driftfleet | what's in a wonderball????

--I said I didn't wanna talk about it anymore. I didn't say I wanted you to go.

[ the concession is quiet, almost like she's embarrassed about it. she should really see about trying to fit a chair in here: having company felt like it would always be weird when it amounted to "here, have a seat on my bed." ]

Can we just talk about something else instead?

[He pockets his hands out of his own discomfort, looking down at the floor.]

Ok.

[Are these rooms big enough for chairs... Because if so, yeah, chairs might be a good investment. Davesprite has no idea what to do with himself now.]

I didn't come prepared with a ton of ideas, unless Draco is a topic we're actually about to engage. Don't think I'm ready to get married to the idea, though. [Badumpish.]

[ she shrugs, sitting up and scooting back to prop herself in the corner against the wall again. she does kick one foot out as she does, though, indicating that he take a seat. it wasn't like he had any problems with flopping face-first onto her bed earlier. ]

I mean... looking back on it, I don't think he and I were really very good together anyway.

[It's just weird when he starts doubting she wants to deal with him at a given point in time. But he takes the invite.]

What makes you say that.

I think he just needed someone to care about him. I don't think it really mattered who it was.

[ she slides one of the comics over to him, like a peace offering. ]

And I think I just... needed to be needed, I guess. It felt good. It made me feel like I was- doing a good thing.

[He takes it automatically, idly flipping through a couple pages without paying much attention to it.

He doesn't really know what to say to that.]

Are you glad it's over, then.

No, not really. I think I really was in love with him, too.

[ said carefully, like she's only really dissecting these thoughts as she speaks them. ]

And... I still miss him. But I guess I can see things a little more objectively now.

[ oh god fast think of something else to talk about...... ]

Ever wonder what would happen if more people showed up here? Like - um, Henry? Or Ryan?

[He glances at her out of the corner of his eye, before he flicks through the comic again. What she said makes him kind of sad and he doesn't know why.]

Not really. I don't think much about anyone showing up, to be honest. [Even when he brings it up or makes jokes about it, which happens all the fucking time.]

I guess maybe it's because I don't think it's gonna happen.

How much in our lives has really been predictable?

[ jade pauses, then frowns. ]

Aside from all the stuff I saw when I was asleep, I guess.

[ she pauses. ]

... and anything you saw while time traveling, too. You know what I meant.

Yeah, I get what you mean. It just feels like pointlessly getting your hopes up. Or stupidly anxious about something that might never happen.

[God, what would he even do if John or Dave or Dirk showed up.]

Besides, [he cocks his head at her] getting spacenapped isn't my idea of a great reunion.

Well... it's better than being at war, isn't it? Or having our food rationed?

[ she says this, then hesitates, mulling it over. ]

... I kind of wish they would ration the gross protein gels. Ugh.

[It gets a flicker of a wry smile.]

This is why you should reconsider Doritos as a legitimate food source. So maybe I haven't been able to figure out how to make anything else, but at least we got corn chips in endless supply.

I can grow vegetables. And flowers.

[ said with a helpless little shrug. ]

But not a lot survives very long without real sunlight, and it's really exhausting to use my powers here. Way more than it was in Asgard.

[ she's reaching for his hand with purpose, though she won't say what that is yet. ]

Maybe 'cause we're dimensions apart from the gods. They were the only reason we had those powers in the first place, right.

[It's why he figures he can't use his, anymore. Hel probably cut him loose, since he's from further along the timeline.

In any case, he doesn't move and waits to see what Jade's up to.]

[ she is just very dutifully sliding his bracelet back onto his wrist. ]

I don't like wearing them both. It feels weird. Besides...

[ she drops her hand back to her own lap. ]

Dimensions apart or not, I don't wanna risk you going gray, right?

[ it's a joke... probably. ]

[He rolls his eyes a little, but at least he doesn't take it back off.]

Man, Jade, I don't wanna wear this shitty bangle.

[He runs a finger around the inner rim, giving it a dark look, before he sighs and lets his head thunk against the wall.]

...I fucking hated it there. [In the end, anyway.]

Well, sorry, you don't have a lot of choice.

