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Your name is Dirk Strider and you’re tired and hungry and exhausted and, oh yeah, basically homeless, when Roxy tells you about Jane.
“She’s a-lookin’ for a roomie,” Roxy grins, pushing her French fries your way. “Just needs someone to sign the lease with her and help her pay the rent.”
“That’s a problem, Rox,” you remind her, inhaling the fries without looking. “I don’t have a job, remember?”
“You’ll get one, though,” Roxy waves her hand. “Trust me, it’s no biggie to Janie, not for a few months, at least.”
You slurp your Coke and eye her from behind your shades. She’s the picture of innocence, chomping on a wad of gum the size of her fist (her new addiction now that she’s finally kicked the alcoholism) and winking—wonking—at you every few minutes.
“It’s a reeeeeally good deal, Di-Stri,” she says, sing-song.
Well. It’s certainly better than nothing.
“Set it up and make it so, Ro-Lal,” you shrug, leaning back in your seat and enjoying the feeling of food in your belly again. It’s been far too long, you murmur silently to your food baby, caressing it like an expecting mother.
==>
You haven’t actually seen Jane since high school, six years ago (man, are you that old already?). She’s still short and curvy, but there’s a leanness to her you can’t explain and a turn to her smile that you can’t figure out. She doesn’t mind at all that you don’t have a job; in her own words, she’s still got more than enough funds in her account left over from the share of the infamous Crocker fortune she was able to get away with before she was disinherited.
“So I’m a trophy roommate?” you tease.
“Only if you’ll also agree to be my date to family functions now and then,” she giggles back.
The apartment she’s looking at is so domestic it makes your skin crawl: hardwood floors, window boxes, and French doors opening onto a tiny balcony patio. She falls in love with it. You’re not entirely immune from the insides-melting power of her wide, bright grin. It’s not so bad, even if it only has one bathroom. Fifteen minutes later you’re signing the lease alongside her, a feeling of trepidation in your gut that doesn’t entirely overbalance the relief of having a roof over your head again.
Moving in is an interesting experience; you find out her dad died a few summers after graduation, that her little brother John got shot and moved away with his troll girlfriend, that she’s been hopping from friend to friend and living rough, like you, since the fallout with the Batterwitch. She learns that you and your own little bro aren’t on speaking terms, that you gave up a lucrative desk job to try and open a robotics store that folded, that more often than not you’ve been sleeping in strange beds, and once you entered an interspecies fighting ring and came away with missing teeth and a broken nose and no jackpot.
She’s making cupcakes when you get out of the shower, the warm vanilla scent straightening out that knot in your back that’s been there for a few years now, just a little.
“Jane,” you tell her as you reach for a cupcake, “I’m gonna try to find a job here soon, but I—”
Her phone goes off, and the voice on the other hand is incomprehensible and loud enough to shatter an eardrum at fifty paces. She asks a few questions, hangs up, and looks at you with a very wide, very unstable smile.
“Mr. Strider,” she says, “how would you like to help me solve a murder?”
Well…sure.
“What do you mean, solve a murder?” you ask in the cab.
“I mean, the police call me when there are murders they can’t figure out, and I solve them,” Jane replies, fitting a filthy fedora over her short curly hair. “John and I did it together, before…um…” she goes quiet, coughs, and fixes the deranged smile on again. “I thought it might be a fun distraction!”
“Fun” is a relative term. The detective in charge of the case is a short, nubby-horned trollbag of thinly-veiled rage and disappointment with a profanity-printed wrapper, though the presence of a weeping human child seems to be keeping the cap on the troll’s language. You can still hear it, in the echoes of his pauses and hems and haws.
“Who the—who’s this?” the troll grinds out, glancing at the kid and back at Jane.
“Detective Vantas, this is my assistant for the day, Dirk Strider,” Jane says cheerfully.
“What happened to John?” Detective Vantas grunts, glaring you down in a way that makes you wonder if he looks at everyone like that or if he’s hate-flirting with you.
“John…went with Vriska,” Jane says shortly. Detective Vantas bites off another curse and instead spits on the ground.
“If he’s anything like Dave Strider, I’m kicking you both off this case so fast your heads won’t have time to stop spinning before I get a restraining order on both of you,” Detective Vantas hisses. Well, that explains the glaring. “I mean it, Crocker, one Striderdouche peep out of him and your sorry glutes have a one-way ticket back to the Karkat Vantas’ List of People Who Are Not Allowed Within a Two-Hundred-Yard Radius of Me or My Precinct. Is that clear?”
“You’re being overdramatic,” Jane sighs.
“I’m being considerate of my blood pressure,” Detective Vantas grunts. “Come on, then.”
The crime scene is a bloody mess. If you weren’t a Strider and therefore master of the poker face you’d probably be out there with the kid, wheezing into a shock blanket. There are pieces of what you presume was the kid’s mother strewn from one end of the room to the other, and unsettling clown-themed pictures painted all over the walls. Jane goes stiff.
“Vantas,” she says softly, “what am I doing here?”
The troll pretends he hasn’t heard her and starts naming off details. “Jessica Bennet, 32, human, single mom living with her son. The kid found her coming home from school. We can’t get any—”
“Vantas,” Jane says again, more urgently.
“—kid doesn’t know anything,” Detective Vantas continues, voice louder, “but from what we can tell she was working for a PI agency—”
“Karkat,” Jane barks. The troll goes quiet.
“What,” she says evenly, “am I doing here?”
Detective Vantas looks at her, and it’s like a little kid looking back through the baggy eyes and overcrowded fangs.
“You can’t honestly tell me you didn’t know who the culprit was the second you stepped inside,” Jane says. “I told you, I don’t want anything to do with him or who he works for. Why am I here?”
You’re lost, thoroughly lost, and the smell of the blood is starting to make you feel woozy. You think you’re probably entitled to a bit of queasiness, since you can’t stop looking at a dismembered arm in the corner.
“Because,” Detective Vantas says, voice more calm than it’s been in the few minutes you’ve known him, “I need your help finding him.”
“We did find him, remember?” Jane says bitterly. “Him and his stupid bosses. Or was it some other woman you know who was keeping John’s heart pumping while you took your sweet time letting the stupid clown get away?”
Detective Vantas’ snarl is back, the fiery red of his pupils looking, if possible, even brighter.
“You are the complete—idiots,” he hisses, “who went in with no backup!”
They glare at each other. You cough.
“Not to break up the pity party,” you say, “but a kid lost his mom. Can we focus here?”
Bright blue and red eyes snap towards you, then look away. Detective Vantas continues his briefing, while Jane treads carefully across the room.
“Any footprints?” she asks, voice brittle.
“No prints of any kind that we’ve been able to find, not even in the fingerpaint on the walls,” Detective Vantas replies. “The method is all…him…but the cleanup is too precise. Hence, why I’m forced on bended knee to humbly beseech your assistance, Crocker. Please note the godlike levels of humility I’m stooping to here.”
You just watch Jane work. You’re not at all sure why she thought you would be useful here. You’re not a gumshoe or a detective, you’re not a genius or a Sherlock of any kind. You’re a twenty-four-year-old loser with a collection of cheap swords and inappropriate handicrafts. And you’re definitely about to hurl.
“I’m gonna step out,” you say, though it doesn’t appear Jane or Detective Vantas heard you. You shrug and go to find the bathroom.
Once your cupcake breakfast of champions is swirling down the toilet and you can’t taste the bile anymore you nose around to…check for clues, or something. Man, you’re not good at this. The extent of your detective training is Scooby-Doo and that one pony book you made Jane way back in middle school. It’s rare for a Strider to be out of his element. You’re a misplaced atom swirling around in the vacuum of space.
You walk into what appears to be an office. There are crayon drawings on the walls and a flurry of papers everywhere—pictures and case files, looks like. She did work for a PI agency, after all. Jane and Detective Vantas are apparently arguing about something back at the crime scene, but you ignore them. You’re snooping.
There’s a single bookshelf mostly packed in with children’s books, and a filing cabinet overflowing with files. Did she work for herself, you wonder, or was she just the work-from-home type of lady? She had a son, after all. Her laptop is still on her desk and nothing looks like it’s been disturbed, which strikes you as odd. Her attack likely didn’t have anything to do with her work if nothing’s missing…but to know if anything’s missing, you’ll need an expert.
You walk outside and make a beeline for the kid in the back of the ambulance. He’s not crying anymore, but he has a sort of shell-shocked look in his eyes which you can relate to. Every cop on the scene saw who you came with; they leave you alone.
“Hey, bud,” you say quietly, squatting a good distance from the kid but on his level. “I’m—I’m with the police.” By proxy. Not necessarily a lie. “Are you up to answering a few questions?”
He stares at you. “You don’t look like a policeman.”
“I’m a special kind of policeman,” you reply. “If something was taken from your mom’s office, would you be able to know what it was?”
He hesitates, but nods. You pull out your phone. You aren’t stupid enough to let the kid back into the house, not with his mom in pieces, but you are just smart enough to take some pictures of the office to show the kid. He takes your phone and looks at the pictures, brow furrowing, and a little nub of something you thought you’d gotten over once Dave said he didn’t need you anymore nudges you in the chest.
“Her binder’s missing,” the kid says.
“What was in it?” you ask.
“I dunno,” he shrugs. “I think—I think it was a really big case.” His eyes fill with tears. “Is…is that why…?”
He starts shaking and hyperventilating as he gives you your phone back, and you’re chased away by a mama bear paramedic who puts her arms around the kid and glares at you like you’re the one who killed his mother. You step off and go to find Jane.
Her and Detective Vantas are still arguing about something or other when you clear your throat.
“Yes, Dirk?” Jane asks, interrupting Vantas mid-rant.
“I just talked to the kid,” you say, and before Vantas can puff up and explode you hurry on. “I showed him some pictures of the mom’s office. He says she has a big binder that’s missing from there.”
“What sort of binder?” Jane frowns.
“He thinks it was for a case she was working,” you say. “I dunno, maybe it’s in another part of the house, but I thought it might be worth looking into.”
“Dirk, you’re a peach,” Jane beams. Alright…maybe you’re not totally useless. “Detective Vantas, what agency was she working for, specifically, that would have alternative records of the case she was covering?”
“She was mostly self-employed,” Vantas shrugs, “but from what we’ve been able to uproot she was an outpost of a private investigator-slash-bounty hunter company downtown.”
“Text me the address,” Jane says, and she’s making for the door. “You guys will have your hands full with cleanup, I imagine.”
“Sure, whatever,” Detective Vantas sighs, scratching his hand through his hair. “Keep me updated this time, would you?”
“As if I would do otherwise,” Jane winks. “Thank you, Detective! You made the right decision bringing me on!”
“Don’t make me regret it more than you already have, Crocker,” he yells, but the two of you are already out the door and striding down the street.
“Hungry?” she asks briskly. “I know a good place for lunch.”
