oculusriffs | ic contact for reverienet

Entry tags:

game: reverie

ic contact for reverienet

TG: this is going to be fucking stupid isnt it

[want to get in touch with Dave? you can leave a TEXT, VOICE, or VIDEO message — or alternatively, he shouldn't be too hard to track down in person. it's a hunk of junk space house. in space. he's around here somewhere.]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Maybe you should? Give the bung a car wash

God this is like encroaching the space of grossness even I can't deal with.

[Embrace the bung.]

Guessin' you're talkin' about the ghost of Christmas past at this point huh

Nah, you're the only shady guy I know on the station

Wait

Shades-guy

Why what's up

[THIS IS SO GROSS WHY ARE THEY SUCH GROSS TEEN BOYS.]

nothing i dont think
just found something that belonged to my bro
wanted to make sure

[he could leave it at that. but leaving it ambiguous sort of implies that he would actually want to bump into his guardian, three years removed from his influence, having finally realized just how wholly unloved he was the first 13 years of his life.]

[he isn't really sure whether to put a warning here, or to just say something else in a way so Ryuji might still understand. he does remember the ramblings — or at least, he's pretty sure he remembers the direction they were heading, before the subject was abruptly changed.]

wouldnt worry about it anyway
its more likely just ghosts pulling their usual shit
probably think theyre fuckin hilarious

[it's not a thought process he shares willy-nilly, either. and it means there's a degree of trust that he has in Hajime, aside from the fact that he straight up knows about the time travel thing already.]

i can do both those things yeah
but i already told you its fine dude
dont worry about it
or im gonna have to start charging a tax every time you thank me

right, right. i guess there's extra tax if i apologize for it, too, right?

seriously, though... how did you learn you can do that? and... if you make a choice and you find out it's the wrong one, can you just go back and fix it?

[Sometimes you just have to make sure your friends are on top of cleaning their asses.]

There's a ton of people on this station, if someone you were related to showed up wouldn't he like... wanna find you? I dunno, I'd ask around just to make sure.

[Just as he hits send on that last text he gets to thinking that it might not be an actually wanted reunion? Is he getting better at reading Dave?]

The ghosts are probably just drumming up old shit from our pasts to get a rise out of us or make us more vulnerable enough to feed off our negative energy or something

I dunno

Either that or they're really effin' socially inept and think they're helpin' us if that's what they kinda think is helping anyway

Callin' bullshit on that one though

What'd you get?

right its double if you apologize

its a really long and quite frankly really fuckin stupid story
i dont mind telling you if youre really curious
just might be better told in person

[there are a couple of reasons why he suggests that. one of them is just out of a desire for privacy from whoever might be digging through unencrypted messages. another reason is because he'd like to see Hajime's reactions in person.]

thats the general idea behind it yeah
but going back and fixing a wrong choice implies makin some pretty drastic changes to the timeline
and changing things outside of a normal stable time loop like that always has consequences

[he is, indeed! there's an art to it, probably — and the next set of messages all but confirm the leveling up in Dave-reading that Ryuji's done.]

it was a comic
my bro spent most of his time on a bunch of different uh
enterprises
comics bein one of them
they were all part of this steely hyper ironic bro ninja code thing he had going
so the humors hard to explain
mostly because i dont fuckin get it either

[it's the most he's said to anyone about his bro, outside of his friends from home. it's even more than what he'd explained to Dirk, the one person who had the right above anybody else to hear about it. Dave had been too chickenshit to.]

[but, it also speaks to the level of trust that Dave has in Ryuji.]

probably wouldnt hurt to save it for a day the ghosts really deserve it
just flush it right back to sender
well make a holiday of it
clog the toilets with anything were given that isnt worth keeping

[Score! +100 xp in understanding the between the lines text that Dave plays around with. Only a million more levels to go. Except, even if it's a level up, he's not so sure that's a particularly good milestone, this one.]

I have no clue what a hyper ironic bro ninja code is but it sounds kinda lame. Most of the shit you come up with when you're a kid kinda is anyway but judgin' how you have one the best senses of humor around, if you didn't get it it probably wasn't funny

And dude, of course, if you don't want that shit around, just dunk it. Send it right back to the Ghost North Pole where they got all these middle aged elves workin' on sending us care packages with big giant "screw you" ribbons tied all around em

[whoa. Ryuji, sadly, is not in the same room as him, so he's missing the way Dave pretty much just lit up like a fucking Christmas tree, to continue the metaphor, at the compliment.]

maybe youre right
sending bad presents right down the shit shaft is pretty cathartic
at least
in the experience ive had with it so far
it is when youve got an accomplice

Whoa you need to calm down sir

Those are the type of words a dude can get sentimental over

what
im allowed to feel nostalgic over burrito toilet funerals all i want
thats basically our thing now isnt it

Not that I'm opposed to it but shit, outta context that sounds really effin' sad and kinda lame

But, y'know, if it's our thing then yeah I guess that fits too

dont take it out of context then
just roll with it

[like a ... like a burrito. god this is so far out in lame territory that nobody's even had a chance to name the landmarks yet.]

