InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "D to the A to the M to the IEN"

whattheshock (whattheshock) wrote in compass_comm,
@ 2022-04-06 20:23:00

Entry tags:

gabriel o'hara, miguel o'hara

Who? Miguel (one of them) and Gabe
Where? A ROOM
When? Tuesday night
What? Gabe can't sleep.

Gabe knew he shouldn't be awake but there was an itch all over his skin, a distinctive shock of a feeling that seemed to come from the port on the side of his head. It was disconnected, empty, hollow. He shouldn't be awake, away from home and his work and the things he could be doing. Miguel and Miguel (shock off, there's two of his big brother. Nightmare) had calmed him down from a full on freak out and done what he knew to be a regular thing here - acclimate, explain, guide, then show around.

He was fine. It was fine. He just could'nt sleep.

There was part of him that knew what felt wrong about his body, what made him itch and fall apart. The Cyber. The electric in the air, the conductivity was so shocking different, surging and waxing and moving in ways he could feel. It was happening now as he walked along hallways, dishevelled and exhausted, moving one foot in front of the other just to have something to do to keep his mind off how different he felt.

"Miguel..." he muttered, taking out the cellphone from his pocket, punching buttons (shocking buttons). Gabe had to know if this was normal.

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miguel_ohara
2022-04-09 10:19 pm UTC (link)

Was Gabe going to fall over or something? Shocking hell. Miguel caught his elbow just in case, and kept them walking. They were almost at the right balcony anyway.

"Stop it, leave them be, you'll get them when we're in the lab. And I analyze the samples with my machines. The results get written into the database and the samples are destroyed. I can go over all the details of it later." Miguel moved the bag as he spoke so that Gabe couldn't get at the bagels, and then stopped once they had reached the balcony.

He leaned out over the safety rail and fired a webline up towards the ceiling, and then turned to face his brother again. "Come on, this is much quicker than using the elevators," he said, and gestured with his free hand for Gabe to come closer. "I'm not taking you webswinging, we're just going down to the bottom floor. I won't drop you. Just put your arms round my neck."

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whattheshock
2022-04-11 02:07 pm UTC (link)

Gabe rolled his eyes at Miguel bossing him around when all Gabe wanted to do was to poke and prod at the things around him. It was what he did, after all, dive deep into the meat and mechanics of things, tear them apart and slot them back together again. Admittedly, Miguel was the smarter of them for all their lives; Gabriel would put them back together wrong and Miguel would put them back together in a better way. With lasers or some other shit.

"Yeah, yeah, I get that you have a database, but what's it for? Posterity?" he asked annoyed that Miguel could easily dodge him now. He missed when they were younger and he could annoy Mig much easier.

Gabe raised an eyebrow, shaking his head at Miguel as he did as he was told, basically hugging his big brother. "You know, you're such a shocking show-off sometimes, bro."

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miguel_ohara
2022-04-11 03:39 pm UTC (link)

"People use it, bit-head. I've helped people work out things about their families, we're working out all kinds of things about the weird plants like if they could be used in medbay or if they're edible, it's useful," Miguel protested, and then shrugged, "and besides, it's genetics. It's what I want to do."

He put his arm around his brother's waist and jumped the pair of them over the rail and then lowered them down with ease. "This isn't showing off. If I wanted to show off, we'd have gone from one end of the Mall to the other, and you'd be upside down for most of it," he pointed out, and then paused in mid-air with about four floors still to go, holding on to Gabe with ease - he could juggle cars if he wanted, so one human was more than fine. "Do you want me to show off?"

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whattheshock
2022-04-11 05:16 pm UTC (link)

"Hey, don't call me bit-head for not being psychic about what you're doing," Gabe laughed, the familiarity of bickering with his brother making this place feel like home somehow. "I've been here for like five minutes, I got questions on questions. Not all of us are geniuses, bit-head." His arm tightened around Miguel as if to say it was all okay. He was still Mig's brother, dumb as a bag of rocks sometimes, but always wanting to learn how shit worked.

