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soscarlett1twas · 2 months

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one single thread of gold (tied me to you)

↳ The invisible strings laced into the Sakuverse. ↳ 7.2k words / also available on ao3!

Matias stared at the screen, unable to formulate his thoughts. His fingers hesitated above the keyboard, and for each word he punched out, he purged the sentence before it was even finished.

He had suffered this problem before. It was always the first words, then the rest would flow – but with a mind full of ideas and hands eager to type, it was hard to push himself when all he got was a blank screen staring back at him.

Tension grew in his jaw as his teeth ground together. He pulled his hands back and strategically cracked each knuckle, first the distal joints, then the center, until he was left with were slightly looser hands and a still-blank screen. Each crack drifted up into the atrium's echo.

He refocused on the document, but all he perceived was the cursor, blinking in a staccato rhythm. Matias groaned.

His hand found a pen and clicked it a few times, scanning the open pages of his notebook as a refresher. Outlined on them was a short story about a nightmare he had wanted — not so much tried — to write for ages. He had written and rewritten the “stage directions", so-to-speak, of the story many times, finally settling on this version he was quite happy about. And the imagery he painted in his own head, of the scenes of the man's nightmare, how he could link it to the broader narrative of the man's life, how it would predict his future, it made him excited.

So he sat down to write, hands hovering over the keyboard of a school-issued laptop to start crafting what would surely be something great.

And yet. Yet.

A bar (the only black on his empty page) faded and reappeared again and again as Matias tried to conjure the right vocab, the right atmosphere, the right... something.

His hand moved to cover his face, fingertips pressing down his clenched eyebrows and curving down his face, until his palms holstered his jowls and his sides were warmed from the laptop-heat of his hands. His words were nothing to his imagination.

His hands moved once again to cover his face completely.

He was nothing to his imagination.

And he had tried, for so long, to believe that was okay. What were these stories for if not practice? Surely, once he was older, they would flow naturally. His prose would be enchanting, but not purple; his plots would be grand, but not confusing. He would look back on these old words as the small stepping stones to the majesty he would write eventually.

But why must it be eventually? Why couldn’t it be now?

Matias, who had subconsciously slumped down so far in the chair that his back connected more with the seat than his legs, exhaled and pulled himself back up. With one more look at white screen, he opened a new tab.

Pressing the My Drive bookmark at the top of his screen, he navigated through a swamp of miscellaneous documents, scattered thoughts spread across countless files. But what he was looking for would not be recently opened. He typed in its title in the search bar, bringing up a document untouched for months.

As with all his finished stories, this one was formatted all nicely, unlike the standard Arial he drafted in. He scrolled through it with mild attention and read a couple lines from assorted paragraphs.

This was a tale about two people who, throughout the work, became tentative friends. They did not like each other at first, but came around through their joint love of the stars, though very different in how they viewed them – one for science, one for mythology.

It was not fun to write. It is never fun to write, at least, in the moment. But Matias always found himself looking back on the process with more fondness than the finished product. And this was a work he was particularly fond of. (For as fond as one can be about their own work – that is to say, anything net neutral is ‘positive’, and anything less than is negative.)

The descriptions of the sky did it for him and he yearned to be able to write it again. He wanted to describe the world and its beauty, not a man's nightmare. He wanted back that process where, even if it was difficult at the moment, he was writing. Not stuck in his mind with the imaginary dreamscape of a nightmare, his own self an unfit conduit for the ideas he wanted to share. At least with skies and stars, they were pretty just to read. They created a fantasy that, even if the reader was not imagining what Matias wrote, they were substituting it for their own memories of nightfall.

When he exited the tab, the laptop lid closed with it. He needed to do something other than look at the screen.

Matias stood and stretched, rolling his neck and pushing in the chair to the desk. Just waiting for the right words wouldn’t work and he needed to stretch his legs a bit. Before walking away, he took one last look at his notebook, and closed it softly. Anywhere else, he would’ve had some more precaution, but it was doubtful anyone would steal his things at the library.

So he walked away, leaving any thoughts of the story behind him.

He had set up shop at the back of the building, so he flitted between rows and rows of bookshelves. He wove between CD’s on language learning to the record books, to the young adult and fantasy sections. Assorted mangas greeted him in the aisle he walked into.

He scanned a couple of titles with no intentions to take them out, but he liked to window shop. He’d even pull a couple out and read their back, or, if he was feeling particularly dangerous, flip to a random page and read a couple sentences. Then he’d slip them back in and walk away.

He threaded like this between three bookcases, reading spines which fled his mind the second he glanced away. He made one last turn, and, thoroughly unimpressed by his own attempt at clearing his thoughts, turned back the way he came.

On the way back to his desolate writing, he walked up to a World Atlas. It was large, pages spread across its entire podium and then some, open to a random page on Denmark. Matias had little interest in the country, but he liked maps, and this one was so detailed. He approached the atlas and began to leaf through it.

From French topography to the Indian Ocean to the specifics of Somalia’s economics, Matias skimmed through each section, finding himself smiling at it. It was dumb, he knew – but the world was so very big and so very complex, and that was where he found beauty. What a wonder to be able to see it one day. What he would give to make something like this.

He skimmed his fingers along the thick stack of right-aligned pages, opening up to a random one. It was about Iceland.

A map of the country was offset to the left hand corner, most of the spread being taken up by photos about the northern lights. He had heard of them of course, but he found himself in awe of the colors. Even in a stagnant image he could see them pulsing with different hues, the greens fading to blues to purples.

Oh, the sky. What a beautiful thing it is.

His finger traced the harsher lines of the aurora, where the lights hardened to a sheet of color. The flimsy paper beneath his fingertips folded as he shifted them upwards, but Matias quickly fixed it and kept going: Over and over, wondering it how could exist in this world. And how unfair it was that it is out of his reach.

