Artificial Willpower

Light

Thank you sleepy.moth! Not only for the art this time. Thank you for helping me stay motivated when I'm feeling off and being there for me when I'm not feeling all that confident. I love you man!

Yancy was tense, to say the least. This drive felt much less terrifying than the last, at least. Or maybe it was just a different kind of terrifying. Before, it was the fear of something being right on their tails. Like rabbits on the run from a fox.

Now it was a still sort of fear. Like waiting for a guillotine blade to drop. He did his best to trust Illinois, and it did help a little but not enough to smother the feeling of dread that lived in his gut.

It was light out, so once again Yancy was laying across the seats in the back to not risk being seen. Despite Illinois not being able to clearly see him as he drove, the mechanic seemed to sense Yancy's anxieties.

"Did you have a favorite hobby, growing up?" Illinois asked.

The completely unrelated question caught Yancy a little off guard, but he thought back to find an answer for Illinois regardless.

"Y'know this is kinda embarrassing... but I really liked to crochet."

"Really?" Illinois asked "I didn't expect that, but I think that's super cool. What kinda things did you crochet?"

"At first it was just... little squares that I sometimes patched together to make some sort of pillow or something. When my friends found out they were really cool about it and started asking for things like plushes and stuff. I was just so happy that they didn't think I was weird for it and I made them all, happily. Of course... that was before the gang. Once I joined I was way more secretive about it but... I found that making little animals was way more fun than squares, so I never stopped. But I normally got rid of a project as soon as I finished it. I even did that in prison, it was just way slower and way more secretive cause the yarn and needle were contraband" Yancy said before laughing softly

"There's a half finished penguin under my mattress in that cell. I wonder if the guards found it yet"

"Well now I gotta ask for a plush," Illinois said, with a small laugh. It wasn't a mocking laugh though. On the contrary, Illinois seemed genuinely interested. That was no surprise. Of course, Illinois would be genuinely interested. But that never made it any less meaningful to Yancy.

"Eh, I'm not sure if I could anymore. It takes a lot of precision and y'know, I don't got my dominant hand now"

"I dunno Yancy. Now you have a super strong weapon hand. Maybe you could become double as good. We should switch out one of the tools in your fingers for a crochet hook" Illinois said, his tone light and teasing. Yancy couldn't help but laugh.

"That sounds like a great idea. Really stick it to Pitch. He tried to make a weapon and we could just turn it into the best, most expensive crochet aid known to man"

"Exactly! Now you're getting it. You could just intimidate them with your mad crochet skills" Illinois said through his own chuckles.

Yancy now understood the only reason Illinois had asked such a random question was to distract him from his anxieties, but it had worked and Yancy was so thankful for how Illinois always seemed to know what to do or say. The dread resting in his chest seemed to die down like a candle you put a lid on. The rest of the drive was far more bearable as the two continued to chat in a lighthearted flow that made it easy to forget their circumstances.

-

Kathrine had clocked out the second she was able to, which was only an hour after the four were taken in. She had no intentions of sticking around longer than necessary.