Chapter Text
Gently swirling his finger inside his boyfriend's belly button, Venti let out a soft, melodic giggle. He tried his best to keep his laughter muffled, but then he felt Oliver's finger dig just a little bit deeper, hitting the sensitive knot deep inside his navel.
"Eek~!" Venti shrieked softly.
Hearing that sudden squeak instantly snapped Oliver back to reality. Remembering there were actually other people sleeping in the room with them, he frantically yanked his hand away, sitting up bolt straight in his chair and staring straight ahead like absolutely nothing had just happened.
Venti just giggled softly, his shirt still pulled up. "Why did you leave me~?" the bard teased in a whiny whisper. "Don't you want more of my belly button~?" Swaying his hips ever so slightly from side to side, Venti leaned in. "Don't you want your bard's tummy just a little bit more?"
Taking matters into his own hands, Venti teasingly dipped his own finger into his navel, wiggling it around. "Ahh~," he let out a breathy, dramatic sigh, pushing his stomach out against his hand. "Erng~ so deep~"
Oliver was dying.
"Venti!" Oliver hissed, his face burning bright red.
But the bard kept up his teasing act, happily digging into his own navel just to watch his boyfriend squirm helplessly in his seat.
"V-Ven... Ve... please stop! Other people are in here, you know!"
Suddenly, there was a shift from the darkness across the room.
"YEAIIE?!" Oliver yelped, his eyes going wide with panic. In a flash, he spun around, slamming his elbows onto the plastic table and resting his chin in his palms as he faced the other side of the room. "Haha! Heyyyy! How's it going?!" he blurted out, flashing a painfully nervous, wide-eyed smile.
August, who had just started waking up, opened his eyes fully at Oliver's loud outburst. He stared at his acquaintance with an expression of pure, unadulterated confusion. "What?" he croaked, tilting his head as he studied Oliver's guilty, frantic face.
"Ah-ha! I... uh—" Oliver stammered helplessly.
Behind Oliver, Venti had turned away entirely, face buried in his hand. "Pffft—"
August blinked slowly. He shook his head, clearing the sleep from his eyes, and glanced at the table. Resting right there on the plastic surface was the bard's leather corset and Vision strap. August blinked again, looking from Oliver's flushed face to the discarded heap of clothes.
"Hmm," was the only thing August said. With a heavy sigh, he stood up.
Oliver swallowed hard, watching in silence as August walked out of the break room, turning right down the hall toward the extraction lab.
Glancing over at Arnold—who was miraculously still dead to the world at the other table—Oliver let out a fake, composing cough. He sat up straight and turned back to his boyfriend.
Venti was still facing the wall, his shoulders shaking with silent giggles.
"You absolute asshole!" Oliver whisper-yelled. Despite his embarrassment, a laugh bubbled up in his chest. In retaliation, he launched a merciless tickle attack on Venti's sides.
"Bahahaha! Hey, noooo! Ollie, sthahahahaop!!!" Venti instantly spun around, his hands frantically swatting at Oliver's fingers to stop the assault. "Stop ihehehehittt!"
Oliver finally withdrew his hands, flashing Venti a triumphant smirk. "That's exactly what you get~," he teased, reaching out to softly boop Venti's nose.
Venti let out one last giggle before happily leaning his weight back against Oliver's side
Out in the hallway, August walked past the break room door again, heading toward the main exit. Most likely, he was going to look out the small window.
Oliver watched him pass, his brow furrowing. "What's he doing?" he muttered, straightening up in his chair.
"I have no idea," Venti hummed.
A few moments later, August re-entered the break room. "I went to check on Jasper. Nothing's happened with his chair yet. I really hope he didn't disregard the note sent him..." August sighed, walking over to Oliver and Venti's table. "And I also looked out the door's window," he added, gesturing over his shoulder. "The sun has mostly set. It's almost night. I'm incredibly grateful we have a window to the outside in this hell hole, because there isn't a single clock in this entire building."
Oliver's eyebrow went up. "Seriously? No clocks?"
"Nope," August confirmed grimly. "Like I said, thank god for the window. Anyway, since it's getting dark, we need to eat something." He walked over to the shattered vending machine. "I'm gonna grab a few of those ramen bowls from the bottom."
