[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?
[This outfit is the sort of thing that he might wear ironically, just to prove a point, just to show the world that he looks dumb in any sort of fashion choice that doesn't allow a proper segmentation of shirt and pants. Ryuji thinks that he has a sense of fashion, but it borders on the questionable side of ridiculousness to begin with. So... maybe. Maybe. If it ever got truly cold enough. But he wouldn't call it "cute," not by a long shot.]
I didn't really ever have a chance to go either. It was kinda too expensive for our family. The one time I got to go was 'cause of Haru. Her dad's corporation booked the entire place for some business event, but it cancelled at the last moment, so we all went instead. Haru, Ren, Yusuke, Makoto... Futaba, Morgana, too.
[He smiles, but it's one that's clearly filled with a little bit of nostalgic pain, one in the same. It's enough to make him look at the monkey ears in his hand, and offer them to Dave.]
It's a honestly one of those couples' paradise places to go though, honestly.
[Oh, other stuff. Right. He should look in the cupboard now that the monkey costume is gone, since there are regular clothes there, scrunched up. An outfit from his future, a timeline that hasn't happened yet. But instead, he'll try to avoid the romance novel that's tucked under his pillow in somewhat plain sight if someone were apt enough to examine, and instead mention the application that downloaded on his smartwatch.]
Does your smartwatch have a meTunes player? I found these headphones under my desk the other day, and they can connect to my watch wirelessly. Funny thing is, my watch has my entire mp3 library from home on it.
[he has plenty of other questions, as he takes the monkey ears back as they're offered. like, for instance, did that mean they basically had the whole park to themselves? did they try to climb off the boat on Tall World and punch one of the animatronics? Dave, uh. Dave definitely would have. he would have been kicked out of Destinyland instantly. also, what exactly does he mean by couples' paradise?]
[so, they're some pretty important questions. but they go unasked, because that line of thought, that tone of the conversational rhythm they'd been walking through, is halted like a record scratch. and he lights up like the fucking Main Street Electrical Parade, exactly like how he did when he first found the apple.]
Wait, you have all your music?
[Dave hasn't heard actual music that isn't by his own design, whether it was drumming on the tables in the mess hall out of nervous energy, or whether he was really feeling the acoustics in the shower, in two entire months. the idea of hearing something new is, at the risk of sounding entirely lame, literally music to his ears.]
[He would definitely take the time to answer all those questions, too. Destinyland was practically a staple of Tokyo, and it was very, very much a place where parents take their kids, and people take their dates. Pretty much no medium in between. And if he wanted to bust up some puppets, he'd probably have to answer to the Man, but screw the Man, the Man don't got shit on them.
Noticing that Dave had literally perked the fuck up at the mention of his meTunes library being here, he nods, not quite understanding how important music actually was to the other. Sure, he knew he had a penchant for rapping- and as he looks at his shirt, he realizes that looks like a record and it kind of fits... into place. Belatedly, as usual.]
Yeah! You... uh. You wanna hear?
[It's a question that probably doesn't even need an affirmative answer, so he walks over to the desk and picks up the headphones that he had found, goes to turn the application on to sync them up to his smartwatch and boots up the program.
Another sweep of motion, a turn on his heels, and he's approaching, again, breaking the whole idea or concept of personal space to lean forward and just... put one of the buds straight into his ear.]
Here, gimme that shit, I'll put it back in the cupboard where it'll stay until the end of time. [And just as he looks down, he presses play. His taste in music is pretty much what someone would expect out of Ryuji- old rock, some punk, occasional things that are more cute than heavy, and then some indie bands from back home that he had gotten into. But Dave gets some Bon Jovi, because. Why not.]
[You like to rave about BANDS NO ONE'S EVER HEARD OF BUT YOU.]
[that's not to say that Dave isn't a fan of the classics — he'll listen to pretty much anything that has a good sound to it, regardless of genre, he just usually finds himself drawn to the likes of Snoop Dogg and hip-hop sort of beats.]
[and glam metal? absolutely. besides, who hasn't heard of Bon Jovi? he knows exactly what song he's hearing from that first gust of wind and chimes, and the second the twang of guitar hits with the familiar riff that sent it skyrocketing to the top of the Billboards, he's thinking this might actually be the best thing he's heard in months.]
