Chapter Text
Jamato’s gotten very good at covering himself up. Not as in covering his tracks, but covering his body. If he can even be considered a body. He’s more… an amalgamation of code. A representation, projection, of the raw universe.
He wraps himself with cloth and puts an armored shell over it. He kinda looks like a knight, in a way. It’s traditional to have friends and family help carve one’s shell, but his family is a little out of reach by the time he needs a shell.
A thing he didn’t account for when he joined Unstable, an anarchy server: all the explosions. Explosions do not bode well with a thin shell.
When he shows Spoke how to make blocks half-exist, the first one he tries is an enchantment table. It’s the coolest looking one, you don’t usually see it without the book. Spoke presses the button and Jamato places the enchanted down, but, well, he’s standing barely a block away from an end crystal.
“Oh god–” He wheezes out, tripping backwards onto a gravel block. Spoke immediately jolts up, the curious look he previously held has been replaced by panic. Jamato has to breathe before he can respond.
“Jamato– are you okay? Is that good or bad?” Spoke asks, taking Jamato’s hand and helping him up.
“I’m fine. I was just standing too close.” He shakes himself out, buzzing under his shell. Spoke is still staring at him with wide eyes. “Now log out–”
“Uh, JamatoP..?” Spoke starts, tilting his head and looking Jamato over.
“What?” Jamato questions, looking down to follow Spoke’s gaze. Oh. His shell broke. “Oh. Oh that isn’t supposed to…”
“Is that, normal?” Spoke asks him haltingly, but he doesn’t look away.
“You really– Oh, you shouldn’t be looking at that,” Jamato realizes, and turns away from Spoke to block his view.
“Is it personal?” Spoke pauses, drawing back.
“Uhh,” Jamato starts, placing down an enderchest. He probably has something for a situation like this, right? “Not exactly.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. It’s permission enough to Spoke, who immediately leans around him and moves his arm to the side to investigate properly. Jamato’s movement stutters as he faces Spoke. Before he can ask,
“Then what is it? Is it like, an infection? Are you– is your code corrupting, Jamato?” Spoke snaps his head up, eyes wide. Jamato doesn’t move, but he blinks. Is Spoke… okay?
“No, no I’m not– I’m not corrupting– Spoke, you– this really isn’t something that you should look at.” Jamato lifts Spoke’s hand off of him, and turns to root around his enderchest.
“Why not?” Spoke pushes, hands making noise as they brush against his pants.
“It’s…” Jamato starts, pausing his search to think through his words. Then he remembers that Spoke is probably about to hurt his eyes by staring, so Jamato picks up the pace, taking out a gear shulker. He’s probably got some cloth in here. “It’s just not something that– you just shouldn’t stare.”
And he was right! There’s a roll of tearable grey fabric. He picks up the roll and turns his body away from Spoke. Thankfully Spoke doesn’t follow this time.
“You can tell me if it’s personal,” Spoke offers, and Jamato breathes out a laugh, wrapping the fabric over the shatterpoint. He’ll do a better repair at home.
With the cracks covered, Jamato turns back, tying the fabric off. “It isn’t personal, Spoke,” He answers, smiling. “It’s code. I’m made of raw code. It typically hurts people’s eyes.”
“Ohh,” Spoke blinks, staring at the fabric across Jamato’s side. It’s– not a– people don’t usually stare at him after his shell breaks. They actually tend to look everywhere except him. Staring at raw code usually has people feeling like something is wrong, feeling uncomfortable. Spoke isn’t very usual though. Jamato knows that. “That’s why it felt familiar.”
And– what? What does that even mean?
“What do you mean familiar?” Jamato asks, tensing. Not because he’s afraid of Spoke, but not a lot of people see raw code. It’s not a thing you get familiar with, if you’re not someone like Jamato. He’s tense because it’s worrying that Spoke is familiar with the feeling.
“I’ve seen it before. I got really familiar with it in another server.” Spoke gives, and lifts a hand. Jamato pulls back before Spoke can touch him.
“You– Spoke, this isn’t a thing you should be familiar with,” He tries, worrying. “Do you remember how you saw it?”
“I touched it,” Spoke answers, very worryingly, and starts to untie the fabric. Jamato jumps.
“Don’t– no, no, Spoke, this– Don’t do that.” Jamato stops him, holding Spoke’s hand away. That’s not normal. That isn’t a normal reaction. Spoke doesn’t act like this.
He stares into Spoke’s empty eyes, worry twisting like ropes in his head. Spoke is acting weird. Can you get addicted to code? Can someone get addicted to looking at him? That feels like something that shouldn’t be possible.
“Spoke,” Jamato starts, taking a step away to give them both space. Spoke doesn't move when Jamato lets go of his hand. “When did you touch raw code?”
Spoke blinks, and his face twists a little. “I don’t remember. But I remember that it was interesting. And it felt like… like inverse water. And that it was cool.”
How does he even begin to respond to that?
“Okay. Don’t touch raw code anymore, please. It’s not good for your body.” Jamato exhales, stressed. Who in their right mind would t– well. It’s Spoke. So that answers his question.
“Oh, I threw up for like two weeks after. And I was sick for like a month.” Spoke nods, and Jamato makes a noise.
“Did you swan dive into it?” He asks, laughing tensely as he puts the gravel wall back
“I could’ve,” Spoke jokes, and Jamato lets out a quiet breath.
Barely the next day, Spoke begs Jamato to take off his shell. Jamato eventually relents, under the condition that Spoke doesn’t touch it. It becomes a tradition– Spoke making Jamato take off parts of his shell. Until Spoke brushes against him on ‘accident’ (Jamato still isn’t convinced), and both of them gasp. No one– no one like Spoke has ever touched his pseudo-skin. It’s like electric signals tearing his chest open. It feels like being shot gently. And then Spoke falls backwards and puts one hand over his mouth, one around his neck.
Suffice to say, Jamato doesn’t ever take off his shell again. Not around Spoke. Not with any amount of begging.
And then, in the end, it turns out he doesn’t need to think about Spoke again.