==>
Strangely enough, you still aren’t quite hungry by the time you make it to a little café Jane’s fond of, but she’s apparently voracious, working through a sandwich and bag of chips faster than you tore through the McDonald’s Roxy got you a week or so ago.
“What now, Jane?” you ask.
“Well, now we go to the office—”
“No,” you interrupt, “to the kid.”
She pauses.
“I don’t know, Dirk,” she sighs. “He probably has some extended family that’ll be willing to take him in, but as for his mental and emotional state, he’s going to be hurting for a very long time.” She swallows a sip of her soda. “The best we can do is give him some closure by finding out who did this to him.”
“You and Vantas already seem to know,” you point out.
“We have a theory,” Jane says shortly. “I wouldn’t worry about the full details, not until we’re positive we’re dealing with…well, let’s just say, when it’s important, you’ll know.”
“Jane,” you frown, but she slurps down the rest of her soda and throws the tray in the trash.
“Let’s go, Dirk!” she says, voice high and cheery. “The game’s afoot!”
You’re pretty sure she picked that up from one of her lame old movies, but follow anyway, gut twisting in a way that’s snarling up your sense of calm and setting your teeth on edge.
Jane isn’t telling you something, and you have a feeling it has to do with a lot of things she doesn’t like to talk about. Like her brother. Who apparently got shot? What happened to the sweet Jane Crocker who cringed at your violent movies back in the day?
The agency is run mostly by a bunch of carapacians, scuttling to and fro from desk to desk and talking in high-pitched voices. The lady in charge has a nametag that merely says PM and a dog-print vest pulled on over her glossy white exoskeleton. You let Jane break the news and do all the talking, watching the other little workers. Now and then a troll or a human will walk through. When you turn your attention back to PM she’s crying, covering her mouth and shaking.
“Oh, no,” she sobs, sinking into her chair. “Oh, that’s awful! And poor little Benjy…”
“We need the cases she was working on from the last six months,” Jane continues, not unkindly. “Benjy said a binder was missing from her home office, a big one.”
“Oh,” PM says, at once becoming frosted over, “that.”
She gets up, still wiping at her eyes, and makes her way to the only unoccupied desk in the building, stacked tall with files. These guys could seriously use some organization. PM rifles through the folders, then pulls one out that’s about the size of your school discipline record, now that you think about it. Massive thing, full of tabs and sticky notes and loose-leaf paper. She hefts it in her hands for a minute, then passes it over to Jane.
“This case was her life,” PM says, voice like ice. “Worked on it incessantly, every time she got a free moment. It edged closer to vigilante work, now and again, but so long as she met her quota I didn’t mind her using company resources to work on it. The man she was investigating needs to be taken down, anyway.”
“Why not just leave it to the cops?” you ask.
“That’s not how Jessica worked,” PM shrugs. “This case was very personal to her.” She sniffs, and Jane is in the middle of mouthing her goodbyes when PM’s hand closes over Jane’s arm.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Miss Crocker,” PM says quietly. “If anyone can close that case and solve Jessica’s murder…I know you’re the one to do it.”
“I’ll give it my best shot, ma’am,” Jane nods. “Thanks so much for being helpful.”
You leave the agency feeling like you did back when you were nineteen and a well-dressed businessman was giving you the eye across the bar: like you were about to get in way over your head, deeper than you ever wanted to go. Like the chasm was staring you in the face. Jane exhales, startling you back into the present.
“Well, Dirk,” she says, “we’d best get home and start going through this.”
You follow her home, because where else are you gonna go? Benjy Bennet’s silent chest-rupturing sobs echo in your ears every time you eye the file under Jane’s arm.
==>
Jane locks herself in her room once you get home, effectively cutting you out of the equation. You’re fine and dandy with that. You’re pretty sure you’ve seen enough gore for a lifetime, anyway. You climb into the shower, staying under the spray until the water goes cold and the steam puffs out from under the door. When you get out, Jane is on the couch, a bowl of ice cream in her hands that she’s not eating. When you sit down next to her she thrusts it at you instead. Orange sherbet. Not bad.
You sit together for a long time in silence after you finish the bowl. Jane is fiddling with her fingers, occasionally cracking a knuckle. You’re staring into space, and start nodding off when Jane suddenly shrieks.
“Aha!” She rolls off the couch and retreats into her room. “Strider, if you’d be so kind as to assist me with something else, I’d be most grateful!”
You follow her and see that her normally-meticulous room has become an explosion of papers. You don’t recognize any of the people in the pictures, but the biggest one is of a cueball in a suit, surrounded by quite a few green carapaces and a black carapace lady in a wide-brimmed hat.
“It figures Jessica was doing some work on the Felt,” Jane purrs, “because her dismemberment and defacing is entirely the signature of one of their deadliest footmen.” She points at a troll you hadn’t seen before, an indigo-blood by the look of his eyes with clownish facepaint and a lazy smile that unsettles you. “Of course, the crime scene was strange, because the juggalo is messy, but if he was on official Felt business, rather than just on a rampage, all his personal traces would’ve been wiped by her.” She points at the black carapace. “That’s Snowman. She’s by far the most dangerous Felt member by virtue of her teleportation powers, and would have the ability to teleport the juggalo in and out of the house without leaving footprints.”
“Alright,” you say cautiously, “so…what was Jessica working on, specifically?”
“From what I’ve been able to piece together,” Jane scrubs at her eyes, “the true identity of the Felt’s don, for all intents and purposes. The real culprit pulling the strings of this bobble-headed puppet here.” She points at the cueball. “It’s been a mystery for as long as the Felt has had turf; they popped up out of nowhere and drove the Midnight Crew out of almost all their territory before city officials knew what was happening. The balance is a little more even now, thanks to some rather bloody turf wars about three months ago or so, but the Felt are still regarded as the big dogs in town, if you follow me.”
You’re familiar with the names of these mafias, but you managed to keep your head above water enough to avoid them, thank gog. To be up-close and nose-deep in a murder case surrounding them is starting to feel more and more like a knife against your windpipe. Jane glances at you.
“Anything wrong, Strider?” she asks.
You stare at her, and suddenly you’re frothing mad. Angry as a smuppet in a blender, angry like a termite in a steel factory, angry like a cat in a bathtub full of yogurt. Your Cans are going into your Not pile.
“No, everything’s fine, Jane,” you say through gritted teeth. “Just, you know, you could’ve told me you were completely nuts before I agreed to move in with you.”
Her eyebrows crinkle. “Dirk?”
“Mobsters, Jane,” you spit. “Actual gangsters, people who are dangerous and who tear a woman apart and leave her for her son to find!” You run your hands through your hair, mouth a hard line. “And you want to go after these people? You want me to get in on the action with you?” You realize you’re actually shouting at this point. Jane’s eyes are wide and still. Something breaks inside you. You spin on your heels, march back to your room, and change out of your sweatpants and into some jeans.
“Where are you going?” she asks in a small voice.
You don’t answer except to slam the door as hard as you can. A few baleful heads poke out into the hallway. You flip them all off and stride on out, hopefully to get completely wasted somewhere.
You never signed on for any of this. Someone should’ve told you this is what Jane Crocker had become before you agreed to move in with her. You should’ve been there for her so she wouldn’t have had to.
You ignore that last part. You’re not Jane’s babysitter.
==>
You’re buzzing when someone lays a hand on your arm. You turn, intending to put on the full Strider Swag on whoever it is, but when you see who the arm belongs to your heart shrivels and jumps into your throat.
She’s beautiful up-close, exoskeleton like black enamel and curves accentuated just right with the trench coat. You’re fairly sure she’s not wearing anything underneath it.
“Mr. Strider,” she purrs, voice like velvet, “perhaps we could find a quiet corner to talk?”
She doesn’t let you say no. Not like you could anyway. So you slip off your barstool and walk with her arm looped in yours at your normal glacier-level cool, with the exception that she’s imperceptibly leading and your heart is thumping hard in your chest.
She banishes the inhabitants of the men’s room with a glare, and once it’s empty she lets go of your arm, sharp fingers tracing your muscles.
“If you’re here to kill me,” you find yourself saying, “please avoid the shades.”
“Oh, Mr. Strider,” she laughs, sibilant, “I wouldn’t dream of it. Not tonight, at least.”
Curse your Strider bravado. “Then what’s the plan, sweetheart?”
She pats your cheek hard, with a hint of claw. “We need someone to keep little Miss Crocker out of our business. You need a place to live. We’d like nothing more than for you to keep on living, Mr. Strider, so long as you’re keeping Crocker in her place. It would be just dreadful if something were to happen to her.”
She strokes your cheek and trails down to your chest. “Or to Dave.”
Your emotional reaction is sudden and visceral, like a bear rearing up about to charge in your skin. The second you rise off the wall she pushes you back into it, hard; your head bangs off the tile.
“Keep Jane’s nose out of our business,” she whispers, leaning into you, “and we’ll keep out of yours. Does that seem like a fair trade, Mr. Strider?”
You nod, inclining your head the barest inch. She smiles, and suddenly she’s gone, and you’re alone in a bar bathroom with your buzz officially killed and your heart and head in a garbage disposal of emotion.
You haven’t even talked to Dave in over a year, you realize.
==>
The talk with Jane goes over about as well as you imagined.
For one, you reek of cigarette smoke and whiskey. For another, you’re probably not making a whole lot of sense, but what make sense about a carapacian babe threatening you in a bathroom?
“Dirk, I can’t,” Jane shakes her head, eyes practically glowing. “Jessica did her work beautifully, I think I know where to—”
“Jane,” you say, firmly grasping her shoulders, “they will kill you. They will kill me. They will kill Dave, and John, and everyone you or I have ever cared about. We can’t get involved with this, not anymore.”
She looks at you, her face blank.
“Jane?”
She shrugs you off and walks into the kitchen. You think she’s going for the brownie mix, until she pulls out a bottle of something deep amber and drinks it straight.
“Have a seat, Strider,” she says, her voice mirroring her face. You have a seat at the bar, and she takes another swig before taking out a tumbler and pouring a glass, setting it in front of you. You recognize the aroma of rum and take a sip.
“My dad,” she says, then stops awkwardly, eyes far too bright. She drinks from the bottle again and then caps it, firmly. “My dad was murdered by the Midnight Crew, not too long after high school.”
“Oh, Jane.”
“John and I were both distraught, as you can imagine,” Jane choked out a giggle. “So we decided to circumvent the police and solve the murder ourselves. Catch the killer. Become heroes.
“And it worked, at first. John wasn’t as good at it as I was, but I just…I noticed things, Dirk. I pieced them together. In a lot of ways, John was just my talking head, someone I bounced ideas off of to make myself look cleverer. I never meant to do that to him, it just…it’s a high, being smart. Being clever. You know?”
You can somewhat relate. You were a big brother who thought he knew everything, once.