[and, Dave really can't help himself here — he just breaks into one of the biggest smiles he's worn in ages, face completely lit up by the fact that he's finally hearing some fucking music again, and not just whatever random notes pop into his head in the silence of the space station. and he loves it.]
[There was definitely some hip hop in there, but it was pretty mainstream Japanese; M-Flo, Home Made Kazoku, Teriyaki Boyz- but that really wasn't too much in his style. There's some sort of social experiment to be had here, too, since their native languages were entirely different, yet they seemed to communicate fine here through the shared common tongue that everyone seemed to have. He remembers hearing that someone could write the language that they were speaking and the other person wouldn't recognize the alphabet, but Ryuji hasn't really had to put pen to paper yet to test that out. And would that also mean that Ryuji would suddenly start understanding English songs that he had downloaded and listened to, but never really got much more than how good things sounded?
But all of that doesn't really seem to matter either way. He's never really cared too much for linguistics or studying much of anything to begin with, nah- not his tempo either- but quickly, something else has caught his attention and taken complete, utter control of it, freezing him and his frown in place.
What was he supposed to do? Something with the pajamas. The cupboard? Right. It was supposed to go in there.
It's just hard to do much of anything but be a bystander to his own his heart at the moment, because seeing Dave smile like that... it's the type of thing that can paralyze a person in place. This is probably it, the moment. What type of moment? Really hard to say, honestly, but it's a sort of glass shattering realization that he wants to see him smile like that as much as humanly possible. And falling for Dave was like filling a bowl with ramen right up to the edge, right near the curved lip, where one more drop was enough to make everything start pouring over, all at once.
He realizes he looks dumb, standing there, doing nothing at all but watching this, the room seeming to blur into the background as Bon Jovi is lightly heard through one half of a pair of headphones, so he reaches forward, taking the other, unoccupied half and places it in his own ear.
It's easy to forget how music makes you feel things when you haven't listened to it in a while. And when he hears the music inside his own head, he winds up smiling too.]
[sharing a pair of headphones to listen to whatever's playing isn't at all foreign an activity to him, so he doesn't really think too much at first on how they're just standing close together silently, shoulders lightly bumping.]
[and there's an undercurrent of energy there, just under the surface, even when he lets that larger smile of his relax into something more low-key, as he does. it's a lot of excitement, admittedly, over a song with a much more sedate sort of tempo. maybe it's the way that an activity that feels so familiar to him is crashing into newer feelings he can't really place, much less figure out what to do with. it's like a sudden storm of tension has lodged itself in his chest.]
[it's not really a bad thing. Dave would stand here and listen to every single song on this playlist in their entirety, if Ryuji would let him. he wants to know more about his taste in music. he wants to hear everything that's he's never heard before. he wants to know more about Tokyo, and what it was like living there — and, maybe even more importantly than the music, he wants to know more about Ryuji's life in general.]
[there's about a thousand other things he'd like to know, too, and they're thoughts he's having at a rapid-fire pace, but his silent lineup of questions is cut short when the song draws to a close, and it suddenly occurs to Dave that yeah, they ... sure are standing awfully close together.]
[he should step away. he doesn't. he lifts his chin slightly, glancing at Ryuji out of the side of his shades, choosing not to hide his gaze behind them for once, as if to ask if he's going to pick another song, or say something, or.]
[Or do something brave, reckless. Sweep him off his feet. Say the magic words that have pretty much lived on the tip of his tongue, only to climb back down to a death in his throat when he thinks it might be the right time to say it. I like you- it's easy. It's three little words, right? Why is it, then, in the history of all words that had ever existed, was that specific ordering, the algorithm behind them, just so incredibly difficult to get through? Ryuji can banter on for days about literally anything in the world- how boring solitaire is, what it was like to steal a heart, having oboners over Obama, how fucking gross the cafeteria food was- and when he's left in the wake of something like this, it just comes short of making the mark.
Feelings are pretty hard. Talking about feelings are harder.
And he sees Dave looking up at him expecting some sort of response, because he's quite literally living through the concept of facing the music, Ryuji feels like his heart has sped up, rattling in the cage of his chest. Awkward now, that there's a quiet moment, and the capacity to do something he wants to do, and they're so close like this. He's not stepping away, though, and is that... shit, is that supposed to mean something?
He looks over slowly, and- oh. Dude. That just... that's not fair, either.]
