Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dirk is probably content.

Not that he knows what it’s like to be content. But at this point, he thinks he probably is, and he’s just driven insane by his own inner musings, making a big deal out of little things and refusing to be at peace even though he’s obviously, perfectly content.

Dirk likes to think that, anyway.

The moments when he believes it most happen when he’s in his workshop, calmly letting his mind rest as he focuses on the machines. Nothing to interrupt him. No worries besides which screwdriver to use.

That’s where he is right now, carefully screwing in the last piece of his little work. This thing is going to make things a lot easier for him, he just knows it. It’s precisely crafted for its intended use— not anything like the toy junk he used to buy when he was younger and more desperate.

The lights in the workshop are down low. He always keeps them this way, because there’s no one around to tell him he can’t.

It’s not unusual for kids in Green to live without their parents. Lots of humans from the older generation were a little too rebellious.

A little less content.

Being not content was one of the biggest ways to get culled. And Dirk isn’t out to get culled, despite the fact that his parents apparently were.

He’s never met them.

He’s perfectly fine with that.

In fact, Dirk’s closest friend, Roxy Lalonde, has never met her parents either. It’s more common then citizens think. Not everyone is lucky enough to be adopted by a carapacian after their parents were too selfish to stay put.

Roxy minds a little bit more then Dirk does that she’s never met her parents. It bothers her, and sometimes she does research into her Mom, the person who left her house for Roxy.

Dirk thinks it’s a lost cause, but he still listens when Roxy talks. She gets excited about these things, even when Dirk warns her not to be. She says she doesn’t care about being caught. She’s also said she wouldn’t mind if Her Imperial Condescation herself came to tell her to stop.

When Roxy’s not spouting crazy nonsense, she’s drowning her crazy nonsense in one of the bottles of liquor her mom apparently kept the house stocked with. She has a bit of a problem. Dirk wishes he could help with that. He’ll probably get on it soon.

Dirk finishes his little machine and lifts it up into his hands, feeling a sense of pride. The wings tilt of their own accord, adjusting to the weight balance.

With a small nod, Dirk stands up and starts the trek down the stairs, grabbing his hover board as he goes. It’ll make the trip across town much faster. And cool-looking.

Dirk Strider cradles the tiny metal airplane in his arms as he swerves through the streets of Green.

The houses blur past, all of them different shapes and sizes. Some of them are inexplicably in the shape of cans; many other houses, like Roxy’s, are cubes that interlock into the space easily. Dirk has one of the last apartments in town, but he lives a little far away from where he’s trying to visit— the suburban neighborhood. Some people say it was the original street the whole town of Green was built on.

Dirk doesn’t know or care.

All he’s focused on is the one house, a little suburban dream close to the Wall of Green. People close to the Wall are usually more poor, but Dirk is fairly sure this is more happenstance then any actual commentary on the occupants’ wages.

He boards over the curb, breaking to a stop with a precision only years of practice gave him. When he steps off, he picks the board up and holds it under his arm.

With his other arm, he lifts up the model airplane, and throws it at the house.

It teeters, spinning, trying to get its’ bearings, and then it turns around and dive-bombs directly into the backyard.

There’s a crashing noise.

Dirk stares at the house, listening for any further damage. Inwardly, he’s doing a fist pump at his success.

When he hears footsteps he scrambles up to the front door, quickly fixing his hair and adjusting his sunglasses. Then he does his best to lean casually. Or, wait, shouldn’t he look embarrassed? People who crash planes should be embarrassed.

The door swings open with a creak, reminding Dirk that it’s made of wood. Wood is a fascinating thing, but he’s never been able to study it. There’s none in supply anymore— hasn’t been since he was born.

The man standing in the doorway peers down at Dirk over his glasses. His dark hair is mussed up, telling that he must’ve been napping on the couch again, and his face is slightly unshaven. He’s just wearing sleeping shorts and a t-shirt, fully completing the just-out-of-bed look. Dirk is starting to feel bad. He looks like he really is just out of bed.

“Dirk Strider,” says John, with an extremely annoyed expression. “Did you crash something in my backyard again?”

Dirk shrugs nonchalantly, but then he nods. “Yeah. Sorry, Mr. Egbert.”

John sighs and brings a hand up to rub the bridge of his nose.

A couple seconds later, there’s a thumping and a stumbling noise as a young boy who looks like John’s exact duplicate practically falls down the stairs.

“Dirk!” He says, grinning. Dirk immediately checks his posture, trying to pull off ‘casual and not needy’.

“Jake,” he responds coolly.

Jake laughs, looking up at his dad. “Did he crash a robot in the backyard again?”

John Egbert nods.

Dirk shakes his head in a way he hopes looks remorseful. “I don’t know how it keeps happening. Must be a bug of some kind.”

Jake rolls his eyes. “Well if anyone can figure it out, it’s you!”

He reaches forward to grab Dirk’s hand, causing something like butterflies in his stomach.

“Let’s go look at it, dude!” And he drags Dirk into the backyard.

Dirk pretends very hard not to smile.

And John Egbert, in the kitchen, sighs heavily. Wondering how in Green Jake hadn’t yet noticed that Dirk has been using this trick since middle school.

Whatever. Matters of the heart and whatnot.

Dirk waves to Jake’s dad with a small apologetic look. John waves to Jake’s friend with a stern and knowing gaze.

They part ways, and the house is silent as the boys congregate in the backyard.

Chapter Text

Jake sprawls out on the grass, patting the spot next to him excitedly. Dirk is a little awkward, but he manages to lay out on his back.

Jake turn his head up towards the big sky, sighing heavily.

Dirk sort of copies the gesture, breathing in through his nose. He’s not entirely in the moment, though— part of him is worried about how messed up his blonde hair is going to get, and part of him is glad his sunglasses don’t let the sun into his eyes.

Another large part of him is thinking about Jake. Which isn’t unusual, for Dirk, but being this close to him intensifies the feeling by quite a lot.

It’s like a buzzing in his chest, forcing him to think and rethink everything that comes out of his mouth.

Jake makes a happy little noise, still just looking up at the sky.

“Yaknow, Dirk, my grandma says the sky used to be blue.”

Dirk raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah.” Jake grins with his big old buck teeth. It’s incredible that most people find him so attractive. Dirk isn’t excluded from that, but you have to wonder. “‘Course, she’s crazier then a buncha bumbling bumblebees in a sidecar.”

Dirk nods knowingly. “It’s a nice thought, though. Very colorful.”

“I know! Imagine, if, like, things were colorful in nature by themselves like that? Next you’re gonna tell me flowers can be purple, or something. Heh.”

Dirk studies the shades of gray in the clouds. It’s not just his sunglasses that make it look that way— the sky is just a cloudy gray, naturally, all on its own. He’s never seen anything different.

Dirk and Jake lay in the grass, content for a moment. Dirk is thinking, too much and too hard. Jake is watching the sky, mildly worried about his grandma.

Predictably, voices soon start up inside the house. They grow louder, and more agitated, until there’s a door slam and silence once again.

Dirk looks out the side of his glasses at Jake’s face. The teen is extremely uncomfortable, his face scrunched up and his glasses sliding backward.

“Are they... having trouble again?” Dirk asks as tactfully as he can manage, which isn’t much.

Jake crosses his arms and huffs angrily. “Look, I— I love my grandma, I really do! But I don’t blame Pop for getting frustrated. Sometimes she takes things too far, and she just!” He throws his arms up into the air.

Dirk tries to agree wisely, but he just doesn’t get it. Family dynamics are a mystery to him. Especially Jake’s family.

Dirk has unfortunately had the experience of being in the room during one of the infamous fights. Grandma Harley is a sweet woman, but she simply can’t stand being told she’s wrong. She’s old as hell and... losing most of her sanity, and the comments she makes are just shy of concerning hallucinations.

Whenever John or Jake, or even Jake’s younger cousin Jane, point out something... ‘incorrect’ about her stories, she throws something close to a temper tantrum.

Jake’s dad John has never raised his voice at Grandma Harley, but she starts screaming the second these disputes happen. The Harley family tries, usually in vain, to calm her down.

Dirk’s listened to what she’s said before, and some of it is very odd indeed. The worst part is just how sad the old lady always is. It’s as if she’s distraught that no one believes her.

“Have you tried talking to her about it?” Dirk asks, because if there’s one thing Roxy tells him about families, it’s that communication is important.

Jake hesitates and meets Dirk’s eyes. “You know I... I actually haven’t.”

Dirk shrugs. “Not that I know anything, but maybe you should ask her.”

Jake looks back up at the gray sky curiously. “Maybe I’ll try that.”

——————

Dirk rests his forehead on his workdesk stiffly. The model airplane worked, certainly, and he’d gotten it back from Jake without a hitch.

The only question was whether or not it’d be a good idea to use it again tomorrow or not. Is that too soon? Should he wait another day? Or maybe three?

Is he being too needy? Will his intentions be interpreted as romantic, or psychopathic?

John is already on to him. Darn old man.

Well. There’s only one thing to do in situations like this.

Dirk pulls out his phone and dials a number, holding it up to his ear and leaning back in his seat. His crosses his legs on his desk.

There’s the sound of a phone being picked up over his speakers, and then awkward, crackly silence. And something like a yawn.

“‘Ello? Wassup?”

Dirk feels himself relax just at the sound of her voice. “Hey, Roxy.”

“Di-Stri?” There’s rustling over the line as she sits up. “Do’ya know what time it is?”

He winces. “Yeah, yeah it’s late. I’m well aware. It’s just—“

She sighs. “Lemme guess, yer hung up on Jake and ya want advice?”

“I’m obvious, aren’t I?”

“Yer extremely obvious, lover boy.” Roxy groans loudly. “I’m wayyyy too hungover for this.”

“Roxy, it’s one in the morning.”

“Yer point is?” There’s crackling as the signal goes bad for a moment. “Listen, hun, the way to that boy’s heart is grand overdramatic gestures. You know that crap he watches. Save him from a buncha zombies, you’ll be fine.”

Dirk chuckles and runs his hair methodically through his over-gelled hair. “We don’t have any zombies in Green, Rox.”

Roxy hums noncommittally. “Well, all he wants is some adventure. Give it to him, and bam! Presto chango! Got yerself a boyfriend.”

“Where am I supposed to find a magical adventure?”

“Well...” Roxy starts slyly. “You could always help me search for your dad—“

“Roxy.” Dirk cuts in firmly. “We’ve been over this.”

There’s a pause.

She sighs sadly. “Yeah, okay, I know. For what it’s worth, I think you’d like him.”

Dirk knows she’s right. Dirk knows far more about his Dad then Roxy ever will.

But he doesn’t say that. He lets the silence stretch out until Roxy speaks for him.

“Well. If you hear anything odd, or strange, investigate it! That’s what the dumb protagonists in movies always do. Other then that, can’t help ya.”

Dirk nods, even though she can’t see him, and then he says “Thanks, Roxy.”

“Anythin’ else you needed, Di-Stri?”

He takes his feet off the desk slowly. “No, I... you can go back to sleep. And drink some water for that hangover.”

“Ugh, yeah. I will. Love ya, bestie.”

“You too,” Dirk replies, and he hangs up the phone.

He sighs, resting in the darkness of his empty house.

Chapter Text

Dirk knocks on the door, for the first time in about three years. And he takes a deep breath.

It’s okay that he’s just... showing up to Jake’s house, without even crashing something into the backyard.

Now that Dirk’s thinking about it, crashing something into someone’s backyard every month for five years probably looked suspicious at this point. It was honestly no wonder Mr. Egbert already figured him out.

Jake himself, however, was so willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt he probably hadn’t even considered that Dirk was intentionally losing things over their fence.

Jake’s blind to a lot of things. Including, but not limited to, hopeless crushes.

But it’s okay that Dirk is here, because he was actually INVITED. Which was a first. Jake had asked him to show up, because he wants Dirk here as emotional support while he... interrogates his grandmother?

God, families are so weird.

The door swings open, and lo and behold, Mr. John Egbert is standing there. He looks better then just out of bed today, though, which is saying something.

Jake’s dad frowns and squints at the teenager on his doorstep.

“Dirk? I didn’t hear anything crash in the backyard.”

Dirk almost flushes. Yeah, he’s gonna need to come up with some new excuses soon.

“That’s because Jake invited me over today.”

John rolls his eyes and leans away from the door. “JAKE! Your blonde friend with an addiction to crashing expensive robots is here!”

There’s a rumbling noise and Jake practically leaps the last few stairs, overestimating the distance to the door and barreling straight into Dirk.

The lanky teen shouts in surprise and almost topples over, but they grab onto each other’s arms to balance.

And then they just sort of stand like that for a second.

John clears his throat.

Jake releases Dirk’s arms and coughs loudly, beckoning him into the house.

“Grandma’s room is just up this way.”

Dirk gives a thumbs up and follows him.

They go upstairs and into the hallway, which is plainly furnished, although it’s pretty easy to tell who’s door is whose— Jake’s is covered in movie posters, while the other two are more or less plain.

Jake grins and turns to whisper, his green eyes flashing with excitement. “It’s cool that we’re about to ask my grandma about the secret mysteries she’s hiding in her brain, even though she might just be crazy!” Then he frowns. “That sounded a lot cooler in my head.”

