Chapter Text
There’s nothing quite like the first day back on campus.
The last week of August is warm and shot-through with humidity. Everything on campus blooms with fervency. Flux feels pretty good, getting out of the Uber from the airport and standing back on familiar sidewalks. He’s back again in the one place he really, truly feels at home.
Last semester, Flux had effectively won the housing lottery. He’d been the very first timeslot for the whole senior class. As a result, he’d been able to snag one of the coveted Bridge apartments for him and his friends: newly-constructed, beautifully-spacious, the Bridge apartments sat directly over the bookstore and the deli. Unlike most other residence halls on campus, the apartments were upscale. Keycard-only. No more carrying around brass keys or worrying about getting locked out. Flux just has to tap his student ID on the sensor at the door and walk upstairs.
The only downside to the apartments is the lack of singles.
It’s spacious, with a brand-new kitchen, a dishwasher, a wonderfully large fridge, an equally enormous common area, and two bathrooms. But the actual bedrooms are split in half: two doubles. Flux is forced to share a room for his senior year. Thomas had taken pity on him and doubled up; Gotoga and Snowbird took the room across the hall.
When the four of them had opted to share an apartment, Rotation and Seraphim alike had been furious.
“What the hell,” Rotation said.
“It’s like you don’t even care about us,” Sera agreed.
Flux opened his mouth, but Thomas pointed at him. “Don’t say a single thing. You know why we couldn’t include you in the housing lottery. You’re juniors. You’d bring down our space in the queue.”
“So we have to live in the Nevermore apartments?” Sera said in disbelief. “You’re throwing us under the bus just to get a better spot?”
“I mean, yes,” Flux said. “That’s the whole point.”
Rotation scowled. “I hate you.”
“You can come over whenever you want,” Thomas said, trying to be placating, and that was the end of the Conspiracy’s debate over housing selection for next year.
Now Fluixon sets about dragging his many suitcases upstairs. Both Snowbird and Thomas have already moved in; the two of them had been hired to work in the admissions office last summer, so they moved in a week before every other student for mandatory in-person orientation. To his dismay, Flux finds that the two of them have already made a mess of things. They’ve put up a whiteboard against the fridge with a shopping list — Cheeto puffs and Wonder Bread are the first two items on the list. There’s already unwashed dishes in the sink and tacky flyers taped up against the wall for Social Community's newest event, on which Snowbird is a key councilmember.
And when Flux gets to his room, he finds that Thomas has even stolen the better half.
“Wow,” Flux says, dropping his suitcase to the floor. “You asshole.”
Thomas grins. “Flux!”
He hugs him and nearly knocks Flux off his feet. Flux is never sure what to do with himself when his friends do things like this — hug him, or ruffle his hair, or place a hand on his shoulder. Still, he does his best to hug Thomas back. It is nice to see his closest friend again after a whole summer apart.
“You know,” Flux says, muffled into his shoulder, “I’m technically the one who got us this apartment in the first place. You could at least give me the window side.”
Thomas lets go of him. “First come, first serve.”
“Seriously?”
“We could switch,” he offers.
“Switch, then.”
“On second thought, I don’t want to,” Thomas decides. He’s smiling even in the face of Flux’s most unimpressed glare. “Come on, I’ll help you bring your stuff up.”
Fluixon has too many things, Thomas says. He’s a hoarder. Flux finds this a pretty unfair and biased description; it’s not his fault that he cares about fashion and that he’s the one college student left alive who cares about maintaining a physical library. Almost an entire suitcase is dedicated to his book collection. He sets about unpacking and slotting each copy onto his stunningly vast shelves as Thomas sits on his bed, kicking his feet, chatting idly about admissions orientation.
“...and they kept us there for two hours yesterday, doing our Title IX training through Kahoot —”
“Did you win?”
Grudgingly, Thomas admits, “I got third place.” A beat. “And a stress ball that says see something, say something! as my reward.”
“You’re falling off. I can’t believe you didn’t place first in the Title IX Kahoot.”
“You’ll never guess who did.”
Flux slots the last book onto the shelf and unzips the next suitcase: it’s all his shirts and knit sweaters, neatly folded in thirds. He hazards, “3Below?”
“Saparata.”
Flux’s face scrunches up.
“Apparently he’s the admissions intern this year,” Thomas says. “He does all the front desk work.”
