ic contact for reverienet

[oculusriffs]

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.]

Comments

@skull

[ryuji]

This is gonna sound kinda weird, but... you didn't wake up with anything uh

Like...

Alive... in your cheek right?

I'm kinda worried that I'm contagious

[The awkward unprotected contact text.]

[oculusriffs]

[... is this their punishment for vandalizing a space bathroom. they pissed off the ghosts somehow??]

dude







what
also no
also are you ok

shhhh may 20

[splinten]

[Who's that in the hall? Who could it be? Why, it's your: au bro!

He has a pile of mechanical debris in front of him, which he seems to be going at with a basic tool kit. His sleeves are rolled up as he works, and he seems very concentrated dismantling things. Something silly is peeking out from beneath that rolled up sleeve.

approach?]

[oculusriffs]

[t-minus ten to total annihilation, when Dave gets a better look at Dirk and the something silly on his shoulder — right this second, though, he's focused on the ... well, he has no idea what exactly Dirk is working on here.]

[he plops down at the edge of the pile, absently munching on a piece of toast. hopefully he isn't getting crumbs anywhere important. aren't you glad to have an au bro who can help out?]

What're you doing? [it's not puppets strewn in the hallway, like what he'd expect out of Bro. it's caught his interest.]

@skull

[ryuji]

WHAT DO I DO?

file.002

[oculusriffs]

what the hell dude
where did you find that

@skull

[ryuji]

Hey

[oculusriffs]

hey
whats up

@hinatahajime

[hopefragment]

hey, i don't think i ever asked... why DO you wear sunglasses, anyway? do you wear them at night so you can keep track of the visions in your eyes?

[oculusriffs]

[HAJIME!!]

do you want the real answer
or do you want an answer in the form of an 80s pop song

[ryuji]

[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.]

[oculusriffs]

[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.]

stage 3

[intrusivethot]

[ Ren's put in his time, he feels like he's earned a decent midrange Seen Some Weird Shit badge that he can proudly polish and people can ask him about. Yep, he's witnessed the secret and eeeevil cognitions of otherwise forward-facing human beings and basically dove into their delusions to make them fess up some shady shit. Totes, he has seen a grown ass man in a cliché white-trimmed red cape and bright pink speedos soar through the air to catch a crown that subsequently turned him into a giant lustful babymonster. He still regrets it.

He has never seen some dude just pull an entire loaf of bread out of thin air just from doing a one-handed clap or something. Like a tree falling in the forest. ]

Time powers aren't enough, you can make bread too?

[oculusriffs]

[......... whoa, dude, they need to sit down and swap some stories over just how weird their shit can get, because that sounds both hilarious and terrifyingly disturbing at the same time.]

[but Dave looks amused by the question, bag'o'bread in hand.]

Make it? Nah, I'm just storing it.

[and with the same sort of motion he used to retrieve the bread, he stuffs it back in the Sylladex. and there it goes, into hammerspace, like he's some sort of really confusing magician.]

@skull

[ryuji]

Dude, I don't know what to do

Came back tonight and everything's gone

So I guess Ren's gone

This room's like suddenly ten sizes too big or something

I just. I dunno, man

[oculusriffs]

[oh .... fucking hell. this isn't really an the opener he was expecting, or at all wanting.]

[Dave's reply is pretty much immediate:]

oh
shit ryuji
do you want to come over

[and so is his extending the invitation. he figures Ryuji's got his reasons for texting instead of just showing up at his door, but ... it feels right to offer.]

@skull

[ryuji]

Yo... so there's this Shakespeare play goin' on right? And I think the hamsters are the actors or something

[oculusriffs]

what
hows that gonna work
are they gonna pantomime the whole thing
which id be questioning first if i hadnt already seen them scoot a bowl of rice slop along the floor like a little fuzzy army moving contraband
how did that dude even train them to do that
are they like circus hamsters
maybe this is why he wanted all those empty toilet paper tubes the other day

[Dave has ... so many questions, and Ryuji is not equipped to answer any of them.]

[except for one.]

wait
are you asking if i want to go see it

@nines

[twoaffirmations]

Dave, I've been doing some research on the human tradition of vacationing, and I found some pretty interesting results.