Dirk shrugs. “Mostly everything sounds cooler in my head.”

And Jake pushes the door open.

It’s obvious that this is the grandmother’s room, just from the smell. Fresh plants and dirt can be sensed in every way, from the smell to the slight humidity.

Although there’s a twin-sized bed in the corner (neatly made) and a work desk, almost every available spot in this room is filled with potted plants. Several even hand from the ceiling, their vines trickling slowly downward and creating a canopy of rare greenery.

In the center of it all is Jake’s grandma. She’s turned away from them, bent over and tending to a small plant that’s budding. She’s humming and mumbling to herself— not unusual, although the things she says usually are.

Her hair is tied up in a long ponytail, gone mostly gray in front but the tips still haven’t lost the signature family black hair. When she stands up, the apron over her front straightens and her back cracks. Despite the fact that she is old, Ms. Harley is built with muscle. Seeing her gives Dirk the impression he’s always gotten from her: she could EASILY kick his ass in a fight.

She turns around, still mumbling something like “forgetful, how forgetful,” when she spots the two teens and gasps. It’s easy to see how Jake got his green and exited eyes from her.

She claps her hands together and smiles widely at them, her wrinkles stretching.

“Boys! It’s been so long!” She exclaims, and then they’re getting a big hug from Jade Harley.

“Hi, Grandma,” Jake chokes out while they’re both being squeezed by Jade’s extremely strong arms. She releases them and pats them both on the head.

“It’s been so long. So long.” She smiles, and waves around the room. “Dirk! Have I ever shown you my collection? Of course I haven’t. That’s why today was supposed to be the first time. Oh, I remember which one is your favorite. Here, come along.”

She grabs Dirk’s arm and pulls him, leaving him basically no choice but to follow her over to a plant that looks like a bean cut open. Dirk’s never seen anything like it before. Although, he doesn’t see much plants in general.

“See that? This is a Venus flytrap.” Jade points to it gleefully. “It eats flies! It’s a carnivore plant! How neat is that?”

“Pretty neat, I hate to admit,” Dirk says, studying the little contraption with interest. Jake walks over and taps on Ms. Harley’s shoulder.

“Hey, Grandma, actually—“

“I used to be able to sing the them, you know,” Jade sighs wistfully. When Jake and Dirk exchange confused glances she gestures to the greenery around them. “The plants! They don’t listen anymore though. It’s so sad.”

The boys sit awkwardly and then eventually Jake just directs away from her odd comment.

“Hey, Grandma, I wanted to talk to you.”

“Of course, hun! What about?” Jade is not entirely focused on Jake, it seems she’s trimming the leaves on one of the hanging plants.

“Well, uh. I guess Dirk and I were kind of wondering why you keep fighting with Pop?”

The pair of plies clatter to the floor loudly.

Jade’s hands are frozen in their position in the air. She stands like that for a moment, and then all at once she spins around to face them.

“That’s today?!” She says, and she looks nothing short of delighted. “Oh, how wonderful! I completely forgot! So forgetful these days, dear me. Come here, come.”

Jade leads them to a corner of her room hidden by the greenery and pulls a rocking chair from where it was hidden, sitting in it and making herself comfortable.

She points to the floor and the teenagers sit down cross-legged in front of her.

Jade taps her fingers to her chin. “Now what was it you... oh, yes. The arguing.”

The old woman folds her hands and her eyes drop down, the energy in the room dropping slightly.

“Your father. John, he... well he’s very forgetful, you see. He doesn’t remember things like he used to.” Jade squeezes her hands together somberly. “‘Course, everybody is these days, no one can remember anything after what the big fish done to their heads!”

“...Right,” Dirk agrees in the most respectful tone of voice he can manage. Jade rolls her eyes.

“But not me! Nope. That big monster could never get through the head of this old witch, ha!” She cackles, still squeezing her hands. “But I’m the only one, I’m afraid. Nobody else remembers. And even I keep— keep forgetting things.”

“What kinds of things?” Jake asks, and he looks absolutely raptured.

Jade’s gaze becomes distant and her hands start to shake. “I don’t... I don’t even remember my dog’s name. Oh poor boy, he— he. Oh my sweet thing.”

“What’s a dog?” Dirk asks.

Jade screeches. “See? See? Nobody remembers anything. Not anymore. Not after that godforsaken— Condesce— argh!”

Dirk sits up straighter. “The Condesce? Like, Her Imperial Condescation? That Condesce?”

“She doesn’t deserve a respectful title,” Jade spits, sitting up more in her chair. “Just ‘evil fish bitch’ will do.”

Jake snorts with laughter and then tries to hide it behind his hand.

“Are you saying she’s bad?” Dirk asks, curiously.

“Bad? Bad?” Jade waves her hands about. “She’s downright evil, diabolical, destroying all the continents and flooding— ughh. Stupid alien queen.”

“Continents?” Jake repeats. Jade slumps over in her chair.

“Imagine, child,” she describes, “the planet Earth. Now imagine that thirty percent of it is land.”

“THIRTY percent?!” The teens echo in shocked unison.

“Yep. So much it’d take weeks just to travel across the land.”

Jake looks starstruck. “Is— is that real?”

“Real? Darling, the planet was like that for nearly all of human civilization! Until THEY showed up, and we weren’t... we weren’t enough to stop them.” Jade buries her face in her hands, her glasses pushing upward.

“Wait,” Dirk mumbles. “We? Was it... you and John?”

Jade sighs sadly. “He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember anything, the Condesce got her gnarled claws into his brain and PULLED and then—“ she sniffles, and draws into herself.

Jake turns to look at Dirk with a horrified expression. “My Dad’s been— what, brainwashed?”

“Essentially.” Jade sighs. “Him and the others.”

“...Others?”

“Well of course!” Jade garbles, standing up out her chair and pacing over to some shelved yellow flowers. “Can’t fight with just a Witch and an Heir, no no no. That won’t do at all.”

Jake and Dirk simply watch as she snips the flowers and then hefts a large watering can up, like it’s nothing, to tend to the plant.

She mumbles to herself. “No no. There were more. So forgetful, so forgetful... the Knight and the Seer, yes. The Knight and the Seer.”

“Who were they?” Dirk asks as Jade finishes watering that plant and moves on to some shrubbery in a nearby pot.

“Hm? Oh. They were dear, dear friends.”

Dirk and Jake exchange a glance and slowly get to their feet.

“It was nice talking to you, Ms. Harley,” Dirk says politely.

“Oh, yes, dear. It was a pleasure.” She brushes her hands off and meets Dirk’s eyes cheerily. “You’ll be back soon!”

It sounded more like a truth then a request.

So Dirk nods, and then tries to not flush when Jake takes his hand, and they leave the greenhouse-like room.

The old lady is by herself again, humming sadly as she helps the flowers.

She can save the flowers, at least.

Chapter Text

Dirk strider taps his pencil against the wood of his desk repeatedly in thought. He knows he’s heard it somewhere, the weird “Seer” crypticness.

A thought hits him and he glances at the white bookshelf against the back wall.

With a resigned sigh, Dirk stands up, cracks his back, and then walks over to feel the bookshelf with his fingers.

He then braces his arms against the side of it, leaning hard until it slowly squeaks against the floor and moves to the side, revealing a door.

Dirk had first found this door on his thirteenth birthday— almost two years ago now.

He reaches forward, gently grabbing the handle and pulling it open to reveal a small, dark room.

The smell of chemicals and the small ropes on the wall had led Dirk to believe that this once was a room for developing photos. The idea of something like that is ludicrous these days, but Dirk knows about it.

In any case, it now serves as a storage space.

At first Dirk was confused about the existence of a small storage room, but it’s obvious to him now that the previous owner of this apartment needed a spot to put everything where the kid wouldn’t be able to find them.

And it seems like the person knew very well that a kid would be living here.

Dirk’s always known that someone made this place for him. After all, the Sesame Street tapes had already been put in the DVR when he first learned how to turn it on.

The many robots in this house had been built just to preform certain functions for babies— on of them puts out a bowl of cereal every morning still, even though Dirk isn’t usually awake.

Someone had cared enough to build this whole life for him before he was even born. Dirk had always assumed it was a social worker or something similar, but on his thirteenth birthday, he found this room.

And he learned.

It’s still mostly untouched in here— anything that the teen ever went through has been put back away.

Slowly, he walks over to the boxes, and pulls one toward himself.

It’s full of newspapers, each one containing a headline about a famous movie director.

Strider.

Dirk sighs and turns the pages, watching the reporters gush about Mr. Strider and how amazing his work was. About how his understanding of irony was far beyond any normal humans’. There’s sometimes even photos of an elusive man who always seems to be wearing a pair of sunglasses.

But that’s not even the worst part.

The worst part is, there’s a written commentary on each and every one of them.

Written in all-lowercase, poorly constructed sentences, and always with a red pen; there seemed to be mocking bits about the articles.

Dirk picks up one paper that has a photo— extremely blurry, terrible photograph, the only thing really visible is that the man is tall and wearing a pair of sunglasses, and beside him is a woman with her hair cut short.

The headline on this particular article reads “COULD THEY BE TOGETHER?” and goes on to detail about Mr. Strider’s close relationship with some lady who was a famous author at that time. Dirk’s read this whole paper before, obviously, but today he just glances briefly at the scrawled red letters beside the headline.

ahahaha can you fucking imagine

That’s all it says. Dirk hadn’t been sure if he perhaps disliked the woman or if he just wasn’t interested in her at first, but he found out just by scanning the page downward a little.

Because under Strider’s writing, there’s a sentence scrawled with a purple fountain pen in neat, perfect cursive.

You wish.

They must’ve been friends, whoever they were. Or perhaps just celebrities causally bantering over a mutual acquaintanceship. Dirk will probably never know.

But this isn’t what he’s here for, at any length. He’s here for the letters that are buried under the newspapers. When he gets to the bottom, he pulls out one thick wad of paper that he knows is the right one, and smooths it out gently.

It’s very hard not to think about how this letter was written by the man who is his father.

His dad touched this paper.

Dirk gets choked up and tries to ignore it, scanning the paper for the passage he’s looking for. It’s all written in that god awful red.

There. Here’s what he wants. Dirk isn’t sure who the letter was addressed to, because it didn’t say. But here Strider Senior is clearly referring to the reader when he makes his cryptic comment.

now i know youre still on about that “seer” bullshit but listen im not about to sit down all comfy and get my ass served to me well and good like a dude on butler island. we cant just sit idly by while the whole entire world gets destroyed you know this. why the hell do you think im writing a letter instead of just texting you like a normal fuckin human being its because i want to be safe obviously and i dont want hic on my ass. she reads all the messages these days weve resorted to code doesnt that tell you just how messed up everything is?

It goes on for a bit and it’s oddly panicked. Dirk doesn’t pay too much attention to anything except that one word. Seer. Had his father’s pen pal been the Seer?

It’s hard to know, or understand.

Which is why Dirk gave up on all this nonsense so long ago.

He sits down in the extremely dusty beanbag chair, letting out a shaky sigh.

And because he can’t help it any longer, he grabs the only other letter that’s written in red.

It’s well worn, and the red pen handwriting is as scratchy as ever.

hey kid,

dunno when youll be reading this or even if you ever will. because i am not very good at articulations and i might just drive this dumpster fire wagon straight off a ravine and itll be so awfully embarrassing that ill just rip up this letter and throw it away so you never have to experience the b-list horror movie that is my word vomit

in any case i hope youre doing alright. i tried to set up the place as best i could for a baby. its weird as hell knowing theres gonna be a kid of mine that i didnt even have out there but the condesce has always been messed up in the head so of course she made all of humanity copy her gross ass reproduction system. i guess how it works is they steal everyones genetic material and then store it so they can mix it to clone people or something and its gross and awful why am i talking about it to a literal child. jesus strider pull yourself together.

anyway i got a... tip from a friend i suppose that you would be coming along and i tried to make you comfortable so i hope you like puppets dude. and god damn i hope you live a good life. like holy shit i know humanity is doomed to apocalypse and all but my friend says youll be okay so i guess i gotta take her word on that one. in any case im sorry that i wont be there to help you grow up but like. i got some important stuff to do. i know its pretty selfish to leave a kid all alone but what else could i do.

ive rambled on for long enough and this letter is a mess god damn i dont normally write letters but i didnt know how else to do it. ill probably just shove this in the back room and if you find it good for you kid youre a real trooper. im definitely not crying right now and if i am theyre incredibly manly tears you cant even see them dude and you better not be crying at all you gotta hold it together dude for both of us. you could probably do with a sick pair of sunglasses like me although mine were a gift from a friend maybe ill leave you something like a gift from your cool older bro. i hope you grow up to be as hella rad as possible man i really do.

hang in there

your bro

Dirk’s chest shudders as he suppresses his tears, setting the letter down and rubbing his eyes. He’s cried reading this before. He’s not going to today.

This is exactly the problem. He can’t even think about his father... the Senior Strider... without getting worked up. And being worked up isn’t good.

Dirk is in CONTROL of his own emotions. He breathes in and out, carefully, trying to control himself.

This is exactly why he doesn’t talk about this stuff with Roxy. Why should he care, huh? Why should he care so much about the man who abandoned him.

The father he never knew.

Dirk angrily sets the letter back in its box and leaves the darkroom.

He’d seen what he needed to.

