Chapter Text
I'm Gonna Be the Sun
Iᒲ g𝙹リリᔑ bᒷ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ s⚍リ
Day 1 - Queerplatonic
💛 💚 💙
First impressions were… less than extraordinary. Sniff attacked with a balloon, Pig sort of baby-talked him, and no one knew where exactly this was ending up. Getting their bodies possessed didn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for a So, come here often? talk, and anyway, the answer would’ve been no, because Sniff was 2 days old.
Rewind.
Pig first met Sniff in Etho’s flat, although it’s not like Sniff would remember that. Scar and Jimmy led him through the cherry-brick building and up to his floor, as they’d planned, but Pig took one look down the hall and grabbed the stair rail. Scar stumbled into him. Pig felt bad for like a quarter heartbeat, but Scar caught himself before he hit the ground. Yeah, you don’t wanna be the guy who trips the man with the cane.
“Wait,” he said. “It’s this guy’s naming day?” Sure looked like it, unless you can think of another holiday where folks around here hang gold balloons outside their doors. That brought a stutter of question marks to his head, which is the real and actual collective noun for them. Don’t look it up.
Oh. And “this guy” was the endermite hybrid Pig, Jimmy, and Scar had been chatting about on their walk over here. The one from fox hybrid territory? You… you kinda had to be there. Look, it doesn’t matter; it was the endermite and we all know who that is. Roll the clip.
Scar smiled like the mouse that made it to the cream before the cat, proof’n pudding still dripping off his whiskers. Jimmy wiggled his fingers like some sort of puppet tickling a child (Not to be confused with a puppet-tickling child). “Whooo knows, Pig! … About time, though, I say. Grian and Joel have been hogging him awhile.”
Yeah. Sounds about right. Pig smirked right back at him, gliding his fingers through the drippy slime that painted stripes across his head. “Ooh, fun~! You know I love a mystery. How’s my hair, chief? Aw, if you’da just told me this was a fancy party, I woulda classed it up! I’ve got suits at home.”
“I know,” Jimmy said, thumping his hand down on Pig’s shoulder. He clenched his fist in mighty pain, eyes squelched up so sparking pixels in his eyes wouldn’t drip across the floor. “Dare to dream, Pig… Dare to dream.”
“He could be naked,” Scar said, twirling his cane as he started down the hallway. Pig eyed the mussed-up carpet squares, debating the likelihood of tripping on them if he didn’t watch where he was going. “Then you’d be overdressed.”
“Scar,” Jimmy cried, “why would you say that? Why!?”
“Well- Because he was just born!”
“He wasn’t just born; he was just named.”
“Men, men,” chided Pig, strolling between them. He lightly smacked their hands upwards as he passed. “C’mon, lighten up… It’s a party!”
Well… sort of. Maybe in spirit. We’ll carry it in our hearts. The guest of honor turned out not to know what was going on. What, did no one tell Party Boy he’s about to make friends in this town? We live in a giant underground hole, so you’d better get used to it. Pig shoved open Etho’s door and stumbled through shiny streamers that felt a li’l too much like creepy cobwebs. No thanks. Pig shook them off as best he could on his way through the kitchen. When he found the living room, he threw out his arms.
“You! Friend! … I don’t know your name!”
“Joel,” said Joel, even though Pig clearly wasn’t talking to him. Yeah, okay. He rolled his eyes. No, no… See, the fella who’s actually deserving of attention sat over there on Etho’s leather couch with a gold balloon pinned between his hands. He didn’t seem all that tall, though he kept his knees tucked beneath him, so it’s hard to know that sort of thing for sure. And you should always be sure.
Cool snowy jumper. He wore a vest on top, though Joel (who sat beside him) had gone without, so they were probably one in the same. Maybe he got cold. Maybe people kept punching him and he needed extra padding. Maybe it repels snakebites. You don’t know. The new guy glanced up with big, dark eyes when Pig walked in with his arms up. He didn’t say anything, though. He squeezed his balloon. And Joel kept a hand on his head, ruffing up thick waves of dark brown hair.
Huh. Funny. The new guy looked…
He looks like me, was Pig’s first thought, before he shook his head. That was silly. Pig looked like a lot of people; it came with the turf of being a slime. Right now, he had dark hair too, plus one of Joel’s dye stripes, but his streak went pink after hanging around Lizzie for a while. He’d probably start taking after Scar and Jimmy once they played their Race to the End game. That sort of involved them possessing his body, y’know, which should be a real treat. Did we go over that already? Well, who needs 100 Days Challenges with friends like these?
