The Choice of Steins;Gate
Sep. 2nd, 2017 11:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerwhoops i forgot I was supposed to continue JJBA:SS...
~dreamer~
Main Points:
Steins;Gate Universe Optional
Chapter Summary: Okabe and Kyouma's life after the events of the anime.
Word Count: 1029
Rating: gen
~dreamer~
Main Points:
Steins;Gate Universe Optional
Chapter Summary: Okabe and Kyouma's life after the events of the anime.
Word Count: 1029
Rating: gen
Okabe Rintarou is not made of glass. Hououin Kyouma cannot break, because as a mad scientist he’s already broken, become something else outside of society’s norms.
Sometimes he has to remind himself of this. He has several panic attacks once summer is over, the never-ending summer of hell.
His mind has already shifted, become something he didn’t plan for, didn’t decide to become. Perhaps it’s the fact that he’s been a time traveler, and now resides in a world in which that is an impossibility. He clearly doesn’t know, but that doesn’t matter.
He’s the type of guy who would tear apart the world with his bare hands, scrabbling, palms and fingernails bleeding, just for his friends. His Lab Mems. But he cannot forget that, oh-so-briefly, he was also a creator. Just as he can tear things apart, he can also put them together, better, more beautiful than before. So what if he knows he’s broken? Hollow? Just as he found the world in which he wished to live, even as so many others had tragedies and had to live with them, so too can he reconstruct himself. He’s already done it once for Mayuri, after all.
He watches X-Files and Doctor Who and Twin Peaks, and this time he doesn’t pattern his entire being after another. He’s being given a road to follow, a person to be, and quite abruptly Daru and Mayuri and Ruka and everyone else is re-introduced to Okabe, who suddenly appeared as if he’s always been there and lets no one question his presence.
He hadn’t been Okabe because he had no idea who that was, didn’t know how to interact without Kyouma, but he makes it a personal goal to slip between the two effortlessly. If his future self had been any indication there’s no chance of slipping the chuuni entirely, and if he’s honest he doesn’t want to.
Generally, if his lab coat is missing, it’s not Kyouma.
Okabe is much more serious. He’s working on smiling more if only because it worries Mayuri.
He enjoys banter, and it’s truly a fleeting pleasure to see classmates who had grown to dread his presence become confused when they deal not with conspiracy theories and over the top declarations but instead incisive wit delivered quietly (but is no less confident for all that).
Okabe doesn’t bother hiding his intelligence behind bluster. They’re both likely to be dismissed, which, in the end, is perhaps part of the point? Kyouma is dismissed, ignored as a threat because he’s over the top. Okabe is the stealth one, dismissed because he’s too quiet. They might be opposites, but there’s a simple harmony in that he can’t help but enjoy.
It’s Okabe who makes plans inside plans. Plans such as: Have less panic attacks. Plans such as: Exercise more, just in case you ever have to run again, because seriously, running for your life is a lot harder when you’re out of shape.
Okabe never meets Mr. Braun. He can’t think of the man as Tennouji because the creeping terror sets in. Nor can he think of him as FB—even though, quite likely, he is still FB and Moeka is still one of the Rounders, but if he thinks of them in those terms he will have a heart attack and it wouldn’t be pretty. Braun would welcome a more serious version of the young man, since he’s been trying to get that for ages. FB would suspect something, and that, that he cannot have, not in Stein’s Gate.
There are occasional glitches, where he finds himself hyperventilating, with the sure feeling that the world wants him, wants everyone he knows, dead, but he slips off and finds the bathroom and clenches his hands on the sides of the sink, pretends they aren’t trembling, and stares at his reflection until the world settles again. They’re happening less and less often, because if there’s something he’s discovered out of this whole mess it’s that Okabe is actually a fairly competent man (he defied fate, after all, a simple thing like a class has no chance).
He’s occasionally just a little too overbearing when it comes to making sure his friends are still alive, but it’s what keeps him going, and he refuses—refuses—to just be the observer anymore, because he fought for a world with them all for himself as much as for them. There was a time, somewhere, somewhen, in which he almost gave up, but he’s proven since then he’s not glass. He refuses to break. Splinter, maybe, but he’ll just pick up the pieces and try again. He works on actual research at school and gets more serious about the Future Gadgets. He immerses himself in learning English, enough that he holds an entire conversation with his assistant who ends up looking confused and taken aback and probably also like he’s become an alien, but that’s all right. No matter how difficult, he keeps an eye on time travel research and pulls Daru into the effort. He keeps an eye out for dangerous activities of anything he’ll have to fight or put a stop to. He cosplays after making Mayuri promise to tell him about the character first so he can do research. Perhaps in another life he should’ve been an actor. Whenever he’s feeling lost or listless, he has places he can turn—more projects, a simple walk, a shopping excursion with no purpose behind it, friends.
Christina complains about being texted by Kyouma and Okabe, but she gets over it, and turns out to be an excellent place to turn when he can’t sleep and just has to talk to someone. Even in text, even when he can’t talk about precisely what is wrong, he can still dance around it or talk about his projects and she helps out. (Since the appearance of Okabe, her response to Kyouma has become a lot better.)