“About six months ago,” she continues, “right as we were about to take down the rest of the Midnight Crew, the Felt showed up. It was the worst firefight we’ve ever been in, a huge three-way showdown in a downtown warehouse. John…John got shot, covering for me. Right in the chest. Missed his heart by that much.” She pinches her fingers close together, hands shaking. “I was being stupid, thinking I could take down the Midnight Crew and finally get peace for dear old Dad single-handedly. I didn’t call for backup until John was bleeding out under my hands.
“Eventually, the Felt had the Midnight Crew on retreat and chased them out of the warehouse, out into the streets to shoot something else up. It was just me and John, waiting for the cops, waiting for an ambulance…I kept his heart beating, Dirk. It was just me, trying to hold my little brother together, the little brother I’d put into danger. I might as well have shot him myself.” Her voice shakes and she dips her head, scrubbing at her eyes. Your heart breaks.
“He just looked at me for the longest time, going in and out. After his surgery he told me he didn’t want to chase the Midnight Crew, he didn’t want to solve mysteries, he was done. He had a matesprit now, he told me, a girlfriend who was going for a fresh start in a new city. And he was going with her.
“And that was that. He and some of his friends got his stuff packed up, and he drove off into the sunset with Vriska Serket. Never said goodbye, never gave me the chance to apologize. Poof.”
She raises her head finally, looks right at you with her eyes watering and mouth trembling.
“But I couldn’t stop,” she murmurs. “I can’t stop. This is all I’ve ever wanted to do—I walked away from Crocker Corp, from college, from my friends, from everything I’ve ever had, to catch criminals. It’s what I was born to do.” She wipes her eyes. “I thought if I got another friend who was just as smart, just as clever, he’d want to jump right in and it’d be like old times, just with another partner.”
Your throat constricts.
“Dirk, really and truly, I am so sorry,” she says honestly, crying in earnest. “I c-can’t list all the ways it wasn’t right to just…thrust you into my world like this. And…and now Dave’s in danger, and you’ve been threatened, and…” she chokes a hiccupping wail, muffled into her hands. “Oh my gog, Dirk, I’m s-so—”
You break, in a different way than before, walking around the counter and tucking Jane into your chest, where she proceeds to sob her heart out. It had to be those Crocker-Egbert genes, you think wryly. Smart as whips, but never thinking ahead. You’re not sure how long you stand there in your kitchen, both of you reeking of alcohol and covered in tears and snot, but your legs are falling asleep from inactivity and Jane has mostly quieted down.
“Dirk?”
“Yeah, Jane?”
“I have an idea.”
You pull back. “Yeah?”
She looks at you, eyes hard and bright. They look bluer with the whites bloodshot from crying.
“You need to go to Dave,” she says simply. “I’ll continue my work here. I’ve no doubt you and Dave can handle yourselves, so in order for me to work quickly and you to protect your brother, this is where we part ways, I’m afraid.”
You stare at her, and something moves in your chest. You can’t decide if you want to hug her tighter or slap her. You suddenly realize what’s different about her that you couldn’t pinpoint before. She has loss written into her every line and hard edges where she once was all soft curves and round cheeks. She’s lived a thousand years, your girl, and you should’ve been there for her. Someone should have been there for her, someone who promised back in middle school that they would be friends together forever and made a whole dumb rap about it and friendship dolls for every member of the group. She shouldn’t have had to bear all this alone.
And she shouldn’t have to now, you realize.
“Janie,” you say, “I love you and all, but you’re completely out of your mind.”
She flashes you a wry smile. “Yeah, I know.”
“We’re gonna find these guys,” you tell her, “and we’re gonna do it together.”
Her eyes get big and round. “But—”
“Dave is the toughest fighter I know,” you say, and make a note to tell that to him one of these days. “I’ll give him the heads-up, but you and me? We’re in this together now. For the long haul. We’re like two impudent cheeks of one plush rump now, you feel me?”
She bursts out laughing, burying her head in your chest again.
“Dirk, you’re ridiculous,” she mumbles into your shirt.
That’s all the thanks you need.
==>
You call Dave, instead of logging onto Pesterchum. Some things just require personal interaction.
“Strider here.”
“Hey, Dave.”
He doesn’t hang up, but neither does he answer.
Well, if you’re being honest with yourself now, you know what he’s waiting for. What he’s been waiting for since you left.
“I’m sorry.”
He still doesn’t say anything.
“Look, I know you’re mad at me and all, and you have a right to be, but I didn’t—I’m not just calling to apologize. Though I need to do that in full later. I need to warn you about something.”
He’s silent for the longest time, but answers eventually. “What.”
“Jane and I are working on a pretty big case for the cops right now,” you say, “and we may or may not have pissed off some of the most powerful mobsters in the city.”
He swears at that. “Bro, are you serious right now?”
“Look, just watch your back, okay?” You keep your voice as smooth as you can. “I don’t…I don’t want you to get hurt.”
He exhales sharply through his teeth, probably. “You’ve got to be kidding me right now.”
“The uglies who would be tailing you are green and tacky,” you say, quickly in case he decides to hang up. “If you see them, a black carapacian in a trenchcoat, or a troll with clown paint, you need to run. Okay?”
“Bro—”
“Okay?”
He sighs again. “If you say so.”
“I do. I absolutely do.” You get an idea. “Get in touch with Egbert if you ever get the chance. He’ll back up everything I’m saying, alright?”
“John’s been gone for months, how would he—”
“Dave, just for once, could you trust me on something?”
You think for a full minute he really has hung up on you. Then he says, in a small voice, “You got it, Bro.”
“Thank you,” you say, feeling like jelly all of a sudden. “Uh…be careful, okay, kid?”
“Sure.”
“Love you, little bro.”
Alright, that bit just popped out without meaning to. You kinda want to cram it back down your throat, except for the parts that have been dying to say it to his face (or ear, you guess) for years.
“Yeah.”
He hangs up, for real.
==>
The way Jane has it figured (and you’re trusting her judgment on this), the clues to the identity of the Felt boss are hidden in the juggalo’s awful art projects he apparently leaves at every scene he’s let loose on. There are more pictures of those crime scenes than anything else in the file, though there’s also a lot of cherub mythology shoved in there, as well. After quite a few cups of coffee and stale cupcakes, by morning’s light Jane has managed to deduce that Jessica believed the boss was a cherub, and prove it by cross-referencing symbols from both troll and cherub etymologies with the symbols from the crime scenes. Her room is completely trashed, a web of yarn and computer paper, and you’re both so tired and drained neither one of you are able to keep up a straight train of thought.
Somehow you both ended up on the couch, and when you wake up she’s curled up on your chest, still sound asleep.
You’ve woken up like this with a lot of people in the past, but you’ve never quite felt the urge to run your hand through anyone else’s curls before (at least, not since Dave was a teeny toddler). You know what you feel has no bearing on any part of your anatomy—your pants are loose as ever, thanks—but still…you feel something for this train wreck of a girl, something you can’t put a name to but makes you want to wake up like this all the time, just you and her snuggled up all platonic-like. You’re not sure you’d call it friendship, since you’ve done this with Roxy before too and it’s always been a painful tangle of elbows and hips and a lot of drooling. You did it once with Jake, too, but…that was a completely different circumstance and a lot less wholesome.
You just stare at the way her face has relaxed back into Old Jane when she sleeps, the Jane who didn’t know what it was like to bury a father and lose a brother, the Jane who didn’t chase after dangerous criminals in the night and smile with an edge of insanity. Not that you love that Jane any less, but you do miss Old Jane. She was sweetness incarnate, so easy to tease, so easy to love. New Jane is tougher. New Jane is like New Dirk—older, more care-worn, and not a lick wiser for any of it.
You hesitantly scrunch your fingers through her soft, slightly-greasy hair, and that’s when she wakes up, staring up at you with wide blue eyes.
You retract the hand and rest it on her back instead. “Morning, sunshine.”
She scrambles off of you, cheeks red, and walks straight to the bathroom and does not come out until you bang on the door and threaten to pee in the sink.
It occurs to you that you might’ve handled that one badly.
==>
Once Jane figures out that the Felt boss is probably a cherub, it’s back to the police station to share your findings with Detective Grumpyhorns. All things considered, he takes the news well, though he gets jumpy whenever the juggalo is mentioned and that makes you suspicious.
“You’re sure it’s a cherub, Crocker?” he grumps.
“Positive,” Jane nods. “And I’m certain that it’s a red-cheeked male cherub with an affinity for billiards, as a matter of fact.”
“Do we have a name for this pool-playing tool?” Detective Vantas frowns.
Jane hesitates.
“Not his true name, I don’t think,” she shakes her head, “but in several of the dismemberment cases there’s an LE inscribed in Alternian somewhere around the center of the carnage. I don’t think Jessica Bennet ever really noticed them, but they’re there.”
“Great,” he seethes, “just perfect. LE could stand for anything, bulgewipe! Did you come here just to irritate me with your blank-panned nonsense, or are you—”
Whatever he was about to say is interrupted by a spectacular crash of glass near the front of the precinct.
“HOOOOOONK!”
Detective Vantas wastes no time in weaving a colorful tapestry of high-speed profanity. You can’t really appreciate, since you’re working on your own and shoving Jane behind the desk.
The juggalo is infinitely more unsettling in person.
He’s at least six and a half feet tall, all wiry muscle and purple codpiece (seriously, why?), the lazy smile in his photo gone and replaced with a red-eyed rage. He swings out around him with juggling pins that he’s using as clubs, and though he’s being fired upon he’s blocking a lot of blows with the clubs and shrugging off the rest. Highblood skin is thicker than a lot of trolls’ skin and much thicker than human skin; you’re wagering how many slices with a katana it would take to even make a dent when Detective Vantas is moving.
“Karkat, don’t!” Jane shrieks.
He ignores her, ignores the chaos, and approaches the murderous rampaging juggalo while making the weirdest noise you’ve ever heard come out of the guy’s mouth:
“Ssssshhhoooooooossshhhh.”
The juggalo stops. The firing stops. Everyone’s eyes are fixed in wide horror as comparatively tiny Karkat Vantas approaches the monster, hands extended in a sign of passivity and vocal chords soothing. You have no idea what you’re watching.
“Shoooosh, Gamzee,” Vantas says quietly, flinching a little when the juggalo lifts his clubs threateningly. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Shoosh.”
Little by little, Vantas edges towards him, all pacification and soothing voice, and the juggalo looks spooked and angry like a rabid rabbit until Vantas gently touches his cheek with an audible pap.
It’s a miracle, what you’re witnessing, and even as your skin crawls to admit it…this must be what the troll disease known as pity looks like. With every touch and murmur Detective Vantas reduces the monster down to just a troll with goofy hair and bloodstained clubs, until they’re wrapped so tight around each other that the other officers in the precinct are either oohing or retching at the pale display of affection.
