Chapter Text
Karkat tried to gather himself, very confused after the flurry of visions still swirling around in his head. John looked almost as befuddled as he did, definitely taken off guard by what he’d said.
“Terezi? Uh, why do you need to see her? I mean we can go sure, it’s no problem but maybe you should rest for a minute first,” John said. Karkat pushed himself back to his feet, feeling quite a bit more rundown than he had been before falling asleep. He guessed the weird involuntary powers still drained him even if he didn’t want them in the first place. It was pretty fucking unfair but there wasn’t much he could do about it right now.
“I’d rather just get this over and done with,” Karkat said when he told him he should take a rest first. John was probably right, but he was already starting to feel a bit more together. Karkat was still shaken, but it was more from just everything going on in his head than any actual problem. Concern was still clear across John’s face, but after a moment he nodded despite his reluctance.
“If that’s what you want to do, we can go right now if you’re sure. It’s still dark, we can go check to see if she’s at her treehouse,” he said and Karkat nodded.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” he agreed, starting out of the RV and letting John lead the way.
“So uh, what exactly just happened? It was like, just another dream right?” he asked and Karkat nodded once again, running a hand through his hair as he remembered the multitude of visions. Just another dream was putting it lightly.
“Yeah, one fucking hell of a dream,” he grumbled. John was looking at him, clearly wanting to ask what it was about but not. “It seemed kind of personal, I don’t think I should tell you anything before talking to her,” he added. John nodded, not putting up any sort of argument on that.
“Oh yeah of course! I totally understand,” he said. They continued in the direction of Terezi’s tree house, and Karkat hoped that she would be there. He kind of hoped she wasn’t there at the same time though. He wasn’t sure what he even wanted to ask her about with all of this, but he was pretty sure he needed some answers. Or at least, some more answers for the ones that were unceremoniously dumped onto him.
“I guess before we get there I can at least ask you if you’ve even hear of the bullfuckery I was just put through,” Karkat said after a long stretch of silence. It didn’t hurt to try to see just how much of what he found out was common knowledge after all. John seemed intrigued by that, quickly nodding.
“Yeah sure, so what exactly is it?” he asked.
“Have you ever heard of a hunter named Jacob?” Karkat asked back. That was the center of it after all, if he didn’t know who he was then Karkat wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. But if he did know then that would help reduce a lot of the explanation for when they finally did explain. From the thoughtful look on John’s face, it seemed like he at didn’t know much, if anything at all.
“No, I don’t think so? I mean I don’t know a lot of the hunters names so I could. What does he look like?” he asked. Karkat figured that was fair, he didn’t seem to know the actual identity of most of them, which Karkat couldn’t blame him for. He didn’t want to just start talking to and getting all chummy with the fuckers who were trying to blast his soul out of existence. Just the bare minimum interaction he’d been having with them so far was more than he was comfortable with.
“Uh, black hair, tan, glasses, moustache? I mean he’s dead now, no idea how long ago it was though, but like, a while I guess?” Karkat explained. A small frown etched its way onto John’s face and after another moment he shook his head.
“No, I don’t think I’ve ever met a hunter like that before. Maybe he died before I became a spirit?” John suggested and Karkat nodded.
“Yeah, I think that’s probably the case,” he said. At this point they were starting to get closer to Terezi’s tree house and Karkat figured they should stop talking about it until they were actually with her.
Walking up to the tree, Karkat wasn’t quite sure what to say to get her attention. He wasn’t even sure if she was here, but he figured he should at least try since they’d walked all this way. Before he could make up his mind on what to do John was calling up for him instead.
“Hey Terezi, are you here? Karkat wants to talk to you, I think it’s pretty important,” he said. That was the best way to go about it honestly. No senseless beating around the bush.
In a blink Terezi was on the ground in front of the, only amusement and playful curiosity on her face despite the stress of the last few days. Karkat was pretty sure now that a hell of a lot of it was an act. A damn good act, but an act none the less.
“Oh really now? Well then, what did you all manage to screw up this time? I have to say you’ve managed to get into more of a mess than most of us do when still so young,” she said. It was pretty clear from how she acted that she had no idea what Karkat was actually here to talk about, because he doubted she’d be so cheery if she did.
“I know about Jacob,” he said after a moment, not sure how else to put it. She definitely understood though, her whole presence changing so drastically it was scary. The easy sharp smile on her face dropped away in an instant, her expression cold and scared. Karkat opened his mouth to continue, not even sure what he was going to say but it didn’t matter because he didn’t get a chance. In the next second she’d managed to grab him and pin him against a tree. John shouted something out in confusion that Karkat couldn’t hear over Terezi.
“Who told you? Was it Vriska? Jane? It had to be Vriska. Damn it, what the fuck does she think she’s doing digging all of that up at a time like this?” she asked, sounding angry and confused. The bloody leaking eyes were fucking intimidating up close, and Karkat quickly started shaking his head.
“No, fuck, no one told me,” he tried to explain. It didn’t look much like she believed him. Her expression was still fierce and focused on him, completely ignoring John at this point.
“That’s not something you just know,” she growled, digging her sharp clawed fingers a bit deeper into his shoulders.
“It was a fucking dream, I have some sort of power okay? I don’t understand it and I don’t even fucking want it I just know shit and I’d like for it to stop but I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon,” Karkat quickly explained. That seemed to surprise her a bit and before she could say anything John was speaking up as well.
