Work Text:
Jade wakes up the same way every day. First there’s a growing awareness of her body, starting from the faint chill in her bare toes and continuing up to the weight of the blanket piled over her midsection. Then there’s the heat. The blanket gets thrown off onto the floor and she rolls over with the same prolonged, theatrical groan. The glare of the sun through her windows lights up her eyelids red, and she’s pissed off before she can even open them, because that’s practically the only color she ever sees and it’s starting to bore her.
She falls out of bed and picks herself up, shoveling hair out of her eyes and scratching through the loose fabric of her boxers as she yawns. It’s too bright and somehow the city magnifies it like a set of mirrors pointing in on her hundredth-story bedroom from every direction. She wouldn’t mind living in such a narrow tower if it had a better view, but there’s only the same unfiltered glare bouncing off every other skyscraper. She keeps her curtains drawn but they don’t do much. Her transition lenses are always dark except at night.
She straddles her desk chair and holds her thumb and forefingers in the shape of a frame, examining her little city bonsai through the window. She makes a single measured cut. It’s painfully boring.
She punches in her screensaver password on the desktop she never shuts down, and whispers, “I’m in,” purely as a matter of habit. The gesture is empty because she’s already in the thick of it; not much more in to go then where she already lives.
She decides to message Rose even though it never makes her feel any better.
-- gayGnostic
[GG]
started pestering tropicalTherapist
[TT]
at 3:41 --
GG: yo harley whats goin on
TT: Morning, Strider. Bit late where you are, isn’t it?
TT: I’ve been up for a while. Bec seems antsy lately. He keeps waking me up to play fetch when the sun is barely cresting the horizon.
GG: sounds like a real drag
TT: It’s certainly not the worst thing. I’ve been making use of my time, getting in some last-minute study on the ruins before the game arrives.
TT: Which, my sources tell me, will be any day now.
GG: about fucking time!!!!
GG: im bored off my ass in this concrete hell, i gotta see some action or im gonna lose it rose
TT: Yes, I’d noticed you seemed a bit listless lately. I’m sorry to hear it!
TT: I think this game might be really good for you. It should, at the very least, break us all well out of our comfort zones!
GG: i would rather break the hell out of this tiny crappy apartment, no offense :/
TT: Well, at risk of providing spoilers, that may be in the cards as well.
GG: hurry the hell up then. dont string me along here rose, ive had my bag packed for years. just get your weird dog to kidnap me already, seriously!!!!!!!!!
TT: Well. Okay. I hate to see you feeling so trapped. I will allow a spoiler.
TT: This game will definitely get you out of your tiny crappy apartment. And none taken.
GG: good its about fucking time. ill be here ok. ill leave the window unlocked, you dont even have to call you can just show up
TT: I’m not going to literally kidnap you through your window.
GG: my life is an unending downpour of disappointment, or it would be if it ever even rained in this awful vertical desert
TT: I’m sorry, Jade, I have to run out again. It’s time to feed Bec, and my research is at a critical point.
GG: sure i understand, go frolic and explore with your best friend in the normal, non-deadly tropical sunshine
TT: I’ll check in on you later, okay?
GG: yeah
TT: <3
GG: <3
-- gayGnostic
[GG]
ceased pestering tropicalTherapist
[TT]
at 4:13 --
Jade doesn’t sigh as she closes Pesterchum, because sighing got pointless long ago. She closes one eye and squints again at her bonsai tree, which is really starting to shape up nicely: a dog with one leg raised in the air, pissing. It’s the only green thing in the room. She makes sure not to think about Rose’s perfect life, her unhindered access to endless green fields and whether she can hear the ocean through her bedroom window instead of the muted roar of traffic far below.
She’d better be telling the truth.