You have eyes. Uh. Nice.
[Wait a second, that didn't make a single ounce of fucking sense at all, and as he feels his cheeks burn in the light of his own stupidity, he wonders if correcting himself would make it sound worse? Probably. Why. Okay, take a moment, unscramble. It was meant to be a compliment, not a statement of biological fact.]
I mean... I-- uh. You have nice eyes.
[That's b...etter.... kind of. Except for the fact that now that he's said it, he cant look at them at all. He hopes it's not too weird of a thing to say? It probably is. It definitely is. He was better off at You have eyes, and instead, he just focuses on picking another song instead. And if Dave doesn't nope the hell right out of this already, the Rolling Stones' Time is On My Side starts playing. He picked it because it had "time" in the title before it starts going and man, is he filled with mistakes tonight.]
[oh... that hits him like a jolt, that bit of an electric shock one gets when hearing something really unexpected, but also something ... something he doesn't necessarily mind hearing? it's not unwanted. he's sort of getting the tiniest impression that Ryuji is very awkwardly trying to flirt with him, and he doesn't mind that at all, and that's sort of the last emotional reaction to it he'd expect out of himself, and maybe. maybe he doesn't actually understand a goddamn thing about any of this at all.]
[and that all jumbles up in his head in a way that makes his face feel hot, too, though most of it might be hidden behind the shades. and the words that slip out of the trainwreck that is his brain right now —]
I ... yeah.
[— wind up just as awkward, and unintentionally a bit dick-ish. oh god, he didn't mean that rudely! Dave's usually so good at being cool about everything, deflecting when something gets to him, one way or the other. but it's like every time he hangs out with Ryuji, he chips off more of that coolkid emotional armor he's wearing, and Dave is unconsciously terrified that when he pulls back that last barrier, tears down that last wall he's hiding behind, Ryuji will wind up hating the person he finds.]
[he should say something else. very belatedly, while mentally sifting through their previous conversations for something to draw on, Dave realizes that he'd accidentally referred to himself as Ryuji's Lois Lane. and suddenly, he'd very much like to just waltz through an airlock and live on the top of the space station.]
[jesus christ, Dave, say something!]
I mean ... you do, too? If I'm being honest.
[there's no air or sound in the vacuum of space. and out there, no one could hear how terrible this is.]
[he takes something of a half step away, even more cognizant of how close they're standing to each other, but then the music starts again, and Dave freezes in place, getting at least one answer to a question that had been reeling through his mind earlier. and unabashedly (in)appropriate that the song pick is, it's also drowning out the way his heart is pounding frantically in his ears.]
So. Classic rock, then. [it's both a statement and a question, and an effort to diffuse the tension. he still wants to know pretty much everything about Ryuji's taste in music.]
[It's a bit of a roller coaster ride, going through the ups and downs of this entire thing, but worse, because it's completely in the dark and hard to tell where the track is supposed to lead toward. He hears the "yeah" and for a second, he holds in his breath, knowing full well that he done goofed this entire thing and now the coaster was probably careening into a wall. If anything, he has no idea about the synapses that are currently scrambling to find their own relays in Dave's head, feeling that all too familiar sensation of doing or saying something superfluously unnecessary.
Ryuji definitely doesn't have a coolkid exterior armor to fall back on when things go south. He's a pin cushion with a core that narrowly avoids being poked when a needle drives into him, but with tough enough skin to endure the entire surface being punctured while still dragging forward. And when there's nothing left to give, he just hopes that whatever's pulled back beneath all of that is still worth someone's affection.
Easy enough to tell, then, when Ryuji's expression changes to bewilderment when Dave ends up eventually saying that to him. He has a hard time seeing his own worth sometimes in the darkness of uncertainty, and... damn. This is terrifying and weird, yet also incredibly, sorely wanted. Embarrassing, too, that he'd build an entire castle out of a grain of sand if he thought it were worth the effort. And Dave definitely was.
He's kind of glad for a change of topic, because he's not sure what he's supposed to say in response to that because "yeah..." seems exactly like something he'd utter out, or something far, far worse that would be construed as less-than-subtle flirting. He doesn't really have any slickness here, and when he honest to god tries to, it comes out way below anything alluring or coy. It's those three words again- it's how he'd do it. Earnest, blunt, to the point.
