushing her wounds against him or the blankets. She still put the thievery shirt back on, though. Not that he minded. When they were cuddled close like this he could still sort of smell Elsie on it. He could also feel Eris breathing. Which was far more important to him right now. He curled up around her, trying to be as close and as warm as possible. She kissed the side of his head, then nuzzled against him. How lucky he was, to have a living Eris to hold.
"Drifter? Are you still awake?" She asked quietly.
He made a noise that resembled acknowledgment. He didn't want to talk right now, just wanted to be close to her.
"Do you know where Elsie is?" She spoke again.
"Yeah." Drifter muttered. He was half-asleep and trying to enjoy the moment, but understood that she was rightfully worried over all her partners going MIA during her absence. "I know."
"Could you… fetch her for me at some point?" Eris was careful with her request. "I understand she is scared but… so am I."
"Yeah. I'll go get her." Drifter whispered, already mostly asleep again.