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universe_cRule #2
Caliborn didn't ask for this shit.
Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Warning! This is a much darker fic than 5I! Contains graphic violence, graphic character death, graphic xeno, mind control/psychic fuckery, Time Shit, and a whole lot of general Caliborn fit-pitching.
You appear in the kitchen. Jane Crocker nearly jumps out of her skin when she turns and sees you digging into a half-eaten platter of cold meat.
“Oh!” she says, then, “Well. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you'd turn up now of all times.”
“What the fuck are you on about?” you ask.
Her eyes widen as they land on your forearm. That is starting to piss you off.
“You'll find out,” she says, giving you one of her hard looks.
She is so solid, somehow more real than the potted herbs lining the deep window-sills, the rough wooden furniture, or even the stones of the walls and floor. Her gaze is utterly unafraid and utterly unimpressed. You remember the heavy force of her fork connecting with your ribcage and smile.
“There you are!” someone says.
Fuuuuuck. It's your sister. She's got you by the wrist before you manage to abscond.
Jane grins a little at the look of annoyance on your face.
“Take some of that with you, if you're hungry. Just remember that I'm not going to keep feeding you unless you start doing some work around here.” She nods to Calliope. “You and Dirk keep him out of trouble, okay?”
“We can only try,” the bitch says, dryly. Her hand on you is like a shackle.
You scoop up a huge stack of meat slices with your bare hand. Calliope eyes you with distaste.
“What?” you ask, deliberately chewing with your mouth open. “You can just let me the fuck go if you don't like it.”
“You are completely horrible, as you always are,” she says. “Now, come on. I have to take you to see some people before we go out. Jane you'll come out when it's time, right?”
“Don't worry,” Jane says, voice infinitely warmer and kinder than when she was talking to you. “I'll know before you will.”
Jane turns back toward the bowl of whatever it is she's mixing, smiling over her shoulder. Calliope smiles back. You wonder if they've ever – ugh – cuddled. How disturbing.
Calliope drags you into the dining block. Three people are standing there, obviously waiting for you.
“Our Seers,” Calliope tells you, “Kankri, Terezi and Rose.”
They look at you. You can practically feel their power crawling all over your brain. You stare back, insolently chewing on some meat like their appraisal isn't bothering you at all.
“I have never seen anyone with such enormous potential, both to harm and to help,” the guy says. He's like a slimmer, snootier version of what's his face from the beer incident. He stands with arms crossed and head tilted at an arrogant angle. All three of them are small. It's kind of nice to be the tallest person in the room, for once – if you don't count the fact that your sister's stupid ugly horns are taller than yours. You totally don't.
“We have a long way to go, if we wish to find common ground,” he continues, “But I'm afraid there is little choice but to try. Tell me, Lord English, do you seek safety among us?”
They all look at you as if expecting an answer. You shove some more meat in your mouth, stalling. Seriously, what the fuck kind of question is that?
The teal-colored girl smiles with all her teeth, leans in close and sniffs you.
“What the fuck!” you say, recoiling.
“He reeks of guilt,” she pronounces. “Guilt and old blood.”
“Nevertheless,” says Rose, “I suggest we allow him to attend. I believe it will be in everyone's best interest.” She is paler than her older self, purple-tinged as a shiny drowned corpse. Her features are surprisingly similar to Dirk's now that you look closer.
“I concur,” the red guy says.
“It's either that or let me cull him right now.” Teal-girl grins and strokes the dragon-shaped head of her cane.
“Dirk and I will take responsibility for him,” Calliope says.
“Why the fuck do I need any of you assholes to take responsibility for me?” you ask.
Teal cackles merrily, slapping her sides. Rose's mouth draws into a subtle, sardonic smile, and even the snooty guy looks faintly amused under his incredulous eyebrow-raise.
“Because you have a history of violent outbursts, and have yet to earn the trust of this community,” he says, bluntly. “However, please be assured of your welcome during the hatching. We would not attempt to separate you from family unless you prove it necessary.”
“I don't have a family,” you say. Calliope pinches your side, hard.
“Bitch,” you say, dodging a second grab at your ribs.
“Ooh! You make me so angry sometimes. The sooner I can hand you off to Dirk, the better,” she says.
Rose's face is studiously neutral but her eyes are laughing. “Why don't you take him out, then? As one might expect from the Lord of Time, he is nothing if not punctual.”
“What the fuck is with this mysterious horseshit you all keep talking around?” you ask. You rip a hunk out of your last slice of meat, eyeing up your sister's dumb, green face. You'd love to punch it, but you don't think you'd get away with it. These people like her for some unfathomable reason. She'd just dodge like a fucking coward anyway.