[Ryussia sounds good.]

[There's a few things that he knows about Dave because he knows a good deal about himself, and sometimes it's scary how incredibly in sync their tendencies typically lean into and dictate their social behavior. It's not something that Ryuji realizes outright, not like he sits up at night thinking about how similar the two of them are; but he has instincts to guide him and he knows that with the fever running rampant across the station and all his friends already succumbing to it, there's a really good chance that Dave is holing himself up in his room. Doing the same thing Ryuji would've done, too, laying low and waiting for this shit to subside so that he didn't have to be a burden to anyone else but himself.

But... yeah. They were kind of going through things together in more than a sense of just co-orbiting the same events and trying to pull each other up out of the slums of backstreet horror that seemed to slap its way into their lives once a month. An unwanted guest, for sure, and maybe Ryuji was too, the way that he heads down the length of the hall with some radio silence to embolden his resolve to just... be with Dave, honestly. Going through things together, in the sense that they were sort of together, and that being said, established titles or not, he didn't think anything of knocking on his door and being an insistent pain in the ass. He was cold, his head hurt, and holy shit- he looked at himself after his morning shower and the skin around his heart was turning a deep maroon, almost black, along the veins in his body. He was trying his best not to freak out about it, after last month, when he freaked out about it so bad that he started hallucinating and running from literally anyone that came near him.

So here he is, in his jumpsuit because it's warmer than what he has otherwise, with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and although he doesn't have a cup of chicken soup to bring, he assumes that Dave would probably feel the same way towards it that he would, if the replicators had anything to say about how fucking disgusting it could imitate that homebrewed remedy. And if he doesn't answer in the immediate three seconds of his initial knock, there will be more annoyances as his pounding gets louder against the door.

Good morning? Or whatever time it is.]

[if he knew how deep that understanding went, he'd more than appreciate it — because Ryuji is right, the absolute last thing Dave wants right now is to be a burden. he knows everyone's been in a shitty state, but he's been too out of it to really venture far past his barely serviceable pillow and blanket to be of much help. so hole up and pretend to not exist for a few days, at least until he isn't a completely useless blob, it is.]

[so it's that, but it's also ... not really having the experience of leaning on someone else, or asking for help when he's sick, to begin with. and it certainly isn't that he's been lacking in friends who cared about him. you just doesn't really get experience being a patient when your friends are so far away physically, and when your guardian probably didn't do anything more substantial than occasionally checking to make sure you were still alive. so it's both not wanting to be a burden, and genuinely not understanding that sometimes he has permission to be a burden. if Dave ever got sick on that three-year meteor trip, he likely did the exact same thing he's doing now.]

[wait, hang on. someone's banging on the door. he should. probably answer that, huh. Dave can do that. yup. no problem.]

[Ryuji might not get an answer immediately, but he will get confirmation that there is somebody in the room by way of a loud thud. and then, about ten seconds later, the door finally opens. he is disheveled, highly feverish, overtired and sans the shades — but those are folded and set down carefully on the desk across from his bed. because of course, out of all the things he could have thought to do, Dave thought to make sure his sunglasses were safe. he loves those things.]

Hey. [he's cool. he can keep playing it cool, even! the gears are still turning. they are going kind of slow, and they are a little bit off-kilter, but they are still turning.]

[..........]

You look like shit.

[welp. doesn't get anymore romantic than that. but he did say it out of concern.]

Thanks! I'd like to think of it more like... "crawls down the stairs backwards when his mom says the pizza rolls are done" chic, but, y'know.

[After a moment, he adds in the equalizing compliment that Dave deserves for that-] You look like fossilized shit, by the way.

[You'd think he'd be more offended off of hearing him being called out like this, but really? It just registers as a compliment and he can't help but hide a certainly weaker, but still there smile. Didn't help either that every time he moved his jaw to speak his head pounded a little more, which was a masochist for since he usually couldn't shut up around Dave. Like it was sincerely impossible. Sometimes a dude just gets paralyzed in front of you and you just start rambling into a conversation that doesn't seem to want to let up now that you've gotten comfortable doing it, and that's where Ryuji's head is at.