“It’s true! He did it to me a while ago, he just woke up and started talking about the first time I met Vriska but I never told him about that. It’s not his fault,” he said. Terezi slowly took a deep breath, letting go of Karkat and taking a step back.
“What did you see?” she asked, her voice still cold as fuck. For someone usually so full of emotions it was damn right scary.
“Everything?” Karkat said hesitantly. Before she could say anything to that he continued. “I mean, obviously not everything, I don’t think that’s even possible but like, a lot. A hell of a lot. I saw you talking to him when he died, and like, what you promised him, and stuff,” he said. The next thing he knew Terezi was on him again, but the shout John started to give was cut short at the sharp burst of pain in his head and the teleportation taking them to some far off corner of the forest.
When his focus cleared Terezi wasn’t right up in his space again. Instead she had backed a few feet away, giving him a bit of room to breathe. He guessed he didn’t need to breathe, but it was still appreciated because before he was halfway convinced she was just going to fucking end him where he stood.
“Did you tell John? What you saw?” she asked and Karkat shook his head.
“No, fuck I’d assumed it was pretty personal shit. The only thing I did was ask if he’d ever heard of a hunter named Jacob before but he hadn’t so that was it,” he explained. Terezi nodded, still drawn in on herself, obviously thinking as she started pacing back and forth.
“Okay, okay. That’s not the end of the world, we can work with that. So you just see shit? Out of fucking nowhere?” she probed and Karkat wasn’t too sure how to answer that one. He’d been trying not to think about it that much, but he guessed that wasn’t entirely accurate.
“I mean, so far it’s been people I know. I guess it’s also been like, sort of related to what’s going on? Maybe? Like when I ate I had a vision about one of the times John ate? And when I met Vriska afterwards I saw the first time John had met her? I’m not sure what anything recently had to do with what I saw, other than the fact that you’ve been helping this hunter like you said you would,” Karkat tried to explain. It still did not make much sense to him at all, but that was as much of a theory as he could make. Terezi was nodding like she at least sort of understood, so that was a good thing for now.
“And you just saw the last time I spoke to him? When I made that promise?” she asked and Karkat reluctantly shook his head.
“No, uh, like I said I kinda of saw a lot. I’ve never had one that long or jumping around like that before,” he said.
“What else did you see then?” she pressed.
“Just like, the first time you met him I guess? And then just random stuff in between? The time he shot you, um, some time when he got his arm fucked up by Vriska? When you found out he had a kid? Just like, weird little things like that,” Karkat told her. She seemed pretty disturbed by that, and Karkat couldn’t blame her. He’d be freaked out too if someone was looking into his personal memories and shit.
“You can’t tell anyone. About any of it. Not the smaller visions, not the promise, nothing,” she said, her voice firm and definitely not fucking around. Karkat knew that he should just go with it. She was way fucking stronger than him and could kill him on the spot if she wanted to. Of course he couldn't do the simple thing though, he never could just take a demand lying down.
“Look, I’m not going to go telling anyone about anything that might have been weirdly going on between you two, but like, who’s fucking side are you even on? I get not wanting to kill them because they’ll retaliate but that doesn’t seem to be the actual reason why you’re doing this,” he said.
In the next instant Terezi was looming over him. She wasn’t even taller than him, but somehow her presence was so much fucking larger and Karkat was starkly reminded of the fact that she was hundreds of years old, even if she didn’t look it.
“Listen to me. I understand that you’re new. This is all scary and you’ve somehow gotten access to a lot of information that you weren’t ready for or in any way entitled to have, but you do not get to decide who knows what here or what the best solution to this problem is. You don’t know anything about what’s going on here,” she growled, her voice ominous with a cold anger. It made him know more than ever that he needed to back down, which is exactly why that’s precisely what he did not do.
“I know I don’t know shit okay? It’s pretty fucking clear that I’m out of my element and I shouldn’t have even survived this long but guess what I’m still around and if you’re going to risk everyone because you got some unfinished issues with some hunter you fell in love with. I’m not going to just fucking lay down and let the few people that actually aren’t completely awful get fucked over,” he snapped.
“I did not fall in-” she started to argue before cutting herself off, deflating a bit with a long sigh. “Was it that obvious just from some weird choppy visions?” she asked, her voice uncomfortably raw. Karkat shrugged, digging his foot at a root by him.
“Yeah. I mean, I’m kind of good at picking up on that kind of shit so don’t stress out over it I guess? I’m not judging you for that or anything. Like, shit happens I guess and I’m sorry that it ended fucking awful for you but blinding yourself with that isn’t a good idea,” he said, and Terezi let out a laugh at that. “What?” he asked, not too sure what it was that set that off.
“Blinding,” was all she said, and it took a moment before it clicked and then Karkat felt really fucking stupid.
“Oh, right,” Karkat said, feeling kind of awkward about that. At least it seemed to have cut some of the tension a bit, Terezi looking less angry and worried. She sighed heavily after a moment, rubbing at her temples.
“I wouldn’t care if you judged me anyway, but thanks for that I guess,” she started. Karkat figured that yeah, she wouldn’t particularly care what he actually thought about any of this, which was nice. He wouldn’t want her to care about his opinion. It wasn’t technically any of his business anyway.
