contains previously seen levels of gore and dark stuff, some quickly mentioned eye-related trauma;
contains another potentially triggering thing that hasn’t happened before (not sex-related); more spoilery details in this post.
Archive - AO3.
—–
Randal Starchild @xXxchildofstarsxXx
@cruorGuardian have you heard about the #demoninvasion yet????
Karkat Vantas @cruorGuardian
@xXxchildofstarsxXx YES, ON ACCOUNT OF WORKING ON THE CASE, LIKE JUST ABOUT TWO THIRDS OF THE COPS CURRENTLY IN TOWN. WHY?
Randal Starchild @xXxchildofstarsxXx
@cruorGuardian what’s going on????
Whitney Nothouston @notwhitneyhoustonsrsly
@cruorGuardian What do you know about it?
Karkat Vantas @cruorGuardian
@xXxchildofstarsxXx @notwhitneyhoustonsrsly PRETTY SURE WE HAVE SEVERAL SITES THAT REPORT ON NEW EVENTS IN REAL TIME.
Whitney Nothouston @notwhitneyhoustonsrsly
@cruorGuardian Oh come on don’t play innocent! What do you know AS A DEMON.
Karkat Vantas @cruorGuardian
@notwhitneyhoustonsrsly A GREAT MANY THINGS YOUR FEEBLE MIND WILL NEVER GRASP.
Karkat Vantas @cruorGuardian
@notwhitneyhoustonsrsly BUT RE: #demoninvasion WHY DO YOU ASSUME I HAVE INSIDER KNOWLEDGE, TURDBRAIN? I’M *ALREADY* IN THIS PLANE OF EXISTENCE. BEEN FOR AGES.
Karkat Vantas @cruorGuardian
@notwhitneyhoustonsrsly DO YOU THINK THERE’S A NEWSLETTER SYSTEM TO KEEP US POOR EXPATRIATED ASSHOLES UPDATED ON THE STATE OF REAL CIVILIZATION, MAYBE?
Karkat Vantas @cruorGuardian
@notwhitneyhoustonsrsly I KNOW WHAT I’VE SEEN WITH MY OWN PHYSICAL EYES. MOST OF WHICH THE GOOD CAPTAIN WOULD WITHHOLD CUPCAKES OVER ME SHARING IN ADVANCE OF THE INVESTIGATION.
Lola Ladiyah @LoLaLaLa
@cruorguardian hahaha oh nooo not the cupcakes!!!!!
Karkat Vantas @cruorGuardian
@LoLaLaLa WHEN THE DEMON REVOLUTION COMES YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE I WILL SPARE. (#FUCKINGJOKING #STFUCONCERNPOLICE)
Karkat Vantas @cruorGuardian
I CAN TELL YOU GUYS THAT ATM I AM BORED AS SIN, THOUGH. WATCHING PEOPLE DO ACTUAL USEFUL WORK AND BEING A GLORIFIED GUARD DOG. #yay #candycrushtime
Goku Son @andyDBZ777
@cruorguardian hey hey heyeh if u gotta kill a stray demon today can u take pics #demoninvasion
Karkat Vantas @cruorGuardian
@andyDBZ777 WOW, THAT IS NOT CREEPILY VOYEURISTIC AT ALL. ALSO NO I DON’T DO MEAT DELIVERIES.
Karkat Vantas @cruorGuardian
@andyDBZ777 I’LL ASK DAVE.
Dave Strider @turntechgodhead
@cruorguardian @andyDBZ777 consider it asked and the answer being no sorry buddy
Dave Strider @turntechgodhead
@cruorguardian i understand the yay a grossweird thing feels your followers got but geolocalization is a thing
Dave Strider @turntechgodhead
@cruorguardian also like i dont care if you candycrush it up when work is boring but you realize ppl from work follow you on here right
Dave Strider @turntechgodhead
@cruorguardian just checkin
Karkat Vantas @cruorGuardian
@turntechgodhead YOU REALIZE THOSE SAME PEOPLE CAN SEE YOU CHECKING TWITTER AND ANSWERING IT DURING WORK HOURS AS WELL, RIGHT?
