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Nano does not want to know what Lalna is doing. This is true most of the time. He does weird things in his fucked up little workshops while she does something hopefully less fucked up in the nicely decorated huts that she makes for herself. If she hears screaming or an explosion, she goes running, but other than that she leaves him to his own devices.
He’s quite happy to explain to her what he’s doing, of course. If there’s one thing that Lalna likes, it’s the sound of his own voice, rattling on about science. She doesn’t really mind - she likes to learn and sometimes he comes out with some very interesting little nuggets of information. Like how their electrical grid works.
She was listening when he was talking about it, mostly. It was all very technical and very sciency. Lots of wires and amperage and whatever. All she really picked up is that if the power stops working in one of her huts, a bird probably knocked a wire loose on the side of the building. Nano pointed out that if their entire power supply hinged on birds not fucking with the wires, it wasn’t a very good supply. Lalna told her to shut up.
After he taught her how to fix the wires, she stopped listening to him talk about it entirely. All the upgrades he did, the improvements to generators and anchor points and such, didn’t matter. She knew how to put the wires back, and the power stayed on.
Nano is cooking in the noodle bar while Lalna does whatever it is he’s doing. She’s making enough food for the both of them, because he won’t have eaten since she last fed him. It’s like having a very big, very excitable toddler. He’s lucky he’s fun to have around, or she would have palmed him off on Xephos again and gone off galvanting with Lomadia. Although, they’d also have to find someone to palm Nilesy off on, and no one has seen Rythian and Zoey in a while.
It’s not late, but it is getting dark, so she has all the lights on. Lalna had strung a load of little glass lights together and put them up around her noodle bar. He called them fairy lights, but she’s never heard that term before. There’s a lot she hasn’t heard of. She never did get over that memory loss.
She’s stirring a pot of broth, humming to herself as she remembers the next step in this recipe, when she’s plunged into darkness. Uh oh. Damn birds, getting at the wires. The power cut has also turned off her stove. For fucks sake. She needs to fix this fast, before it ruins their dinner.
With a torch in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, she heads outside. The anchor point for the noodle bar is at the front of the building, closest to the rest of the compound. She finds it easily, and then finds that the wire is intact.
Huh. Maybe it got detached at the other end.
She trudges towards the next building, following the wire until she has the anchor point. That’s also intact. Confused, she follows the wires all the way back to the generator room, finding no faults. Everything is together, it should be working.
Except the generator room is silent, and the lights are off through the whole compound. Nothing is working.
“Lal!” Nano shouts. “I think the powers out!”
“I know!” He shouts back from the computer room. “My fault, I overloaded the system.”
“Can you fix it?” She asks, following the sound of his voice.
“Uh, yeah?” Lalna comes into view, sitting on the floor of the computer room. “I just left my screwdriver in the computer and, well, I can’t access it without power. But I can’t fix the power without my screwdriver.”
“Here.” Nano hands him her screwdriver that he gave to her when they first met. At the time, she had no idea what she’d use it for, but it’s become quite useful. “How did you overload it, you daft sod?”
“It shouldn’t have been overloaded.” He insists, in that well it can’t be my fault way he always does. “I’m not entirely sure what happened. I was testing a new machine - I’ve unplugged it now so once I kickstart the gennies it should work.”
Lalna and Nano go to the generators together, her giving him the light from her torch so he can work. She stares off into space while he does. He’s talking, but she isn’t really listening.
“What’s wrong?” He asks. “Sorry I put the power out, I didn’t mean it.”
“I know.” She sighs. “I was making dinner, I just keep thinking about how it’s gonna be ruined.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Lalna digs around in his bag and pulls out an apple. “Hey, eat this. It’ll keep you going until I get this working and I can make you dinner.”
“You want to cook for me?” Nano inspects the apple and, finding it not moldy or full of worms, takes a bite. It’s sweet and crisp - he must have picked it today.
“I can cook.” He sounds almost offended at the implication that he can’t.
“I know you can.” Nano has eaten some fantastic meals made by Lalna. She’ll never admit that some of them were better than anything she could make herself. “You don’t usually offer.”
“I know, but I feel bad for breaking everything again.” Lalna sticks his tongue out as he screws something on the inside of the generator.
Nano puts her hand on his shoulder. “Oh, Lal, I know you didn’t do it on purpose. You’re just a stupid reckless dumbass.”
He laughs. “My mum used to tell me that girls were mean to me because they liked me.”
She scoffs. “Your mum used to tell you you were allergic to sugar so you wouldn’t eat it.”
“I was told many lies as a child.” He flicks a switch on the generator and frowns. “Why isn’t this working?”
“Maybe you killed it forever.”
“Why did I have to make such a shitty unstable power supply?” He mutters. “I suck so bad.”
“I heard your mum say that too.” Nano giggles. “Way-oh!”
“Stop saying things about my mother!”
“Stop breaking all our stuff!” She pokes him in the side. “Do you think you’re gonna get this fixed tonight?”
“Um… no, I think I need to look at it properly.” He sighs. “Sorry. I guess we’ll be eating just apples for dinner.”
“That’s okay. They’re good apples.” Nano takes another bite of hers. “You can make me dinner tomorrow night.”
“I promise.” Lalna says. If there’s one thing he won’t do, it’s purposely break a promise to his best friend.