————

Dirk tries to smile comfortingly, but it probably honestly just looks like a grimace.

He’s never been actually good at the whole “comfort” thing, but he’s certainly trying, for Jake’s sake.

Jake himself is sitting at the kitchen counter across from him, sighing heavily.

They’re both waiting.

And they don’t have to wait long. Soon enough, the senior Egbert comes trodding into the kitchen. He’s wearing pajama pants and nothing else; so his chest is on full display, and Dirk tries to look away out of politeness.

Jake’s dad doesn’t notice the two boys at all.

John walks over to the fridge, opens it, and grabs a carton of milk to pour into a glass with practiced ease. He then takes a long sip, before turning around to walk back into the living room.

Jake clears his throat.

Mr. Egbert jumps, nearly spilling his milk, and then turns around quickly and squints in the direction of the counter. He’s not wearing his glasses, which explains that.

“Dirk Strider?”

“Yes sir,” Dirk waves weakly. John looks a little annoyed to see the Blonde Menace in his house this early in the morning.

“What’s the occasion?” John asks and takes another sip of his milk like he’s not standing shirtless in front of two teenage boys.

“Uh, well,” says Jake, “we were wondering what you remembered about your friends the Knight and Seer? Because we were gonna—“

“Are you going on about that nonsense of Jade’s now, too?” John rubs the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

Dirk shrugs. “Well I think it’s worth, you know, investigating...”

“Boys, a prank is a prank and all, but this is low.” John sets his milk on the counter and crosses his arms. He’s using his stern voice.

“Are you sure you don’t remember anything? About maybe your friends?” Jake whines, leaning forward.

Something crosses John’s face, like doubt in a wave. “I had friends as a kid, sure. In fact Jade was one of them. We were... online friends, I think? It’s hard to remember.”

“What about your other friends?” Dirk presses, getting more curious.

John shrugs, trying to play it off. “I don’t remember them so well. Which just goes to show how things that are important to kids aren’t as important to adults.”

“That’s stupid!” Jake pounds his fists on the table, and John shoots him a sharp look that forces him to immediately stop.

“It’s life,” John frowns. “And you need to accept that.”

With that, he takes his glass and leaves.

They could always follow him, but the conversation seems to be over. Jake sighs and slumps onto the kitchen counter, his expression dejected.

Dirk taps his fingers on the granite softly. Where in Green could they possibly begin to search for a Knight or a Seer? He’s never heard of anything like them until yesterday.

Well, okay, that’s not entirely true. He’d heard “Seer” once before, but the wording was kind of odd, and probably not anything of importance.

Jake sits up in his chair, startled by a loud clanging noise.

The noise is revealed as Jade Harley trots down the stairs, carrying several pots and pans over to the sink. They’re pretty dirty— she must have been using them to hold plants.

Jake’s Grandma turns on the water to start washing them, humming the tune to a long-forgotten song.

The two boys exchange a glance. This is their only source of information left. If anyone knows where to find the mythical people they’re looking for, it would be Jade.

Jake nods at Dirk’s look, and then he turns toward Jade. “Uh, Grandma?”

“They’re outside of town, darling. Beyond the Wall,” Jade replies, grabbing a sponge to scrub the pot she’s cleaning off.

“What?” Jake asks, confused, but Jade just tilts her head at him.

And then she turns back to her work and doesn’t say anything else.

Dirk grabs Jake’s arm and gently pulls him in the direction of the back door.

They both stumble awkwardly outside, leaving Grandma Jade to her singing.

“Did you hear her?!” Jake exclaims, with stars in his eyes. “She was talking about the Knight and the Seer, wasn’t she?”

“Shh,” Dirk hisses, glancing at the door. “I don’t think you’ll get to do this, Jake.”

“...What?” The boy asks, practically deflating.

“You heard what Jade said,” Dirk points out seriously. “Over the Wall. Outside Green. You do realize your dad would probably never let you go, right?”

“Oh.” Jake sighs, and he looks incredibly dejected. But a second later he perks right back up. “But you live alone, don’t you Dirk?”

“...Yes,” Dirk realizes. “I do.”

“Well, there, see! Problem solved!” Jake thumps Dirk on the shoulder with his arms, beaming. “You can go out and find the magical people and bring them back here! Or at least tell me about them.”

Dirk thinks about it, his eyes drawn up to Jake’s infectious smile. It couldn’t be so hard to get over the Wall without being caught. Dirk can handle himself pretty well, generally.

“Okay. I will,” Dirk agrees, and the words are hardly out of his mouth before Jake is cheering and bouncing up and down.

Dirk’s just agreed to do something almost guaranteed to get the attention of the Condesce.

What in Green is he thinking.

Chapter Text

Dirk raps hard on the front door, despite the fact that it’s wholly unnecessary.

There’s no answer, which is to be expected at this time of day. Dirk rolls his neck, taking a deep breath in to prepare himself for this.

He opens the door, which is unlocked, and steps inside. All the lights in the cube-shaped house are off, and the floor is a mess. Blankets, pillows, books, cat stuffed animals, and bottles are strewn in a graceful horde of sloppiness.

Dirk wrinkles up his nose and creeps around the trash. All cube houses have the same exact floor plan, and he knows even without the lights on that he’s next to the kitchen counter and the bedroom is just beyond this.

He climbs over a mountain of beanbag and quilt into the main bedroom, where loud obnoxious snoring can be heard coming from a vaguely human-shaped bundle strewn on the bed.

Pink curtains hang over all the windows, keeping the light out of the room. Only the laptop on the desk emits a soft glow into the otherwise pitch darkness.

Dirk almost trips over a dirty laundry basket, trying not to be too loud as he edges towards the powerhouse snoring.

The large and mostly pink bed is a complete mess, the blankets unmade and tossed around to make a comfortable nest. On the far edge of the bed, an old black cat is curled up peacefully. He glares at Dirk’s approach, but doesn’t do anything else.

When Dirk finally gets to the edge of the bed, he stares at the sleeping girls’ face and sighs deeply in disappointment.

Her iPhone is clutched in one hand, while her other lays opens few inches away from the martini glass that’s rolled away from her fingers.

Blonde curly hair is framed around her face like a halo, although some of it is stuck to her smeared lipstick. Her pink t-shirt is unfortunately tugged up a little too far, and Dirk reaches to pull it gently down so she’s covered again.

He puts his hands on both her shoulders and shakes. “Hey.”

The snoring stutters a little, but ultimately the girl continues to sleep on. Dirk frowns and shakes her shoulders a little harder.

“Roxy. Wake up.”

The girl rolls over in her bed, mumbling something in complaint as she swats Dirk’s hands away.

“S’too early fo this.”

“Roxy, it’s three in the afternoon,” Dirk says, sitting beside her on the bed.

“Well,” she tries to sit up, failing mostly and just laying on her side, “consider... consiring I jus fell to bed at two fifty.... s’too early. M’drunk.”

Dirk rubs his temples. Conversations with Roxy are always hard these days.

“Yeah, I’m aware. Can you sit up?”

Dirk helps pull Roxy up, and she teeters precariously and leans on his shoulder, giggling. “DiStri? What’re you doin in my woods of the.... in uh. In my head. What. Why... you here?”

“I had some news for you.” Dirk says.

“Oooooooooooo,” Roxy drawls, turning to look at him with her fuchsia eyes. “Didja... win Jake o’er? KNEW you could do it... congr.... cangrtu... good job!”

She plants a sloppy and lipsticky kiss on Dirk’s cheek. He holds her at arms’ length, frowning.

“Roxy, I’m leaving town.”

She blinks several times and then laughs. “Leabing? You can’t... do that, silly. S’mpossible.”

“Well, I am. Jake got me going off to find a local legend. Will you be okay here by yourself?”

Roxy waves him off, wobbling slightly. “M’always alone. Cept! For Frigglish here!” She points at the black cat curled up on the other side of the bed. “Good cat. BFF fer LYFE.”

“Okay, Roxy. How much did you drink?”

She squints at him and purses her lips. In another circumstance, it would’ve been cute.

“Five...?”

“Five what? Glasses? Bottles?”

Roxy tales sudden interest in Frigglish and begins to pet him, giggling softly to herself. “Good boy. Good kitty.” He starts purring.

Dirk sighs. “I’m going to leave you some water, and then I’m going, okay?”

Roxy doesn’t seem to respond, attention thoroughly consumed by the cat.

Dirk slides his arms under his oldest friend’s armpits, and lifts her easily over into the bed. She whines until he lays her down next to the cat, and tucks her into her blankets.

When she’s all snuggly wrapped up, she closes her eyes automatically, drunken mind understanding bed time at least.

Dirk fights his way through the mess back to her kitchen, getting a glass of water for her. He would’ve made toast or something, too, but her cupboards are empty of food other then cat meals for Frigglish.

Dirk leaves the glass on Roxy’s bedside table for when she wakes up. Then he grabs a sticky note and a glitter pen off her desk to leave a note as well.

Rox,

I don’t know if you’ll remember this when you wake up, but I’m leaving town to look for a local legend. I’m bringing my phone, so text whenever. Call Jane too, I think you’re out of groceries.

~ DiStri

With that he checks over Roxy’s snoring form one more time before leaving.

He’s got a long journey ahead of him.

————

Dirk yanks his hover board over, taking a deep breath in and adjusting his sunglasses.

Jumping the Wall is going to be... hard, to say the least. Especially considering the fact that it’s taller then most houses.

But at least he’s currently ON one of those houses. He climbed to the top of one of the cubes, and he’s now standing there, staring at the Wall. It’s only mere meters away.

Dirk sets his hover board on the roof and switches it on, watching as it steadily rises with a hum.

He’d grabbed a t-shirt and jeans today, a nostalgic outfit. He’s also wearing a backpack that he threw some food and a first-aid kit in, just in case.

He steps onto the board, throwing his arms out for balance as it shudders with his weight.

With these few extra inches, he can see the tops of trees over the Wall.

But like, lots of trees. So many they’re actually touching each other. And they’re covered in leaves.

Dirk inches his board closer to the edge, taking a deep breath in.

This shouldn’t be that hard of a jump. He’s done longer ones before.

And with that thought, he pushes himself off and leaps across the gap.

For a moment, his heart is in his throat, and then the board catches on the top of the Wall and snaps him backwards, and then he’s rolling down off the other side, into the complete darkness.

Dirk yells in alarm as the thing barrels down into the densely packed trees, hits the ground with a thump, and throws him right off.

He lands with with a WHUMP a bit away from where the hoverboard rolls to a halt.

He lays there for a minute, assessing the damage.

His knees and elbows are a little scraped. The left arm of his sunglasses are broken. Damn.

When Dirk sits up he carefully pulls the shades off and pockets them, blinking at the sudden light. There’s so many trees. That’s called something, right? ...A forest?

It doesn’t matter. Dirk stands, reaches over to lift his board into his backpack, and continues forward.

Jade didn’t exactly give directions on instructions other then “not far beyond the wall”, and of course she could be totally crazy, so Dirk just wanders around, gazing at the scenery. Plants are everywhere, and it reminds him very much of Grandma Harley’s bedroom.

He even passed some flowers that look like they come in more shades then yellow, which is a sight to behold.

Long plants that look like rope creep up some of the trees. Short plants that feel soft like the fur on Roxy’s cat line the roots of the tree trunks.

The trees burrow deep into the earth, their root pushing far out into the grass as if they’re holding into the world tightly. Like they’re deeply ingrained into existence.

Sometimes Dirk hears odd sounds that make him flinch, like squeaks or breaks of branches. Sometimes he regrets not bringing one of the practice swords from home.

The leaves fluttering at the edge of the freely-growing trees hide the sky from view, making him feel as if he’s in a pocket of surreal existence.

It’s all oddly beautiful, and fantastical.

When Dirk’s been walking for at least thirty minutes, he hears a very loud sound that makes him freeze in his tracks.

It sounds similar to a cough, and when Dirk hears it again he whirls around to spot the source.

All he sees is a black bird sitting on one of the tree branches, its gnarled claws digging into the wood.

Dirk gives it a funny look when it makes the coughing noise again. Or perhaps it’s more like a “caw”. In any case, it’s loud and annoying and nothing like the white birds that occasionally pass over Green.

“What are you doing there, bird?” Dirk asks causally, trying not to feel crazy. The creature stills and turns to watch him with a beady eye. Dirk shudders.

Yeah, no thanks. He turns away and starts walking again, feeling acutely that he’s being watched.

He only travels a little while longer before the feeling gets even worse, and he turns around sharply to stare at the trees.

The prickling feeling on his back makes him straighten his posture.

“Who’s there?” Dirk asks calmly, trying to not freak out.

There’s an answering caw, and the same black bird from before is sitting on a nearby branch.

“Oh damn, not you again,” Dirk mutters, rolling his eyes theatrically.

He turns around and finds himself face-to-face with the blade of a sword.

“What the hell?” Dirk asks, freezing in place. The weapon inches a little closer to his throat, the figure on the other end poised for combat.

Dirk tears his eyes away from the dangerous metal to look at his attacker.

An adult man stands before him, holding a sword in practiced hand. He’s dressed in odd red fabric, designed like robes or perhaps even pajamas. It would almost be funny, if not for the slotted cape swung over his back and the hood pulled tightly to obscure his eyes. Dirk can’t even tell if the man is wearing glasses— it’s already dark enough below the trees, and this mans’ hood makes it harder.