Dave Strider @turntechgodhead
@cruorguardian mutually assured destruction then B)
Karkat Vantas @cruorGuardian
@turntechgodhead HUH! AND HERE I THOUGHT YOU DIDN’T LIKE ME LIKE THAT. THIS ILLUMINATES A STARTLING NUMBER OF YOUR MOST ANNOYING BEHAVIORS!
Jade Harley @gardengnostic
@turntechgodhead @cruorguardian guys theres a class 3 coming up, can you maybe stop flirting and get off twitter or should i email???
–
Five PM rolls around and Rose and Jade gather the scientists, while John and Dave and Karkat do a last perimeter check, and they all trek back out of the no-man’s-land to where they parked the cars. There are lower class demons everywhere – mostly vermin, too scared of them to approach – and at some point Professor Qing makes everyone stop to take readings as a Class One spontaneously materializes out of thin air right over the rusty circle of a manhole.
(Blahblah circle symbolism blah blah door between over and underground realms blah blah fascinating. Dave admits it was cool to watch. Sadly enough the new demon committed the mistake of being a Thief of Light while Vriska was riding Rose, so it doesn’t even make it off the manhole.)
John and Rose and Kankri take the dude professor and the dude assistant; Jade, in bright, interested conversation with Prof Qing, gets Qing’s gentle-spoken, elegant butt in the car with Dave and Karkat.
“So that I know what I’m hiding from the masses,” Karkat interrupts as Jade is distracted backing out of her parking spot. “What did you guys find out?”
No matter how uncomfortable he finds her presence – because the last time they met she was the specialist the university sent to figure out what Dirk had done to Kurloz and his bedroom – Dave thinks Qing is a pretty nice lady, because she actually tries to answer.
Karkat nods along for two minutes, and then goes, “… Translation, what you guys found was a crate full of a fuckton of the most deliciously obscure professional jargon, and you spent the afternoon cramming your mouths full with it.”
In the passenger’s seat, Dave pretends to rub at his lips for reasons that aren’t that he’s hiding a smile, while Jade rolls her eyes at Karkat in the rear view mirror.
“Well, I understood her just fine!” Jade says, snorting.
Karkat grumbles, giving Professor Qing, sitting beside him in the backseat, a personally affronted look. Qing does a Dave and presses her knuckles to her mouth, but her eyes don’t have shades on (lack of preparedness!) and it’s easy to figure out she’s grinning.
(Urgh. Yeah. He can’t not like her. Dang.)
“Yeah, well, I didn’t understand, and I blame this asshole right here–” Karkat knocks his knuckles against the back of Dave’s seat, ow, “for the inadequate language download. How come you know so little about the fabric of goddamn reality, fuckmunch?”
“Hey, if I understood the fabric of reality I might stop letting my girls mess it up on the daily, so it’s probably better for my job if I don’t.”
Qing chuckles gently behind her hand. “My apologies. To be honest there’s a lot we don’t understand about the phenomenon. Looking at the raw data will take a while. The closest models we have are the super-gates of Cairo and Beijing, but their fluctuations are merely complex, not unpredictable. It does seem like… Well. More like sudden tectonic movement than like tides.”
Karkat props an elbow on the back seat and looks up at her, head tilted in casual curiosity. “I thought you could predict tectonic movement, though.”
“Often, if there was enough equipment for long enough to build a predictive pattern, but when the tension builds up over thousands of years it’s hard to see the tip-off point coming, and if it goes all at once… well.”
“If it had gone all at once, you’d think we’d be seeing worse things, though,” Jade says as she turns to follow Rose’s car down the right avenue. They’re about halfway back to the university now. “That or the whole town would be blown up.”
Qing nods, black ponytail bobbing. “Yes, it’s very encouraging!”
“I for one feel very encouraged,” quips Dave, who’s still wearing purplish ichor tracks around his ankles and is all out of pocket watches to break.
“But we honestly can’t say anything for sure as long as we haven’t looked at the data and questioned our Seers properly. The field overview can be very misleading sometimes.”
“Gotcha,” Jade says, flicking her a grin in the mirror. “We’ll tell the boss-man not to promise the mayor the moon.”