A little part of your soul gets it, though. The part that ran his fingers through Jane’s hair that very morning? He totally gets it. You totally get it. Though neither you nor Jane are raging psychopaths (yet)…that’s what you want. Your arm around Jane’s shoulder tightens.
“Moirallegiance,” Jane whispers, sounding awed. “I heard Vantas once had a moirail who went rogue, but I never even thought…”
When the juggalo—Gamzee—and Vantas finally untangle, both with smudged troll tears running down their faces, Vantas looks about ten years younger and Gamzee seems to have shrunk. They both set off for the interrogation rooms after a few barks from Vantas about cleaning up the mess and getting the wounded to the hospital.
“Crocker! Strider! With me!” he snaps, as well.
By “with me” it turns out he meant on the other side of the glass, watching Vantas and his apparently regotten moirail make some kind of pile and be so gooey at each other that you can hardly stand it. You feel like you’re encroaching on something intimate, and in a way, you realize, you are. It scares you, a little. You wonder if Jane would be up for something similar, one day. She glances at you.
“About this morning,” she says hesitantly, but you shrug.
“Sorry. Won’t happen again.”
“Oh. Okay.” She bites her lip. The ssshhhhing coming from the speakers is setting your teeth on edge.
“I…wouldn’t mind,” she says hesitantly. “If. If it did happen again.”
Your face doesn’t change, but you stand up a little straighter.
After nearly an hour of apologies and crying and more shooshpapping than you have ever wanted to see ever in your life, Vantas finally asks the big questions. You learn quite a lot, as it turns out. Moirails keep nothing from each other, even with the understanding that there are a couple of humans listening in.
You learn, for instance, that not too long ago the Midnight Crew did a sweep of the Felt Mansion and wiped out most of the little green carapacians. And that Snowman and the leader of the Midnight Crew, Spades Slick, are kismeses, which is…okay, but you’re not sure how it helps you out any. And that the Felt have been gearing up towards a huge citywide crime takeover—swallowing up all the little gangs and bigger organizations, maybe eventually putting one of their own in the mayoral position and ruling the city entirely. It’s grade-school and pathetic but the scary thing is, it’s mostly completed already.
You also learn that even hearing LE has Gamzee gibbering and honking and turning into a complete mess.
“Y’know,” you say to Jane, “I kind of expected Snowman to teleport her way in here by now. Or one of the Felt.”
“The whole precinct is on a blind spot,” Jane replies. “They hired something like a security guard a few months ago, a troll by the name of Equius Zahhak. His constant presence more or less makes it impossible for anyone to teleport in, for whatever reason.”
“Where was he during the scuffle?” you ask.
“Karkat handled it,” Jane smiles. “Zahhak is a little scared of Gamzee, after a near-death experience years ago. Gamzee almost murdered him and his cute little moirail right out in the open.”
Looking at the lanky troll curled around Vantas like a body pillow, making a deep-throated purring as Karkat skritched his claws over his scalp, it’s almost easy to forget that he’s also a coldblooded killer.
Almost.
==>
You and Jane are advised to stay at the precinct. Someone keeps bringing you crappy cold coffee, but you keep drinking it anyway. The window is covered up and you see the Zahhak in question once or twice, mopping his brow with an honest-to-gog towel and helping put computers back together. It suddenly occurs to you to check on Dave.
“What,” he says, irritable.
“Just checking in on you, li’l bro,” you say, keeping the sigh of relief out of your voice and playing it cool.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I talked to John,” he sighs. “Uh. Sorry.”
“All good, Dave.”
You sit in awkward silence.
“Your friend Lalonde and her Prospitian roomie haven’t left me alone since you called, by the way,” Dave huffs. “You sic her on me, too?”
You blink. “Uh…no, that one’s not me. What’s Roxy doing there?”
“Beats me. She just says she needs to be here and keeps chewing that godawful gumwad.”
“Tell her to spit that thing out, she’s gonna lose all her teeth,” you frown. “Uh. Any weird happenings, lately?”
“Nope. Just a crazy broad who won’t let me out of her sight,” he replies. “How is it that her and Rose are even related?”
“The magic of genetics, bro,” you say. “I’ve gotta go. Don’t try to ditch Roxy, okay? Whatever she’s doing…I guess it’s keeping you safe.”
He grunts, you grunt back, and hang up. That’s two conversations in two days. You’re practically smothering the kid, and it feels awesome.
“Dave?” Jane says quietly.
“Fine. Roxy’s keeping an eye on him.”
Jane sighs through her nose and leans against your arm. You endeavor to make yourself more comfortable to lean on, which mostly ends up with both of you slumped onto each other and attracting some of the same glares the cops were giving Vantas and the juggalo. Sweet.
Speaking of the Juggalo Whisperer, the troll himself is standing in front of you, looking boneless and absolutely dreamy with ecstasy.
“The Felt made a huge mistake when they sent him over here,” he says happily. “They thought, since Gamzee ended our moirallegiance a few perigrees ago to serve them, that he was okay to crash the precinct to get to you two, since he’s the only one who could ever get through Zahhak’s freaky void. They didn’t count on—”
“The powers of true love and acceptance, blah blah blah,” you interrupt. “Could he tell you stuff about LE?”
“Not exactly,” Vantas frowns, curling up tight and sharp again. “Whatever he went through when he was working for them, it wasn’t good, worse than his sopor addiction days. He’s still got some kind of religious fervor for the guy, but he’s thinking a little clearer now with a moirail again.” Almost like he’s forgotten you’re there and what your last name is he hugs himself a little, making a tinny chirrup in the back of his throat that has Jane squeak with the cute. Alright, maybe it is a little cute.
Dear lord, who are you and what have you done with Dirk Strider?
“He couldn’t even give away a name?” Jane asks.
“That much, he could,” Vantas nods. “Our unfriendly cherub douchebag’s name is Lord English.”
Okay…that sounds familiar, and not in a good way.
“You don’t think…” Jane murmurs, eyes wide. It takes you a split-second longer, but she’s already forming the words.
“Not Jake English?”
The obsession with green skulls suddenly makes more sense, but what doesn’t is that Jake’s been overseas since high school, having grand adventures and becoming more buff and handsome with each passing year. Uh. Not that you care.
“Freaky coincidence, d’you think?” you ask as Vantas looks between you and Jane, clearly getting wound up with annoyance.
“It seems the most likely,” Jane frets. “I can’t believe sweet old Jake would be involved in anything like this, let alone in charge of it.”
And then you remember that you weren’t the only one lusting after Jake’s hot microshorts.
Although you were the only one to get into them.
You think.
After one night during senior year when things got a little crazy and you broke up with him, you’re not quite sure what happened, but you think that might’ve been the beginning of your tight-knit group drifting apart.
“Dirk?”
“What?” You come back down to earth.
“I was wondering if you’d had contact with him recently,” Jane repeats.
“Not for a long time, Janie,” you shrug. “Probably not since the last time he was back in town.”
“That was…what, four years ago?” she bites her lip. “Or more? Oh, this is ridiculous! Jake obviously isn’t in charge of the Felt!”
“Always possible he’s been running the thing from outside,” you murmur, before Vantas’ voice slaps you both into reality.
“And the tiny problem that Lord English is obviously a cherub, as seen by Jessica Bennet’s research?” he grumps loudly.
“Well…Jake used to have this skulltop,” you venture, before Jane slaps you in the arm.
“I don’t think even Gamzee would mistake Jake wearing his skulltop for the real deal, Dirk,” she says, and there’s an edge to her voice that makes your own hackles rise.
“Still, it might be a good idea to get him here and ask him a few questions,” you argue. “Just to make sure. You know?”
Vantas is now looking between you and Jane with a weird expression. You smooth out your face. You are the cool that courses through the universe. You are the swag itself. You are not ruffled by remembering your good friend Jake. On whom both you and Jane had mondo-crushes. And who you totally went out with in high school.
“It would be good to see Jake again,” Jane says, her voice all sweetness. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt to ask him a few questions.”
“Where is he these days?” you ask, and for a second that diffuses the tension as you stare blankly at each other.
“I’ll ask him!” Jane says brightly, grabbing her phone and standing.
“I guess I will, too,” you say casually, going for your own phone. The next five minutes is a furious game of oh-no-you-don’t as you both pester Jake English as you have never pestered anyone before, and Vantas is still looking at you funny and if he doesn’t cut it out you are going to knock the phone right out of her hands.
The green text of your old friend pops up on both of your phones at the same time.
[GT] I say, it’s great to hear from both of you! What can I do for you?
In the garbled mess of orange and blue text, Jake gets the gist; apparently he’s in the middle of plundering an ancient temple in the rain forest, but anything for his two good buddies!
Somehow that makes your stomach sour.
And Jake English is going to be in town within a few days…and staying with you and Jane.
The way Jane keeps side-eying you isn’t helping matters.
It’s going to be a long few days.
==>
Unfortunately, there’s the problem that the Felt have lost their most loyal and destructive footman and you and Jane have big red bulls-eyes painted on your backs. Zahhak and Roxy both have a weird kind of anti-teleportation power that’s currently keeping the precinct and Dave safe, but outside of that power, you’re not sure you can take down Snowman or Lord English on your own. Camping out at the precinct is out of the question, since it’s already housing a juggalo and his moirail while they work out the legal details (apparently there are different laws that apply to trolls and their moirails; something about being declared legally insane when off the shooshpap or whatever).
Which is how you ended up with Zahhak’s hatchmate (call me Horuss, he’d protested) as a fourth houseguest, since he apparently has the same weirdo void. He’s sleeping in your room on a pile of smuppets (what is it with trolls and piles?) while you camp out in the living room, on the La-Z-Boy. Jake’ll have either your bed (not with you in it, of course) or the couch, when he gets in.
It’s early in the morning when Jane shakes you awake. In your room, you can hear Horuss snarfeling and snoring in his sleep.
“Hey,” she says softly, “I think we need to talk.”
You grope for your shades, put them on, and blink yourself awake.
“I’m listening.”
She sighs and sits down on the couch. “Okay, I’m just gonna come out and say it…I think I still have a thing for Jake.”
Alright. Down, jealousy. You’re both adults. You can talk about this rationally.
“Yeah, I guess I do, too.”
She chews her lip and you don’t look at her.
“Can we just call a truce?” she says. “Until this case blows over, I mean. It…was nice, before. Um.”
“Yeah,” you nod, “totally. Truce. Cool.”
“Which means,” she says, “neither one of us gets to get any more intimate with him than the other, or anything like that.”
“Why, Miss Crocker,” you rasp, hoping she can see the sweet eyebrow action you’ve got going, “are you suggesting a, how you say…ménage-a-trois?”
She flushes bright red and stands up to punch you hard in the arm. It does nothing to stop your giggles.
“Shut up, you know what I mean,” she says.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” you nod. “Sounds good to me. Hands off that choice English rump.”
She flushes again, but bumps knuckles when you offer.