But that face… That thin, blotchy mark that sliced him in half like a knife through cake. The two halves of his face were just a wee bit off in that way that made you blink twice to look at him. Waffle-colored hair coated a section of the back. He had a mullet brushing the backs of his shoulders. Not bad! Not bad.
The new guy lowered his eyes to his balloon, shrugging up one shoulder. Two thin, curled antennae drooped towards his eyes. They twitched up at the sound of Grian’s voice from the hallway. Huh… Well, Joel didn’t seem inclined to introduce him. Pig tried again, this time stepping closer. He put out his hand. Endermites did handshakes, right? I think it’s just the illagers that don’t.
“Hey! My name’s Pig. So, you’re the one racing me to kill the ender dragon and free The End? Aw, put her there!”
The new guy moved his hand to Joel’s forearm and tightened his fingers in his sleeve. He blinked at Pig, but said nothing. No prob. Maybe he didn’t speak Tweentext. Aw, I wish I spoke Ender.
“Uhh… Me, Pig. We walk… We play. You are?”
He made hand motions to act out his words, though the new guy’s nails bit into Joel’s arm hard enough for him to turn his head. Which was saying something. Joel, still half distracted by Grian returning from the back room with a bag slung over his shoulder - not to mention Scar and Jimmy stuck in the streamers - tried to split his attention between everyone he wanted to talk to. “Oi, Lazy! Give him room. He’s like, 3 minutes conscious; you’re spooking him.”
“Um, it’s Pig now.” And to the new guy, “3 whole minutes! No way… I swear I’ve seen you around New Star Station before. You play any sports? I’m on a pro competitive camming team. Jade Jaguars all the way!”
Joel let out a grunt, shifting his legs around. He swung his heels up on the coffee table. “You’re going by ‘Pig’ now? Well… Serve yourself some Name Day cake, I guess; there’s plenty to go around.”
The new guy scrunched his brows like two caterpillars squaring up to fight. Maybe time to go. Scar and Jimmy were laughing in the kitchen; all these new voices and faces were probably buzzing in the guy’s head. And cake would be nice. Pig turned away when the new guy popped open his mouth. A little squeak slithered out, but he stopped with a clack of teeth. Oh? Maybe he did talk. Pig spun back, his flying pig necklace bouncing at his chest. “Yeah, all right! Let’s hear it for the new guy! … Uh, you might be muted, though. Can you hear me?”
The newbie squeaked again, this time more elaborately. Pig could see his tongue hitting sounds in some kind of order and rhythm, but they just came out like clicks and whistles. Oh, yeah. Definitely Ender. Hmm. Pig hesitated, and his confusion must show across his face, because the new guy went from confused to furious real fast. He shook his arms up and down, flapping out the wrists, and then shot up and bonked Pig on the shoulder with his balloon. Pig fell back a step, slamming his leg into Etho’s coffee table. Ow. Ow. Well, it didn’t take hearts or anything, but Pig let out a grunt because, well… his pixels sputtered up. You know how that goes. The new guy whacked him again and this time, Pig took the hint. He circled around to the other side. And Joel was no flippin’ help, of course, because he cracked up, almost slamming his head against Etho’s wall.
“Atta boy! We don’t like Pig, do we, mate?”
“I’m your twin!” Pig yelled back. And then, wiping imaginary sparks from one eye, “That… that really stings, man… I looked to you as a brother.”
“Brother fight!” Jimmy yelled, punching the air with both fists. He charged forward, which didn’t even make sense since he wasn’t related to anyone in this room (Unless Scar’s mum had some serious explaining to do while dead). Pig shrieked and dodged around him as fast as his slimy body could move. It worked. Jimmy tripped on his own boots and slammed his chin against the coffee table. Pig cringed against one of Etho’s bookshelves.
“OOH! … Tch. That’s gonna leave an ouchie.”
Jimmy’s yellow wings gave one feeble flap from the floor. Then his thumb appeared from behind the table, jabbing high. “I’m okay!”
