[yeah he doesn't even bother texting first, because shitty space spirit Santa stopped by and dropped off two things Dave can actually make use of.]
[the first is the getup he immediately changed into, because thank god, he's not stuck in the jumpsuit 24/7 anymore. it is minus the iShades, though, because he clearly doesn't deserve anything too useful.]
[the other thing he'll get to later. for now, he's just gonna be knocking on the door. you home, Ryuji?]
[Throughout the day, he had noticed that the cupboard in his room was slightly ajar- like the magnet holding it was becoming dull or something, and he'd casually pressed it closed, not thinking... pretty much anything about it. Coming home from the garden, again, it was just ever so slightly opened, yet again, and as he looked around the room, he didn't see Lisa in sight. She was probably out wandering about, usually coming and going with a bored wanderlust that only matched Ryuji's own.
Just in case, he figured he'd check inside to make sure she hadn't found her new habitation, a long string of annoying, stubborn cat bullshit that was bound to drive him nuts eventually. Pulling on the handle, he peeks inside.]
Lisa?
[The contents of which... are wholly dissatisfying and weird, as he pulls out the warm and fuzzy pajamas and lets it unfurl the length. A monkey; rolled up in it are the same pair of ears he had worn back in Destinyland, which serve only to make him even more weary of things he was trying not to actively remember.]
You've gotta be---
[Knock, knock.
Shit? Shit. He needs to hide this. Back into the cupboard it goes as he catches glimpse of another ball of... something or other rolled up in its confines. He doesn't have time for this. Pushing the cupboard closed, hard, he hopes that it'll keep quiet enough until he has the ability to suck that shit out of an airlock, and he goes to answer the door.
Stubbornly, he hears the small creak behind him.
I swear to god.]
H-hey man, what's u--- [Oh, so Dave got a cool outfit and all Ryuji got was pajamas, huh? So that's how it's gonna be, space ghosts?]
[hey, what does Ryuji have against the comfiest pair of jammies on the station? the ears are understandable, at least, but there's nothing better than a good set of snuggly sleepwear. and, it took three years for Dave to fully acknowledge this, but they're also pretty great when they have capes, too. so ... look, the point i'm making here is that Ryuji needs to add a cape to the monkey pajamas.]
[but, uh. anyway.]
Thanks. Wasn't the only thing I found lying around, either.
[there's something in a paper towel in his hands. he pulls it back slightly, awfully carefully, because he seems to think that what he has here is way more valuable than a new set of duds.]
[it's apple slices. he's already meticulously picked out the seeds and left them somewhere safe, so this is pretty much just all snack. and, even though Dave is the type to squirrel away food out of an old habit, the other main reason he stopped by was so he could share. Ryuji did share his Twizzlers, after all. it's only fair that he return the favor, now that he's the one with the windfall.]
[Why in the world would anyone in their right mind give Ryuji a cape? Don't do this Dave, he trips over his own two feet as it is, he doesn't need to become a constant hazard to himself! More than he already is. So maybe if it is a cape, then it ought to be one of those really short, frilly types. The ones that go down to his butt, and look three times as ridiculous, since monkeys are not super heroes.]
Okay, so call him Curious George for a moment, because his eyebrows narrow downward a bit inquisitively, wondering what the heck is going to be behind the paper towel. He doesn't know what to expect, considering the entire spectrum of what could possibly be under there, but the suspense is short lived.
Apple slices?]
Whoa... where the hell did you get that?
[As soon as he asks that, the answer smacks him in the face- there's no feasible way that Haru's garden could produce fruits like this in such a short period of time. He doesn't need to be a biologist to know that- especially when Ryuji had helped out enough in the place moving dirt around to have a pulse on its current state. So the obvious answer, by occam's razor, would've been... it was gifted to him by the ghosts. Or something like that.]
[ok Edna, your points on the perils of longer capes have been noted. the half-cape would probably work, though — like the one Dirk's got with his poofy asshole pants prince gear, maybe. and considering people have a penchant for getting tangled in Dave's god-tier cape, maybe it's better that neither of them are wandering around the station in one.]
[so ... shenanigans are still happening in the bathroom, because they clearly can never actually escape that fate, but at least it wasn't in the toilet. the ghosts had a fraction of pity on him, considering the other shirt he didn't notice in his room, or the piece of paper he didn't notice taped to his door when he left.]
Here. I already saved the seeds — Haru already said there'd be problems getting them to grow, but if there's even a little chance she could, I'm not gonna lose it.
[go ahead, Ryuji, take a slice. it's honeycrisp, arguably the only acceptable type of apple out there.]