All in all, the ridiculous fantasy getup brings up something to mind— a knight at a costume party, perhaps.

“Knight?” Dirk asks quietly, and the bird behind him cries out again. The man tenses, his chin jutting out.

“Who the fuck are you?” He asks in a low monotone voice. He didn’t deny Dirk’s claim, however, which he’s taking as a good sign.

Dirk slowly raises up his hands in the universal sign for surrender. “I’m Dirk. I’m looking for a Knight.”

“Why? You’re a little young for an assassin.” The red man states without missing a beat. Dirk swallows.

“Well, like, my friend’s grandma mentioned him... and I guess I was curious? And I’m almost fifteen. Also not an assassin.”

There is silence for a few seconds, and then the adult straightens up and slides the sword back into a sheathe at his belt. The Knight turns away and begins walking into the forest, seemingly completely uninterested.

“Wait!” Dirk calls, and he runs up to match pace with the older man. “You’re the Knight, right?”

The red dressed hero scoffs. “Yeah, unfortunately. Sometimes life hands you pajamas and a cape and you just say, welp, guess it’s time to save the world. Time to fight an alien empress. That’ll go well. Ugh, damn crow,” he mutters as the black bird from before follows them deeper into the forest.

“Crow?” Dirk repeats, watching in fascination as the creature lands on a branch and caws loudly at the Knight.

“He’s just a feathery asshole. Don’t pay attention to him,” the Knight grumbles, but Dirk follows along and pays extra special attention to Crow. Even though he pretends not to.

They walk along for a minute in silence, although Dirk can feel that the Knight keeps looking at him in suspicious confusion. The man is tall, and lanky, but not overly so— rather much like a teenager who never finished growing out his limbs.

“Did you really fight to stop the Condesce?” Dirk asks in wonder, looking up at the Knight. He can only see the lower half of his pale face, where a frown tugs down.

“I failed to stop the Condesce, kiddo. No need to sugarcoat that baby. I’ll take my spoonful of medicine raw like a man, thanks.”

Dirk blinks as the Knight uses his sword to hack away foliage in front of him, revealing a small door.

“Do you live here?” Dirk asks, wondering how long it took to build.

The man tilts his head as if he’s rolling his hidden eyes. “No, I dug this secret bunker for years only to avoid it at all costs until right now.”

Dirk frowns. “Well if anything in there is even slightly serial-killer-y, I’m leaving.”

The Knight snorts. “Funny.”

And Dirk walks in first.

Chapter Text

The Knight lets Dirk walk inside and adjust himself before he enters.

It’s a small, put together little hovel. Low levels of light filter through the wood used to build the singular tiny room, and fluffy plants are growing all over it.

There’s something that must function as a makeshift sink full of water on one side of the room, and a pile of pillows and blankets in one corner that probably serves as the Knights’ bed.

In the center of the tiny cabin is a table covered in papers and one old red computer. Some of them have blueprints, edited and annotated with pen. Others appear to be documents with the official seal of the Empire over them. As Dirk shuffles awkwardly to one side, the Knight strides over and scoops the papers into a somewhat organized pile and sets the extremely best up laptop on top of the stack.

He sits on the floor, cross-legged, and Dirk mimics him on the opposite side of the table. It’s short enough that this is perfectly serviceable.

“So,” starts the Knight, and even though Dirk can’t see most of his face, he can almost feel the gaze boring into him. “What brings you outside Green? Last I checked, that’s illegal. Gets you right to the top of fish bitch’s cull list.”

Dirk fondly recalls that Jade had also referred to Her Imperial Condescesation in a similar manner.

“My... friend,” Dirk starts carefully, not wanting to reveal much about his personal life to this stranger, no matter how mythical they may seem, “wanted me to check out a legend. So I’m doing my buddy a solid. In the case that you are really the Knight?”

“Of Time,” the hooded figure adds, grabbing a small bottle off the floor and lifting it up to his pale lips to drink.

“What?” Dirk asks, his eyebrows furrowing slightly.

“I’m the Knight of Time.” He explains, setting the bottle on the table. Dirk realizes that it’s a bottle of apple juice, which makes this whole situation extremely ridiculous.

“Knight of Time,” Dirk repeats, trying it out. It’s a little strange on his tongue.

“What, you thought I was just the Knight? Some random old Knight from medieval times or a kid’s birthday party? The hell do you take me for, a carnival jockey? A clown for hire? Don’t answer that, actually, I’m afraid of the truth.”

The Knight sounds almost offended, but the edge of his lips are pulling up in an amused manner. The light in this room is low enough that Dirk still can’t see the top half of his face with the red hood pulled down.

Dirk thinks for a moment and asks a question.

“Are the other heroes magic Time beings, as well?”

The Knight of Time tilts his head a little bit. “What? Nah, they all had their own things going on back then. Knight of Time, Seer of Light, that kinda thing.”

Seer of Light. Dirk has no idea what exactly that means, but it sounds very interesting. A being who could see... Light? Light must represent something different then just its’ physical appearance.

“Want some a.j.?” The Knight of Time asks, holding out a fresh bottle of juice in Dirk’s direction. Dirk winces a little.

“No thanks. I’ve lost my taste for the stuff.”

The adult gasps in a way that sounds genuinely displeased. “What the shit, kid? That’s so uncool. Apple juice is the drink of the gods. Which I know for a fact, because I am a god and I drink it. But for real, how could you ever tire of the best thing ever? That’s like saying music is overrated, or something worse. Like telling a Karen that her lemon bars are over cooked.”

Dirk doesn’t know what a Karen is, but the idea gets across well enough. “I drank a shit ton of it when I was little.”

The Knight of Time shrugs. “Well, your parents had excellent taste.” He downs the rest of his drink.

Dirk lets his eyes roam the small little place built of wood, wondering just how long it took to craft and construct. From the way the Knight moves, this has obviously been him home for a long time.

“Do you live alone?”

The Knight’s face turns blank. “Yes. And before you ask, no, I’m not an eligible bachelor, so don’t try to win me over.”

Dirk raises an eyebrow. “Bold of you to assume you’re in any way attractive.”

“Trust me, kid, if you could see this face you’d be tripping and slipping on your own drool.” The man tugs gently at his red sleeves. “Do you need a chaperone back home so you don’t get lost? Or a ride? Is little Timmy gonna cry if he doesn’t get his lollipop? Is that what’s happening?”

“Nah, I just want to know the truth.” Dirk’s trying to hold himself with good posture, his hands folded neatly in front of him, but he’s getting more uncomfortable by the second. Better to be cool about it though.

“The truth?” Asks the god before him, leaning backward a little.

Dirk levels him with a stare. “About the Condesce. Who she really was and who you were, Knight of Time.”

He whistles slowly, resting his arms on the table. “That’s a hell of a long story, kid.”

Dirk shrugs. “I’ve got time.”

The Knight laughs. “Yep. That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

Dirk raises an eyebrow. “Time? Is your name?”

The adult shrugs, his red cape fluttering. “It’s what I’ve gone by. Now, are you sure you want to hear this? It’s long, and not exactly happy. Just warning you.”

Dirks’ spine practically tingles with anticipation. “I do. Can I make a call first?”

Time eyes him suspiciously. “Have your phone on speaker and sure.”

Dirk pulls out his phone and dials a number, making sure to leave the phone sitting on the table and on speaker. The caller ID lights up.

COOKIE WOMAN

Time frowns, but eventually the device stops ringing and the call gets picked up.

“Hello? Dirk?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Dirk starts, mentally preparing himself.

“You’re in a LOT of trouble, young man!” Jane’s voice yells into the phone. Dirk winces and Time raises an eyebrow mischievously.

“I know, Jane, I’m sorry—“

“SORRY ISN’T GOING TO CUT IT! You left poor Roxy at home with nothing but a note and some water!”

Dirk sighs. He really doesn’t like that the Knight of Time is watching this particularly embarrassing conversation. “She didn’t have any groceries in her whole ass house. I checked.”

“That’s not an excuse. You need to come right over and apologize.”

Jane sounds very stern. Dirk can just picture her frown with her pursed lips, her red spectacles framing the disappointment in her gaze.

“That’s actually what I was calling about. I won’t be back tonight.”

Jane groans loudly. “Oh, Dirk, you didn’t. Tell me that was just a good prank and you didn’t REALLY do it.”

“I’m outside Green right now,” Dirk goes on as if Jake’s cousin hadn’t spoken at all.

“DIRK!” Jane practically shrieks. “You WILL fix this when you come back, mark my words!”

“Okay, lady, jeez.” Dirk ruffles up his already ruined gelled blonde hair with a frown. “It’ll be late, though. Please make sure Roxy eats something.”

“I will,” Jane responds softly. “She’s nursing a hangover but I’ll run by the store really quick for some hot pockets at least. I also brought some pie.”

Dirk grins at the mention of pie. Jane must sense this because she immediately adds “if you’re not back by sundown I’m letting Roxy have your portion.”

Damn, she’s got him there.

“I’ll be back. Thanks, Jane. You’re awesome.”

Jane chuckles. “Just doing what I have to.”

The phone goes dark as she hangs up.

Time is quiet for only a moment before he folds his arm behind his head. “Close friends of yours?”

Dirk sighs. “Yeah. Probably the best people I’ll ever know.”

The Knight of Time twitches a little with an unreadable expression, and then he points to the floor. “Better glue your ass down, if you want to get home for pie I’ll have to give you the abridged version.”

“No,” Dirk responds immediately. “No details spared, please.”

Time shoots the teenager a confused look. “But you have to get home, don’t you? Can’t be missing your curfew, I promised your dad I’d be a good chaperone when I agreed to this and I don’t want to not get paid. Or else the man won’t ever let me get money from driving some teens around anymore and my name will end up on the child predator list. Is that what you want for me?”

Dirk rolls his eyes. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Time nods. “Oh. Makes sense.”

And then he starts the story.

He fills in Dirk with some background first: Time grew up in a place called Houston, Texas, back when Earth had many places all over the world to be. Apparently you had to take a plane to even get to some places. It seemed crazy.

He grew up an orphan with nothing to his name, but he managed to get up and running though a ton of hard work that he wasn’t going to go into. A classic rags-to-riches story.

Once he had enough money, he just kept making more by making more things. In Time’s own words, he made “purposely trashy things and the people loved it”.

No one was close to him, of course— being a famous person who worked hard to get there meant he didn’t trust anyone else, mean he had no friends to turn to.

Except, surprisingly, for one friend he had met online. One bright young lady who stayed close to him throughout to entirety of his life journey, even as she published her writings and got some money to her own name.

Although they lived hundreds of miles away, they were probably each other’s most trusted confidants, and therefore the first to know all the other’s secrets.

It was in this way they came to know the Seer of Light.

Chapter Text

April 12th, 2011

It’s bright and early and as always, Time doesn’t want to get out of bed.

But he’s been awake for a while now. Restlessly coming to consciousness and then falling back into bed due to sheer drowsiness and an inability to process anything he can see or hear.

Outside his window, the hustle and the bustle of the city is already reaching his ears— a smooth drum of background noise against the thought banging around the man’s skull.

Another day has passed. Another day closer to the end.

Time is constantly marching forward without stopping, and he will reach the end whether he likes it or not.

Some people might say that it’s beautiful, in a way— everyone with the same pull towards demise, everyone destined to end up equally a pile of bones.

Time isn’t one of those people.

He’s known when he was going to die since he was thirteen years old, and by the gods, it’s not as pleasant as most people think.

So he doesn’t get out of bed. He’s content to let this moment last for at least a few minutes longer.

He doesn’t get that chance, because a second later, his phone starts ringing.

Time groans, and rolls over, reaching his arm out to his side table and grabbing the small piece of equipment to shove against his ear, pressing the answer button.

A smooth and meticulous voice crackles through. Despite the fact that Time doesn’t want to hear any voices at this time of day, one person in particular can always make him feel somewhat better.

“I’ve just landed in Houston. How are you this lovely morning, my dearest friend?”

Now this might SOUND like a pleasant greeting. But it wasn’t. Not with Light.

With Light, everything was a game. It was a move to get you to play into her conversation of chess. It was her, pulling at the strings until you said what she wanted, and until she left satisfied.

The most confusing thing was what she wanted in the first place. Light never wanted you to say what she wanted to hear, she only wanted to be right. She didn’t want Time to be NICE to her, she just wanted him to say exactly what she knew he was going to say all along.

Time finds this game annoying and constantly tries to say the opposite of what he’d normally say in order to throw Light off her high horse. Unfortunately, he’s been doing that for so long that she now expects it. Curses.

“Why are you waking me up right now?” Time groans in a sleepy voice. “I was planning on going into a depression coma and now my plans have been ruined. I’ll have to reschedule them. Look at this, I’m grabbing my calendar right now. Damn, looks like there isn’t time to reschedule. I have to sleep now or never. Guess I gotta hang up the phone then.”

He lets one leg droop off the side of his bed, sighing loudly for effect.

“You’re still in bed then, I presume,” Light says with a voice like she’d known this the whole time. God damn it.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I’m waking up on the floor of the club buried in hot women. You don’t know anything.” Time is almost whining, off his game after being forced out of bed.

