0:/WRITING/ANIMA MUNDI/BUS BUDDIES!

BUS BUDDIES!

> CECIL
Cecil has been stuck on this bus for five hours and he is absolutely sick of it. He's so relieved when the driver announces they've stopped at a rest area that he doesn't think twice before turning to the man sitting across from him who he's been diligently ignoring until now.

"Watch my bag. I'll be back soon and I'll know if you touched anything," Cecil demands.

> TEO
When the bus stops, Teo is, admittedly, relieved. They had been driving approximately 53 miles per hour on a road with a 45 mile per hour speed limit, and there is only so much distraction offered by the view through the window beside him and his own listless thoughts.

Being spoken to startles him, and he blinks, pulling his attention away from his thoughts to stare at Cecil—then the bag he's been charged with watching. "Okay," he says, after a moment. "Sure." It seems he'll be forgoing stretching his legs, for now.

> CECIL
Cecil narrows his eyes and watches Teo for a moment before his mouth quirks into what’s probably an approving smile.

“I’ll be back,” he repeats over his shoulder as he speedwalks down the aisle.

Teo is now the proud guardian of one large backpack! It’s enticingly lumpy and has various tags and keychains hanging off the zippers. One of the keychains looks familiar, and quite fuzzy…and purple.

> TEO
Teo's brows flinch upward, then flatten again. He blinks a second time, nods, then fixes his attention on the bag, only looking away once, warily, as Cecil steps off of the bus.

At first, he thinks to check his phone, but as he unzips his own bag, he becomes distracted by the fuzzy purple keychain hanging off of Cecil's. With another glance to the door of the bus—as if he might already return—Teo hesitates, then leans to look at the keychain, fishing a keyring out of his bag as he does.

One purple fuzzy keychain, one orange fuzzy keychain, with two little googly eyes and balled feet and hands on string limbs. Do they match?

> CECIL
They match. They could be twins!

Cecil is not immediately returning. It’s been a long day on top of a long, fruitless week. He’d gone down to the county office near their old home looking for Del’s vaccination records, worried his brother wasn’t up-to-date on one thing or another, but at some point in the passing years the county office had completely burnt down along with all its records.

Cecil had been frustrated enough that he took that as a personal slight.

It feels wonderful being off the bus, though, and his mood is already improving, enough so that when he passes a vending machine he decides to buy two coffees - one for him, and one for the man watching his bag.

Hm. He just left his bag with all of his travel documents in the care of a total stranger.

Cecil starts walking back to the bus faster.

> TEO
A match! Teo looks between the two fuzzy keychains with a level of scrutiny more appropriate for studying a quadratic equation than two fuzzy inanimate objects, then leans back into his seat, tucking the keyring away again.

The bag looks heavy. Was its carrier moving, too? Teo stares down at his own bag, and with one last look at the backpack—it isn't going anywhere, definitely not, but you can never be too sure—finally takes out his phone.

Three missed calls. Teo swipes the notification away without checking, and puts it away again. Okay—back to thinking about the coincidence of the keychain. He notes to himself to bring it up.

> CECIL
Looming over the back of Teo's seat, Cecil surveys the scene.

His backpack is in the exact position he left it, the wrinkles in the bus seat the same, the way its lying half-leant on the cushion the same. Relief makes his racing heart settle just in time for him to ramp it up again with a can of black coffee.

"Here, for your services," Cecil says.

He leans over Teo's head and drops one can into his lap before leaving the aisle and slouching into his own seat. He cracks open his coffee and takes a careful sip. He grimaces, and then takes another.

> TEO
There must be something about Cecil, because Teo doesn't hear him coming and does not sense him looming over his seat in such a way until the very moment that he drops a can of coffee into his lap. His shoulders jump, and he quickly looks down, picking the can up to rotate it in his hand as if inspecting it.

"Coffee," he replies, and if it wasn't for the fact that he immediately opens it to drink, his flat tone might have made him sound disinterested. Just as he's about to take a sip, Teo stops with a reminder to himself:
"Thanks,"

His eyes flick down, then quickly back up again. "You don't like it," he comments, nodding to the can in Cecil's hand. "Why do you drink it?"

> CECIL
Cecil's face scrunches up even more. What kind of question is that?!

