Cohost writing prompt: @Making-up-Mech-Pilots — Mech Pilot who is meeting their comms operator face to face for the first time
The awkward silence gets so bad that Casey hides in the bathroom, and then spends so long hiding that it has to be obvious, which is worse. She pulls out her phone, hands shaking, and calls a number that was — until a couple of hours ago — just as enticing and theoretical as "Hey, while your mech's up on the blocks here, drinks in the flight crew lounge?"
Comms sounds bright and easy and horrifyingly practised at not sounding hurt. "Everything okay?"
It is not. Casey presses the heel of her free hand into her temple. This is why she doesn't meet people in person — "I'm making a bad impression," she says.
"I should have mentioned the eye."
"No. Mam worked reception at a clinic before the war, I practically learned to read off pamphlets about implant care. Your eye's not a problem." Casey fists her free hand into her hair. "It's, what, a 4050? An MZ, probably the MZK. Old-style iris ring on it, which means you'd have been up for a cosmetic matching follow-up as standard and you turned it down on purpose. And you've been skipping maintenance appointments, the yaw tracking's gone sloppy, you probably get headaches reading."
Silence. Then, softly, "...You've been reading me the way you read battlefields."
It's not that Casey reads anything, no matter how good it makes her out there. It's just that most people don't look properly.
"I don't do anything for battlefields. It's not something I turn on. It's not something I can turn off."
Silence.
"This is why I don't meet people," Casey sighs.
In the background noise of the call, Comms is tapping a finger, the way she does when she's planning. "I wore perfume for this," she says, and it's a test.
"Yeah. Really good on you. Your ex chose it for you; you told me you're no good at picking out scents while you were talking me through main power failure—"
"That was two years ago. That was, what, one sentence, two years ago, while you were having a panic attack."
"It never turns off. It never turns off. This is what knowing me is like." It's okay. It's fine. Casey will go and cry, and strategise salvaging their working relationship. It's fine.
There's a note creeping into Comms' voice, that says she understands. A bit. Maybe. "You were saying. My ex."
"You wore perfume your ex gave you. You've said five sentences to me ever directly about her, and thousands you don't even know are the negative space around her."
"You sound angry."
"You didn't keep the eye obviously mechanical because you were entirely okay," Casey says. "But it was challenging. To you, and to other people. And you liked it challenging. She made you insecure about it."
Silence. That was enough; that had to have been enough.
"When did you decide to use it to run everyone off, Case?" Comms says, and Casey's mouth dries up at the humour and total lack of rancor in her tone. "And seriously, after how many hundreds of hours in your ear, you thought it was that easy to get rid of me?"
Casey stutters.
"You're coming out of there sooner or later," Comms adds. "Now, do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?"
"There's no easy way," Casey says forlornly.
"Oh, honey," Comms says, and it's warm, so warm, and utterly devoid of mercy.