#it's been a good year spamming fanart of the nerd

[rainsonata]

A Boy and His Cube

Fandom/Shipping(s): Elsword, none Rating: K Word Count: 1,477

Summary: It’s hard to get work done when sharing a house with five other people. Arc’s fascination with Apocalypse is enough to make Mastermind reconsider if teaching his younger self was a good idea.

Christmas gift for a friend.

Mastermind sat cross legged on the sofa as he took a long sip from his coffee mug with his eyes strained on the monitors. Wrapping himself with the wool blanket from his room, he refused to be caught wearing those ugly Christmas sweaters Psyker was so proud to show to him with a matching pair (“We can be twins!”) as he cackled at his own joke. Never was he so horrified to put up with the brawler’s stupid humor. 

With five other occupants in the house he shared with his counterparts, it was a rarity for the scientist to have the living room to himself. The only sound audible outside of the music playing from Dynamo was from his keyboard as he typed away. After yesterday’s dungeon run with Esper and Psyker, he wanted to input his data before making important decisions on updating his weapons again. He moved to the next line in his report when he heard a crash from the room next to him and stopped.

Closing his monitors, Mastermind threw off his blanket with some reluctance and was met with cold air that made him wish he didn’t leave his seat. When he poked his head into the room next door, he was met with a set of identical magenta eyes belonging to Arc, who was having a staring contest with Apocalypse. The cat cube hissed at his younger self as it speeds over to where Mastermind was to hide behind the scientist.

“What are you doing?” Mastermind ignored Apocalypse nudging itself against his leg for attention.

“Nothing,” the Arc Tracer said with an innocent smile.

Mastermind squinted at Arc. Did he have to install a security camera in the cat cube to monitor what his younger self was doing when he turned away? To answer the rhetorical question, he already did.

Despite his complaints of never having the sufficient time to get through all his personal projects, Mastermind did make time to run through the recordings every now and again. Part of it was curiosity in seeing how long it would take Arc to break through the protected codes he gave him when they first met. The reason why he decided to monitor Arc in the first place was because-

“Unlocking Apocalypse from the back of his ears won’t work,” he said

“What?” Arc looked away when Mastermind hid his amusement with a stoic facade.  The tracer mistaken the expression as disappointment and said, “Why would I want to unlock Apochan?”

A loud snort erupted from Mastermind with the scientist covering his mouth. No longer able to control himself, he leaned his head over as he laughed at the nickname Arc gave to the cat cube. Apocalypse meowed at its shortened name, peeking from behind Mastermind to steal a glance at Arc before hiding again.

It took a minute or so for Mastermind to regain his composure and look at Arc again, stopping himself from chuckling at his younger self’s worried expression.

“You can’t take it apart,” Mastermind picked up Apocalypse and held it against his chest to scratch it behind the ears. The cat cube vibrated with a soft purr in content, its ears laid flat against its head.

“I want to see how it’s built,” Arc protested when it became clear that Mastermind didn’t believe his lies. “Give me the codes.”

“No,” he gave Arc a stern look. “That’s what the files I gave you are for.”  

When they first met, the brat demanded this too, not even a proper introduction of who he was, where he was from, or why he was here. Codes, codes, Esper, codes. The files he gave Arc were meant to unlock when the tracer found a way to break through the password protected archives. With his laziness however, Arc seemed to spend more time talking to Psych and playing with his toys than putting effort into the help Mastermind tried to give him.     

Maybe Psyker was right, he was beginning to sound like a parent with all these lectures and talks he had had with Arc. Mastermind frowned at the thought of being someone’s father, but pushed it away. Was this really the time to think about that topic?   

“I’m still working on them,” Arc complained. “It won’t listen to me when I try to test it out and you have passwords for your passwords! Don’t you trust me?”

“No.”      

“But I am you!”

“That’s exactly why I don’t trust you,” Mastermind said. “Harassing my inventions aren’t going to get you answers”

Impulsive, ambitious, and no shame in digging deep into things to satisfy his own curiosity. Give the tracer one set of codes and the brat would demand for another. Arc was already forming poor sleeping habits because of his influence and his hair was getting longer if not for Psych reminding him for the occasional trim. He was more like Mastermind than what he was comfortable with. The house didn’t need two lazy scientists.

