Work Text:
A drag path, etched in the surface
-- timaeusTestified [TT] has begun pestering golgothasTerror [GT]--
TT: Yo.
TT: Jake.
TT: Check this shit out.
--timaeusTestified [TT] has attached file “mybullshit.png”—--
TT: What do you think?
TT: It’s us.
GT: Gee willikers dirk!
GT: Thats meant to be little old me?
TT: Well, yeah. Obviously.
TT: You couldn’t tell from the glasses and black hair I lovingly rendered for 40 days and 40 nights?
TT: I studied your face, bro. It’s perfect, uncanny accuracy or bust.
TT: I’m not going to half ass something as dire as a portrait of my best bro.
GT: Well half ass it you certainly did not!
GT: At the very least a whole bonafide ass was spent on this here masterpiece.
GT: And is that supposed to be you?
GT: What exactly are we meant to be doing here?
TT: I should’ve known your untrained eye wouldn’t be adjusted yet to the fine details of this work.
TT: We’re riding a horse. I wasn’t sure who to make the voluptuous Western damsel who got tied to the train tracks and who to make the rugged cowboy, so I just made us both cowboys.
TT: Since obviously neither of us are damsel material.
GT: Naturally.
GT: We are… erm.
GT: Very close in this image!
GT: Perhaps this is another artistic extrapolation i havent got the know how to parse out yet.
TT: Well sure. We’re on a horse, and there isn’t much room on the back of a horse.
TT: It’s a necessity. We’re two renegading cowboys, it’s par for the course to have a close relationship.
TT: I’d say we have something of a close relationship as is.
TT: Wouldn’t you agree?
GT: Well absotutely! I agree with you completely on that front.
GT: I just didnt have the wherewithal to understand your artistic interpretation is all.
GT: I do now!
GT: Thank you very kindly master painter strider!
TT: It’s no problem.
TT: In fact, I’d say it’s my pleasure to get to draw this.
TT: But seriously, I’m glad you like it.
TT: Happy to know you’ve got what it takes to interpret such a high caliber work of art.
GT: Haha! Of course!
GT: Im becoming something of a connoisseur from all these pieces you keep sending my way.
GT: Thank YOU for all the practice!
GT: *Tips my cowboy hat to you*
TT: Pleasure doing business with you, pardner.
--timaeusTestified [TT] has ceased pestering golgothasTerror [GT]--
Fuuuuuuuuuuuck, did I come on too strong?
He sees text pop up in the corner of his glasses HUD.
TT: Definitely came on too strong.
“Man, shut the fuck up.”
He stares at the art on his screen. A fairly well drawn image of him and Jake on horseback. Jake has the reins in his hands, and Dirk has his arms wrapped around him, both of them wearing cowboy hats. He had drafts of both him as the damsel and Jake as the damsel too but had scrapped them in favor of this far more neutral version. He still found himself tearing his hair out over who exactly should be in front or back but had decided that he needed to just full send it.
At this point, he’s not sure that was the right call. Jake had reacted weird, and now his AR is saying he came off too strong. Is it fucked? Is it all fucked?
He finds himself shoving out of his seat, stumbling to his bed and throwing his glasses to the side. He can’t listen to that fucking parody of his own voice right now, mocking him. Instead, he reaches for Lil Cal, the loyal puppet, and flops on his bed, burying his face in the plush t-shirt.
It’s all fucked. Jake is going to hate him, and then Jane is going to hate him, and Roxy too. What the fuck is he even supposed to do? Why isn’t there a handbook for this shit? How do you show a guy you like him without coming off as a complete dickwad and creep? He basically is one, anyway. What the fuck was that? “I studied your picture?” That’s shit that stalkers say.
Only four hours later does he find himself rolling out of bed, dragging his feet as he approaches the computer again. His legs feel like lead, and his head full of static. He thinks he’s about to pass out.
As he drags his mouse across the screen, the monitor lights up again.
--golgothasTerror [GT] has begun pestering timaeusTestified [TT]--
GT: I found a rock that sort of looks like your visage.
GT: Voila!
-- golgothasTerror [GT] has attached file “foolishrock.png”—
GT: Behold! The rock of great dirkness.
Dirk can feel his shoulders drop, and he lowers his head to his desk, taking a few deep breaths. Jake is acting normal. Things are normal. He didn’t ruin everything.
He waits an appropriate and casual 5 minutes before responding to the message. He doesn’t want to seem too obsessed. He’s already gotten a bit too careless with his drawings.
TT: Holy shit, man. That’s me.
TT: You found me and picked me up off the ground.
TT: I was going to tell you, but I thought it’d surprise you too much. I became a rock and fell out of the sky.
TT: Looks like it was fate.
He needs to get a gun and shoot himself in the head.