Rather than reply, she drags you down a shadowy hallway and out into the yard. You freeze, digging your heels in as she steers you around the back of another building.
There are so many people out here. Fuck.
Blankets are scattered under the trees and in the sun, forming a wide ring. In the center, the unmistakable shapes of the clowns and that bitch you killed sit with a few others in two distinct clusters. It seems like everyone in the village is there, occupying themselves with various small tasks. Some are mending clothes or spinning, carving small bits of wood, working on piles of hides. A few nap, singly or in shameful cuddling groups. The low murmur of voices fades as people notice you, a ring of silence spreading outwards from where you stand.
Calliope tugs futilely at your wrist. You consider gnawing your arm off at the elbow to escape.
Dirk picks himself up from a sheet covered in delicate machine parts and hurries over to you.
“I wondered which you would show,” he says, clapping you on the shoulder. “Callie, you want me to take him from here?”
“Please! He's being all around terrible.”
“Is it my fault you can't deal with my witty repartee?”
“What repartee? You're just being a huge, childish jerk for no reason, like you always are.”
Everyone around you is watching, listening to your every word. It makes your skin crawl.
“Come on, dude,” Dirk says. “We're all just waiting around at this point. You might as well chill out. I got him, Callie.”
“Good.” Calliope drops your hand and walks off like she can't get away fast enough. You do not resist the urge to stick your tongue out at her back. You don't even try.
“Will you explain to me what the fuck the big deal is, here? I'm starting to get pissed off.”
“The big deal is this,” Dirk says, steering you straight towards the center of the circle. “You're going to be a dad. Congratulations.”
“Like I don't fucking know that already,” you say. “He was the first person I met on this shitball planet.”
“Your kid?” Dirk says. “You never told me that. Though, careful, man. Rule two.”
The people on the center pair of blankets look up as you approach. Makara and the Timewitch smile at you. Your ex-guide and the three people with him range from glowering to cautiously friendly. Each group is camped around a big egg, nested in a supportive ring of towels.
“Yo,” Dirk says. He elbows you.
“What?” you ask.
“I guess a modicum of fucking courtesy is too much to expect.” One of your ex-guide's circle is that guy, uh, Van-something. His face is a study in barely-restrained annoyance. “Though, look who I'm talking to here: the messiest, most schizophrenic fake moirallegience conceivable. Sit down, dipshits, and don't you fucking dare ruin this.”
You surprise yourself, growling in your throat. “Fuck you,” you tell him.
“Great comeback, fuckass. Sit!”
Dirk folds himself down onto the blanket, dragging you with him. You lose your balance and half-fall against his side. A large, cool hand lands on your back, steadying you.
MY LORD.
Makara smiles at you softly. It makes a panicky, buoyant bubble form in your chest. The Timewitch leans around him and takes your free hand, pressing it to her lips, then her forehead. She says something you can't follow through her incomprehensible accent.
“She says she's glad to see you,” Dirk says. Fuck. You yank your hand back.
“Easy,” Dirk says. Makara strokes your shoulder reassuringly. You shudder.
Okay. You've got to keep your shit together. You remind yourself that this is well before any murder-related incidents occur. None of them know.
There is a thud behind you, like something heavy striking dirt. You half-turn.
“What the actual fuck, Meenah,” the grouchy guy says.
Some fin-face bitch stands behind you sporting ripped jeans, too many bracelets and floor-length braids. She's leaning casually on a tall, double-headed trident.
“Shut it, Vantas,” the fishbitch says. “You think I'mma just let him sit there like it ain't nofin? You know me better than that. Community Safety Committee represent.”
“This is spectacularly unhelpful,” Vantas says.
Damara glides to her feet. She plucks the wicked-looking needles from her hair, letting it fall straight and shining around her shoulders.
MY SISTER IN ARMS. SIT YOUR ASS BACK DOWN BEFORE YOU MAR THIS MIRACULOUS MOTHERFUCKING OCCASION.
The Timewitch shoots Makara a poisonous glare, and takes another step toward the fishbitch. Fishbitch grins and picks up her trident.
The wave of chill-the-fuck-out that slams off Makara is so powerful it makes both of those bitches' knees visibly shake. Around you, people sway in their seats and sleepers awake. Your own grinding annoyance with this whole escapade is blown away like a dissipating dream.
“We up and got this motherfucker,” your ex-guide says, mildly. “So put your motherfucking culling fork away before I up and do it for you.”
The two combatants stumble back a step and turn away from each other.
The Timewitch sits back down at your clown's side, glaring at him half-heartedly. Makara takes her needles and uses them to put her hair back up. The fishbitch makes herself scarce.
Dirk squeezes your hand. For possibly the first time ever you appreciate it.