"How else will I stay awake? We'll be on the road for another five hours," he says. His incredulous tone makes it clear that just taking a nap is not an option.

> TEO
Teo considers this answer for a moment, then nods. Sensible. Not at all an overreaction. Of course, he should have known this. A latte variety must not have been an option available to him.

Unbothered, Teo changes the subject. He motions with one finger to the keychain on Cecil's backpack. "I have one too," he tells him, and after taking a sip of his coffee fetches it from his pack to hold up for Cecil to see. "Are—" He stops, tries to start again, and after a split second of struggle, finishes his question. "Are you moving?"

> CECIL
This man is talkative all of a sudden. Cecil considers shutting it down, but sitting alone with his thoughts had been worse. He can't take another five hours of that.

They'll talk. He'll converse. Nicely.

"No," he answers and does not clarify any further. He takes a sip. There's an awkward pause on his end now as he tries to remember how this business goes. "Are you? Moving?"

While he'd been speaking, Cecil had lifted the fuzzy purple keychain and was now rolling it around in his palm.

"My brother gave me this," he says. His face relaxes for the first time since he boarded the bus; he looks softer and interminably weary.

> TEO
Teo stares down at his can of coffee, and lifts his free hand to idly rub his fingers under his ear. "Yeah," he tells him, and pauses once more before elaborating; "to—New Portsmouth."

With a blink, Teo turns his attention back to Cecil, then the keychain. He watches its stringy legs flop around, and nods.
"It—" Teo motions loosely to the general direction of Cecil's head; "—matches your hat. It's the same color."

He takes another sip of his coffee. For being canned, it's not so bad.

> CECIL
At this point, Cecil has abandoned his coffee. It's wedged precariously between his thigh and the bus wall and jostles threateningly whenever they drive over a rough patch, which is often.

"New Portsmouth? Why would you want to move there? Grimy, damp, tiny place."

He reaches up to touch his beanie when Teo mentions it. He's gotten used to wearing a hat in public - he threw this one on randomly that morning. "I like the color."

His expression flattens. "Why? Is that a problem?"

> TEO
Grimy, damp, tiny. Teo contemplates this assessment of his soon-to-be home, and chews at his lip. Cecil's explanation for his beanie and consequent question disrupts his thoughts, however, and he quickly shakes his head, lifting an open palm. "Not a problem,"

Suddenly a little more self-aware, Teo leans back in his seat; he'd started to slouch, and hadn't noticed until then. After a moment of uncertainty, he trails back to what Cecil had said to him just before mention of his hat, instead. "I'm—moving for work."

"Is it so bad there?" he questions, deciding to himself that their destination might be Cecil's home, too, given his opinion on it.

> CECIL
Cecil crosses his arms defensively and glowers. Good. He didn't ask for this guy's opinion on his hat or his keychain or if they matched, of all things!

"It's not bad," he says consideringly. "It's just - very wet. All year. And people are always watching. Always in your business. Asking if you're lost or if you're skipping school, nonsense like that."

He looks Teo up and down. It's an evaluating look and not very kind. "What were you hired for? The docks?"

> TEO
Cecil's defensive posture and the expression he gives Teo earn a look akin to being stared at by a large dog that isn't aware it's done anything wrong.

He doesn't look for very long, though, before he turns his head to watch the trees go by in a blur just outside the window. For his own sake, he pretends they're traveling at an appropriate, law-abiding speed, but just thinking about it forces him to focus on something else.

Mercifully, Cecil offers Teo something to think about in his assertation of his employment potential. He stares down at himself, then back up, then down again, and idly plucks at the shoulder strap of his bag.

This question is apparently difficult for Teo, because he struggles with it for a long moment before finding an acceptable answer. "Not exactly,"

He contemplates this further, but settles on leaving it at that and moving on.

"I used to get those questions too," Teo says, instead. "But I was—homeschooled. If I left the house, they always asked."
His mouth twitches as if he's thought of something, and he adds: "When you get older, they just think you're loitering."

Teo drinks the last bit of his coffee, then delicately sets the empty can aside much in the same manner Cecil has against the wall of the bus. "Do you live with your brother?"

> CECIL
Cecil lets Teo dodge the question because frankly he does not care what his job is. Maybe he's embarrassed about being a dockworker. Maybe he has nothing lined up at all and he's just washing up into town like detritus after a storm.

