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Charlie’s finally doing it.
He’s finally learning how to fight.
And it only took for him about half a year, and to be forced into Purgatory, and about a handful dozen deaths, and a slight twinge of thought that maybe he should get better and not run at people only to then die so quickly. Shock factor of screaming at someone in a gas mask only does so much.
Because everyone’s actually so much better at PVP it’s making him feel a bit misplaced on the skill scale. Phil, Carre, Foolish. Hell, even Baghera’s crazy with the chainsaw. Jaiden and Cellbit have a damn good fighter as their closest person, while Charlie— well. History’s history.
So when a slow day comes—and by slow he means when they can’t see a red on the bar anymore so they all say fuck it, not today—he asks Etoiles about it.
He’s so fucking cool , Charlie then thinks.
It echoes in his mind when Etoiles explains combos, momentum in fighting, strafing. When Charlie logged in one day, months in bliss before Purgatory that seemed so far away, back when he wore his campaign manager suit, and Etoiles gave away diamonds and gear as if it hadn’t mattered. When Etoiles showed his Banpack to Charlie, a person who struggled pathetically against a bonefish near his damn mine.
It’s a familiar feeling. A warm thing in his chest, sitting cushioned within the ventricles of his heart. It lights up whenever he can see the amount of genuine passion his friends have for something whenever they talk about it.
It’s not even exclusive to Etoiles, but periodically Charlie has to remind himself it’s the fighting he should be focusing on. Movements. Left-right. Don’t jump too much. Got it.
(He doesn’t, not really.)
It gets better when the others join the fray with duels using sticks and wooden tools. Gets better as in, his mind moves on from that fuzzy feeling and back to normal. Not making that much progress to his PVP, however.
It’s when Jaiden kills him once again and he’s walking back to the others that he hears, “Slime, Slime!”
Etoiles. Charlie thought he was commentating, mostly quips and mean little jabs than anything, but when he looks back he sees the others dissolving into their usual chaos. “Yeah, what’s up bro?”
“I noticed that— you play, you pick up things really fast.” Charlie ignores how his ribs tingle at that. It’s because Etoiles is such a renowned fighter, surely, “But you don’t switch your grip on your sword as much as you should. That could be problematic, because—“
And he goes on a spiel again, filled with jargon and prowess he’d never have considered a few weeks prior, and handing Charlie a stick while he talks as if silently asking for a demonstration on how he does it. For reference. Charlie concedes, and grips it like he would a sword.
Etoiles moves to his side, “Your grip is actually pretty good already. It’s steady enough that I don’t think people can knock it out of your hand if they try,” and if Charlie notices that his eyes drift a bit to his biceps, he doesn’t say anything, “And that’s already very good for a beginner! It’s just that, you kinda fall behind whenever you need to parry or do strikes at a certain angle.”
Charlie learns that he’s more a visual learner for this kind of stuff, because it isn’t until Etoiles demonstrates some combos that he sees how his grip angles differently, and then Charlie gets it. In theory.
He tries. Etoiles is patient enough to redo his swings and pause midway to maintain his pose just so Charlie can see. And he does better this way, focus switching between the stick in his hand and casting a glance at Etoiles for reference.
From one swing, to another, to another. It devolves from pure explanations and lecturing, back to jokes. At one point Charlie aims his stick at Etoiles as if it were a wand, and muses if he can just “Power Word Kill in Minecraft”. Etoiles doesn’t know what any of that means, but he laughs because it’s hard not to when around him.
“Last one Slime! One more and you will be a legend! Next PVP event you can oneshot Badboy!”
Charlie laughs, “Yeah, man! Maybe you can even see the red in our bar!”
Which makes it even more embarrassing when he proceeds to fail for like, five more minutes. But god, he really can’t. It’s like his muscle is sludge and it refuses to lock around the handle how Etoiles does it. “Fuck man, this is such a lame ending,” he laughs at himself, self- depricating.
“No, man! You’re the best, you’re the best,” Etoiles gives him a good few punches, and weirdly enough that motivates him. “Here, I’ll help you.”
He maintains the hold on his sword with his right hand, which means he lets go of his shield so he can help Charlie’s mess with his left one.
This is when Charlie realizes that he never really sees Etoiles’ left hand a lot. He’s always the one running headfirst to hundreds of dungeons at this point, and going on about “optimization” that Charlie keeps ragging him on about, so it makes sense that he always had a shield on. Most everyone does on the island, same how everyone’s fingers aren’t ever smooth or soft or unmarred.
Usually it’d be the thing in front of it that’d always enrapture Charlie—some fuckass shield with spikes or what have you, gleaming with enchantments. And he’d think: how does someone even get that, though to be fair he said the same thing about netherwart (apparently something not that big of a deal to get, if Etoiles’ smug look when he gave some to Charlie was an indicator). But now, the attention was all on the bare hands.