"I'll pass, remember?" Venti chimed in gracefully. "An Archon like me doesn't require much sustenance."
August nodded, reaching through the broken glass and pulling out three instant ramen bowls.
By now, Arnold had finally woken up. He let out a soft stretch and rubbed his sleepy eyes, watching August rummage through the machine. "I-I can share a bowl with you," the other boy mumbled softly.
"Oh?" August pulled his head out of the machine, looking surprised. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah," Arnold nodded shyly. "Just so we don't have to burn through our food so fast. Besides, those bowls are kinda big."
"Right. Good point," August agreed. He slid the third bowl back onto its coil. Holding the remaining two cups, he walked past Arnold toward the small kitchenette area of the break room. "Another thing to be grateful for: this room actually has a working sink and microwave. I'm guessing whatever scientists used to work in here practically lived off this ramen."
Venti stared intently as August walked over to the counter. The bard had seen a sink before, of course, but he had absolutely no idea what the metal box was.
Curiosity winning over, Venti slipped away from Oliver and padded over to August. He watched in pure awe and confusion as August ripped the paper lids off the ramen, filled them with tap water, and placed them inside the microwave, closing the strange glass door.
"What in Teyvat is that strange contraption?" Venti asked, his massive eyes wide.
Still sitting at his table, Oliver laughed warmly. Venti sounded exactly like a time-traveling old man seeing modern technology for the very first time.
With an affectionate sigh, Oliver pushed himself up and walked over to stand behind his boyfriend. "It's a microwave," Oliver explained softly.
Venti blinked at the appliance. "Micro... wave?"
"Yeah. It sends microwaves directly into the food to heat it up super fast."
"Huhhhhhh?" Venti tilted his head, utterly mesmerized. He stared through the grated glass window as the ramen bowl began slowly spinning on the glass tray inside, bathed in a weird yellow light. "Wave? Like... the waves in the ocean?"
Oliver snorted. "N-No... uh.... You know what a sound wave is, right? Like when you play your lyre? Sound waves traveling through the air?"
"Oh!" Venti snapped his fingers. "Yes! I know those! But what makes this a... micro version?"
"It's just a specific, very short wavelength of radiation that makes the water molecules heat things up," Oliver explained, trying to remember his high school science classes. "Technically, it's actually pretty dangerous. That's why the door has that metal grill built into the glass—to stop the radiation waves from escaping and cooking us."
"Ah... I see," Venti breathed, stepping back slightly just in case. "My word... I don't think even the brilliant minds in Fontaine could come up with something as crazy as this."
Oliver smiled fondly, shaking his head. He is going to completely lose his mind when he sees a TV, Oliver thought to himself.
~~~~~~~~~
A few minutes later, they were all settled back at their respective tables.
August and Arnold sat together, quietly sharing their bowl of ramen with cheap plastic forks they had found. Across the room, Venti and Oliver sat at their own table.
Venti leaned over, squinting curiously into Oliver's steaming cup of noodles. "Oh! Ramen! Right!" Venti snapped his fingers in recognition. "That's a very popular soup over in Inazuma! I've had it a few times during my visits. It's actually quite delicious!"
Oliver smiled. "Wow, I wish I could actually try the real deal over there." He dug his fork into the cup, twirled a clump of noodles, blew on them, and took a large bite. He chewed, slurped, and finally swallowed.
He blinked slowly. "Okay. Yeah. After temporarily living off the wonderful, fresh and tasty foods of Teyvat—" He gave Venti a deadpan look. "—this tastes like absolute trash."
Venti snorted loudly.
"Okay, Mr. Big Shot," August laughed from across the room. "Not all of us were lucky enough to be trapped inside a luxurious fantasy RPG, okay? I spent my time fighting for my life against giant bugs, and then eating said bugs just to survive. Not exactly a five-star culinary experience."
Oliver winced, laughing apologetically. "Sorry, sorry! Hey, what game were you actually trapped in, again?"
"Grounded. From what I could gather, it's a survival game where you're shrunk down to the size of an ant and have to fight insects in a backyard," August explained grimly. "If it wasn't for Pete helping me out, I probably would have completely lost my mind... I really don't do well with spiders. It... it was definitely the ultimate 'face your fears' situation." August shuddered visibly. "I still absolutely hate them."
