#cube stuff

@spirit-wizard-nerd @alextriestowritestuff @samueldeckerthompson @ishanijasmin @the-real-rg @ramblingsofabourbondrinker @authorarsinoe @asinwolves @cadewrites @fandomloverangel 

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“That’s not what I asked.”

“I know what you asked and I’ll tell you again.” Jess sucks on the the tube of a bloodbag like a bendy straw. “He works Tuesday through Saturday, noon to six.”

I grind my teeth but don’t press it. If they don’t want to help, I’m not gonna change that by force. They’re like Sawyer that way. They are Sawyer that way.

“You’ll have to find him yourself.” They raise an eyebrow and lean back on their stool. “Or, you know. Ask the Cube-slash-Sawyer where he is.”

“I’m not doing that,” I say flatly. I huff at their shrug and hop off my own seat. I’ll be able to find him myself.

“Nine tonight, don’t be late!” they call out behind me. “And you’ll have to talk to them eventually!”

I wave my coffee cup at them vaguely without looking back. It’ll be fine. I’ll talk to them, I just… you know. I need to talk to Dominic, remind myself he didn’t actually die.

I push out of the Lounge and look into the In-Between from the entryway’s floor to ceiling windows. It’s definitely a view. It tickles something in the back of my head to look at from this vantage, from inside the Cube.

I shake my head and go on through the next door into the Cube itself. I’ll run into someone who knows where he is eventually. Hopefully. If I’m not too terribly unlucky.

He might be able to help me fill in these gaps in my memory. It all kinda feels like a dream now that I’m not just astral projecting or whatever. Fuzzy and not quite together enough to remember all the way. My memories of the Vampire have solidified after hanging around them a few days, hopefully I’ll get the rest of them cleared up.

There are some things…

Yeah, I need to talk to Dominic. 

All of the doors in this area are empty. They don’t connect to a specific universe, at least. The signs over them all read vacant. Knowing what I know about the different universes I’m not so sure. There’s someone out there.

V was there before Breaking Furnace, after all. I haven’t brought it up to them yet, but it makes sense! There have to be others! V was too focused on Furnace to also have been running other universes.

Ugh, it doesn’t matter. I’m not looking for V. If I keep thinking about them, the Cube’ll just take me to their door instead of to Dominic.

I really missed this place. I can’t believe I was ever okay with leaving. With staying away when I could be somewhere that listens. Sometimes it can have a weird sense of humor, but it usually isn’t mean. 

Last time I saw Dominic—really saw him—was at the river. Cold, hurt, and so goddamn loyal he dragged Gamzee under at the cost of his own life. I hope I gave him a piece of my mind about that when I was ghosting around. I just don’t remember. 

I sigh and down a few gulps of coffee. Jess must have made this bottomless—I’m sure I’ve poured at least two mugs full down my throat at this point.  

Maybe I’ll just do it again, even if it turns out I did. After I see him and my bones stop vibrating. After I know how much of what I remember was real* and how much was just wishful thinking. Before I get to the other person I really do need to get around to talking to.

I’ll do that eventually. I have to stop jumping up the second they need me, though. They’re a big kid—they’re in college now and everything—they’ll be fine without me for a few more days.

…

Or not if I don’t stop thinking about them like a dumbass.

I lift a hand and feel the edges of the Cube’s consciousness. It’s not that hard, with how close to being Collective I am. I figure, maybe, if it won’t just tune into me and take me where I want to go I can just, you know. Ask it to take me there? Maybe?

If I can wave a hand and make tables and shit, I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to do this.

It doesn’t always feel the same. It depends on what Sawyer’s brain is doing and how they are, I guess. Today, it’s kind of like sticking my hand into a whirlpool of, like. Static. And glass.

That’s worrisome. Tomorrow, I swear I’ll go talk to them tomorrow.

I flex my fingers and dig into the fabric of thought there. I’m still not sure if Sawyer knows when I do this kind of thing. Whether it’s really the capricious Cube that answers this kind of request or if it’s them.

I guess this is sort of what Jess wanted me to do in the first place.

Still, the question of where to go buzzes over my fingers and into the world around me. It sits there, the whirlpool jagged and grating on my own mind, while I walk on. I don’t get an answer, exactly, but I do see the next turn up ahead change from a left turn to a right turn.

It’s probably the best I’m going to get. I yank my hand back and motherfucker, I hate the tingling it leaves. My entire hand has that shitty almost-numb buzz, enough that I just grimace and tip my head back to chug my drink until I round the corner.

I almost choke and stop dead. I never actually thought about. What I was gonna say when I found Dominic. 

