Chapter Text
dataJammer isn’t responding.
It’s not a big deal.
Really.
You’ve literally just met the dude. Maybe the constant availability during those first few days was something special. A vacay or a particularly slow period in their life. That your bro’s bff isn’t giving you 100% of their attention isn’t what’s bothering you. Not really.
It’s just a feeling. Something crawling under your skin and pinching beneath the epiderm in the one place you can’t scratch.
So you try to ignore it. You’ve got plenty of people to talk to. Including NEW people! You’re currently in the middle of chatting it up with your newest added chum and you can already feel the lime green text filling an empty place in your soul, gossiping your socks so far off that they end up slam dunked into the laundry basket for the game winning goal by the biggest star on the team. You can even pull off a reenactment if you want right this minute, if the basket was actually several small piles littered around your room.
You don’t add the qualifier when you brag, so when Jade demands photo evidence, you quickly scrawl out a totally accurate drawing instead and clip that .jpg to the chat window.
gardenGnostic [GG]: oh wow dave!
gardenGnostic [GG]: actually this might sound a little weird but...
gardenGnostic [GG]: do you run a webcomic?
The question takes you off guard, your brain skipping, scratching, but your fingers keep going, elbow nudging the keyboard-turned-tablet tray back under your desk.
turntechGodhead [TG]: nah
turntechGodhead [TG]: i mean ive thought about it
turntechGodhead [TG]: ive got the best concept and if im gonna admit this shit is the perfect style
turntechGodhead [TG]: not to toot my own horn but im fucking hilarious
turntechGodhead [TG]: i just havent gotten around to actually doing anything with it
gardenGnostic [GG]: sorry!!! i guess it just looked familiar!
gardenGnostic [GG]: i think youd be good at it though!!! :D
turntechGodhead [TG]: maybe maybe
turntechGodhead [TG]: like i said ive been thinking about it
turntechGodhead [TG]: bro got me this rad tablet for christmas so its so much easier to just whip out a shitty drawing whenever the mood strikes
turntechGodhead [TG]: ive just been tossing them up on my blog n shit
turntechGodhead [TG]: people seem to dig it
turntechGodhead [TG]: been gettin all kinda of love from notes to hearts to full blown comments
gardenGnostic [GG]: oh my god dave!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: is this you??? [Link]
turntechGodhead [TG]: uh
turntechGodhead [TG]: i plead the fifth
gardenGnostic [GG]: no no its really good!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: i love your art posts the best!
gardenGnostic [GG]: i always like leaving silly emoticons in the comments :B
turntechGodhead [TG]: god youre the furry wolf princess arent you
gardenGnostic [GG]: :O
turntechGodhead [TG]: i mean
turntechGodhead [TG]: shit
turntechGodhead [TG]: thats just what i think of when i see your avatar
gardenGnostic [GG]: thats so cute!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: its a goddess!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: but its close enough so ill give you brownie points :B
gardenGnostic [GG]: its just so funny!
gardenGnostic [GG]: ive been following you for a while now and its so cool to find out its you you know???
turntechGodhead [TG]: i uh yeah its a small fucking world going through the dark tunnel music blaring and its firmly placed in the uncanny valley with the singing and dancing murder robots type way because its so goddamn insane but at the same time its like yea cool aight lets roll with it cmon destiny here we go
gardenGnostic [GG]: exactly!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: i think...
gardenGnostic [GG]: i dont know you might have lost me in there somewhere haha
turntechGodhead [TG]: its ok just turn a right at the river full of grannys ashes and you couldnt miss it
turntechGodhead [TG]: so
turntechGodhead [TG]: how exactly did you find my shit anyway
turntechGodhead [TG]: like i said im hilarious
turntechGodhead [TG]: but i tend to keep that blog on the dl
turntechGodhead [TG]: just a lil place for all my bullshit if you can smell it from all the way across the fucking world
turntechGodhead [TG]: speaking of world
turntechGodhead [TG]: whats the fucking odds of my bro flying all the way accross the world on some lameass business trip only to end up in the home of one of my internet fans
gardenGnostic [GG]: well…
turntechGodhead [TG]: stop
turntechGodhead [TG]: dont answer that
gardenGnostic [GG]: just give me a minute and ill calculate it!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: i just need to look up the current population of the world and a few other variables :B
turntechGodhead [TG]: no stop
turntechGodhead [TG]: it was rhetorical
turntechGodhead [TG]: i know youre smart as fuck youd have to be to live in some secret lab in the middle of the ocean surrounded by robots n shit and even have your own cryptid haunting the place
turntechGodhead [TG]: is it true
gardenGnostic [GG]: is what true?
