So I’m redoing the little graphics for the OCTP Ships page and I figured out that I can totally isolate one character to make an emoji set, so here is a smol collection of Ecti’s face as a set
Hhhhey, guess what I wound up doing til 3am(ish) last night? Flexing my rusty writing skills. This isn’t much of a narrative and more like a character study, I guess? Think of it as a prequel to this comic I did.
(March 3rd: Did a small edit of this, mainly with themes I found glaring with the writing)
Word Count: 1,325
Summary: Local Bug Man Feels Contemplative In the Dead of the Night.
Warnings: None that I can think of, really.
It’s almost as if something was tugging at him to stay awake.
Ectibod has been staring at the ceiling of her room for too long now. Not that he much cared to know how long, he just knows it’s too long. However, his mind and eyelids protest the fact that it was too soon to fall asleep. His antennae twitched as he think of the possible reasons why he couldn’t sleep. The dead silence of the room was more deafening than any creak than her home could make.
He casted his eyes towards the left side of her room. He can just make out the shapes of her Nintendo plushes and other gaming merchandise on the shelves. He recognised most of the characters, though some looked to be ones that were released after he went back to Hell. He smiled remembering how he deliberately renames them as ridiculous descriptions just to see Aventurine give him that glare. He scanned the side to see his trinket box, the one thing he brought back with him. Why he brought that back up here instead of change of clothes even baffled him. He still has the outfit he wore constantly during his time with his group of friends back at the 90s. It was the only clothes he had on his back, but when she realised that, she still got him a change of clothes anyway. The spider-web shirt was a perfect fit, but he thinks she got the jeans that were just a little too tight deliberately.
Ectibod mentally shook that thought out of his head. No, he thought, she couldn’t be that desperate to see my ass like that. Not that he knows, anyway. He scratched his chin, almost surprised by the length of his beard as he felt it on his fingers. He made a mental note that he’ll need to trim it. He realised as well that Aventurine didn’t even comment on it. He emitted a gentle sigh, placing his hand on his chest, only to have his eyes widen.
At first, he thought it was the black scarring on his left side, but it was something smaller. There’s a familiar cold feel of metal as he picked it up. Dog tags. He forgot Ave got this for him earlier today. He asked her why, but only remembered her shrugging before she was out of the door for work. The moonlight easily caught the dog tags as he shifted the two blank tags together. She remembered telling him that she didn’t know what to engrave on them and that she can take them back when he makes his mind up about it. He still had no clue what to have on them. The reflective surface had him catch the glint of his abnormal eyes. The piercing red iris to the black sclera never fails to catch anyone off-guard. He put the tags to his lips as he continued to think. It took Ave quite a while to realise how his eyes are different. She noted the dreads unnaturally divided in eight chunks, the antennae and his grossly large sweet tooth, but she only noticed his eyes were weird when she got right up his face. She was standing on the sofa, almost levelled with his height. He remembered pursing his lips to quickly blow at her face, for her to topple and fall safely on the sofa, wriggling in mock disgust over his “bad breath”. He can giggle about it now, but he was admittedly worried about it after dismissing it then.
Come to think of it, this is a jarring comparison he realised, as he lifted the dog tags to slide them side to side. His first meeting with Aventurine wasn’t all that great. She wanted to help, but didn’t seem too enthralled helping a guy that looked like the very things she hated rolled into one person. How long ago was that, even? A month? Two months? Probably longer. He only was asked to share her bed 3 days ago. Before he could ask her why, she immediately dismissed it as her asking for a sexual favour - turned out she felt a little bad for him sleeping on the couch and not even offer the empty space that was next to her oversized bed. He told her that he was fine staying on the couch, recounting tales of his group sleeping over and having most of them sleep on the floor. She insisted. He did notice the one body pillow haphazardly pushed under the bed before he moved up. Had it be a bed of his own, he’d sleep with nothing on, but since he is still considered a guest (and that he didn’t even have pyjamas), he spent the nights in only his boxer shorts. He admits, this is a nice change from the couch.
Ectibod kept absent-mindedly swirling the two tags between his finger and thumb. His train of thought made a sudden halt of realisation, something that made his heart twinge. He dwelled on his interactions with Aventurine quite a lot tonight. In fact, thinking about anything that someone did to him was not entirely his thing at all. Back in Hell, many of his interactions had only been through meaningless sexual encounters and evil glares. It was not that much different when he was summoned on Earth in the 90s and met some people that were more like his crowd. He took a moment to shudder the human disguise he had put on for them. Just to blend in. To an extent, the group had his back as much as Ave had his when he met her.
What makes her any different from any human he has acquainted with?
That made his heart twinge again. Why the hell did you just said that, he thought. His tags swirled faster without him realising. He was just trying to reason with why she was different: the fact she offered a roof over his head and food was more than enough. Her humour was different as well. The fact she seemed earnest in letting him sleep in her bed for tonight-
...I like her.
Now where did that come from? Him, the demon practically labelled the Invidian Bike in Hell, liking a human. Something so temporal as a human? He recalled numerous stories of how humans had fallen in love with demons, but the other way round? Surely, some demons would deem it futile. Tch, demons who probably haven’t been forced up to Earth, that is. Easy enough to socialise with only demons in Hell having their head up their-
“Ecti…”
The familiar voice to his right snapped him out, forgetting what he was even focusing on. He turned his head to meet a tired, green eye of Aventurine, the other half of her face firmly in her pillow. He gave her an affirmative Hmm as a response.
“Not trying to be rude, or anything, but knock that off. You were rubbing them so much.” She murmured quietly. It took Ectibod a second to realise that she meant the tags that were still in between his pointer finger and thumb.
“R-right, sorry,” He apologised, dropping the tags to his right side so they wouldn’t hit his scars.
“I appreciate you like them, but I have work tomorrow. You can fiddle with them when I’m gone, among other things. G’night.”
“Good Night, Ave,” Ectibod muttered, as he watched the one eye close back to sleep, and he turned his head back to look at the ceiling. His heart didn’t twinge after he saw her eye, instead it gave him this awfully familiar wave of warmth in it. He brushed his chest to feel a trace of his heartbeat. He was taken aback with how fast it was going. He drifted his hand back to his side, his eyelids finally giving way to the weight of sleep. He’ll think over this feeling tomorrow.