"Hmm." Oliver sympathetically slurped up some more salty noodles.
"So, you guys have ramen in your world, too?" Venti asked, looking back at the cup.
"Yeah," Oliver nodded. "But this is the dirt-cheap, college-student kind. If you want the actual good stuff, you have to go to an authentic Japanese restaurant. You'd know it's good when it's filled to the brim with people and there's a lot of slurpage going on,"
Venti laughed gently. "Haha! I think I understand what you mean. So many people slurping up those noodles,"
~~~~~
As the night wore on, exhaustion finally claimed them all. Just like their previous naps, they were forced to sleep sitting up in the stiff break room chairs.
August and Arnold were completely knocked out, heads resting on the table.
Oliver was fast asleep too, slumped heavily against his boyfriend's side. Venti had rested his cheek softly on top of Oliver's head, his own eyes closed in peaceful slumber.
For a moment, it was almost tranquil. It wasn't completely silent—the broken vending machine emitted a low, steady hum that served as a comforting white noise against the isolation of the bunker.
Oliver shifted slightly in his sleep, adjusting his weight against the bard. Venti immediately awoke, shifting his posture just enough to let his boyfriend get perfectly comfortable. "You okay, baby?" he whispered into Oliver's hair.
"Hmm," Oliver mumbled, half-asleep. He tilted his head up, clumsily pressing a soft kiss to Venti's cheek, before instantly falling back asleep.
Venti hummed happily, a soft smile gracing his lips as he hugged Oliver closer.
"BEGIN SEND BACK."
Oliver's eyes flickered open in the dim light. "Huh?" he muttered groggily. "Did you say something, babe?" He looked up.
Venti's eyes were wide open, staring sharply toward the open doorway. "That wasn't me," Venti whispered.
A heavy silence stretched for a few seconds.
"SYSTEM REBOOT COMMENCING."
The loud, mechanical voice was echoing directly from the hallway.
Oliver gasped. His adrenaline spiked instantly. He leaped away from Venti, practically vaulting over the plastic table as he bolted toward the door. "Guys! Guys, wake up!" he shouted. "I think that Jasper dude is coming back!"
"Huh? What?" August groaned, sitting up groggily and untangling himself from Arnold. "What's going on?"
But Oliver was already sprinting out the door.
"Jasper! His chair is booting up!"
August's eyes flew wide open. "I'm coming!" He shoved his chair back so hard it screeched against the floor. He grabbed Arnold's arm. "Come on, get up! You too!" he called out to Venti.
Venti nodded sharply, instantly jogging out of the room right behind them.
Oliver burst into the extraction lab, skidding to a halt right in front of the transfer chair belonging to Jasper. He quickly looked up at the glowing monitor above the machine:
Vitals of subject: Great
Dimension Gateway: N/A
Media: Fallout 4
Media Type: Game
Fictional Universe Code: Sub-374
Oliver quickly looked back down at the unconscious boy strapped into the seat. Hearing the heavy footsteps of the others rushing into the room, he threw a hand out behind him. "Don't turn the overhead lights on yet!" he ordered quietly.
"BODY TRANSFER IN 3... 2... 1..."
The massive metal chair suddenly vibrated. With a heavy, mechanical groan, the backrest slowly hoisted itself into an upright position, releasing a loud hiss of pressurized steam from its base.
Suddenly, the man strapped inside jolted awake with a violent gasp. "Gah!" Jasper panted heavily, his chest heaving as he frantically looked around the dark room. "What?! Where—..."
"Shh! Shh, it's okay!" Oliver quickly hushed him, waving his hands urgently to signal the others to stay back.
Oliver's heart was pounding. He had absolutely no idea if they were dealing with another Arnold/Richard situation, where the victim completely lost their real-world memories. They really couldn't afford to deal with another case of amnesia right now.
Slowly, Jasper's frantic breathing began to steady.
Oliver gently gripped the boy's shoulders, praying this guy remembered who he was.
After a tense, agonizing moment... Jasper blinked.
"Right..." Jasper breathed, his voice heavy with a sudden, crushing realization. "The experiment..."
Oliver let out a massive puff of relief, his shoulders dropping. "Thank goodness."