An unexpected pang of pity. If that's the case, Cecil can find something for him to do. He doesn't seem so bad, and he looked after his bag admirably.

He perks up when Teo brings up his brother.

"Yes, we live together and I take care of him. We were homeschooled, too," he offers. Now that they're on the topic of his brother, Cecil is much more talkative. You could even accuse him of being cheerful.

"I taught Del how to read since I picked it up faster than he did. I still read to him. He's always liked it."

His voice remains light and a little prideful, but he's begun worrying at his fingertips. When he catches himself at it he clenches his hands into fists.

"Loitering, though. Tsk. You're a regular miscreant, aren't you?" Cecil's attempt at a joke.

> TEO
Is he imagining things, or is that a shift in Cecil's mood? Teo notices the lift in his voice, and although he's already paying close attention, he makes an effort to keep his eyes up to show that he's listening.

His hands fold together in his lap, and he needlessly picks at his palm with his thumb while Cecil speaks, only to abruptly stop moments later.

Cecil chews at his fingers. Teo flattens his hands out and stares down at them for a moment before slowly looking back up. It occurs to him to say something.

"Yes," Teo agrees, flatly and with a nod; "always causing trouble. Loitering. But I have a permit for it now. They pay me for it. To loiter." A breath later, he clarifies: "Before now."

He quickly moves on, then, to raise the back of his hand and wiggle his fingers. His nails are painted. "You bite your nails. I did that too. That's why I do this,"

Teo's hand drops back to his lap.

"You said your brother's name is Del. But, I don't know yours."

> CECIL
Huh?

Why is he looking at Cecil's hands?

His previous levity is wiped away. Cecil hunches over and glares viciously up through his eyelashes. His fists are tucked against his sides, out of sight and safe from inspection.

The audacity! The sheer nerve of this man, making such unbelievable accusations-

It takes a moment for Teo's words to sink in, but when they do Cecil uncoils, just a little. Silvery scars wrap around each of Teo's large fingers, but his nails are in alright condition. He thinks the color is - nice. It's fine.

"...don't you end up eating the polish?"

He rubs his thumb against the jagged edge of his index nail and breaks eye contact.

"I'm Cecil." No last name offered.

> TEO
Cecil's brief flash of anger seems to go entirely unnoticed by Teo, who watches him with a gentle, passive patience and no indication that he knows he's just been mercifully spared a conversational death.

Teo shakes his head, looks again to his hands in his lap, then up. "No. It tastes bad, so you don't want to chew it. My—" he stops himself, lifts a hand, picks idly at a bandaged spot on his jaw with his mouth hanging open, then closes it and purses his lips. It takes him another moment before he recalibrates whatever it was he'd been planning on saying.

"It works. And you—you can pick the color. I like this because—you can't see anything under it." Teo nods, then.
"Cecil, okay," he folds his hands together loosely. "Teo."

> CECIL
“Short for Teodor?” he wonders. “From the Greek Theódoros?”

“And I think the polish tasting bad wouldn’t be enough to stop me,” he admits. More rare honesty. “Painting them would be a waste of time.”

*I could fix that*, Cecil thinks, glancing at the bandage on Teo’s face. The wound it’s hiding must be just as small, barely a shaving nick, nothing to cry about.

He won’t fix it. Knowing how to accelerate healing isn’t normal and Cecil learned early on what happened if people knew what he could do. Teo can keep his wound as a lesson on the importance of keeping a sharp razor and warming your skin before any shave.

He’s convinced himself that it was a shaving accident. It doesn’t occur to Cecil that his assumptions aren’t rooted in reality.

> TEO
"Maybe gloves?" Teo suggests, his voice trailing away in thought. What other options are there? Clearly, this is a problem he wants to solve, and for a moment he drifts away before catching himself having not answered Cecil's question.

"Just Teo," he tells him, and finally stops picking at his jawline when he realizes what he's doing. "But, I think it was almost that. Or—something like that."

Something in Teo's bag buzzes, and he partly jumps in his seat before unzipping it to check. A different phone, this time. Whatever it's a notification for briefly passes over his face like a dark cloud—visibly annoyed—but as he puts it away again, it's gone as if it were never there.

