Orion's smile is tight as he glances at Mason. "Hey. I think we are, yeah."

A glance is spared to the Absol flanking him at we, Altair leaning his weight against Orion's hip in order to offer silent support. The Absol's intelligent red eyes sweep over the other two in the room without hostility.

"His name's Altair."

Orion sits down in the chair, adjusting his weight until he's comfortable. Altair pads to his right side, allowing Mason or Nikita to approach, and sits down with a soft huff. The surgery to graft the socket onto his left shoulder had gone well, with Orion religiously following all of the discharge orders given. It's... weird. But not bad.

"So how does this work?"

Orion exhales, shaky. "Okay."

He'd done this before, in the previous fittings, but the sensation is no less strange than the first time. It's a bit of a struggle to find the right angle and pressure with his remaining arm and his cheeks turn red with the anxiety of eyes on him during such a personal and intimate experience. Eventually he manages, the jolt of nerves connecting making his heart jump in tandem.

It's OK. You're OK.

He can't quite figure how to flex his fingers, but the elbow bends stiffly under his desire. It's not the same. It's not enough. Panic threatens, but he reminds himself of what his therapist had told him. You don't start hiking by climbing a mountain. He'll get used to it. Maybe the Rotom will help. That he can feel when he shifts his weight to look at the chipper Ghost-type and his arm bumps against his thigh is a sensation that makes heat burn behind his eyes. He'd resigned once to never feel it again.

He finds himself looking to @nikita in this moment of intense vulnerability, perhaps searching for someone who understands. Her serious expression lies in stark contrast to Mason's cheerful demeanour but that's comforting in its own right. She knows what a big deal with is.

"I'm ready."

She understands.

He can hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes. Whether or not she'd since adjusted to the jarring sensation of taking a piece of one's life back was irrelevant. What mattered was that at one point in time, she'd been just like him, maybe just as scared and just as vulnerable.

Muscles tense involuntarily as the Rotom approaches, nerves that weren't used to their new attachment firing up and causing metal fingers to twitch in want to curl. And then, as the Rotom settles into the prosthetic, those fingers do curl, and Orion feels the sensation of knuckles pressed against his palm, the bend of his elbow as he jerks his arm in shock, the brush of fabric against what wasn't skin but almost felt like the real thing. When he closes his eyes he can nearly pretend that he's whole again.

The warm sensation of tears sliding down his cheek isn't new, but for once he forgets to feel ashamed of it.

His movements with the arm are sharper than can be considered natural, but he moves. Altair makes a soft rumbling sound in his throat, somewhere between a whine and a cat's purr, before getting up to nudge Orion's metallic hand with his muzzle. Fingers uncurl, adjust, and with certain rigidity stroke through the Pokémon's white fur.

"This is what I want." The strange sensation of the Rotom's conscience interfacing with his own doesn't bother him in the least. His voice is choked with emotion. "I'm sure."

Thanks.

He doesn't trust himself to say it with his throat closed around emotion, but the gratitude is in Orion's gaze as he silently accepts the tissue box and dabs at the tears collecting in his lashes.

There's an immediate sense of loss and sorrow when the Rotom disconnections, his heart dropping into the pit of his stomach with the vacuous void left behind, but his attention is drawn to Mason when the engineer proclaims positive result. That's good he tells himself, even as the fingers of his right hand tremble. That's good.

Tears flow more steadily, now, fighting Orion's attempts to stem them.

"Yeah," he affirms shakily, "They, ah, they did. I did."

Trembling fingers ghost over the cool metal of the titanium arm, the vague sensation of touch and warmth nothing compared to how it had felt in those brief moments he'd shared with Nikita's Rotom.