But the relief was short-lived, as Jasper's words added a horrifying new question to the puzzle. The experiment. If Jasper knew he was part of an experiment, that meant Doctor Barclay had actually explained things to him. He had asked for his consent.
"I... I..." Jasper twisted in the seat, squinting into the shadows of the lab. "I don't remember this room." He shook his head violently, aggressively rubbing his temples. "Where's the Doctor? Are you his assistant? Fuck... Why does it feel like I was trapped inside that place for actual years?"
Jasper's hands suddenly dropped from his face. He stared blankly into the darkness, his eyes wide and haunted.
"I... I'm..." he whispered, his voice cracking. "I am dating a Ghoul..."
Realizing the boy was spiraling, Oliver signaled to August in the dark to hit the light switch. "Close your eyes tight," Oliver warned Jasper gently. "The bright lights are gonna turn on."
Jasper, still looking completely shell-shocked, gave a small nod and squeezed his eyes shut.
Venti reached over and flicked the switch. "Hmm... just like the mechanisms in Fontaine," he mumbled to himself. "Just... smaller,"
The blinding fluorescent lights flickered violently before blazing to life.
Jasper slowly peeled his eyes open, squinting against the harsh glare until his vision adjusted. He looked at Oliver, then slowly scanned the rest of the group. "Woah..." he rasped. "Wasn't exactly expecting a welcoming committee..." He looked at August and Arnold. "Are you guys Doc's helpers?"
A heavy, solemn silence fell over the group.
"No," August said softly. "We're not. We're just like you."
"Huh," Jasper muttered, his brow furrowing. "That's... strange. He explicitly told me I was the only one."
"Yeah," Oliver scoffed, rolling his eyes bitterly. "That seems to be his absolute favorite lie to tell."
Jasper looked back up at Oliver, but his gaze drifted past him, sweeping the room until it locked onto someone who fundamentally did not match the gritty realism of a sterile science lab.
Jasper blinked hard. He leaned forward in the chair, squinting in pure disbelief. "Is that... an anime boy?"
"Uhhh...." August scratched the back of his neck, looking awkwardly at Venti.
Venti just blinked innocently, looking at August, and then offering Jasper a polite little wave.
~~~~~~~~~
Eventually, the others cleared out of the extraction lab, giving Jasper some much-needed space to breathe and to clear his mind.
Oliver volunteered to stay behind, wanting to offer the guy some company without overwhelming him with a crowd.
Jasper had finally left from the chair, but his legs were still dangerously unsteady. He stood hunched over, gripping the cold metal armrest of the machine just to keep himself upright. "My legs feel like jelly," he muttered, wincing as he shifted his weight.
"Yeah," Oliver nodded sympathetically. "Being hooked into those chairs will do that to you. Especially if you were trapped in there for a long time."
"I felt like I was in there for a lifetime," Jasper whispered, staring blankly at his own hands.
Oliver looked at him cautiously. "Maybe your avatar got overwritten inside the dimensions' world," Oliver suggested. "It's kind of a miracle that you didn't end up like Arnold, honestly. He completely forgot he was ever a human from this world."
Jasper looked over at him, his eyes heavy. "Is everything you just told me true?"
While the others had been leaving, Oliver had given Jasper a crash course on the truth: the kidnapping, the transfer chairs, and Doctor Barclay's true, sinister nature.
But Jasper was struggling to reconcile that reality with his own memories. For him, the Doctor had been a willing collaborator who asked for his consent.
"It just doesn't make any sense. He didn't give off that 'evil mastermind' vibe at all," Jasper murmured, shaking his head. "Talk about hiding your true motives... he played me perfectly."
Oliver just looked down at the metal floor, not knowing what to say.
"What was it like? Inside Fallout?" Oliver asked, trying to gently change the subject.
Jasper blinked, pulling himself out of his dark thoughts. ".... I... I don't honestly know. I was—" He let out a sudden, humorless laugh. "I was an absolute badass."
Oliver's eyes widened in surprise, and a small, genuine giggle escaped him. "Oh? Really now?"
"I'm not even exaggerating! I have absolutely no idea why, but I was insanely good with weapons. Nothing could stand in my way. Radroaches, Super Mutants, feral Ghouls? I wiped the floor with all of them."