“I’m not letting any of that change the situation though. Yes, I made a promise to keep them alive if I can, and I’m following through with that promise. It doesn’t go against anything I’ve already told you either, alright? Did you see me stepping in before it was absolutely necessary? No, just when John was beyond reason. Do you think things wouldn’t have gotten even worse if he’d actually went and killed that hunter? None of this contradicts with what I told you before,” she said, and he had to admit she had a point.
“Well, I guess you’re right about that. Shit would have been fucked, but still,” Karkat tried to argue, but he wasn’t even sure what ground he had to stand on. Terezi was making sense, and even though he was having a fucking hard time believing that everything he saw had no effect on what she was doing now. It did at least seem like she was trying to be level headed about it.
“But what? I’ve been at this for a long time, longer than you can imagine. I know what I’m doing here,” Terezi insisted, her voice cold again. Karkat wasn’t sure what else to do here. He kind of had a feeling that just leaving it all like this would be a bad idea.
“Alright fine, yeah you have a way fucking better idea about all of this than I do. I’m just trying not to die at this point, and let’s be real here. I’m going to fail at that at some point sooner than later,” Karkat said. Terezi didn’t try to assure him that he wouldn’t get killed, and Karkat was almost grateful for that. At least they could accept the reality of the situation.
“Are you sure you’re like, alright though? I know it isn’t any of my fucking business, and hell I’m not even sure how long ago it was. Maybe you’re completely over it by now, but it seemed like some pretty fucked up shit,” he asked. Once again Terezi actually seemed taken off guard by that, but after a moment she seemed to relax, looking almost like she wanted to laugh.
“Well, if you must know it was a little over twenty years ago when he died, but that’s not important. I’m fine,” Terezi told him, and somehow Karkat had a hard time believing that. A lot of the distress she’d shown before was almost completely gone now, and there hadn’t been any indication before this that something was wrong. Still, if she said she was fine then there wasn’t much he could do about it anyway.
“Okay then, uh, we should probably get back to John I guess? Unless you have anything else you need to tell me about this before?” Karkat said. Terezi seemed to think for a moment to make sure that she wasn’t leaving anything out.
“I mean it when I say you can’t tell anyone about what you saw. I’ll explain to John when we get back. If I find out this information got loose I’ll know who it was that leaked it. Jane hasn’t told anyone yet, I doubt that would change,” Terezi said. Karkat nodded, definitely not about to start rumors about this and completely enrage some ancient powerful spirit.
“That’s not going to be a problem, don’t worry,” Karkat told her. He frowned a bit as a thought came to him. “How’d you manage to keep Vriska from spilling all this?” he asked. That actually got a laugh out of her, a dark, cruel laugh.
“Trust me, once the aftermath was over Vriska wasn’t telling anyone if she knew what was smart,” Terezi said. Karkat was left just a little bit speechless. This was what, the second time it seemed like she’d been able to bend Vriska to her will.
“Are you sure you’re not the stronger of the two? Because it’s really looking that way,” Karkat asked. The twisted joy was back in her face and somehow that was almost reassuring. Seeing her all wild genuine emotions before was somehow scarier than her regular act.
“I’ll give her that it’d be a tough call between us, how about that?” Terezi said. Karkat was still pretty sure that she was downplaying herself, but it didn’t matter.
“Alright then, let’s just get back to John,” Karkat said. Terezi nodded and once again Karkat felt himself get caught up in the teleportation.
“Oh shit! Uh, are you both okay?” John asked, quickly coming over to where they had appeared. Terezi shifted to go lean against a tree and Karkat stayed where he was, John now at his side.
“We’re fine, just had to have a little conversation in private, it’s fine,” she told him. It was pretty obvious from the look on John’s face that he didn’t quite believe that. Karkat could see him giving him a little once over to make sure nothing was wrong.
“It worked out okay, some of the shit I saw was private but it’s not a big deal,” he said. He wasn’t entirely sure if that was true or not, but it was close enough.
“So uh, can I know what all this was about at all or is it off limits?” John asked
“Don’t get all impatient. It was just about a previous hunter, since he’s dead it’s not much of a concern and I’m not sure why Karkat would have had these visions. Since he was Jane’s brother we’d put a bit of a special exemption on him to try to keep him alive if we could. Vriska had gone against it and it had been a bit of an issue at the time, but that’s all done with now,” Terezi explained. John seemed pretty surprised by this, but slowly nodded.
“Oh uh, alright. I guess Vriska does kind of make bad decisions about killing hunters sometimes, and I think I remember something about Jane having a brother when she was alive?” John said.
“Probably, she doesn’t talk about it much,” Terezi said. John nodded once again, still looking a bit awkward.
“So,” Karkat spoke up, figuring that changing the topic around now would be a good idea. “I don’t know shit about this whole powers thing but you two seem to have pretty decent control over it. Is there a way for me to not have involuntary invasive visions of people’s pasts?” he asked. John looked a bit relieved for the change of topic and thought for a moment before shrugging.
“I have no idea. I mean, my wind thing can kind of kick up without me meaning to sometimes, but that’s just if I get upset or emotional or something. I don’t know about weird dream things,” he said before looking back over to Terezi. “Any ideas?”
She didn’t say anything for a moment, just seeming to think the whole situation over. Karkat would much rather her focusing on that than anything else right now. “I haven't heard of anything like this before, sorry. Controlling your powers when awake, that’s simple enough, you just have to figure out the trigger and work with that. While you’re asleep though? That seems harder,” she said.