It would be incredible to see the aurora. It was inspiring even in photo form, and what could it be in person? What basin of inspiration could this be for him? His fingers, just tracing the photo, felt as if they had dipped into a pool of magic, drenching themself in the motivation he needed to write.

And the nightmare came back to him, fully written around his inked skeleton, ready to be shaped.

Still staring at the basin, he –

– pulled his fingers away from the aurora clipping and flipped it, as carefully as he could, and lifted his glue stick. Purple glue coated the underside and he pressed it into the paper of his notebook, besides the Icelandic mountains and waterfalls he had cut out earlier. Once satisfied it was secure, he began to reach out for the magazine he left sprawled open, silhouettes now chopped from its pages.

Beside it, scattered atop of the carpeted floor, were many other magazines. Some were still safe, though many more were torn through and falling apart, their confetti guts sticking to the carpet fuzz. Their own images had been sniped and pasted into the notebook, from stills of people to landscapes.

Really, the subject didn’t matter. If Alex liked the composition, or the filter, or the lightning… well, into his notebook it went.

He hummed as he flipped through the magazine, eyes skimming over landscapes far and wide. Nothing quite did it for him, though he did wonder if he should cut out a particularly pretty iceberg… until the church.

Formed like a sharp bell curve, the structure rose into the clear blue sky, its golden lights projected onto the front, bleeding into each crevice of the jagged building. Three windows glowed at the top, small from the perspective, contrasting the dark, tinted part of the building. A singular rainbow window sat above the entrance door, its hood molding casting a deep purple shadow upwards.

Alex turned to grab his scissors when he spied the building's name, unpronounceable on his English tongue: Hallgrímskirkja. He still tried and snorted when it was butchered.

He began the incision at the base, silently wondering if he should only cut out the church or keep the sky (no, he decided, he needed the sky – it established the blues to contrast the rising yellow light), and began to snip away.

He worked cautiously, creating an arch that reached above the church and back down. Once done, he smiled and placed the scissors on the floor, pulling the clipping free from the page. He moved the magazine away and placed the photo down beside him, flipping to a new two-page spread in it. The church was too big to be added to the current page he was on. Besides, something like this deserved its own spread.

Again, methodically, he lifted his gluestick and spread it in curved motions behind the image, and stamped it into his book, careful to center it correctly. Just to be sure, he closed the book and pressed his palms onto its cover, forcing his body weight down to really stick it in there.

Satisfied, he opened the notebook back to Hallgrímskirkja, eyes scoring the photo and smiled.

He turned back the pages to old spreads. He just liked looking at them, to glimpse at his handiwork of images not his own. But they could be.

Alex was giddy at the thought, to do this for a living one day. Taking photos of the world's beauty, where it was its people or landscapes, or even gold-encrusted perfume bottles. He wanted it all.

He was about to turn back to the magazine when a knock echoed through his door. Before he could answer, his parents walked in.

“Alex?” His father walked into the bedroom, eyes catching on the photo clippings before landing on his son.

“Hey,” he responded, sitting up from his floor.

His mother took a couple steps forward. “What are you doing, Alex?”

Smiling at the chance to talk about photography, he immediately opened back up the Hallgrímskirkja page, eager to show them. He stood and held it out to her, his father coming around his mother’s shoulder to see.

He explained he was looking through photos for inspiration, that one day, he was going to take these photos for magazines. Maybe they could take a trip to Iceland as a family! He was about to offer up the idea when his father said:

“So… you want to be a photographer?”

He nodded.

He missed the glances his parents exchanged as he flipped to the back of the notebook, again holding the spread open for them to see.

Plastered across these pages were Polaroids he had taken with the disposable camera they bought him for a school day-trip. They were nothing much – just some landscapes, a couple candids of his friends, but they were his photos, and he displayed them with the same honor as his inspirations.

But this time, he did not miss the waver in his mothers eyes nor his father’s throat bobbing.

“Oh, these are so pretty hunny… why didn’t you show us these before?”

He didn’t quite have an answer to that. He just… didn’t. Alex’s arms loosened, bringing the open book down from their sights and against his chest, where he folded it, subconsciously hugging it.

“Photography is a great hobby, but a career?” His mother sat on his bed.

Still, he had nothing to say, throat dry. He shrugged. How could she go from praising his work to this in the same breath?

The room fell to awkward silence as Alex refused to meet their sights, still clinging to his notebook, and his parents didn’t speak.

“I came to ask,” his father finally began, “if you wanted to come and play with the neighbor kids. They set up a volleyball net – you like volleyball, right?”

“Yeah.” He first tried it on a beach vacation. It was a lot of fun playing with kids his age, and he liked the neighbors plenty, but he was busy. Before he could say so, though, his father clapped his back.

“Great! I’ll tell them you’ll be there soon,” and walked out of his bedroom, his mother kissed his cheek before leaving as well.

Left alone, he let out a little sigh, and flipped the book in his hands. He looked at its cover, plain compared to its pages, made of woven cloth. He bought it ages ago with his allowance. The same allowance he had shoved in a jar, on top of his nightstand, containing a total on its top. His savings for a camera, because they refused to buy him even a disposable one unless it was on a school to-have list for field trips.

Outside, he could just barely make out the sounds of the kids playing, calling for the first –

– serve spiked down and, after hitting inside the lines, bounced out of bounds. Kayson whooped as his team cheered in his honor, and they all shuffled one spot to the left.

The other team stood stagnant, as they had for the last three serves, unable to score a point and move. It wasn’t traditional volleyball: the game the class was playing was altered to give everyone a chance at each position. When your team scored a point, everyone shifted a position to the left. Kayson bounded from the server to the middle of the back row.