No use dwelling in it, though. He can worry about this interaction later when he's wondering if it went how it was meant to go or whether or not he could've done something better. Well, aside from the whole You have eyes part. That was pretty god-awful.]
Yeah. Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, The Clash, The Kinks, Journey... I'm kinda a sucker for the old style. Even though it's pretty cliche, the Beatles are pretty cool in my book, too. You think back to those sort of songs and how... y'know. Effin rebellious they were. Imagine a time when sayin' something like "I wanna hold your hand" was pretty much the most punk thing ever. I like modern stuff too, but... yeah.
[At least this conversation seems pretty safe. He's still kind of swimming in the fact that Holy shit, Dave Strider said I have nice eyes too.]
[music absolutely is a safe topic with Dave. he lives and breathes music. it's stitched into the complex fabric of who he is, just as much as time itself is. that's not really all that strange, as much as he like to complain about the latter part of himself. time has a rhythm to it, a beat and a base language that's understood, easily perceived by everyone. to mess with that, to change up that rhythm and the expectations that come with it, is to cause dissonance. sometimes it's necessary, a good thing. more often than not it's as unnatural as it sounds.]
[there's something amused threatening the corners of his mouth, like he might just fully smile again, listening to Ryuji rattle off of his favorite big hair bands, his pulse and the heat of the earlier moments settling down to their normal tempos. because of course Ryuji would love all these old-school rebels. he'd probably even dig their fashion sense, too — actually, now that Dave thinks about it, he'd probably just straight up rock them if he had the chance. if he's reading Ryuji right.]
[....... hm. anyway.]
Kinda makes me wish I had my computer with me. Got lots of stuff in my library you'd probably like.
[and when they run out of music, he could just remix everything. the possibilities are endless. they always are.]
[Makes sense- music was often full of refrains that have you going back to other parts of the song, and even if the beat is the same, the lyrics are different. Kind of like time travel, in a way. And if Dave is made of either or both, then Ryuji would put that playlist on shuffle and just listen, drumming his fingers along to the cadence that it provides.
And probably- the only problem was that school was pretty much a 6 day a week affair for kids in Japan, which meant that 85% of his life was spent figuring out how to take a traditional school uniform and butcher it so that it was more his style. Suspenders thrown off his shoulder and worn like accessories to his hips, pins on his blazer, white keds with patterns drawn on in marker, t-shirts that didn't match at all. Maybe not the rock image Dave was expecting, but, he put up enough of a stink so that the teachers stopped trying to bother correcting his attire.]
I'm gonna guess that your library prolly needs its own external hard drive. [He points to Dave's shirt, just to make the obvious point even more obvious.]
But yeah. Music's music. I'd give just about anything a try as long as it's got a good vibe.
[It would be cool, just to stay up listening to stuff he's never heard before. Realize that it'd probably been hours since they started. End up sleeping for an hour or two before the environmental lighting came back up to alert them that it was simulated daytime.]
What're you into, anyway?
[This feels a lot more like their usual rhythm. It was like going from experimental back to jazz. And even if there wasn't a sheet music and it was off the roller coaster rails, it wasn't... well, it wasn't that bad.]
Same as you, pretty much. I like anything that sounds good, but rap's my favorite. And if I don't like the way something sounds, I just remix it until I do.
[it puts the record on his shirt that Ryuji's so astutely noticed into even more perspective, at least. and, to continue the metaphor, remixing a timeline until it's something he deems acceptable is easily within Dave's capabilities, too. of course, changing the flavor of a song doesn't leave you dead, usually. but that's neither here nor there.]
[he'd love the idea of just chilling and listening to whatever, having some quiet time to fit in with their usual banter, or their usually bizarre choices in activities, or even the moments they find themselves approaching subjects far more serious — all within the same day, the same conversations, the hours spent together. and standing there, it suddenly occurs to him that that's exactly what they could be doing.]
Mind if I stick around and listen for a while? You pick the music.
[now that the question's out there, he suddenly feels ... well, really awkward about it. his ears are suddenly burning. Dave's not sure why, exactly — it's not like he just asked the guy on a date, or something.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[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.]
no subject
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.]
no subject
[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.]
no subject
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'.
no subject
[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.
no subject
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?
no subject
[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?
no subject
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.]
no subject
[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?
no subject
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'.
no subject
[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.
no subject
[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.]
no subject
[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?
no subject
I didn't really ever have a chance to go either. It was kinda too expensive for our family. The one time I got to go was 'cause of Haru. Her dad's corporation booked the entire place for some business event, but it cancelled at the last moment, so we all went instead. Haru, Ren, Yusuke, Makoto... Futaba, Morgana, too.
