dave strider (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
oculusriffs) wrote2018-11-11 07:18 pm
oculusriffs) wrote2018-11-11 07:18 pm
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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.]
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By making an oath thingy. Here, gimme. [he holds his hand out expectantly — you synchronize your chakras by holding hands, apparently. this isn't exactly going as it would in the storybooks, but since when have either of them played by the rules? it's still a majyyks-tinged promise all the same.]
All you've gotta do is, like. Just know that you're the person I'll do literally anything for. I'm pretty sure I've said something like that to you once before, so maybe you already do? So just remember it.
Sound good?
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Except, you'd think this was supposed to be some sort of monk chakra ceremony or something. He has a bit of a different idea, here, where Ryuji slides his hand backwards a bit and curls, bringing his hand hold into more of a locked-in-war position. Yeah, he's bringing this back to square one, since it seems kind of right.]
Aight. Prove it. [He doesn't need to prove it, Ryuji already knows all of this, and Dave has repeatedly shown that he'd do anything for him. A thumb sticks outward in the air defiantly, and Dave can probably notice the extreme amount of affection and tired happiness in the way he looks at him. Maybe that's his answer to the "sound good" part, but.
You know.
He's a bit of a walking shitpost.]
Lay down your thumb and I'll know. For now and for, like, ever.
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[because even the most sentimental and important moments they have are wrapped in a mantle of stupidity.]
You're saying you want me to kick your ass again? All right. [Dave's grip on Ryuji's hand tightens, and for a moment, it may seem as if time is slowing to a complete stop. like the universe is hitting the pause button so it can catch the outcome of a decisive rematch. the battle one for the whole burrito.]
[or maybe that's just one of the mild effects of forming a magical pact with a time player, someone who can't draw on the powers granted to a destiny he doesn't have anymore, but who's built up on pillars of seconds, minutes and metaphors all the same. if timelines were an observable body, if they aren't like the lines of lightning bolts, they'd also be pretty similar to asteroids, too: these monstrous things blazing forward on their own trajectory, scarred and reshaped by the space junk experiences that they collide with, but very scarcely ever meant to cross paths.]
[right up until they do. and if Ryuji closes his eyes for a second during their rematch, he might see timelines themselves in the abstract way Dave does: lines parallel to each other, like the lightning or the comets, or even the staff of sheet music, notations and pitches of every event that shaped it, stretching out forever into oblivion. he might catch sight of one in particular as it splinters and fires off in an entirely opposite direction, traveling at mach speed toward another staff. a new set of timelines. a convergence of universes that defied their own rules, and, if it weren't for a horror station light years away, probably never would have met to begin with.]
[he might see bits of a timeline that had only been described in passing, or bits that had gone unsaid, if only because they hadn't gotten to it yet. an apartment in Houston. a planet of lava. a planet full of melted snow and frogs. a laboratory on a meteor.]
[and if Dave closes his eyes, he might see something similar from the other direction — they are seeing the moment where two timelines two different people lived very different lives on meeting, after all. and this is a sort of pact that goes beyond words.]
[but nearly as soon as the metaphor starts and time stops, it's over, and two kids having a thumb war rematch out in space synchronize, and the seconds start ticking by as loudly as a grandfather clock's pendulum might measure them. gears that had been spinning above them, indicating the oath being made there, fade into thin air.]
[and Dave, once everything is said and done, and once the perception of time passing normally has returned, has Ryuji's thumb pressed down with both his pointer finger and his thumb.]
[because of course he was gonna cheat again.]
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It's not catching lightning in a bottle, but rather taming it, as the data structure of time and space come alive for a bright moment, and when you look at it from this angle, sure does feel like those two things are very near the same thing. Sort of. He can't possibly understand a lick of physics, but it's instincts. Probably similar to the way Dave's said that he knows when things can strayed off the path, and again, just an instant, but it's pretty much the most beautiful and complex thing he's ever felt to date.
And then, as if everything starts to pull itself together, their timelines are syncing up, and it's pretty wild to see this all as a chaotic band of asteroids shooting out in different directions or feel the convergence as the oath settles in on the both of them. What's to say that these really are something as nebulous as hunks of rock floating out in the great void and not just some sort of molecule bonding at the extreme other end- not that it matters either way, because in the blink of an eye, that infinity is just gone, and it's the two of them. No Houston, lava planets, or anything like that any longer, an entire panel of things Ryuji hasn't experienced but somehow just did, and he's looking down at his thumb pinned in place.