Yeah, it's fine. I've been kinda thinking a bit about how to help with the growing food thing anyway, so.
[so, yeah. he isn't really sold on the idea just yet, but that might change once he actually has a taste of this apple. even the most wizened and hardened of time travelers have their weaknesses.]
[It doesn't strike him right away to realize that he's implying the usage of time alteration here; for a moment, he thinks Dave is just going to join Haru in the pursuit of precisely timed watering, pruning, caring, and harvesting. He's seen Dave use his powers to stop time, but it had looked more like a teleportation than anything that could alter the fabric of the flow of events. And as useful as it was, and how much it really helped Ryuji out of a bind, it still felt weird to know that he could be there one minute and then completely gone the next.
Kind of like the apple slice that Ryuji reaches out for and takes from its paper towel binding. The residue of its abundantly sweet sheen makes its way to his thumb and forefinger. He really couldn't believe that he was holding a piece of an apple in his hand, in the middle of a dead, void stretch of space.
It's crazy how easy it is to take for granted the easy shit in life. Apples, like ramen and twizzlers, were abundant in grocery stores, cheap and plentiful by the dozen-fold, but a wondrous rarity out here.]
You can kinda smell it. Not that artificial synthetic crap, but the real stuff. [He has to try and not shove the entire thing into his mouth. He nearly inhaled the first package of toilet shin ramyun that he had made, and regretted it so deeply. So he takes a bite, quarter of the way down.]
Mnn... awgod-- [And swallows.] Shit! That's so sweet! Dude... you gotta have some!
[Dave's own reaction when he has a bite of apple is, by virtue of his nature, a lot more muted. but it's probably pretty obvious by the way he stares at the half-eaten slice while chewing that the gears have suddenly started turning frantically.]
[there's so much he'd have to take into account, if he were actually going to seriously consider speed-growing an apple tree. first of all, putting aside the question of whether an apple tree could be grown and kept healthy enough to bear fruit in the first place, he would need to know if the space station will be moving at all over the next decade or so — and if so, where, in relation to where they are now. it isn't like popping ahead ten years and suddenly being in the vacuum of space is going to kill him; he'd be just fine. it's the tree he's worried about.]
[so that would be the first step, obviously: reconnaissance. for the sake of his own sanity, he'd want to only gather as much information about the future station as necessary in order to pull off moving a mature tree to the present. and then he can start building the time loops from there. you know, however many Daves it takes to actually move a mature tree to the present. time travel is as much about carefully maintaining a hundred spinning plates at once as it is improvisation, and for Dave, it's something that comes naturally, it's written into the fabric of who he is. if he could get the bare bones of a plan kickstarted, it should be easy enough to pull off.]
[but then that whirlwind of thoughts stops spinning, too, and he can't help but think this whole thing is unnecessarily cruel. for a split second, it feels like the station is trying to tempt him to do something — to trap himself in time loops again — he's been so adamant about avoiding for years. he's just a kid-unfairly-turned-god, after all. he has his glaring flaws. and even though he's used to being in space without access to things like apple juice or decent burritos, he probably also wouldn't be the only one to jump at the chance to have decent food in a place that's been so severely lacking for so long.]
[the willpower to resist and the urge to just say fuck it and give it a try are sort of pulling with the same force right now. but when he pops the rest of that apple slice in his mouth, the side that's saying fuck it gets just a little bit stronger.]
Jesus. [that's pretty much all he can say, honestly. and that is to say, this apple's probably the best thing he's ever eaten in his life.]
Edited (i think?? i've used that first line before??? i got deja vu so i'm changing it) 2018-06-21 00:14 (UTC)
Is what Ryuji would probably be thinking if it wasn't for how freaking amazing that second bite is. What's going on in that brain of his? Devious thoughts, probably, but hey- Dave. Hey. Did you know the second bite was just as good, if not slightly better than the first one? How the texture is a perfect playground against every single deprived taste fields of the tongue, or how the constant consumption of protein produces an almost acidic flavor in your mouth that can only be relieved by the consumption of alkaline producing substances like vegetables and fruits? This apple is exactly what those first human freeloaders got kicked out of the garden of Eden for (okay, the science on that one is pretty abysmal but whatever, it's building the hype of how simply great this damn thing is).
And amidst all the TERRIBLE THINGS THAT COULD GO WRONG with time traveling just to bring back a tree from the future to the station, isn't it just nice to live in the now, cherishing the snack for what it's worth and letting go?
Who knows.
Either way, their own proclivities to doing stupid shit seems to know no bounds.]
You're not gonna start cryin' on me, are you?