[He smiles, but it's one that's clearly filled with a little bit of nostalgic pain, one in the same. It's enough to make him look at the monkey ears in his hand, and offer them to Dave.]
It's a honestly one of those couples' paradise places to go though, honestly.
[Oh, other stuff. Right. He should look in the cupboard now that the monkey costume is gone, since there are regular clothes there, scrunched up. An outfit from his future, a timeline that hasn't happened yet. But instead, he'll try to avoid the romance novel that's tucked under his pillow in somewhat plain sight if someone were apt enough to examine, and instead mention the application that downloaded on his smartwatch.]
Does your smartwatch have a meTunes player? I found these headphones under my desk the other day, and they can connect to my watch wirelessly. Funny thing is, my watch has my entire mp3 library from home on it.
no subject
[so, they're some pretty important questions. but they go unasked, because that line of thought, that tone of the conversational rhythm they'd been walking through, is halted like a record scratch. and he lights up like the fucking Main Street Electrical Parade, exactly like how he did when he first found the apple.]
Wait, you have all your music?
[Dave hasn't heard actual music that isn't by his own design, whether it was drumming on the tables in the mess hall out of nervous energy, or whether he was really feeling the acoustics in the shower, in two entire months. the idea of hearing something new is, at the risk of sounding entirely lame, literally music to his ears.]
no subject
Noticing that Dave had literally perked the fuck up at the mention of his meTunes library being here, he nods, not quite understanding how important music actually was to the other. Sure, he knew he had a penchant for rapping- and as he looks at his shirt, he realizes that looks like a record and it kind of fits... into place. Belatedly, as usual.]
Yeah! You... uh. You wanna hear?
[It's a question that probably doesn't even need an affirmative answer, so he walks over to the desk and picks up the headphones that he had found, goes to turn the application on to sync them up to his smartwatch and boots up the program.
Another sweep of motion, a turn on his heels, and he's approaching, again, breaking the whole idea or concept of personal space to lean forward and just... put one of the buds straight into his ear.]
Here, gimme that shit, I'll put it back in the cupboard where it'll stay until the end of time. [And just as he looks down, he presses play. His taste in music is pretty much what someone would expect out of Ryuji- old rock, some punk, occasional things that are more cute than heavy, and then some indie bands from back home that he had gotten into. But Dave gets some Bon Jovi, because. Why not.]
no subject
[that's not to say that Dave isn't a fan of the classics — he'll listen to pretty much anything that has a good sound to it, regardless of genre, he just usually finds himself drawn to the likes of Snoop Dogg and hip-hop sort of beats.]
[and glam metal? absolutely. besides, who hasn't heard of Bon Jovi? he knows exactly what song he's hearing from that first gust of wind and chimes, and the second the twang of guitar hits with the familiar riff that sent it skyrocketing to the top of the Billboards, he's thinking this might actually be the best thing he's heard in months.]
[and, Dave really can't help himself here — he just breaks into one of the biggest smiles he's worn in ages, face completely lit up by the fact that he's finally hearing some fucking music again, and not just whatever random notes pop into his head in the silence of the space station. and he loves it.]
cw: sappy
But all of that doesn't really seem to matter either way. He's never really cared too much for linguistics or studying much of anything to begin with, nah- not his tempo either- but quickly, something else has caught his attention and taken complete, utter control of it, freezing him and his frown in place.
What was he supposed to do? Something with the pajamas. The cupboard? Right. It was supposed to go in there.
It's just hard to do much of anything but be a bystander to his own his heart at the moment, because seeing Dave smile like that... it's the type of thing that can paralyze a person in place. This is probably it, the moment. What type of moment? Really hard to say, honestly, but it's a sort of glass shattering realization that he wants to see him smile like that as much as humanly possible. And falling for Dave was like filling a bowl with ramen right up to the edge, right near the curved lip, where one more drop was enough to make everything start pouring over, all at once.