Black skin sprinkled with ones and zeroes. Just like Charlie’s shoulders, just like Etoiles’ eye. But different. Because they differ in this sense, Charlie observes—his and Maxo’s codes are visibly an intrusion. Unwelcomed. They flake off in jagged shards at best, and break the realm of possibility to twist his tendons in ways it shouldn’t at worst. Stinging, buzzing, rigor mortis and frostbitten all at once. Like scabbed skin crudely glued on. Hell, his binaries aren’t even green anymore. Something about Purgatory fucked with it and now it’s as red as the blood he bleeds.
Etoiles’ is like—mist. It simply coats his skin and hugs the pores, and it’s just that. Orderly. Maybe exuding a bit of an aura, now that Charlie takes a good look at it, like the pulsing glow from an enchant. Fitting for him.
(If his mind ever whispers something like envy about how Etoiles doesn’t feel what he feels at the same code infliction, he never allows it to be a proper thought. Not at him, at least. Better to aim it at himself. Can’t do that to a man like him.)
Etoiles’ hand moves closer to help adjust his grip, and when he looks down, Charlie does see it. The contrast. His code spattered around messily alongside Etoiles’ streaming and scrolling like a river. The leaking out and the bolted down. Marble and rubble.
Second thought, is that he realizes he’s never really touched anything code-related other than the block.
And that—is enough to make his muscles seize in brief panic. He remembers the sensation: a stinging thing, like a stab with thunder. Felt his nails peel when he made contact, if he had any. It hurt. He stopped trying to scab it off his walls, but he occasionally knocked his finger against it, or tapped his foot to it. Just to feel something.
But it’s kinda rude to say, hey man I think I might experience excruciating pain if you touch my hand, not in a homophobic way it’s just chronic— to a person actively trying to help you. Inconveniencing.
So he quiets, boxes his shoulders and tightens his eyes and braces himself. He’s been tased by his friend. No different, really. Tries to make it not too noticeable, but Etoiles’ is a man half built out of instinct. He must’ve known. Still, he didn’t say anything.
He makes contact.
Etoiles’ finger barely grazed his palm at first. But he feels it, moments before. Like hairs standing on ends—but he doesn’t have arm hair anymore, so instead it’s like buzzing. A microwave’s wavelengths, vibrating and slowly jumbling and like wire swelling under the sun heat.
Bubbling bubbling bubbling , and Charlie’s not sure how to warn Etoiles.
He doesn't get to.
It explodes like hot oil with water, shooting a zap onto what his code feels familiar. Itself, from its own ‘kind’. Charlie, the human, hitches a yelp from the back of his throat and twitches. Charlie, the code slowly woven in his body, remains eerily calm.
Both find out that touching a code living being is vastly different than a static invasion in his house.
He feels his binary mix in with Etoiles’. He gets sensations he’s not quite sure how to describe as a human, but— his code is a different color, a different frequency, different buzz. Uneven zeroes mixing with his sharp ones. It’s an intrusion; it’5 n4tur@l , his mind screams.
Not just that, not even the surface— he feels something else creeping in. Feels streams of something, his and Etoiles’—memories, his self, his data –
He feels—
thrill of battle, the thirst for it, sand, fire, a spectacle. victory.
a shield in ‘his’ hand.
But what is given, must similarly be taken. He feels something spark and rumble from his brain. Converted to ruby colored numbers. It sounds like static. His eyes shoot up and meet Etoiles’ and he can’t help but instinctively look at his left one. His grip on Charlie’s hand tightens mechanically, like he doesn’t realize it. It feels like—
an attempt, the stars, wrong muscle twitch, skeleton. regret.
a sword in his hand.
Oh , a dull whisper at the back of his head sounds.
They both pull back the second it happens, Etoiles wretching his fingers open to retract and Charlie dropping his stick to the grass with a dry thud. Everything suddenly feels like too much. The air stings of rotting flesh—both his and Jaiden’s—and his fucked up perception ever since Purgatory started doesn’t fade off enough to register it as wrong; standing on his and his friend’s body. But his eyes dart at his corpse and suddenly the code on it feels wrong.
“Slime, are you… okay?” Etoiles asks tentatively. Charlie gives his focus entirely to him, and there’s a look in his eyes he’s sure he mirrors as well. A little instinctive guess on what happened, yet just as confused. Like they know the words but can’t write it down.
“Yeah, man,” he breathes out, “Just, uh, took me by surprise before. Never really— touched codes with another person.” He tries to play it off and puts on his usual light, airy, kind of unserious attitude and laces his tone with an innuendo.
Etoiles is amenable to going along, “It’s okay man, I think we’ve done enough today. We can stop for now.”