Oliver couldn't help but smile. It sounded like whatever OC Jasper had manifested as within the Fallout universe, the system had severely buffed him all the way up. A small part of Oliver was actually relieved that Jasper seemed to have at least partially enjoyed his time in the world.
"You mentioned something earlier... about dating a Ghoul?" Oliver asked carefully, remembering Jasper's panicked realization when he first woke up.
Jasper froze. He refused to meet Oliver's eyes, staring firmly at the wall. "Y-Yeah."
"Must have been a non-feral one. Was it that Ghoul from the new Fallout TV show?" Oliver asked, completely forgetting that the Amazon show character wasn't actually an NPC in Fallout 4.
"What? No—and wait..." Jasper turned to look at Oliver, completely bewildered. "Since when was there a TV show for Fallout?"
Oliver blinked. Before he could explain, Jasper kept talking.
"It... It was Billy."
Oliver's jaw dropped. "Billy?" He tilted his head, his mind racing through the game's lore. "Wait, you mean the ghoul kid trapped inside the fridge in that one side quest?!" His eyes went perfectly round. "That Billy?!"
Jasper slowly covered his face. "For some bizarre reason, the transfer machine completely de-aged me within the world. I was physically and mentally thirteen years old again." Jasper dropped his hands, looking exhausted. "I was the exact same age as Billy."
He gestured vaguely at his own body. "I went from a 19-year-old guy here... to a 13-year-old kid in there."
"Oh... that's interesting!" Oliver said.
"I just don't understand why it felt like I lived an entire, authentic life in there," Jasper whispered, his voice trembling slightly. "I remember having wasteland parents. I remember growing up as a toddler in the Commonwealth... I remember my parents being slaughtered, leaving me to survive and fight completely alone. I remember finding Billy later on, and how we instantly clicked because we were just so desperately happy to find someone our own age..."
Jasper stared at the floor, his eyes completely hollow. "But waking up here... I remember my actual childhood. I remember my real parents. My real friends... It's like my brain is trying to process two completely different lifetimes at the exact same time." He aggressively dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. "It's just... a massive, agonizing headache."
Oliver was entirely at a loss for words. It sounded like absolute psychological torture. He was incredibly grateful that his own Avatar in Teyvat had been plagued with a billion system bugs, preventing him from ever fully immersing. The memory loss glitch had essentially protected his real-world sanity.
Jasper looked up at the glowing monitor above his chair. "But Billy... there was a note he found. He helped me decipher it. It said something about a 'node' we had to find, and we had to sneak into an abandoned bunker called Vault 111 to find it..." Jasper gripped his hair. "Oh, god... Half my brain is screaming that Vault 111 is a real, dangerous place we had to infiltrate... and the other half knows it's just the starting area of a video game."
His legs finally gave out, and Jasper slid down the side of the chair, sitting heavily on the metal floor. "I just need a minute to rest..."
Oliver watched the broken boy on the floor. Taking a deep breath, Oliver crossed the room and sat down right beside him. They just sat there in silence for a few minutes, bathed in the harsh, buzzing fluorescent light.
"I was incredibly overprotective of him," Jasper finally spoke, his voice quiet. "Maybe the harshness of the Wasteland just got to my head. A lot of the Raiders eventually caught on that a smoothskin human was traveling with a Ghoul, so they just assumed the only reason I kept him around was because he knew where some pre-war riches were buried... or something. We had Raiders hunting us up and down the entire Commonwealth and all of the Wasteland."
Oliver listened intently. "So... I'm guessing you had to fight for him?"
"I blew every single one of their fucking heads off," Jasper stated, his voice suddenly going dead and cold as he picked at a scratch on the floor.
Oliver swallowed hard, but he understood perfectly. "It sounds like you... really, truly loved Billy while you were in there."
"Yeah," Jasper whispered, his voice cracking. He violently cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure. "Anyway... who the hell is the anime guy? He completely threw me off guard." Jasper forced a weak chuckle. "I know tech is getting crazy, and dimension hopping is apparently more real then ever now, but Doc never said anything about literal cartoon characters crossing over into our dimension."
"Yeah... honestly, I barely understand it myself. Not even Venti knows how he did it, and he's completely shocked too. Unless he just doesn't wanna tell me the truth, which would be peak Venti behavior," Oliver sighed fondly. "But... he's already helped me so much, so I'm incredibly grateful."