[You okay, bro?
He looks at the half slice in his hand and... fuck it, he can't hold back any longer as he pops the rest of it in his mouth and crunches, the juice from it escaping down the side of his lip--- and HELL NO, he's going to lick that orchard born baby back into his mouth asap, and then wipe it with the back of his hand. Gross.]
I mean it's cool and all, I've got pretty good shoulders for that type of emotional sappy bullshit. Hey, oh. Oh man. I want curry made with apples now. Damn.
Never had curry before, but if you can put apples in it, then I'm game.
[no, he's not going to cry!! Dave only cries when crocodiles are cutting onions or if he's having a nervous breakdown over some selfies he took when he was 13. it's just.]
[god dammit. just planting a seed and going forward in time to check what happened to it would be the simplest time loop ever. assuming the station stays put, it'd be like he wasn't even there. he'd just blink in and out, like he's one of the ghosts who haunts the station anyway. nobody would be affected. Dave knows better than to call anything that involves time travel fool-proof, but it sounds enough like that on paper that he'd.]
[ugh, no!! he pulls out one more slice, handing it on over to Ryuji, before he closes the paper towel back over the rest of the apple. he's going to try to make it last as long as he possibly can, before it starts getting dry and weird.]
How long do you figure it takes to grow apple trees, anyway.
[there it is. the hint that he's even having this stupid line of thought to begin with.]
[Jeez. Curry was one of those... basic staple comfort foods back home. Thick, brown, filled with meat and veggies, served over rice with a piece of fried pork on top. Before they had come to this station, Ren had just figured out through his coffee & curry mentor (also, guardian) to make a nearly perfect bowl of the stuff. Apples made that gravy sweeter, and was a really good complement to the saltiness of everything else in the dish.
Dave, you're really missing out, here. He happily takes that second slice, though.]
A shitton of time. That's my scientific answer, by the way. I dunno know how many years are in a unit of shitton, but.
[The second slice is just as good as the first. The law of diminishing returns doesn't apply. As it starts to move about in his mouth, chewing, he looks down at the piece.
Wait.
He seems really concerned with apples. And just asked about---]
[yet, he says. maybe if he talks about it out loud, he can talk himself out of it.]
I mostly just want to plant a few seeds and see if it's something that actually grows. I don't like knowin' the future, for reasons I've already ranted to you about, but if I were careful, it might be possible to limit what I see to just the garden.
Of course, that's assuming that nothing changes at all there over that long a length of time. Which is a really stupid thing to assume. For all we know the station may fuck off to another solar system entirely in a decade. And it'd be basically impossible to avoid finding out if something drastic happens to this place, too. That's not really knowledge I'm keen on bringing back.
[he pokes at the remaining apple slices, safe in his hands.]
Gotta say, it's pretty tempting, though. I'm used to things like shitty coffee and space food, but it's easy not to think about what you're missing when there's no ghosts reminding you what actual food tastes like.
[Standing there, listening to Dave talk about time travel, he finishes his slice between the length of time the explanation takes. Chews it a few more times than is necessary. He almost can't believe that this conversation is even happening to begin with- the alarms go off in his head, recalling when Dave was in his room the last time this sort of thing came up.
He was sitting on his desk, sharing twizzlers he got from some shady dude who seemed to have weird magical powers to make things exist when they shouldn't. It's not... really an easy thing to forget about, since Ryuji had tried to wrap his head around it over and over again in the days following. Not much else you can do staring into space with little much else going on with you.]
Dave... don't do it.
[He's really in no position to tell him what he's prohibited from attempting, but. He'll give his reasoning.]
It just ain't worth it. Even if it's just a version of you that ends up getting your future erased... the version that you are now... Is. [Oh god, where was he going with this shit. He feels suddenly flustered beyond belief.]
Is... uhm. I dunno. My favorite one? Probably. Or something. Yeah? So. That's a dumb idea.
[This... needs a topic change, stat.]
And even then, knowin' stuff. Like what if we're still here, 10 years into the future? Or you find out everyone's dead because the life support ran out? Even knowin' the tree grows into something that makes apples says a lot about how things turn out.
[Dave sees him flustering and focuses his gaze elsewhere, as if that'd help either of them out here. it probably doesn't, especially considering he now knows that he's apparently Ryuji's favorite Dave? not that he's even met any other time loop Daves out there to gauge otherwise. and, well, it's not like those Daves would be much different than he is.]