As evidence, left there on purpose
A sad sap, laying on the surface
Dappled sunlight spills out from behind the canopy of wide leaves, splattering across Jake’s skin, pockmarked with acne and scars. He’s 15.2 meters (49.869 feet) from the nearest shelter. Given his pace calculated by the space between boot prints in the mud, he’ll be there in 11 seconds. Auditory scans are reporting heavy breathing. Corroborated with droplets of sweat beading down his neck. The scene is saved on the Brobot’s SSD for further data collection on its charge.
Up in those branches, metal hands dig into the bark to keep it anchored in place. Its lack of movement keeps it silent-- the perfect sentry. By design.
Jake is moving again, rustling leaves. One decibel louder than he should be. Last week it dropped on him at this noise level. Realistically it should have dropped on him at this point too so he learns his lesson, but Jake had been more careful about noise in the previous week after the resulting attack, so one mistake can be swept aside for now. That’s strike one, though. The Brobot notes this in the corner of its HUD with one red glowing tally mark.
Digital memories run through recordings. The last fight over noise. The bot replays those audio files of panting and huffing. Calculating the angle Jake’s neck took when he hit the ground, face bracketed by leaves and dirt—103 degrees to be exact. His most activated muscles seemed to be his biceps, pectoralis, and trapezius. It could feel his core and quadriceps trying to activate too, but naturally, only one of them is made of pure metal.
Those same muscles are active right now, though analysis is showing more activity in the quadriceps and gastrocnemius, along with more activation of the hamstrings. Heat signatures keep his silhouette in view even while he ducks between leaves. Once he starts to leave the viewport of the bot, hydraulics fire, limbs moving again. The locked arm on the tree trunk lets go, and the Brobot finds itself effortlessly flying through the air onto the next tree. This time though, the rustling seems to alert Jake below, who pauses, looking up at the leaves.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Jake always takes about 7 seconds before his suspicion begins to fade again, and this is no exception. The game plays out as it always does. Cat and mouse. After looking away again, Jake continues his walking, though this time slower. The nearest shelter now about a 5 second walk away.
This time though, the noise that startles Jake is that of a low toned growl. In seconds, the bot is cycling through an encyclopedia of every discovered beast on this island, of which there are admittedly many. The audio file matches the closest to some sort of big cat that has yet to be given a more specific name, but regardless, the white flash of fur that contrasts with the jungle cover of the surrounding territory is enough to set several if-then loops into motion.
[RECORDING STARTED…]
Only moments after classifying the sound, the Brobot is descending from the trees, its arm slung around Jake’s waist and pushing him into that shelter only 5 seconds away. Its job is simple. Keep Jake alive, and keep him sharp. Step 1 is in progress now.
“OOF-!”
The bot slams a metal hand over Jake’s mouth, staring him down with its glowing shades. It registers the terror in the boy’s eyes, and backs up, putting a finger to where its lips would be if it had any distinct facial features, before disappearing in another flash step. Disposing of the cat is simple and easy. An olive-toned green. Noted and added to the encyclopedia.
With that, it wipes the blood off its blade, before sheathing the sword and ascending back into the canopy. Stalking mode re-engaged.
[RECORDING STOPPED…]
“Hey! You dadblasted robot, get out here!” There comes the abrasive, brash voice of Jake English. Far too many levels above what is a permissible noise level. The bot acknowledges the lowered danger level given the death of the beast that just occurred, but still. Jake should be learning to keep his voice down.
“Come on! Face me like a man!” The auditory sensors pick up the sound of leaves rustling, and the kinetic sensors pick up the feeling of the tree trunk shaking. It turns its visual sensors to the ground, and can see the orange and red heat signature of Jake trying to claw his way up the tree. Of course he is.
The bot reaches to its side, pulling the sword it always uses out again, and leans further out of the tree, looking down at the soon to be combatant. It will probably take 30 seconds for Jake to reach the bot, so it’s at a great advantage. If Jake can get a little bit further up, all the bot has to do is drop out of the tree and it’ll knock the wind out of him, effectively disabling him and winning the fight. It waits another 15 seconds, before enacting the maneuver.
Position, lock, drop.
It goes exactly according to plan. Jake lets out a yelp, then heaving, gasping breaths as his back hits the dirt. Flawless. The bot finds itself recording again, but this one is kept in local memory.
Can you find me?
I dug my heels into the gravel
Jake hisses while Dirk presses cotton against the wound welling with blood across Jake’s chest. He can feel Jake’s fist clenching around the fabric of his shirt, and a bead of sweat drop from his forehead onto the arm beginning to wrap bandages around his chest. He tries to focus on the wound, and not the warm puffs of breath against his neck as Jake tries his hardest—and fails—to keep a brave face when he got impaled 15 minutes ago. Instead, he cinches the bandage a bit too tight, letting his hand dance across the skin gently when Jake makes a pained whine sound.