“Alright,” she says, standing and smoothing her t-shirt, “Jake gets into the airport in about three hours. We need to make sure Horuss is up and ready to go, as well as set up bedding for the couch and make sure the precinct is ready for us. Did I miss anything?”
You look at her, anxious and flushed, and for a whole thirty seconds forget about Jake and fantasize about your totally awesome platonic cuddles again.
“Think that about covers it, Janie,” you say. “Vantas is gonna handle the interrogation?”
“With us on the other side,” she nods, “just in case either one of us feel like rescuing the English in distress.”
You snort and unfold yourself from the armchair to grab a shower.
==>
His skin is darker, his shorts are shorter, and his biceps are bigger. You swoon all over yourself, even through the darkened glass of the two-way mirror, where Detective Vantas is flipping through Jessica Bennet’s file and tapping his claws against the tabletop. The troll is looking a lot better-rested nowadays.
“Mr. English,” Vantas begins, “where have you been for the past six months?”
“Oh, all over!” Jake says enthusiastically. “I’ve been climbing mountains and taming raging seas and discovering all sorts of wildlife!”
“The countries, Mr. English,” Vantas deadpans.
“Well…I don’t rightly recall any of their names,” Jake shrugs, biting his lip. The legs of the chair you’re sitting in creak as your fists tighten around them. Beside you, Jane is kneading her own lip.
“This is ridiculous,” she whispers to you.
“I know,” you reply, though you’re not sure if you were talking about the interrogation, or the sweep of Jake’s hair.
“That’s a flimsy alibi at best, Mr. English,” Vantas frowns. “If you can’t name any of the countries—”
“Oh, I can’t name them,” he chuckles, “but I can show them to you!”
And that’s when he takes off his shirt.
And that’s when Jane makes a squeak that would be the most adorable thing in the world if you hadn’t latched onto the sight of Jake English’s belly button.
And that’s when he turns around and shows off the tattoos on his back, which—yes, he really got a map of the world back there, with little green skulls that show the places he’s gone.
“I was there,” he stretches, and the muscles in his sides flex and if your mouth wasn’t dry you’d be calling for a bucket to drool in, “and there…and there…and there…and there!”
“Can anyone confirm that?” Vantas drones. You’re not sure how anyone can keep calm with the gun show still going on. Jane hasn’t let go of your arm since he turned around. You haven’t been able to sit comfortably for the past five minutes.
“Of course!” Jake grins. “I have the stories on my blog and a phone full of friends from everywhere I’ve been! I can get them all to you, quick as you like!”
“Mr. English,” Vantas says, “sit down, put your shirt back on, and answer me one more question.”
He complies. You and Jane boo him through the glass.
“Do you know anything about the mafia family know as the Felt?”
Jake opens his mouth, closes it, and your gut suddenly feels cold and empty.
“I…know of it,” he says hesitantly.
“What do you know of it?”
“I know their leader,” he replies.
“Don’t play this little bit at a time game with me, Mr. English. My patience is not vast and everlasting, unlike some other people’s must be to put up with you. Everything you know about the Felt, as quickly as your protein chute can disgorge it.”
“I say, there’s no need to get snippy—”
Vantas actually snarls at him, wordless and visceral, and Jake slinks down in his chair. You do too, for a minute; trolls can be scary creatures.
“We knew each other as kids, back before his predomination,” Jake says rapidly. “He was an odd little chap, very angry and screamy, not at all like his sister—she was a right ray of sunshine, such a beautiful little personality—”
Your gut clenches. You and Jane look at each other, horror-struck, because you both know where this story is going, a little.
“Anyway, I think he decided to take on my name when he matured as a sort of homage, maybe? He used to tell me he was training me to be his greatest rival, which made not a whit of sense, but consarn it if I didn’t humor the little guy! He approached me a few times after—after high school, once his sister’s personality had been completely consumed, once about creating some kind of opposing gang to his little shindig, and a few times about joining up with his own. I always refused, of course, but he made it quite clear that if I didn’t bad things would happen! So that’s when I started travelling, to get away from him!”
Yup. That about tears it. You’re the worst friend. It is you. Jane lets out a little “oh” of surprise.
“What do you know about Jessica Bennet, Mr. English?”
“Never heard of her,” Jake says breezily. Something about that pisses you off. Might be because you saw her body torn from one end of the room to the other and watched her son have a breakdown.
“That’s all the questions we have for now, Mr. English,” Vantas says, rising. “We’re in a dangerous situation at the moment, so keep close to Crocker and Strider while you’re here. They should have a bodyguard with them that’ll be able to keep you safe.” He crosses to the door. “Get out of my precinct.”
==>
That afternoon you swap Roxy and Horuss in Dave-guarding duty and the four of you all have lunch, like old times. It’s a riotously good time, you have to admit; you can almost forget the murderous bunch of gangsters out for your skin, for a while. Between Jake’s stories from his travels, Roxy’s napkin tricks, Jane’s jokes, and your own brand of Strider chill, it’s almost like nothing changed in the past six years. You pay more attention to your friends, all together. Jake appears cheerful as ever, but there’s a flightiness to his movements and a flirtatiousness in his interactions with the waitresses that you don’t remember from high school. Roxy looks exhausted up-close, but the wad of gum is gone and you can tell she’s still stone-cold sober. Jane…Jane is nervous, there’s no other way to put it. She’s drumming her fingertips against her knee and shuffling her legs, and although all of her anxious activity is below-table you catch all of it. You’re sitting right next to her, after all.
You reach over and grab her knee, smoothing your thumb over her skin. She jumps a bit, but little by little calms down.
Lunch ends. Roxy informs you that while Jake’s in town she’s going to be staying with you, too.
“And what about Dave?” you ask sharply.
“Horuss is gonna be covering me,” she laughs. “Oh, man, Dirky, the look on his face!”
You feel a little guilty for pawning off a sweaty, overenthusiastically steampunk troll on your brother, but at the moment you’re more concerned about his safety than his comfort. You swear to yourself that you’re going to make it up to him later.
“Back to the apartment, then?” Jane asks, touching your shoulder.
“I guess,” you shrug.
==>
You and Jane wait until Jake and Roxy are both asleep (which takes a long time) before sequestering yourself in her room. Don’t want to give the wrong impression, because you have case business to talk about.
“What was she working up to?” you ask, sitting on Jane’s bed and picking up the monocle’d mustachioed smuppet you made her for her sixteenth birthday. You can’t believe she still has this, and in pretty mint condition. Your older smuppets were softer than your newer makes, you have to admit. “I mean, exposing the boss is one thing, but what did she hope to gain by it?”
“Perhaps an identity for the cops to latch onto?” Jane sighs, running her hand through her hair. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize, after all these years, that it’s Calliope’s brother.”
“Poor Callie,” you frown.
“It’s going to kill Roxy, when the story comes out,” Jane says wearily. “She was closer to Calliope than any of us.”
“We have to catch him and not die first,” you say, and it hits you like a sack of bricks: you could legitimately die, working this case. It’s a huge epiphany, one that apparently has hit Jane, too, because her eyes are getting overbright again. You have no desire to see her cry a second time because of something stupid you said; you cross the room and pull her back with you, tucking her into you and running your hands over her back in as soothing a way as you can manage. When it seems like she’s in control of herself again she shifts a little until she’s leaning back against you.
“What are we even going to do?” you murmur.
“Lord English basically has two useful lackeys left in his entourage, if the Midnight Crew was thorough,” Jane says thoughtfully. “That’s Doc Scratch, and Snowman.”
“And if Snowman and Spades Slick are in the weird hate-love thing, maybe they’ll kill each other off,” you say hopefully.
“Unlikely. Kismesissitude isn’t a killing quadrant, typically,” Jane sighs. “It might work different for carapacians, though.”
“And Doc Scratch?” you ask.
“He’s an annoying and over-talkative cue ball,” Jane snorts. “Unfortunately, he’s practically omniscient, and handy with a gun, so there’s that.”
You brood for a while, wondering at how fast things had changed from just two weeks ago, when you were sleeping on park benches and bathing in public fountains.
“Hey,” Jane says, nosing at your chin, “it’s gonna be okay. Alright?”
“Never said it wasn’t,” you reply. You don’t really feel better, but it’s sweet of her to try.
==>
You’re careful to hoof it back to the La-Z-Boy after Jane falls asleep, and thus are the first to be treated to the sight of Jake and Roxy making omelets in their underwear.
You’re not exactly a stickler for modesty, but waking up to Jake whisking raw eggs and milk together in his boxers and Roxy singing obnoxiously into the spatula in her frilly pink bra takes you by surprise. You are also first to witness Jane’s reaction as she exits her room. She skids to a stop in her socks, looks at you, and you stare back. After a few minutes you’re both so overcome with giggles you can hardly breathe, Jane actually slipping to hang off the arm of your chair.
“Morning, sunshines!” Roxy chirps, folding an omelet over and scooping it onto a plate. “The earth says hello!”
“If the earth is making omelets, mine had better have more bacon than a pork farm during slaughter,” you say, standing up and helping Jane to her feet.
“Coming right up!” Jake grins. Soon enough you’re all seated around the card table that’s functioning as a breakfast area, chatting amicably. You really missed this.
When he’s done with his omelet, Jake puts down his fork and laces his fingers.
“I think we can all agree that we need to talk, Jane,” he says seriously. It’s almost hard to take him as such when his hair is still in bedhead mode and he doesn’t have a shirt on, but you’ve been expecting this talk since yesterday’s interrogation. Roxy’s also gone oddly grim. Jane looks at you, and then at Jake.
“If this is about yesterday—”
“Partially,” Jake nods. “I want to help with your Felt problem.”
“No,” Jane says automatically. “Absolutely not. This is way too dangerous—”
“Which is why you shouldn’t handle it on your own,” Roxy chips in.
“She’s not,” you reply. “She’s got my backup.”
“Dirk, I have the greatest respect for your scrumming skills, old chum, but there’s a reason why Dave has a troll attaché, isn’t there?” Jake says, biting his lip. That strikes a chord, but not necessarily in a bad way. You frown.
“We’ve all been kinda crappy friends since that one night senior year, let’s be real here,” Roxy sighs. There’s a collective flinch around the table. Worst hangover you’ve ever had. “So much for best friends forever and then some, huh?”
“It’s not your faults, though,” Jane argues. “Roxy, you had an addiction problem. Jake was being harassed by a mobster. Dirk had his brother to think of.”
“I did a real A-plus job with that, though, didn’t I?” you say humorlessly.
“I’ve been on and off the wagon for years, Janie; that doesn’t mean it was right to lose touch with everyone,” Roxy grimaces.
“And to be honest, I stopped running from Caliborn years ago, and started running from…you lot, I guess,” Jake shrugs. Jane stills.
“Say that again,” she says.
“I stopped running from Caliborn—”
Jane jumps up, face bright, and grins. It’s not the insane smile from earlier. It’s triumphant. You feel your spirits lift a little just looking at it.