[he'd been purposely avoiding going into specific hypotheticals about their future, in both an attempt to downplay the shitty possibilities for Ryuji's sake, and maybe also an unconscious attempt to downplay it for himself. like maybe finally getting something he'd been missing actually is as simple as one time loop. but then Ryuji goes and points them out in that blunt way he does, and it's like the apple of knowledge has suddenly lost its charm. it snaps him back to reality. of course he knows better, as much as their home seems to be trying to tempt him into thinking otherwise.]
[stupid fucking serpent of a space station. it really is like it's trying to play specifically on his weaknesses.]
[Dave smirks a little bit, despite himself.]
You really do get it. [he doesn't mean that like he was testing how much Ryuji understood, or if he remembered everything. he just doesn't meet very many people who genuinely get it. if he had thought to talk it out with someone else, there's a pretty damn good chance he'd be paradoxing himself into an incredibly stupid death right now.]
You're right though, I've got better things to be thinking about than dumb shit like that.
[it's time to shift into a different gear, like they always do.]
[Hypothetical Daves just aren't important when the one standing in front of him is perfectly fine. It's a weird thing to think about, honestly. Even if they were the same person, did traveling into the future create conditions for them to be separate people? It's too confusing, and Ryuji wants to latch onto the simple fact that this one, his favorite out of an endless string of Daves spinning plates in hypothetical air, is the one that was just... meant to be there. In a really roundabout way, of course, like everything else they work through. He has such warped opinions of what feels right sometimes that it makes him lash out and try to defend the best possibility, the better outcome. And right now, it looks like that outcome is keeping him from splintering off.
He'll look back later at this entire conversation and come to a similar conclusion on his own, probably- with the addendum that he should've brought up that dumb karate master metaphor. Oh well. It was good chance to slice it back in there, but if that's not how the conversation went, it's just... not. He'll be okay with that, too.]
Yeah, dude. Cherish that apple you got there in your hands. And stop offerin' to share it before I end up eatin' like... most of it for you.
[Ryuji smiles back at him. Because really, the promise of things only happening once puts more meaning behind it? Or something like that. Dave said that Ryuji gets it, but he probably doesn't get it that well to begin with.]
I... did.
[He's so bad at lying.]
It's... super... [Weird. Sucky. Lame.] Well, maybe since it's just you, you can come see it. I ain't proud of it.
[He points over to the cupboard in the far side of the room. This was his own nightmare, clearly.]
[all those future Daves are different in the sense of them having different experiences than him — but that's only until he becomes them, assuming they are part of a stable time loop. the ones who aren't? those are the real splinters, the versions of himself for whom he can't really speak for anymore, because they aren't really him just as much as they are. who knows how many doomed timelines there are out there, jammed with doomed Daves that he's not even aware of.]
[and sometimes, he can't help but pause, because it occurs to him that the Alpha Dave is probably pausing and wondering the exact same thing, lumping him together with all the other doomed Daves like they're just an abstract concept, and ultimately, something he can't really concern himself with.]
[but he does it, too. and he just got done saying that he's got better things to be thinking about than dumb shit like that. so he quirks an eyebrow at Ryuji, slightly hidden behind the shades, and steps past him so he can have a look at what's in the cupboard.]
[and.]
[............. huh. he's just gonna pull out the kigurumi and monkey ears, holding them in front of him so he can get a better look.]
[It goes back to that first time- when Ryuji asked Dave if he somehow knew he was going to nationals for track, would it influence what he does now so that he becomes complacent with the thought of winning... enough so that it would change the outcome of his next heat. The human effort behind determination was meant to be undisclosed, unencumbered with the weight of a deterministic outcome. The best part about being free to make your own choices in life was that, well, the script wasn't there for you to follow. That sort of line of thinking was what him and his friends fought for, in the end; whether or not it was a god telling you what you had to do and removing your free will, or yourself doing the same thing, in order to avert danger... that wasn't freedom.
So depending on how someone looks at it, Ryuji is either the worst friend to have as a time player, or a really good one. And whether or not there's an Alpha Dave who looks at the same string of events in a tangential semiform of reality, it becomes pretty irrelevant. Screw the past, don't worry about the future, live in the moment. Or something like that.
Maybe not this current moment, though. He grimaces unhappily when Dave pulls the monkey pajamas out of the cupboard. Whereas Dave's efforts fruited a delicious apple from the space gods' grace, Ryuji was continuing to have his head held under water (at least, until Dave finds that comic).]
Yeah. Really. This ain't what I wanted to find in there at all. Who the hell comes up with this shit? It's just embarrassin'.
[that's just a pretty roundabout way of saying Hakuna Matata, isn't it? funny how that joke keeps coming back, keeps making itself relevant. funny that a light-hearted leadin to a more serious conversation wound up leading in to this one, and stopped Dave from doing something reckless out of desperation.]