The new guy’s eyes trailed away, wandering across the curtains of Etho’s balcony door. He picked at the edge of his sleeve, keeping mute. “Aw, my big boy becomes a man today,” Grian cooed, strolling back from the kitchen. He waved a sugar cookie to make a point of it, then gave it to the new guy. The new guy took it with both hands and scrunched back into the cushions, all cozy. “Look at you…”
“He only speaks Ender?” Pig asked, still keeping his distance. For the new guy’s sake. He wasn’t scared of balloons.
“He’s, like, 5 minutes old, Pig. He doesn’t know how to do things; we have to teach him.” Grian mussed up the new guy’s hair, especially in the back where brown waves turned to blondish curls. “He can only stand for, like, 15 seconds before he crashes down, so you can forget walking. That’s why Joel and I are going to pop our souls inside his vessel for the day and show him how a body’s muscles work.”
Scar whooped at that, hefting his plate of cake. “One of us! One of us! C’mon, everyone! Sing the war cry of our people!”
“One of us, one of us,” Jimmy joined in.
“Ohh…” Pig glanced at the new guy again. Joel was still fussing with him. He showed the guy how to break his cookie into smaller pieces that his newbie teeth could handle more easily than the raw deal. “Why doesn’t he just know?” Most of the newbies know how to walk. They can jump and things. Some can even swim.
“Well, he doesn’t have a mum to teach him anything. We rescued him from the Fox Dragon’s museum, remember? He got separated from his nest. Me and Joel are his mums now.”
“I’m the step-brother who stepped up,” Joel droned. Grian shrugged, nonplussed. Wow, what a man’s man. He should sell his autographs.
“Right. SO!” Grian clapped his hands and the whole room jumped. Even the new guy dropped his cookie, then frumped about it to Joel, trying to push pieces at his mouth. Joel took his wrist, keeping him away and tutting softly. “Right… Etho’s at his portal right now setting coordinates for the server we’re about to play on. Glad to see you’re onboard, Pig! Me and Joel in Sniff’s body, Timmy and Scar in yours. We’ll see you on the other side.”
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“Did I really hit you with a balloon?” Sniff asks when they’re alone, making caterpillars of his brows again. Pig smirks just looking at him, leaning back on his hands. They’re both sitting by the river now, their ankles dangling in cool water while Sniff wolfs down cake with his bare hand like Joel and Grian left his vessel starving when they jumped ship. They probably did. Joel and Grian are back in the server hub by now. Pig could’ve gone after ‘em. He maybe will. Just…
… It can wait.
It’s good to hear his voice. Sniff can speak Tweentext now, though his accent’s thick with Joel’s huffs and ‘isms. You should see the way he moves his hands, though. That bit’s more like Grian. Sniff’s jumper isn’t quite as snowy white as it was back in Etho’s lab. Two weeks of chasing each other around their server really leaves a guy rumpled up. Pig’s doing better, thank you, because he’s not the one who lay unconscious for days after getting de-possessed. Sniff should hang with him more often. He could teach him lots of things. He doesn’t have a mum, you know, so someone’s gotta teach him stuff. Newbies know a lot of things, but they don’t know the shortcuts yet.
They don’t know how bad I want to pick him up and throw him in the water. If that were Joel sitting beside him, Pig would probably rear back a foot and slam it on his shoulder as hard as he could. In the safe places, of course, and Joel would yelp and flail, tumbling into the river, and when he came up hacking and spitting, he’d flap his arms and crawl onto shore, ranting on about how he’d been about to do the same thing. Yeah… Joel’s great. Sniff reminds him a lot about Joel, in some respects.
When Pig doesn’t give an immediate answer, Sniff snorts and gives his head a toss. “I bet you’re lying. You wanna lie to me, Pig? Go on. See what happens! You’re not scared, are you? Are you scared of me, mate? Chicken.”
“Aw, this guy…” Sniff’s a tough little walnut, but it’s hard to get fussed about someone trying to threaten you when they’re two weeks old and you’ve been around for years. Pig swings an arm around him and drags him close, succeeding both in smothering Sniff’s face against his chest and mussing up his hair while Sniff yells and shoves against him. Pfft. Please. “What do you take me for? A newbie? You think I’m just a little guy? A bitsy newborn sniffer just like you?”
“Leggo of me! Piiiiig! Gah, you’re so cringe… Stop!” Sniff tries again, this time pulling in his knee. He shoves with his foot, sending Pig into giggles. He lets go, falling back on his hands in the grass. Sniff picks up his cake again, even though it fell in the dirt. He settles back in, dusting off the flakes. “I still say you’re lying. I don’t remember hitting you with a balloon.”