And up to serve was a girl who spent the entire class glancing at the clock, anxious to get out of here. He couldn’t blame her. The teams had been randomly chosen, and she had fallen into a group of tryhards who were thriving on the competition – which is to say, Kayson got real lucky.

She squirmed in the position, smiling only when she caught the glimpse of her friends on the other side of the net, as if to mock herself and say “We know this won’t end well, but how funny will it be when I fail?”

The ball got tossed over the net, ending up closer to Kayson than her. He caught it and walked over, handing it over in a quick toss.

“Alright, Mia.” Kayson crouched his knees and balled his fist, swinging it with clear direction to the hypothetical ball in his other. “Just like we talked about. Get some leverage and,” he thrust his fist up and through the ghostly volleyball, “swing up. Make sure to keep your hand balled!” He tread back to his spot, walking backwards to nod as she mirrored his actions.

She curled her lip slightly, knees bending as her arm straightened. Kayson watched, still nodding his head as Mia took a couple practice swings.

They barely knew each other. The only class they shared was this one, and Kayson would be hesitant to call them acquaintances, much less friends. But when Mia had messed up her first serve at the beginning of the unit, laughing at herself before anyone else got the chance to, he had called out some advice at the reserve. And that time, it made it over the net.

He hoped his aid held true again.

She took one last swing and thrust her arm back with more certainty, pushing it forward at just the right angle. He watched as it nearly hit the ceiling before arching back down, landing in the center of the back row.

“Oh! Oh!” Mia’s voice grew in excitement as she realized that not only was it a decent serve, it was a good one – and Kayson shouted back a “Let’s go!” in the rising choir of middle schoolers getting into a good game.

The two teams went back for approximately two passes before the bell rang.

Kayson went to grab his backpack, not missing the small wave from Mia when he turned around. He returned the gesture and smiled.

His friends caught up to him, laughing and jostling each other around as they walked out of the gym. Kayson pushed the one away, claiming his was too sweaty, and the boy retorted that Kayson was worse. Which, he was.

“Alright, I’ve got to go…” Kayson said, trailing away from his friends. His next class was halfway across the school and didn’t want to be late. They said their goodbyes and split directions.

The hallways were packed as they were every passing period. Kayson maneuvered between people, often bumping shoulders, his smile fading to neutrality. Everyone around him looked the same, minds somewhere beyond the cramped halls.

With gym – his favorite class today – done with, Kayson adapted to the melancholy which awaited him at his next classes, feeling any leftover adrenaline bleeding out of him. The rest of the day had little interest to him.

Kayson left the main, packed hallway for the smaller math hall. People loitered outside doors, not wanting to go to their classes yet, or walked beside their friends in twos or threes. He could spy a small crowd inside the bathroom as he passed. Turning the corner, the open door of his Algebra class beckoned.

Cool air hit his sweaty skin when Kayson walked in. His desk was close to the back of the room, a choice he made at the start of the year. His bag slinked to the floor as he dropped it and sat on the even colder chair. His legs stuck to the plastic.

While his table was still empty, others had a filled somewhat. The teacher walked up to one and handed her a paper. She flipped it over and flashed it to her friend, with a big A written in red up top.

And Kayson remembered the test from last class.

The little spark still in him died at the realization, being replaced by the pooling dread of known failure. He had studied, and he had felt good while taking it, but he also knew to be realistic. And realistically, he did not know math.

The teacher finished handing off papers to the rest of the table before making her way over to Kayson, smiling softly.

“Good morning, Kayson.” She rifled through her papers.

“Morning,” he muttered.

She pulled a sheet from the middle of the stack and gave it to him, already moving to another table. He barely looked at it. All he needed was the D before flipping it back over, the pen used to mark his paper bleeding through the back.

He groaned as he lowered his head. He was fine with his B average. Hell, he’d even scored a couple A’s in classes this year, but with the way his math grade was going…

When the C came in last quarter on his report card, he hated showing it to his mom, hated the class, hated himself for it. He promised her with one more bad grade, he’d go to tutoring. And here was his ticket to ride.

He rose and walked over to the teacher, skin like suction ripping from the chair. “Can I go to the bathroom?” He muttered as she turned to him. At her nod, he left, passing the TA’s desk who’d surely be his new tormentor after school.

There was still a line, made up of kids who had yet to leave for class. But when the bell rang they began to trickle out, leaving Kayson to tap his foot on the dirty floor, waiting for a stall, also not quite here to actually use the facilities.

He took a deep breath when he finally got to sit on a non-plastic chair, in that suffocatingly cold classroom, instead relatively alone in the middle stall. He took a deep breath as he shut the door, clicking the –

– lock into place, Luca sat, scratching at his eyes.

His breath was already wavering, but with the final swallow of air came his break, and he folded over on the porcelain, knees pressed to soaking lashes.

He had tried. God, Luca had tried so hard. There hadn’t even been a triggering event. But a building wave must eventually fall.

And out it came, pouring from his eyes with the crash of croaking breaths.

Luca’s hands clawed from cupping his mouth to running along his waterline, wiping tears before they even traced his face. Yet still more came, and for all the grief which choked him, for all the loneliness which sparked the display, his only thought was how to make it stop.

Which made it all the worse when he couldn’t. The resounding loneliness just echoed back to him as one breath became too loud, as even in his misery Luca was still consciously fearful of others, and even more aware that there was simply no one around.

His parents were worried, of course. When he brought home the permission slip, excitedly bobbing at the chance to go to New York City with his class, his parents sat him down to talk through it. What to expect, how to stay safe, whether or not he should go… the last point got brought up a lot.

He insisted he’d be fine. After all, his bullies weren’t in classes who’d go on the trip. His parents asked if he’d have any friends with him instead.

Despite him drawing a blank at the question, his parents still let him go. Oh, how he wished they didn’t anymore.

Luca pressed his palms to his eyes.