Light is smug about this. “I do, actually. Get up and get dressed, your secretary is going to call early today.”

“Mhm,” Time mumbles, not asking how she knew. Because she just knows. She always does.

“I’m meeting you for lunch at the cafe, so don’t be late for that again.”

Time sits up, stretching his back. “I’m NEVER late,” he protests, which is a complete lie.

“Hm,” hums Light, and sarcasm drips from her voice as she adds, “Well then wait for me if you arrive early.”

“Will do,” Time mumbles. “Don’t be too late, taking forever by doing a shit ton of makeup, or picking your outfit, or whatever it is that makes women take so long.”

“That was definitely a sentence that you’d want the press overhearing,” says Light, and although she’s acting offended, her voice gives away that she’s really quite amused.

“Yeah, yeah.” Time waves her off. “I’ll see you later today. Have fun in Houston.”

“I will attempt to enjoy the lack of breeze or proper air conditioning.”

“Now you’ve got it,” Time jokes, and he hangs up without saying goodbye, which he knows Light already expects, and she knows he knows she already expects.

The rest of his morning is spent making himself look as pristine as possible. He picks out one of his ugliest, brightest colored suits, and slicks his hair back with a generous amount of gel.

The suits were custom made for him, and he has quite a few, all in various shades of ugly. The poor woman who designed them agreed to make all of them as long as he promised to never commission her again. Time thought that was a fair enough deal.

She was probably crying over those ugly tuxedos for days. They truly were a crime of fashion.

Time loved them.

Although he normally wouldn’t wear one of his precious tuxedos to work, he’s meeting Light right after, so it makes sense.

Plus the office will be surprised and have to suffer once more through his creative genius.

As he’s grabbing himself some water, his phone starts ringing again. And sure enough it’s his secretary.

“Markus!” Time answers the phone even though he’s pretty sure the secretary’s name is not Markus.

The secretary, who’s name is Daniel, kindly informs him that there’s been a workplace dispute over the merchandising again, and could he please come solve it before the plushes were destroyed.

Time tells him he’ll be right over, and in fact he’s already in his car and starting the engine. He drives to work within five minutes and is inside just in time to witness the highest professionals yelling about the off color of the Hella Jeff plushie.

Time calmly walks in between the argument and plucks the stuffed toy out of the hands of the office member, tucking it under his arm and informing both men that they are fired.

He then walks into his office without even looking at the two workers standing agape in the hall.

As he’s sitting down at his desk and tossing the keys to his red 2001 Pontiac Aztec on it (He found it being given away practically for free by the owner and cried when he got it. It’s a thing of beauty, his car) Daniel walks in to talk to him about the latest updates in his contacts.

Daniel tells Time that he’s got a call from the renowned scientist lady, and that she’s got new updates on tech for him too. Time is exited by this and rambles about glitch text for five minutes, while Daniel patiently waits for him to finish before leaving the room. He’s a good man, deserves a raise.

Time calls the two men he fired earlier and informs them that they can have their jobs back if they want. One of them does, and the other doesn’t so Time makes sure he’s set up to pay his rent before hanging up the phone.

When he gets a call from Skianet headquarters, Time grins and grabs the phone before Daniel can even ask him to.

A chipper voice greets him. “Time, how’s it going up there in big old Houston?!”

“Space,” Time grins, very exited to be getting a call from one of his favorite ladies. “What’s it like down in the middle of nowhere? Figured out how to reverse climate change yet? I’m counting on that, by the way. I know you can do it.”

The Witch of Space giggles. “Not yet, silly! I’m calling because I’ve got new tech for you.”

Time leans back in his seat comfortably, trying not to grin. “What’ve you got. Wait, no, let me guess. It’s something that can turn people into furries, isn’t it? You’re trying to make an animal empire.”

“That’d be neat, but no! It’s called the ‘alchemiter’. It’s gonna be able to combine things using alchemy based on punching caputla cards!”

“That... I understand most of that, yeah,” Time agrees. “And I need that thing immediately. Do you know how much crazy shit I could make by combining my merchandise.”

“Not only that!” Space cheerily continues, “But you could combine regular objects with your comics on order to properly merchandise them into some horrific object.”

“No way. You’re kidding.”

“I’m one-hundred-percent serious! Plus, and don’t quote me on this, I think if I can get the coding right, we’ll be able to master two-dimensional objects.”

“No fucking way— this is awesome! I’m gonna send you like a gazillion bucks in the mail. We’ve been trying to master that for years.” Time spins in his seat a little, grinning from ear to ear but keeping his voice chill. “What happened to it being physically impossible?”

“Oh, I’ve figured a lot of things out over the years,” the woman on the end of the line laughs. “Okay, I’m having it delivered up there. Lemme know when it arrives, and send me lots of pictures!”

“Will do. This is magical, like, with fairies flying around and everything. Dream come true. Next thing I know myself in my underwear is gonna walk around the corner”

There’s some giggling over the phone.

“You’re welcome, you dork,” and then she hangs up.

Time eagerly awaits the arrival of the technology, and while he’s waiting he uses his laptop to draw a few more comics. Using a mousepad instead of a mouse brings the quality down a whole other lever, which is something he didn’t think was possible. It’s extremely impressive and he’s proud of the disgusting thing he created.

He’s got an interview in an hour and then after that he’s got to meet Light at the cafe, which he’s dubiously looking forward to.

As much of a self-satisfied prick Light can be, Time still loves her. That’s how friends are. He’s known her since he was a teenager, and he can’t imagine life without her.

It’ll be nice to see her in person, considering she lives in New York and is rarely able to visit. It will be very nice, but Time will pretend he hates it, and Light will know he actually doesn’t, and he’ll know that she knows he actually really appreciates her coming down to see him.

It’s a funny thing, relationships.

Time gets ready for the interview only by making sure his hair is presentable and his eyes covered, and then steps right in to see the interview lady. She beams at him with one of those wide, fake smiles, and Time nods at her as cool dudes are known to do.

People all bustle around the edge of the rooms with cameras and lighting equipment, but Barbra (the reporter) urges Time to simply pay attention to her only as they talk to the camera.

She introduces him to the live audience by last name, and then starts out with the kind of annoying questions Time is quite used to at this point.

“So, where do you get ideas for your movies and comics?” Barbra asks, all long blonde hair and fake smile.

Time shrugs. “They mostly just come to me. I say, ‘how can I make this worse’, and then I do it as soon as I have an idea.”

Barbra laughs a high pitched, actors’ laugh. “You’re very humble for someone who’s reached the top of the list in money-making directors this year! I’m sure your content is incredible.”

“It’s incredible in that I make it as shitty as possible,” Time explains in a patient voice. The amount of places he’s explained this never seem to end. “The fact that it’s so bad is what makes it so good. I don’t let the plot make any sense, I make sure it’s ridden with more holes then Swiss cheese. It’s all ironic, Barbra. We pretend it’s good and we present it on the big screen in complete irony. We know it’s trash; we work hard to make it as trashy as possible.”

Barbra shakes her head, her smile not wavering. “Incredible and genius! It’s not a surprise that your shows are almost always completely sold out. It sounds like you put a lot of time into your projects!”

“Yes, we do,” Time nods. “Irony, baby. The masses dig it.”

Barbra goes on to ask several more questions, and Time answers all of them honestly but with practiced restraint. When she finally declares the interview over, Time is relived, and waves goodbye to the reporter as he grabs his keys and leaves the building.

—————————

The cafe is warm and sparsely populated.

The barista glances up at Time only for a moment before looking away. His ugly suit is working wonders so far.

Normally he’s bombarded by people looking for an autograph or a picture, but luckily Light chose a cafe that is secluded and not very popular.

There’s a woman sitting in the very back at a table. She’s wearing a black dress with a soft purple shawl over it, making her look like a cozy old lady. Her hands are wrapped around one of the two mugs set in front of her.

When the door opens, she looks up, and her piercing violet gaze meets Time’s. He grins a little awkwardly at her, and she tips her head towards the seat across from hers.

Time walks over to sit down, reaching for the drink she got for him. He lifts it up to his face, breathing in.

“Pumpkin spice? You know me so well.”

Light rolls her eyes, tapping her fingers gently against her mug. Her blonde hair is cut, as always, perfectly straight to stop at her shoulders. It bobs a little as she leans in.

“I’m aware of the disgusting things you subject yourself to for ‘the ironies’, yes. How are you today?”

Time shrugs, taking a sip of his coffee. The low level light is soothing as the brown walls of the cafe seem to wrap around him. “Fine enough. What’s up with you?”

Light ‘tsks’ in a disappointed way, but moves on. That’s her way of letting you know you said something wrong, but she’s too polite to point it out aloud. “I feel like something unexpected is coming.”

“Unexpected?” Time asks, his eyebrows furrowing. “Is it a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Well, that’s just it... I can’t tell,” Light explains, and she sounds a little frustrated. The tapping of her fingers stops. “But it’s most definitely tied to the Takeover and... perhaps our deaths.”

Time tenses, the way he always does when Light brings this up. She notices this and raises a single pristine eyebrow.

“Does it bother you when I talk about it, Time dearest?”

He frowns. “Well, maybe it does, huh? What would you do about it? Stop talking about it? No, you wouldn’t. So why bother? There’s no reason. And I’m not bothered by it. There’s no bothers here. No bothers given.”

Light sighs and rubs her temples gently. “If you made yourself clear, I would try to bring it up less around you. But like it or not this is our reality. And I have a strong feeling that it’s about to change.”

“Change how?” Time asks warily, taking another sip of his admittedly good drink.

“I suppose we’ll just have to wait and See.”

Chapter Text

 April 13th, 2011

When Time wakes up in the morning, the first thing he thinks is, “where am I?”

The second thing he thinks is nothing, really, other then an unintelligible shriek of pain, because his head feels like it’s splitting open. It also seems that every single one of his ribs is broken, and perhaps all those ribs got bent at an angle because they’re all stabbing his heart and lungs like needles.

He’s also falling, the feeling in his ears and the pit of his stomach tells him, and his elbows hit the hardwood floor with a thump. His stomach, however, still hasn’t stopped falling, nor have his ears stopped ringing.

Time grabs the side of his bed and pulls himself to his feet, teetering, and his ears and stomach are still falling— he’s still falling— and he runs to the bathroom, stumbling, falling onto his knees in front of the toilet before throwing up into the bowl.

His chest heaves, thousands of swords stabbing into his rib cage, and his eyes sting with tears as he continues to fall and retch into the toilet for several minutes.

His whole body is off centered. His stomach is suspended in space.

Something is terribly wrong.

After dry heaving until he’s about to pass out, Time gasps for breath and slides gently onto the tile floor, breathing hollowly with his mouth open.

He lays on his side, holding his stomach, which is slowly coming to rest as he gets over... whatever just happened.

His eyes gently flutter closed as he rests, trying to let his head stop spinning.

Pretty soon, Time gets to his feet and walks carefully back into his bedroom to fetch his phone. He has two text messages, both from his friend the Witch.

(planet furry 8:03 AM) good morning!! dont forget its someones birthday today so you better wish him a happy day >:0

(planet furry 8:24 AM) oh my god i think something just exploded?!?!

The last one was from about ten minutes ago, about when Time was forcibly woken up.

He drags a hand through his messed-up hair, breathing out slowly through his lips. Today is already looking to be shit.

His chest and stomach seem to be settled now, but there’s still a small feeling of not-quite-right-ness. If Time didn’t know any better, he’d say that the whole universe has suddenly shifted.

Before he even gets a chance to reply to Space, a new text message buzzes in on his phone.

(bucktooth idiot 8:37) what, no birthday wishes? just kidding haha! something more important is going on— please can you try to contact light? she’s not picking up the phone.

At this, Time immediately calls his oldest friends’ phone.

There’s no response.

He begins to worry. She doesn’t ever not answer, Light usually knows when he’s going to call anyway. She always picks up her phone.

Time tries again. And again, and again. And when she doesn’t pick up, he lets the two others know that she’s not responding.

Predictably, they are both terrified by this.

Time finally gets dressed for the day, throwing on a long sleeved shirt and a pair of ratty blue jeans before dialing another number.

“Samuel,” says Time even though he’s fairly sure his secretary’s name is not Samuel, “please order me a private plane to New York as fast as possible.”

The secretary, who’s name is Daniel, kindly reassures Time that he can get one straight away, and then carefully asks the reason for such a request. Time says it’s for urgent family matters, and Daniel accepts this.

Time is packed within ten minutes, considering he only grabbed a backpack and shoved a toothbrush, a change of clothes and his phone charger into it.

He grabs his wallet and his keys and a sufficient face covering before heading to the airport, barely beating traffic and nearly holding his breath the whole time.

The three hour flight is almost unbearable, and Time taps and drums his fingers and heels almost non stop. His anxiety gets the better of him as time goes on and he worried about finding Light stone cold, lying on the floor, her pulse stopped and her breath long gone stale...

An horrifying one hundred and eighty minutes later, Time scrambles off of the plane with his single backpack, thanking the conductor and rushing for the nearest taxi.

They can’t take him very close to Light’s house, considering she bought a mansion in the middle of the woods like the high class weirdo she is.

As soon as they’re close enough Time hops out of the car and simply sprints through the wooden pathways towards the house.

All he wants is for his friend to be okay.