“That was barely even your fault. Those two will take any excuse to go for each other,” he tells you.
“I still don't even know what the fuck is going on here,” you say.
“Uh, well, none of us really know, since it's the first time it's happened,” says the brown, wide-horned guy sitting at your ex-guide's side. He's Faye's father, you remember. “But we're waiting for the eggs to hatch. You maybe know better than we do, even, if you've been to the future. Did you really, uh, meet your kid already?”
“Yeah,” you say. It's kind of nice to just sit without all that fear and anger boiling around in your skull. It almost makes the pointed stares of everyone in the village less threatening. “A couple times.”
“Have you ever met her?” he asks, smoothing his fingers over the brown shell of his egg.
Oh. Oh, fuck, that's right. Babies come from eggs.
Where the fuck else would they come from, you guess.
“Yeah,” you say.
“What's she like?”
“Rule two,” Dirk cuts in. “That's no spoilers, Tavros, in case you're wondering.”
“Stupidly fucking tall. And stupidly fucking fearless,” you say. Dirk digs his elbow into your side.
Tavros grins at you like you just made his whole life.
“Are you going to introduce us?” the fourth person on the other blanket asks, brightly. She's like a slightly distorted copy of the Timewitch, younger looking and much more cheerful.
“Sure,” Dirk says, suave and in charge again all the sudden. “Aradia Megido, meet Caliborn. Cal, this is Aradia, and her moirail, Tavros Nitram. His matesprit, Gamzee Makara. And Gamzee's moirail, Karkat Vantas. You know Kurloz and Damara already, I'm sure.”
“I remember,” you say, pointing. “You got me drunk, you tried to asphyxiate me and you I shot full of holes.”
Karkat facepalms.
“Long motherfucking time ago that was,” Gamzee comments, placidly.
“I don't remember that,” Tavros says. “Future me? Oh, sorry. The rules. Right, uh. Never mind.”
“He make noise,” Damara says, and the reverent hush in her voice is more startling than her usual acerbic tone by far. She is bent close to the red and purple egg in front of Kurloz.
Everyone stares at her for a moment, then leans in, listening. You do too, in spite of yourself.
The egg makes a tiny, high-pitched squeak. It rocks very slightly in its little nest of towels. The shell deforms, as if something is pressing against it from inside.
“Oh,” someone breathes. Or maybe everyone.
It is somehow mesmerizing. Dirk and Damara both clutch at your hands. You ignore the exclamations coming from the other blanket, the whispers of the assembled crowd. Jane's voice admonishes someone about something, but you don't fucking care what.
Two sharp little points press and press against the eggshell, nudging it with sharp little grunts of effort. Finally, it splits around them, revealing damp, pale indigo-tinged hair and a pair of yellow horns. They are stupefyingly tiny and already have Kharon's characteristic shape, placed like yours, spiraled like Kurloz's.
“Don't touch,” Jane says. You draw your hand back. You're not sure what you were going to do with it anyway. “It's important that we not rush them. Everyone who's not a parent should back off now, in case they imprint like birds.”
You barely notice Dirk leaving your side. Kurloz shifts closer to you, his long arm pressed against yours. His calm is massive beside you, a comforting presence to lean your mind against.
The child shifts and rests, squirming against the tough skin of the egg. He makes small, high noises of effort or frustration. The egg rolls in its nest. Then, a small, curled hand makes its way through the split, and your son peels the shell away from his small, scrunched face. He opens his rust orange eyes, looks up at you and smiles.
Your heart bursts into a million sharp shards.
You and Kurloz reach for him at the same time, Kurloz to peel away the remnant of the egg. You simply touch him, watching his tiny, perfect fingers wrap around yours. He is shiny all over with purple dampness, a pudgy bundle of helplessness. He yawns, revealing toothless gums and a miniature, purple-pink tongue.
It should be completely disgusting. This welling of gooshy, tender feelings should be completely disgusting. You cling to the remnant of your calm under his semi-focused baby gaze. Maybe at some point, you'll remember how to breathe.
Kurloz pulls away from your side and shrugs one shoulder of his robe off. Kharon makes a small noise when Kurloz scoops him carefully from the towel-nest and settles him against his skin.
“What are you doing?” you mumble, leaning helplessly closer against his bare shoulder.
FEEDING HIM.
The clown's flesh is warm, much warmer than his thoughts. The child is warm and fragile, tiny in his big hands. Kharon turns his face against Kurloz's chest with a sound of complaint.
“You have to help him find the nipple,” Jane says. “Just stick it right in his mouth. He should know what to do.”