gardenGnostic [GG]: the lab or the robots?
gardenGnostic [GG]: your bro already validated the cryptid didnt he???
turntechGodhead [TG]: bold of you to assume id blindly believe him
turntechGodhead [TG]: both
gardenGnostic [GG]: i dont know if id call it a lab but
gardenGnostic [GG]: yeah!!! i have a robot!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: i mean i didnt make the robot. grandpa did...
gardenGnostic [GG]: but its still mine
gardenGnostic [GG]: do you wanna see???
turntechGodhead [TG]: fuck yeah gimme one sweet robo selfie up in this bitch
gardenGnostic [GG]: isnt that a little forward??? asking a girl for pics on the first date :B
turntechGodhead [TG]: uh
Fuck.
If that were Rose you might have had a witty comeback but it’s not so you’re just left floudering.
gardenGnostic [GG]: ah! sorry!
gardenGnostic [GG]: i guess that was a bit forward of me
gardenGnostic [GG]: sorry :(
gardenGnostic [GG]: i hope i didnt make you uncomfortable
That--
That isn’t how this is supposed to go--
You’re the one who’s supposed to tumble ass over teakettle into uncomfortable shit. And you’re the one who’s supposed to be apologizing.
So why does that--
hurt?
You crack the hesitation out of your fingers and do your best to drown out the static echoing in your brain with the loud mechanical clacks of your cherry red keystrokes. It’s not even marginally better than the ticks, those bastards just keep tocking on regardless of if you’ve got another spooky ass noise reverberating between your hear ducts.
turntechGodhead [TG]: nah its cool
turntechGodhead [TG]: nice job making me eat a concrete brunch
turntechGodhead [TG]: knocked me right off my tricycle do you know how hard it is to unbalance a three wheeler???
turntechGodhead [TG]: but nah you put that rock in my path and preempted my own uncomfortable joke and let me fall flat on my face
turntechGodhead [TG]: do you know what you did???
turntechGodhead [TG]: how rare a speechless strider is???
gardenGnostic [GG]: no actually!
gardenGnostic [GG]: im afraid my frame of reference is rather limited
gardenGnostic [GG]: your brother doesnt seem to have much trouble with silence!
turntechGodhead [TG]: yeah thats cuz he has the approachability of the worlds ugliest porcupine
turntechGodhead [TG]: and thats not fair to the porcupine
gardenGnostic [GG]: did you know porcupines are actually really soft and gentle if you pet along their spines???
turntechGodhead [TG]: did
turntechGodhead [TG]: did you just suggest petting my hypothetical porcupine bro???
gardenGnostic [GG]: no!
gardenGnostic [GG]: just putting out there that spikey things arent always spikey when you know how to handle them!
turntechGodhead [TG]: i know how to handle him
You’ve hit enter before you realize it, and you can’t edit or backspace as soon as your brain catches up with what you said. You examine it from every angle.
It looks innocent enough. Just a statement continuing the adventures of Bro the Hedgehog, the metaphor that really shouldn't have existed. Especially now that your bro gave up on the hair shwoop. Hard to point and laugh when he doesn’t have the ‘hog ‘do, and he’s definitely not blue. Quite the opposite of blue. Can’t really be a blue blur when you don’t wear the stuff. Even the color he’s been throwing into the mix with those smuppet sleeves is lacking the color blue. Mostly warm tones. With the occasional green.
This time you purposefully pick up the tonearm and move that cartridge back a couple notches and reset that groove again before you went down into the cursed zone of your own head.
There’s no reason for her to know that it was snapped out. No reason for her to guess that there was any sort of heat behind the innocuous words. Even as the ticking seconds stretch into minutes and you have the strangest creeping flutter start to build in your chest of christ you did it you said something to ruin this weird little thing you had going. Took that sprouting seed and ground it under your fucking heel, crushed all the potential for a friendtree when it was naught but a friend sprout.
You grab at the silence, let the anxiety bypass your mouth and flow from brain to hands to keys to text. Running with shit as the singular minute becomes plural becomes five becomes more, just leaving a mess of red text all over the Pesterchum window.
Maybe your mouth wasn’t bypassed, not entirely, because you mutter the words aloud to yourself even as they don’t penetrate your ears because the sound is something the sound and the typing is something other than the ticking and tocking--
It looks like your minor panic attack is all for naught, however, because bright lime green plonks an attachment down in the chat window without acknowledging your rambling rant at all. All that effort. Wasted. Thankfully.
