ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏ | rats are people too

[sylphystia]

Who: Dezel and you
Broadcast: Yes
Action: The Golden
When: Now

[video]

[A group of ship vermin are all sitting in a circle, waiting patiently for... something. A bowl full of scraps appears and seems to float in the air before it sits down in front of them. The rats make cute happy little noises as they dig into the food.

... And then, the greatest evil comes.

The roomba.

One of the tiny maintenance robots comes screaming around the corner at high speed. DIRT DETECTED. [...] PESTS DETECTED. It heads straight for the the poor rats. They all scatter save for one really fat one, who's too focused on the food to notice what's coming.

But what's this-- the droid is scooped up by someone invisible! Dezel's voice might be familiar to some; it's the "don't sleep in my room" guy.]

Leave. The animals. Alone.

[A thin wire appears. With a hard jerk, he shreds the cleaning droid into pieces. Imagine if that had been someone's neck.]

It's all right. You can come out now. [And then the rats come scurrying out of their little holes again. A couple of them crawl over Dezel's invisible shoes, then go back for the food.]

Comments

Video

[notzubats]

[An annoyed sound]

Yes. When you destroy someone's stuff, you apologize.

Video

[sylphystia]

[He lets out a long, drawn-out sigh. When Sora puts it like that, then yeah, it makes Dezel sound childish.

Sora's really bent out of shape about it though, he's assigned it a gender and a name and everything.]

... Sorry.

[He's very sorey, you just can't see his sincere expression of annoyance.]

Video

[notzubats]

[Yeah well, when you're a kid with very few friends, you end up getting overly attached to the roombas!]

[But hey, there's an apology. That's something]

Thank you. I appreciate it.

[He does really. Even if he's pretty sure Dezel's not sorry.]

Can I come get Zurg back? Before that other guy tries to steal 'im.

[sylphystia]

[Just like Dezel got attached to the rats.]

Yeah, yeah. I'm not giving it away, I promise. I don't even know who that guy is.

[notzubats]

Me neither. Talk about a weirdo.

[Says the anime-haired kid to his invisible friend]

But okay. I'll be right over. [He starts walking in the direction of the ship that Dezel is in]

[sylphystia]

[Dezel's in one of the empty bedrooms closest to the kitchen. And yes, the rats are still around. They've finished the food by the time Sora gets there.

Dezel is still under the impression that no one can see him on the ship, so he's sitting on the edge of the bed as the rats happily scurry across his lap.]

[notzubats]

[Sora meanwhile doesn't know exactly where Dezel is, but he knows to listen for the excited rats- because rats are quite the chatterboxes when there's food around. So when he hears that tale-tell sign- he enters the room without knocking, expecting to see nothing but rats]

[But instead? He sees a guy he does not recognize- which makes him stop short, and confused. Was this a new passenger? Did he just walk in on some new guy?]

Whoa- sorry. Wrong room?

[sylphystia]

[That's not the usual reaction. It doesn't say that Dezel is visible, exactly. His silver eyes are briefly seen before he looks down as one particularly energetic rat scurries into his sleeve.

His communicator is on, helping to relay everything in case Sora can't hear him. It makes a weird echo.]

No, this is the right one.

[He gets up and offers Sora the pieces of the droid. Duct tape can probably... fix... it... maybe...]

1/??

[notzubats]

[ ! ]

[Even though he's used to hearing it through a communicator, he knows that voice. The echo from the communicator only solidifies it]

Dezel?

2/3

[notzubats]

[He shuts his eyes and rapidly shakes his head, as if he's making sure he's not imagining things. But when he opens them- sure enough, Dezel is still very visible]

You're actually...

3/3

[notzubats]

[Okay the loss of Zurg is for a moment put on the backburner of his mind as he gets overcome by the excitement of actually seeing his friend. A big smile comes on his face right as he jumps up to give his friend a hug out of sheer excitement]

Dezel! I can see you!!