“Just once,” Flux says, determinedly dividing his suitcase into long-sleeved shirts and short-sleeved ones, “Just once, I would like to be completely fucking free of Saparata. How is he everywhere?”
“Isn’t he doing Theria this semester too?”
Flux doesn’t even want to think about Theria at this moment, their campus’s most premiere literary magazine. He shudders and tries to divert conversation, away from anyone but the most insufferably arrogant person to ever grace this campus with his presence. “Thanks for that reminder. I almost forgot about all the terrible poems I’ll have to read.”
“Well, I’ll have to read a bunch of applications too. We can do it together.”
“Do they actually let you read applications?”
“I don’t know,” Thomas says, considering the prospect. “I hope so. They definitely have us interview prospies to give feedback on whether they’d be a good fit for campus culture, though.”
Flux almost laughs. “What campus culture?”
“You know, our incredibly non-competitive spirit… our wonderfully collaborative environment…”
Flux thinks back to the sheer amount of furious, near-shouting arguments he’s had in last semester’s Shakespeare class alone, and the many times he's driven someone to storm out of class in a blind fury, and tries not to grin. “Can you give negative reviews on all the STEM kids, then?”
“I think that would be considered bias. That is, according to the Kahoot I just placed third in.”
“Consider that the very last thing we need is more STEM kids on this campus,” Flux suggests.
But Thomas — engineering major, perpetually swamped with work and always pulling all-nighters to try and cope, who has the unfortunate tendency to say that he’s the only member of the Conspiracy to have a real major — only laughs. “Nice try.”
Despite the fact that he has to have a double at all — Fluixon is a man who strongly values his privacy — he has to admit that he’s feeling mostly excited about the start of the semester. Thomas and Flux go to grab lunch at the dining hall: bagel sandwiches and orange juice. They chat about everything they were up to this summer; Thomas interned at some engineering company in Silicon Valley, while Flux lived at home and worked at the CVS down the street, saving up all his summer funds. Flux had sent out a couple poems for publication and got seventeen rejections, five politely-worded rejections that tacked on please send us work in the future! at the end, and one single acceptance, which will get published in some lowbrow literary magazine in November for their fall issue. But it’s better than nothing.
By the time they’re halfway through eating, Snowbird waves from across the entrance to the commons. Some Social Community meeting took up all his time, he explains. They’re working on setting up the senior formal. He sweeps Flux into a full-body hug too, who tries not to shrink away.
Then like that, the three of them are right back to routine: bickering and chatting eagerly about their senior year. It’s sunny and deliciously warm outside; sunlight floods through the enormous windows on the south side of the dining hall. Clouds on the horizon suggest that rainfall might happen at some point, so Flux will wake up to everything lush and green.
He really is feeling good. His classes this semester are perfect; he’s gotten into all his first choices. He’s got the best possible housing on campus, and he knows for a fact that multiple seniors further down the queue would have killed to have his luck. Gotoga’s flight lands later that evening, and Rotation, Newkids, and Sera will return to campus the following morning.
In less than twenty-four hours, Flux will completely scrub away the dull sweat of summer — living at home, trudging to the CVS four days a week, sorely wishing he had a car, and trying to ignore his parents’ constant overprotective nagging. In less than a day, his senior year begins.
But what makes the start to this year better than all the rest is this: the new season of Decayed and Decrepit premieres in two weekends.
Fluixon is only a little ashamed to admit just how invested he is with D&D, primetime TV’s newest zombie flick. On first glance, the show seemed both trashy and gory, some pathetic rip-off of The Walking Dead. Flux had been even more annoyed by how everyone on his Tumblr dashboard seemingly became possessed by D&D at the same moment, when the first season premiered during his freshman year of college. For months, all his social media timelines were plagued with gifsets of bandanged, bloody, unfairly attractive men limping through a ravaged city.
But Flux’s online persona didn’t have a reputation for being incredibly pretentious and insufferable for no reason. He wasn’t about to submit to the hivemind groupthink. He prided himself on being into niche, better media, like Code Geass and Monogatari. He similarly prided himself on being the type of person who didn’t fall for big-name media corporations’ terrible queerbaiting attempts, which was exactly what D&D’s first season appeared like.
That was, until the finale for season one premiered.