“Just thought I’d give it a shot,” Karkat said with a sigh. He hadn’t expected either of them to have much of an answer for him anyway. “I guess we should get going or something,” he added, still not sure if they should actually be hanging around after all this. There was still enough time left in the night to get back to the RV, or at least somewhere that wasn’t here. Karkat wasn’t picky for which one they went with. John didn’t seem to be either, quickly nodding.
“Yeah, uh, sorry for bothering you, thanks for the help,” he said, looking like he just wanted to get out of here already, and Karkat couldn't blame him for that. Terezi just smiled at the both of them, not looking the slightest bit bothered over what had happened earlier.
“Not a problem, come back if you ever have any more probing personal questions,” she said. Okay maybe she was still a little bothered.
It didn’t take long to get out of the forest, both of them walking pretty fast once they got a decent distance away from Terezi. As soon as it seemed like they were safe John started speaking again.
“Was that really everything? Are you sure you’re okay? That had been so weird, I’ve never seen Terezi look like that before,” he asked and Karkat had to keep himself from just spilling everything. He had a strong feeling going back on a promise with Terezi would not end well in the slightest.
“I’m fine, she didn’t do shit to me. I’m not sure why she was all freaked out like that. It was pretty much everything she’d said to you. I guess there was more than that she wasn't telling us, but that was all I was able to get out of her,” Karkat lied. It didn’t seem like John noticed though, nodding and looking thoughtful.
“Well, Terezi always is pretty inscrutable. I guess we could always ask Jane? She said that hunter was her brother. Or Vriska,” John suggested. Karkat couldn’t help but make a face at the idea of asking Vriska.
“Er, I don’t think that would be a good idea. Jane I mean is probably fine, but we should leave Vriska out of this,” he said. John didn’t look convinced, frowning slightly.
“I know you and Terezi don’t like her that much, but maybe she had a good reason to kill that hunter guy. Has anyone actually thought to ask her what happened?” he said. Karkat guessed he should have expected something like that from him.
“John, he was an old man when she killed him, I’m not sure he was even actively hunting anymore. I don’t think he could have been all that much of a threat, as powerful as she is,” Karkat said. That seemed to deflate John a bit, which was a good thing. He figured Terezi couldn’t quite blame him if John went off and did his own thing, but he’d still like to keep this to as few people as possible.
“Oh, really? That’s so strange. I know Vriska can be brash and impulsive sometimes, but she usually has a reason for doing things like that,” John said. Karkat just shrugged, and he had a bit of an idea about what that reason might have been, but he wasn’t going to bring it up. That would involve explaining way too much of what he’d seen. He liked John and it would have been nice to have someone to talk to this about, but he was just way too close to Vriska. There was no way he could be certain he wasn’t going to go back to her with this stuff.
“Whatever it was, it was between them, and over like twenty years ago. It’s best to just leave it be,” he said. Slowly John nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said. The two of them kept walking back towards the RV, the light just starting to shift from dark night to the faintest shades of blue and pink signaling morning. Karkat hadn’t gotten many answers, but he supposed it was enough for now.
---
Thankfully the incident with trickster didn’t seem to bring too much notice to Dave. Sure, they weren’t happy with him fighting the spirit by himself, but it hadn’t pissed anyone off the way it did the last couple of times he’d done shit without permission. That was all Dave could ask for now. If he got in much more trouble he was pretty sure mom and bro would start to actually look into seeing if they could fire their own kid.
Everyone had seemed a bit too busy and tried to care about it as long as he wasn’t dead. Dave was more than willing to take the small scolding he’d got, not about to push his luck after all that. He made sure to tell Rose that this was pretty much the last thing he could do for a while to help with her whole investigation thing. He still wanted answers. He wasn’t any less confused about all this as he’d been five minutes ago, but he also wasn’t an idiot.
He didn’t know why Redglare had saved him, he didn’t know a lot of shit that he wanted to know. He had no idea what her motives could have been. As much as he didn’t want to though, he had to be patient and wait for some of this shit to blow over. Or at least wait until proper hunts were up again and running so that things had at least a semblance of normal back. Besides, it wasn’t like he couldn’t use a bit of a rest.
It was still frustrating, feeling like he wasn’t being much help. He tried to ask Roxy about what everyone was working on and if he thought things would be back to normal soon or not. She definitely didn’t know the answer to the second question, but she had vague ideas about what everyone else was doing.
Some of them were still looking for ways to help Aradia. Dave hadn’t gone back into the room where they were keeping her in a long time. Roxy assured him that she still looked healthy, they were doing everything they could to keep her stable in that regard. Still, the idea of it was unnerving as fuck. He figured he could always see her again when they got her woken up. That was the important part after all, he was sure she’d agree.
Dirk was working on something tech wise to supplement the void shields, which seemed like a good idea to Dave. He didn’t understand a lot of it and it didn’t seem much use if they already knew where their stuff was. He guessed they always had the option to move the base if this ended up working well. They could stand to move every couple of years just to be safe anyway. Sure, he was still of the mindset that if some of them had wanted to take them out they would have had the chance by now. They could never be certain that something wouldn’t change with that though.
Besides, thinking like that was getting much too comfortable with the idea that they were somehow safe against the spirits, like there was some reason for trust to be there. He knew that was a fucking slippery slope and he wasn’t falling down that trap. At least not any more than he already had.