[sylphystia]

[Dezel is wondering why Sora's leaving a bro hanging, seriously, he's just standing here with his hands full of metal junk that he doesn't care about-- and then he's being touched. Yeah. That doesn't usually happen. He clenches his teeth and tenses up out of reflex, since he's not much of a huggable guy, but he manages not to piledrive Sora right through the floor.

It's a start.

Wait, Sora's touching him. Wait, what, seeing him, what.]

What? You can see me?

[WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN... HOW... WHAT... he's just so confused, and a little bit uncomfortable, which is why he kind of awkwardly reaches out to pat Sora's head. And then the rat rolls out of his sleeve and nests in Sora's hair instead. Shit.]

Lippy is--

[notzubats]

Yeah I can-

[Oh wait, there's a rat in his hair. He'll pull back from the hug (landing back on the ground since Dezel is tall) and moves to calmly and gently take that rat out of his hair with a laugh]

Hey Lippy. I know we've talked about you climbing in my hair.

[There's some squeaks of protest but too bad, rat is getting put back on the bed]

[sylphystia]

[Dezel takes this free moment to calmly adjust his hat and collect himself. Ahem. Like nothing happened.]

You sure you don't want to scream? [And here he gives his usual sharky grin, reserved only for people he likes tolerates.]

[notzubats]

Scream?

[Yeah you do that. He'll look up at Dezel when he speaks- feeling thrilled again that he can actually look up at the guy!]

Ha- no way! You look way too much like Riku to be scary!

[sylphystia]

[congrats, your new bff is two feet taller than you are.]

I look like what?

[And now he's trying to figure out what that means, so he's of course taking off his hat and feeling what's wrong with it.]

[notzubats]

[It's okay like everyone is taller than him, it's just the way of things]

Riku!

[oh right no one knows who that is]

He's my best friend- we grew up together! He's got hair just like yours- well, he doesn't have green tips, but it's pretty close! And he's pretty quiet and gruff like you are too!

[sylphystia]

[If it's not the hat, then he's okay just putting it back on.]

He looks just like me, huh. [A half-laugh.] Figures.

You remind me of Sorey sometimes. I'm not sure how much you resemble each other, though. [He reaches out and puts his hand on top of Sora's head.] ... He's taller. The wind tells me you both have brown hair and you wear weird clothes. [... That's about it, really.]

[notzubats]

[No the hat's cool and fine. But he definitely grins at that. He doesn't even mind being called short because well, he is. No denying that.]

With a name like Sorey, I'm not surprised you get reminded of him.

But hey. Can you really talk about weird clothes when your pants look like they're splitting open?

[sylphystia]

[He grits his teeth suddenly.]

These clothes belonged to someone important. There's nothing wrong with them.

[... ah.]

[notzubats]

[Whoa okay that's a more emotional reaction than he was expecting. He quickly holds up his hands in surrender]

Whoa, hey it's okay. Sorry, I didn't mean anything by it.

[sylphystia]

[He eases a bit, and realizes he didn't mean to freak Sora out. He adjusts his hat with more than a trace of diffidence, decidedly not making eye contact.]

I... know you didn't.

[And, softer:]

Sorry.

[notzubats]

No, it's alright...

[He rubs the back of his head; internally relaxing a little as Dezel eases up]

I do like your hat.

[sylphystia]

[Dezel likes his hat, too. He misses his old friend but there's not much to be done about that. He used to think about growing his hair long and wearing it the same way Lafarga did, but he always gets tired of it and cuts it with a dagger before it gets that long.

The silence stretches on for a moment, two, and then Dezel takes his hat off. He plunks it right into Sora's hand so he can look at it.]

No one's ever said that before.

[That's because no one can see you, nerd.]

You'd better give that back, though. Feels weird without it.

1/2

[notzubats]

Probably 'cause you're invisible-

[!]

[Okay, getting the hat dropped into his hands was definitely not what he was expecting, and he has a surprised and awed look for a moment]