There are things about him, subtle things that you can easily pick up in the slight stretches of his expressions and the tension of his hands, that set him apart from his Alpha counterpart. Moreover is the difference in his DNA, part binary and part avian wound together in tight strands that you automatically know are his genetic plasma makeup(and yours, to a much lesser extend), composed of ones and zeros in a sequence that make him up.
Sometimes the differences aren't at all blindingly bright. Because during that first year out of three, apart from the digital feathers and warm orange skin like tropical sunset drinks, you sometimes would forget that he wasn't Dave. Same sense of humor, same coolkid front, same porcelain mask tinted with orange to cover up everything that he was on the inside.
And then there were times when it would slap you in the face, hard and mercilessly, but you would not flinch away.
He's a game construct, a guide for players to follow down the rabbit holes and cross the chessboard to victory. He has codings, wireless internet connections linked to the fibers of his brain like additional receptors to the ones already in the cortex. A living, breathing computer.
And just like computers, he has bugs, and more commonly, viruses.
It's not the first time it's happened; boredom induced internet browsing of what was left of Earth's network and servers is sometime commonly used to pass the time. But this is the first time she's ever seen him hunched over in pain like this, agonized whimpers leaking through clenched teeth as a break in the spasms and violent heaving that has wracked his sprite body for the past half hour, over a cool toilet in a cramped bathroom, occurs.
It's a strong one; what is left of you that is a sprite tells you that much, and before your very eyes it hacks into his coding and it starts to break him down, pixel by singular, breathing pixel.
You keep him grounded with firm hands and massaging fingers on his shoulders, keep from truly slipping into the panic that you fear might be building up inside him as what keeps his hands solid begins to break apart, drifting from defined fingers to blurry squares and he loses his grip on the rim of the toilet and sinks to the floor, shedding feathers that disintegrate into sunset dust. He might've started crying at some point, as you kneel beside him all night, rubbing his shoulders and running your pale digits through his fine hair, but if he did, you knew better than to call him out on it.
His system recovers and quarantines the virus after an agonizing, sleepless four hours, the data that composes him pulls back together upon rebooting and you murmur 'It's OK Dave' over and over again, as everything begins to look OK indeed, and you squeeze his completed, glowing orange hand tightly once again now that it's not in danger of coming apart in a flurry and burst of pixels and sunburnt plasma.
Davesprite let's out the longest, heaviest sigh Paradox Space has ever seen, shuts his eyes as you croon to him, and you both spend the next day curled on the couch, sprite tail coiled around you carefully, and you both marathon a sitcom John had left lying around in his home.
FILL: TEAM JAKE<3JANE
Sometimes the differences aren't at all blindingly bright. Because during that first year out of three, apart from the digital feathers and warm orange skin like tropical sunset drinks, you sometimes would forget that he wasn't Dave. Same sense of humor, same coolkid front, same porcelain mask tinted with orange to cover up everything that he was on the inside.
And then there were times when it would slap you in the face, hard and mercilessly, but you would not flinch away.
He's a game construct, a guide for players to follow down the rabbit holes and cross the chessboard to victory. He has codings, wireless internet connections linked to the fibers of his brain like additional receptors to the ones already in the cortex. A living, breathing computer.
And just like computers, he has bugs, and more commonly, viruses.
It's not the first time it's happened; boredom induced internet browsing of what was left of Earth's network and servers is sometime commonly used to pass the time. But this is the first time she's ever seen him hunched over in pain like this, agonized whimpers leaking through clenched teeth as a break in the spasms and violent heaving that has wracked his sprite body for the past half hour, over a cool toilet in a cramped bathroom, occurs.
It's a strong one; what is left of you that is a sprite tells you that much, and before your very eyes it hacks into his coding and it starts to break him down, pixel by singular, breathing pixel.
You keep him grounded with firm hands and massaging fingers on his shoulders, keep from truly slipping into the panic that you fear might be building up inside him as what keeps his hands solid begins to break apart, drifting from defined fingers to blurry squares and he loses his grip on the rim of the toilet and sinks to the floor, shedding feathers that disintegrate into sunset dust. He might've started crying at some point, as you kneel beside him all night, rubbing his shoulders and running your pale digits through his fine hair, but if he did, you knew better than to call him out on it.
His system recovers and quarantines the virus after an agonizing, sleepless four hours, the data that composes him pulls back together upon rebooting and you murmur 'It's OK Dave' over and over again, as everything begins to look OK indeed, and you squeeze his completed, glowing orange hand tightly once again now that it's not in danger of coming apart in a flurry and burst of pixels and sunburnt plasma.
Davesprite let's out the longest, heaviest sigh Paradox Space has ever seen, shuts his eyes as you croon to him, and you both spend the next day curled on the couch, sprite tail coiled around you carefully, and you both marathon a sitcom John had left lying around in his home.