“Jake,” she says, “you are a priceless gem.”
With that she plants a huge smacking kiss right on Jake’s mouth. Roxy slams the table, laughing like a hyena. Your stomach twists a little, but it’s manageable. The dazed look on Jake’s face is a lot funnier, anyway. Jane brushes your shoulder as she marches past you. In a scrambling pack the three of you follow her.
“—absolutely brilliant,” she cackles, pacing her room and pulling out her phone. Her cheeks are a little pink. “Just wait until I—Detective Vantas?”
She stops dead as the shouty voice on the other line yells for a straight minute. Her face goes pale. She looks right at you. Your stomach drops.
“We’ll be right there,” she says, as your own phone rings. With trembling fingers you pick it up.
“Strider here.”
“Mr. Strider?” an unfamiliar woman’s voice says hesitantly. “This is Altville General Hospital. Your brother’s been attacked.”
==>
“What was even the point,” you find yourself saying as Roxy breaks at least fifty traffic rules en route to the hospital, “of having stupid Zahhak Senior there if this was just gonna happen anyway?”
“Zahhaks and Roxies just stop teleporting, Di-Stri,” Roxy replies, flooring it to get through a yellow light. “Wouldn’t stop a full assault.”
“From what Vantas told me, it’s a miracle neither Horuss nor Dave are dead right now,” Jane says, voice wobbly. “They would’ve been fine if Doc Scratch hadn’t gotten personally involved.”
Your knuckles crack as your fists clench.
Horuss, as far as you can tell from Vantas through Jane, is actually fine, nothing worse than minimal scratches. Dave, on the other hand…well, you can see for yourself as you’re ushered into his room.
You didn’t want the first time you saw him in a few years to be like this. You wanted to do it right—sneak up on him, aggress him a little with a puppet, and noogie him like old times.
His face looks like mincemeat and his wrist is broken. His shades are folded and off to the side, eyes open. You wish he had his shades back on. The whites of his left eye are bloody. You’re suddenly very aware that it’s just you and Dave in his room, your breathing synching up with the steady beeps of his medical whatchamacallit. The thing that’s measuring his heartbeat. That.
Since it is just you and Dave…you take your own shades off. Let the freaky orange peepers get a full look at your li’l bro. There’s an echo in your chest that says, very loudly, you did this. You swallow a few times, cough, and wish he would look somewhere else.
“Hey,” you croak.
He nods back. You grip the handles of his bed so hard the plastic creaks.
“How—how are you holding up?”
That’s the stupidest question you’ve ever asked.
“Okay,” he rasps. “Kinda feel like I’ve been through a woodchipper.”
“You…uh…yeah.” Way to go, Dirk. Stellar conversational skills. A+++.
You don’t know what to say. You don’t know what he wants you to say. So you do what comes natural: you walk up to his bedside and, careful of the wires and broken bones, hug him as hard as you dare.
He stiffens up—the heart monitor goes a little nuts for a second—but his arms come up around you and his good hand fists in your shirt. You’re not crying. These are your emotions manifesting in liquid form.
It’s highly uncomfortable, being hunched over and having your face shoved in the crook of his neck, but you don’t move until his fist loosens and his arms come down. You wipe your eyes hard and sniff once.
“Bro,” Dave says, “something weird happened to the cue ball.”
Your eyebrows furrow.
==>
You feel simultaneously hollow and full when you leave Dave’s room. It doesn’t even register to you that there are three other girls outside the room waiting to storm in, one of which is a troll; you simply walk down the hall and Jane, Jake, and Roxy follow.
“Dirk?” Jane asks.
You don’t talk until you’re back in Roxy’s car.
“Doc Scratch is dead,” you say as Roxy pulls out of the parking lot. “So’s Snowman.”
“How?” Jane cries. “They’re supposed to be top elites! Unkillables!”
“Slick got to Snowman,” you reply. “Happened right outside the apartment.”
“And Scratch?” Jake asks.
“From what Dave said, it sounds like Doc Scratch kinda…gave birth to him,” you say. Roxy slams on the brakes, sending all of you lurching forward.
“He what now?” Roxy shrieks. “How is that even possible?”
It occurs to you that maybe Jane was worrying over nothing last night. Roxy’s doing just fine. Or maybe they had a talk outside the hospital room you weren’t privy to, making up with your brother and all. Either way, she doesn’t seem all that shaken up about Lord English’s true identity.
“I’d like to know that myself!” Jake chips in. “I’d been talking to the little bugger for years before I left!”
“And we all were friends with Callie,” Roxy adds.
“Yeah, it makes no sense to me, either,” you shrug. “Jane?”
She’s quiet, chewing on her thumb. “Roxy, to the police station,” she says. “Vantas has a few things that might help answer our questions.”
As it turns out, Detective Vantas does have a few things to answer some questions. A thing, specifically.
“The puppet’s body is totally shredded,” he grunts, leading you to the evidence storage room. “Looks like English forced his way out of Scratch’s body.”
“But why?” Jane asks.
“Why are you asking me? You’re the resident cherub expert, apparently!” he snaps. “All I know is that I’ve got a black carapacian lady in the morgue, a Felt organization that’s down to its psychopathic leader and maybe some random grunts, and a headache the size of a Strider’s ego!” He pauses. “Speaking of which, how’s Dave?”
“He’ll live,” you reply shortly.
“Good,” Vantas grumps, but there’s a hint of relief underneath it all that cools your irritation, just a little. “Well, Crocker? What do you make of it?”
She doesn’t speak, poring over the mangled foam.
“Jake,” she says eventually, “do you know how big Caliborn was, last time you spoke?”
“Still just a tiny little chap, no taller than my waist,” Jake shrugs.
“Small enough to fit inside this body?”
“I guess so. Why?”
“Look at the scale of destruction here, folks,” Jane says, her voice picking up in tempo. “Lord English, or Caliborn, or whatever, was about the size of a child, right up until he ripped out of this body. Dirk, if you would repeat what Dave said about how Doc Scratch ended up this way?”
“He just said a huge muscular green dude ripped its way out.” You wince. “Oh, crap.”
“I’m not sure how he did it, but I think it’s safe to assume that Lord English is no longer a bite-sized cutie patootie with anger issues and swirly red cheeks,” Jane says, the set of her face grim. “Now that he’s a full-sized cherub, there’s no way to measure the amount of damage he’ll be able to do. It could be catastrophic.”
“We haven’t had a full-blown red-cheeked cherub in Altville since I was a wriggler,” Vantas spits. “Crocker, do you understand what this—”
“Karkat!” an officer gasps, falling over himself into the room, “we just got a report of a major explosion on the outskirts of the city!”
Vantas stares. Then he swears. Then he swears a lot. Then he turns to Jane.
“Crocker, gather your human meatbags and find a safe place to hide,” he says grimly. “Consider this Armageddon. We are in crisis mode.”
==>
If your life was a movie, you’d be throwing popcorn at the screen right about now, because how is it even possible for things to go bad so fast like that. And this is coming from the guy with an ironic appreciation for spectacularly bad film.
Like Detective Vantas said, Altville is in pandemonium; citizens have been warned to stay inside, police barricades are going up, the whole shebang. You and Jane and Jake and Roxy are back in your apartment passing around a bottle of orange soda you had on hand.
“This sucks,” Roxy huffs.
Jane’s been silent the whole time, kneading her thumb with her teeth and staring into space. You’re worried about her, but the others are here and it’d be weird to pull her into your lap and stroke her hair. They’d take it the wrong way, anyway.
“How do you suppose they’re going to try and stop him?” Jake asks, handing the bottle off to you.
“Red cherubs are the most destructive force out there. Without a green cherub to chase him off or some kind of uber-legendary weapon, we’re sunk,” you say moodily.
“This is my fault,” Jane says unexpectedly.
You all look at her, and her eyes are doing the Way Too Bright thing again.
“I shouldn’t have taken this case. I shouldn’t have tried to be a detective. I’m not that great at it, anyway,” she sniffs, hand clutching at her hair. “I should’ve just…just…”
It’s too much. You actually pick her up and carry her over to the couch, where you curl yourself around her and make soft sssshhhhhh sounds into her hair. After a minute Jake snuggles up on one side, Roxy on the other, but the core is you and Jane. Between the three of you, you manage to stroke and soothe her into a boneless mess. That’s okay. Sometimes, she needs to let this stuff out. You get that.
Jane’s not the only one getting attention, though; Roxy’s got a hand massaging the back of your neck and Jake, furnace that he is, is so close his heat is leaching into your bones. He leans against your shoulder, one of his arms pulling around you and stroking Roxy’s arm.
It’s been a really, really long time since you’ve felt this close to one human being, let alone three.
“Hey,” you murmur, “we set out to find Jessica Bennet’s killer. We did that. Our part’s over.” Though it sucks, more than you can stand, that the killer is likely going to walk free just because Vantas is his moirail. You understand the feelings going on between those two, you really do, but you’ve still got Benjy Bennet burned behind your lids. Another issue for another time. You put it away and resolve to talk to Detective Vantas about it later. “You didn’t have to get swept up in all of this. No one expects you to.”
“Dirk,” she says shakily, “I’ve been swept up in it since I came home to my father’s murdered body.”
Well…she’s got a point.
The world outside is smoke and fire and fear, but right now you close your eyes and let yourself drift off in the arms of your best friends in the whole world.
You really missed them.
==>
Jane’s gone when you wake up, and you go from fuzzy and relaxed to full-blown panic in about eight seconds flat. You stand up, which wakes Roxy and Jake, and do a thorough check of the apartment. No curvy bake-happy consulting detective anywhere in sight.
“Dirk?” Jake rasps sleepily. “What’s all the humdiddle about?”
“Jane’s not here,” you reply. “She’s not here. She was here when I went to sleep, she’s not here now, I don’t know where she is, she’s not here.”
Worry is making you incoherent. If your brother was here right now he’d be laughing. You don’t even care right now. Jane is missing.
“Dirky, calm down,” Roxy says, voice cloying in a way that you recognize as her covering up a strong emotion. She used to do it all the time when she was intoxicated twenty-four-seven. “She prolly just stepped out. No big deal. Have you tried her cell phone?”
Right. Technology. You pester her once and call her three times. You hit the call button for a fourth time when Jake comes out of her room, bearing a vibrating, electric-blue phone that should be in Jane’s hand and through which she should be telling you where she is.
“Alright,” Roxy says, “alright. Let’s calm down and think. Where d’you think she went, Dirk?”
You can’t think, because there’s a buzz going JaneJaneJaneJaneJaneJaneJane currently obscuring most of your thought processes. Someone grabs your shoulders and shakes you so hard your shades slip right off your face. You catch them just in time.
“Dirk,” Jake says sternly, “pull yourself together, old chap.”
Right. Okay. You silence the buzz and slip on your shades, schooling yourself back to normal Strider-levels of cool.