With the larger wound patched, he takes Jake’s arm, pulling the next bandage taut around the bloody gash on his bicep. That same whimpering noise makes its way out of Jake’s throat, and Dirk finds himself sighing, looking up at Jake’s face where tears are gathering in his eyes. For all his boasts of jungle adventure, Jake is awfully sensitive.
He doesn’t say this however and instead lets his gloved hand trail down to interlace their fingers. His thumb runs across the back of Jake’s own hand a few times, in a weak attempt to comfort him. He’s become starkly aware of his wire mother qualities in the past few days.
“There. Good as new. Don’t go running into any other ambushes though. Not sure how long this thing will hold. We just need your immune system to do its thing first,” Dirk remarks. He can see Jake nod and turns back to pick up and re-captchalogue his first aid supplies.
“You mean to tell me there will be no more wayfaring for the foreseeable future?” Jake asks, sounding like a kicked puppy. To be honest, he’s fairly certain Jake would be okay to traipse around by tomorrow but sue him for wanting more time with the guy who seems to keep running off into a blazing inferno every five minutes.
“Precisely that. You’re on bedrest. It will be enforced, too. Otherwise, I’ll tell Jane,” he warns, though it’s an empty threat. If he told Jane that Jake got so injured he was on bed rest, she’d be busting down the door to get a look at him, and then the whole plan of ‘overblowing a moderate injury to get more quality time with Jake’ is a bust. Granted, it’s not like he’s lying. It’s just a bit of an exaggeration. Besides, Jake really could use the rest. Dirk has noticed how tired around the eyes Jake has been looking during their time exploring this place. Of course he has. That’s his boyfriend. He’d be a shitty boyfriend if he wasn’t doting and attentive to whatever Jake needs.
Jake sighs, loudly. Louder than necessary, and Dirk can tell he’s just trying to farm pity. Nevertheless, he continues to rub his thumb across the back of his hand, ignoring the way Jake’s hand sits limply in his. At least he has his hand. He can be grateful for that. He finds himself meeting Jake’s hand with his cheek, his heart pounding in his chest so loudly he can feel it in his head, and Jake simply watches him, teary eyed as before. He gulps down the lump in his throat, and sits up straight, lowering Jake’s hand. Embarrassing. That was embarrassing.
He pats Jake’s arm, watching him slump a bit and rifle through his sylladex, evidently to find a snack, as he pulls out a protein bar and chows down. Sometimes he reminds Dirk of a squirrel, or a hamster. He can’t help but smile, reaching over to ruffle the dark hair still wet with sweat.
Jake simply huffs, and Dirk reluctantly leans away to sit on the ground. Camping out in these places is getting to both of them, but Dirk isn’t blind. He can tell it’s especially getting to Jake. Something about it. He can’t quite put a finger on it yet, but he’s trying to. He’s going to. He’s sure of it.
So, when Jake finally lays down to rest for the night, who can blame Dirk for laying next to him, hesitating for an hour, reaching his hand out only to pull it back again every time he gets close enough to Jake to feel the warmth emanating from his skin. He feels a bit like Icarus, brushing the sun over and over again just to feel the droplets of wax that threaten to spill and spell his doom.
It takes him the full hour to finally compromise on placing a hand on Jake’s arm, running his thumb down a scar that seemed to have formed while they have been playing the game. He finds himself frowning at the concept that he hasn’t yet memorized the map of Jake’s skin the way he used to dream of. The pace of his breathing isn’t familiar yet, and the way he moves is alien. It scares him sometimes just how different a person can be in real life from the way they are online. And yet, when he really thinks about it, Jake isn’t even that different. He’s just real now.
He finds himself koala’d onto Jake, his leg thrown over him and his face buried in his shoulder. Jake doesn’t seem to have moved an inch, stock still on the ground. In a way, this comforts Dirk. On the other hand, he wishes he could be wrapped up in Jake’s arms so tight he can’t breathe. He wishes that he could crawl into the wound on his chest and live next to his heart like a parasite.
Instead, this manifests as Dirk carefully taking Jake’s arm and pulling it around himself. This will do for now, he tells himself. This is the closest he’s going to get for now.
As evidence for you to unravel
A drag path etched into the surface
The cell is cold. Even a ghost can feel the way the air sits at a temperature just too low to be comfortable. He can see the goosebumps standing up on Jake’s arms and legs, and it takes everything in him not to tear off his own cape to give him a blanket. He would if that would do anything.
Instead, Brain Ghost Dirk finds himself sitting as a sentry, watching the bars in front of him as Jake lays on his side, waiting, miserable. Of course he’s miserable, and the ghost can’t even help him. He keeps trying to motivate him, but everything he says just keeps pushing the guy to sobbing like a baby, and it’s not like he can buck up and break them out. So instead, he sits on watch, invisible and ineffective. He looks at his translucent hand, sitting on Jake’s shoulder. He knows Jake can’t feel it, because neither can he. Still, it keeps his own emotions in check. If Jake is there, he’s not with that husk of Jane, and he’s not hurt.