Yeah, it was definitely a good idea for him to not mess with the info gathering and talking to spirits and stuff for a while. It was getting way too familiar. He didn’t want to get killed because he was an idiot who let his guard down at the wrong moment. Some of these spirits were fucking ancient after all, there was no reason not to think they were just playing some sort of long game.
Whatever, that wasn’t shit he should be occupying himself with right now. He was trying his best to just enjoy having a bit of time off and not having to worry about all the spirit bullshit. He seemed to cause more harm than good when he tried to do shit that didn’t involve just swinging his sword around at the nearest target. It was hard to resist though. Shit was just a little bit stressful after all.
Right now he was just trying to distract himself, in his room training a bit. At the very least after all this he knew that he shouldn’t slack off while waiting for everyone else to get back in order. He didn’t stand a chance against Trickster on his own, and he was one of the weaker spirits. Sure, they almost always hunted in groups but that didn’t eliminate the chance of running into a spirit on his own.
It would be better if he had someone to train with, but everyone else was busy right now. Maybe he’d text Nepeta and see if she was doing anything tomorrow. Equius’ arm should be just about healed by now too, and neither of them had much to do with all the magic side of the business. Plus he hadn’t seen either of them in a while, it might be nice to catch up and have something else to do.
He was just about getting bored with training when the tip of his sword caught onto the back of his desk chair, sending it clattering to the ground. Dave flinched as several things fell off of the desk and shelf nearby due to the crash. At least no one else was home right now to ask what the fuck all that was. This was the reason why they were supposed to train in the basement or on the roof instead of in their rooms.
Picking up all the bullshit that’d fallen down, Dave nearly missed the round white ball that had fallen down and rolled underneath his desk. He’d forgotten all about it for a while there. Reaching back and grabbing it Dave walked over to his bed and sat down, staring at it for a moment.
He felt kind of like an asshole for taking it. It wasn’t like he was stealing it though, if Aradia woke up he was definitely going to give it back to her. When, when she woke up.
It was getting harder to believe it was going to be a when though, the longer it went on for with absolutely no change.
Rolling the ball around in his palm, Dave wondered if it was something magical. That’s what most of Aradia’s little knickknacks seemed to be after all. Maybe it was some sort of crystal ball? That seemed reasonable, although he had no idea how to use those and didn’t particularly want to anyway. He guessed he could always ask Rose, she would probably know after all.
“Show me Redglare,” Dave said, wondering if it took voice commands. Magic freaked him out a bit, but at least a magic ball seemed harmless enough. At the very least it didn't seem like it would suck his soul in never to be heard from again.
There wasn’t any reaction from the cue ball, staying just a plain white orb in his hand. “Uh, Terezi?” he tried instead, wondering if maybe her actual name would help. There wasn’t any reason he wanted to see her particularly. She was just the spirit that came to his mind first and might be the least mad if she somehow figured out he was trying to spy on her.
Still no response, and Dave was starting to figure that it didn’t work that way. He couldn’t even be sure it was magic, maybe it was just some junk she’d gotten and hadn’t had a chance to clean out yet. Shrugging, Dave went and put it back up on his shelf where it’d been originally. He could ask Rose later if she had heard of Aradia having any weird magic cue balls in her room and if it was dangerous to have around.
The rest of the day was uneventful, and by the time Dave saw Rose again he’d forgotten about asking her about the cue ball.
The next day Dave had just about as much to do as he had the day before, which wasn’t much. Pulling out his phone, he sent Nepeta a text.
TG: hey you or equius free today
TG: bored as shit and figure were all getting rusty as fuck just sitting around doing nothing
AC: :3< aw, I wish we were
AC: :3< Equius’ family has something fancy thing happening and he’s making me go
TG: that sucks
TG: hope you aren't tortured too much with snobby rich people talk
AC: :3< thanks dave!
AC: :3< we can spar tomorrow though fur sure!
AC: :3< if I don’t purrish from boring rich people first
TG: good luck with that
AC: :3< I have to go now, Equius wants to do my hair
TG: later
Well, that was a bust. He guessed it made sense that Equius would actually take the time off to do shit with his personal life and all that. Nepeta was just dragged along with it, even though Dave knew that she’d much rather be training than sitting at some fancy old people dinner party. It was whatever though, he could figure out something else to do.
TG: rose
TG: rose im bored
TG: save me
TT: I’m afraid you’re going to have to battle this formidable foe yourself.
TT: I’m a bit busy at the moment, and as I recall you asked to be kept out of any current undertakings in the foreseeable future.
TG: just the illegal ones
TG: well not actually illegal but like illegal in the sense that id get my ass handed to me if anyone found out
TG: i mean also the literal illegal ones too but youre not doing anything with that
TG: i hope
TT: I am not doing anything illegal.
TG: okay cool
TG: but yeah if its actually something mom and bro want or know about im good
TT: Is that so?
TG: why do i suddenly regret everything
TT: I have absolutely no idea, I haven’t said a thing yet.
TG: no but youve also said enough
TT: Would you like to come into the base or not?
TG: yeah yeah you fucking witch bastard ill be right there
Dave pushed himself up from where he was lying on his bed, picking up his sword before starting towards the base. After everything that had happened recently he’d just figured he needed to keep at least one weapon in him at all times. They’d done that before but now it was just even more drilled into his head.
Thankfully nothing had happened on the way to the base. Over the past few days things had been peaceful, but that didn’t mean shit couldn’t come crashing back down at any moment.