Kurloz adjusts, more of his weight leaning against your chest. You have draped yourself all over him without your even noticing, your cheek pressed against his shoulder as you stare down at the child. Kharon looks back up at you both, solemn, his mouth occupied at the soft swell of Kurloz's breast. It's barely a tit, really, nothing like the knockers on a real bitch, but it's more than he was packing last you saw him. You wonder how it feels.
Kurloz projects a weird, suckling, tickling relief at you, underlain with awe and a deep, chest-squeezing tenderness. It makes you squirm, your arm around him tightening involuntarily.
“Don't panic,” Dirk murmurs in your ear.
“I'm not,” you insist.
“Good.”
Damara is suddenly close, too, smiling at you from the other side of Kurloz. You can't look her in the face. Instead, you glance over toward the other blanket, where a similar knot has formed around the child in Tavros's arms. Around you, the watchers have given up any pretense of working on other things. Most are sitting in pairs or little clumps with an egg somewhere at their center. All eyes are on you, still, curious but no longer hostile. Jane and Roxy stand not far off, Roxy wiping tears from her eyes. Someone you don't recognize hurries up to them and Roxy buries her face in his scarf, petting his egg.
There is a disgusting amount of snuggling going on. You are snuggled all up to your creepy-ass clown and your kid and Dirk and the Timewitch. You force yourself to take a deep breath.
A tiny, complaining cry jerks your attention back to the baby. You reach for him almost before you know what you're doing, smoothing his downy, drying hair.
“He's like... a miniature person,” you say. Fuck, that was probably one of the stupider things to ever come out of your mouth, ever. Kurloz and Damara kind of just nod, though. It's strange to see the clown's intensity turned on something other than yourself.
Eventually, Kharon turns his face away from Kurloz's breast. You wipe your finger curiously through the trickle of yellow-white fluid and baby spit.
“Mammalian milk glands are modified sweat glands, found in two long lines down the front of the body,” Dirk tells you.
You freeze with your finger in your mouth.
“It's called collustrum at this stage,” Jane says matter-of-factly. “It's high in antibodies to protect against disease.”
You pull a face. Kurloz shakes a little in silent laughter and Damara snickers. The milk is sweet and strange, like nothing else you've ever tasted.
Kurloz nudges you off him, arranges your arms, then places the child in them.
“You have to support his head,” Dirk says, arranging you further, “There.”
“How the fuck do you know all this, Strider?” you mutter.
“Crocker made us all practice on dolls,” he says.
“I'm glad she did,” Tavros comments from the other blanket. “Otherwise I might be kind of freaking out right now.”
You are not, not, not freaking out, though you may in fact be slightly afraid to move. Dirk rubs at your shoulders, until you give in and sag against him. Kharon shifts his slight weight in your arms, alarmingly comfortable to hold. He smiles at you again, blinking like he can't keep his eyes open. The shards of your heart tumble inside you like sand in a wave, slicing you up till you feel raw.
“I think he's falling asleep,” you whisper. “Uh. What do I do?”
“You're fine,” Dirk says. “Shh.”
Kurloz touches your face softly, smiling at you like he might actually mean it.
“Oh Kurly,” someone says, just a touch too loudly. “He's lovely! I'm so happy for you!!”
An olive-green girl with a tumble of long hair drapes herself over Kurloz's shoulders, looking you and the child over and grinning like she might explode at any second. She reaches down and traces Kharon's arm with careful fingers. Kurloz squeezes her other hand, a shadow of pain clouding his face. You don't like it. You lift your lip at her, showing your teeth.
“None of that, now,” Dirk says, papping your shoulder.
The green woman moves off, escorted by a disapproving blue dude and chased by your glare. Jane moves in, kneeling in front of you on the blanket.
“I'm just going to check that he's healthy,” she says, like she's asking your permission. You wonder what you'll do if she tries to take Kharon from you. She waits until you nod, then hovers a hand over him. You're reminded again of that realness, that sense of presence she had in the kitchen.
“He's very strong,” she says. “You, on the other hand, feel like you've been pushing yourself too long on too little rest. You could stand to start eating better, too.”
“We'll take care of it,” Dirk says, squeezing your shoulder.
Across the way, the trident bitch is kneeling unwillingly at Gamzee's side, egged on by another magenta-colored girl. Suddenly you recognize her as your other betrayer, some kind of teenaged, punked-out version of the Condesce. The look of consternation on her face makes you want to laugh.
You carefully don't laugh, afraid you wouldn't be able to stop. You feel yourself start to shake a little at being hemmed in like this. There are too many people touching you and looking at you, after so long wandering Time like a ghost, after your whole life alone.
Dirk shooshes you again. Damara pats your knee and Kurloz pushes a gentle wave of calm at you. Kharon stirs in his sleep, his tiny fist tugging at your shirt.
“I'm not even going to ask what all these stains are,” Dirk says. “But I will find you some clean clothes if you want.”