Whenever things aren’t quite right, he improves upon them. He’s not perfect, especially when it comes to talking, but he’s working on it, and a good, genuine effort is enough.
He chose Stein’s Gate, but Stein’s Gate also chose him.
Sometimes he has to remind himself of this. He has several panic attacks once summer is over, the never-ending summer of hell.
His mind has already shifted, become something he didn’t plan for, didn’t decide to become. Perhaps it’s the fact that he’s been a time traveler, and now resides in a world in which that is an impossibility. He clearly doesn’t know, but that doesn’t matter.
He’s the type of guy who would tear apart the world with his bare hands, scrabbling, palms and fingernails bleeding, just for his friends. His Lab Mems. But he cannot forget that, oh-so-briefly, he was also a creator. Just as he can tear things apart, he can also put them together, better, more beautiful than before. So what if he knows he’s broken? Hollow? Just as he found the world in which he wished to live, even as so many others had tragedies and had to live with them, so too can he reconstruct himself. He’s already done it once for Mayuri, after all.
He watches X-Files and Doctor Who and Twin Peaks, and this time he doesn’t pattern his entire being after another. He’s being given a road to follow, a person to be, and quite abruptly Daru and Mayuri and Ruka and everyone else is re-introduced to Okabe, who suddenly appeared as if he’s always been there and lets no one question his presence.
He hadn’t been Okabe because he had no idea who that was, didn’t know how to interact without Kyouma, but he makes it a personal goal to slip between the two effortlessly. If his future self had been any indication there’s no chance of slipping the chuuni entirely, and if he’s honest he doesn’t want to.
Generally, if his lab coat is missing, it’s not Kyouma.
Okabe is much more serious. He’s working on smiling more if only because it worries Mayuri.
He enjoys banter, and it’s truly a fleeting pleasure to see classmates who had grown to dread his presence become confused when they deal not with conspiracy theories and over the top declarations but instead incisive wit delivered quietly (but is no less confident for all that).
Okabe doesn’t bother hiding his intelligence behind bluster. They’re both likely to be dismissed, which, in the end, is perhaps part of the point? Kyouma is dismissed, ignored as a threat because he’s over the top. Okabe is the stealth one, dismissed because he’s too quiet. They might be opposites, but there’s a simple harmony in that he can’t help but enjoy.
It’s Okabe who makes plans inside plans. Plans such as: Have less panic attacks. Plans such as: Exercise more, just in case you ever have to run again, because seriously, running for your life is a lot harder when you’re out of shape.
Okabe never meets Mr. Braun. He can’t think of the man as Tennouji because the creeping terror sets in. Nor can he think of him as FB—even though, quite likely, he is still FB and Moeka is still one of the Rounders, but if he thinks of them in those terms he will have a heart attack and it wouldn’t be pretty. Braun would welcome a more serious version of the young man, since he’s been trying to get that for ages. FB would suspect something, and that, that he cannot have, not in Stein’s Gate.
There are occasional glitches, where he finds himself hyperventilating, with the sure feeling that the world wants him, wants everyone he knows, dead, but he slips off and finds the bathroom and clenches his hands on the sides of the sink, pretends they aren’t trembling, and stares at his reflection until the world settles again. They’re happening less and less often, because if there’s something he’s discovered out of this whole mess it’s that Okabe is actually a fairly competent man (he defied fate, after all, a simple thing like a class has no chance).
He’s occasionally just a little too overbearing when it comes to making sure his friends are still alive, but it’s what keeps him going, and he refuses—refuses—to just be the observer anymore, because he fought for a world with them all for himself as much as for them. There was a time, somewhere, somewhen, in which he almost gave up, but he’s proven since then he’s not glass. He refuses to break. Splinter, maybe, but he’ll just pick up the pieces and try again. He works on actual research at school and gets more serious about the Future Gadgets. He immerses himself in learning English, enough that he holds an entire conversation with his assistant who ends up looking confused and taken aback and probably also like he’s become an alien, but that’s all right. No matter how difficult, he keeps an eye on time travel research and pulls Daru into the effort. He keeps an eye out for dangerous activities of anything he’ll have to fight or put a stop to. He cosplays after making Mayuri promise to tell him about the character first so he can do research. Perhaps in another life he should’ve been an actor. Whenever he’s feeling lost or listless, he has places he can turn—more projects, a simple walk, a shopping excursion with no purpose behind it, friends.
Christina complains about being texted by Kyouma and Okabe, but she gets over it, and turns out to be an excellent place to turn when he can’t sleep and just has to talk to someone. Even in text, even when he can’t talk about precisely what is wrong, he can still dance around it or talk about his projects and she helps out. (Since the appearance of Okabe, her response to Kyouma has become a lot better.)
Whenever things aren’t quite right, he improves upon them. He’s not perfect, especially when it comes to talking, but he’s working on it, and a good, genuine effort is enough.
He chose Stein’s Gate, but Stein’s Gate also chose him.