Without warning, Flux woke up one morning to find his social media timelines completely overwhelmed with the same gifset and the same caption. From what he could piece together, it was the scientist who’d been attempting to perfect a cure — Doctor Silas, Flux figured — standing across from the man who’d been steadfastly and mysteriously trailing him all season: Jan von Kruger.
In the gifset, the two men stood in the laboratory, faces lit with green, fluorescent lighting. They were so close as to be sharing the same breath.
You could experiment on me, Jan said, across each and every gif.
I can’t do that to you, Silas whispered back.
Please, Jan said. And every gif narrowed in on his eyes, flicking down unerringly to Silas’ lips, then back up. I want you to.
Naturally, Flux had tweeted some of his finest ragebait yet: yall are falling for this queerbait hook, line, and sinker, and it’s embarrassing to watch.
Then he had opened Netflix, curled into his freshman dormitory bed with the string lights dimmed, told Snowbird he was binge-watching a show and not to bother him unless Thomas was dying, and pressed play.
Two seasons and three-odd years later, Decayed and Decrepit has effectively taken over his life. Apart from homework and poetry, this ridiculous, kitschy, overdramatic zombie show consumes nearly every waking moment. Flux likes to pretend he’s not that obsessed — mostly to spare himself the embarrassment from his IRL friends. They’d never let him live it down if they found out he spent most of his summer beta’ing his online best friend’s slash fanfiction, staying up until the sun rose, eagerly reading every single word with the sort of devotion he typically reserved for his own poetry.
All this to say: Fluixon has been looking forward to the start of season four all summer, and it's less than three weeks away.
He, Thomas, and Snowbird are walking back to the apartment when Flux’s good mood is finally ruined.
“Flux!” someone shouts from down the street. “Fluuux!”
Flux pinches his eyes shut. He doesn’t even need to turn to know who’s calling his name, because only one person ever says his name like this, with a pathetic and irritating whine at the end. Flux-uhhh.
“Incoming,” Snowbird whispers.
“I’ve gathered that,” Flux hisses.
“Flux!” Saparata calls, jogging up the hill from the rec center. He’s waving like a moron. “Wait up!”
In an ideal world, Fluixon would simply run away from him. But even on a good day, he’d never be able to outrun Saparata. So he simply waves Thomas and Snowbird on, then stands with his arms crossed and waits impatiently for Saparata to reach him.
Saparata, as always, looks sweaty and gross. He’s suntanned and freckled all over, which means he’s spent all his summer outside in the pool. Flux privately hopes that skin cancer gets him before he turns thirty. He’s wearing the loosest possible wifebeater, probably to try and show off his biceps — which quite honestly aren’t even that impressive. Saparata is pathetic and noodley compared to a guy like Sitzkrieg, or even next to any of his frat brothers in Westhelm. When he gets closer, Flux discovers that he smells like chlorine and sweat.
Saparata doesn’t appear affected by Flux’s hostility. He just grins and shoves his hair back from his brow. Unfairly, he isn’t even out of breath after jogging uphill. “Sup?”
“Sup?”
“You had a good summer?”
“It was good until I had to see your face again,” Flux mutters.
“Aw, come on. Don’t be like that. You’re always so bitchy to me.”
“I’m the bitchy one?”
“See what I mean?”
Flux imagines Saparata tripping backward and shattering his skull open against the pavement. It’s one of his many frequent fantasies, all of which feature Saparata dying in the most humiliating way possible.
Saparata somehow always manages to bring out the worst in him like this. He turns Flux into the most evil version of himself: the sort of person who fantasizes about murder, graphic violence, torture. The sort of stuff that would put MKUltra to shame.
“Anyway,” Saparata continues, “I am actually glad I caught you. I tried to text, but I think you still have my number blocked.”
“Do I?” Flux lies.
“Dude, you’ll have to unblock me eventually.”
“Maybe you just have the wrong number.”
“We have to meet for Theria,” Saparata sighs. Some of his casual, good mood slips away, revealing the true self underneath the facade: the insufferable maniac who makes it his sole mission to torment Flux, semester after semester. “You know we’re both on the editorial team this year, and Jophiel’s been freaking nagging me to figure out an actual meeting time, so — when are you free?”
Flux abruptly hates his past self for applying to the editorial team in the first place. But in junior year, he’d been searching for on-campus jobs to flesh out his resume, and he’d worked for Theria before: on the copy-editing team in junior year, and a slush pile reader for freshman and sophomore year. Flux had figured he was a shoe-in for the chief poetry editor position this go-around.