He realizes he looks dumb, standing there, doing nothing at all but watching this, the room seeming to blur into the background as Bon Jovi is lightly heard through one half of a pair of headphones, so he reaches forward, taking the other, unoccupied half and places it in his own ear.
It's easy to forget how music makes you feel things when you haven't listened to it in a while. And when he hears the music inside his own head, he winds up smiling too.]
cw: dokis....
[and there's an undercurrent of energy there, just under the surface, even when he lets that larger smile of his relax into something more low-key, as he does. it's a lot of excitement, admittedly, over a song with a much more sedate sort of tempo. maybe it's the way that an activity that feels so familiar to him is crashing into newer feelings he can't really place, much less figure out what to do with. it's like a sudden storm of tension has lodged itself in his chest.]
[it's not really a bad thing. Dave would stand here and listen to every single song on this playlist in their entirety, if Ryuji would let him. he wants to know more about his taste in music. he wants to hear everything that's he's never heard before. he wants to know more about Tokyo, and what it was like living there — and, maybe even more importantly than the music, he wants to know more about Ryuji's life in general.]
[there's about a thousand other things he'd like to know, too, and they're thoughts he's having at a rapid-fire pace, but his silent lineup of questions is cut short when the song draws to a close, and it suddenly occurs to Dave that yeah, they ... sure are standing awfully close together.]
[he should step away. he doesn't. he lifts his chin slightly, glancing at Ryuji out of the side of his shades, choosing not to hide his gaze behind them for once, as if to ask if he's going to pick another song, or say something, or.]
no subject
Feelings are pretty hard. Talking about feelings are harder.
And he sees Dave looking up at him expecting some sort of response, because he's quite literally living through the concept of facing the music, Ryuji feels like his heart has sped up, rattling in the cage of his chest. Awkward now, that there's a quiet moment, and the capacity to do something he wants to do, and they're so close like this. He's not stepping away, though, and is that... shit, is that supposed to mean something?
He looks over slowly, and- oh. Dude. That just... that's not fair, either.]
You have eyes. Uh. Nice.
[Wait a second, that didn't make a single ounce of fucking sense at all, and as he feels his cheeks burn in the light of his own stupidity, he wonders if correcting himself would make it sound worse? Probably. Why. Okay, take a moment, unscramble. It was meant to be a compliment, not a statement of biological fact.]
I mean... I-- uh. You have nice eyes.
[That's b...etter.... kind of. Except for the fact that now that he's said it, he cant look at them at all. He hopes it's not too weird of a thing to say? It probably is. It definitely is. He was better off at You have eyes, and instead, he just focuses on picking another song instead. And if Dave doesn't nope the hell right out of this already, the Rolling Stones' Time is On My Side starts playing. He picked it because it had "time" in the title before it starts going and man, is he filled with mistakes tonight.]
no subject
[and that all jumbles up in his head in a way that makes his face feel hot, too, though most of it might be hidden behind the shades. and the words that slip out of the trainwreck that is his brain right now —]
I ... yeah.
[— wind up just as awkward, and unintentionally a bit dick-ish. oh god, he didn't mean that rudely! Dave's usually so good at being cool about everything, deflecting when something gets to him, one way or the other. but it's like every time he hangs out with Ryuji, he chips off more of that coolkid emotional armor he's wearing, and Dave is unconsciously terrified that when he pulls back that last barrier, tears down that last wall he's hiding behind, Ryuji will wind up hating the person he finds.]
[he should say something else. very belatedly, while mentally sifting through their previous conversations for something to draw on, Dave realizes that he'd accidentally referred to himself as Ryuji's Lois Lane. and suddenly, he'd very much like to just waltz through an airlock and live on the top of the space station.]
[jesus christ, Dave, say something!]
I mean ... you do, too? If I'm being honest.
[there's no air or sound in the vacuum of space. and out there, no one could hear how terrible this is.]
[he takes something of a half step away, even more cognizant of how close they're standing to each other, but then the music starts again, and Dave freezes in place, getting at least one answer to a question that had been reeling through his mind earlier. and unabashedly (in)appropriate that the song pick is, it's also drowning out the way his heart is pounding frantically in his ears.]
So. Classic rock, then. [it's both a statement and a question, and an effort to diffuse the tension. he still wants to know pretty much everything about Ryuji's taste in music.]
no subject
Ryuji definitely doesn't have a coolkid exterior armor to fall back on when things go south. He's a pin cushion with a core that narrowly avoids being poked when a needle drives into him, but with tough enough skin to endure the entire surface being punctured while still dragging forward. And when there's nothing left to give, he just hopes that whatever's pulled back beneath all of that is still worth someone's affection.