Once inside Dave headed back to Rose’s office. He didn't bother to knock on the door before heading inside, flopping down on an empty chair. Rose didn’t even flinch as he came in, barely acknowledging his entrance at all. Dave wasn’t sure what else he expected.
“Equius drug Nepeta to some fancy person party so I don’t got shit to do,” he said, watching Rose just nodded, still not looking over in his direction. He tried to see what it was she was working on, but it was small and hard to make out from over where the chair was. Not bothering to stand up, he started pushing the chair closer to her desk, it making horrible scraping sounds as it scratched across the floor.
“Is that necessary?” Rose asked, already sounding a bit fed up with him.
“Completely and entirely,” Dave answered easily, pushing the chair a few more inches forward for good measure, just being an asshole. “So what’s up?” he asked, now able to get a closer look at what Rose was working on. It looked like she had that weird black liquid out from the last time he’d seen her working on something. She had a little eye drop and was putting the smallest bits of it into another bottle half full with some weird grey dust.
“Nothing you’d be particularly interested in, but I’m sure there’s something else here that you could be some use with,” Rose told him. Dave wasn’t too sure what she had in mind, but at least it wasn’t whatever voodoo she was doing right now.
“Like what? I mean yeah I’ll do pretty much whatever right now, as long as it isn’t any of your special projects,” Dave said. He hesitated for a moment, casting a look towards the door before continuing. “Uh, how is all that coming by the way? Like, you haven’t done anything else since then right? I’m trying to keep out of trouble yeah, but like if you do shit I still wanna know about it so that I can save your ass,” he said.
“I don’t think that’s particularly something you need to worry about. I can save my own ass just fine,” she said.
“Well yeah that’s obvious, but still,” Dave said, resting his head on the edge of her desk. Rose rolled her eyes but she didn’t seem particularly annoyed, continuing with her weird little magic task as she spoke.
“I haven’t done anything else yet, don’t worry. I’ll make sure to give you a warning whenever I do. So far I’ve just been trying to look into Casanova since you hadn’t been able to find anything on him,” Rose told him, Dave sat up a little and nodded.
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that. Did you manage to find anyone that matched?” he asked. There was a small frown on Rose’s face as she shook her head.
“No, I’m afraid not. I’d wonder if perhaps we were given a fake name, but that seems unlikely since Sugar’s turned out to be a solid lead,” she said. Dave just shrugged and sat his head back down.
“Yeah, it’s weird. Maybe he just wasn’t anyone important enough to keep records of. It was like almost a hundred years ago or something, right? He’s been around for a while,” Dave said. Rose nodded, seeming to finish up with dipping the black ink in the dust and starting to cap and swirl the bottle around. Dave watched as the grey dust congealed and turned a weird tinted purple color.
“Not quite that long, but yes I suppose that’s always a possibility,” she said. “Either way I haven’t done anything dangerous. I’ve hadn’t a lot of time to dive into anything anyway. It’s most likely for the best though, I think you have a point in taking some of this slow and carefully,” she added and Dave nodded.
“You know it’s serious shit when you don’t want to go diving head first into it,” he said, only partially joking. Despite even himself thinking of Rose as the smarter twin a lot of the time she could have even worse impulse control and make even dumber moves than him. She could just twist her way out of her bad decisions a bit cleaner than he could at times.
“Of course,” Rose said, not seeming to take any offense, not that he expected her to. “Thank you for asking though. I’ll make sure to let you know when I’m going to do something, even if you aren’t interested in helping me,” she added.
“You know as well as I do that as soon as you’re going to fling yourself into the arms of some fucking soul devouring monster I’m coming along,” Dave told her. At this point Rose had swirled all six little glass bottles, each one full of this weird purple sludge now. She smiled the slightest bit at what he said.
“Well, thank you for that, your support is much appreciated,” she said. Dave just shrugged, leaning back up and stretching his arms up above his head.
“Okay then, awkward sibling support out of the way, what is it that you want me to do here?” Dave asked. Rose seemed to think it over for a bit and Dave wasn’t sure if it was her genuinely trying to figure out what he should do or if it was just an act to keep him waiting for an answer. Either way a few moments later she did finally answer.
“I believe I remember Roxy saying she could use some help with her current project,” she said at last. Dave wasn’t sure how to feel about that, frowning a bit as he tried to remember what it was Roxy could have been working on.
“What exactly would I be getting into here? Seriously, is there even anything going on right now that I can actually help with?” Dave asked. Rose didn’t seem particularly worried by his questions, picking up the little bottles she had and putting them over on a shelf.
“If Eridan can help then I’m sure you’re also quite capable of doing something,” Rose told him. Dave wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be offended or complimented by that.
“Well yeah, but he actually likes magic,” he said. Rose shrugged, not seeming to care one way or the other what he ultimately did.
“If you don’t want to do anything with it you don’t have to. I just thought I’d offer the option since you’re oh so bored,” she said. Dave thought for a moment, considering the circumstances. It was Roxy, if he didn’t want to do something she’d probably tease him about it but in the end she wouldn’t force him to do anything. Shrugging, he pushed himself up from where he was still leaning against the desk and started towards the door.
“Fine, I guess I can go check out what she’s doing, I don’t got shit to do otherwise,” he said. Rose just made a small noise of affirmation and then Dave was out of the office with the door shut behind him. Not waiting any time to end up changing his mind, he started right down over to Roxy’s own office and knocked on the door.
