#maybe I should change that tag to just 'redraw'... hmm...

[seerofmike]

31 Days of Apex: Day 24 (Hobby)

pairing: crypto & pathfinder

word count: 1.3k

tags: spoilers for the broken ghost

fic summary: Crypto draws when he’s bored, and Pathfinder wants to learn.

ao3 link

OR

read below

Taejoon had a headache.

It could be for any number of reasons, really. It could be the fact that Witt hadn’t shut up for the past half hour, talking so enthusiastically about himself to anyone who was willing to listen. It could be that Silva was playing three video games at once and shouting every time he won, or lost (which was far more frequent). It could be the drone and hum of the dropship, so deep and rumbling he swore he could feel it in his soul.

Any one of these would be easy excuses, but he knew the real reason; it was because he had been staring at a computer screen for the better part of nine hours without once stopping.

Taejoon massaged his temples with a groan, eyes squeezed shut, but he swore he could still see the lines of code burned into his eyelids. They had another two days until they dropped onto this new planet, and while mostly everyone was avoiding him, he could perhaps take this time to enjoy some of his other hobbies without having anyone breathe down his neck.

Shutting his computer off, Taejoon knelt down onto the floor to pull out a small box. It contained a few books and pencils, and he picked up the battered copy of a cheesy romance novel he’d read through about ten times already. The plot was about two esports players falling in love, and while Mila had gotten it for him as, like, a joke, he unironically liked it. It was funny, and sometimes, he needed funny.

This time, though, Taejoon could only stomach a few pages. The words seemed to be swimming before his eyes, physically hurting his retinas, and with a sigh he shut it and put it back in the box. Okay, so he wouldn’t be able to read due to his headache. Maybe he should try something else.

Eyeing the sketchbook in his box, which hadn’t been touched in months, he wondered if he should even bother. The dropship occasionally rumbled, and he hated making mistakes, but it was really his only other form of entertainment at this point that didn’t involve worsening his headache. So Taejoon took it out of the box, wiped the dust from the cover with his sleeve, and settled down on his cot with a pencil in hand.

He didn’t really have a goal in mind as he drew--just doodled whatever came to him, and before long the page was filled with sketches of his drone and the occasional cat. He flipped the page to draw on the next one, this time having someone in mind--the main characters on the cover of his novel. He drew two faces side-by-side before starting to sketch their hair, giving one of them dreads as described in the book and the other one wild bedhead. He was just starting to add detail to their faces when a voice made him freeze.

“Hi, friend! I like your drawing!”

Letting out a short puff of breath, Taejoon held his sketchbook close to his chest and glanced over at Pathfinder, who was standing there, his screen its usual smiley face.

“What are you doing here,” Taejoon said, much too flat to be a proper question.

“Mirage told me to go away, so now, I’m here. I saw you drawing, and I wanted to say I like it very much!” Pathfinder’s screen changed to one with heart eyes. “Could you teach me to draw?”

“No,” Taejoon said. 

“I think I would be very good. I can make poems, too. Do you want to hear a poem?”

“If I say yes, will you leave me alone?”

“Hmm...maybe!”

Taejoon sighed, closing his eyes briefly, before nodding.

“Okay!” Pathfinder knocked against his screen to get it back into its smiley face, and then started: “My name is Pathfinder. I like writing cool poems. I want to be friends.”

He stopped, and seemed to look at Taejoon expectantly, who raised an eyebrow in response.

“That’s it?” He asked.

“It was a haiku!”

“...It was nice,” Taejoon lied, not really caring for poetry. When Pathfinder didn’t move, he jerked his head a little to the wider area of the dropship, hoping he would get the memo. “You can go now...”

“But I want to watch you draw!” Pathfinder said, and Taejoon sighed to himself. His head was hurting too much to argue, so with a reluctant sigh he set his sketchbook back down in his lap. He would finish this page and then turn in for the night if Pathfinder hadn’t left yet. Going back to sketching, he gave the characters eyebrows and eyes with ease, but had to erase their noses and redraw them about ten times each.

“Are you having trouble?” Pathfinder asked, sounding curious, despite not much changing in the inflection of his voice.

“I keep making their noses off-center,” Taejoon mumbled distractedly, before finally managing to give them both proper noses and moving on to their mouths. He almost forgot Pathfinder was there as he sketched their clothes, giving the both of them what he always pictured them to be wearing--Dante a baggy hoodie, and Chul a patchy jacket and torn t-shirt.

“Who are you drawing?” Pathfinder suddenly said, reminding him of the fact that he was still standing there and watching him.

“Characters,” he answered through gritted teeth.

“From what?”

“A book.”

“What kind of book?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Taejoon said, because god forbid anyone hear that he liked cheesy romance novels. 

“What’s it about?”

“Why are you even here?" He finally snapped, slamming his pencil down and fixing the robot with a bleary glare. "Shouldn't you be avoiding me like everyone else?"

"Why would I avoid you?" Pathfinder sounded genuinely puzzled.

"Because nobody trusts me." His fists clenched at his sides as he recalled the moment his drone flew around the room, speaking with Revenant's voice, and he felt a hollow feeling form in his stomach as he remembered Wattson's shocked face. Why didn't Pathfinder just leave him alone, like everyone else? Even after Gibraltar had revealed the true culprit, they all still tiptoed around him, untrusting.