“Okay,” you mumble, bile and blood-stench welling in your throat.
You breathe deep, trying to memorize the sweet smell of the child in your arms.
It feels strange and confusing to wake up naturally, without any nightmares, looming threats or psychic fuckery in progress.
There are arms fastened around you, strong and restraining, and your face is mashed into a pillowy breast. You are laying half on top of the Timewitch and she isn't wearing a shirt.
She smells much nicer with all her viscera still inside her.
A fussy cry makes you freeze and suddenly you know exactly what woke you. There is a baby somewhere right behind you. You feel a small limb press against your bare back. Fuck.
The nest of cushions shifts and a hand slides over your shoulder blade. You crane your neck around, watching Kurloz scrub at his bleary eyes then situate Kharon at his chest.
You roll over and find yourself with your face propped on his thigh. He's so thin. Kharon will inherit your stockier build, and you're kind of glad. Damara shifts as you do, making a faint, protesting noise. Her horn pokes you in the back as she curls against you.
Kurloz's fingers feel so nice in your hair that it kind of makes you want to scream. He massages your scalp near the base of your horn and brushes your mind with the sensation of nursing. It's a complex layering of feelings: protectiveness, relief-of-discomfort, love and awe, easily one of the filthiest things you've ever felt.
You realize you're clinging to the clown like a shipwrecked sailor to some splintery floating spar. Also, he's totally naked. There are definitely some naked boobs touching you, too. After a moment of panic, you discern that you are still wearing your pants. You wonder at your relief a moment later, when you reexamine the idea of being naked around either or even both of them, and find it faintly, disturbingly appealing.
Damara grunts when you shift, digging her horn into your skin.
SHE IS NOT A MORNING PERSON.
Kurloz's voice is full of sheathed claws, velvety and caressing. Kharon makes tiny noises as he suckles. You are a fucking mess, rotten inside with pale feelings, even flirting with red feelings. You are filled with a tenderness that borders on pain and the worst part is you're kind of okay with it. The anger you lost track of yesterday has not returned.
Someone knocks. You don't know if you could bear to see anyone right now. You tug at the big sheet of fabric snarled around your legs, hauling it up and over your head.
“You interested in some food, Cal?” Dirk asks.
“Yes,” you moan into Kurloz's side, your stomach rumbling.
Damara flops an arm against you. Dirk prods at your foot, exposed from when you pulled up the sheet. You yank it away from him, curling into a ball.
“Well, I'm going to go eat, like, right now. So if you want to come with, you better get up.”
Damara slurs something. Peeking out of your cocoon of pathetic confusion, you can see her flipping Dirk off.
“I don't think that's anatomically possible,” he says.
Then he grabs you by the ankle and hauls you bodily out of the pile.
“What the fucking fuck, Dirk, there's a baby,” you sputter.
“Baby's perfectly all right,” he says. “What do you take me for?”
“A sadistic douchebag,” you tell him.
“Diamond is the hardest naturally occurring substance known,” he says. “Now are you going to put on this extremely stylish outfit I put hours of labor into not? You'd be doing all five of us a favor, including yourself and your kid, if you could try to make a good impression.”
“What the hell – did you stay up all night sewing me an outfit? Why the fuck does it involve short pants?”
“You know what? These threads are entirely too swag to grace your body in its present state. When was the last time you bathed?”
Damara choses that very second to start throwing everything she can reach and a few things she can't at you both. Her aim is surprisingly good for someone with their eyes still shut. Your 2X abscond combo turns into Dirk dragging you half-naked across the courtyard to the bathhouse. Once there, he strips you and assaults you with soap.
Two girls in different shades of green are casually, nakedly cuddled together in a big, steaming stone pool. One of them you remember from that time in the workshop, her green egg sitting safe and clearly visible in a basket near the door. They giggle as they watch you and Dirks' epic, soapy strife. You're not sure if you're more horrified at what they're doing or what Dirk's putting you through in front of them.
“Settle down and just roll with it, fuckass,” one calls to you. “You can't come in for a soak unless you wash first!”
Dirk eventually finishes the most embarrassing scrub-down in the history of paradox space and trips you into the pool with them. They shriek, splashing back at you playfully. The water is shockingly warm. You scramble as far away from them as you can.
“Don't you dare try and climb out of there,” Dirk threatens, scrubbing himself down efficiently. “I will hold you under until you stop fighting me. Don't think I won't.”
“Some fucking palebro you are, threatening to drown me for no fucking reason.”
“You won't drown silly claws!” one of the girls says. “You have gills now, remember?”
You stare at her blankly. She flares a set of weird slits on the side of her neck at you.