And you’re totally okay with it because the preview that loads means you pushed your shame off the edge of the window and you unapologetically hope it fell to it’s untimely death. The world will never speak of it again.
gardenGnostic [GG]: tada! 20070128_032517.jpg
gardenGnostic [GG]: sorry! i had to go find a camera!
turntechGodhead [TG]: dude hold up thats rad as fuck but
turntechGodhead [TG]: first things first
turntechGodhead [TG]: thats not a selfie!!!
turntechGodhead [TG]: selfie has the word self in it
turntechGodhead [TG]: there is no self in this selfie
turntechGodhead [TG]: therefore it is not a selfie
turntechGodhead [TG]: not unless youre secretly a robot and this is your round about way of testing me to see if id believe the truth!
gardenGnostic [GG]: i wasnt the one who said anything about a selfie remember???
turntechGodhead [TG]: you didnt say i was wrong
gardenGnostic [GG]: my arm is right there!!!
turntechGodhead [TG]: yea thats an impressive joke arm im onto you harley i know how common that shit is they turn up all over the place
turntechGodhead [TG]: ill get you turing tripped up just you wait
turntechGodhead [TG]: expose you for the rad robogirl you are for all the world to see
gardenGnostic [GG]: ill just have to make sure i keep passing all your tests then :B
turntechGodhead [TG]: so like
turntechGodhead [TG]: whats the sitch
gardenGnostic [GG]: what do you mean???
turntechGodhead [TG]: like
turntechGodhead [TG]: whats he doing?
turntechGodhead [TG]: jackin all up into roboyous brain like that
Wire running from the side of the girl’s head, falling to the ground, looping around limp limbs and running back, vanishing behind the open door of a wardrobe. You instantly recognized the disastrous mop of hair sticking out from around the edge, and the glow of a screen lighting making it easy to guess there’s a laptop or some shit all plopped out on the floor.
gardenGnostic [GG]: i dont know honestly!
gardenGnostic [GG]: hes been really quiet today
gardenGnostic [GG]: i want to say preoccupied
gardenGnostic [GG]: i asked whats up and he just shook his head and kept working :(
turntechGodhead [TG]: i mean
turntechGodhead [TG]: thats kinda what bro does jade
turntechGodhead [TG]: gets all in too deep and then nothing short of the end of the world will pull him out of it
turntechGodhead [TG]: i dont know what you were expecting
gardenGnostic [GG]: its not though!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: he said if it works hell tell me tomorrow :T
turntechGodhead [TG]: so he did tell you
turntechGodhead [TG]: damn you got an answer outta him
turntechGodhead [TG]: count yourself blessed
turntechGodhead [TG]: i never get shit when hes busy
gardenGnostic [GG]: he doesnt seem to mind answering my questions!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: i even think he likes it??? having someone to explain things to i mean
gardenGnostic [GG]: all i have to do is give him a topic and he takes off!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: usually anyway...
gardenGnostic [GG]: ever since this morning it just
gardenGnostic [GG]: i dont know! it just feels weird!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: im worried
Don’t think about the way your jaw clenches as the image paints itself upon your overactive imagination. Shaking your head even as your fingers curl into fists. She thinks that’s weird? What’s weird is the idea of Bro--
Honestly? Even with the robot you can’t see why the fuck Bro is bothering.
Not that you don’t think it’s worth bothering. Jade is awesome and robots are rad it’s just…
You can’t imagine it. You can’t imagine it at all. You can’t imagine Bro with the patience to give a fucking robotics lecture to a little girl. You can’t imagine your Bro with the patience to deal with kids period. He fucking bolts if you spent more than twenty minutes in his presence--
No that isn’t quite right is it? You’re the one who can’t seem to exist in the same room for longer than an hour unless you’re exhausted out of your mind.
Of course he’d appreciate someone who doesn’t just fucking ditch him.
Stevens told you. He told you. Bro used to be different. Before you. Used to do shit. Used to get excited about robots and electronics and you couldn’t ever stop him if he started going, used to talk your fuckin’ ear off.
It’d make sense. Jade seems to love this shit. He loves this shit. Of course he’d take a shine to her. He never could leave a dull blade alone. Wasn’t that why he tried to sharpen you? Before he dropped that sword like it’s hot.
Why couldn’t it be you.
Why won’t you let it be you.