While he would never quite get used to that squick feeling of swinging and climbing and all of Miguel's other Spider-man shit, even he had to admit it was kind of cool.

"Shock no, don't you show off," he said, thinking of the weird nausea he already had, adding in webswinging and upside-down-ness on top of it. "You can be Spider-man on your own time, I'll stick to being human-ish-man."

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miguel_ohara
2022-04-11 08:45 pm UTC (link)

"You sure? I could just... swing over to that balcony right now? That one, over there..." Miguel asked, careful to keep a straight face as he spoke, before starting to gradually lower the pair of them down to the bottom floor again. He wondered when Gabri would notice, since he wasn't going nearly as fast as he had done earlier.

Eventually, they settled down onto the floor with a nice easy landing, and then Miguel let go of his brother and broke off the webline. "Come on, it's this way. I'll get Lyla to show you a map once we get to the lab, don't worry. You won't get lost," he said, and then set off towards his home-from-home.

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whattheshock
2022-04-15 07:47 am UTC (link)

If looks could kill, Miguel would have been dead and buried in the ground. Gabe wanted to smack the back of his head like when they were kids and he just wanted attention and to annoy his big brother. Gabe was sure this was payback for all of those years of sibling annoyances.

"I will actually murder you if you even shocking think of swinging me, Mig - no, I'll hurl all over you, then murder you." He held on tight to Miguel's body as he lowered them down. "God, just take the fuckin' elevator, man..." he mumbled.

He was more than relieved to hit the ground with solid feet, only letting go when he was sure Miguel couldn't play a prank on him.

Gabe rolled his eyes but smiled, shaking his head as he followed Mig. "I miss when I was cooler than you."

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miguel_ohara
2022-04-16 05:11 pm UTC (link)

"You were never cooler than me," Miguel replied over his shoulder with a laugh. It didn't matter how true or not the statement was (Sure, Gabe was the one that actually had friends back home, and had a car, and was an artist, and shocking hell, his brain suddenly started sounding like their ma so he stopped that line of thinking straight away), he was just glad Gabe was here and there was no pressure on either of them to be a certain way, so he was talking shit.

"I'm going to see if some of Sarah's crystals might help you. It's not freaky weird twencen hippy bullshit, before you start in on that. Her magic sometimes gets too much and it'll interact with any electronics that are close to her, so she uses crystals to collect all the extra stuff. Like this one," he said, and turned to lift his own crystal out from under his tee-shirt to show his brother, walking backwards as he continued to talk. The dark blue from when he'd had her magic for a few weeks swirled round the pink of Sarah's magic, and neither color was ever still. "I know you've never shown any aptitude for magic, but it's worth a shot. They might just work to clear up static and brain-buzz as well."

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whattheshock
2022-04-16 07:19 pm UTC (link)

"I take deep personal offence to that, mi cabrón," Gabe replied, grinning wildly. "You might get the jump on me now days but I was totally shocking cool." They both knew it was kinda bullshit, he thought, they just both made the most outta what they had and while Miguel was older, Gabe had been given freedoms that Miguel never had. Miggy had always been and would always be the cooler brother out of the two of them.

Magic? Now that was something. He'd heard tales about magic, people who claimed to know sorcerors in hidden worlds through gates and portals. They knew Gods, for shock's sake, why couldn't magic be real? It just sounded fucking insane, right?

"The fuck you pull that from, Mig?" Gabe asked, bewildered. "You just have a magic crystal on your body because your wife's magic and she has too much of it?" He blinked. "Am I high still?"

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miguel_ohara
2022-04-17 12:32 am UTC (link)

"I wear it all the time, and yeah, that's about it. I... don't think you're high. Are you?" Miguel replied, pausing for a few seconds until Gabe caught up with him, and then trying to check his brother's eyes to see if he was high on something.

"Sarah's a technomage," he began to explain after that. "She can create machines that use both regular components and magic to work. The crystals are kind of like magical capacitors. All my stuff in the lab has been reworked to include them in case there are any power surges from Sarah. It's why Lyla has a purple tinge to her when she manifests in the apartment or the lab. You'll see in about a minute."