“Yeah?” her voice called from inside, sounding somewhat distracted.
“I’m bored and Rose said you were doing stuff,” Dave called back, figuring that was a good enough explanation. He could hear a bit of shifting going on inside. The sound of something falling and smashing and Roxy coughing and cursing quite loudly came before she finally answered him.
“Right cool, uh, could you just go grab a broom before you come in real quick?” she asked, and Dave couldn’t even make himself feel surprised at that.
“Sure thing sis,” he said walking back out to the main room, finding a broom locked away in some old closet none of them ever used before heading back. He didn’t bother knocking before heading in this time. He instantly put a hand over his mouth and nose once the door was open. A strange smoke was curling up off of a spot on the floor and started to billow out of the room.
“What did you do?” Dave asked, not moving further inside just yet. He didn’t know what this was and he wasn’t about to get himself magic poisoned or some other nonsense.
“Just dropped a thing, it’s totally cool,” Roxy reassured him. She was waving her hand around to try to clear some of the smoke before heading over to him and taking the broom. Dave did follow her a bit further into the office this time, watching as she started pounding on the thing causing the smoke with the broom. It started to subside, leaving only the broken glass behind.
“Well, that happened. So what’s up?” she asked, now starting to just sweep the broken glass up and into a pile. Dave made sure to leave the door open, letting the remaining smoke start to clear out of the room.
“Uh, not much, was just talking to Rose. What exactly was all that?” he asked.
“I was just working on a thing for mom, it uh, it’s not done yet,” she said, and Dave nodded. Pretty much all of the smoke was gone at this point and he took that as a sign that he could chill a bit, pulling out a chair and sitting down. Roxy didn’t join him, going around the room and gathering some stuff up.
“Well, looks like I gotta start from scratch now. Side note that has nothing what so ever to do with any of this, remind me to tell Dirk to get me some stronger bottles. Maybe some made of metal? Or plastic? Eh, plastic might melt though, but you can’t see through metal. I guess just thicker glass then,” she said. Dave had a bit of an idea about what might have happened at this point and nodded.
“Yeah sure thing, bigger, better bottles put down on the shopping list,” he said.
“Thanks, now I just gotta see how much of this stuff I’ve got left,” Roxy said. Dave couldn’t make out what a lot of the ingredients she was pulling out were, and he had a bit of a feeling that it was best if he just didn’t know.
“So uh, just what are you working on? What are any of you working on? Seriously I know there’s not much to hack and slash right now but if feels like I’m the only one that doesn’t got shit all to do,” he asked. Roxy actually stopped gathering up all of her little ingredient things at this point to turn and speak to him.
“Dave, if you ever want something to do you know you can always ask. I’m sure we’ll be able to find something,” she said. Dave just shrugged, because he was sure that was true. There was usually enough junk people were putting off that they could put him around to doing, it was just that none of it would be particularly riveting.
“Well I guess I’m asking. I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’ve been dreading every passing second the past couple of days, the break was nice as fuck. Still, getting bored and feeling kind of clueless about what’s actually going on. I can never be sure if Rose is actually giving me a straight answer after all,” he said.
“Probably not,” Roxy agreed. “Well, we’re mostly just working on the void shields and keeping Aradia stable. I’m trying to look and see if there might be any other methods none of us know about to try to help her out,” she explained and Dave nodded. He guessed that made sense, those were pretty much the biggest things going on right now still.
“Hopefully you find something,” he said, unable to keep himself from being worried once his attention got turned back to Aradia. It just felt like it’d been so fucking long now since it happened. It seemed like they’d done through every option they had to help her. He guessed Roxy must have noticed a change in his expression because she started smiling sympathetically at him.
“We’re not going to give up on her, don’t worry,” she said, and Dave just nodded. He wanted to believe that, and he didn’t see Roxy as a person to give up on anyone. Hell, even if like Rose and Dirk started thinking that it would be best to just end it, they were both so fucking stubborn that it’d take a hell of a lot to get them to quit on a project like this that they’d been working on for so long now.
“Yeah, I know,” he said at last. Roxy smiled at him again and there was a short moment of awkward silence. Eventually Dave started speaking up again, figuring that changing the subject definitely couldn’t hurt. “So uh, how’s the void stuff going? Rose is working on that I think?” he asked.
“Yeah, her and Dirk, so they should have something figured out pretty damn soon,” she said and Dave couldn’t help but nod in agreement. It could be fucking scary when those two teamed up.
“Yeah, they’ll come up with some magical robot void sentry or some shit. Damn thing’ll be sentient and have tentacles,” Dave said, only partially joking.
“Don’t give them any ideas,” Roxy said, and Dave nodded. Even if they weren’t doing that if he said it they definitely would rework all their current plans into making it into exactly that. “But if you wanna help out I’m about to head to the store cause I gotta replace some of this junk. Come with me?” she added. Dave shrugged, figuring he could do at least that.
“Yeah sure, why not,” he said, waiting a moment for her to gather her things. Once that was done he followed her out of the office and down the hall out of the base.
On the way to the store Roxy explain what she needed and Dave didn’t have a clue how magic worked, so it didn’t mean jack to him. Still getting there and grabbing what Roxy wanted went without any sort of problem. It was kind of nice to relax with her. Shit had been so fucking busy lately Dave didn’t get much time to actually hang out with any of his siblings. Sure they weren’t your typical big joyous family and their way of bonding involved a lot more swords and guns than typical but they were still family. Plus he got alone with Roxy the best out of all of them by far.