Easy enough to tell, then, when Ryuji's expression changes to bewilderment when Dave ends up eventually saying that to him. He has a hard time seeing his own worth sometimes in the darkness of uncertainty, and... damn. This is terrifying and weird, yet also incredibly, sorely wanted. Embarrassing, too, that he'd build an entire castle out of a grain of sand if he thought it were worth the effort. And Dave definitely was.
He's kind of glad for a change of topic, because he's not sure what he's supposed to say in response to that because "yeah..." seems exactly like something he'd utter out, or something far, far worse that would be construed as less-than-subtle flirting. He doesn't really have any slickness here, and when he honest to god tries to, it comes out way below anything alluring or coy. It's those three words again- it's how he'd do it. Earnest, blunt, to the point.
No use dwelling in it, though. He can worry about this interaction later when he's wondering if it went how it was meant to go or whether or not he could've done something better. Well, aside from the whole You have eyes part. That was pretty god-awful.]
Yeah. Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, The Clash, The Kinks, Journey... I'm kinda a sucker for the old style. Even though it's pretty cliche, the Beatles are pretty cool in my book, too. You think back to those sort of songs and how... y'know. Effin rebellious they were. Imagine a time when sayin' something like "I wanna hold your hand" was pretty much the most punk thing ever. I like modern stuff too, but... yeah.
[At least this conversation seems pretty safe. He's still kind of swimming in the fact that Holy shit, Dave Strider said I have nice eyes too.]
no subject
[there's something amused threatening the corners of his mouth, like he might just fully smile again, listening to Ryuji rattle off of his favorite big hair bands, his pulse and the heat of the earlier moments settling down to their normal tempos. because of course Ryuji would love all these old-school rebels. he'd probably even dig their fashion sense, too — actually, now that Dave thinks about it, he'd probably just straight up rock them if he had the chance. if he's reading Ryuji right.]
[....... hm. anyway.]
Kinda makes me wish I had my computer with me. Got lots of stuff in my library you'd probably like.
[and when they run out of music, he could just remix everything. the possibilities are endless. they always are.]
Sounds like a long shot for this place, anyway.
no subject
And probably- the only problem was that school was pretty much a 6 day a week affair for kids in Japan, which meant that 85% of his life was spent figuring out how to take a traditional school uniform and butcher it so that it was more his style. Suspenders thrown off his shoulder and worn like accessories to his hips, pins on his blazer, white keds with patterns drawn on in marker, t-shirts that didn't match at all. Maybe not the rock image Dave was expecting, but, he put up enough of a stink so that the teachers stopped trying to bother correcting his attire.]
I'm gonna guess that your library prolly needs its own external hard drive. [He points to Dave's shirt, just to make the obvious point even more obvious.]
But yeah. Music's music. I'd give just about anything a try as long as it's got a good vibe.
[It would be cool, just to stay up listening to stuff he's never heard before. Realize that it'd probably been hours since they started. End up sleeping for an hour or two before the environmental lighting came back up to alert them that it was simulated daytime.]
What're you into, anyway?
[This feels a lot more like their usual rhythm. It was like going from experimental back to jazz. And even if there wasn't a sheet music and it was off the roller coaster rails, it wasn't... well, it wasn't that bad.]
no subject
[it puts the record on his shirt that Ryuji's so astutely noticed into even more perspective, at least. and, to continue the metaphor, remixing a timeline until it's something he deems acceptable is easily within Dave's capabilities, too. of course, changing the flavor of a song doesn't leave you dead, usually. but that's neither here nor there.]
[he'd love the idea of just chilling and listening to whatever, having some quiet time to fit in with their usual banter, or their usually bizarre choices in activities, or even the moments they find themselves approaching subjects far more serious — all within the same day, the same conversations, the hours spent together. and standing there, it suddenly occurs to him that that's exactly what they could be doing.]
Mind if I stick around and listen for a while? You pick the music.
[now that the question's out there, he suddenly feels ... well, really awkward about it. his ears are suddenly burning. Dave's not sure why, exactly — it's not like he just asked the guy on a date, or something.]
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)