He wonders once or twice why he even cares. He’s not real. Jake knows it, and so does he. But still. It brings a feeling of calm over his own heart, or lack thereof.
It’s an odd feeling, being a figment of someone else’s imagination. He knows what Jake is thinking, and when he’s thinking it. Even now, in a way, he can feel the thoughts drifting through Jake’s mind as he sleeps. The dreams that flicker through his head. He wishes he could dream too. Maybe he’d see a world where he got to be an independent being. A real Dirk who could do real things. He could be with his real friends and help save their real lives from certain doom. He resents the living Dirk. Of course he does. Would he be a Dirk if he didn’t?
The thought that hatred of other splinters makes him more real does not comfort him. It only makes him feel worse. If he could feel at all, that is. He reminds himself that he is but a shallow copy of an existing man, and that he cannot feel his own feelings. What he is feeling is the feelings of the original mixed with Jake’s own thoughts. Nothing of his own. As his translucent fingers phase through the dark curls on Jake’s head, he instead lets his hand sink through his skull, imagining his hand sifting through brain matter and coming out the other side. Maybe then he’d feel close enough that being an idealized copy of the guy Jake still loves wouldn’t matter anymore.
He’s deep in thought when he hears the movement of Jake, and a groan leave his throat.
“Mmmmmfh… Uuuuugh…” he hums, bringing his hand to his neck, which is no doubt sore from lying on the hard floor, and the ghost tilts his head slightly. He can feel his presence fading as Jake’s eyes blink away the blurriness, but after a moment, he rests his head back on the ground, letting out a harrumph noise. The ghost can’t help the swell of fondness in his chest at the sound, and he also can’t stop the satisfaction of feeling himself fade back into existence as Jake drifts back off into the dreamworld. There’s no small sliver of glowing pride that wells up in his throat at the thought that maybe, just maybe, he comes into existence when Jake wants to be able to let his guard down. Even if he isn’t real, he can’t help but bear that responsibility like a soldier. Of course he’d keep watch for him. That is all he can do anyway.
He sits on guard for the remainder of the night. He’s not sure what he could do even if something did happen, but he doesn’t think he could live with himself if he didn’t at least warn Jake of incoming trouble. Though, he supposes he wouldn’t have a choice of living or dying. He’s not exactly alive or dead to start anyway.
Can you find me?
Can you find me?
“…So”
“So!”
“So.”
“Soooooo?”
There is a silence that follows the awkward attempt at conversation when the two humans try and start with each other. Neither of them meeting the other’s eye. Jake stares at the ground. Dirk stares out into the far reaches of space. He’d rather be anywhere than having this conversation with Jake right here and now, but he’s never been one to run from the things that scare him.
“How about that game?”
“Dude.”
“What? It’s a viable question! How about that game?”
“You’re saying that like this was a match of soccer and we just got out of the arena. My thoughts are that it fucking sucked, but we’re done.”
“Well. That’s a perfectly reasonable reaction to such an experience, I’d say.”
“Yup.”
Another silence overtakes the two. It’s heavy, and nauseatingly obvious.
“So…”
“We cool?”
“Oh!” Jake looks up at that, the hopeful tone embarrassingly pungent. Dirk could smell it from a mile away, “Yes! Yes, of course we are most assuredly cool. No harm no foul for everything! Absolutely no problemo on my end. Um. If there isn’t any on your end, of course.”
“Nah, man. No harm, no foul on my end either,” his voice doesn’t exactly sound convinced, and he knows this, but he can’t help but bend the knee to the Page. He’s addicted to the palpable taste of Hope on his tongue every time he finds himself talking to him. It makes him a little nauseous with it all. He knows it makes him weak, but he can’t help himself. He never has been able to.
“Phew! Well that saves us the awkwardness of… the everything, hm?” Jake grins, now refusing to meet his gaze. Dirk stares at him instead. His sunglasses make him bold. He knows that, and he never thought Jake minded it until he did.
Dirk finds himself emboldened though, finally, after all this time. He’s shown his claws, and Jake has shown Dirk his. They can’t hate each other more than they already have. At least Dirk doesn’t think. Maybe Jake disagrees. Nevertheless, he can’t tear his eyes away from Jake. There is no small amount of contempt in Dirk’s eyes, but Jake can’t see them. He can’t help but feel like he’s found his lost dog that ran out the front door, but he scolds himself for thinking that way. Jake isn’t a dog, and Jake isn’t his. Besides, he’s happy enough that Jake doesn’t seem to hate him anymore. He’ll take his small victory.
They’ll have the rest of eternity to work things out anyhow, and he needs to work on his patience.