Yeah, that checks out. There’s not likely much about the server hub that Sniff remembers, seeing as he’s spent more of his life deaf, blind, and mute than he hasn’t. Learns quick, though! Cheeky fella. Pig smiles from the ground, folding his arms behind his head. He lifts one leg and hovers the foot right up against Sniff’s handful of cake. Sniff shoots him a seething glare and scoots farther along the river bank. Aw, where’s the fun in that? Smart guy. Pig let his heel drop back to grass and gravel. “Aw, you’re so big now… I mean, you look the same to me, but Grian kept calling you his special guy and bragging that you’d grown, so that’s something to be proud of.”
A shadow flickers in Sniff’s face. He chews his cake in silence, hunched like a monkey. He glances at the river, then at Pig. Pig rolls away, up on his feet before Sniff can get any bright ideas about shoving him in. Yeah, not spawned yesterday! Give it up for oldies! Sniff says, “I don’t remember hitting you. I don’t think I’ve seen a balloon in my life.”
“Even if I’m lying, you’d hit me again now, I think.” New guy better square up; Pig’s learned all his ticks and cues. Sniff considers this, licking cake crumbs and frosting off the side of his hand.
“Yeah, I would. You just play the guy so well. I don’t know WHAT kind of guy… You just do.”
Pig nods, scratching behind his neck. They sit and stand in silence for a moment, looking at the river. Pig’s feet are still damp from drifting through it a few minutes ago. The grass prickles his soles. Scar told him that grass attacks you when you cut it because its texture is made from 3,000 tiny sword blades, but he’s… almost positive that was just a fast one. Yeah, you can’t pull many of those over him.
“So, um…” Right. The Talk. See, when a guy hangs out on an admin’s server and the game he was invited on to play has sort of run his course, and he was only staying long enough to ensure the new guy actually came out the other end okay… “Well, I should probably be going. I, uh… I’ve gotta put my bobby pins away. And, uh… I’m thinking about getting three cats.”
“Pig?”
Not the eyes, not the eyes… Pig starts to turn away, but Sniff reaches out, catching his shoulder. So he stops. Sniff moves forward, bringing his second hand to his jacket.
“Uh, now that I can move this body to walk and stuff by myself… Are you going to leave?”
I mean, I sort of had plans for after this. I have books out there. My friends are out there. Pig stares across the path they traveled from his scrubby birch plank house out here, where the river gushes over rocks and the moss slicks them so you’ll fall if you try and jump. Yeah, you’re not a frog. No one’s a frog, except for frogs.
Pig’s fingers find the winged pig necklace at his collar, but he doesn’t turn around. “Do you want me to stay? It’s your server. I’m a cam account, technically speaking. I’m not great with moving blocks. Don’t expect the world’s best building buddy.”
Sniff shifts his weight beside him, crinkling the grass. “I mean… I’m only two weeks old. I don’t really know if that’s weird to ask. I’m just pretty sure I’d groan your name when I’m lying facedown in the grass and pulling up weeds as I had fun playing with you and might get bored if you walked out, and I don’t see the point in keeping that to myself.”
“Then I’ll stay.”
Sniff’s eyes brighten like a furnace with fresh coal. “Oh, hell yeah! Sharing feelings works!” He throws his hands in the sky, then winces and falls forward as it flashes his pixels red. A yelp tears past his lips. Pig catches his arms before he can hit the ground, steadying him on his feet.
“Still hurts?”
“Yeah… Didn’t sleep great. Hell, I hate having a body. I can’t wait ‘til I learn to change skins. I’m gonna rip it off and go bare-bottomed as the moon.”
Pig’s mouth twitches again at the thought. He shakes his head. “Well… You can. You’re technically the admin here; I won’t stop you. Just, y’know… you won’t be able to pick up blocks without a skin. And you’ll get gross and dirty. Players are sticky under their skins; that’s how skin holds on. You’re a bunch of slimy egg goop under there.” And he pokes his finger at Sniff’s chest for emphasis. Sniff stumbles back, crinkling his nose. Oh, he looks like a goofy bird when he does that. What a guy.
“Yeah, you’re one to talk. You’re an actual slime!”
“Slime hybrid.”
“Same thing.”
“Taxonomically, no.”