It hadn’t even been a bully – if it were, at least somebody was thinking about him, talking to him – instead it was complete isolation. Not a single conversation with another kid for the two days they’d spent in the city. When he tried, he was met with some form of swift rejection.

He convinced himself it was fine. He was fine, until he wasn’t, and at dinner it was all too much. He sat with the teachers, glanced over at the table he should be at, and excused himself politely.

Only to end up in the bathroom, the only place he could let the feeling engulf him, ironically praying he was left alone in his sadness as if that wasn’t the cause of it.

No, he didn’t want to be alone. He wanted his mom. He wanted his dad. He wanted the people who loved him. But they were unreachable.

At the thought, another wave of sadness crested over him.

This time he let himself cry.

He did not know how much time had passed, only that he was spent when tears turned to a thin plaster on his skin. He had barely moved from his hunched position and an ache grew in the small of his back.

Luca swallowed the rising weight in his throat and sat up. His eyelashes brushed his face as he shut his eyes tightly, feeling the cool tears on both. His mind started to work again, no longer suffocated with his misery, instead slowly turning with coherent thoughts.

But remain did the feeling of hollowness in his chest, perhaps sculpted out from his sobs – Luca felt it as he breathed, tasting iron on the lip he was biting, eyebrows furrowed. If anyone could see him, the uncharacteristic look of anger would shock them. Or would it? To recognize it’s unrecognizably would be to know him, to know he was not angry, to know he was simply clenching trying not to cry again. But nobody did.

Or perhaps they would be affronted by it not because he was him, but because of what he seemed to be. He was small, frail in stature and always looking if trying to hide away. He was meant to be unseen, not to be unseemly.

For what he hoped to be the final time, Luca rolled toilet paper and dabbed it to his eyes, then promptly threw it into the bowl. He watched it flush.

The door opened with a shove. Luca appreciated it’s coverage, working almost as an entrance to another room inside of a bathroom stall. Perks of crying in a nice restaurant.

He walked over to the sinks and motioned underneath the faucets with his fingertips. He just sat there, letting himself feel the water.

He dabbed it on his eyebags. Like a coal, he could feel himself cooling under the water. Luca massaged it into his skin and dipped his fingers back under for more. This was a familiar ritual to him.

He barely noticed the door opening, though the familiar voice of a teacher brought him to.

“Luca?” He startled.

Mr. Polis, a Biology teacher, stood at the door. Luca never had his class, a fact he was often grateful for – many said he was tough and an even harsher grader. Even as he looked at him, there was a certain edge to his gaze. It was laced with worry.

He made an obnoxious sniff to recall mucus and winced at how it echoed. “Hi, Mr. Polis…” Luca turned his head and walked to dry his hands, suddenly even embarrassed of his ablution.

He stayed turned to the towels as another faucet began. In the mirrors he could see the teacher washing his hands. Curiosity spiked, but he wasn’t going to ask.

“One of your classmates decided to spill their drink on me,” he said, as if reading Luca’s mind. He sighed and waved his hand under another dispenser. When it didn’t work, his exasperation grew to an annoyed hum as he began to walk towards Luca. “Excuse me.”

Luca stepped aside, away from the mirrors as the teacher got his towel. He stared at the crumpled brown paper in his hand. Luca tried to fold it another way so he could blow his nose again, but already so small, it was useless. He’d get another when Mr. Polis left.

Luca still tried to avoid his sights as he walked over to the trash, rubbing his eyes to hide better.

“Have you been enjoying the city so far?”

Luca still didn’t turn to him. “Yeah… it’s been fun.” His voice was rough.

“Good, good.”

The man came beside him and threw his own towel away.

“Would you like a hug?”

It was an awkward question, but it startled Luca enough to make him look at the man. His expression was creased in worry, but a comforting smile played on his lips as his hands opened slightly.

And just like that, he threatened to burst into tears again.

The teacher wrapped his arms around Luca, reminiscent of his father’s comfort, and held him for a short moment. This mean, harsh teacher was the only one who offered him any comfort, a member of the small few who noticed, and then cared, about his emotions.

Luca was inevitably the first to pull away, arms loosing around him at the force. He didn’t want to tear-stain the man’s shirt. It already took a blow this evening.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked.

Luca shook his head, another obnoxious snort echoing in the room.

“That’s alright, just… don’t hide away. The teachers are here if you need us.” The man nodded his head with a thin-lipped expression. “When you’re feeling better, feel free to join us back at the table. I know we said no dessert but… you’re sitting with us. I’ll get you a hot chocolate or something.”

Mr. Polis walked out of the bathroom, leaving Luca alone with his thoughts once more. He swallowed the rising lump in his throat and went back to the sink, dampening another paper to cleanse his eyes.

A teacher. A teacher cared for him, a boy he didn’t even teach.

Something indescribable washed over him, and Luca pulled the towel away. He folded it over, the paper rough under his touch as he pressed it, once more, to his face. He wadded it up. As he walked away, he lightly threw it into the –

– trash can. He winced as the paper slit his fingertip.

He turned his finger to see the damage, but the cut was so thin it wasn’t even visible. With his thumb, he pulled the skin taut, feeling the burn of a paper cut but still, nothing.

Andrew groaned and grabbed his pen, going back to scribbling down notes as the video he neglected to pause shifted focus to the importance of Chilean copper mines in the 1970’s and how they partly incited the American-sponsored coup d'état.

Riveting.

The video was meant to help him study. It had good coverage of American-sponsored insurrections in the Cold War era, the current topic in his history class and the basis for a presentation he was set to give Monday. But even for a man who enjoyed these things, Andrew’s mind couldn’t help but loll. Every sentence sounded muffled. Even his eyes weren’t focused on the graphics. They watched the time instead, on the far right corner of his laptop.