“Why did you even give it emotions?” Arc eyed the cube, who sank its weight into Mastermind’s arms to glare at the tracer. “It doesn’t need that to function.”

Of course it isn’t, Mastermind scowled. It happened because of his attempt to install a personality core for it to emulate a cat, preferably the aloof and destructive side of them. While it displayed the desired personality traits when assisting him in battle mode, it had a cuddly side that appreciated sitting on his lap and demanding attention when it felt ignored for too long. It was a glitch that only seemed to exist when it exited battle mode and left to idle around his lab.

“A little accident,” Mastermind shrugged and held up the cube to see it tremble when it saw Arc staring at it. “It can still fight, so no reason to change what already works. Look at it, you’re giving it anxiety.”

Arc looked at it with guilt visible on his face. Aha, so he did have feelings other than being smug and whining to him about research. Reaching his hand out to the cube, he let Apocalypse look at it for a few seconds before petting it with an apologetic smile.

“Sorry, Apo.” He scratched behind its ears. Apocalypse’s concerned expression was replaced with content with it chirping when it heard its nickname. Arc asked, “If you won’t tell me about Apo, can you give me a hint at least for the codes? I promise I’ll help you next time with an experiment!”

He said he would come, but how much help would he be? Mastermind mused his options of letting his pupil snoop around his lab again with his consent. It wasn’t a bad idea if he was being honest. Better than leaving the tracer alone to his own devices and growing bored. Besides, it’s been a few weeks since Arc last came to him for help on cracking the new set of codes he gave him. It wouldn’t hurt to nudge him a little bit to the right direction.  

“No plans with Psych tomorrow?” Mastermind raised a brow when he thought about those two and sometimes Time tagging along for their own dungeon excursions and gods know what trouble they were up to outside the house.

“I said I would help,” he insisted. “Tell me when.”

Placing Apocalypse back to the ground, Mastermind let it fly off to another room, probably in search for the bubble wrap Esper dropped in the living room. He crossed his arms and with a sly smile, “Tomorrow morning after breakfast. Don’t forget to wake up.”

“And you’ll wake up?” Arc asked with sarcasm.

Mastermind grinned, “Who said anything about that?”

Arc dropped his smile and snarled at the word ‘morning’. Both were aware how bad they were with mornings and waking up at noon wasn’t an anomaly, but he didn’t expect Mastermind to subject himself to that. He had a feeling Mastermind would take an early nap to wake up at 4am and stay up until morning before passing out again later that day.     

The tracer glared at Mastermind, “Fine.”

Mastermind slapped his younger self on the back, “Then it’s settled. See you tomorrow~”

“Asshole,” he overheard Arc grumble when the tracer left to go back to his own business.

The scientist chuckled, “Glad to help.”

Even if it meant having to wake up early like a normal human being, having someone to talk to in his lab was something that didn’t happen enough and it was almost enough to make Mastermind eager. When he found Apocalypse occupying the spot where he sat earlier today, he tried coaxing it away, but it remained there until Mastermind joined it on the opposite side of the sofa. Opening his monitors again, he went back to where he left off before he was rudely interrupted by his younger self. 

[blackwolfartz]

Hi there! I just wanted to tell you that your Puzzleshipping art is SO AMAZING and so lovely and wonderful and I love it so much (and I love your ponytail!Atem just 'cause he looks even more like a lovesick dorky nerd) and I just wanted to thank you for sharing your art 'cause it's so lovely!!

Thanks for this message, I really appreciate it. I have been extremely inactive in the fandom for..almost a year? I don’t remember honestly, it’s been a while. I’ve had issues that kind of drove me away that I haven’t talked about in full detail and I kind of just buried them and am trying to find my passion for all this again. But getting your message made me happy and you don’t have to apologize at all for spamming me, please feel free! A lot of my older stuff is starting to show up in my notifications again and I’m happy that people are still enjoying my work.

I’ll cut myself off here before I get all emotional and word vomit for several paragraphs. But have an Atem in Ponytail and jewelry as a thank you for giving me some good feelings about my yugioh fanart today~