“Oi, you tax me and I’m throwing all your teacups in the composter.” Sniff looks away then, biting his lip. Pig shifts his eyes. What’s he looking at? The river bubbles beside them, carting baby salmon towards the ocean. A glade of oak and birch trees stands on the far side. And there’s a spider jockey, but if it doesn’t bother them, they won’t bother with it. Until they get their armor strapped on and weapons in hand, and then it’s last man standing. Including each other, if they have to. Probably each other first. Actually, forget the jockey.
“Hey. Pig?”
“Yeah, what?”
“… Can we keep sharing your bed?”
Sharing my bed? Pig’s brain jumps forward at the thought, then back. His hands pause, pinned against his pecs. What’s… Sniff implying with that? Not, like… not romantic, right? He’s not really my type…
Pig, uh… Well, he chooses his next words as tactfully as he can, knitting his fingers at his chest. They’re smeared with dirt and grass stains, but that goes for every bit of him. “Well, um… Setting spawn together might be kind of… weird, if we’re going to be at each other’s throats all the time. I mean, we expressed a lot of negative energy back in The Race we might regret. I killed you a few times, you killed me… Hey, you did spawn-trap me in lava at the bottom of those stairs, you know. Not cool.”
Sniff laughs, one hand pressed against his ribcode. “I did do that… Oi, but you left me in a zombie pit! Do you have any blimmin’ idea the flashbacks that gave me? I’ll be coughing up Double Life memories for a month!”
… Why would you have memories of-?
“Look here,” Sniff says, tugging his bangs. His pouting lip’s adorable, and Pig almost snorts just looking at him. “What if, y’know… we just killed each other sometimes. Like, when we want to. Let’s say killing’s fair game when the sun is up, or if it’s really funny after dark. But like, at night… we can be friends. We can fight monsters together. Ooh, and get elytra! … I don’t know what that is.” He scritches behind his ear like a raccoon, leaning really far over to get his thoughts to the surface. And this time, Pig does snort, like his namesake. He slaps a hand just below Sniff’s shoulder patch, the jumper knitting soft beneath his hand.
“Yeah. Yeah, we can share my base a while. It’s half your bed anyway; you crafted part.”
“Hey! I’m pretty sure you stole my half of the bed, actually! Pretty sure the first time we slept together, you took it right from under me!”
Sounds about right. Joel carved pretty chunks in his bedframe. Pig sticks out his tongue, leaning just far enough forward that the flying pig charm on his necklace swings out and almost whacks Sniff in the eye. Sniff blinks, drawing back. “Maybe I did. We were racing, mate! What are you tryna say?”
Sniff thumps his palms hard against Pig’s chest. Pig stumbles, but doesn’t tip over. Yeah, he learned from the coffee table. “I think you like me chasing after you, is what! You’re a little mouse, you… you MOUSE!”
Pig shakes his head, smiling a little too wide to respond. Nothing sharp leaping to his lips right now, and that’s okay. He slides his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his feet. Dirt and grass crunch nicely beneath his hill. “We could go take a nap right now, if you want.” It’s a gentle nudge as much as anything. Sniff limped all the way down to the river, and despite the cake refilling his saturation, he’ll probably limp all the way back.
“We are not racing for it. If you take advantage of my bad leg, I’ll give you such a kick when it’s all healed up. I’m gonna have the toughest legs you’ve ever been kicked with. Ooh, that’s good. Yeah, write that down. You’re a camera; you do that sort of thing, right?”
“Sorry; my camwork’s exclusive for Joel. I’m a pro, remember? I’m even on the competitive camming team.” He starts stepping backwards up the riverbank, Sniff pouting and ambling after him. “You’ll have to pay my professional rates. And, well… I’m a piece of work that you can’t afford.”
“You’re a piece of something, all right. C’mere. Bend down so I can poke my fingers up your snorty little nose.”
“Ooh… You know, let’s maybe soak up daylight and get some wool off the sheepies. We could both use new clothes.” Maybe even pajamas. They’re hard to make, but a lot of fun once you’ve got the patterns down. “And a bath… I’ve got code strings dripping into cracks I didn’t even know I had. I’ll race you for it!”
Sniff scoffs, giving one big shake of his head. Still limping after him, but fighting not to show it. “Ugh, no way! D’you have any idea how sore I am? And where are we gonna go for a blimmin’ wash? You’re not getting me in that river - I’ll tell you that for free - so if you don’t mind - BLUMMIN’ HELL, PIG! NOOO!”
SPLOOOSH!