They were walking back and Dave was telling her about how poor Nepeta was being dragged to one of Equius’ boring rich person parties when he noticed Roxy’s eyes train on something behind him and she stopped walking. He immediately stopped as well, not turning to look behind him yet.
“What’s up?” he asked, speaking much quieter than he’d been before. She didn’t take her eyes off of whatever it was she was watching in the alley as she answered.
“Sugar,” she answered, talking just as quietly as he had. Dave’s hand twitched towards his sword, but he didn’t quite move to pull it out yet.
“Should we go or…?” he asked. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be getting into anymore bullshit but if someone who was known to be semi reasonable was with him and decided to go for it they couldn’t blame him. Roxy chewed on her lip as she seemed to think the situation over for a quick moment before answering.
“We should at least see what she’s up to,” she said and Dave nodded, slowly turning and moving over to the edge of the alley. He stayed right outside of it, watching as Roxy moved to the other side, attempting to keep hidden from the spirit as well. Slinking along the back wall low to the ground Dave tried to get a bit closer without being noticed. It actually seemed to work for a moment since Sugar was facing away from him. That just left the problem that he couldn’t actually make out what she was doing.
Getting down behind the edge of a trashcan he tried to peak out to get a better look. He just managed to catch sight of her facing something on top of a dumpster when that something’s head swiveled towards him and he was left stunned at the sight.
“Well fuck, looks like we’ll have to put this hells of interesting topic down for a fresh second and pick it back up off the dirty ground when shit’s a bit more private. I’ll leave this to you.” Dave could feel his jaw drop as that weird fucking robotic rabbit from before talked. Before he could do anything about it Roxy was jumping out of her own hiding place, gun already drawn.
“What the?!” she shouted, noticing the weird ass rabbit for the first time as well. Okay, guess that confirmed this thing was definitely a spirit. Probably. Why the fuck was a spirit looking like a goddamn animatronic bunny?
Dave drew his sword as Roxy fired several shots, a few at the rabbit and some at Sugar. The rabbit dodged them easily, it was a small target and fast. It hopped off of the dumpster and before Dave could turn his head it’d scurried down the other end of the alleyway and out of sight.
They were still left in the alleyway with Sugar though, who’d turned towards the two of them, not looking amused in the slightest. A dark little frown was on her face. From the look of annoyance it seemed like they might have interrupted something important.
“Is there only two of you? I’m terribly sorry but I’m quite busy lately and I don’t have much time to deal with the whole lot of you right now,” she said. Neither of them said anything back, Roxy firing another round of shots towards her, Dave striking out when she attempted to dodge the bullets. His slash didn’t hit, but one of the bullets managed to. A frustrated noise came from the spirit at that.
“I don’t think you all quite understand the mighty mess that’s been made of everything lately. It’s in your best interest to stop all this pointless attacking for the moment,” she said. Dave kind of figured she had a point. It wasn’t their fault that shit’d got fucked lately, but he did think that attacking her right now was kind of pointless. There was no way that the two of them were strong enough to take Sugar on their own. Roxy didn’t seem to give much of a crap about that though, reloading her gun before firing off another round.
“You hunters are always so needlessly stubborn,” she said, and Dave tried to attack her when she rushed towards Roxy. He managed to get a clean slash into her side but it didn’t slow the spirit down any. In the next instant she was behind Roxy, grabbing her and tossing her towards him. Dave just managed to move his sword out of the way so that he didn’t accidentally impale her. They both went crashing to the ground though.
Untangling themselves from each other, they didn’t manage to get back on their feet quite fast enough. Looking around the alleyway was empty again except for the two of them.
“Damn it,” Roxy snarled under her breath. Dave walked over to where he tossed his sword, picking it back up and putting it back in its sheath.
“We should get back to the base and tell everyone else,” he said, frowning at the thought of that weird as fuck rabbit. “So that thing is a spirit I guess,” he mumbled. Roxy nodded, although she didn’t look like she was paying him much attention. “Uh, you okay? She didn’t end up hurting you or anything did she?” he asked. Roxy quickly started shaking her head, a smile back on her face that didn’t quite look completely genuine.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. Just uh, did anything about that rabbit guy seem familiar to you?” she asked. Dave frowned, not sure what she was talking about.
“Uh, it’s the same rabbit we saw while we were in the woods right? I can’t imagine there’s a lot of weird robot ghost rabbits around. Unless you mean something else,” he said. Roxy still looked like she was trying to figure something out, piece it together in her mind or something. It was weird as fuck, but he figured he could bother her about it once they got home.
“No, it’s probably nothing. You’re right, it’s definitely the same one. We have to talk to someone about this. I’ve never noticed a spirit like that on our radar before, it’s strange that it hasn’t gotten picked up yet. If it’s been around at least from when you first saw him to now we should have picked up something,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s really weird,” Dave agreed. Brushing himself off a bit more, he was starting to get tired of all this weird ass ghost shit. “Let’s head back before anything else freaky ends up rearing its ugly head. I’m just a magnet for this shit at this point,” he said. Roxy nodded in agreement, an amused smile on her face. It still didn’t look quite real, but it was a hell of a lot better than the strange concerned expression she’d had on before.
“Yeah, let’s get back to the others,” she said. Walking back, Dave figured that he should stop asking for shit to get less boring. His request almost always seemed to get answered.