[ jade's words come with an air of fake apology. when he settles and thumps his head against the wall, she just shifts and scoots over to sit closer to his side, leaning against his arm. it's not quite the same as cuddling draco or osiris, but she'll take it for now. ]

... why? I mean, I kind of figured you did, but...

It was just...frustrating, I guess.

[He doesn't have words for it, really. It's more of a gut feeling, a lack of control over his own life and the sense Asgard was only a delay to the inevitable. A half-assed attempt to trick himself into thinking maybe it wasn't all that bad, when it only added up to another timeline none of them would remember.

They were just complicit in making things go the way they had to, in the end. And he's so tired of that.]

I think it sucks here, too, if you think I'm being unfair.

Do you think it sucks any more than back home?

[ she rolls her head back to look up at him, lips pressed into a thin and thoughtful line as she considers his profile. ]

Because everywhere is frustrating. Everything is gonna suck, I think.

[ ... wow. she wasn't expecting this conversation to actually be cathartic. ]

If every possible universe exists somewhere in the frothing dipshittery of space and time, then a universe must exist where we get a better deal than this.

[It's bitter. He tosses the comic book onto the bed and there's a beat of silence before he goes on.]

—It sucked, Jade. It really fucking sucked to find out there were universes where Sburb never existed and life got to go on, and we'd never get to see it. That I'd never—that it'd never— [He's not gonna make it to the new universe. He can't see a timeline where that actually happens.] That there are universes out there where it's not a fucking inevitability it's gonna rot in a rancid pile of chumfuckery, where shit that goes wrong is just wrong because it's shitty and terrible, not because someone didn't fucking do their job.

[Oh my god he's still going.]

Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like. Actually getting to grow up on an alt Earth like a normal kid, with a normal family. Or even a normal fucking parent who did actual parent things, instead of constantly pretending he was an impenetrably "cool dude" who couldn't even work up the effort to acknowledge my existence after I watched him fucking die. Who knows, maybe I would have actually grown up to be a decent, passably competent person, instead of whatever the fuck I am now. But whatever.

[None of them probably even exist outside of Sburb-created universes, anyway. The game is the whole reason they were even born.]

Wondering is all it fucking is and ever will be. And I'm sick of it.

Ugh. [He looks down at his hands, grimacing and voice dropping.] I just want Sburb over with. ...It was fucking dumb, to try to buy more time.

[ there's a long stretch of silence from jade. part of it is her trying to figure out if he's finished or not, yeah, but most of it is honestly just her casting about for purchase on anything, scrambling desperately for a way to spin this. to find a thread of hope in this rat of yarn and to pull it loose, to follow it to its brothers.

but there's nothing, at least not right now, and her throat feels weirdly tight.

hadn't all that been the reason she'd wanted to stay in asgard? to playact at being a normal person? a regular kid who did regular things? except there was no denying that he was right: it was all just pretend, an attempt to keep stalling the inevitable. ]

I guess I just never thought we'd run out of hat tricks, you know?

[ jade's voice sounds a little strangled in her own ears, and suddenly she's deeply embarrassed by the fact that she's leaning on his arm. she sits up, awkwardly dropping her hands to her own lap. ]

I don't know what we're supposed to do.

[He looks away. He's been out of hat tricks for years at this point. The best he's been able to do is ruin his own life before it's taken from him, because at least this way it's his own fucking choice. His responsibility, his fault, and no one else has to feel bad about it.]

I don't, either.

[He leans away from the wall, like he's thinking about getting up.]

You could still try to win this thing. If that's what you want.

What good do you think that's really gonna do?

[ she inhales deeply, holds her breath, exhales. ]

They just dropped us here without asking us about it. I doubt they're gonna uphold any agreement they say they've made.

Probably, yeah.

[One of many reasons Davesprite never even considered it.]

I still don't get what their deal is. Like what's the point. Even if it was just about entertainment value, there are easier ways to get your kicks. You don't have to go outside the universe for it.

It's probably because it's just like everything else we've ever been a part of, Davesprite.

[ she casts a sidelong glance at him, exhaled a defeated sort of sigh. ]

Bound by a billion rules that are completely incomprehensible to anyone actually tangled up in them. Surprise. That is apparently what we are doomed for.

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sorry for this tag ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

liar....

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