“What the fuck,” you say, poking cautiously at that weird gash along your own neck. You'd forgotten about that.
“You probably would drown eventually,” the other girl tells you. Her green sheen is the same electric shade as your sister's blood and her ears are really hairy. “They're just not very efficient, and bodies as large as ours need a lot of oxygen. But if you learn to use them, it'll make swimming and diving a lot easier! We'll have to teach you. Don't try it in here, though, the water's too hot!”
You are saved from any more of their awkward, horribly cheerful conversation by Kurloz ducking through the door. The girls are out of the water in about two seconds, bouncing across the room to coo over the baby. You try really, really hard not to stare at any of their exposed jiggly bits. Kurloz smiles at you over their heads, his mind stroking yours with a brush of serene amusement. Your muscles loosen and you let yourself sag against the warm stone of the tub. It would have been about a million times easier to endure the last half hour if he'd been here the whole time.
Dirk's eyes narrow. He rinses himself off, hauls you out of the water and throws a towel at you.
The new clothes are admittedly comfortable and might possibly even look good on you, from the double-takes you get as Dirk drags you into the dining block.
“Ok,” he says dropping a full plate in front of you. “What's the deal with you and Kurloz? Not,” he adds, holding up a hand, “red or pale-wise. I mean, how come you relax so fast when he's around, but you're back on edge as soon as you're out of his range? I know stuff between us isn't where it needs to be, yet, but dude, I'm a little put out here.”
“Moirallegience is not a competition, you arrogant shitsack,” Vantas says, glaring at Dirk from the other end of your table.
“Wasn't talking to you, Vantas,” Dirk says.
“Then don't have your fucking feelings jam in the public dining block,” Vantas shoots back.
You flip him off.
“Quit it,” Dirk says, “And answer the goddamn question. Is he manipulating you with his Rage thing?”
“Don't you think that's between him and me?” you grate.
“If I thought that, I wouldn't be asking. Look, it's pretty obvious that he is, I'm just trying to talk to you about this like you might possibly be an adult.”
“Well there's your first mistake,” Vantas mumbles.
You flip him off again. Dirk grabs your finger and pushes it back toward the table-top.
“It's none of your fucking business, Strider.”
Dirk leans forward, glaring at you over his shades. “I disagree. If you want a chance at being a real boy, you're going to have to learn how to control your temper yourself. You've got a lot of shit to work through and that's okay. You've got all the time you need. Now, I make no pretense that I understand that dude's bullshit clown religion, but we're both Princes so I understand something about how he works. I can see what he's doing to you and I think it's doing you more harm than good.”
“And your methods are better?” you ask, crossing your arms.
“I am trying to balance your best interests with everyone in the village. That is my whole agenda. His agenda I don't know, but you can bet he has one, and it definitely has to do with you.”
You bare your teeth. “How the fuck are you so sure his agenda is, what? Evil? You're fine, somehow, with Lord fucking English but the clown just has to be evil? Are you jealous Dirk? Is that what this is about?”
Dirk sits back, his face dead still and flatly expressionless. “That is so far from what this is about, it's not even in the same galaxy. That is red-shifting away from what this is about at an accelerating rate.”
“Lies.”
Vantas slams his hand on the table between you. “I'm going to say this once more and once only. Get a pile, chucklefucks!”
Oh, fuck, that's right. You're not the only people in here. You look around. The scattering of colorful people go back to eating, pretending like they weren't all just totally fucking eavesdropping.
“I will never get over how bad you are at this shit,” Vantas tells Dirk.
Dirk rolls his eyes.
“Eat,” he commands you, “I've got a full day planned for us.”
His full day consist mostly of hard manual labor
For some unknown reason, an enormous, rotten tree trunk is being sectioned up and moved in the nearby woods. It is nearly as wide as you are tall, and you are goddamn sick of the whole thing before you even touch its powdery bark. You use your Time shit to melt your assigned section into a pile of dirt.
“What?” you ask, as Dirk, Jake and the other people helping stare at you.
“Crying baby Jesus in a dirty diaper!” Jake says, and you have to try as hard as you can not to punch him in the face. Hearing him say things like that out loud is even more annoying than reading them. “That was a might fucking astounding, chum! Can you do that the other way as well? Like, reverse the aging process?”
“That's not what I'm actually doing at all, you ignoramus, but yeah. I could move any part of its time line to now, if I fucking well pleased. I'm the Lord of Time, that's kind of what I fucking do!”
“So, you could bring it back to life?”
“No! What the fuck did I just say? I'd just be making now the time when it was alive. And it might still be fucking laying here like this, anyway.”
“That is totally rad, dude!” A girl with red glasses tells you. “How's about you nudge this whole thing back into useful timber for us? Like, show us what you can really do!”