[though, that's the way it's always been, after all. the tiniest, often stupidest, and most irrelevant details always wind up being more important to the overall sequence of events than anyone ever expected.]
[and maybe this really happened exactly the way it was supposed to. but at least they've had the luxury of making their own decisions on it in the first place.]
[that's the way it should be.]
They look comfortable, at least. [that's not a lie. the fabric is soft. they'd be warm in this cold and stale pocket of space. Dave doesn't have his god-tier pajamas with him, but they're pretty stupid, too. stupid comfortable, that is.]
If you really hate 'em that much, you could chop them up into a blanket or something.
I'm not usin' the good scissors on choppin' up a monkey to make a blanket, dude.
[True, though... it was pretty soft. And it would probably keep him pretty warm, which was nice considering the blankets did actually leave a lot to be desired. The costume wasn't really even that bad, was it?
No, wait, of course that thing was a piece of shit.
He sighs, walking over to take the monkey ears out of Dave's hands, without bothering to ask, because #friends.]
These come from Destinyland. Y'know.
[He gestures, waving as he sings a note or two:] It's a tall world after all~ [Don't do that again, Ryuji.]
I dunno. People always used to say I had the ears of a monkey. Maybe I should just grow into 'em. [For added effect, he balls his fists up and pushes against the backside of his ears, propelling them outward a little bit, and... yeah, the resemblance is kind of there.]
[a lot of very goofy things are happening in front of him right now. but Dave decides he won't comment on the goofiest part, which is the fact that he's genuinely curious to see what Ryuji looks like in the monkey pajamas.]
[there's that word again. "cute." he tries to roll it away with a shrug of his shoulders.]
Eh, I sorta see it, I guess. [you can't catch him, cute thoughts!!]
[in any case, Homestuck never really cared much about copyright infringement, so:]
I get the reference, but on my Earth it was called Disneyland. I've never been, though. Closest thing we had to Disneyland was AstroWorld, but they shut it down when I was still pretty little.
[not that his bro ever bothered to bring him, even though he'd likely asked more than once. Dave got to ride Texas Cyclone exactly once, on a school trip, before they tore it all down. utterly tragic.]
Anyway, was that uh. Getup. The only thing you found?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[the first is the getup he immediately changed into, because thank god, he's not stuck in the jumpsuit 24/7 anymore. it is minus the iShades, though, because he clearly doesn't deserve anything too useful.]
[the other thing he'll get to later. for now, he's just gonna be knocking on the door. you home, Ryuji?]
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Just in case, he figured he'd check inside to make sure she hadn't found her new habitation, a long string of annoying, stubborn cat bullshit that was bound to drive him nuts eventually. Pulling on the handle, he peeks inside.]
Lisa?
[The contents of which... are wholly dissatisfying and weird, as he pulls out the warm and fuzzy pajamas and lets it unfurl the length. A monkey; rolled up in it are the same pair of ears he had worn back in Destinyland, which serve only to make him even more weary of things he was trying not to actively remember.]
You've gotta be---
[Knock, knock.
Shit? Shit. He needs to hide this. Back into the cupboard it goes as he catches glimpse of another ball of... something or other rolled up in its confines. He doesn't have time for this. Pushing the cupboard closed, hard, he hopes that it'll keep quiet enough until he has the ability to suck that shit out of an airlock, and he goes to answer the door.
Stubbornly, he hears the small creak behind him.
I swear to god.]
H-hey man, what's u--- [Oh, so Dave got a cool outfit and all Ryuji got was pajamas, huh? So that's how it's gonna be, space ghosts?]
Lookin' snazzy.
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[but, uh. anyway.]
Thanks. Wasn't the only thing I found lying around, either.
[there's something in a paper towel in his hands. he pulls it back slightly, awfully carefully, because he seems to think that what he has here is way more valuable than a new set of duds.]
[it's apple slices. he's already meticulously picked out the seeds and left them somewhere safe, so this is pretty much just all snack. and, even though Dave is the type to squirrel away food out of an old habit, the other main reason he stopped by was so he could share. Ryuji did share his Twizzlers, after all. it's only fair that he return the favor, now that he's the one with the windfall.]
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Okay, so call him Curious George for a moment, because his eyebrows narrow downward a bit inquisitively, wondering what the heck is going to be behind the paper towel. He doesn't know what to expect, considering the entire spectrum of what could possibly be under there, but the suspense is short lived.
Apple slices?]
Whoa... where the hell did you get that?