Now he’s got it. He’d been gleeful at the time. He just hadn’t been expecting Saparata to apply for fiction editor in turn.
More than that, he hadn’t been expecting Saparata to actually get it.
Flux forces a thin smile. He valiantly resists the urge to shove Saparata backwards and make the fantasy come true. “I can do Tuesday nights.”
“Can’t. I’ve got water polo on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“Do you ever look at yourself with your ridiculous cap on and think about how stupid you look?”
Saparata is unfazed. "I think I look pretty good. What about Wednesdays?”
“Philosophy study group,” Flux lies.
“Ugh. Friday?”
When Decayed and Decrepit premieres at seven PM EST in two and a half week's time? Absolutely not. Friday evenings are sacred for Fluixon. He crosses his arms and scowls. “I’m not meeting with you on a Friday evening. I know how Westhelm gets. You’d show up to every meeting drunk.”
“Well, you have to make at least one day of the week work!” Saparata throws his hands into the air. “And I’m not meeting on the weekend, so you’ll have to make time for me on Monday.”
“I’m doing this for Theria, not for you,” Flux snaps. “And I don’t have time on Monday anyway. Fiction seminar goes until ten.”
To his horror, Saparata’s face breaks into a grin. “That’s perfect. We can meet right after fiction seminar!”
“Um,” Flux says eloquently. “Can we?”
“I’m taking it too,” says Saparata, as though it’s obvious that he’d be enrolling in the advanced fiction seminar as well.
Flux startles. “You’re what?”
But Saparata is already taking out his phone, adding a new event to his Google Calendar: theria editorial sesh from ten to eleven PM on Monday evenings. Flux’s phone buzzes in his back pocket; Saparata has presumably shared the invitation with his academic email. “This is perfect. I’ll let Jophiel know. I’m pretty sure she’s free then too.”
Flux stands there, for once completely wordless.
Saparata is still grinning. “So exciting that we’re in the same class again.” He turns on his heel and heads for the dining hall doors, calling over his shoulder, “I can’t wait to read your work!”
And wordless still, Fluixon stands and watches as Saparata wrenches open the door and all six feet of him — sweaty and arrogant and infuriating — disappear into the building, taking all of Flux’s dreams for a good senior year along with him.
“I have to drop out,” Flux mutters that evening, pacing around the apartment kitchen. “Or I have to kill myself. There’s no other option.”
Sitting on opposite ends of the couch, Snowbird and Thomas exchange dubious glances.
“That seems very much like a false dichotomy,” Thomas says at last.
Snowbird adds, “Do you think you’re maybe… being a little dramatic?”
“I’m going to kill myself in front of him to change the trajectory of his life forever,” Flux says determinedly. “My death will put him in Freudian psychoanalysis for the next miserable seventy years of his life as he struggles with the overwhelming guilt of knowing he drove me to suicide. And he’ll eventually die alone from skin cancer with no loved ones there.”
“...right,” Snowbird says. Flux is ninety-percent sure that he’s laughing at him internally. “That’s concerningly graphic.”
“It’s really just plain concerning,” Thomas says. “It can’t be that bad.”
“He’s ruining everything!”
“It’s one class.” Thomas stares. “You don’t even write fiction! You do poetry!”
“That’s not the point!” Flux paces faster. Why are none of his friends taking his side? Pointedly, he adds, “We all know he only got into that class because of his dad.”
“He could have had a very excellent writing sample,” Thomas suggests. “You never know.”
“He’s a frat bro who plays water polo,” says Flux vehemently. “There’s no way he writes anything good.”
Snowbird and Thomas exchange another, more significant look. But like the loyal foot soldiers they are, they don’t push the point further. Thomas only sighs heavily. “I’m going to order dinner before Gotoga gets here, I think his flight just landed. Any objections to Domino’s?”
“No pineapple,” Flux says.
“Cheesy bread,” Snowbird says. “Two orders of it.”
Thomas nods, then disappears into the hallway to place their order. Snowbird fishes around for his car keys — he’s the only one of them who’s got a car, although it barely starts half the time — and he disappears to go pick Gotoga up from the airport.