“My first guess would be back to the precinct,” you say simply. “Jake, the phone.”
You all but snatch it from him and scroll through Jane’s contacts. There’s one called “Detective NubbyGrumps” that you almost snort at. Almost, because you’re busy trying not to punch through the screen in your haste to get said Detective NubbyGrumps on the line.
“What, Crocker?” he complains. “I’m a little busy right now!”
“This is Strider,” you say. “Is Jane with you?”
“Thought she was with you—Gamzee, so help me gog, if you don’t quit it—why, where is she?”
“We don’t know,” you reply. “She left her phone. Never even heard her leave.”
“Are you sure she’s not curled up in the—Gamzee!—dwelling facilities control block?”
“The what, now?”
“Utility closet.”
You wait for Roxy to come back, covered in dust, and shake her head. “No. She’s nowhere in the apartment. We’ve checked. We can’t find her.”
Vantas swears. “I do not have time for this,” he grunts. “I’ll keep an ocular out for her, but you’re on your own.” You’re about to hang up when he hisses. “And, Strider, if so much as a hair on her head gets singed, I’m scooping your thinkpan out of that eggshell you call a skull and serving it on my grubloaf still warm and oozy. We clear?”
“Crystal.” You hang up. “We’re going on a Jane hunt. Who’s ready to tear up the town?”
“Way ahead of you, Di-Stri,” Roxy sings, spinning her keys around her finger. “Let’s ride, boys!”
On a morbid whim the first place you check is the cemetery where her dad’s buried. Nope. Then the hospital. Nope. Then her favorite café. Another nope. You’re basically running out of ideas and headed back to the apartment before Big Green and Ugly comes and crushes you when Roxy’s phone rings.
“I’ve got it, you keep your eyes on the road,” you say firmly. Roxy is a perilous driver even when not distracted.
“No, Dirk, let me—”
Because you’re you, you shimmy it out of her pocket and answer it without checking the caller ID before she can so much as slap you.
“Roxy Lalonde’s phone, Strider speaking.”
“Oh!” says a voice on the other end you haven’t heard in a very, very long time. “Oh—oh—erm—”
You blink. “No way.”
“Er—this is a premade recording,” says the voice, all quavering and high-pitched and slightly British. “Thank you for calling—”
“Let me put you on hold,” you say smoothly, then reach over and grab Roxy’s shoulder just to make sure that, yes, you are both still here, Jake is here, you are all here and you are not having a stress-induced hallucination.
“Roxy,” you say, voice smooth as butter on a baby’s bottom, “why is a dead cherub calling you?”
She bites her lip and holds out her hand. You relent, pinching her shoulder so she knows this is not over.
“Callie?” she breathes as soon as the phone is pressed to her ear. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Callie?” Jake frowns. “Not—not Calliope?”
“Whoa, babe, slow down,” Roxy soothes, nearly hopping a curb. You reach over and start steering, and she takes her hands completely off the wheel (“Don’t stop working the pedals,” you tell her). “What are you—? She what?”
She taps your arm, and you nod—you start heading for Roxy’s apartment.
“Okay, keep her there, stay there,” Roxy instructs. “We’ll be there in a few minutes.” A pause. “We’ll talk about it in a few. Promise. Later.”
She resumes steering. You sit back in your seat, fold your arms, and drum your fingers against your bicep.
“Roxy.”
She doesn’t answer for a while, face pink.
“Callie came to me when she started to understand that Caliborn was going to take her over,” she says hesitantly. “We worked out a plan. There’s a very dangerous little ritual I found in one of Rosie’s books, to separate a soul from a body and put it into something else. We tailored it a little for Callie, and as soon as we could…we got her out of that body. Caliborn never suspected a thing. Thought he’d predominated already.”
Jake whistles. You let go of the breath you didn’t realize you were holding.
“So,” Roxy bites her lip, “she’s…uh…been living with me for the past six or seven years.”
“In what?” you ask.
“Aradia pulled some strings,” Roxy said, voice speeding up. “It went off without a hitch—nobody went looking for it or her, she got away from her brother—”
“Roxy,” Jake forces himself up in between you two, “what’s Calliope been living in all these years?”
She looks straight ahead, mouth pursed, fingers curling and uncurling on the steering wheel, and doesn’t speak until she pulls into the parking lot of her apartment complex. She still doesn’t speak as she bounds out of the car, taking the stairs two at a time, and by the time you catch up to her, she doesn’t need to speak.
A pretty white carapacian with insane eyelashes and non-carapacian-typical green eyes opens up her arms and lets Roxy fall into her, and gives you and Jake a sheepish smile.
“Hello,” she says hesitantly. Behind her, Jane walks up, a smirk on her face so smug you can’t decide if you want to strangle her for leaving or strangle her twice for being so self-assured about the whole mess.
“Gentlemen,” she says brightly, “I believe you know Calliope already?”
==>
In the cloud of but HOW surrounding getting all of you packed into Roxy’s tiny little flat and shuffling around the computers and jars of dead cats (why does she still have these. Why.), Roxy doesn’t let go of Calliope’s hand and keeps fawning over her, biting her lip, et cetera. Hovering. It would be cute, under other circumstances. Probably. Jane squeezes in between you and Jake on the loveseat while Roxy takes the armchair, Calliope perched on the arm.
“I’m sure you’re all wanting an explanation,” Calliope says hesitantly, “but I’m certain whatever Roxy told you will have to satisfy you until I hear exactly how you figured it out, Jane!”
“More of a long shot than anything,” Jane shrugs. “I remember how you and Roxy were always very close, and I thought that Caliborn showing up again would make more of an impact on her, since you disappeared very suddenly. Also, at the hospital, she was texting you. She has you listed as Ms. Paint in her contacts, but she called you Callie when she thought I wasn’t looking. Not to mention, if Caliborn had to go through an incubation process with Doc Scratch, then he didn’t predominate in the normal way.” She frowns. “It’s likely Caliborn has long figured out by now that something went wrong when you disappeared, Calliope. You’re in more danger than the rest of us put together, if he’s figured it out.”
“I know,” Calliope sighs, “I knew it the moment I agreed to accept the Lalondes’ help. He likely figured it out very soon after our separation, when he stayed a thirteen-year-old berk instead of sprouting into a full-grown monster.” There’s a snide edge to her voice you respect. Girl got sass, when she wants.
“Well…now what?” Jake asks, exuding a breath. “I assume the only reason Callie’s been safe this long is because of your voidy thing, Rox?”
“Apparently,” Roxy shrugs. “Still don’t get how all that works.”
Jane is staring hard at Calliope; it’s making her uncomfortable, you can tell. You’d be uncomfy yourself if Jane was Xeroxing you like that, too.
“Calliope,” she says slowly, “would it be possible for you to re-enter your old body?”
Calliope cringes a little. Roxy leans forward, face hard.
“You’re not sending her back in there, Jane,” she says, voice steely. “Cal would kill her.”
“It might be our only shot to get rid of him, though,” Jane argues. “If it’s even possible, I mean, which your reaction hints that it could be. If we send her back, she could try a late predomination and force Caliborn out for good.”
“How do we even know that would work?” you argue back. “How do we know it wouldn’t kill her, being separated from the carapace after so long?”
“I don’t know!” Jane snaps. “All I know is that we are running out of options, an emotionally and mentally unstable cherub is wreaking havoc outside, and we—I—need to fix it!”
She’s standing now, fists quivering as she glares at her shoes, shoulders heaving. You want to agree just so she stops looking at herself like that, but…it’s so very, very risky.
“There is a way that could work,” Calliope says softly.
“Callie, no—”
“Roxy,” Calliope murmurs, “please.”
Roxy throws Jane a foul look but zips it.
“More or less, what helped me tear from my brother is a homebrew of human grimdark energies and troll psychics,” Calliope explains. “I am bound to this body by my own pure cherub will, however. If…” she takes a deep breath. “Predomination is a long, very hard road to take, and it’s possible that so long on his own may have strengthened my brother to the point where he will crush me the second our souls begin occupying the same body once more.”
“Then why take that chance?” Roxy begs. “Why put yourself back in harm’s way?”
“Because,” Calliope says, very softly, “I am stronger, too.”
Roxy doesn’t speak, but rather flings her arms around Calliope’s neck. Jane bites her lip, but finally looks up.
“Alright,” she says slowly. “Let’s give it a shot.”
==>
Of course…one does not simply walk up to a psychopathic raging cherub.
Roxy’s being stone-cold Lalonde and making sure everyone knows how Very Not Okay she is with this plan, but she’s being slightly helpful, at least—calling up her sister and the troll who helped get Calliope into her new body in the first place (Aradia, you think her name is), letting Jane talk to them for a while. Calliope has been meditating, and you’re almost sorry that she’s going to give up that graceful little carapace. It looks good on her. Jane is keeping Vantas informed, as per their agreement, and though he also thinks it’s an awful idea he’s pledging his support.
You call your bro. Check up on him. Apparently he’s pissed because his IVs are itchy and Steampunk Zahhak still won’t leave him alone. You grin. At least he’s doing his job, you say. You just might shake that troll’s hand when this is all done.
You’ve moved base from Roxy’s hole-in-the-wall to yours and Jane’s place, simply because it’s roomier and still pretty new; most places are still sending your mail to your old flat. The skyline is permanently smoky and you keep the news going while you plan; apparently, right now Lord English is keeping to the outskirts and working his way slowly inward in a spiral pattern. Cherubs, man.
“The problem,” Calliope says, chewing on a pen, “is that unless I’m stuck to his face somehow I’m not sure how to stop myself from floating into the ethereal blue instead of back into my body again.”
“Can’t get a lot of direction as a ghost?” Jane asks.
“Not without some incredible focus,” Calliope muses. “Of course, if I am to retake my body, some incredible focus is exactly what’s called for…however, I would rather be close, if I can. The body may pull me back in on its own.”
Cherubs, man.
“Any more bright ideas, Janie?” Roxy asks tersely.
“A few,” Jane replies. “How much stress can a carapacian body undergo before it dies?”
“Less than a troll, more than a human,” Calliope smiles. “I’m fairly certain, however, that since I am technically still a cherub at heart, I could control this body just beyond its limits. No more than two rounds with that machine gun he’s so fond of, tops.”
Jane hmmms to herself and falls back onto the couch, steepled fingertips pressed to her lips and legs swinging idly over the arm of the couch. You shift over and put her head in your lap. She glances at you, grins quickly, and returns to thinking. You absently run your fingers through her hair.
“Dirk,” she says quietly, “that’s very distracting.”
“Sorry,” you murmur back, stretching your arms across the back of the couch instead. Your fingers tap against the fabric.
“I’ve got an idea!” Jake chirps.
“Yes?” Jane sits up.
“What we need is a good old-fashioned distraction!” Jake smiles. “We just keep Caliborn busy with our own firepower, then let Calliope edge around the back and get close enough to soul-jump him!”