———

Time reaches the front door of the ridiculously huge and ridiculously expensive house, fishing a spare key out of his pocket and unlocking the door.

He stumbles into the house, dropping his backpack onto the floor, listening. It’s much too quiet in here, but it’s always been quiet in her house, and peaceful.

Time glances about the entryway, but seeing nothing, he enters the kitchen, kicking off his shoes and scooting them against the wall. There’s nobody in here, either, but there are several empty bottles of hard liquor left on the counter.

Time squints at them, remembering that Light was not usually particularly fond of alcohol, and leaves the room with heightened worries.

He looks in the lower living room next, and although a few throw pillows are misplaced the space looks as immaculate as always.

God, if he has to search every room in this goddamn mansion—

There’s something that sounds like a dry cough, and it’s small, and definitely not well, but it’s something, and Time spins around and follows the sound into the nearest bathroom.

Strewn across the floor with her head laying against the toilet stand is his oldest friend Light.

She’s holding a bottle of expensive drink, and there’s a few more next to her on the floor.

The room reeks and it’s mostly silent other then the extremely quiet mumbles coming from Lights’ mouth, but Time is so relived to see her alive that he drops to his knees and grabs her by the arms.

She blinks open her eyes, staring at him in confusion, seeing but not quite understanding. Her normally piercing violet gaze is clouded and tired.

“Wha?” She mutters, suddenly smiling at him. “Oh, you’re hereeeee! Didja... did you feel it? Tha chagne ths morn..?”

Her blonde hair is plastered to her face, which is sticky with sweat. Her expensive looking purple gown is wrinkled and stained.

This is unsettling and odd. Light, who holds herself to such high standards, who is always so prim and perfect, is... messy. Unfocused.

Vulnerable.

It’s sad, and a little scary. Time doesn’t like seeing her like this, so out of control. It needs to be fixed.

Time watches her for a moment, shakes his head, and then says; “you fucked up, lady.”

Lights’ head tilts to the side, confused. “Did you? Did yow fell the time lime... shift? Moev... move... itsa RUINED!”

“Mhm,” Time responds, and he shuffles closer, sliding his arms under Light’s back and knees, and scooping her up bridal-style carefully. She isn’t very light, but he’s strong enough to carry her to her bedroom, dropping her on the large king sized master bed.

He also pulls the bottle out of her hand, casually throwing it across the room.

Light frowns at him for that, but she doesn’t say anything. In fact she seems to forget about it as Time pats her gently on the head and pulls out his phone to tell Space and Breath that she’s alive.

They’re relived to hear this, but they want answers, just as much as he does.

Time glances at Light, who seems to be drifting off to sleep, and decides she’s probably fine.

He wonders over to his usual guest bedroom, pulling off his sweatshirt but not his jeans before collapsing on the bed to take a nap.

———

Exactly forty seven minutes later, Time wakes up feeling drowsy and breathing in the scent of Lights’ guest sheets. He pulled the comforter off himself, blinking in the light, and then slides out of bed once he remembers why he was here.

He quietly walks into Lights’ bedroom, shirtless and wearing jeans and socks. She is currently laying on her back with her hands pressed to her temples, eyes closed but clearly awake.

“So,” says Time, and Light doesn’t move or react despite the fact that he was completely silent, “you’ve got some explanations to give.”

“I’m aware,” she hisses through gritted teeth. Her gown has slipped down on one shoulder, and the sun is setting outside her windows. The orange lights pools into the bedroom and lines the blonde hair on Lights’ head.

Time sits down on the foot of her bed, crossing his legs to give her his full attention. He can’t keep his fingers from tapping out a small beat on his knees, but she’ll understand that.

When Ligjt finally opens her eyes, she raises an eyebrow at his appearance, but seems to understand that she was in no place to judge.

“I’m sorry,” she says after several moments of quiet.

“You better be,” Time mutters. “I mean, Space and Breath were so worried that they sent me over here. Considering I’m the closest and everything. Texas is much closer to New York then Seattle is. Also I’m rich. But I wasn’t worried about you or anything. That was all them.”

Light doesn’t look convinced by that, but she doesn’t argue. Instead she ignores him.

“Did you feel it this morning, too?”

“Feel wh— oh yeah I definitely did. I had a special meeting with the porcelain throne. Me and him were getting all up an aquatinted. So well acquainted, dude, you wouldn’t believe it. I’m actually, uh, planning to propose on Saturday. It’s gonna be a June wedding, naturally—“

“So you know, then,” Light interrupts, rubbing her temples harder. “This is disastrous.”

“What, the, uh,” Time holds out both his hands and twists them to symbolize the horrible feeling he had this morning, “the thing? No, believe it or not, I actually have no idea what that’s about. I was hoping you could tell me, but then you went AWOL on everyone and I guess you were... what, drinking away your sorrows in your giant mansion?”

Light shakes her head. “I apologize for that. I wasn’t... in my right mind.”

“Yeah, I could see that,” Time agrees, drumming on his legs again. “What the hell happened?”

Light shakes her head. Her hair is messed up, her makeup smeared and unregulated. It’s truly a horrific sight— she’s always so immaculate.

“I just couldn’t handle the strain of our entire universe’s future changing at once. It was like— like all of everyone suddenly ceased to exist, and then a few minutes later everything and everyone was back but entirely DIFFERENT and. It was extremely overwhelming. I couldn’t handle thinking about it. Or... thinking at all, I suppose.”

Time shakes his head. “I can get that, but next time, call someone. It doesn’t even have to be me, just— let someone know what’s going on.”

“Okay. Okay, I get it, you can stop chiding me like a child,” Light sniffs, pushing down her covers with her small hands. Time rolls his eyes.

“So, is your brain all figured out now, or?”

Light sits up. “I still haven’t mostly wrapped my mind around it, but I’ve figured out some parts of what happened. First of all, someone, somewhere, did something that created a huge event that wasn’t supposed to happen. That event has set our universe off of the timeline it was originally on, and into a completely different branch.”

“So our timeline split off from its’ Alpha?” Time asks, frowning. That... isn’t usually a good thing. Like, at all. If there was a list of bad things to happen to the universe, this would probably be number two at LEAST.

“Yes. But,” Light raises a finger seriously, “out timeline isn’t doomed. Which is... unusual. Tell me something, my dearest friend. When are you going to die?”

“September fourteenth,” Time answers automatically, “two thousand twenty... wait.”

Light nods. Time reaches up to clutch his head, his mind spinning.

September fourteenth, 2024. That’s when he’s going to to die. That’s always been true— it’s been true for so long that he memorized it. The date is practically seared into his frontal lobe.

“Why isn’t that... right?” Time asks, confused and a little bit scared.

Light shakes her head. “I don’t know. I’m not dying either. It’s like... its all different now.”

Time lunges across the bed, grabbing Light’s forearms and staring into her eyes.

“When do I die?”

She blinks owlishly, her deep eyes suddenly closing and her eyebrows furrowing as she thinks and thinks.

“I don’t know,” Light whispers. “It’s too far. The date of the Empress’s takeover is still three-eleven, but everything else— it’s all screwed up. Thrown off.”

Time releases her and sits back, settling his chin in his hands, unsettled.

Is he... going to live? Past that year? Many, many years?

“I don’t understand,” Time whispers, and Light wraps her arms around him.

“I know.”

——————

The Knight of Time doesn’t say all these words to Dirk exactly, of course. He tells the story in less detail and in more of a rambled mess, skipping some things and spending much too long on others.

By the time the sun sets, Dirk still has not much of a clue how this story relates to the destruction of Earth, but he’s starting to understand how some things work— like the Seer of Light’s powers, or what life was like back when there was a whole “America”.

Dirk stands up and thanks the Knight for his story, even if it hadn’t been very helpful so far.

Time shrugs, the red cape on his shoulders lifting.

“Kid, I’m honestly kinda nervous about sharing. But I will admit it’s nice to talk to someone again.”

Crow flutters into the room as Dirk opens the door, and Time swears while trying to shoo the thing away. It doesn’t work, and the bird lands on the Knights’ shoulder happily.

Time glares at it, and lets it onto his hand instead, muttering something about his cape and bird poop.

[ART: the knight of time and crow]

“I’ll see you tomorrow, kid, or whenever you show up I guess, can’t control you, can’t get any respect from the youth of today, you know how it is, damn generation whatever-you-are, I’m sure angry about something.”

Dirk can’t help but smile a little. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

He waves politely at both Crow and Time, and then he walks out the door and starts the journey home.

Man, he’s got a story for Jake.

Chapter Text

Dirk was a little too wrapped up in his own mind when he got home.

Which, to be perfectly frank, was something that happened quite often. The young Strider had a bit of a large brain, and possibly too much time left alone with it. He had a tendency to slip away into obscurity and ponder the meanings of himself and the universe, but mostly himself. Because his own mind was the most fascinating one to him; given his access to it.

However on this particular day, Dirk Strider should have remembered that he was currently walking into a house inhabited by one Jane Crocker, who was surely going to be mad at him. If he’d been thinking about this, which he hadn’t, he might’ve been more cautious.

So because of all these things Dirk opened the door to Roxy’s house without really thinking about it. This almost immediately proved to be a mistake as the carefully balanced bucket of ice water resting on the doorframe crashed downward, shocking the Strider out of his mind completely.

He now stands, cold and soaking, in Roxy’s kitchen, admitting to himself that he more or less deserved that.

The lights are on bright, which only really happens when Jane or her cousin Jake come around— after all they both seem to like the sun much more then Dirk and Roxy do. It also seems to be a lot cleaner— which is also most likely the work of Jane, because she can hardly stand it when Roxy “sleeps in a pigsty”.

The two girls sit at the island counter, giggling at Dirk gleefully. Jane has an apron tied on, likely from baking the pie at her kitchen job.

Roxy looks much better then the last time Dirk saw her. She’s sober and her magenta eyes are clear as she laughs. She’s changed and redone her makeup, though her hair perhaps isn’t cooperating quite the way she wants it.

“Let’s get real,” Roxy smiles, “ya totes deserve that.”

“Yes, I do,” Dirk agrees, shutting the door behind him and not bothering to pick up the scattered pranking weapon. Ice water drips off him as he walks up to counter and leans against the opposite side of it. “How’s things?”

“We saved some pie for you,” Jane says sweetly, pushing the tin across the island towards Dirk. She hands him a fork as well, which he uses to stab into the apple and graciously feed himself one of the sweetest home cooked desserts he’s ever had. Jane really has a gift.

“So didja REALLY leave town? Must’ve chickened, seein’ as you’re still here,” Roxy grins and props her elbows on the counter. Dirk rolls his eyes and finishes chewing.

“I came back after, Roxy.”

The curly-haired blonde blinks in surprise and then shrugs.

“Oohhh. I guess that makes sense. Used yer hoverboard?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah.”

There’s a long pause as Jane reaches for a glass of ice water, swishing it around before taking a long sip.

Roxy stares off into space, one of her fingers twirling her hair slightly as she blanks out. Dirk simply continues to eat his pie, trying to chew quietly trough the awkward silence.

Roxy heaves an extremely loud sigh and then slumps onto the counter, wiggling her fingers. “I’m BOREEEEED. Let’s invite JAKE over.”

Dirk swallows and then pulls his hand against his chest. “Am I less exciting then Jake?”

Roxy sticks her tongue out. “Yeah.”

“Wow.”

Jane shakes her head with a small smile, reaching for the pie tin to carry it over to the sink. The water turns on with a hiss as she starts cleaning the dish out gently.

“Before we invite my dearest cousin over, Dirk I think we need to have a talk about your decision making skills!”

Jane’s stern voice causes the two other teens to flinch. Jane isn’t one you want to get on the bad side of. She may seem plump from her life of homemade sweets, but Dirk knows from unfortunate experience that most of Jane is hard muscle. She could easily lift and throw any of them.

Roxy slides slightly away from the taller boy.

“Jane, I had a very good reason. The question here is whether or not I have to tell you.”

Jane gasps and turns around to wave a wooden spoon at Dirk threateningly. “You absolutely do, or I’ll take away your pie privileges for a month!”

Dirk rolls his eyes. “I was going to tell you anyway.”

“I know,” Jane agrees angrily, still pinning him down with her gaze over the rims of her red glasses. Eventually she lowers her spoon and goes back to cleaning her pie tin. “Explain, sir. It’s quite impolite to run off to heaven-knows-where and scare us all to death!”

Roxy shakes her head from the kitchen island. She’s tapping away on her phone, but she gets a word in edgewise.

“Nah, we wouldn’t have died. We don’t like DiStri THAT much.”

Jane laughs and turns off the water as she finished washing her dish. Dirk spares a glance over towards Roxy; the screen of her phone has a lot of green text on it so it’s safe to assume that Jake will be showing up sooner rather then later.

“I have a very good reason,” Dirk starts, “and that reason is that Jake—“

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Jane huffs, undoing her apron as she walks over to frown at Dirk. “You need to stop doing things for Jake-related reasons. That CAN’T be healthy.”

“You can’t insinuate what is or isn’t healthy for me at all, unless you’ve been through psychology school in the hours i was gone.” Dirk frowns and pulls out his sunglasses, which are regrettably snapped in half.

“Oh! Oh no,” Roxy gasps sympathetically, shaking her head. “I was wonderin’ why you weren’t wearing them but I didn’t know they’d... yikes.”