“I’d appreciate that.” A short sigh. “One thing you can tell him is that my colleagues and I are about ninety percent sure that this is going to affect circle summoning for the duration. It shouldn’t damage contracts that are already established, but first-contact summonings really should be avoided. The ether is unstable enough that I wouldn’t trust protective patterns to work.”
Erk.
“Noted,” Dave says, laconic. Jesus, they’re gonna have to make the boss lean hard on the mayor to issue some kind of official order. The civilians have regulations too but it’s not like you need to register your intent to summon for the overwhelming majority of demon types. “You’re probably gonna end up on TV,” he says. “Scare the townspeople into flying straight for a bit.”
“Mm.”
Qing gazes at Dave in the mirror for a bit, eyes distant, thoughtful. Dave arches an eyebrow pointedly.
“The detective who summoned that Prince of Rage is related to you, isn’t he?”
Dave stiffens a little, tries not to frown. “Brother. Why?” Wait. “Oh. Shit. The circle. He’s still got baby Kurloz in his fucking guest bedroom. Shit.”
“I would strongly advise that he find a safe way to release the demon into the ether, but the circle was complex enough that I don’t…” She grimaces. She doesn’t know how. A tenured professor of demonology and she doesn’t know.
Well. It’s not like she had a long time to study Dirk’s pattern. But.
He’s pulling his phone out of his pocket to call when the radio crackles.
“Calling all units–”
Welp.
“What’s going on?” Qing asks – thankfully, after the message is complete.
“Demon incursion at Gamzee’s facility,” Karkat answers tensely even as Dave is already calling Rose to coordinate. She has two scientists in her car and –
“The Bard of Rage? Oh my. If the seals placed on him–”
“Yeah,” Dave says, and tries not to be grim. All Dispatch knew to say was that a ‘severe’ incursion had been repelled, that they were holding for now but. “Karkat can talk him down. Hey, Rose, so which one of us gets to be designated driver?”
“Oh, I could maybe help with–” Qing starts to offer, brow wrinkled in worry, and Jade grins in the mirror.
“You could pretty please take a taxi to safety? We’ll have summoners on site who can handle the resealing. I’m really sorry we can’t drive you back to the university, but –”
“A taxi, great idea,” Rose says in the phone, and her car turns into – wait, no, that street goes farther from… Oh, right, train station, there’ll be taxis.
“They’ll be safe?” Dave asks sotto voce.
“They’re all three summoners, I think they’ll manage,” Rose replies dryly. “They’re not going to be in any more danger than just about anyone else in town.”
–
They get to the edge of town and park a little ways off the facility that the government uses to monitor the Gate and the police used to stash Gamzee. There are other cars converging – Jane’s car, hot on their heels, and when Dave’s crew exits their vehicles she parks with a sudden, vicious turn of her wheel and leaps out.
There’s a baby Level Four officer with her, Sumire or something, fresh off the academy. Jane was probably showing her the ropes. (He wonders if Dirk will still have a partner when they let him come back. Eech. He’s relatively sure Jane won’t be replacing him with Sumire, she’s a newbie, but.)
“Situation?” Jane asks Rose as they creep closer to the (open; wrong) portal in the high wall. Rose looks meaningfully at Kankri, who frowns.
“You need a power boost?” John asks under his breath.
“Thank you, John, that won’t be necessary.” Kankri sneaks Karkat a look with his little eyes, his major eyes closed. Dave wonders what he’s tracking – magic?
“I am grateful and relieved to announce that the guilty party was not the Felt.”
Well, that’s something. Dave relaxes a little.
“The embodied Bard of Rage known as Gamzee is still inside. He is not…”
“Contained?”
“He is somewhat contained.” A deeper frown on Kankri’s gray face. “I think. For now.”
“Reassuring!” Jane says, before Dave can. “Sumire, wait until the signal, and then you follow me. John–”
“Taking point,” John says cheerfully. “Roxy’s not working right now, right?” He doesn’t even wait; his legs blur, become horse legs.
“You goddamn furry,” Dave mumbles at him, and almost goes flying over Karkat’s back when John playfully nudges him with all of Equius’ characteristic gentleness.
Jane is second behind John, fish scales glittering on her skin, and Dave and Jade and Rose wait until they’re given the all clear before they follow, low to the ground and guns and demons loaded. (Kankri minces in last, wings curled tight and tail raised to whip around in a hurry.)