[As soon as he asks that, the answer smacks him in the face- there's no feasible way that Haru's garden could produce fruits like this in such a short period of time. He doesn't need to be a biologist to know that- especially when Ryuji had helped out enough in the place moving dirt around to have a pulse on its current state. So the obvious answer, by occam's razor, would've been... it was gifted to him by the ghosts. Or something like that.]
That looks beautiful.
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[also, how could you go and insult Monkey like that? if he isn't a superhero i don't know who is, nor do i want to.]
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[so ... shenanigans are still happening in the bathroom, because they clearly can never actually escape that fate, but at least it wasn't in the toilet. the ghosts had a fraction of pity on him, considering the other shirt he didn't notice in his room, or the piece of paper he didn't notice taped to his door when he left.]
Here. I already saved the seeds — Haru already said there'd be problems getting them to grow, but if there's even a little chance she could, I'm not gonna lose it.
[go ahead, Ryuji, take a slice. it's honeycrisp, arguably the only acceptable type of apple out there.]
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This is the best.]
If anyone can grow those seeds into a sapling, it's gonna be Haru. She's got the greenest thumb out there.
[And he stretches a hand forward, encroaching into apple space.]
A...are you sure, man? This is probably the freshest food you're gonna get on this damned place.
[Looks over at Dave, almost asking permission, even though it's already been offered. Twice, sort of.]
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[so, yeah. he isn't really sold on the idea just yet, but that might change once he actually has a taste of this apple. even the most wizened and hardened of time travelers have their weaknesses.]
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Kind of like the apple slice that Ryuji reaches out for and takes from its paper towel binding. The residue of its abundantly sweet sheen makes its way to his thumb and forefinger. He really couldn't believe that he was holding a piece of an apple in his hand, in the middle of a dead, void stretch of space.
It's crazy how easy it is to take for granted the easy shit in life. Apples, like ramen and twizzlers, were abundant in grocery stores, cheap and plentiful by the dozen-fold, but a wondrous rarity out here.]
You can kinda smell it. Not that artificial synthetic crap, but the real stuff. [He has to try and not shove the entire thing into his mouth. He nearly inhaled the first package of toilet shin ramyun that he had made, and regretted it so deeply. So he takes a bite, quarter of the way down.]
Mnn... awgod-- [And swallows.] Shit! That's so sweet! Dude... you gotta have some!
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[there's so much he'd have to take into account, if he were actually going to seriously consider speed-growing an apple tree. first of all, putting aside the question of whether an apple tree could be grown and kept healthy enough to bear fruit in the first place, he would need to know if the space station will be moving at all over the next decade or so — and if so, where, in relation to where they are now. it isn't like popping ahead ten years and suddenly being in the vacuum of space is going to kill him; he'd be just fine. it's the tree he's worried about.]
[so that would be the first step, obviously: reconnaissance. for the sake of his own sanity, he'd want to only gather as much information about the future station as necessary in order to pull off moving a mature tree to the present. and then he can start building the time loops from there. you know, however many Daves it takes to actually move a mature tree to the present. time travel is as much about carefully maintaining a hundred spinning plates at once as it is improvisation, and for Dave, it's something that comes naturally, it's written into the fabric of who he is. if he could get the bare bones of a plan kickstarted, it should be easy enough to pull off.]
[but then that whirlwind of thoughts stops spinning, too, and he can't help but think this whole thing is unnecessarily cruel. for a split second, it feels like the station is trying to tempt him to do something — to trap himself in time loops again — he's been so adamant about avoiding for years. he's just a kid-unfairly-turned-god, after all. he has his glaring flaws. and even though he's used to being in space without access to things like apple juice or decent burritos, he probably also wouldn't be the only one to jump at the chance to have decent food in a place that's been so severely lacking for so long.]
[the willpower to resist and the urge to just say fuck it and give it a try are sort of pulling with the same force right now. but when he pops the rest of that apple slice in his mouth, the side that's saying fuck it gets just a little bit stronger.]
Jesus. [that's pretty much all he can say, honestly. and that is to say, this apple's probably the best thing he's ever eaten in his life.]
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Is what Ryuji would probably be thinking if it wasn't for how freaking amazing that second bite is. What's going on in that brain of his? Devious thoughts, probably, but hey- Dave. Hey. Did you know the second bite was just as good, if not slightly better than the first one? How the texture is a perfect playground against every single deprived taste fields of the tongue, or how the constant consumption of protein produces an almost acidic flavor in your mouth that can only be relieved by the consumption of alkaline producing substances like vegetables and fruits? This apple is exactly what those first human freeloaders got kicked out of the garden of Eden for (okay, the science on that one is pretty abysmal but whatever, it's building the hype of how simply great this damn thing is).