“It’s fine,” Dirk says, even though he knows that the incident will leave a mark on his pride. His calloused fingers turn the pieces over as he contemplates them quietly. His sunglasses appear to be two triangles stuck together— a look he’d stolen from an old-world cartoon. They may look stupid, but he can’t stop wearing them now that he’s fully committed to the “anime” look. Plus he kind of needs them for the light sensitivity.

“I’ll just make new ones,” Dirk shrugs, setting the pieces gently down on the counter.

Roxy purses her lips but doesn’t say anything else, and when her eyes dart back down to her phone she lights up considerably.

“Jake’s free! He’ll be over in a few.”

“Perfect, I have to make a whole CAKE now,” Jane snorts in fake annoyance, shaking her head. Dirk allows himself a small smile, tapping his fingers gently on the counter.

“I’ll tell you guys about what happened, but later. It makes more sense, after all, to wait until Jake’s here to explain it together. He was a large part of the story as well and probably has more insight into it then I do.”

Roxy sighs heavily in disappointment, but agrees to the idea.

With that, the two girls break off to the single bedroom in order to change into pajamas. Dirk guesses that this has transformed into a pajama party, and starts setting up the living room.

He raids Roxy’s hall closet for tons of pillows she owns and scatters then in front of her television or on the couch. He also tosses a few fuzzy blankets in the mix, knowing that makes for a nice cuddly nest.

Dirk then searches the nearly barren cabinets and comes up with gold: three bags of microwave popcorn. Although he absolutely cannot cook, he posses the ability to follow microwave instructions. The popcorn comes to life without a hitch, and the teen feels a momentary sensation of pride, like the college dropout after bringing his sewn together creature to life using dubious science.

When the girls come back from Roxy’s room, they both squeal in delight at the setup Dirk has produced. He doesn’t do anything other then nod, but inside he feels a little warm when Roxy slings an arm over his shoulder, grinning ear to ear.

Jane takes the popcorn out of the microwave and pours it into a bowl, setting it precariously on the floor in front of the television. Roxy laughs and jumps up and down in her pink frilly shorts with the cat pattern, thoroughly delighted.

Jane is wearing a more traditional pajama outfit— a matching shirt and pair of soft blue pants. Both of them scrutinize Dirk’s very much unchanged outfit.

“You already know that I don’t have pajamas,” Dirk says pointedly. Like many men who live all on their own, when it’s time to sleep the most he worries about is taking off his jeans. And that’s only on the nights that he actually makes it to bed instead of falling asleep at his desk in the middle of a project.

“And you already know that I told you to buy some,” says Roxy right back. As usual, she has a point. This is hardly the first time the four of them have thrown a pajama party, and subsequently not even remotely the first time Dirk has been berated for not owning a proper sleeping outfit. He’s well aware of their opinions on the matter, but Dirk actually doesn’t care about it that much, so nothing has quite motivated him to go out and buy a softer pair of pants. There’s really no reason to, in his opinion, especially since you’re just going to put on more clothes the next day. Why not simply cut out the middleman for maximum efficiency, or, laziness? Roxy will usually have none of this though.

Roxy grins sharklike, her pink eyes narrowing. “Luckily I am prepared!”

With this she skips over to the hall closet, pulling out a folded article near the bottom Dirk hadn’t paid much attention to. When she drapes it over her arm, though, the blue fabric unfolds itself into something different.

Roxy holds in her arms a full-body adult onesie. It’s got horse ears sewn onto the hood and a rainbow tail and mane attached to the back. She turns it around and, sure enough, there’s even a small pair of wings on the back.

Roxy bought him a Rainbow Dash pajama onesie.

“Oh my God, Roxy,” Dirk says, holding one hand over his mouth. “Holy shit.”

The blonde smiles smugly, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “Ya like it?”

“I fucking LOVE it,” Dirk says, and he takes it out of Roxy’s hands. “I’m going to put this on right now and it’s going to be glorious. Oh my god.”

Dirk comes out of the bathroom a moment later wearing the pajamas. Roxy and Jane crack up so hard that they almost spill the popcorn everywhere, but they manage to save it last second.

Dirk collapses in the pile of pillows, keeping his face stony and entirely serious; which makes the girls crack up even more. It’s incredibly funny to watch Dirk sit like a statue but in a pile of pillows and pony pajamas.

Roxy lays down on Dirk’s left side, and Jane lounges on his right, and they all sit here and smile contentedly for a few minutes.

In a little while, the doorbell rings, and Jane gets up to let in her cousin.

Jake gives her a hug and then hurried over to high five Roxy, who screams in delight. She’s really hyped up tonight apparently.

Roxy then tackles Jake into the pillows, and his loud laughs are muffled by fabric until he sits up. He’s wearing a t-shirt and an old pair of pajama pants.

“Mighty fine PJ’s you’ve got there, mate.”
Jake pats Dirk gently on the shoulder, which shouldn’t feel like so much but it does, and Dirk’s stony face becomes harder as he retreats into his hood. This makes Roxy laugh and wrap one of her arms around him, rolling over so she’s sandwiched between Jake and Dirk.

Jane sits down on the floor next to Jake, pulling the popcorn towards herself. “Are we going to watch a movie?”

“Oh, flap my jacks! That sounds smashing!” Jake loudly proclaims, and Dirk tries hard to stop staring at his jawline, or his dark green eyes.

“Perfect! What’re we feeling tonight, everybody?”

Dirk sits back a little as Roxy leans onto his shoulder a little. “Whatever you want is fine, considering it’s most likely we’ll end up talking over it anyway.”

Jane nods and puts on The Great British Bake Show, which then leaves the other three teenagers staring at Dirk expectantly.

Dirk stares at them right back, until he finally speaks.

“So Jake and I wanted to find out whether his grandma was crazy or not. And she kept talking about magical god people that lived right outside town.”

Jake nods, looking at Jane. “You remember how gran was sometimes off her flippin’ rocker, right? All tossed up about some non-memory nonsense.”

“Oh Lordy, I remember!” Jane agrees. “So was she actually right all that time? Oh dear, and I was always so curt with her about it...”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it too much, Jane,” Dirk reassures her gently. “We all thought she was crazy, you just had less of a tolerance for what we all thought was nonsense. Your reaction was justified in the moment, even if you feel bad about it now. It’s not reasonable to think otherwise.”

Jane nods, but she still looks downcast as Dirk keeps talking.

“Anyway, I used my hoverboard to get over the wall, and it turns out she is right. There is, for all intents and purposes, a Knight Of Time living secretly just outside Green.”

The two girls “woah” softly, but Jake frowns.

“Hang on a splitting moment. Knight of Time? I don’t remember grandma saying that.”

“That’s because she didn’t. The guy told me himself. Knight of Time, Seer of Light, Heir of Breath, Witch of Space— those were their full titles when they became gods. He’s asked me to call him ‘Time’, for now.”

“Incredible,” Jake murmurs.

“What’s Time like?” Roxy asks, poking Dirk in the side. “Is he uber godly?”

“What did he tell you about where he comes from?” Jane asks at the same time.

“Hold on for just a second,” Dirk complains, and then settles in better.

While the baking show plays in the background, Dirk tells them all of what Time said— about living in Texas, about hating the Condescse and how Light knew she was going to attack on the eleventh of November. Her Seer powers were truly something to learn more about— incredibly mysterious, and Time’s own powers were even more unexplored.

Dirk hardly knew anything about the Witch of Space and the Heir of Breath, but if what Grandma Harley was saying was any indication then they were a hell of a lot closer then anyone originally thought.

Close, yes, but also trapped in their own minds and full of untapped potential.

That night, the teens fall asleep in a huddled pile of pillows and pajamas. Jake snores, loudly, but Dirk can hardly find it anything but endearing for some reason. Eventually the slow breathing of the other three lulls him to sleep as well, and the comfort of the fleece and the dark room is the sensation he retains as he slips into unconsciousness.

Chapter Text

Dirk sleepily rolls over, bumping into Roxy, who mumbles something through her quiet snores.

The young man reaches up to fumble for his shades before remembering, oh, yeah, he’d broken his sunglasses yesterday when trying to land on the other side of the wall.

Dirk shifts onto his back, carefully regarding the ceiling of Roxy’s house while the other three teens snore around him. On his right side, Jane sleeps with her hands pillowed gracefully under her head, and on his left, Roxy snores with her limbs splayed out on all sides.

There’s a bit of peace for Dirk, just lying on the floor with people who care about him all around. The room is dark, but it is calming, and Jake’s large snores aren’t going to let Dirk sleep anytime soon. He tries to stay in the moment and just feel the warmth all around, but fairly soon Dirk’s mind speeds off, not caring if he was along for the ride.

It’s starting to catch up with him now. He’d really climbed over the Wall, and he’d really talked to a mystical man that referred to himself as a god. Dirk’s life is becoming crazier by the second.

Of course he’s always pictured himself as the protagonist of his story- extremely self-centered, sure, but Dirk has no way to know what went on in Jane’s mind. Who else can be the star of his own story but him? And more importantly, Dirk wants to have good, honest relationships. How can he be honest about who he is if he doesn’t even know? Of course it’s natural for him to be a little inclined to introspection. And ...consistent moral issues.

After all what is a person but their behaviors and actions in accordance with their morals? Dirk has to know what all his morals are in order to make sure he isn’t a terrible person.

But unfortunately, he’s confused about a lot of things, like... his father, how simply to approach Jake, what to say to Roxy about her obvious harbored feelings,how and when to be a better friend to Jane… he already fell short, in so many ways, simply because he was too worried about his own feelings to even get started with acting on them.

It's way too early in the morning to be thinking like this.

Dirk brings his hands up to rub into his sleepy eyes, glancing around the room. Is it better to talk to his friends about his feelings, so they are annoyed or guilty? Or better to wallow in self-obsessive hatred without giving it away?

Obviously the second option. Even considering the first is as selfish as it is stupid.

Cracking into the morning air suddenly is a knock, so brisk and professional that Dirk is downright impressed. He slowly props himself up onto his side by his elbow, and pulls his hood back over his hair.

“Who’s there?” Dirk calls out clearly, although he tries to angle his voice over Jane’s head so he wouldn’t wake her. That probably wouldn’t actually help at all, but it was the thought that counted, right?

The knock sounds again, like someone banging a sharp fist crisply into the door, so Dirk gets up and decides to be responsible and not lazy. He might as well be on edge, just in case the visitor is an axe murderer. He’s only heard about those kinds of things in very old books, but eh, one could be prepared.

Dirk’s weighing the pros and cons of sacrificing himself for Roxy as the door opens, and the Carapacian who stands there looks extremely unimpressed.

Dirk manages to keep a straight face, despite his current position as the guardian of three sleeping teen wearing a Rainbow Dash onesie.

“What’s crack-a-lacking?” He asks the alien in a monotone voice.

The town of Green is mostly populated by Carapacians- weird little “chess guys” as Roxy likes to call them. Half of them are pure white and half of them are ebony black, and their circular shells and thin bodies certainly make them look like chess pieces.

Carapacians don’t have mouths, which is why this one didn’t answer him, but her hard white carapace is clearly very useful for banging on doors. Even now Dirk realizes that the out-of-breath alien is wearing the uniform of the Parcel Mistress, a Carapacian lady famous for taking her job as serious as life.

The Parcel Mistress waves a letter in the air before handing it to Dirk with a glare. He guiltily realizes that she must have been running around Green looking for him when he wasn’t at home. She does take her job pretty seriously, after all. Nothing can stop the mail.

Dirk takes the letter and turns it over, reading his name and apartment number on the front. “Thanks, PM. I really appreciate it.”

The Parcel Mistress nods, looking somewhat placated, before hurrying off on her merry way. She really is the responsible law enforcement this town needs.

Dirk glances at the sky, watching as the gray clouds begin to light up a little, before turning into the house and shutting the door behind him.

He rubs his arms a little in the cold morning air, sliding onto one of the stools by the kitchen island. The document in his hands looks pretty official- he wonders who sent it, and why. Things in his life have been getting pretty adventurous lately.

He just hopes he can read it quickly and quietly, before anybody can wake up and-

“WHATCHA got there Dirky?”

Damn it.

“PM brought me a letter,” Dirk says, holding it out to Roxy as she sleepily clambers onto the stool next to his. “Looks pretty official, so I was wondering who sent it.”

Roxy grins with a twinkle in her eye. “Maybe it was from our parents and they’re secret spies and they found out where we are and they’re gonna come visit-”

“Rox,” Dirk interrupts, trying to quell the anger he could already feel bubbling up. “I’ve told you, so many times, how I feel about those two. I don’t want to hear about them.”

“But I do!” Roxy protests, her frown almost heart-shattering. Dirk knows he’s hurting her feelings, but he also knows it’d be better for him if he just didn’t think about- “Why are you so weird about it anyway?!”

Dirk doesn’t flinch, but his heart clenches between his lungs like it forgot how to beat.

Roxy crosses her arms and begins to look frighteningly determined.

“I’ve respected your privacy, and I don’t want to breach it even now. But it seems like it really BOTHERS you and you never ever tell me about what’s going on!”