He hasn’t even seen me yet, though Jay’s gaze locks on me from the other end of the sizeable hallway. Their smile turns wry. They tilt their head only slightly, then return their attention to Dominic.

I don’t know what they say. I don’t need to know. He freezes on the spot and jerks his head up in response, whatever it is.

After a long beat of mutual wide-eyed staring, he grins and says something—he’s still too far away to really hear—and starts toward me.

At a fucking run.

“Coming in!” he crows about halfway to me and holy shit he isn’t— 

It would be really funny if I could complete the meme, but I kinda blank out for a second. Between the realization of what this idiot is doing and the second I have to catch him, I must have dropped the coffee because of course I did.

I stumble back because, okay, Nick’s kind of a big guy. His momentum, legs locked around my middle, knocks the breath from my lungs, the carefree laughter I’ve never heard from him keeps my throat a little choked up.

So maybe it’s understandable that my first nonsensical thought is that he might actually be trying to suffocate me when he kisses me. It shorts something out in my head. He wisely jerks back when my legs give out and I end up flat on my back.

With Dominic sitting on my chest and smiling at me like he didn’t just, like, try to kill me or something, his face—his eyes—maybe six inches from mine.

“That answers that question,” I wheeze with a thin laugh.

He cocks his head and sits back. “What question?”

“How’s that memory coming?”

Dominic jolts—meaning, he squeezes the air out of my lungs again—and twists to look at Jay, who stands over us just behind him. They aren’t looking at him, though. Their level gaze sits on me. So does their phone camera.

“Better than it was.” I huff and try to sit up. Without any prompting, Dominic shuffles back just enough that I can lever myself upright. He stays in my lap, though, which is a little bit of a comfort. “I think they just need, uh, reinforcement.”

Something sparks—literally—in their eyes. They don’t comment, though. In fact, they pocket their phone and start back the way they came with a shrug. “I doubt you’ll find many complaints on that front.”

They wink before they actually turn around. I’d throw something at them if I weren’t. You know. On the ground and also finally face to face with the boy.

And, of the many brilliant and witty things I could say, I land on…

“You made me drop my coffee,” I inform him blandly.

He leans bodily back and, hey! I catch sight of my mug, which somehow managed to land upright with just a ring of coffee that must have splashed out. I reach for it when he hooks a finger into the handle and sits back up.

The fucker doesn’t give it to me.

“What’s wrong with your memory?” he asks brightly with my caffeine held hostage.

“Brain machine broke,” I mutter. “Turns out, a slice of a person doesn’t make very reliable records.”

He blinks once, twice, then sets the cup to the side.

“It’s not a big deal,” I assure him. “I just need to, uh. Do the whole memory association thing.”

“I just—” He reaches out and seems to change his mind a couple times before he just rests his hands on my shoulders. “What all do you remember?”

I make an uncertain sound in the back of my throat. “We hung out a lot, right? And there were some flashes, of—”

I look away and he squeezes my shoulders reassuringly.

“Anyway, the short answer is not much.”

I jolt when he snorts. His head drops down against my shoulder, his hands trail down my arms in his laughter and I do not know what to think about that. 

“I can’t believe you caught me!” He cackles into my shirt. “The Cube screwed up your memory and you just went with it.”

It takes a beat for me to decide that, yes, I’m probably allowed to, and cling to him, fingers dug into the back of his shirt. He still trembles in now-silent laughter.

Thank christ I was right about all this.

He straightens up suddenly and his concern even alarms me.

“Crap, I kissed you, I’m sorry.” He shifts back, and I have a feeling if I didn’t tighten my grip he would be standing up. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have—”

“I promise, it’s fine,” I say a little too fast.

It takes a few seconds, long enough for him to make sure I’m not lying, I assume, but his worry slowly melts back into a gently smug smile. It smacks me right into a memory.

A good day. A view of the In-Between. Scars, sharing, and a shit-eating grin over a plate of stupid cucumber sandwiches. It flits through my mind in an instant, doesn’t give me time to recover before Nick rolls a leading look at my coffee. 

“So, are you finishing that, or…”

I level as calm a gaze as I can at him. I want nothing more than to snatch that cup, but come on. Come on.

“Do it.” I don’t think I quite manage to keep the smile out of my voice or the laugh in my head from leaking into the air around us, but I’m not about to let that stop me. “I dare you.”

He doesn’t wait before he grabs it and downs it.

Or, he tries to. It’s a bottomless cup of black coffee, okay, and the guy has a sweet tooth. He lasts maybe five seconds before he splutters out a perfect spit take and coughs into the cup.

I mean, we’re both covered in coffee now. Does that make it any less worth it when I take the mug and take a long drink?