And amidst all the TERRIBLE THINGS THAT COULD GO WRONG with time traveling just to bring back a tree from the future to the station, isn't it just nice to live in the now, cherishing the snack for what it's worth and letting go?
Who knows.
Either way, their own proclivities to doing stupid shit seems to know no bounds.]
You're not gonna start cryin' on me, are you?
[You okay, bro?
He looks at the half slice in his hand and... fuck it, he can't hold back any longer as he pops the rest of it in his mouth and crunches, the juice from it escaping down the side of his lip--- and HELL NO, he's going to lick that orchard born baby back into his mouth asap, and then wipe it with the back of his hand. Gross.]
I mean it's cool and all, I've got pretty good shoulders for that type of emotional sappy bullshit. Hey, oh. Oh man. I want curry made with apples now. Damn.
[Fuck it. Do the time thing Dave.]
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[no, he's not going to cry!! Dave only cries when crocodiles are cutting onions or if he's having a nervous breakdown over some selfies he took when he was 13. it's just.]
[god dammit. just planting a seed and going forward in time to check what happened to it would be the simplest time loop ever. assuming the station stays put, it'd be like he wasn't even there. he'd just blink in and out, like he's one of the ghosts who haunts the station anyway. nobody would be affected. Dave knows better than to call anything that involves time travel fool-proof, but it sounds enough like that on paper that he'd.]
[ugh, no!! he pulls out one more slice, handing it on over to Ryuji, before he closes the paper towel back over the rest of the apple. he's going to try to make it last as long as he possibly can, before it starts getting dry and weird.]
How long do you figure it takes to grow apple trees, anyway.
[there it is. the hint that he's even having this stupid line of thought to begin with.]
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Dave, you're really missing out, here. He happily takes that second slice, though.]
A shitton of time. That's my scientific answer, by the way. I dunno know how many years are in a unit of shitton, but.
[The second slice is just as good as the first. The law of diminishing returns doesn't apply. As it starts to move about in his mouth, chewing, he looks down at the piece.
Wait.
He seems really concerned with apples. And just asked about---]
... What are you schemin'.
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[yet, he says. maybe if he talks about it out loud, he can talk himself out of it.]
I mostly just want to plant a few seeds and see if it's something that actually grows. I don't like knowin' the future, for reasons I've already ranted to you about, but if I were careful, it might be possible to limit what I see to just the garden.
Of course, that's assuming that nothing changes at all there over that long a length of time. Which is a really stupid thing to assume. For all we know the station may fuck off to another solar system entirely in a decade. And it'd be basically impossible to avoid finding out if something drastic happens to this place, too. That's not really knowledge I'm keen on bringing back.
[he pokes at the remaining apple slices, safe in his hands.]
Gotta say, it's pretty tempting, though. I'm used to things like shitty coffee and space food, but it's easy not to think about what you're missing when there's no ghosts reminding you what actual food tastes like.
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He was sitting on his desk, sharing twizzlers he got from some shady dude who seemed to have weird magical powers to make things exist when they shouldn't. It's not... really an easy thing to forget about, since Ryuji had tried to wrap his head around it over and over again in the days following. Not much else you can do staring into space with little much else going on with you.]
Dave... don't do it.
[He's really in no position to tell him what he's prohibited from attempting, but. He'll give his reasoning.]
It just ain't worth it. Even if it's just a version of you that ends up getting your future erased... the version that you are now... Is. [Oh god, where was he going with this shit. He feels suddenly flustered beyond belief.]
Is... uhm. I dunno. My favorite one? Probably. Or something. Yeah? So. That's a dumb idea.
[This... needs a topic change, stat.]
And even then, knowin' stuff. Like what if we're still here, 10 years into the future? Or you find out everyone's dead because the life support ran out? Even knowin' the tree grows into something that makes apples says a lot about how things turn out.
You really want that responsibility?
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[he'd been purposely avoiding going into specific hypotheticals about their future, in both an attempt to downplay the shitty possibilities for Ryuji's sake, and maybe also an unconscious attempt to downplay it for himself. like maybe finally getting something he'd been missing actually is as simple as one time loop. but then Ryuji goes and points them out in that blunt way he does, and it's like the apple of knowledge has suddenly lost its charm. it snaps him back to reality. of course he knows better, as much as their home seems to be trying to tempt him into thinking otherwise.]
[stupid fucking serpent of a space station. it really is like it's trying to play specifically on his weaknesses.]