The place used to be a farm, which means the house has a pretty big lawn.
It is littered with demon chunks. Also whole demons, fallen without any apparent damage, which Jane confirms dead in quick whispers as they pass them.
“Someone had a good meal,” Karkat mutters as he squints at a rubber-looking millipede-cat thing.
“Yeah, thanks for the jinx,” Dave mutters back, because the thought of finding a well-fed demon laired in here is not one that pleases him much. This was a veritable swarm of Class Twos and Threes. If something managed to eat them all plus Gamzee the Pain in Dave’s Ass it’ll be a real problem to clean up.
They reach the house – front door locked, so they separate in two groups and go around the back. Gravel makes it hard to keep to a quiet approach, but the windows on the ground floor are boarded up. A few thin, ornamental trees provide no cover to worry about…
“Grier!” Karkat calls out when they see him standing by the door to the courtyard, and leaps ahead like a bulldog-cricket. “Grier, are you alright? Where’s – oh. Oh, that doesn’t look good.”
The wry look Detective-Summoner Grier sends Karkat has Dave hurrying, too.
“Situation’s contained,” Grier says in his oldest old man’s voice, all gritty and tired.
Dave hops over the two steps, looks into the room behind him.
It’s a long, low-roofed room that was probably either a giant garage or a party room, all repainted clinical white and papered with seals. Containment – Dave recognizes the little folded-in corners, they’re really similar to the ones Dirk did up for Kurloz in his bedroom.
Dave can see the seals mostly as smoke trails and erupted paint, bare bricks showing darkened with soot underneath, with a few paint lines surviving here and there to give the feel of the whole design without being burdened with that pesky “actually doing something” thing.
In the middle of the room, the middle of the circle, there’s a long brown, tired couch. On the couch there’s Gamzee, sprawled with all his length on his belly. Dave’s heart skips a little, then slows down – their Probably Evil Problem Child is still here, he’s calm, he looks content.
Sitting – slumping – against the wall with her stretched-out legs almost touching the inner circle is Detective Burnett.
She’s got a guitar on her lap; she’s strumming like she has no idea what she’s doing, and humming a song under her breath that sounds like she’s making it up as she goes.
There’s blood all over her face, dripping from her nose in fat trails, from her ears; when she turns her head to look toward Karkat and Dave a red tear rolls down her face. Her eyes look weird, sunken in –
No, her eyeballs do.
It’s not just blood making wet on her face. Oh, Christ.
“Crocker!” Jade yells from behind Dave’s shoulder. Karkat leaps inside; Dave takes a few steps after Karkat, can’t bring himself to rush, to get close. Is there even still a reason to rush? Oh, fuck, he actually does want to throw up.
“The researchers are all upstairs,” Grier says from the door, and doesn’t follow them in. “All safe and sound. Not a single demon got through.”
“… Did you fucking contract to a Class Four,” Karkat rasps at Burnett, tense like he’s going to pounce. “Did you fucking contract to Gamzee.”
“Mm-hm,” she hums. Her whole body is limp; her hands shake on the strings. (Are her nails splintered? Ow.)
Well, that explains the unmarked demon corpses outside. Hellfire and brimstone, how did she plan to hold him? How did she plan to stop him turning on her and those she was protecting once he was done feasting?
Karkat hisses between his teeth, steals the words from Dave’s mouth. “That was really, really stupid.”
“Oh hey, best friend!”
As Jane races in, Karkat steps aside, then pads to the couch, ignoring he containment seals like… well, like they’re just meaningless markings now. Haha. Awesome. “Hey, you big lump. You fed enough now? She can stop?”
Gamzee pushes himself on his side so he can grin at Karkat, lazy and welcoming. His dolphin-mermaid tail curls like he’s waving; he ignores Dave and Jane going fish-scaly and the rest of them like they’re not even here. “Oh, yeah, sure. Was hells of careful so the little rage sister would not explode,” Gamzee says, “Because she all up and belongs to my brother, see?”
“… Yeah,” Karkat says quietly. “Yeah, she does.”
“A motherfucker could do with a spot of cuddles now though.”