"How long have you—" No, stop, try again. "How long have you lived there? In New Portsmouth."

> CECIL
“Gloves hamper dexterity,” Cecil says in the half-hearted tone of someone who is prepared to reject any suggestion just for the sake of rejecting it.

While Teo was checking his phone, Cecil remembered his coffee existed and so he is mid-sip when another verbal bomb Is dropped in his lap.

“Wh - what?!” Cecil sputters as the coffee goes down wrong.

There’s a cold sweat prickling on his skin. In an instant he takes in Teo’s large frame, his muscle, his flat expression. Cecil’s eyes dart to the side - the windows are too small. The aisle isn’t blocked, but that could change at any moment. He looks ahead - worst case, he can still vault over the bus seat and…and…

It doesn’t matter. He’ll figure it out. Right now he has to know what Teo knows - if that’s even his name.

“How do you know where I live? Have you been watching me? Following me?” he interrogates. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve. He’s backed up against the corner of the bus seat and the wall, tense and coiled, ready to run.

“What do you want.”

> TEO
Cecil's argument against gloves is sensible. He himself does not like to wear gloves with fingers. So, Teo drops the topic as easily as if it hadn't come up—not as if he'd have had a choice, with how Cecil reacts to his question.

This sudden slew of questions is startling, even for Teo; for a moment, his brows pinch together in confusion, and he lifts a hand to idly rub the pads of his fingers behind his ear. "I—don't," he admits, and shakes his head. "But—you—"

Teo pauses. Stammers when he tries again, and stops. His eyes close, he breathes in, he rubs at his forehead—and then he shakes his head a second time. "The way you talk about it—I just thought you lived there. You said—you weren't moving. So, that's why I thought you did."

After a moment of thought, he adds: "I don't know what you mean—about what I want. I don't want anything."

> CECIL
“Everyone wants something,” he grits out. He’s not going to let this go. Teo’s innocence has disappeared in the haze of Cecil’s paranoia. “You have to want something. Why would you even be thinking about where I live? What does it matter to you?”

Eyes still on Teo, Cecil’s hand reaches out blindly towards his backpack strap.

> TEO
You have to want something. Teo leans back in his seat and looks away from Cecil, staring absently up at the ceiling of the bus. He considers this—this accusation, this moment, this question—and purses his lips.

"I don't—know what I want," he tells Cecil, earnestly and with a shrug. "I guess—maybe to talk. But I don't know if I want that. It just happened. We're talking, but I don't know if I wanted to."

His eyes wander to Cecil's hand reaching for his backpack. "I was asking because—I thought I should. But you don't have to answer. I don't have to know."

Teo catches himself, and looks back to Cecil's face, but doesn't quite make eye contact. "Not that I mind. Talking. It's nice."

> CECIL
‘Teo’ is unbelievable. Someone like this, how can he stand going through life like a leaf caught in the wind, never certain of his own desires? And how can he stomach admitting his aimlessness?

It’s this last thought which makes Cecil begin to believe that maybe, just maybe Teo isn’t trying to pull the wool over his eyes.

He thinks he pities Teo. What a strange feeling!

“You are correct, you don’t have to know. But you should know what you want. Don’t let things just happen to you.” Cecil sounds faintly disgusted and completely unaware of his own role earlier ‘making things just happen’ to Teo. He searches for Teo’s eyes and can’t catch them.

“Talking hasn’t been terrible, but I wouldn’t call it nice,” he says. His hand on his backpack hasn’t grasped the strap yet, and the tension in his body is beginning to simmer down - but it is still present, it is very much still there.

> TEO
Teo isn't wholly certain what to make of Cecil's current mood, or why he's reached for his bag only to leave it as it is. He doesn't seem to mind Cecil's disagreement, in any case—'hasn't been terrible' is fine enough. But, it would've been alright with Teo even if he'd said it wasn't nice at all.

Dropping his hand back to his lap, Teo stares down at his fingers. He picks at one of the bandages, thinking, but his thoughts feel more and more like white noise. "Yeah," he says, a moment later and without much commitment. "There's always—a lot happening."

Teo lifts his head and combs his fingers through his hair. Whatever just passed over him, he seems to have let go of it enough to try and pick things back up for the sake of it.
"It's a small place? New Portsmouth?" His stare shifts to the window.