It takes a few adjustments to get it to just the age they want. Red-glasses-girl gives you a high five that puts Jake's excited fist-bump to shame. You play it cool and pretend like she didn't nearly shatter your metacarpals.
The dude in the weird helmet steps up to the log and cracks his knuckles.
“Stand the fuck back, assclowns!” he says.
You all give him space. He stands there for a moment. Then he cranes around, his mouth set in a moue of distress. Red-glasses-girl gives him a thumbs up from way, way behind you.
“No,” he says, “Back off more.”
Dirk and Jake drag you all the way back to Red-Glasses' location. Helmet-guy turns back to the log, floats the whole immense length of it into the air on a cushion of red and blue psionic power and snaps his fingers.
The bark shreds off, bits flying in all directions. The pale wood beneath splits into boards and disks with a series of explosive cracks. A few of the boards spin free and sail off into the leaves, and then the entire thing falls out of the air, crashing down with an impact you can feel through the leather soles of your new shoes. A few splits and gashes appear in the nearest trees, and a stray, leafy branch falls gently down on top of the pile.
“Oops,” Helmet-guy says, his shoulders sagging. “Sorry.”
“No, 'Tuna, that was totally sweet! These big disks will make some radical table tops!” Red-Glasses grabs him in a uncomfortably enthusiastic-looking hug and kisses him on the cheek.
“Is there anyone in this village that isn't stupidly fucking dangerous?” you ask.
“Look who's talking,” Dirk mutters.
“I'm not fucking stupid!” Helmet-guy snarls at you, suddenly so vehement he's launching spit-drops from his lisp.
“I didn't say that!” you yell back. “I said you were stupidly fucking dangerous.”
“Oh,” he says, perking up immediately. “Well, I fucking well am, assjacket. I'm such an unstoppable fucking badass, you don't even know.”
It takes forever to pick up all the boards and cart them in to the workshops. You're saved when, halfway through de-aging another log, one of the green girls from the bath-house shows up and starts lecturing you all about the carbon cycle, forest health and mushrooms' preferred habitats. You smugly re-age the tree until it's practically glowing with phosphorescent decay.
Dirk completes his morning of being a royal pain in your ass by attempting to make you eat vegetables. He and Crocker double-team you with a pile of weird pastries stuffed with chopped leaves, tubers and spicy chunks of meat. Okay, so, they're actually pretty fucking delicious, but you're not about to admit that when Dirk is in overbearing asshole mode.
Damara shows up and rescues you, looking brain-breakingly unmurdered in her low-cut work shirt. She and Dirk have a long argument in that weird language only the two of them seem to speak.
Finally, she turns to you and says, “We build house for Makara. You come help. Hold baby. Look pretty.”
“Okay,” you tell her tits.
She laughs and kisses you right between the horns, incidentally giving you a long look down her shirt. You definitely see some nipple.
“She is a goddamn handful,” Dirk mutters to you as you follow her up the familiar bluff-path. “I hope you know what you're getting into with her.”
You shudder, remembering the squelch of blood between your toes.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
You are really glad what he drops it, though the look he gives you says that he won't forget it.
Damara leads you to the clearing where you first appeared, where Kurloz waits for you, smiling.
You end up looking pretty and holding the baby and not much else. Dirk sits beside you on a blanket as Kurloz and Damara have a string of half-silent arguments about a rectangle of white stones. Damara's telekinesis floats them through the air as if they were weightless. Kurloz attempts, unsuccessfully, to direct her.
You watch Kharon squirm and coo to himself, or possibly to you. His eyes wander from one thing to the next, but always come back around to your face. Your chest knots every time he smiles up at you. He kicks and grins when you poke his tiny feet with their tiny, perfect toes. His grip on your finger is already stronger than it was yesterday.
Dirk sews on something until Kharon starts fussing, then gets up when Kurloz comes over to nurse. He stiffly doesn't look when you end up wrapped around Kurloz and the baby. His arguments with Damara are complexly verbose and totally incomprehensible. He is no more successful at directing her than Kurloz was.
“She insists it's going to be over here, potential drainage problems and all,” he tells you.
“She's right,” you say, “I've been there.”
You are ninety-nine percent sure Dirk rolls his eyes behind his shades.
“Were you ever there when it was raining?” he asks.
“No.”
Damara says something snarky-sounding at him, and he turns back to their conversation.
Kurloz pets the hair close to the base of your horn. You lean on his shoulder, held fast in the cool armor of his contentment.
Dirk doesn't want to let you spend the night with Kurloz. Instead, he sets you up with your own room in the weird split-up building they call the Dorms. You've had to have the names of everything and everyone repeated to you like ten times each, and there are still too many to remember. Your brain is tired of trying.