[Dave smirks a little bit, despite himself.]
You really do get it. [he doesn't mean that like he was testing how much Ryuji understood, or if he remembered everything. he just doesn't meet very many people who genuinely get it. if he had thought to talk it out with someone else, there's a pretty damn good chance he'd be paradoxing himself into an incredibly stupid death right now.]
You're right though, I've got better things to be thinking about than dumb shit like that.
[it's time to shift into a different gear, like they always do.]
Did you wind up finding anything this go-around?
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He'll look back later at this entire conversation and come to a similar conclusion on his own, probably- with the addendum that he should've brought up that dumb karate master metaphor. Oh well. It was good chance to slice it back in there, but if that's not how the conversation went, it's just... not. He'll be okay with that, too.]
Yeah, dude. Cherish that apple you got there in your hands. And stop offerin' to share it before I end up eatin' like... most of it for you.
[Ryuji smiles back at him. Because really, the promise of things only happening once puts more meaning behind it? Or something like that. Dave said that Ryuji gets it, but he probably doesn't get it that well to begin with.]
I... did.
[He's so bad at lying.]
It's... super... [Weird. Sucky. Lame.] Well, maybe since it's just you, you can come see it. I ain't proud of it.
[He points over to the cupboard in the far side of the room. This was his own nightmare, clearly.]
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[and sometimes, he can't help but pause, because it occurs to him that the Alpha Dave is probably pausing and wondering the exact same thing, lumping him together with all the other doomed Daves like they're just an abstract concept, and ultimately, something he can't really concern himself with.]
[but he does it, too. and he just got done saying that he's got better things to be thinking about than dumb shit like that. so he quirks an eyebrow at Ryuji, slightly hidden behind the shades, and steps past him so he can have a look at what's in the cupboard.]
[and.]
[............. huh. he's just gonna pull out the kigurumi and monkey ears, holding them in front of him so he can get a better look.]
[huh....]
Really?
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So depending on how someone looks at it, Ryuji is either the worst friend to have as a time player, or a really good one. And whether or not there's an Alpha Dave who looks at the same string of events in a tangential semiform of reality, it becomes pretty irrelevant. Screw the past, don't worry about the future, live in the moment. Or something like that.
Maybe not this current moment, though. He grimaces unhappily when Dave pulls the monkey pajamas out of the cupboard. Whereas Dave's efforts fruited a delicious apple from the space gods' grace, Ryuji was continuing to have his head held under water (at least, until Dave finds that comic).]
Yeah. Really. This ain't what I wanted to find in there at all. Who the hell comes up with this shit? It's just embarrassin'.
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[though, that's the way it's always been, after all. the tiniest, often stupidest, and most irrelevant details always wind up being more important to the overall sequence of events than anyone ever expected.]
[and maybe this really happened exactly the way it was supposed to. but at least they've had the luxury of making their own decisions on it in the first place.]
[that's the way it should be.]
They look comfortable, at least. [that's not a lie. the fabric is soft. they'd be warm in this cold and stale pocket of space. Dave doesn't have his god-tier pajamas with him, but they're pretty stupid, too. stupid comfortable, that is.]
If you really hate 'em that much, you could chop them up into a blanket or something.
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[True, though... it was pretty soft. And it would probably keep him pretty warm, which was nice considering the blankets did actually leave a lot to be desired. The costume wasn't really even that bad, was it?
No, wait, of course that thing was a piece of shit.
He sighs, walking over to take the monkey ears out of Dave's hands, without bothering to ask, because #friends.]
These come from Destinyland. Y'know.
[He gestures, waving as he sings a note or two:] It's a tall world after all~ [Don't do that again, Ryuji.]
I dunno. People always used to say I had the ears of a monkey. Maybe I should just grow into 'em. [For added effect, he balls his fists up and pushes against the backside of his ears, propelling them outward a little bit, and... yeah, the resemblance is kind of there.]
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[there's that word again. "cute." he tries to roll it away with a shrug of his shoulders.]
Eh, I sorta see it, I guess. [you can't catch him, cute thoughts!!]
[in any case, Homestuck never really cared much about copyright infringement, so:]
I get the reference, but on my Earth it was called Disneyland. I've never been, though. Closest thing we had to Disneyland was AstroWorld, but they shut it down when I was still pretty little.
[not that his bro ever bothered to bring him, even though he'd likely asked more than once. Dave got to ride Texas Cyclone exactly once, on a school trip, before they tore it all down. utterly tragic.]
Anyway, was that uh. Getup. The only thing you found?
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cw: sappy
cw: dokis....
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