D4m14n777 happens to be persona non grata in most of reddit

He's already posting, typing with renovated vigor, the only thing more satisfying than finding a new easter egg or bug is seeing his notifications pile up with karma.

He envisions his grave for a second, “Here lies D4m14n777 348 followers, 1.2 million
Reddit karma. Endured son and brother.” Woah better not to think of that anytime soon.

Aiden stares at him and somehow, through his hidden eyes, he still feels judged.

“Why do you even care that much about that stupid subforum anyways?” He says, settling down the bowls on the desktop.

“I got my account restricted in a few of the big subs, I made a stupid mistake in writing my latest AITA post.” He trails off, not particularly wanting to deal with the fallout of explaining that to Aiden.

“You just gotta learn how to communicate better bro.” He says breezily.

He stares at the mentally ill man with severe social anxiety and decides not to destroy the long hanging fruit he metaphorically is. Damien sighs out his frustration and peeks at the screen, already teeming with replies.

“Some of these aren’t half bad”

“Try a different perspective, revisit previous areas, experiment,” he lists out. “These suck.”

Aiden leans over, so close he can feel warmth and a hint of pumpkin spice.

Aiden pulls him physically from the computer and holds a piece of bread up to him, beckoning him to the bowls on the desk. He sits down to really process everything new in the storyline. The developments fresh and exciting, completely untapped new content about Sabrina.

He dips a piece of bread in the stew and eats it slowly, enjoying the savory pumpkin and chunks of half melted cheese dancing in his mouth. There’s a hint of a herb he doesn’t know the name of but is sure he’s seen in the inexplicably thriving garden on the property.

He demolishes through the rest of the stew and cleans the last of the bowl, wiping a final piece of bread across it.

He sets down the bowl.

“Thank you for the meal.”

There’s a pleasant warm and bubbly feeling in his belly he feels the need to pop.

"Hey Aiden, you said they just remade most of your game, right? Do you think I can find some old assets, textures or uhm, I don’t know, storylines?"

Aiden stares at him and again, he feels judged.

“It might be best to go back to the drawing board on that one, I signed an NDA, I can show you some stuff but it’d be best if you just figure things out for yourself.”

He starts scratching a notch on his mask.

"Uhhhh, so I’m technically allowed to share some of the original concept art. I keep thinking about posting it online, but then I get this annoying voice in the back of my head telling me that no one would actually care about my, well, let’s be honest, my chicken scratches. It’s the same with the original storyline, by that I mean the second one, the original-original one is an absolute mess. I typed out the very first draft after waking up from a pretty bad nightmare.”

Damian does his best not to picture him laying down and sleeping still inside his stupid pumpkin mask.

“It was really lifelike ahaha,” he giggles and he sounds a little manic. “I felt like I had lived an entire lifetime in those few hours. I remember every detail so clearly, even now. It was one of those dreams that leaves you feeling hollow, sweating cold and absolutely shaken. Anyways, I was in such a state when I woke up. I felt this intense need to get it all down before the memory faded, so I grabbed my phone and started typing like an absolute madman into my notes app.”

Damian’s eyes are glazing without him really noticing. There's a lot of cracks on the ceiling. Woah.

“I was still half-asleep, my hands were shaking, I'm pretty sure, as I tried to write every single thing down, it was like my brain was on fire,” he says, emphasizing the word fire. “I couldn’t stop until it was all out. I was so absorbed in writing that I didn’t even realize how thirsty I was, probably all that sweating, I know I know, gross. Anyways, I reached for a jar on my nightstand, ‘twas moisturizer. “

Aiden is staring expectantly, so Damian musters a ‘that's crazy’ and a couple ‘no ways’, until Aiden seems pleased enough.

“Back to nothing I suppose.”

“Not nothing, you got a bunch of replies on your post.”

“The guys at the forum told me to browse her interactions log, to check if she has anything weird on her chats. Another said to break into the police department.”

“I’m not sure you can do that outside of the Detective’s route.”

Damian grinned toothily, “they said and I quote ‘if he’s able to squirrel his way to the other side of town he can figure out how to break in’ or something along the way.”

“So, you’re just going to keep breaking my shoddy storylines I see.” He sighed