The room is small and sort of bare, the stone floor covered in multicolored carpets. A human-style mattress with a few random blankets and pillows is the only furniture.
“You shouldn't have a problem with sleeping on a mattress, since your horns are pretty unobtrusive” Dirk says. “Here, you can use this twig to clean your teeth. These shrubs grow all over the place. Just look for pink and green leaves with three lobes, like this.”
You slouch resentfully on the edge of the mattress, chewing the damn twig as Dirk fusses with the wall hangings. It tastes weird and sharp and makes your mouth feel cold inside. You kind of want to be with your clown and your kid, wrapped up in that bubble of not having to feel bad or think especially hard about anything. Barring that, you'd like to be alone for a while. You're not fucking used to this shit.
“Dirk,” you say. “Fucking stop that.”
To your very great relief he does. Instead of fucking off, he drops down on the edge of the mattress next to you and takes off his shades.
Fuck.
“I meant what I said this morning,” he starts, “About Kurloz.”
“Dirk.”
“If we're going to be pale, you have to let me worry over you, dumbfuck. And that guy is always up to something. He was up to something for aeons before I met him, and everyone who's known him that long thinks he hasn't changed.”
“Dirk.”
“So, I'm sorry I wasn't there for you, whenever and wherever you were when he got to you, but dude. You have to let me be here for you now-”
“DIRK. I do not want to talk about this.”
He glares at you, looking as tired as you feel, suddenly. “Don't even start with me,” he says. “You think it's been a picnic for me, having you fight me every single second of this whole fucking day? Would it honestly kill you to not flip out about everything? I told you once before that being friends with people is hard fucking work, and that's still a thing that's true. But you have to try to meet me halfway, here.”
You grind your teeth. “What the fuck makes you think the clown did anything to me?”
Dirk's hand lands on your chest. Your heart gives a little kick under his palm. “Heart player, dumbass,” he says. “I know which you is which. Something changed in you, here, since the last chronological you I ran into. And I'm not happy about it.”
“Why the fuck would it matter to you?”
“You honestly think that I could sit by and let someone damage my moirail? You know me better than that, I hope.”
You pinch your eyes closed.
“I asked him to,” you say, quietly.
Dirk jerks his hand away from you.
“What exactly did you ask him to do?” he asks. His voice has gone icy-flat and dangerous. Oh, shit. You have a feeling you might be about to fuck something up really bad. You wish you had any clue how to not fuck things up.
“Answer me,” Dirk insists, when you hesitate too long.
“I couldn't fucking sleep. Because. I was angry.”
“And?”
“AND I WANTED A FUCKING BREAK FROM MYSELF ALRIGHT?”
“And you're fine with him just putting the Rage-whammy on you continuously? Because it doesn't seem to me like you're fine. It doesn't seem to me like you act like yourself around him. At all.”
You wrench your eyes open and glare at him. His mouth is turned very subtly down at the corners. Without his shades, you can read worry in the tension around his eyes.
“Did you think at any point how he might feel about it?” Dirk asks. “You know we have to keep his former quads away from him because of the mindfuck he's run on them both. Like, we're talking untold eons of mindfuck.”
“You're doing what?” you ask. A bunch of shit clicks together in your mind. You feel queasy. “It's that green bitch, isn't it? The loud one he looks so fucking sad around.”
Dirk's eyes go wide and he actually grimaces a little. “Yeah. Her name is Meulin.”
“I can't believe you assholes pull shit like that, and go around pretending like you're so goddamn righteous and fucking kind. Why the fuck haven't you spectacular fucking paragons of morality killed us both if we're so fucking awful we need you to be our fucking jailers?” Your voice rises until you're half-shouting by the end of this speech. Dirk winces.
“Don't put words in my mouth,” he says. “No one is going to kill anyone. That's something we all decided together. Think about it, Cal. We might be the only thirty four sentient beings in this entire universe. Every single one of us is important, including Makara and including you. We want to keep you alive, unless you force our hand with your psychotic bullshit. But you need to meet us halfway, and not be such a spectacular dick to everyone all the time. Makara needs to meet us halfway and not fuck around in other peoples' heads.”
You sit there in silence a moment, shredding the leaves from the tooth-cleaning stick into a little pile.
“We're also just tired.” Dirk says. “Tired of killing and dying and pain and strife. Don't you ever feel tired of that?”
“Yeah,” you say.
Dirk tentatively lays a hand on your shoulder. You let him wrap his arm all the way around you, eventually, though you don't allow yourself to lean into him even a little. You'd been thinking of going to find your clown after Dirk fucks off. Instead you fall asleep alone, your head heavy with thoughts you don't want to think.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-19 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-20 05:19 pm (UTC)