[oculusriffs]

what really
alright
lets hear what you got

@PhantomThieves

[ryuji]

siR DaVE, KnIgHT of TiME

wE kNow whAt yOu'VE dOne, yoUr tiMe iS Up.
yOuR cUtE anD tWisTeD wAyS hAve gOne nOtiCeD bY thOsE wHO hAvE tHe PoWEr tO mAkE yOu coNfeSS yOuR dEEpEsT sINs. wE wIlL stEaL yOuR HeArT rIgHT frOm yOu aNd aIM tO tAkE yOu bY cOmPleTE sURPriSe.

MeEt Me At tHe ObSErVaTIon DeCK at 8Pm ToNIgHt
Or wE wiLL bUrN thE mOnKeY PaJaMAS

[oculusriffs]

[....... oh my god.]

[not the monkey pajamas!!!!!! for the sake of the jammies and also for the sake of his own piqued curiosity, he’ll oblige this ominous troll quirk of a not very anonymous person at all.]

yeah ok ill be there
gonna need confirmation that the pajamas are safe though
maybe you should send a pic
preferably of whoever this is wearin em
its the only way to be sure

[is Ryuji even gonna answer him. oh well ... it’s worth a shot.]

action; chuu--nnel construction

[gundamned]

[Shortly before noon, Gundam is standing outside Dave's door. He doesn't knock on the door, since that seems to have ended rather disastrously the last time he did it. He couldn't hear any rites of the occult through his ceiling last night, but--

No. It's not worth another conversation like that.

He can wait. Besides the white toilet paper aesthetic created an interesting contrast against while shrouded in darkness.]

YES

[oculusriffs]

[Gundam is, in fact, in luck today, at least from that angle of potentially embarrassing conversation topics — because lord knows Dave is capable of blurting out some embarrassing shit, regardless of who he's talking to.]

[but maybe five minutes after Gundam arrives, the door opens, and there's the one formerly known as the immortal god of hamster Valhalla. alone, and ready to tackle another simulated day, and.]

[oh.]

Hey.


Hang on a second. [he turns right around, intent on going to the bathroom to pluck the toilet paper roll right off the holder.]

@skull

[ryuji]

[Some chick is calling him out on the radio (oh whoa, whoa, whoa, on the radio) and he's all fucking for it, but then again...

He had come into his own persona in the exact same way, and he didn't have the opportunity to think about it. Everything was necessitated and urgent. A non decision would have led to his death, and the death of someone that had meant a lot to him even though they had only known each other for a handful of days. So maybe, well, maybe he didn't really have much of a choice back then.

And he feels a lot more responsibility now than he ever has before. He knows what he would think, or what he'd go through if Dave made a choice that could've possibly put himself in danger. They're both prone to do stupid things and go to great lengths in the name of self-sacrifice when it came to each other, but a few months into this relationship, he's getting better at recognizing the fact that sometimes he can't just jump headlong into battle without thinking through those impacts. He doesn't want to do that to Dave.

A few months ago, Venus had told him about this. In vague terms. That if she could help him, she would. And it's Ryuji's turn, after the Devil had made herself known and put the pieces on the board. She waited because Ryuji didn't say no. And as much as a personal decision as it was, her extended gift promised to give him what he needed to keep Dave safe. To come into his own so that when he looked in the mirror he didn't see the terrifying thought of one day destroying everything down like his father had. Her own words. So this wasn't a personal matter at all.]

Hey, uh

I wanna take her offer.

[oculusriffs]

[it's not like he doesn't understand. he's been hearing it, too, the promises that he could find the strength to either work through or destroy the thing that's probably the biggest threat to Ryuji right now: Dave himself. a repressed bullshit baby wandering around with his collective failures in tow in the Metaverse.]

[it's the promise that Dave did have the power to protect him, if he'd only realize it, and accept it from her. it's the promise that he wouldn't let Ryuji down, not like he'd let down so many other people he cared about.]

[it's remembering what happened when Rose consulted with a being who seemed to know everything, with the intentions of tearing it all down. destined to happen or not, the memory's still there.]

[it's not really understanding how an offer like that is even supposed to work.]

you do
whats gonna happen to you though

[the most important part, obviously.]

text | un: gallowsCalibrator

[iustitia]

H3Y!
HOW 4R3 YOU HOLD1NG UP? >:O

[oculusriffs]

hey
im pretty fucking great actually
really into the new ambiance thing going on right now
all that bonus static and screaming add the extra horror spice ive been missing out on you know
just shovel more of that shit on my plate like im at a goddamn dismay buffet

what about you