It's also at the same place of eyeing him up and seeing what sort of damage he was going through, because he's a worrier at heart, and hey, he might really suck at pretending he isn't? But that's okay, he figures if anyone can see through him easily it might as well be this dude right here.]

Did you like... uh... literally fall outta bed? [Yeah, there was a thud, that was pretty obvious-- to be fair, but Ryuji asks anyway. He also lets himself in, because fever be damned if that's going to stop him. The look he gives Dave is somewhat apologetic, but not that he's sorry for intruding, rather that he doesn't have enough energy in him to pick Dave up and carry him straight to his bed like he would've liked to.]

Anyway... hey, you alright? I thought maybe we could uh. Be... sick together, y'know?

[it's sort of funny how easy Dave is to read when he's not wearing his shades — or maybe it's more that the usual stoic lucidity is hard to maintain when one has a stubbornly persistent fever that's only been climbing as the days pass.]

[because he looks confused. he even glances back at the bed, as if the bed itself is going to go ahead and confirm Ryuji's question, that yes, he did in fact fall out of it. it was hilarious, too, the bed would say, in that complete slapsticky total lack of grace sort of way. if it were a vine, it would have gone viral.]

[but it's something else, too. it's trying to piece together the idea of having company he likes when he's also feeling close to his worst. like he's almost not sure what that'd even be like, much less what he could do to be a comfort. because he wants to be that, too.]

You don't mind? [... hang on, the gears are still turning.]

Wait, that's a stupid question. You wouldn't be here if you minded. I mean — it's definitely not a bad idea, either. It's probably the smartest thing I've heard all week.

[still ... still turning.]

What era are we talking about, though? If I'm gonna be fossilized shit, I want to pick whether I'm Jurassic or Mesozoic shit. And the dinosaur that made me.

[the sad thing is, this isn't really all that different from a normal conversation with Dave.]

... Jur.... assic. [Literally only because he knows about the movies and that's the closest thing he has to recollection of eras, not really knowing fuck all about the difference between them. Also, t-rexes. Any time that has those guys in them must've been pretty balling, but that doesn't really matter too much as he ascertains that's Dave's fever has progressed much more rapidly than his own has.

Which, cool, he should've barged in sooner, or something- not like Ryuji could've done much of anything to alleviate the actively multiplying viral bodies growing in either of them, but maybe he could've done this supportive thing a little better.]

'Course... hey, right here's where I wanna be, so. [At the risk of sounding ridiculously sappy, he cuts himself short there and moves toward Dave, one step, and then another, getting up in his personal space to bring the back of his hand up against his forehead to feel how warm he was---

And, shit. Yeah, this probably isn't healthy. Thermometers aren't really needed to get the vibrant warmth coming off from him.]

What kinda idiot told you to get out of bed? [He knows that idiot, he is that idiot.]

In all fairness, I technically didn't.

[because he fell out of bed. get it. that ... was definitely meant as a joke, a really dumb way of saying that he is cool with that kinda idiot, because Ryuji made the effort of shuffling down the hallway to check on him instead of holing up and hiding like Dave did. and he's sort of stumbling toward fully having that realization, and then trying to make up for it, especially when he catches sight of what the virus is doing to Ryuji. he won't be able to stop himself from worrying that he messed something up.]

[but here's something else that the two of them kind of have in common: when you turbo torch all of Dave's defensive barriers, the stubborn leftovers of a really toxic influence that still need squashing, the guy that's left behind is completely desperate for affection. and that's even though it's something he's also not really all that used to.]

[so he probably doesn't realize exactly how heavily he's leaning into Ryuji's hand there, and it definitely is not just because he's sick. but he's decided to shift his focus on making sure Ryuji isn't also a towering teenage inferno instead.]

Uh. You're cool now though, right? [literally and figuratively. Dave even lifts a hand to reciprocate, and it's likely a little bit awkward. it's hard to tell what a fevered forehead is supposed to feel like when it's someone else's forehead, but he's just going to have to figure it out.]

[Ryuji squints at the attempt of a joke he just made here, and man, maybe it would be better if he just pushed him backward toward his bed and made him conk out for a bit, because that level of effort was so suboptimal that he deserves that sort of treatment. Hard to do, though, when Dave's hand is monkey see-monkey doing the exact same thing, checking his own forehead for temperature. Which is wild, since he definitely didn't say simon says and the whole monkeying around business is kind of his shtick to begin with.