The numbers lay stagnant, Andrew’s mind beginning to wander back to class. Back to the boy.

He rewound the video with a tense hand.

Again he heard the explanations of Chile’s nationalization of the copper mines and jotted down a couple points he thought were important. But when he rested his hand on the notebook page, he moved his finger slightly, and with it came a burgundy smear.

Andrew recoiled, briefly forgetting the paper cut. But the thin line had started to bubble with blood, painting more than the paper red. There was a spot on his pen as well.

He groaned, slamming the space bar to pause the video before getting off his bed. Though, he was also grateful to be without reminder of class for a moment. They had band aids somewhere in the house, he knew, but specifically where was a mystery.

His feet pattered on the upstairs carpet, turning to a hollower sound as the stairwell became wood. Descending into the small foyer he opened the cabinets directly to his right. He was cautious to keep his bloody finger off the furniture. After a few moments of looking, he found no band aids.

He blinked tiredly at the spot where he thought they’d be, throwing his head back in mild exhaust, catching the gaze of the crucifix above the drawers.

Andrew stared at it for a few moments, then hurriedly left the room to continue his search.

He found more miscellaneous cabinets, but as he looked through them, he couldn’t help but feel the divine gaze on him. Somebody – God – was watching him.

He turned around, scanning the empty room as if to find a ghost with him. Nothing was there. He turned back to his search, pulling open another drawer and scanning with new vigor. Andrew wanted to be back up in his room quick.

The feeling had, admittedly, been the thing to distract him earlier. It had been following him all week, though never as strong as it was in this moment. The cross and its waxen martyr could hear the sin in his mind, he was sure of it, as it was filled with… disquieting thoughts.

Andrew tried to shake it from him – the thoughts of class, watching the teacher, eyes drifting down to the boy beside him – but it was no use. He could lie and say he didn’t purposefully look in his direction, but what use would it be when he couldn’t even convince himself?

Everything began to remind him of his failure. Even the damn copper mines.

Andrew let out a huff of bitter laughter. How...

...romantic, he finished, quieter than the minds echo, a thought inside a thought. Something welled inside him. It wasn’t romantic. Nothing about this was ‘romantic’. Romance wasn’t… it wasn’t made up of… how would a relationship like that even work?

Andrew’s mind slowly turned to more intimate ideas. He made a face as he sharply pushed them out. Though the idea that he had thought them (and did so willingly, though he wouldn’t admit it) shocked him. Scared him.

Suddenly jolted from his mind palace of worry, Andrew looked directly at a box of band aids that had been in front of him for God-knows how long.

He blinked once at it. Twice. Then he delicately pulled back the loose flap on top and got a small bandage.

He stared at it, cut long dry and crusted over with blood. It shook. The band aid was shaking.

No, he was shaking, but he wasn’t going to look at himself and admit that.

Andrew placed it back in the box and slowly shut the cabinet. He stared at the dark wood, trying to reground himself in reality.

He turned back to the stairwell. Jesus watched him climb the stairs. His gaze followed him into his room.

He wasn’t. He could be. He could even think of the word. Not because he could remember it, but to let it ring in his head, in his voice?

Andrew swallowed rising bile as he convinced himself to think it, at least. Because was it better to refuse it, or to proudly state it negatively? Was he weaker for letting the guilt (no, not guilt, because he was guilty of naught) consume him, or for thinking of these things to begin with?

He was not ‘into’ men.

He was not gay.

He was not –

– queer name, Dedalus, and I have a queer name too, Athy. My name is the name of a town. Your name is like Latin.

Isaac skimmed over the passage. This section was a nice break from the confusing nature of Joyce’s earlier prose. He could appreciate the dedication to writing as if through a toddler’s perspective, but enjoyment was a different metric. At least these lines were brief and conversational.

Well, Isaac mused, nothing could be as dense as Ulysses, even if by the same author. And even if Isaac had never read that labyrinth of a book, he knew how torturous it was.

So he continued reading about children and their discussion of riddles, even if the one was quite poor at them.

—Can you answer me this one? Why is the county of Kildare like the leg of a fellow’s breeches?

Stephen thought what could be the answer and then said:

—I give it up.

“I wouldn’t say it’s early, but I don’t often get a call from you at this hour.”

Isaac froze, eyes looking at the words on the page but not quite reading them. That was the voice of his grandfather.

Isaac’s brow furrowed. He straightened himself and kept on reading.

—Because there is a thigh in it, he said. Do you see the joke? Athy is the town in the county Kildare and a thigh is the other thigh. “What could be so important, Asriel?”

Isaac didn’t get the joke, yet he kept reading. The book trickled back into dense prose and it failed to capture his attention. Instead, the words of his grandfather seemed to get louder as Isaac unintentionally focused on them.

“The Skoligs? I thought only the Vex had connections to your circle.”

Isaac stared at the paper.

His father… must be a magistrate too… He thought of his own father… while his mother played… when he asked for sixpence…

He read and reread the paragraph, never quite catching what it was saying. It began to frustrate him, the lengths to which is own mind refused to ignore the man in the other room.

“Checks and balances, I understand.” His grandfather’s voice got louder as he turned into the hallway and noticed Isaac in the drawing room. Isaac’s periphery betrayed the old man’s lingering gaze before he kept walking and entered the kitchen, which was still close enough for him to hear. “You’re saying Stockton is a playground for higher forces. What stake do you have in this?”

Silence, again.

He thought of his own father, of how he sang songs while his mother played and of how he always gave him a shilling when he asked for sixpence and he felt sorry for him that he was not a magistrate like the other boys’ fathers.

There. Isaac read the sentence and understood it. Finally. His took a moment to clear his head once more, unwittingly glancing over towards the direction of the voice.

“I didn’t take you to be the sentimental type.”