It’s okay, Flux tries to reason with himself, still pacing furiously around the kitchen. Fiction seminar can’t possibly be that bad. Fluixon is a good writer — and he’s certainly the best poet on campus, if he’s being honest with himself. He’s been published, which is something Saparata probably can’t claim for himself. He’s won state-wide awards before. He was even a semifinalist for the Youth Poet Laureate in New York when he was seventeen.
At the very least, it’ll be satisfying to tear apart whatever ridiculous short story Saparata submits for workshop.
Flux lets himself sink into the fantasy for a moment. In his imagination, he’s at the head of the table, scathingly ripping apart Saparata’s absurd notions of plot and characterization. You can’t even keep your tense consistent, Flux would say, dramatically gesturing with one hand. How are we even supposed to comprehend the basics of your plot when it’s fundamentally unreadable? Saparata would go red and shrink into himself, supremely cowed by Fluixon’s greater understanding of literary fiction.
Some fiction editor he’ll be, Flux scowls. He’s going to run Theria into the ground if Flux doesn’t keep a close eye on him.
Thomas goes to get their pizza at the front door at the same moment that Snowbird and Gotoga pull into the parking lot outside the apartment. By the time the four of them are situated around the table, pizza boxes splayed open before them, Flux almost feels better.
It’s his senior year. He’s not going to let some outrageous frat boy jock ruin his fall semester.
If anything, Fluixon is going to ruin his semester right back. He’s going to fucking run Saparata into the ground.
When night falls, Flux retreats to his room.
Thomas is in the shower, water pattering against the tile. Flux sets about unfurling all his rolled-up posters, pressing them flat against the wooden flooring with his old philosophy textbooks. He’s certain Thomas will make fun of him for the sheer amount of Decayed and Decrepit art, but Flux doesn’t care. If Thomas can put up his Yggdrasil and Pandora posters, Flux can tape up whatever he likes.
Then, gracefully and blissfully alone, Flux sits cross-legged in his bed and opens his laptop.
He’s been busy all day, reuniting with the friends he hasn’t seen since May, which means he’s also been offline. His Twitter notifications are full; no surprise there. They’re always critiquing his takes these days, mostly due to the fact that Flux is a relatively big name fan on Twitter. He posts what he considers to be truth, but what most other people interpret as intentionally-inflammatory ragebait. Flux simply has a lot of opinions on the way people characterize Jan and Silas! It's not his fault if their writing is atrociously subpar. Really, no one in the fandom seems to get them right. No one seems to understand Jan and Silas's dynamic in the way that Fluixon does.
Except for Silas himself.
Not the same Silas from the show, that is. Whenever Flux asks him about it, Silas is adamant that he’d chosen the online alias before D&D had even premiered. He’d texted Flux once about it irritably:
<silasvk>
i’ve been silas for longer than that show has even been in production
besides, you have no room to talk<architective>
i simply feel a close kinship to jan<silasvk>
alright whatever
we all know he’s on your kinlist<architective>
i can’t help it if i’m literally jan :)<silasvk>
ur literally annoying is what you are
And Flux had found himself smiling down at his phone, absurdly so, flushing pink all over.
Flux first met Silas two years ago, just after finishing the first season in its entirety. He’d gone to Archive of Our Own searching for any good fanfictions, but the tag was a barren wasteland back then — full of slop and horrid characterization. There were only so many fics he could skim through that turned Jan von Kruger into a whiny, pathetic crybaby before Flux felt sick and tabbed out.
Then he stumbled across Silas’s work.
At the time, Silas had only two fanfictions posted beneath his username. His summaries weren’t half bad; his tagging could use some work, Flux thought critically. But from the first paragraph, he knew he’d stumbled across gold. Silas was an astonishingly, beautifully talented writer. He understood Jan and Silas more completely than anyone else in the entire fandom. In a fit of sleep-deprived giddiness, Flux had left a pretty embarrassing, rambling comment full of praise, then fell asleep with his thumb on the next chapter button.
He’d woken up to an equally long, equally excited comment, one new follower on Twitter and Tumblr each, and two DMs: the first saying hiii and the second saying i think we would make really good friends.
Three years into the fandom, Silas is probably the most popular fic writer out there. His most popular fanfiction — a timeloop alternate universe, in which Jan and Silas find themselves reliving the events of the season one finale over and over — is top of the tag in both kudos and bookmarks with nearly a hundred thousand hits. He’s a ferociously generative writer, always prancing about some new idea he’s got. Every time, without fail, he messages Flux first.