Oliver tried to make his voice high pitched, doing a terrible impression of his boyfriend. "'A god simply cannot give away all of his divine secrets, you know!'—or whatever poetic nonsense he'd say," Oliver chuckled.
"A... God?" Jasper blinked, looking at Oliver like he was insane.
"Yeah! You have to know who Venti is, right? The Anemo Archon from Genshin Impact by HoYoverse?"
Jasper just stared at him blankly, slowly shaking his head. "I have absolutely no idea what that game is, or who that company is."
Oliver groaned dramatically, throwing his head back. "Oh, come on! Genshin Impact?! The most viral gacha game on the planet that literally took over the entire world?!" Oliver joked, laughing in disbelief. "But seriously, how do you not know it? Ugh, you are literally just as bad as August not knowing what Kingdom Hearts is!"
"I'm serious, I don't know it. It became viral?" Jasper asked, genuinely confused. "The last game I remember going viral is Five Nights At Freddy's,"
"Come on! You must have seen ads for it at least! It blew up massively during the COVID lockdowns. Honestly, the only reason half the world played it at launch was because everyone was trapped inside with literally nothing better to do."
Jasper narrowed his eyes, leaning away from Oliver. "Now what the hell is that? Covid? Lockdown? What are you talking about?"
Oliver's smile instantly dropped. He slowly turned his head to stare at Jasper, his stomach suddenly tying itself into a cold, tight knot. "Uh... you know... the global virus outbreak?"
Jasper just tilted his head, completely lost.
"You know... the massive 2020 pandemic?" Oliver pressed, his voice trembling slightly.
Jasper's brow furrowed in deep confusion. "2020? You mean... 2020 as a year?"
Oliver slowly nodded, his blood running cold. Uh Oh...
Jasper rubbed his forehead, looking at Oliver like he was speaking a different language. "Wait... is it not 2014 anymore?"
Oliver's shoulders completely slumped. His eyes went terrifyingly wide, and his jaw went totally slack. Without saying a word, he slowly, mechanically stood up from the floor. "Just... wait right here."
Oliver sprinted out of the extraction room, taking the corner so fast he almost slipped, and burst back into the break room where the others were waiting.
They were all sitting around a table, quietly chatting amongst themselves.
"Oh! Ollie's back!" Venti beamed brightly, kicking his legs happily under the table.
August turned around in his chair. "Hey!" He gestured gently to Arnold. "He's feeling a little bit better now. Well, relatively speaking. He's actually talking again." August stood up and crossed the room to meet Oliver, dropping his voice to a low whisper. "Though... he still firmly prefers to be called Richard. And he still doesn't remember a single thing about his real life."
Oliver nodded absently, his face pale. "Well, that might just take more time to heal," he mumbled.
"Yeah, hopefully," August agreed.
Before August could turn away, Oliver grabbed his arm in a panic. "August... we have a massive fucking problem."
August froze. Behind him, Arnold and Venti stopped talking, both turning to look at Oliver's terrified face.
"Jasper... I..." Oliver let out a shaky breath, his mind spinning. "I always thought I was Doctor Barclay's first experiment. But I'm not."
August narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"
Oliver swallowed hard. "Jasper... he thinks it's still 2014."
August audibly gasped, physically stumbling a step backward. "What?!" He whipped his head to look at door out, then back at Oliver in pure horror. "Are... are you sure?!"
"Yes! He literally just told me! And to make it worse, he has absolutely no idea what Genshin Impact is, and he has never heard of the fucking COVID pandemic!!"
August's jaw was practically on the floor. "Okayyyy... yeah, I was gonna say that not knowing an anime game isn't exactly proof, but not knowing about the global lockdown?!" He stared at Oliver, panic setting in. "What the hell do we do about this?"
"I don't know!" Oliver gripped his own hair. "I'm from 2023! Jasper has been asleep since twenty-freaking-fourteen!" Oliver threw a desperate hand out toward the timid boy sitting at the table. "And we don't even know what year he's from! This is getting completely chaotic!"
There was nothing they could do. The only option left was to wait for Mark to return. And, in the meantime, somehow try to break a decade's worth of lost time to a boy who just woke up, for the the first time since 2014.