“Simplistic,” Jane grins, “but if we pick the right setting, very effective. Well done, Jake!”
He grins. Neither you nor Jane flush. Progress.
(There’s still the matter of his pinup girl-worthy backside, but you have more important things to dwell on right now.)
You spend about an hour debating on the best place to try and lure Lord English to; one of the already-destroyed buildings would be ideal, but the thing to remember is that he’s not entirely a mindless killing machine. The guy is smart. He’s looking for something, it seems to you, and when you say it out loud everyone stares at you with dawning comprehension.
“Me,” Calliope says. “He’s looking for me.”
No one says it, but Roxy puts her foot down anyway: “We are not using Callie as bait. It’s bad enough that she’s gotta soul-duel the dude.”
“Then what else do you have in mind, Roxy?” you ask, bone-weary with her constant antagonism already. “I know, it sucks. It does. But this is the only way we are going to get rid of this guy. Cherubs are tough, too tough for anything but another cherub to handle. Lo and behold, we have the soul-sister of a murderous psychopath among us who’s willing and strong enough to finally take him on.”
“It’s not fair!” Roxy bursts. “We got her out of there so she wouldn’t have to fight this battle! She’s not going to win!”
Roxy is bright-eyed and trembly-lipped and she buries her head in her hands as Calliope puts her arm around her shoulders.
“You’re right to be worried,” Calliope says softly. “I couldn’t take him, before. But…but now I think I have a great deal more at stake, and a great deal more to fight for.”
Roxy leans into Calliope’s shoulder. “I don’t wanna lose you, Callie,” she sniffs. “You’re my best friend.”
Calliope smiles gently. Everything about her is so sweet; it would worry you, if you didn’t know that it took a lot of guts to be that way after everything she’d been through. You look at this cherub in a carapacian’s body, and for the first time you realize you’re not worried at all about who would top when it comes down to a fight between brother and sister. You look at Jane, whose expression makes you ache to your very center, and understand why you’re not worried.
Callie ain’t the only fullmetal sweetheart in the house.
==>
The location: an abandoned diner from the outermost spiral of carnage. The setup: you, Detective Vantas, and Jake behind the counter, with Jane and several dozen police officers back in the kitchen and surrounding the area; Roxy and Zahhak are far to the outside, acting as lookout this time. The bait: a tense little carapacian babe sipping a soda in a booth, all on her lonesome. You’re all waiting, sweating like crazy and lip-biting and generally trying not to make a sound. Lord English—Caliborn—can sense all of you, and you all know it, but you’re hoping combination ego and desperation will drive him your way.
The walkie-talkie at Vantas’ belt chirps twice. Looks like your hopes paid off. Beside you, Jake wriggles a little.
“I hope we win,” he says softly.
Soon enough, the heavy footsteps of a full-grown cherub pound closer and closer, and sooner still his growling is audible. You don’t move, waiting for him to rip the door off its hinges and barge into the diner (which he does), holding your breath when he pauses.
“You,” he growls.
“Hello, brother,” Calliope says, calm, cool, and collected. “Long time, no see.”
He roars, stomping towards her. “I’m gonna kill you for real this time, you snotty little—”
He doesn’t have time to finish what he was saying, because at that moment a windowpane shatters inward and peppers Caliborn’s face with buckshot. None of it penetrates, as far as you can tell, but it definitely gets his attention. Roxy cocks her shotgun again.
“Yippie-kai-yay,” she spits.
Aaaaand that’s about when all hell breaks loose.
Calliope vaults over the counter to join you as you all open fire on the green lunatic. From the kitchen pours the cops stuffed in there, and Jane throws herself down next to you.
“Vantas, gun,” she instructs. He glares at her, hands over his gun, and unsheathes—is that a sickle?
“Don’t make that face at me, I’ll be fine,” he snarls, and rolls under the line of fire to do…something…and whatever it is it pisses Caliborn off; he kicks out, ankles streaming almost-human-red, and Vantas flies across the diner to crumple against the wall, leaving a streak of bright flaming red blood against the wall. Huh. Didn’t know trolls came in that flavor. You’d figured he was using contacts or something to make himself look scarier.
Jane squeaks, dropping down to go help him, but you grab her arm.
“Don’t,” you warn.
“But—”
“He’ll be fine,” you repeat, hoping you’re not lying to her right now. “We have bigger problems.”
It’s true; most of the cops are reloading and they still haven’t made a dent; Caliborn isn’t paying attention to his aggressors, which is alright with you, but he’s now advancing on the counter and getting ready to rip it from the floor. You bite your lip, unsheathe the katana you’d brought with you just in case (never can tell when you’ll need it), and yank Jane forward, kissing her temple.
“Pale for you,” you say simply, just in case you don’t get a chance later, and hoist yourself onto the counter and take a running leap. His back was turned to you, so you manage to sink your blade all the way through his torso (and he’s still not dead, not that you exactly need him to be just yet), hop up on his shoulders, and…for lack of a better metaphor…ride ‘em, cowboy.
He tries to buck you off, choking from combined cold steel in his chest and your leg muscles wrapped around his neck, and you’re actually having the time of your life until two things happen.
One, a cop’s gun misfires and the bullet carves a nice furrow into your right shoulder, which makes you slip until you’re clinging from Caliborn’s shoulders one-handed.
Two, several hundred pounds of greenbound muscle slam into a wall, using you as a cushion.
Yeah…you black out a little. It’s really embarrassing. Or it would be, if you could feel anything but like a massive bruise.
Your katana is still in the guy’s body, however, and it seems, through your slitted vision, that dear, sweet, precious Calliope is taking a leaf out of your book.
The second she grabs onto the sword, sharp little feet scrambling for purchase on his back, Caliborn roars; when she gets her arms around his neck and bites down hard, he goes berserk, crashing into tables and walls and the counter. Soon enough, the carapace slumps to the ground, hollow and lifeless, and Caliborn screams worse than ever, clutching at his head.
“No,” he shrieks, though his voice has a feminine touch to it, “nononononononononononono!”
You’re finding it hard to pay attention, because Jake is pulling you back behind the counter and Jane is arranging your pounding head on her lap.
“Hey, Janie,” you croak.
“Don’t talk, you might have something broken,” she snaps. You realize your shades must’ve busted in the collision with the wall and she can see your weird orange irises clear as day. You cough. No blood, so maybe no internal injuries, maybe. Your shoulder’s wrecked, though, bleeding all over the…all over the place. You’re really tired all of a sudden.
Jane’s saying something and something else is being pressed to your shoulder, and doesn’t that sting like crazy…
“—dare doze off on me, Dirk Strider!” Jane shrieks, and the pressure on your shoulder increases. “Do you hear me, mister?”
“Loud ‘n clear, Jane,” you mumble. That sounds nice. “Jane, Jane, Jane, Jane…”
“What?” she asks, stroking the sides of your head. That feels good.
“Pale for you,” you sigh. You’re really quite tired.
Jane leans forward until you’re touching foreheads, and you can hear the sobbing giggle in her voice.
“Pale for you too, you crazy inconsiderate brave lunatic,” she murmurs. You grin. “You’ve gotta stay awake for me now, okay? Callie’s about to win.”
Well, can’t go disappointing Callie. Jane helps you sit up, head lolling and throbbing. The tall green figure on the other side of the counter seems to have snapped your katana in half and pulled it out, but the blood is a weird brownish, flashing between red and green where it’s spattering. There’s a final ear-piercing shriek—your headache doubles in intensity and everyone around you covers their ears—and the whole cherub body glows white.
You think you’re really losing it when wide white wings unfurl from the muscled back crackling with a cosmic force you can’t name, when all the blood spatters turn lime green, when the cherub turns around and beams at all of you with solid green cheeks and adorable huge green eyes.
“That’s that,” Calliope says simply.
You’re pretty sure combined concussion and blood loss is doing nothing for you, but you stagger to your feet, Jane under your arm supporting you, and cheer with the rest. Vantas stirs awake.
“Did we win?” he calls drowsily.
“You bet your nubs!” Jane says cheerfully. He groans and slumps to the side.
“Thank gog.”
==>
When you wake up, it’s dark and Jane’s baking. You lie still and try to remember where you are and what you’re smelling. Your room, you think. Carrot cake. Something cinnamony.
You sit up, careful of your bandages (apparently you also have a few cracked ribs. Go figure), and slump your way into the kitchen. Jane beams, sunny-bright, and sets a slice of cake in front of you. Carrot cake. Yesssss.
“Roxy’s getting a new place,” she announces as you try to work your fork left-handed. “Apparently Callie’s too big for the old one.”
“Good for them,” you grunt. “And Jake?”
“Sharing space with his sister,” Jane shrugs, pouring a glass of milk for her and orange juice for you. “Roxy’s trying to get him to move in with her and Calliope. He’s very close to agreeing.”
“That’ll be a fun place to be,” you snort, then wince. Yep. You’re still a giant bruise. And, although you have multiple replacement shades (of course), you’re not wearing any right now. It’s just you and Jane, after all. “How’s Vantas?”
“Karkat’s perfectly fine,” she grins. “A good night’s rest and he perked right up, back to his grouchy old self.”
You chew the cake for a while. “What about Gamzee?”
Jane’s smile fades. “He’s…” she sighs. “He’s going to trial, for everything he did under Lord English. Detective Vantas is positive he’ll be released into rehab and his moirail’s care, since it’s blatantly obvious that Gamzee wasn’t himself during that period of time, but…” She reaches out and takes your hand. You’d stopped eating at the word “rehab”. “I know it doesn’t make right everything he’s done, but under the circumstances…it’s just best to let sleeping dogs lie.”
“And Benjy Bennet?”
“With his relatives, in Skaia City. With time, he’ll adjust.” Jane goes to pull away, but you curl your fingers around hers and lead her around the bar, right into your arms. Well, arm. The shot shoulder is in a sling. She hugs you, aware of it, and you rest your head on top of hers.
“And we,” she continues, “are going to be just fine.”
You grin. “Good to know.”
You stay like that for a good long while, get nice and comfy, when Jane’s phone rings, on the couch. She extricates herself from you and answers it.
“Hello?”
The voice on the other line is shouty. You drain the last of your OJ and stand up. Jane grins at you.
“How very mysterious, Detective Vantas,” she says coyly. “Three unexplained similar suicides, and now a fourth! Quite curious.”
Vantas yells what you’re quite sure is a colorful assortment of profanity at her, and she laughs.
“We’re on our way,” she promises, and ends the call. “Ready for another adventure, Mr. Strider?”
“Of course, Miss Crocker,” you reply, shrugging into your jeans one-handed.
“Could be dangerous,” she muses, pulling on a sweater.
“Trying to scare me off?” you tease, sliding into your shoes. She reaches up on tiptoes and kisses the end of your nose, sliding your shades onto your face.
“Never,” she smiles. “Come, come, Dirk! The game’s afoot!”
And you follow her into the night.