Charlie tries to shake his head, it’s fine we can keep going , but he moves his fingers and finds it locked in place. His heart spikes in brief panic and memory; of curling in agony during the night and his body stiff and aching. He doesn’t let this show.
He nods, despite the lamentations.
Etoiles looks at something over Charlie’s shoulder, “We should head back to the others. Roier and Cellbit are duelling and I want to see how many times Cellbit will die to his husband’s hands.”
Charlie chuckles and uses this to free the bit of tension in him. They start heading back to the high energy mania his team just naturally emits, and Charlie falls back on the adrenaline once again. Jaiden spots him and calls him out for taking so long.
Oh well. He can brawl with a locked fist.
—
Charlie never got to properly greet the Green Team members who merged with Bolas. He views this as an absolute shame.
Well, he got to, for one of them. But he’d like to not count it, really, definitely not because he had an insane bedhead when he greeted Etoiles who just came into the base. And more so not because immediate awkward guilt settles into him when he sees the other all tired and slightly dirtied by the sand from a hard’s day of work, while he just dozed off all this time.
To be fair. He was busy getting his shit kicked in DND, but he’s not gonna say that.
So when Etoiles says, “When the day is over is when you decide to wake up, Slime?” he takes it.
His voice is muffled by the gas mask (truly a part of Bolas. He’s proud) but he can hear the jabbing tone. Can even hear the smile behind it. Charlie chuckles back and in lieu of an excuse, he says, “Yeah, okay dude. Fight me about it.”
Etoiles gives an immediate perk at that, which he follows up with a don’t you dare of a look.
Little mercies, little helps, he thinks as he starts taking a bit of load from Etoiles’ inventory. Mostly lugging his food into the fridge so it doesn’t spoil while he sleeps.
It’s when he closes the door that he sees Etoiles taking off the mask, fiddling a bit with the straps. He hasn’t known the man long enough to make a read on this exactly, but he gets the feeling that he’s not used to the ones on the mask as opposed to his usual armor, seeing how he fumbles just slightly.
By the time he’s walked back over, Etoiles has gotten the hang of it. He peels the gas mask off and it’s one of the rare times since Purgatory started that Charlie looks at his face and doesn’t feel a primitive fear of being destroyed in about two hits. At most.
A problem: his eye mask is falling off. Now that he looks closer, it’s gotten a bit loose from a day’s work and the gas mask was probably the only thing keeping it in place. Which was now not there anymore. “Merde,” Etoiles mutters, putting a hand to try and keep it in place and the other to try and put the gas mask down.
Charlie snorts softly, “Here,” and instead of taking it off his hand, he reaches to the fabric on his face. Etoiles’ eyebrows raise in surprise, but doesn’t stop him.
Charlie realizes It’s the first time he sees his face so closely. First few times they met they never got to this close of proximity, and last time when his name was still green everything was a bit hazy. Either because of the toxic fog, or Charlie’s gas mask, or generally how tired Purgatory left everyone.
This was once the face of an enemy, his mind supplies. Small little voice in his head as he grasps both ends of the eye mask. Decided it needs something on the side as well, because memories resurface of the first day. Him, at that dome, standing brashly and attempting to shout for peace. Killed not moments after.
Remembered how the last of his threads snapped when the sword sunk into his heart.
It’s something comedic, ironic, but not quite victory that he muses when he ties the mask at the back of Etoiles’ head. How the man who stabbed Phil, leader of the team who sent Charlie spiralling, and probably set off the dominoes for the rest of Bolas’ sanity— he can now see the strands of his stubble. Can now see the structure of his cheekbone, or the subtle softness in the edges of his eyes now that he’s out of the fray, or how nice red suits his face. Okay, maybe it is a bit of a victory.
Something folds in his guts and buzzes in his arms at the thought, and his fingers are just a little bit stiff when he finishes tying it up at the back. A ribbon, definitely unlike how Etoiles would do it, but Charlie thinks it’s cute, and kinda funny.
He leans over to the side to see it from another anglke, his nose not quite touching Etoiles’ face but perhaps close enough that he can feel the tickle of his breath.
“Oh, hold on—“ he notices the left side of the fabric folded over, and reaches out to fix it before Etoiles can. Hooks his finger under the thing, and—
accidentally grazes the skin under his eye. The one covered in code.
It isn’t like last time. Hell, Charlie didn’t even feel uneasy or on edge near it, which was probably why he was so willing to do it. It’s similar to last time, though, because the binaries don’t merge but there’s a heat that builds as if it’s friction. Electricity whirring. And it’s not memories that resurface and get pushed out, it’s—
A jolt of shock, not strong enough to pull him away but enough to simply travel from his fingertips and seems to just… make his heart beat faster? His face is getting redder too. Might be going a bit goopy.
