Work Text:
It is pretty set in stone as to who sits where when the Clean Crew is Driving in their van:
Ranger drives, Lobber calls shotgun and nobody can risk arguing with them so the other two stay in the back. Even with Buddy also being there, there is a lot more space to move and they mostly prefer it despite not having anywhere to sit. They are both restless for sure, and if they could plug buddy in they could probably keep themselves occupied by putting something on, but as long as they can't they have to do it all by their lonesome.
Always the first to speak of the two, Zoomer speaks to him from across the mostly empty box with all her usual bubbliness "Hey blastie, after this could I-?"
"no. and don't call me that." She almost falls over as she blurts out with high-pitched screeching frustration "Y-you didn't even let me finish!"
"i didn't need to! you wanted to do... something with my outfit. maybe patch up my pants or fix the collar on my hoodie. i dunno, but after you wanting to "Take a closer look" at Lobbie's handbag, i don't want you anywhere near me or these threads i got."
There is a frustrated pointing with her gun-arm in the direction of where they are most definitely sitting "You KNOW that was just them being-!"
Before she eventually groans and decides that this is a losing battle. Moving away from that end of the van so they don't bother the others as she pursues another one. "What should I call you, then?"
He still doesn't move much from the wall he is sat against, his head tilting up slightly as he answers and later offers "i'd like my name? if you can't bear to do that then, shoot, lets see what works."
Well, this at least doesn't seem actively confrontational. So, they begin to rapid fire ways that Zoomer can refer to Blaster that don't make him cringe:
"Sir?"
"wayyy too formal."
"Dude?"
"doesn't sound like you." She even dropped into something of a lower cadence just to say it, so she can't deny it.
"Man?"
"debatable."
"Yeah. That is a bit ambiguous in the... Ugh! Why is this the one thing you're picky about?"
He waves his hand and puts his gaze back on the ground as he brushes it off "it's cool. we can workshop it... another time. for now let's just rest our processing units instead of wasting them on nicknames."
While they do for a time, she still hates the silence. Lobber broke the radio in the van at some point so they haven't been able to listen to anything on the drive for a bit.
She gets an idea for something that she is sure he'll get a kick out of. Approaching him and holding up the tracker for it's ammo. "So, I got an ammo preserver cartridge from you-know-who... I think it'd be best to show you, because it is very unfortunate."
He sluggishly turns his head to glance at the pressure cannon, but immediately turns away as he bursts into obnoxious - if expected - laughter.
Ugh, boys. "It's just a number, Blaster. It's not that funny."
"ahh, maybe, but it is foul. someone is definitely gonna get in trouble for that!"
She gives one of the barrels of his cannon a flick as she tries to keep a conversation going. "Your pressure cannon is a bit weird too, right?"
His voice goes semi-serious again as he shakes his head slightly and pulls it back. "i don't follow."
"W-well, it's also the ammo. Ours are in the hundreds while yours can be filled with almost any bottle of Cosmox. I guess I'm... kinda jealoouus?"
He puts on a gruff voice and gives her a playful shove. "flattery will get you nowhere, wench."
Before admitting; "it's a nice niche, purely using the capsules i find lying around or buy and leaving the big pay-outs from emptying litter to y'all."
"Oh! Speaking of niches and litter!" She sits down next to him and picks up the vacuum that he had by his side.
His already lidded pupil shrinks further so as to say 'don't touch my stuff', but he just crosses his arms and watches to see if she does something stupid with it. As awkward as the action is with the big'oll box on the end of one of them.
"You're the only one who uses a machine instead of doing it all individually by hand, that and you cleaning stains in so few shots makes you honestly one of the best cleaners out of all of us."
He grumbles "that's very subjective, and what did i say about flattery?! you trying to say anything else besides me being so cool and awesome and... such?"
Fine, if he wants something substantive... "Do you hate fighting?"
He is taken aback for a hot second and answers incredulously "uh, yeah. you're saying you don't? you're saying they don't?"