> CECIL
“Tenacious, aren’t you,” Cecil mutters.

Teo doesn’t seem like a threat anymore - something about his dimmed affect is bringing to mind one of those large dogs with pensive, drooping eyes and world-weary sighs. Cecil doesn’t like dogs, but if he supposes if he had to choose one then this, like talking, wouldn’t be terrible.

He shifts into a normal sitting position and consciously releases the last strings of tension he’s been holding onto.

“It’s a small town compared to other places. There’s only one grocery store, if that’s a good indicator of scale, but the library is decently stocked. I’ve seen much worse.”

He nods towards Teo’s bag. “Is that seriously all you’re bringing with you?”

> TEO
One grocery store. Teo considers this with raised brows—that's smaller than St. Helens—but doesn't look away from the window until Cecil questions his belongings.

With a quick glance down to his bag, then back to Cecil, Teo shakes his head. "I have—clothes, too," he says, and taps his knuckles quietly against the wall of the bus; "in the compartment. But, that's all. I don't need anything else."

Admittedly, he'd left behind most of his things in Klamath.

It seems Teo might have more to say, but he pauses again before finding the words. Cecil hadn't liked it when he'd asked questions that might be too personal. But what isn't personal? He doesn't want to upset him again.

"The library," he decides, finally; "what do you—what do you like reading?"

> CECIL
Cecil isn’t completely socially unaware. He can tell that Teo is handling him carefully now, bringing out the kid gloves. It doesn’t make him feel good. An uneasiness, leaden in his gut when normal people treat him like he’s volatile. Like he might hurt them.

It’s this unevaluated guilt which nudges Cecil into honesty. “Mythology. Fairy tales. Old stories, old epics…those are my favorites. But I’ll read anything.”

He unzips his backpack, rummages around a bit, and then with a grunt pulls out a heavy book and offers it to Teo.

“I checked this out last week. It’s a geological survey of Washington State - dull, but useful.”

> TEO
Now, Teo's eyes find Cecil's again. He blinks, hums thoughtfully, and sits back, hands folding loosely in his lap to rub circles into his palm with his thumb.

He stops quickly, though, when the book is offered his way, and leans forward to take it into both hands, examining the cover first before carefully opening it.

"Geological surveys and—and what I do, they're similar," he tells Cecil, tapping a finger against the first page. "I survey too. Land surveys for project planning. Public works. I'm not an architect," this is worth clarifying, he thinks; "but, an engineer. You have to plan a lot. I think—underground structures are the most interesting. Sewers. Waterlines. They're intricate and they have to be built in a certain way. There's elevation to worry about. Pumps. Lift stations. What if part of the city is on a hill? But you want it to—you want gravity to do most of the work. So you build in slopes."

Stop. Make this about the book, he reminds himself. That's what it's about.
"I like this. You can learn a lot with this. It's good to know."

Hadn't Cecil said something else?

"Mythology," Teo reminds himself of this out loud. "Do you have a favorite?"

> CECIL
“Forget mythology - you’re an engineer?” Cecil sounds eager. He’s leaning forward in his seat, eyes wide and interested. “Have you ever planned something underground? No, even if you’ve only studied it, that would be…”

He cuts himself off. This is an unexpected boon. He’s been struggling by himself for months, studying, surveying, digging, failing -

Cecil, buoyed by excitement, plants himself in the seat right next to Teo. Personal space has been eradicated. He flips through the book still in Teo’s hands until he reaches a well-worn set of pages. The map depicts a section of the Hoh rainforest, and it is marked with many sticky notes filled with Cecil’s incomprehensible handwriting.

“How would you approach underground construction in this area? If you were building…a tunnel, perhaps. Nothing elaborate.”

> TEO
Cecil's sudden enthusiasm—and subsequent changing of seats—for his profession takes Teo by surprise, and he is, at first, at a loss for how to answer. He blinks, mouth slightly agape, then nods and turns his attention down to the book in his lap as he's directed to the page Cecil has tagged with notes.

Without question, he studies them, flicking between each and mentally piecing them together. Where it might make more sense for him to ask why Cecil is interested in building a "tunnel, perhaps" in the middle of the rainforest, this little detail floats away from Teo in the interest of being asked for his opinion on a topic he finds too compelling not to answer—clearly, by how it bleeds into his tone in outward contemplation and as casually as if they were discussing what to have for lunch.