He was tired of being framed.

"I trust you," Pathfinder said, and Taejoon stared at him.

"...What?"

"I trust you! Because you're my friend, and that's what friends are for."

Taejoon stared at the other for quite a long time, trying to formulate a response, before he slowly picked up his sketchbook and mumbled, "Shut up."

The MRVN went quiet after that, but he didn’t go away. Taejoon finished up his sketch after giving both of the characters basic-looking sneakers (he wasn’t very good at drawing shoes) and slammed the book shut, glad to get rid of Pathfinder as he leaned over to put it in his box. When he straightened up, Pathfinder’s screen had changed into heart eyes once again.

“I loved your drawing!” Pathfinder said, and gave a little clap. “Your lines are very smooth! Your expressions are very fun! I can tell you really like art!”

Taejoon felt heat rise to his face, but turned his head away under the guise of shoving the box back under his bed as he tried to formulate a response. He’d always liked receiving compliments on his drawings, had usually showed them to Mila so she could list off everything she liked about it to give him a bit of a confidence boost, but he hadn’t had that in years. Finally, Taejoon straightened up, and said coolly,

“Thank you. Maybe I will teach you one day.”

“Well, I look forward to it!” Pathfinder suddenly raised his metal hand, and asked in as hopeful a voice a robot could manage: “High five?”

Taejoon stared at it for a second, debating with himself, before quietly obliging, and Pathfinder’s screen was the most ecstatic he'd ever seen it.

[quonit37]

somebody on DEVIETART tagged me for one of those ask games. I had no IDEA you could do that. I’m gonna put it on Tumblr instead because idk how devietart works despite having used it for 2 years.

Questions they sent me:

1. Your favourite fruit?

I’m pretty good with most fruit. I like granny smith apples, a bunch of berries, really standard stuff. 2. What is your favourite memory?

I have some pretty good ones I think. It’s hard to judge them though because a lot of ‘good’ memories I have weren't just my happiest moments but just stuff that brought me good things later. For example ‘OH so not everyone draws? weird. so apparently I'm an artist.” I’ll just go with that one.

3. Favourite gaming platform? (For example, Laptop, Playstation, xBox, etc.)

PC/Computer. If that doesn't count then the Wii.

“WHAT TF WHY THE WII???”

See I had one while growing up and it was a hacked Wii we got off craigslist (I still have it!) so it had nearly EVERY game that was ever released on the Wii (And two different emulators so also everything on the NES and I think it was gameboy? I forgot) and also had a looooot of movies on it. It is the console that brought me the most joy has a kid. 4. If you could be one character from any game or tv show for a day, who would you be?

If I can’t be my own self insert hmm... that’s a good question. I’m gonna limit this question more to it HAS to be a fictional character from a trademarked/copyrighted property instead of somebody’s OC. And I’m still not sure. Because sure there are characters I LIKE but the ones I like the most all are grounded characters with struggles n shit but if I were to swap bodies with one of them for a day then I’d rather do a character with power and stuff for a day because it’s supposed to be fun. 5. What would your life as an anime be like? Would you be a protagonist, or an antagonist? Or maybe even just a neutral character?

I already made the anime and it’s called Gaynote. To answer the question, I’m the protagonist on it. 6. Do you agree that toes should be called foot fingers? XD

No not really. 7. Do you have any siblings?

Two. I’m the oldest. I have a little brother and a little sister. The sister is the youngest. 8. Do you prefer drawing your own art to put up or buying posters?

I have a wall next to my bed of art I’ve drawn. Every year I redraw some of the art on it so that you can flip through the pages on the wall to see progress. The posters I put up though aren’t posters they are prints I bought from artists I like. 9. Who is your favourite celebrity?

I really couldn’t give two shits about who’s famous. Uhhh Zarla the person who made Handplates because she’s a great person, and inspired my art a lot. 10. Music or youtube?

I don’t think I even have accounts on stuff like spotify. I use youtube instead. I don’t use my phone enough at all to make purchasing Youtube Red or whatever the fuck they changed it’s name to. So yeah youtube I have a few playlists on songs on there. 11. How do you think time travel works? What is the law behind it for you?

Not exactly how I think it works in real life but I like the idea of not being apple to change what’s happened. If you go back in time and change something you just cause what happened to happen. You always went back in time. You were actually there in that part of history. 12. What is bound to make you cry every time?

This video. But only because of my headcanons. I cry about fictional stuff RARELY but that video, despite me not even speaking the language and there being no translations available, really reminded me of why those characters are so sad and why I like them. 13. SMASH OR PASS: Frisk from undertale (lmao sorry, I couldn't think of anything else)

Depends on the au lol. I’m demiromatic/sexual so I actually cannot be attracted to somebody unless they’ve been my friend for like 5 years and I absolutely know them that well. If it’s original frisk undertale uh lol why tf is the bby flirting at me aaaa undertale is broken I need to record this.

@this-is-an-error is being tagged. For the last question, I’ll put Error sans there instead lol.