He let the crystal go as he spoke, the chain around his neck now feeling cold for a moment, and then tucked it back in under his tee-shirt to keep it safe.

"The door up ahead on the left is the lab. I'll introduce you to the big spider while we're there."

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whattheshock
2022-04-17 06:16 pm UTC (link)

"Fuck, I don't know, man, I might be. All this energy's got me feelin' it, like what the actual shock is this place running on?" Gabe replied, only half kidding about it. God knows how his brain would interact with whatever magic and power and electric and techno-whatsits they had running through the walls; he'd been hooked into the Cyber for so long that his head could only process things a certain way.

Gabe arched a brow in disbelief, though Miguel had no reason to fuck with him other than Miguel being his brother. "Technomage." Gabe repeated, getting his tongue around the word. He watched as Miguel tucked the crystal away back into his shirt, wondering how much his brother actually believed in it. Miguel was the smartest idiot Gabe had ever known - a bonafide genius even - and he thought it helped. To Gabe it just looked like the fable of the rock that kept lions away. The Emperor's New Clothes. But Miguel had to have seen its effects. Gabe just wanted to poke it.

He began to take a step when he realised; "I'm sorry, did you jsut say big spider??" he asked, laughing and backing away from Miguel. "You been experimenting again, bro?"

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miguel_ohara
2022-04-17 09:21 pm UTC (link)

"Technomage. Sarah, her brother Tommy and her sister Sookie, they're all technomages but in different ways. Tommy's the guy that teaches math and physics in the school, and he's running Magic class with Remus now as well. Sookie's looking to set up a hydroponics garden, which sounds really interesting, and I'm going to have to pick her brains about it later."

He palmed open the door to the lab once they got there, and Lyla had done what he'd asked. The lights were low so Gabe would still be able to see well enough and Miguel wouldn't be blinded, and he could smell the coffee that was brewing so everything was great. Except for Gabe backing away. Because of the spider? Weird. "It's not going to hurt you, it's just a skin. And I wasn't the one doing the experimenting."

He walked into the lab, leaving the door open, and headed back to where the spiderskin was. It was still standing, which was pretty cool given how long it had been since he'd been that spider. "Come on, Gabe, get inside. There's nothing in here that'll hurt you unless you walk into something and smack your leg."

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whattheshock
2022-04-17 10:15 pm UTC (link)

"Holy shock, you mean there's more than one of them?!" he asked, impressed and more than a little concerned at how many people on this space station were impressive, genius, superheros or otherwise perfect in every way. Shit, he was just a guy, a hanger-on, a D-list nothing compared to all this crap. Miguel had always been special, Gabe knew that even if their mother was too self-involved to appreciate it. "I'm gonna have to take orientation just to remember what everyone can do..."

But nevertheless Gabe followed his brother dutifully, though slightly peturbed by the notion of giant spiders, even if it was just their skins. "I'm still not gonna get used to all this, am I?" he asked, shuddering at the sight of a literal giant spider skin hanging as if taxidermied. Shock. As much as Gabe loved his brother to death, it was still more than weird to see.

As if he predicted it, Gabe stubbed his toe hard against a metal something, distracted by everything around him familiar and unfamiliar. He cursed under his breath, "...you laugh and I'm out."

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miguel_ohara
2022-04-18 04:49 pm UTC (link)

The door slid closed behind Gabe as he walked in and smacked into something. Miguel didn't laugh, but he did look over and raise an eyebrow. "Do you want the lights to be brighter? There might be spare contacts here, but I don't know about glasses," he offered, and crossed over to his desk. Last time he'd checked, there were a couple of sets of contacts in the drawers, but that had been just after he'd stopped being a teenager so who knew where they might be.

"I'll get you coffee in a minute if you want to sit down," he said as he rummaged through his top drawer, and then grinned as he found one set. "And I've found contacts so I'll put them in and then Lyla can turn up the lights for you. And then I can explain about the spider if you want to know."

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