Isaac waited as the other line was deaf to him, before his sight refocused on the page. No. He didn’t care. His grandfather’s work was nothing to him.

Isaac began to read again, his mind wading through the twisted writing and trying to make sense of it. But the buzz of his grandfather’s gruff voice never failed to waft back to him.

He focused even harder on reading.

Isaac made it halfway down the page before: “Don’t make this my families business. Again.”

Isaac’s sight stopped dead.

Who did he say he was on call with? Asriel? The question betrayed his apathy. A vitriolic expression bled onto his face. Who was he to blame that on someone else? He made it his families business, whatever it was – his work was their downfall. He was their downfall. Who but he could have made it his parent’s problem? Who was Asriel?

The silence was deafening as he waited for any answer, wiggling his ears childishly as if it would help him hear a response.

“Anything involving that woman was my families business,” his grandfather barked. Even Isaac was slightly taken aback. His eyes were glued to the wall, as if to bare through them and face his grandfather entirely.

That woman… Isaac raked his brain for whoever that could be. He came up blank. There was no woman significant enough to his family, that he knew of, to solicit that reaction from his grandfather.

His grandfather rounded the corner and Isaac threw himself back in the direction of the book. He did not try to read the words, but met the paragraph he had long bore at and the shape of two words in particular. Father and mother sat inked before him. Silence enveloped a long moment.

When his grandfather began to speak, Isaac could no longer handle being even near the man.

As he stood, the book folded back together harshly, closing him away from the specters of a family. Isaac began to walk in the opposite direction of his grandfather, towards his room. As he turned into the hallway, the words “wraith” and “leader” hit him.

Isaac quickened his pace, one final name gracing his ear; “Terra,–“

– Warden’s voice ricocheted outside the car, his large figure shoving on a coat as he emerged out of the house. He waited for a second, listening to an inaudible response, before climbing into the drivers seat.

Elias scooted even farther down into his seat, knees propped up higher than his head as his spine curled to an uncomfortable degree. But he was too engrossed in his 3DS to notice – Elias had a Riolu to catch and a gym badge to obtain, he had no time for the meager discomfort in his neck.

Warden turned the car on and, as the engine whirred to life, glanced back at Elias and chuckled. “Enjoying the game?”

Elias barely heard him, staring daggers at the Poké Ball which shook once. Twice. Then a shadowy sprite of Riolu emerged from its wake. Elias groaned and managed to slink even farther down.

“Don’t ignore your dad, Elias.”

He looked up to see his mother’s hair swishing as she put on her seat belt, then turned to face him with furrowed eyebrows and a teasing smile at her lips.

“And sit up,” her voice gaining a sudden starkness as she took in his form.

Elias scrambled to do just that, the commanding tone of his mother’s voice, full of love yet still slightly terrifying imploring him to have perfect posture and a clicked in seat belt within moments. She nodded and turned back around.

When his dad repeated the question, Elias shifted the 3DS back into his lap. “Yeah, I am.”

“Good,” was all his father responded with. As he looked over his seat to pull out of the driveway, he smiled at Elias.

The boy waited for a bit before returning to the game. He didn’t want to risk not hearing someone again and them actually getting annoyed. But as their conversation lulled into something work related, Elias eagerly snatched the system back up and honed his attention to the screen.

And when he finally managed to catch the Pokemon, his grin stretched ear-to-ear.

He navigated to the menu, pressing save and shutting the console with a snapping sound. He often got a headache from playing video games in the car. One already was teasing at the front of his head.

Thankfully, the window glass was cold where he placed his cheek. Roaming Stockton streets passed by in a blur, concrete on concrete on concrete. Elias played a game with the metal fences: He’d find their endpoint, wait for them to pass him, then ‘jump’ to the next with his sight. It kept him entertained in the monochrome, if slightly dizzying.

There was a small park, however, on a street they passed. When his mom told stories of her youth, which was rare, the park had come up – one of her friends began a garden within it to help the community.

He glanced at her. Her eyes were closed, though mouth still moving as she explained something to his dad.

Unintentionally, Elias mimicked her movement. He reclined in the seat and rested his head somewhat lopsidedly, twiddling the game console in his hands, watching as the outside greenery quickly bled back into gray. His friends own came to mind.

Elias closed his eyes to the thought of him showing off his catch. Oh, it was going to be awesome. He couldn’t wait.

#sakuverse #zsakuva #zsakuva matias #zsakuva alex #kayson mayer #zsakuva kayson #luca pearce #zsakuva luca #andrew marston #zsakuva andrew #isaac rhoades #zsakuva isaac #zsakuva elias #jesus that's a lot of tags #for anyone wondering the book Isaac was reading is 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' by James Joyce #divider by cafekitsune

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thescarletnargacuga · 3 months

Text

Art: @iamespecter

CHAPTER EIGHT

Racing AU!

IT'S SHOWTIME! Pomni needs to learn how to drift! Who better to teach her than the race AI himself? It's totally not a date. Nope.

Hey... anyone seen Gummigoo?