<silasvk>
will u beta read this one? :)
And every time, without fail, Flux answers:
<architective>
always :)
They go hand in hand these days. At the top of every single fanfiction he posts to AO3, Silas writes: thank you arch for betaing this one! Sometimes, he writes my fantastic architect. Once, he’d written my beloved arch, which made Flux’s heart beat hummingbird-quick, quivering and pink.
If Saparata brings out the worst in him, Silas is the polar opposite. He brings out the absolute best in Flux: the side of Fluixon that’s soft, gooey, shielded away from the rest of the world but willingly bared in its entirety to Silas. He elicits the part of Fluixon that’s furiously creative, deeply obsessive and engaged, collaborative and thoughtful and caring.
Sometimes, Flux feels that Silas might be the only person in the world who truly gets him, on a level so far removed from physical that nothing in the real world can compare.
Silas must have been equally busy today. He’s only sent Flux a couple of messages: a response to their bickering last night about whether to cut a line or not, a link to some fanart of Jan he thought Flux would like. Then, a couple minutes ago, he’s written:
<silasvk>
holy shit
dude have you seen the new promo pics<architective>
they’re out?
In response, Silas sends over a Twitter thread. Season four of Decayed and Decrepit appears every inch as bloody and gory as Flux has come to anticipate. He scrolls through the images eagerly and pauses on the photo of Jan: rifle propped against his shoulder, scope raised steadfast to his good eye.
<architective>
no fucking way
this is insane<silasvk>
this is going to be the greatest season ever
jansilas lovers are winning
Flux locks in on the photo of Jan: dark hair falling over his forehead, expression narrowed and fierce. A part of him is devastatingly attracted to the actor, sure. But more than that, Flux can’t help but find himself mirrored in the character’s eyes. He knows it's purely projection, but Jan von Kruger resonates so deeply with him: the aggressive defensiveness, the totalizing devotion to his friends, the (admittedly) manipulative tendencies, the stubborn moral code.
It’s silly. But this terrible, gimmicky TV show makes Fluixon feel seen in a way very little else does.
Silas is still typing:
<silasvk>
and when we finally get the jansilas kiss? what then?<architective>
don’t even joke about that<silasvk>
ur little heart is going to explode<architective>
my heart is going to explode anyway
The shower cuts off in the background. Flux is still smiling faintly down at his computer when Thomas eases open the door, and he startles at the noise.
Thomas glances at him, then down at the posters pressed-flat on the floor. Flux schools his face back into indifference.
“Is this about your silly show?” Thomas sighs.
“It’s not silly.”
“You’re blushing,” Thomas points out.
Flux doesn’t deign to respond. He sinks further into bed, adjusting his laptop to his knees, fingers flying across the keyboard.
<architective>
my stupid roommate won’t stop making fun of me<silasvk>
have u considered gunning him down jan-style<architective>
unfortunately i don’t have a gun<silasvk>
i feel like you deserve one
i’ll get a gun for you<architective>
you mean it?<silasvk>
anything for my favorite architect <3
Flux’s heart, annoyingly, flutters in his chest. He tries not to feel the surge of giddiness rushing through him, but Silas always manages to elicit this sort of speechless, flustered reaction from him.
The first of many problems is this: Silas is a flirt.
Flux isn’t sure if it’s because he’s a talented shipfic writer or if it’s because he knows Fluixon so well, but he has a knack for making Flux go speechless. Every so often, he drops a line that’s equal parts casual and romantic, enough that Flux has no clue what to say in response without doing the virtual equivalent of stumbling over his words.
He’s going hot, and he’s achingly aware of Thomas glancing at him surreptitiously from across their dormitory. Without thinking, Flux finds himself writing:
<architective>
we could watch the premiere together if u wanted
A beat.
Silas types, then stops typing.
<silasvk>
maybe haha
And the second of many problems: Silas is terribly, immensely private.
Fluixon knows everything about this man: his favorite tropes, his penchant for saying YIPPEE!!, his overly-witty dialogue, his writing style, even his downright vulgar not-safe-for-work thoughts on Jan and Silas (the ones in the television show, though Flux desperately wishes that Silas would share his vulgar, not-safe-for-work thoughts about him). And Fluixon has been there for every up and down of the last couple years: consoling Silas through failing a stats midterm; texting Silas at four in the morning when he was wasted and stumbling home; advising him on arguments with his father.