Karkat’s body… sags, or goes soft, in a way that shouldn’t come through so clearly when he’s shelled and pointy all over. “Yeah, yeah,” he rasps quietly, “hold your horses.”
Karkat hops on the couch. Dave finds himself something to do elsewhere.
–
“Crocker? We’ve got journalists.”
Looking up from the notes she’s taking, Jane grimaces. Yeah, he feels her. Grier and Burnett have just gone off in the ambulance two minutes ago, so she’s the senior officer on the scene. Dave is kind of very glad she’s got three years on him right now.
“How many?” Jane asks, brow crinkled in unsurprised displeasure.
“Only three so far. This ain’t exactly a populated neighborhood.” They’ve got several acres of grass just around this one house, and lots of trees in between, and the next house is like five minutes away on foot and belongs to one of the senior researchers. This is barely inside city limits. Dave’s not even sure how they knew.
“Thank God for that. Sorry,” she says to the scientist she was interviewing, “I’ve got to take care of this, but Detective Lalonde will… Hm.”
Detective Lalonde is busy documenting the fucked-up Gamzee circle and humming under her breath in happy interest. John, following with his own notebook, looks up and grins hopefully.
“I heard journalists?”
“No, John,” Jane replies, sliding him an unimpressed, amused side-look.
“Aw, come on, I like talking to them and you don’t!”
“And five minutes in you’d tell them the grand heroic tale of Burnett, who bet the whole neighborhood on her ability to corral a Class Four.”
Yeah, um. John isn’t that naive, but… well, being friendly and approachable with the journalists only helps to make sure they spin it in the cops’ favor some of the time.
Meanwhile Jane does a mean “no comment”.
“I’ll come with you,” Dave says. “Stand in the background all suave and pretty.”
(That way he won’t have to catch glimpses of Karkat combing his armored fingers with infinite gentleness through Gamzee’s eldritch mop.)
(Okay, also he’s done interviewing his share of the scientists anyways, so it’s the journalists or the cadaver cleanup.)
Outside on the grass (on the side by the street, therefore in full sight of the journalists) Kankri is peering at various demon chunks, making little 'hmm!’ and 'I see!’ noises to himself, not even quite under his breath. Dave isn’t too sure what he’s looking at, but he is pretty sure that if he asked, Kankri would actually tell him. Which, he’ll pass. There’s only so much time he keeps blocked out in a day to be called stupid in entertaining ways, and Karkat is territorial about it.
Sumire has been guarding the front gate, and she stands with her hands behind her back in a posture more military than police-like; when she hears the gravel under their feet and recognizes Jane’s voice she loosens all at once, and is quick to step to the side to let Jane step up. Dave sneaks her a discreet wink behind Jane’s back and models standing at Jane’s shoulder until the girl imitates him, baby face too serious.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Jane says briskly, and Dave bites back a snort. She sounds like her uncle the good Captain. He wonders if her dad also sounds like that.
There’s only three of them – no, four, a last guy approaching at a jog with a small camera swinging from his hand. Not the big channels, thank God, but it’ll land there either way soonish.
“Detective! What happened here?” a woman asks.
“Detective Crocker–”
“Was it another gang-related–”
“It was,” Jane interrupts, “a low-class demon incursion. Preliminary reports hint that upon fleeing from the town proper they went looking for the most magic-rich environment they could find. Sadly for them,” she adds with a dry little smile, “they invaded a state research facility that contained a contracted corporeal Class Four.”
Haa, nice fudging. Dave sticks his hands in his pockets and tries to will the pack to not notice the sad, purpled state of his demon-hunting pants. At the moment they’re busy typing down what Jane just said, though.
“So how many casualties amongst the personnel?” the dude with the camera asks with a ghoulish grin. (Because of course they’ve seen the ambulance. And even if they hadn’t, well… the piles of demon chunks on the grass are kind of a nice hint.)
“None! The only casualty was one of the police officers assigned to the facility for the duration of the demon incursion. At the moment I can offer no information on–”
“Is he dying?”
“No,” Jane replies, not even sounding annoyed. “At the moment, we do not expect the life of the police officer to be in danger. I don’t have any more information than that on the topic.”
