Brain Knife I love youuu~ Fr I have been rereading your drabble over and over, giggling and kicking my feet as one does. The tension! The dread!! A very tasty set of words if I do say so myself! Eeeeeeeee Nick feels so small and powerless compared to Noah, man’s going through it. I especially love the bit about the ants (as a certified insect enjoyer).
Dropping this and a snack,
-🐈⬛
~~~
Noah brushed the first run off as nerves. His, for working with a new group, and theirs, because the whole situation can be stressful on humans.
He gets them ready- it’s a bit awkward with humans that are just lying on the ground, but he’s used to it. He checks over everything one more time to make sure he hasn’t accidentally thrown a huge cliff into the middle of the adventure, or his old games won’t appear, or…
No, everything is good. He’s sure.
He lets them wake up.
Sophist is up first, comically not noticing him at all in favor of checking on his friends. Vernias and Brent get up just fine, and they all turn their attention to Nick, griping about how they’re gonna get punched for waking him up.
He laughs, and the trio finally spots him.
It’s hilarious to watch them try to process what’s happening- he knows he appears to float sometimes. It’s even funnier when they notice that they’re standing on a giant game board.
“Vern, go get Nick.” Brent says, squaring up like he’s going to fight Noah off. “Who are you?”
Noah raises his hands. From experience, he struggles to achieve ‘friendly’, but he can do ‘not immediately trying to kill anyone’. It’s close enough. “My name is Noah. It’s very nice to meet you.”
Behind Brent and Sophist, Nick sits up. Vernias starts to help him to his feet. He turns around and catches sight of Noah, and freezes.
Noah reacts as normal, waving. Sometimes people freak out. He’s not going to judge.
Nick keeps staring at him.
“What do you want from us?” Sophist asks, dramatic in a way that he quickly discovers Sophist is good at.
Noah turns his attention away from Nick. Maybe it’s the eyes. Who knows. “Aw, don’t be like that. All I wanted was to play a game.”
He’s not sure why, but that’s the phrase that tips most humans over into acceptance. He can’t tell if they’re eager to please; assuming they’ll get smited (smote? Smitten?) if they piss him off. Some seem to lean more towards the assumption that winning=freedom. Sometimes, he thinks his humans are just so weirded out by the circumstance they’re willing to go along with anything.
The Crashers lean more toward the second option, aside from Nick, who’s still staring at him.
He looks… terrified?
The hair pricks up on the back of Noah’s neck. Elsewhere, he’s sure his old games are going to become a scrambled mess. Something is wrong. Something is wrong with Nick, in a way that he couldn’t predict. He doesn’t like being caught off-guard like that.
Maybe Nick’s just naturally more suspicious than the others, Noah decides, and launches into the game rules while he tries to ignore the sinking feeling tearing through him every time he looks down.
~~~
Oh, something is wrong with Nick, alright. Everything is wrong. The world under his feet shivers and shakes like it’s breathing. The ground is not dirt or flesh, and it doesn’t feel solid, but it reaches up and coils around Nick’s ankles like it wants to keep him there. The game board itself is made of a substance he’s having trouble matching to anything he’s ever experienced.
His friends are being weirdly normal, like there’s nothing strange at all happening. It takes Nick a few minutes to realize he’s seeing this situation fundamentally differently than them.
When Nick first saw Noah, his impression was that of a misshapen spider in its’ web before he realized the shape in the center was a human body. The web isn’t quite that, either, it’s something more like thousands of strings attached to him, to the game board, to everything. They pulse and twitch and move around to create game elements.
He almost can’t help staring- as terrifying as Noah is, he’s also strangely mesmerizing. He keeps twitching his hands, curling and uncurling them, flexing his fingers and rolling his wrists. Surprisingly, that’s the thing Nick can’t stop staring at. It’s such a human gesture, a nervous fidget done without noticing. He balls one hand into a fist and swipes his thumb over his knuckles as he delivers the score for a battle between Sophist and Brent, then stretches his hand out. His fingers bend backwards, just a little, just enough to look unnatural.
Nick flinches and looks away. He’s pretty sure hands aren’t supposed to do that. Maybe he’s only seeing all of this as part of a test. A game element that hasn’t been mentioned yet. Something, anything, that makes more sense than this.
He doesn’t- just wakes up in his room after the game, wondering if any of it was real.
🐈⬛ anon.
🐈⬛. anonymous.
This is far more than a snack. This is something I believe people would describe as a delicacy.
I love that because everything in this dimension is a part of him, that means that his emotions and reactions can impact the existence of everything, including travelers he kidnaps. He is able to keep a rather stoic face because somewhere far beyond the crashers' sights, several of his older games are not just being tossed around, they're being distorted and warped beyond comprehension.
I also very much love the imagery of "Noah" being the center of web to Nick. Like a puppet master with several strings, only the strings are also alive.
An amusing thought I just had was after the game was done, both Noah and Nick are just slightly panicked at the same time both thinking, "What the hell was that? Who was that?!""
@whisperedpollen This is a meal meant to be shared.
(Because I forgot to put it into the main text, thank you for the kind words about my drabble.)