"This is—this is the right place to start," he tells Cecil first, tapping his finger against the page. "Normally you would have heavy machinery—a tunnel boring drill—those dig, then fill the walls with concrete. But, if you're doing it alone,"

Teo chews his lip. His brows knit together.

"When—when they built the Wapping-Rotherhithe tunnel, in London? They—that's built under a river, through clay. This was in the 1800s. They used—a shield to protect them. We still use those. They're different now. But—it's..." He makes a vague stacked shape with his hands, then drops them back to the book. "You would want something like that. Smaller if it's just you. To protect you from collapse. You could—you could make one. Theoretically. The earth here—it's probably soft—low elevation—close to water level—something to keep in mind. There are other questions—how deep is the tunnel going to go? How far? Where do you want it to end? Are there any caves? Underground streams?"

Abruptly, Teo shakes his head. "I would dig down first," he says. "Then out, if I were alone. Build a slurry wall with cement or some other kind of support as I go. But it depends on those questions. It would be slow."

> CECIL
Cecil hums in understanding as Teo explains his thoughts.

“A shield…I haven’t been using one, but it would solve the issue of falling debris, certainly,” he muses. It seems they’re past pretending like Cecil doesn’t live in New Portsmouth. Or digging tunnels in the forest there, for that matter.

He catches Teo’s eyes. Cecil is intent, focused, unblinking. It makes the strangeness of his eyes and the darkness of the bags underneath even more prominent.

“You’re clever. It seems as if you are quite experienced, too. Come see what I’ve built - I want your opinion on the structure itself, and then I will answer the other questions,” he says smoothly - but there is an undercurrent in his voice, a tremulous mania.

To say he is excited would be an understatement. This chance meeting with Teo is the best hope Cecil has found since he began his search. The past few months had felt hopeless and draining, but now…

He’ll find Del. He’ll find him and bring him home, where he’ll be safe. Where he belongs.

> TEO
Clever. Teo's eyes shoot away from Cecil's to once again stare down at the book in his lap. He doesn't know what to make of this. As much as he can tell that something is different about the way Cecil is speaking to him now, he can't quite pinpoint what emotion it is, or how he must be feeling. He just knows that it isn't negative...

Regardless, he's been asked for his opinion—and he can't refuse. He doesn't want to, moreover, even if he knows no one person should be building a tunnel without permits out in the woods. It would be more responsible for him to say something about that. This is, after all, his career, and he's well aware of how dangerous a project like this is.

But, he doesn't. He doesn't want to.

"Okay," Teo agrees with a nod, glancing back up from the book. "Sure. I can help more if I see it. With the shield, too."

Teo pauses, considers something, and then reaches into the pack on his chest, pulling out a little notepad and a pen. He writes down a number and an address, tears out the little paper, and offers it to Cecil.

"Here—here, you can have this. That's where I'll be. Um, and that's—that's my normal line, there. How long have you been building it?"

> CECIL
When Teo agrees, Cecil can’t help but bounce once in his seat from the rush of energy that fills him. It takes all of his self-control to keep his ears from moving under his beanie.

This is good. This is good! He has Teo as a resource now, they can fix the tunnels he’s built and expand the operation and look in the dangerous spots he’s been forced to stay away from until now - now he can dig them up and keep digging and keep digging - he’ll turn over the entire forest, he’ll -

There’s a paper in his hand. Cecil skims it before stuffing it in his backpack’s side pocket. “I don’t have a cellular phone, but I’ll stop by. When can I expect you home?”

He turns Teo’s question around his mind. How long *has* it been? The start of it all is tender as a fresh burn in his memory, as if it happened just yesterday, but when had he begun the excavations? He brings his hand to his mouth and bites the side of his index finger, teeth planted right on top of an older indentation.

“It - it must have been a few months by now. I’d have to check my records for the exact date,” he says, voice muffled and uncertain.

> TEO
Cecil's bouncing in his seat. Is that good? Is he happy? Teo watches him, brows knit together in concentration, and wonders about this development—but he doesn't have much time to question it before Cecil informs him he doesn't have a cellphone.