"I'm saying we use things that can be used as weapons when things get messy. All yours does is pull them even closer. I think I can count on one hand how often you've been able to take any entities out with it and it might be the one without fingers."
He starts to stand up, propping himself up against the wall as he strikes back with some aggression and emotion she's never really heard from him. "That's easy for you to say with that massive feather Duster you use! It's not like those two using them as weapons isn't suicide anyway! God forbid I not be some Sporeling-drowning psycho like you!"
Zoomer raises her hands up and drops the vacuum on it's side, setting it off and only making the room that bit more suffocating as she backpedals and tries to explain in a shout over the noise "Wait, no, it's not a bad thing-!"
He kicks it to the side and continues with this deeply intimidating and... real voice as he approaches her "No, of course not! You were going to say it's okay for me to not like it. That you support me! But you don't know me! You don't know what I do when I'm off the clock! Clearly, else you wouldn't say something so stupid!"
Zoomer reaches the wall and feels her feet bump against her feather duster. The things he is saying aren't exactly wrong, but the way he is acting is so different and out of turn that she can't make out any rational intent from him and feels compelled to crouch down to reach for it...
Before a yell from the front of the van stops both of them in their tracks. First a somewhat cranky one that probably only yells to be heard over all the noise; "You two! Cut that out right about now or I'll turn this van around!" Then one that is at least the same intensity as usual. "QUIETEN YOUR INFERNAL INSTRUMENT."
Blaster looks down at himself bashfully and responds with a more familiar tone "sorry, just be a sec." as he crouches down to turn the vacuum off and collapses next to it as he does so.
Yet again, there is some silence that Zoomer fights to prevent, but she can barely start to apologise before Blaster asks her as he turns himself over to lie on his back "why can't you just keep your mouth shut? seriously, i thought he was exaggerating when he said you were incapable of keeping it in."
She just sits where she was stood and concedes "I... just want someone to talk to. I hate it when it's so quiet. It feels like something's wrong."
He springs up and blurts out "but you don't have to-"
Before he stops himself when he similarly realises its an uphill battle. He skootches back to sit against the doors of the van and reaches into one of the pockets of his hoodie, pulling out a device that Zoomer hasn't paid much mind to in the past.
A blue-and-white box with a window inside that reveals it is holding a black rectangular box similar but smaller to the ones they also salvage. As he pulls out a second device - a mostly white and oddly shaped podium with strangely indented fabric covering most of its surface - and plonks it on top of the now flat (if lacking in surface area) side of his vacuum, he gestures at her to sit on the other side of it as he plugs them into each other and fiddles around with some knobs and buttons on either device.
She eventually does, and to even her own surprise it is in relative silence despite her curiosity about what he is doing. It might just be the still present tension in the air after them both saying and almost doing things they regret. All she does is watch as he presses a button on the side of the small rectangular box that causes two circular points in the box inside to rotate and a sound to escape the other shape. Starting quiet, but with some alteration it reaches their auditory sensors and allows them both to properly process it. If such a thing is possible.
It is like nothing she has heard before. Inarguably music, like what plays in elevators, the traveling man's shop and even in little jingles that Buddy likes to play, but that is the most she can confidently call it. Maybe it's the device it is being played through, or the way it was made, but it sounds... twangy? She doesn't have any vocabulary to properly convey it, but if the way that the room's atmosphere changes with it and how both of them relax upon hearing it is anything to go by, she doesn't need to say anything about it. Just feel it.
As it washes over her in waves, she relaxes to one side and lays her head sideways against the small impromptu desk. Eventually she feels Blaster's head do the same and meet with hers in an imperceptible contact that carries so much warmth and comfort despite it just being the sides of their heads touching.
They both stay there for as long as the music plays and the van is moving.
If the jolt from it stopping doesn't wake them up, then the doors opening and them falling out surely will. Maybe then they'll talk, or maybe they'll just laugh it off and carry on. While she hates to leave things unresolved, she does have another idea for a nickname to give him, she knows it doesn't matter as much as the rarity of a moment like this.