That's what I'm Counting On

Thorne shrugged. "Well, at least you didn't yeet your foot off a balcony this time."

"I didn't what?" Cinder gave him a puzzled look. On her return to Luna to gather a few of her belongings, she had just finished telling him about how Kai had proposed to her by the creek at Benoit farms. Turns out, he already knew about the whole ordeal. Kai had been naive enough trust him with a secret, and Thorne managed not to spill.

"You didn't yeet your foot off of the balcony and into the lake like you did last time. You know he would have married you then if you didn't take it as a joke." He began to fiddle with a few tools scattered on the floor around them, like a parakeet with the empty shell of a seed.

Cinder snatched the tools away from him in hopes of avoiding yet another catastrophe. "Yes, he told me so multiple times," she hesitated for a moment, pondering whether or not she actually wanted her next question to be answered, "but what in the stars does 'yeet' mean?"Cinder placed down her tools, ignoring the still sparking speaker system that Thorne had accidentally broken during an incident of trying to put out a candle with a tissue. The two to them had thought Cress had just used a holographic candle for decorative purposes, so the lack of common sense didn't worry the two of them until the thin material was caressed in flames. She had quite enjoyed the music that had been previously playing, and would have liked to hear more of it, yet the thought of lighting a candle on a ship still struck her as a more lethal action than the more recent incident.

"Yeet is a common early second era phrase that is said when you throw something, preferably with great strength at its release, but that part is optional." Thorne seized the polished screwdriver that sat beside her, "As I am a man of culture, allow me to demonstrate."

Attempting to retrieve the potentially life threatening instrument currently in Thorne's grasp, Cinder flung her hand at his. Failing to take hold of the tool, she collided with the edge of a table instead. "Thorne, no! Don't throw tha—"

"Yeet!" Thorne chucked the screwdriver at the metal wall of the Rampion, which successfully pierced through the plating, and lodged itself next to the light switch at a graceless angle.

Cinder blinked, smothering her panic as she double checked Rampion blueprints with her retina scanner, assuring herself that it was only an interior which was away from any important pipes or wires. "At least it wasn't an exterior wall. If we both died, I wouldn't have someone to let me down one last time."

Thorne ignored her remark and made a sound of distress as he placed his hands on his head. "What have I done! My Rampion! My baby!" He turned to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, as she jerked away from him. "Cinder, you have to help me fix this!"

She felt no pity towards him, and ignored his desperate plea. If he didn't want to puncture the steel, he should have just thrown a wrench. "I am neither an avionics technician or a welder," she paused to think for a fraction of a moment, estimating her own skill. "but I bet I could easily be either of those if I tried."

"So you can fix it?" He grinned.

"I don't have the tools for that." She sighed, imagining how much time it would take for her to find what she would need. "You should just call someone else to do it once you're in a location you don't hate, or just cover it with a photo or something."

Groaning, he flopped into the floor, allowing himself to go limp. The distress of a simple hole was just too much for him to bare. Cinder found it more agitating than amusing.

Cress entered the common quarters from the corridor, holding a portscreen and stylus that she eventually dropped. "Captain, did yo— Oh! Oh no, why are—" Cress turned towards Cinder, "Is that a screwdriver in the wall?"

"Thorne yeeted it into the wall. The results of his actions seem to have been an upsetting experience for him." She informed her, standing up to push Thorne's arm out of her path with her foot so she could retrieve her screwdriver.

Cress facepalmed and dragged her hands down her face, "I knew I should never have taught him that word." She sighed, "At least it wasn't an exterior wall."

"That's what I said!" Cinder proclaimed, yanking the tool from the metal. It was a lot deeper than she had originally thought.

Thorne shifted positions and began to laugh. "If it was an exterior wall, you could say that we could be in a hole lot of trouble."

Cress giggled, and Cinder lightly kicked his arm again, rolling her eyes as a failed attempt at holding back a smile.

Cress stopped laughing as her eyes darted to the speaker in front of Cinder. "The speaker is broken as well?"

           Cinder bit the inside of her cheek, "Yeah, well— so um, we thought the candle was fake and we put a tissue over it and it caught on fire a little bit, so we sort of panicked."

          "And the speaker caught on fire?" Cress asked.

          "No, it sort of got trampled by Carswell's frantic sprint around the room before the tissue turned to ashes."

"We should have named it Cinder." Thorne chided.

Cinder shot him a glare, "Anyway, I blew it out without destroying anything else. You might want to call someone else about the hole, or just cover it up with something. It's not really a problem for the ship—excluding its aesthetics." Or at least whatever aesthetics it had. It didn't seem to stand out to much, and Cinder was surprised that this was the first time someone had managed to puncture the metal.

Cress smiled, "Thank you, Cinder. He has joked about making you our on-call mechanic, but that's pretty much how he acts already."

          She laughed awkwardly, "Yeah, but maybe put out all the candles before taking off next time."