The journalists prod; Jane parries. Dave looks at the trees on the other side of the road. He thinks it’s someone’s property, but the house itself is nowhere to be seen, lost behind enough huge pines to block out sunlight under them.
“Excuse me – Detective Strider? Is that your – Karkat?”
Blink. Okay, another of the journalists has decided to switch targets. Oh well. “No, that’s Kankri, Detective Lalonde’s demon.”
“Oh. They’re very… similar.”
“If you’re having a hard time telling them apart, mine’s the travel-sized one.”
“Detective, that is an uncharitable way of putting it.” Kankri scolds him, in the tone of someone who is secretly pleased. “Karkat’s physical–”
A sudden, abrupt stop, and Dave is turning around to check on him and too bad for if that’s rude to the journalists, and–
Kankri screeches, “Strider, down!”
Space tears, a rush of air. Dave’s hand goes for his gun.
Dave is kneeling on the ground. Something punched him in the back of the thigh.
Oh, there’s blood.
There’s a crack – another crack – bullet, and he throws himself to the side, trying to get out of the open gate and behind the wall; Sumire stumbles over him as she steps backward. (People are yelling. Probably the journalists.) His leg drags in the dust, oddly weak, lagging to respond.
A flash of light in the garden, and his head whiplashes around. On the grass Kankri throws himself to the side and over a demon corpse like a startled frog. Clover is behind him, something large draped between his hands – another man, too. Clover flashes to cut off Kankri’s retreat – someone else shoots; Jane yells. Hold on until Karkat notices, Jade and Rose and John –
Can’t shoot, Kankri’s in the way. He calls on Aradia, her wheel of seasons, spring approaching in a great enthusiastic outburst with still the bite of winter on the breeze.
He calls on to her and the world breaks. His hearing skips, freezes for a little eternity, jackhammers in fits and spurts, and he can’t – Damara instead, he tries but his head is swimming. There’s a great clanging noise in his ears and there’s – there’s hands on him, touching his shoulder and his eyes were closed.
He opens them onto Sumire’s dead, surprised face, her body stretched out half on the path and half on top of the grass.
Beat. Behind her in the middle of the demon corpses Kankri is trying to fight his way out of a cold iron net.
Beat. There’s Karkat bursting at the corner of the house in slow-motion, and then he blinks and there’s Jade too –
His head is still ringing. He turns it – like moving through molasses – and it’s not Jane’s hand on his shoulder.
Yank. His heels drag past the gate. Flash of light – Kankri and Clover gone – Karkat rams the other Felt man in the ribs head first; there’s a crack. Dave still has his gun in hand.
He lifts it. There’s a streak of blood all over the barrel where he pressed against his thigh. His knuckles are wet.
Time hiccups again and for a moment he – Karkat is still racing to him, Jade kicks the fallen Felt in the jaw in passing and then he blinks and it happens again, and – slow and then too fast, did it happen different? He can’t grasp onto, can’t, something is wrong with – his mind, Latula –
They drag him through a forest of legs, all turned toward Karkat – the journalists? Wait, no, the journalists are off to the side, and –
– Jane is on the road, on all fours with blood sprayed like fine mist on the side of her face (Sumire’s), and he tries to lift the gun and it takes a whole decade, it stutters and goes back a hundred, a thousand times – wrist up, then down again – and then his hand hurts, is empty; no more gun. No more gun, no Aradia, no Damara, no–
He throws up. Someone is dragging him on his ass and heels and he throws up on his own shirt, remembers to try squirming; Karkat is coming (still so far away, why is this taking so long, minutes, hours) –
They lift him off the ground and he tries to get his feet under him (time has stopped being so wrong) and Jane stands up.
“Put him down, now,” she snaps, gun up, and –
She falls.
Face down on pavement, she falls.
(There’s another flash of light and Clover and his friend reappear and Kankri in the net snarling.)
(“Oh fuck man, he told you not that one–”)
(“Snowman go go go–”)
He can see inside Jane a bit. He can see white things, wet things that don’t make sense.
A hand (dark-skinned, elegant, signet ring) lands on his shoulder, a hand (matching, minus the ring) on Kankri’s net, and then he doesn’t even blink but he’s still blind with it, suddenly dark, dark and enclosed and damp.