But. Yeah. They're the same in that regard too, like a truckload of other things that they have in common so freaking much. As if this entire exchange was enough to take all his sharp edges and make them a lot smoother, a knife of outward aggression turned with the handle outward, he eats Dave's touch up. There's a sort of sad smile that forms at it, since he knows how sick he is, and how Ryuji's probably going to become, and.

It's the same thing, every single time something bad happens in this station. He doesn't want to see him go through more torture, and they both probably know that whatever's going on is just the beginning of something worse to come. It doesn't really feel that great to have all these protective instincts over each other only... to not be that great at succeeding in those. That's a dumb thought, for sure, and nothing to get seriously depressed over or anything, because Dave had done more for him in the past few months than anyone he could ever count in his entire life. He didn't know how to express that one, either.

He lifts his hand from Dave's forehead, traveling to find the other's wrist as he pulls downward, away from his own hot spot and up against his cheek, just so he could feel what that would be like. Expression turning more vulnerable, he eyes Dave before looking down toward the floor a bit and 'hmm'-ing for a moment.]

Yeah man, practically glacial.

[And it's enough of a touch to keep him going, admittedly, before he feels like he's taking too much for himself and letting go. He's not great with words, that's for sure, but at least his actions have meaning behind them. And right now, he nods over to the bed.]

You know what could be even cooler though? [There's no game plan here, he's wingin' it.] Let me take care of you for a bit. I wanna be a good boy--- [Whoa.] A good boy. C'mon.

Huh?

[he means that to a couple of different things, honestly. give him a few seconds to catch up and process everything, like that kind of awkward but still very affectionate set of gestures they both just did, still stubbornly trying to look out for each other when they're both down and the space station is still kicking them hard, and the fact that he's basically being told to relax and not worry, which are pretty big requests to make of Dave. he has no shades or very strong emotional barriers to stand behind as he is, so the concern is pretty blatantly right there, out in the open. he's not even trying to hide it at this point.]

[but he lets his hand drop to his side, reasonably satisfied that Ryuji is not, in fact, living lava. not right now, anyway. it's anybody's guess what the fuck sort of bullshit a space ailment is going to pull on them next.]

[but the more Ryuji refers to the bed, the more it occurs to him that being vertical right now is a really bad idea. he might actually fall over again if he tries to stand around for too much longer, so ... yeah, he'll make the the pretty pathetically sad sick shuffle back to bed. and he'll even mumble a bit as he does it — something about how he'd give up the extra clothes the ghosts gave him for space Christmas, and maybe even shampoo for like month, if it meant he could have a bottle of apple juice right now.]

[.... wait.]

Hey. [now that he is at least seated on his bed.] I've been meaning to ask you something.

[If Dave's been laid bare for Ryuji to see via lack of his shades hiding his face, the only thing he notices, and ever notices, really, is how much he likes seeing his eyes. The number of times it's happened can be counted on one hand, so when it does happen, it feels all the more important, like he should pay extra special attention to things going on right now, and sure- maybe he's weaker in the sense that this shield of his is down, like there's some major chink in his armor that's been viscerally cut open, but Ryuji just... doesn't even see that. Protected from the outside world or not, his directive is pretty much the same. See it through. See the both of them through. That's what he knows, and it's what he sticks by, even as Dave starts to sit down on his bed.

And god, the amount of personal things he would actually give up to see Dave have a juice box worth of AJ in his hand is probably equally embarrassing, like he feels that it's imperative to him to make sure that whatever he wants is fulfilled and catered to. It's unrealistic at its worst, and potentially dangerous at best, but for now, it's just a sad afterthought, that he can't officiate his needs as they come driving by, piece-wise.

He wants to go to the bathroom to get a towel wet with cool water and place it up against his forehead, to calm his forehead down like it wasn't a forest fire that even Smokey the Bear couldn't control with a stern warning, but he's pulled in a gravitational whirl, as it usually happens to Ryuji when Dave says something that isn't finite and conclusive, and he finds himself sitting down next to him, legs spread at shoulder length as his own blanket slides down the width of his shoulders. It's cool. The blanket wasn't doing much, but he's not going to complain at this point. Doesn't seem right.]

Yeah, dude. Shoot away. [He looks over. Ryuji's past the point of being coy about pretty much... anything, really. He's told Dave how he feels about him, so it goes without saying that there's not really much else of a secret he wants to keep.]