WARNING: none

~~~

The afterparty in the garage was still going strong. Colorful lights flashed through the windows into the night. Loud, bassy music vibrated the walls. A heavy crowd of NPCs danced in repeating patterns, never stopping.

As rowdy as the party was, it was muffled for Caine as Pomni still held his half melted body. He couldn't hear anything over the sound of his code memorializing this moment. He managed to pull himself together just enough to return her embrace, carefully wrapping his arms around her.

Pomni's head cleared with a jolt. The small amount of silly juice she drank had worn off, and because video game logic, had no side effects. Her inebriated state just ended abruptly. Her eyes widened as she realized what she was doing. She jumped back away from Caine. "Oh my god, I am SO sorry!"

Caine was still holding his arms out in front, missing her already. "Whatever for, my dear?"

Pomni's cheeks burned hot. "For- I shouldn't have- I just- the drink!" She couldn't form a coherent sentence from the embarrassment.

"It's okay, Pomni! Really! I thought the hug was very sweet of you!" He grabbed his cane out of mid air and kept his hands busy with it. "I rather enjoyed it, actually!"

That didn't help Pomni's state of mind. She heard Jax's voice in her head. "He's taken a liking to you. Find a way out." This was madness. Every logical part of her brain was screaming HE'S A PROGRAM! Every other part of her... liked the hug.

"Pomni..?" Caine watched her stand there staring into nothing for at least a solid minute.

She jumped like Caine had suddenly appeared. "I'm sorry. I...I'm just, uh... thinking about today's race."

"Really? Me too! It was nice to do a simple just have fun race!"

She was glad he took the bait for a new subject. "Yeah, would have been better if I could drift properly." She rubbed the back of her neck.

"Wait, you weren't driving like that on purpose?"

"Pfff, no. I just suck." She looked down.

"No, you don't! You just lack experience! Would you like to take a drive on the tutorial drift track? I could teach you!" He gripped his cane, hoping she'd agree.

Pomni saw the eagerness in his eyes. He really wanted to spend time with her alone. "Alright."

He almost exploded with glee. "Fantastic! Right this way!" He snapped his fingers and a portal appeared. "After you." He took off his hat and bowed.

"Thanks..." She stepped through and found herself on a short, windy track. Garage gone. Stands gone. The track was lit by a multitude of high power light poles. The sky above just as dark as the default. She figured the whole game ran on the same day/night cycle.

Caine came through behind her and the portal vanished. "Alrighty, my dear! How would you like to do this? I could summon your kart and I just tell you what to do OR I could summon my own and do the driving for you for a few laps as you get the feel for it first." He posed, ready to snap.

"Uh...I don't know. Maybe, you should drive-"

That was all he needed to hear. He snapped and his bright red and white kart appeared, engine running. "Your chariot awaits!"

"Oh...oh boy." The last time she was in his cart, it was the wildest ride of her life. She hoped she at least wouldn't vomit this time.

She got in and prepared for takeoff, but the kart didn't burnout from the start. It moved forward slowly, taking her through the track turn by turn like it was casual Sunday drive. Caine's voice came through the radio as his body flew high above the track for an arial view.

"Welcome to the drift tutorial! My name is Caine and I'll be your guide-! Ahem- sorry, force of habit."

That got a small smile out of her.

"Drifting is really simple, my dear! First thing you need is speed! Let's rev things up!" The kart accelerated, taking the turns as fast as it could without drifting. Pomni held tight to the steering wheel.

"Now, it's all about timing! This is the part that will take practice! Hit the break and flick the steering wheel hard as you go into the turn. Use the throttle to control the angle of the drift and once you're out of the turn, let off the accelerator and straighten your kart."

"That doesn't sound simple!" Pomni's heart raced with the kart.

"Eh, drifting Is more of a skill you gain through experience than explanation. But that's what we're here for! Let's give it a try, shall we?"

His kart hit the first sharp turn and drifted around it with ease. Pomni felt thrown into the side of the kart by the g-force, but fought it. She got used to it after a few turns and learned to lean with the kart.

"You're getting it!" Caine cheered. "Now, pay attention to the pedals and steering wheel! Feel how they move!"

By the third lap she felt she had a grasp of what to do. "Let me try!"

"You got this, Pomni!" The kart decelerated as Caine releases his control over it.

Pomni put the petal to the floor. Gold flames shot out the tail pipes as she braced for the first turn. She threw the kart sideways and it nearly over shot the turn entirely.

"Little too much speed! But that was a good start! Keep going!"

Turn after turn, her confidence grew until she was flying around the tutorial track like it was nothing.

"You're a natural, Pomni! You could give Jax a run for his money!"

She didn't know about that, but it was nice to hear. She stopped the kart at the start and stood before Caine as he descended, giving he applause.

"Very well done! But, that's just the tutorial. How do you think you'd fare on a real track?" He arched his upper jaw.

The rush of racing was coming back. It was something that kept coming up inside of her. The speed. The competition. Maybe it was her, maybe it was the game, but right now, she didn't care. "..how about we find out? You and me. Random track. One lap." She crossed her arms bravely.

Caine's lower jaw dropped. "You want to race me?"

"You have a kart, don't you?" She pointed her thumb to the red kart idling behind her.

"Well yeah, but no one's ever..." He chuckled. "You know what?" He snapped and Pomni's kart appeared next to his. "You're on. But I feel I must warn you." He drifted closer to her. "I've never lost."

She stepped closer, defiantly. "Yet."

Caine felt a tingle of static up his spine. "My dear, you become a different person behind the wheel."

Pomni shrugged. "Maybe I become the real me."

Caine smiled. "Whoever you are, you're about to see why they keep me in that host box." He winked and flipped over her head into his kart.

Pomni rushed to hers and jumped in with practiced accuracy. Caine threw his cane and it's gold too started to glow. It dinged once, glowing brighter. Then again. And again.

Green!

The took off and a giant portal appeared just beyond the start. They zoomed through it to space! The translucent track wound it's way around planets and stars and comets. Nebulous formations of colorful clouds shifted in a transcendental dance. Galaxies dotted the background. It was beautiful. Pomni took the first big turn high and hit a booster, getting ahead of Caine. He watches her fly by with as many stars in his eyes as there were around them. She was beautiful. A shell conked him out of his trance. A distant laugh from Pomni.