He’s shoved down on his front, arms twisted back hard (not his shoulder again, fuck) (oh, Jane.) Cold hard metal around his wrists. Snick. Locked.
Lifted off his feet and shoved in – is that a truck. Back of a truck. No wonder Jade couldn’t teleport closer, the woman’s dark hands and high cheekbones are hard to stare at, her clothes feel unreal and twisting, Kanaya’s –
He can’t – he presses his cheekbone against the gritty bottom of a delivery truck and he breathes. His brain feels scrambled, he can’t think and Kankri is making these tiny, high-pitched noises of pain and his voice sounds so much like Karkat’s – a couple of his tail blades press through the net, poke against Dave’s pants near the place that’s wet and hot with pain, and…
What was even real in this whole mess in his head–
… I’m sorry, Firetruck. Dave. She died.
“No.”
I’m really, really sorry. It was real. That part was real. I’m sorry I couldn’t – I can’t even really tell what the mad trippy Time parts were about, I didn’t even – I can’t feel them any way but through your mind and I –
“No.”
No. Not Jane.
And Sumire. But he didn’t know her, she was a stranger in a matching uniform and he didn’t know her, he never crushed on her when he was thirteen and she was an unattainable, womanly sixteen, Sumire never bandaged his wounds and clicked her tongue at him and smirked, a bit awkward and a bit flattered at how subtle he hadn’t been, never put on a three-piece suit and a fake moustache for Halloween and gallantly tilted her hat at him, never invited him over for dinner and complained about her aquariums, oh shit, who’s gonna feed the fish now –
Latula, he says, burning eyes closed tight. I need to – I need to not feel this for a little bit.
… You got it, firetruck.
He breathes out.
Okay.
Jane is dead.
Kankri is caught. Karkat was left behind.
It’s gonna start to hurt very soon. Dave brings up lava cool like blood, ruined fortresses, broken places that have lived, monstrous hearts that still try to beat.
I order you to stay with Rose, he thinks – visualizes, Karkat and Rose, Karkat patrolling around Rose, obeying Rose, not coming after him. Dave is bait and hook all in one and the least he can do is not tear Karkat’s mind with the need, the old standing order to be at Dave’s side, or at least in hearing distance.
The truck floor trembles and roars under him. He opens his eyes, takes in what he can see. The windows are darkened but light still gets in. There’s a Felt member in with them, maybe two, leaning against the back doors.
Also, Dave’s ankles are tied together. He’s not sure when that happened. Was kind of – distracted.
“Kankri, status,” he asks, turning his head to face him. (His shoulders ache. He’s not sure if either one of them popped out again.)
Kankri is curled in as much of a ball as he can, entangled in iron wires, his arms around his head to shield his face. When he peeks out over his elbow with a single red eye Dave sees his soft, fuzzy cheek charred dark in long crisscrossing lines, and then his horn catches in the net and he inhales hard through his nose, startles back like he’s been shocked.
“My right wing is broken,” he says through gritted teeth. “Tail tip–”
“Hey, be quiet,” one of the Felt mooks interrupts, nudging Dave in the knee. It makes his other leg move and the wound spurts, he can feel the blood spreading along the line of his thigh against the floor. He’s not even sure if he wants to say anything. A bandage would be nice but for all he knows they’ll kick him in the wound hoping it’ll make Karkat come faster.
He tries to meet Kankri’s eyes, but Kankri has burrowed in his own arms again. Shit. He really wants some kind of team behind him right now, and Kankri is all he’s got–
“I don’t need to look at you with my eyes,” Kankri whispers between gritted teeth. “Consider eye contact established.”
Dave snorts, mouth quirking into something he’s not sure he would even call a smirk. The mook snaps, “Hey.”
He allows the truck to rock him, eyes closing again. His brain pulses in pain, a deep, weary ache, and his leg feels brightly raw from hip to knee, even though he knows the wound is a lot smaller than that. His hand, too, where someone tore the gun out of his fingers.
Also he’s chest down in a bit of his puke.
Gonna burn this fucking outfit.
Latula?
Yes, she replies promptly, serious. I’m here.
Yeah. He still has Latula.