[that's a pretty damn admirable trait, he'd probably figure. it's not that Dave doesn't want to talk more about the sort of life he led back home and in the middle of a video game, it's more that he can't quite drum up the courage to do it — and that's mostly out of an intense fear that dumping all that outright depressing bullshit is just going to upset Ryuji, or drive him away. and Dave, perhaps selfishly, would prefer if they could just sit here like this for as long as they possibly can, virus or not.]

[at the same time though, he knows very well how badly keeping secrets can backfire, even if they were kept out of necessity, or just out of trying to avoid hurting someone. it's not telling your best friend she was going to accidentally murder you, letting her sit with that for three years, then blurting out during an argument that you knew all along that it was going happen. it's wishing he had known that listening to some advice would have created an offshoot and gotten him killed pointlessly (even though, okay, he'll readily admit that was also largely his fault).]

[so he's at least on the path to trying to break that habit. to be honest with himself, and honest about his feelings. they probably wouldn't be sitting here like this, navigating a relationship together, if Ryuji hadn't barged on in and encouraged him to start trying, just by virtue of being himself.]

[in any case, if Ryuji was anticipating an insightful question about the meaning of life or something personal, even, then he might have to wait, because the deepest thought Dave is capable of having at the moment is about which direction he should flop. and on that thought, he's sort of swaying back and forth between faceplanting in his pillow and leaning on Ryuji instead.]

[right, right. here's his question:]

Okay ... Khaki Sun. What the actual hell?

It's been bugging the shit out of me since I first heard it — mostly just cause I wanna know what other sort of ... weird names don't line up between our Earths.

[Dave, no.]

[Lord knows that Dave's got some real swagger to him, he's practically made of cool (except, really?), but Ryuji sees him sway like that and doesn't think he's reenacting the Humpty Hump as much as... the Humpty Dumpty. He'll try to stabilize him a little bit, wrapping an arm around him and giving him the biggest fucking green light to use him as a pillow if that's what he wants.

(Let's also maybe pretend that it's not a selfish act in an of itself either, like Ryuji didn't practically bullheadedly demand that he let Dave take care of him. And, you know, do the aggressively relationship thing, and maybe it's too much? Is this too much? He has no goddamn clue what he's doing here, but he wants... so badly to be comforting.)

And sure, despite the message being somewhat full speed ahead on the relationship stuff, Ryuji isn't about to actively try and change Dave. He figures stuff will come out like it always does between them- a rambling of completely non-related stuff that becomes incredibly topical and somewhat transparent until Ryuji asks the hard hitting questions. But... it does feel good knowing. Feelings. Emotions. Ryuji has to work on that too, so maybe it's something they can get better at together?

Either way, he's got an arm around him, and it's sort of wild that just a few weeks ago this would be giving him a near heart attack, or blushing beyond recognition and that thought is completely effin' blown by the wayside when Dave opens his mouth to answer Ryuji's offer to speak his mind and.

What the actual hell?

God.

Why does he like him so much?

--- is probably what he should be thinking, but he just fondly groans at that.]

Yeah. You never saw the commercials when you were a kid? These extreme snowboarder kids would turn into a golden kinda mess of liquid and it's kinda weird that it implied they'd like... cannibalize themselves if they were Khaki Suns or something like that, but the fruit punch one.

Man, the fruit punch flavor. You could trade that shit for literal gold in elementary school. And banana milk.

[how much Ryuji has leveled up his ability to be comforting, or even how confident he is in doing so, doesn't really matter much in the end, because Dave's not all that used to being comforted. it's why he still sort of hesitates, despite that large and blaring invitation to lean on him, before he goes ahead and just. does so slowly, cheek properly smushed against Ryuji's shoulder and everything.]

Banana milk. [what the fuck, he's never ... heard of banana milk. there's an entire fucking thirty-second pause while he processes that, and sort of wrinkles his nose at the idea, but that's only because he has a very obvious bias when it comes to fruit-flavored beverages.]

[.......... banana milk.]

No, I mean - I remember the commercials, but our shit wasn't nearly that, uh. Fashion forward? Are khakis even a thing anymore? I don't fuckin' know.

But they're called Capri Sun on my Earth. Which just makes them sound like soccer mom juice or something - I think they had commercials like that, too, though.

[Dave is too out of it to offer a thoughtful rating on how how comforting Ryuji is being, other than that he can sense the affection behind it. but the fact that he's electing to stay where he is, being a lot more warmly efficient than that shitty blanket Ryuji brought with him ever was, is probably a good indicator of what he thinks. maybe they need to work on these sort of things compared to someone else's standards, but right now, they seem to be going along at a rate that's working just fine.]

Capri might also be an island.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 9 of 19

ic contact for reverienet

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject