Friendship And Hardship

[Chapter 6] - Arising Problems

"Bitch wake up!" Parker shook Barnacles by the shoulders, kneeling on his chest.
"Dear god, what's wrong now?" he stammered, shoving her off.
"I had an idea."
Barnacles squinted his eyes a bit, trying to adapt again to the light. "Parker it's almost 3 AM. Go to bed," he muttered, turning away from her and pulling the pillow over his face.
"No I can't. Too much going on."
"Just shut your eyes, and-"
"Shut up hold on," she muttered, holding her hand over his mouth. "Something isn't right."

"It smells like fish."

"Parker. We are in the ocean. It's going to smell like fish. Go to bed," he spat.
"No, it's not like that, it's bad. If a circuit overheating develops a fault, then it smells like fish. It's bad, believe me."
"One, that was random. Two, we're in the ocean."
"If we all end up dead tomorrow, I called it," she stated, chuckling and turning away from him.

...

"All right, where do you think this fault is?" Barnacles asked, standing in the middle of the hallway.
"I don't know, the whole hallway smells like fish. The smell can carry through vents but it isn't usually this bad."
"Hmm, yeah. I'd be the one to investigate, but I have the feeling this isn't as big an issue as you're making it to be," he stated.
"Better to be safe than dead," Parker shot back.
"Right. You're right."

He never felt like this.

It wasn't a good feeling whatsoever.

Maybe he was scared. Terrified? Not of what could've happened, but what Parker would do to get it fixed. Sometimes he feared what she'd do for small things.
"Parker, you don't need to do this right now," Barnacles muttered, following right behind her.
"Better to be safe than dead, Barnacles. Let me go to my extremes," she stated.

"No." He grabbed her by her left shoulder, hard grasp on it. But before he could get another word out, she grabbed onto his wrist with her right hand, holding it so tight he thought she'd break it.

But when Parker realized he had no physical reaction to that, she let go. "Fine. You go back, I'll fix this myself."
"Parker," he snapped. "Don't you take another step."

As much as she wanted to, gods forbid what could happen.

But she didn't care.

"I'll take another step, thank you very much."
"Parker!"

As she approached the HQ, she had to push her shirt over her nose and mouth or the smell would get to her. "Coming from the HQ. Knew it. Most likely melted plastic from the wires?"

From someone who didn't have much experience with technology, it seemed as if Parker knew what to do in these situations.

"So if we... I'm not moving anything from plugs, there's probably a lot of heat and friction," she explained from under the control panel, "and the melting of the plastic is causing the smell. Told ya so."
"From someone who spent their last years on an island away from anyone of contact, you know a lot about fixing faulty wires." Barnacles stated.
"I'll take that as a compliment? I've worked with tech before, darling. I know what I'm doing," Parker responded.
"Please for the love of god don't call me that." He internally cringed.
"Hm?"
"You know exactly what you said."

"Don't try and make me feel inferior to you. It won't work," she replied. Directly after picking herself off the floor, she shot him a glance. "Trust me on that too, will ya?"

Parker began brushing the dust off her shirt, and it ended almost as fast as it had started. Her legs were already all tangled up, and standing up put her completely off balance, which caused her to trip on her own feet and fall face first onto the control panel.