Flux knows his kinks, the kinks he hates, knows what the classic omegaverse UQuiz has assigned him as (alpha, infuriatingly enough), knows his workout routine, knows he prefers apple juice over orange juice, knows about the hot-pink cast he’d gotten in second grade, and knows his dreams of becoming a published author someday.
He just doesn’t know what Silas looks like. Or what he sounds like.
Or, really, anything real about him at all.
It’s a silly desire, given that Fluixon is notoriously private in turn. The last thing he needs is to get doxxed and wake up to find some selfie of his plastered across the timeline. Still, he’d be lying if he says he doesn’t dream about it at times: Silas, the real Silas, in person with him.
Flux realizes he’s been silent for too long. Hastily, he types back.
<architective>
we don’t have to
just an idea lol<silasvk>
i think the server is probably doing a watch party if u want to join<architective>
the last thing i want to do is vc with a bunch of teenagers who have zero correct takes on jan
if i have to hear them call him manipulative one more time i’ll lose it<silasvk>
i’d pay good money to hear you crash out<architective>
well get in line
i’m a hot commodity these days<silasvk>
sure u can’t bump me to the front of the line? ;)
Flux flushes again. His heart skips giddily through his chest, electric and fluttery.
<architective>
i’ll consider it.
Across the room, Thomas sighs. “Do you ever think about the fact that you might be texting like, a total freak?”
Given that Silas has written upwards of two hundred thousand words of Jan von Kruger and Doctor Silas making out in every possible way, Flux is certain his odds of being catfished are fairly low.
“He could be eighty years old,” Thomas continues offhandedly. “He could be eleven.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not true. He’s in college too.”
“You don’t even know where he lives.”
Flux glances down at Discord, but Silas hasn’t responded. His status has turned to invisible. Knowing him, he’s likely tabbed back over to the Google Doc, typing away at whatever fever-dream scene he’s invented this time.
“He can tell me whatever he wants to tell me,” Flux says firmly. “I’m not going to ask my best friend to doxx himself.”
“I’m not your best friend?”
Thomas says it innocently, a grin in his voice, and Flux rounds on him. “Don’t pull that card on me.”
“I’m only saying…”
“You know you’re my best friend,” Flux sighs. Thomas is the only friend of his that knows about Silas, after all — the only person who knows anything about Flux’s online fandom obsessions. As such, Thomas occupies a spot of Flux’s heart that no one else does.
Flux stands and stretches, then checks one corner of a poster. Flat enough to tape to the wall. It takes him a while to figure out where he wants everything to go, and Thomas obligingly helps out. Together they arrange the posters until each one — the theatrical releases for each season, all the art pieces from conventions and Etsy and Redbubble — are taped up to Flux’s liking. The very last one, a print Thomas had gifted him for his birthday last year, goes in a spot of pride directly beside the door, where Flux will see it every night as he falls asleep.
“You ever thought that you might be a little too obsessed?” Thomas says after a moment.
Pointedly, Flux glances over to the matching Yggdrasil and Pandora posters that Thomas has plastered to his side of the room.
“The State books are a really good series,” Thomas says automatically; it's a constant point of contention between them. “D&D is not on par with them at all.”
“D&D is a good show too! Okay — yes, there are a lot of flaws — the writing in season three was sloppy, they completely butchered Magic’s recovery arc — and that last hostel scene was absolutely outrageous —”
“But I mean with this guy,” Thomas says. He gestures vaguely to Flux’s laptop. “I know how you get when you have a crush.”
Gone scarlet, Flux says, “I’m not obsessed.”
“Not denying the crush, I see?”
Flux feels defensive and prickly all over. “I don’t even know what he looks like. He could be a total freak.”
“That’s the best part about the Internet,” Thomas says dryly. “He could be anyone at all. You could have walked right past him today and not even known it.”
A shiver runs up Flux’s spine. The very idea that he may have walked by Silas in person and not realized makes him want to vomit.
Odds are, Silas is a thousand miles away from him. The Internet is enormous and vast. Anyone can be anyone online. The likelihood of Silas attending the same tiny liberal arts college as Fluixon is so impossibly low that Flux would have better luck getting struck by lightning twice in a day.
“Not likely,” Flux mutters, and he burrows under the covers to try and sleep.