You shove that goddamn thought out the window like the snake it is. It isn’t worth the mental real estate. Nope. Nada. Not welcome here.
turntechGodhead [TG]: okay
turntechGodhead [TG]: so you dont know what hes doing now
turntechGodhead [TG]: but like
turntechGodhead [TG]: its your bot
turntechGodhead [TG]: shouldnt you have some say in the end goal here???
gardenGnostic [GG]: oh i do!!!
turntechGodhead [TG]: ok so
turntechGodhead [TG]: lay it on me harley
gardenGnostic [GG]: shes broken…
gardenGnostic [GG]: i told you grandpa made her right???
turntechGodhead [TG]: yea
gardenGnostic [GG]: she used to fly around when i slept!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: mr strider said something about her translating my brainwaves into actions and motions???
gardenGnostic [GG]: so like id sleep! and dream! and she spent her life acting out my dreams!
gardenGnostic [GG]: but then something went wrong :(
gardenGnostic [GG]: and we dont fit together anymore...
turntechGodhead [TG]: so she really is a robo you huh
gardenGnostic [GG]: yeah!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: but like i said
gardenGnostic [GG]: we dont fit anymore
turntechGodhead [TG]: im sure bro could fix that
turntechGodhead [TG]: line up them targets and get it all working again
gardenGnostic [GG]: maybe he could!
gardenGnostic [GG]: but i dont…
gardenGnostic [GG]: really want him to?
gardenGnostic [GG]: i want her to live!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: i dont want her to be tied to me!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: even if we have to break her free!!!
turntechGodhead [TG]: goddamn sounds like a mess and a half
turntechGodhead [TG]: is bro even getting any work done or do i need to tell his handler hes slacking off to help the princess rehabilitate her robotwin
gardenGnostic [GG]: im the dragon! not the princess :B
turntechGodhead [TG]: do you plan on causing any mayham mx dragon
turntechGodhead [TG]: do i need to pull out my sword and go a hunting
turntechGodhead [TG]: im very experienced in slayage at this point
turntechGodhead [TG]: lots of practice gets in when youve got a big green monster rampaging through the countryside setting all the shit on fire
turntechGodhead [TG]: think of the peasants
turntechGodhead [TG]: they didnt deserve this
turntechGodhead [TG]: they didnt sign up for sleepless nights and constant pillaging
gardenGnostic [GG]: oh dont worry!!! im a very good dragon!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: ill kick out the mean one!!!
gardenGnostic [GG]: bam pow bonked it right on the nose and send it packing
gardenGnostic [GG]: this is my countryside now and i decree the populous can live without fear!!!
turntechGodhead [TG]: oh?
turntechGodhead [TG]: so whats your price for this protection huh
turntechGodhead [TG]: theres always gotta be a price its a dragon thing
gardenGnostic [GG]: oh i don’t know!
gardenGnostic [GG]: i think shed be happy with a few friends coming to talk to her every now and then!!!
turntechGodhead [TG]: well
turntechGodhead [TG]: god i guess i gotta turn in my knight cred
turntechGodhead [TG]: hang that sord up on the gaudy ass purple wallpaper where itll gather dust for all of eternity
gardenGnostic [GG]: oh no why???
turntechGodhead [TG]: cause
turntechGodhead [TG]: you cant go slaying when youre giving yourself up for tribute
gardenGnostic [GG]: :O
gardenGnostic [GG]: really???
turntechGodhead [TG]: yeah
turntechGodhead [TG]: really
gardenGnostic [GG]: :D :D :D
turntechGodhead [TG]: one isnt a few but i might be able to rustle up a couple more for you too
Red and green. Red and green. Red and green but not like Christmas. Like--
Frogs and blood staining freshly hopped on snow.
The image is oddly crisp in your mind.
A familiar swoop of that hair. A smile sparkling up at you from a face you must have plucked from molded metal.
The conversation moves on, and purple and blue join you as you all step in and out of each other’s paths. Routines spinning and twinning and you find yourself wondering if the others were missing their fourth as much as you were.
turntechGodhead [TG] is pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]
turntechGodhead [TG]: so how do you feel about being fed to a dragon
turntechGodhead [TG]: im thinkin i need another person or two worth of tribute to satiate the bottomless hunger for the supple flesh of newborn friendships
turntechGodhead [TG]: you in???
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Since you’re asking for volunteers, I’d think I deserve at least the cliff notes about the entity to which you plan to sacrifice me to.
turntechGodhead [TG]: it involves a teleporting demon dog
tentacleTherapist [TT]: …
tentacleTherapist [TT]: I’m listening.
Your lips curl and you swap to another window, typing out a similar message for John.
If your eyes linger on the online list. On the greyed out name that feels so off.
Well. You’re soon distracted enough that it doesn’t matter.