You know, he can't even be mad about that. That was some supremely wicked magic bullshit that just went down, and he's left wide eyed and humbled by how infinitely smaller he felt in a continuum of multiple branching paths that could've held a million different outcomes than the one leading up to this moment, here with Dave. But even then, he still thinks this is the right one.]
... I... uh.
[Because what else do you say after that happens?]
Yo, I think my brain just kinda had an orgasm or something because that was trippy as shit. [Yeah, sounds about right for someone who just experienced a small part of a time player's inner cogs.]
So I guess... it worked? You feel any different?
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[Dave turns Ryuji's hand over, to look at the inside of his wrist. it's small, but there is proof there that a paladin's oath was made: it's a small red gear. there's one on Dave's wrist, too.]
Looks like it worked. I can kinda tell how badly you need a nap, too. [it's not an injury, but the sense is there. not that one really needed magical insight to see how tired Ryuji is.]
[and, Dave is, too, honestly. throwing a lot of Faerun: The RPG mana at a spell when you're still trying to warm up is probably pretty exhausting.]
It'll probably be easier to see how it works once we get back down there.
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[Jokes aside, he thinks it's pretty cool looking. What a crazy night it's been- from realizing that Dave died, to getting ready to go to war over him, a mutual admittance to being in love with each others, magic paladins of time shenanigans, and now, matching tattoos. They don't do anything on the down low, do they?
He'll have to learn how to read the signs, too, put feelers out there to understand Dave's state of being, but that's... probably best served for another time and place, like he said.]
You... can tell if I'm tired? Dude, apologies in advance for how hungry you're gonna feel all the time.
[It's a fair warning, his appetite is a constant nuclear reactor needing shoveling into at frequent intervals. One day that metabolism is going to slow down, but until then, it's junk food and mini meals all day every day. Ryuji pulls a bit backward, nothing of a jerk, but a nudge, and indicates that he should come join him in bed. He has no idea how dead to the world Dave is going to be when he sleeps, but that'll become pretty apparent in the morning.
If he can guide Dave up back to his side and not in the supplicant's position he's in, he'll try to cover up the feeling of an oncoming yawn. There's barbarian armor to shed, especially if he's going to be living it in the luxury of his own bed tonight, and he figures... aw, well, what the hell.]
Want me to wear it tonight? Probably it'd help keep you like, extra warm... or something.
[One time offer, Dave. He's ready to let his inner shark roam free in the waters of his sheets.]
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[or, the fact that he's being gently tugged up somewhere warmer, to which he obliges, sitting down on the edge of the bed, finally ready to try to catch some measure of snoozes now that they've worked through something rather important — he doesn't really know it either, but he's going to completely zonk the split second he's in a horizontal position, and he's not actually going to realize what happened until the morning. but, he's fine. it'll be his new normal. this two-way connection thing they've got going now will be indicative enough of that.]
[for a split second there, he even entertains what the heck sort of super power uniforms they'd be stuck with if that scenario were actually plausible. more capes, probably. it's always capes.]
[but, of course, all those extremely important thoughts are pretty much shoved right to the side when Ryuji makes an offer that Dave is literally incapable of refusing.]
Hell yeah I do. [he doesn't even try to be coy about it, god dammit.]
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Holding it in his hand, he sighs. Cute shit is never something that sits comfortable with him, but as he wiggles down into his smallclothes, one step, and then a second- arm, another arm, and a zip upwards. It's done. Even pulls the hood up over his head, and starts pooling together the pieces of his armor that he's left behind into a neat sort of fashion on top of his dresser.
If Dave's not already dead to the world by now, he comes back to the edge of his bed and shows himself off for a moment. Maybe if he had more energy in him, he'd hum the Maws theme song, an iconic ballad of his shark people, but that's not going to fly right now as he joins him.
He's got big plans to hold Dave all evening long, and it'll be a straight up race to see who actually ends up sleeping more out of the both of them. But one, honest to god statement (awake or not, again) before he can claim the sheets over the both of them.]
We gotta get better at fighting... and you need an actual weapon... if we're gonna end up having to defend ourselves, y'know? I don't... really I don't wanna hurt anyone, it ain't my style... but that doesn't mean someone or something out there ain't gonna try to hurt us.
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[and that's not ignoring the gravitas of what Ryuji's just said, either.]
I know.
[there's a lot more he wants to say on it honestly. like he knows now, more than ever, that he's going to have to fight, if they're going to make it through to the end. that he has to learn not to be afraid of fucking up — that there's a good chance that the next mission they go on, the roles they're in right now, curling up together, could very well be reversed.]
[lots of things to say, but he doesn't get the chance, because once he's lying down, an arm draped around Ryuji, he's just. out completely. cheek squished. shades askew.]
[moron.]
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