No intel for you right now but if I get any, can you ask Mituna to run it to Bro? Hopefully he’ll know to call the cops and not come charging himself…
I’m… not sure Mituna feels really good today, Latula says, and if she were human she’d be chewing on her lip pretty good. But I’ll ask.
Bro will pay him.
You should know better than to promise Mituna’s price sight unseen, Latula chides him gently. Especially in other peeps’ name.
… Yeah, he does know better.
Okay, then I will. In a circle and everything. I’ll sit my ass down and draw the best pattern I ever drew. It’ll have as many dicks as he wants it to have.
Haha, now that’s a bit 'Tuna’s speed. Okay, I’ll see what I can do.
He feels better now. Less alone. He’s got a line of communication; a chancy one, but…
A while later – maybe five minutes and maybe fifteen, his sense of time is still fucked up – darkness comes back and they dip down into probably an underground parking lot. Kankri moans very quietly – his wing getting jostled, probably. Dave isn’t sure he wants to see the break; what does it look like inside, like a crab leg? How do you even start to fix that by hand, without any Life demons?
(Shit, who are they going to ask to heal them now that Jane is dead. He presses his face against the gritty floor, eyes scrunched closed; Latula smooths down the spike of feelings until the hurt is gone.)
The truck stops, opens. Dave is rolled onto his side, onto his thigh; lights bloom under his eyelids. He doesn’t warn them when they pull him up that he’s gonna throw up again.
“Oh, urgh.”
“Carry now, clean up later – huh. He’s been bleeding like a stuck pig.”
“Hell, my clothes.”
“Yeah, dead loss by now.”
He is moved, almost gently, across some tall dude’s massive shoulders. His head is swimming, his sight keeps blurring out, it’s a pain. He cranes his head back as the guy starts to walk, sees Kankri pulled onto a trolley, net and all.
Looks like a private parking lot; they’re not bothering to close the truck, with the dark puddle right in the middle. Or hide Kankri. Or Dave.
“Hey, where’s Velize?” the dude not carrying asks the rest of the room.
There’s an odd moment of silence, and Dave stiffens, just a little, ears pricking.
“Mister Velize won’t be coming,” a new voice says – Dave starts to crane his neck some more but the brick wall carrying him generously turns in the right direction.
It’s a guy in an immaculate business suit, a surprising bright green button-up shirt underneath. He is bald like an egg, even though he doesn’t look that old. He doesn’t look young, either, it’s hard to judge. Behind him is the black lady – Snowman – that Dave met that one time on the roof. No shadows to hide her face now, but Dave can’t spare a second to fix her in his memory; the bald dude is standing by Kankri’s trolley and Kankri’s eyes are wide open and staring at nothing, like he’s desperately trying to stay still and not make eye contact lest he attracts the guy’s attention.
“Mister Velize was warned beforehand that Ms Crocker was not disposable, and disregarded that.”
Dave’s heart spasms, his guts clench on a scream that won’t come out. Latula blankets it all under scales white like snow.
“I’m afraid we do not need people who cannot retain basic instructions in this organization,” the man says as he walks slowly to Dave and the mountain under him, hands behind his back like the douchiest, smuggest philosophy teacher Dave has ever heard of, “now less than ever.”
They’re going to kill him the second they can. No way they’d tell him they’re approaching endgame otherwise.
The man’s dress shoes ring sharp on the cement floor as he does his considering shark approach, and one last time as he stops, almost in arm’s reach of the mountain.
“Permit me to offer you my condolences” falls from his lips and Dave’s dim, damp world briefly goes white.
“Yeah, thanks,” Latula says with his mouth, as rage closes his throat on a wordless snarl.
That… fucker. That fucker.
Jane. Oh god, Jane.
Let me talk to him, he thinks, even as he knows he really, really shouldn’t. (Even as he knows that if he tried she couldn’t stop him, but Latula is right, Latula is really right.)
Vetoed, sorry, Latula plays along, too gentle.
“You know where to bring them,” the bag of douche says, turning away, gathering Snowman (the second or third in command of the whole organization) to him with a single wordless, casual glance.
The good little Felt minions re-start their trek to the elevator and whatever lies beyond. Tied hands and feet, Dave doesn’t even bother to fight it.