Etoiles, in turn, just widens his eyes and raises his eyebrow. It’s weird. Like simulating human emotions and reactions, but inorganically.
It takes them a few seconds longer than last time to pull away, this time because Charlie realizes how awkward it is to touch very specifically the cheek area near his mask. God, he hopes Etoiles is too disarmed by the code weirdness to notice. But also his face is burning impossibly hot and he hopes not touching Etoiles would make it go away.
“That, uh— Phew, doesn’t, uh… hard to get used to it, the second time.” Charlie says. Great attempt to try and make it less awkward, but unfortunately, it sucked. Real bad. He’s simply going to get cursed out of existence for failing a real life charisma roll. Can he go back to sleep now? It’s been a fun night—
“You were… amused.”
Huh?
Charlie’s gaze lands back on Etoiles, now rubbing the area he touched. He looked… surprised, but amazed. A dabble of curiosity, but the new revelation left him so bright Charlie felt both compelled and hesitant to keep looking.
“I felt it. When you touched me. It was like— like you were laughing at how fate turned out. You were reminiscing something.” A twinge of insanity, Etoiles doesn’t say. Likewise, Charlie thinks: well, that something was his memory of being brutally murdered probably, but that’s a killer thing to admit.
“Wait. So you… felt what I was feeling? I guess?”
“Yeah! Different than last time.”
He thinks of his heart beating faster when they made contact. He doesn’t think too hard.
“…Something new you learn,” he mutters. Remembers how the infection of binary at home made him hurt. Remembers how warm he felt when he touched Etoiles. Weird how those two experiences conflict.
Etoiles shoots a grin back, before pausing and reaching the back of his head. “… Did you put a ribbon on me, Slime?”
He snickers. “Maybe,” and Etoiles is already marching off to the nearest reflective surface: the shitty hole of water they have for the crops. Charlie full- on laughs when he sees Etoiles twisting his body to look at his craft. “What? You look pretty, don’t you think?”
“I can finally win at life, killing everyone with my pretty bow.” Etoiles muses.
“Yeah! Last thing you see before you die. I wouldn’t mind.” Charlie beams, and it’s sincere. Because the only people who get to kill Bolas, is another Bolas. “Seriously though man, if the standard gas mask is messing with your eye bandana thing we can totally storm up designs and make a personal one for you. Change the straps, too.”
Etoiles groans, “You saw that.” Charlie’s laugh is a confirmation, “The straps are different than the ones on armor, man, I’m not used to them. Also, is that how you guys got customized gas masks?”
Charlie studies his tone, and finds that it’s of pure curiosity. “Yeah, dude! It was Jaiden’s idea at first, and then Foolish and Cellbit managed to modify the standard ones from the shop. Eventually we all got ours,” he pulls out his own. Etoiles eyes grazes on the signature two and a half hearts engraved, at the pipes twinged in slime.
“We can brainstorm some ideas, and show the others once they wake up. You’re a part of Bolas now; it’s only right that you get one. You and Roier. And hey,” Charlie hooks an arm around Etoiles’ shoulder, leading him to the chests and pulling out some drawing equipment. “Jaiden usually does this, but I’m quite the drawer y’know? If you got any ideas yet,” he gives a wink.
Etoiles finds out this is absolute bullshit. Because he’s forced to hold back his laughter as he sits just a few meters away from the sleeping hug pile mass of the Bolas team, as he watches Charlie make the most horrendous chicken scratches in existence. Pomme can draw better with her mouth.
Charlie says it’s the tools, and to be fair, the ink is horrible and he picked possibly the most beaten up feather as his quill. But Etoiles knows it’s mostly him.
But there’s something impossibly endearing to it all, and Etoiles tries not to think about it too much. Blankets it under the excuse of exhaustion whenever his heart stutters seeing Charlie put effort to something so dumb looking but very much sincere. He feels something blooming, like appreciation and something warmer, and he keeps it swallowed.
It’s somewhere among his nth attempt of drawing stars so uneven you’d think it’s a tumbleweed, something looking like a head if you squint that he insists is a gas mask, that Charlie finds himself lost in the time. Seeing how the corner of Etoiles’ eye squeeze in laughter. How his shoulder shakes and the slightest blush creeping up after some point. The gums peeking out when he grins, the torch lights on his white hair. He thinks this is how he’s going to pass out, and it’s not from exhaustion.
Behind him, he sees his team, his family: Baghera lying on Jaiden’s wings; Foolish putting his weight on Carre, curled over; Cellbit clutching Roier the closest he’s sure he can hear a purr; Phil’s broken wings blanketing over everyone as best as it can. Etoiles.
He’s changed his mind. He counts this as a greeting for at least one of the new Bolas members.