His mouth opens, but he catches himself before he can say what he'd thought to ask: you don't?
Something in his gut tells him not to press, so he discards the thought and listlessly scratches at his jawline, moving on. "I don't know yet," he admits, then shakes his head. "But, I don't—"

Teo hesitates. He drags his lower lip under his teeth and finds a route around what he'd almost just said without thinking. "My job—it's flexible. When do you work on it? And," he pauses, and looks down, carefully closing the book.

"Maybe—" his stuttering is a little worse, now, and he's forced to stop for a third time. He breathes in, then releases it slowly. "Maybe I should have asked how far you've gotten with digging, instead."

> CECIL
“I’m always working on it. The excavation is my foremost priority.” Cecil’s voice is dead serious. “So, you tell me when *you’re* free.”

Cecil notices the difficulty Teo’s having getting his speech out. He doesn’t think it’s related to him this time, but he makes sure to soften his tone when he talks again, like he’s speaking to a spooked horse.

“I’ve made some good progress, but not as much as I planned for by now...Here, it’ll be easier if I draw it out for you.”

Without a single ‘excuse me’ or ‘may I’, Cecil grabs the notebook and pen out of Teo’s hands and changes position so he’s sitting cross-legged facing him. He balances the notebook on one knee and roughly sketches the book’s map onto the page before drawing a frightening tangle of lines on top of it.

He taps the nightmare with the pen tip. “This is the current tunnel system I’ve built. It isn’t nearly good enough…”

> TEO
Teo concentrates, but it's impossible for him to settle on a proper schedule to give Cecil. He shakes his head, opens his mouth, closes it again; then, decides: "I can be there before nine and after six,"

That's reasonable, isn't it?

He doesn't question at all how or why it is that Cecil would dedicate all of his time to 'the excavation'. He wouldn't have had time to anyway, with how his notebook and pen are suddenly confiscated and put to use.

This invasion of space doesn't seem to bother him, regardless. He folds his hands patiently in his lap and mirrors Cecil, shifting in his seat to better face him. He can't quite cross his legs the same way; he's too large.

"You— you've built all of this?" Teo leans forward to get a better look, making his best effort to imagine what such a web might look like in reality. "That looks— complicated. How have you been building it? What have you been using until now? You're doing it alone?"

> CECIL
Cecil blinks as Teo bombards him with questions. “W - well. I’ve been building it alone, of course, it’d be much further along if I’d had assistance other than—”

He cuts himself off. Teo doesn’t need to know he’s been using flesh constructs for some of the digging and hauling. Regardless, they’re rudimentary things which are barely more help than if he’d been working solo and they cause him endless frustration when their hacked-together neurons misinterpret his orders. Frequently.

“—other than myself,” he continues as if he’d never stopped. “I use what you’d expect, shovels and concrete and I’ve been reinforcing the walls with lumber, but I’m not sure that’s the best possible method given how often they fail. Oh, and there’s the flooding, of course. The tunnels keep *flooding* after it rains, and since this is the Pacific Northwest it’s *always* raining.”

> TEO
Lifting a hand, Teo worries his lower lip with his thumb as he thinks. Cecil's pause isn't cause for suspicion; he'd barely noticed it, with how occupied he was conceptualizing these tunnels and already planning out possible ways forward.

"Shovels, concrete, lumber," Teo repeats, and his hand drops from his mouth. Briefly, he makes eye contact, only to look away again seconds later. "You want to— you want to create a diversion, for the water. Swales. Or a well. Once you get far down enough, the rain won't matter, but you might hit water underground. You could build— you could build swales to each side while you dig."

Teo's hands fold together. He pops his fingers one by one. "The— the walls; I can tell you more when I see what you've done."

> CECIL
“Yes. We’ll go into the forest, just you and I, and I’ll show you the actual tunnels,” Cecil says, unaware that he sounds like he’s trying to lure someone into the wilderness for nefarious purposes. Not that he would care as long as Teo still came along.

“And then we can fix them. And expand! And—” he stops, grinning wide. “Don’t wait for a call. I won’t call. I’ll stop by your place in the morning. There’s so much work to be done!”

No word of compensation, no questions of how much time Teo is willing to devote to this project. Cecil’s tunnel vision is in full effect!