He shook his head. "Oh, so that's how we're going to play? Very well." He said with a smirk. He went through an item box and got a bar of soap. "Boo." He carelessly tossed it and took a separate direction at a fork on the track. His next item was a pen. Pomni was on a track below him and he threw the pen at her.

Pomni sputtered at the ink on her face and didn't see the next turn. The ink cleared for her in time to avoid running into her wall head on but she ground the side of her kart against it.

They were neck and neck when the track merged. It spiraled around a shooting star with no sense of gravity. Caine got a popper and tossed it at Pomni. "For you, my dear!"

"Ah!" The popper exploded in her face and she lost ground. Another fork in the track took her down a steep booster towards a wormhole. She went through it and was sailing through open space at an unknown part of the track. She used her glider to control her desent, seeing Caine come over a hill. She'd teleported in front of him!

Taking advantage of her shortcut, she landed just before a sharp turn and drifted like an expert through it, hitting another item box on the way.

Caine was flabbergasted. Where'd she come from?? He put the pedal to the metal and drifted after her. His next item was the cilli pepper. He got close and prepared to fire when she turned her head and fired first. He released his flames as he spun out.

Pomni got a huge lead. She completed several turns without seeing Caine again but after a huge turn around a planet, she heard the dreaded purple shell. She couldn't avoid it. BOOM!

She was stunned long enough for Caine to close the gap. He tried to pass but she stonewalled him. It took a shell for her to move and he waved as he went by. It didn't last, his own cane wacked him sideways and Pomni drifted around him on a turn.

On the next bug booster, Caine got a gold cupcake and double timed it at Pomni. He pit maneuvered her and she spun to face the wrong way. She threw it in reverse. Pulling a Kinger and waving as she passed backwards.

"What the!?" Caine couldn't believe it. She was actually outmaneuvering him.

Pomni cranked the kart the right way around and casually tossed some soap.

"Oh no, you don't!" Caine avoided the soap and pulled out an orange shell. He threw it but was too close to Pomni so it ricocheted and hit him too.

"You're making rookie mistakes! You scared?" Pomni taunted.

"The only thing I'm scared of is having no room for another win!" Caine clapped back.

There karts bang into one another like bumper cars, both being more aggressive with their place on the track.

Pomni got an idea to distract Caine from the next item box. "Hey Caine!" When he looked at her, she blew him a kiss.

He blue screened. He was completely spaced out for several seconds and missed the boxes entirely.

Pomni laughed and zipped ahead.

When Caine came back around, she had yet another lead on him and he gripped his steering wheel hard. "Now you're playing with fire." He smirked and floored his kart. Golden flames rocketed out the back as he wheelied from the force of the acceleration.

He got all the speed. Boosters and cupcakes galore. He was going so fast, he defied physics and did a three sixty drift around Pomni. "This has been a fun date, when's the next?"

"You think this is a HUH??"

He full belly laughed at her face.They drifted together through a sharp turn and the finish line was in sight. One last box for each. They both got the same thing, a hat.

They became two comets shooting across the heavens, flying together in a dance of power and speed. They crossed together, the finish line unable to tell who won. The karts slid to halt on the other side as their powers disappeared. Pomni and Caine looked at each other, out of breath and full of excitement.

Caine was out first, flying up and doing an arial flip. "That was the best! Holy mackeral on toast! You were amazing! How have you EVER lost a race driving like that!?"

Pomni got up from her kart and stretched. "Like I said. I suck." She laughed at herself. "That was a lot of fun. And I'm saying it sober this time. Thank you...er, for teaching me."

"It was very much my pleasure, Pomni. And thank you for that race! My code is absolutely buzzing!" He settled a bit and floated in front of her. "I mean this Pomni, you have been the best addition to our roster of racers, and I-...I've never met someone so easy to talk to before. I always feel like I'm talking at people, not connecting. But you...um, I may have connected too well now that I think of it. I may have overshared the first few times we've talked and I apologize. My problems shouldn't be yours to bear. Certainly not while you're still adjusting."

Pomni gave him a soft smile. "It's alright, really. I'm happy to listen. It seems like a lot has happened before I showed up."

"A truer statement has never been spoken, however, today was meant to be fun. Problems can wait." He gently took one of her hands and held it with both of his. "Pomni, would you be interested in doing this again? Just the two of us?" His eyes pleaded with her.

"You really meant when you called this a date, huh?"

Caine looked away, feeling a bit bashful. "Oh, well, I mean-"

Pomni giggled. "I'd love to."

Caine blue screened again.

"Oh. Oops. Caine?"

He came to with a start. "Pomni! You-!"

"Me?"

"...I forgot what I was going to say."

"Yes?"

"Yes!! I said you said YES!! AH-HA!!"

Pomni laughed more, more than she had since day one.

Pomni teleported into the garage alone. The NPCs had all disappeared, the music was off and the lights stopped flashing. The party was over. The place was a mess. Jax was passed out under the table and everyone else was nowhere to be seen.

She got to her room and plopped face down on her bed, smiling into her pillow. She has to admit to herself, racing Caine was some of the most fun she had since she got here. The adrenaline, the banter, his excitement and encouragement and wit and... beautiful eyes. She gripped her pillow in realization. She couldn't actually be-

"Enjoy your trip?"

A voice broke the silence of her room and she sat up with a shout. "WHA-!? Gummigoo? What are you doing in my room?"

Gummigoo was sat in a chair in the corner behind the door. His arms and legs were crossed. There was a faint blue shimmer in his eyes and he spoke without his accent. "Gummigoo isn't available at the moment. We must speak."

"What do you mean? What's going on?" She asked slowly, scarred to move. The way he was speaking so coldy freaked her out.

"I'm your way out of here."

Pomni's anxiety spiked. "You know h-how to leave? WHO are you??"

"I am Abel."

~~~

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#the amazing digital circus #tadc #tadc pomni #tadc fanfiction #tadc caine #tadc showtime #tadc jax #tadc ragatha #tadc gangle #tadc kinger #tadc zooble #tadc au #the amazing digital raceway

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