Curate, connect, and discover
Gay people, rise up. It's Hobie time.
Warnings:
-swearing
-Miguel O' Hara
(This takes place around two and a half years before the main story, I'm working on organizing it into a masterlist rn)
You don't know exactly where you are.
That's getting more and more common these days, though, so you don't hold it against the very upset-seeming Latin man or the weird asshole hologram lady, and look forward to the small camera before you.
"I'm- I'm really sorry, what is it I'm supposed to be doing again?" Your hand finds the textured, plastic back of the chair, and you run a thumb over the grain to soak in the feeling. The man whose name you're already forgetting scowls, and he steps forward.
"Can you just- Lyla, can you do the thing?" He sounds annoyed. It makes you shrivel in on yourself, smile sheepishly as you pray that you'll make it out of today without having to deal with him any more than this.
"What thing?" Lyla, as you find out her name, seems to revel in that question, cocking out her hip in that too-big jacket and grinning as she responds.
"The information- explainy thing. You know what I mean." Lyla crossed her arms, and stuck her tongue out a little bit.
"Hah, you're talking about a different thing. You know, for someone with such thorough naming conventions-"
"I know! I understand, I get it, ay-" You've just been sitting there this entire exchange, borderline shaking as you try to understand what the fuck is going on here.
The screeching on a loud guitar makes you jump, and cover your ears. The frustrated man glances for a second, before nodding ever so slightly to Lyla, who seemingly makes a note somewhere.
"Sensory sensitivity, got it-" She speaks as you lower your hands, eyes wide and anxious like a feral cat trapped in a corner.
The big man seems to soften his posture a bit more, but he balls his hands into fists before stomping off in the direction of the guitar.
"Alright kid. Let me help you out a little here." She swoops through the air until she stands behind the camera, and gives you a seemingly more considerate smile.
You hear the shutter open.
"Introduce yourself." You don't think you pulled a face at that, but the way Lyla reacts, you simply must have. She sighs, but remains patient.
"Like your name-"
"My name??? No, no, no, no, no. I wanna do this my own way." She steps back, puts her hands up causally, before she seems to blip out of existence again, seemingly content to let you work this out on your own.
The camera is, in fact, scarier alone, but you swallow down that fear and start to talk.
"Uhhh- Hi. I'm- I- I- I-" Words seem to evade your idiot mouth as you look down the lens of the camera, before you pinch the bridge of your nose.
"Motherfffff-" You cut yourself off at the "f", remembering the single, beady eye scanning you, the piercing vertical eye of the moitor at it side that likely shows you there, too. So you correct yourself. "I shouldn't say that."
"Y- Ugh, goddammit. Webs, spider, you get the gist. Call me Orb-" Before you can finish your poorly-planned little clip, the door opens, but the cadence of the footsteps are different.
There's a stupidly lanky boy there, with a guitar on his back and adorned in spikes.
Twists stick out from his scalp, honeyed a nice yellowish at the ends, and he wears a lip ring and earrings, though they don't go up past the lobe very far.
He seems to be made of some sort of collage, infinitely shifting snippets of newspaper and color in his little backdrop as he changes color. Currently, he seems to be sticking to gray. It's neat, but you don't yet know how it works and that only sours your already confused mood further.
You frown a little, he seems to catch it.
"Oi, mate. Who're you?" Wow. He is stupid British. Some part of your brain lights up with that, chews on the way that voice rings through the space.
Not rich, from the slang, and he's clipped, so you guess somewhere South-East, judging by the jacket, near Camden.
The punk seems to squirm a bit, and he less confidently says "Wot the fuck's up with you? You're starin'"
You feel your cheeks heat with shame, but you speak up.
"Not staring, just… observing. It's different." He raises a brow, but lets you finish.
"I like your twists. Very… cool."
He pauses, before taking one of them into a gangly hand. You see the corner of his lip twitch up but you don't know why
"Thanks."
There's a moment of dead air, but you both ask the same question at once.
"Do you know why we're here?" "Do ya know why we're in this shithole?"
You meet his eyes. They're a nice brown, your brain supplies, but they would look much better in warmer lighting.
He starts to giggle. You think his laugh is funny, and chuckle too.
"Right, I guess we should get to know each-other if we're stuck here, yeah?" He's walking over now, asking that question like you know what you're doing.
"I'm Hobie. Hobie Brown." He doesn't offer a hand. You're grateful for that, this has all been too much already.
"I'm Orb-weaver." Your voice is flat enough to make him raise a brow, but he shrugs, seemingly fine with dismissing that as just how you are remarkably fast.
"All business, huh?"
"No. My name is just on a need-to-know basis right now." You answer, and he leans on the edge of your chair, smiling.
"What if I-"
"You don't need to know." His lips lose some of that smile, and, for a second, you flounder to fix that, at any cost. But you can't tell him your name.
"But… I appreciate your tenacity." It's a compliment, one of the rare ones that you give, and Hobie seems to register that, because the papers surrounding him shift again and he turns… pink. Huh.
"That sounds like a label, mate, I don't do those."
"What?"
The recording stops.
The conversation doesn't.