Dirk feels himself begin to shrink into his own bones. Everything Roxy was saying was true- he hadn’t even tried to explain himself, hoped if he dropped enough hints Roxy would parse it out on her own, read him like the book he so desperately wanted to be. The book where he was the hero, and his tortured antics made him beloved by everyone, instead of just an ass.

It was entirely his fault and he’s still being selfish about it, even now.

“Like, I get it, you have daddy issues or whatever because your dad wasn’t around to raise you. But you’re not alone, Dirk!”

He feels his soul sink even lower, but he also feels his anger build up. Roxy doesn’t know what goes on in his brain. And Roxy doesn’t know about the collection of Strider Senior’s stuff hidden in his apartment.

“The same thing happened to me and I didn’t wallow around like a baby, I did RESEARCH! I looked INTO it! I’ve been reading and I’m pretty sure I even know who my mom was, the things she did, and she-”

“Roxy,” Dirk says, his voice stony. She immediately stops talking, and even looks slightly remorseful. “I don’t think you understand how little I care.”

She opens her mouth to protest, but Dirk goes on like a speeding train.

“He left. He left me, Roxy, just like your mom left you. They didn’t care. They were too dangerous, they weren’t CONTENT with what happened! They didn’t like their lives so they threw it away. They threw us away.”

Dirk clenches his jaw, hard. “It doesn’t matter what they did, or what they were like while they were alive. It doesn’t matter because they aren’t here, and they can’t love us back, even if I love-”
Roxy stares with wide magenta eyes as Dirk turns away. He realizes with quiet sobriety that the two other kids are awake and watching silently.

“You shouldn’t feel anything for someone who isn’t there. Who could never feel the same. It's so stupid and so weak that-”

Roxy chokes on a small sob, her lip trembling. Remorse crashes down on Dirk in waves, but he can’t stop now.

“I won’t give a shit about someone who never cared about me.”

The final nail in the coffin.

Roxy whirls away, burying her face in her hands as she cries, and Dirk backs away a little. In his gut, there’s a deep burning. Is it satisfaction? Guilt? Hatred? (For who?)

Jane hurriedly stands up, rushing over to draw her ‘BFFZ4EVAH” into her arms. Roxy falls into the embrace, sniffling and shaking. Jake stands up, and than looks from Dirk to Roxy to back again with an expression of pain on his face.

“Uhm,” Jake says with a quiet cough, and he squints at Dirk’s direction in the absence of his glasses. “Maybe, Dirk, that wasn’t the nicest thing you could of said.”

Dirk looks at each of his friends. Jane, trying her best to comfort a distraught Roxy, and Jake, who’s jaw is set in a firm line.

“Yeah,” Dirk agrees in a flat voice. “It really wasn’t.”

So he grabs his clothes (folded and set by Jane on the counter last night) and walks right out the door, unopened letter still in hand.

There’s a heavy stone in his gut as he walks in the direction of his apartment, and a deep chill in his marrow.

Whatever just happened will have consequences. Shitty ones, probably.

Dirk sighs and runs his hand through his crusty hair.
----------

The letter, opened and flattened and already well-worn, lays on Dirk’s worktable like a death omen.

It reads, without paraphrase:

TO THE YOUNG HUMAN DIRK STRIDER;

Its come to our attention that you have been doing things like breaking vital Green laws, which any newborn baby knows isn’t exactly cool. Which is why it's illegal.

Anyway, show up at the Main Office at sundown tonight so we can give you a ticket and talk to you face-to-face so maybe you'll be scared enough to not break laws anymore.

After all, Her Imperious Condescension made the laws and we sure as hell don’t want her getting pissed at us.

Show up at sundown. Or else.

__DD

Dirk leans his elbows on the table, stretching them out and than inspecting each freckle. This is hardly surprising, but decidedly annoying.

Show up at sundown huh? To Jack Noir’s office? Dirk wasn’t born yesterday.

Noir probably found out from security cameras, or bystanding Carapacians, that Dirk had broken Green law. The punishments from Jack Noir were known for always being swift and severe.

Dirk… isn’t going to show up. Walking directly into a trap is super beneath him. Also, he is really tired of people today.

He dosen’t want to sit around working on his machines wile waiting for his punishment, what he wants to do is-

He sits up suddenly, feeling his head pound from the rush of blood.
That’s it.

Scrambling out of his chair, he grabs an old backpack and shakes the sawdust off of it. For the first time in ages, Dirk Strider turns on the lights in his room.

With the added vision, he can now see things that he’d want to carry with him. He packs, swiftly and quietly, his heart pounding and his blood rushing.

If he runs away, will Roxy worry about him? Would Jane? Or Jake?

Is it fair of him to run away for attention? No, that’s not why he’s doing it. He’s doing this because he wants to, and because he needs to. There’s no other reason.

But he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t hoping they missed him.

Chapter Text

Now, look.

Some people might say a gang of hardened criminals might not be perfectly suited to running a city.

Those idiots are all now dead in a ditch, which is where they belong, in Diamond Droog’s personal humble opinion.

Diamond Droogs is his name.

He’s a member of what used to be a feared criminal gang known as the Midnight Crew. At least he was until a decade or so ago, when the gang’s leader, the notorious Spades Slick, was offered mayorship of this town.

Mayorship came with infinite money and all the Scottie dog candies you could wish for, so of course Slick accepted. It was the smart thing to do.

Now Diamond Droogs is stuck as Slick’s second-in-command, a glorified secretary of sorts.

DD doesn’t hate his job, exactly. It pays well, and of course being in a position of leadership over an easily exploitable town is practically godlike, but.

Well the job is kind of shitty.

Droogs just sits at a desk all day these days, writing notes and checking cameras to make sure that everybody in the city of Green is playing nice.

It helps to have the Felt, their old rival gang, completely under his control. That does feel good, out of anything in this situation.

But DD misses the old days— just four hardened, loyal Carapacians ready to stab some rivals in the back. Man, those were the good times.

Speaking of the old days, there’s a knocking at Droogs door. Droogs doesn’t say to come in, but Slick comes in anyway, like he always does. He’s in quite a temper about something or another.

Droog sits bored for several minutes, letting Spades Slick run off his steam. He contemplates lighting a cigarette. He could really use one. Man, Slick is really going off. Something about a boy?

What’s wrong, Droogs asks in a way that makes it obvious he hasn’t been listening. Slick nearly stabs him for his troubles, the scarred eye looming dangerously close to DD’s face, but eventually he skulls to a corner to feed himself some Scotty dogs.

Apparently some kid flew right over the wall, Spades Slick explains. Used a hoverboard. Where’d he even get a hover board? Thought those were all destroyed by Her Condescension during the takeover.

Who knows, Droogs shrugs.

Slick keeps going on about how that’s not even the weirdest part. The weirdest part is that the kid came BACK, even after he’d had a free pass to get the hell out of dodge. Huh, Droogs agrees. That is odd. Did you get it on camera?

SS snaps angrily that of COURSE we didn’t get it on camera, shithead, none of the cameras are stationed close enough to the Wall for that.

Hm, DD thinks. Maybe we should move some over then, Slick?

Spades Slick chews on his black licorice for a moment before agreeing that this seems like a good idea.

But it’s JACK, he snaps. Droogs has to call him Jack Noir now that he’s the mayor.

Oh, yeah, Diamond Droogs remembers now. It’s just odd when they’d been going by their crew names for so long.

DD can still hear Slick muttering as he storms out the way he came. Something about how of course it’s odd, Her Imperial Condescension has so many stupid ass rules she makes us carry out so she can feel completely in control in her gross fishy alien way.

Hmm, Droogs thinks.

Jack should really be quieter.

They don’t know who around here they can really trust.

So Diamond Droogs goes back to writing tickets, although this time he checks the more recent reports.

Perfect. Now to write one out for one Dirk Strider.

——————

Slick storms into the office, slams his hat down on the desk. Diamond Droogs looks up for a moment and meets the dark Carapacian’s singular eye. Man, the boss looks unhappy.

Diamond tells him so, which prompts Slick to start giving him the stinkeye.

It’s sunset, Slick spits out. Huh, would you look at that, it is. Kid didn’t show?

Strider must’ve gotten cold feet.

Slick is seething, pacing around the desk. He reaches up to scratch under his eyepatch.

Strider didn’t just not show. He skipped out on town altogether!

Oh, Droogs says. Well did you send the Parcel Mistress after him?

Of course we sent the goddamn mail broad, Droogs! This isn’t amateur hour!

Okay, he mutters. Just making sure. She would’ve found him, if he’d been in the city.

Slick heartily agrees, pulling out a cigarette to light. That woman is formidable. Never understand what goes on in that pale head of hers.

They sit in silence, feeling the mutual burden of the fact that they will never be able to understand ladies.

Slick slaps the butt of his light into the ashtray on the desk, glaring into the distance. We better send the big guns after him then.

Yeah, Droogs mumbles, retrieving a form from his desk. Better call in the big guns. Gotta have the paperwork to summon those assholes to do your bidding, though. Everything these days requires so much paperwork.

Slick says he doesn’t fucking care about the paperwork so long as they get the kid. If Her Imperiousness finds out about it... well, it’ll be a dark day for everyone involved.

Droogs fills out the form, being careful not to crush the pen with his dark shell fingers. Some things just aren’t made with Carapacians in mind. Like the whole Earth, for example.

He finishes with a sweep of his arm, checking dutifully for errors. Nah. It’s all good.

May the Felt have mercy on the Strider kid’s soul.

Chapter Text

It occurs to Dirk somewhere in the middle of nowhere that he maybe should’ve thought this through more.

Which is absolutely ridiculous. He thinks everything through. In fact he thinks everything through so well it usually causes him not to make decisions at all.

He’ll worry and worry about which choice is right, choose, and then worry and worry about whether he did the right thing. The worrying never ends. Regret, it seems, is Dirk’s most hated nemesis. Indecision is just as bad, though. So which is the lesser of the two evils?

Indecision is terrible, because it means he’s going to sit around doing nothing but waiting for someone else to come in and conveniently make a decision for him while he procrastinates.

Sure, he’ll whine and bitch and moan and make everybody’s business his business, but he won’t actually do anything except make things worse.

Dirk hears a caw from the trees up above, and he looks up, keeping his hand above his eyes to keep out the sun.

One one of the branches a black bird sits, ruffling its feathers and turning its head from side to side to get a good look at him.

“Hey, Crow,” Dirk calls up, and the bird chirrups noisily.

Anyway, Dirk thought this choice through very well. He thought it through well enough that he came up with nearly infinite pros and cons on both ends until he just blindly chose whatever he was leaning toward.

Now he’s going to regret it and ruminate on it for the rest of time.

Pretty soon, though, Dirk has no more time to think for himself, because he’s reached the area where the Knight of Time lives.

Don’t think about it, don’t think about it. Just knock.

Dirk tries and fails not to think about it.

He knocks anyway.

Nothing happens for a few long seconds, and then the door sort of— flickers, at the corner’s of Dirks vision, and suddenly strong arms from behind him grab his shoulders and shove him into the wood.

“Hey!” Dirk shouts, smushed against the wood and trying to spin around to face his attacker.

Dirk’s trained to fight, sure— he practices almost weekly with his stupid katanas. He’s pretty strong when it comes to upper body.

But he’s never fought against an actual person before, especially not after being taken by surprise.

It doesn’t matter, though, because the assaulter drops him after a second and Dirk falls onto one knee, twisting around to glare.

The glare falls when he realizes that the Knight is standing behind him, red cape billowing slightly in the wind, his hood pulled low and face not visible.

“Sorry,” Time says, his tall frame extremely daunting. Dirk finds himself silent— somehow the Knight is much more intimidating now that Dirk has felt the muscle under there, knows how easily the man could take him.

He must’ve thought Dirk was an intruder of some sort, and... used his powers to teleport through the door and take him by surprise? Impressive. And paranoid. Dirk wonders if the paranoia is warranted.

The teenager just swallows and nods.

Time reaches forward with a single hand, and Dirk takes it, momentarily surprised by how warm it is. The Knight pulls him to his feet and Dirk dusts himself off.

“You know,” Dirk starts, trying to make awkward conversation. Maybe if he’s awkward enough, Time will feel bad, and then soften up to him more. Wait, what a horrible thought to have about someone? Just talk normally, for fuck’s sake. “It’s really bright out here. Almost too bright for me. I miss my sunglasses.”

Time opens the wooden door, stepping aside to let Dirk in. But his head tilts in inquiry at Dirk.

“Sunglasses?”

Dirk isn’t sure what Time’s exact angle is here— is he actually interested? Is he just following up the conversation? But he walks inside and answers anyway.

“Yeah, I used to wear anime shades pretty much all the time. But they smashed yesterday.” Dirk reaches into his pocket, pulling out the two triangular halves to show.

Time makes an odd sound in his throat, then takes the pieces. Dirk searches his face, and with surprise sees a grin growing across it.

“Oh my god, this is so awesome. Yeah man we can totally get this fixed. What’s with the backpack, by the way? Get in a fight with your parents and running away from home? I get it, really. Being an orphan didn’t mean I didn’t have any squabbles with authority figures. I’ve had my fair share of runs.”

Time turns towards the small chest in the hovel— honestly the shelter is tiny, probably hardly large enough to fit a twin sized bed. Dirk wonders for a moment how Time hasn’t gone stir crazy in here.

The red laptop is lying in the tangle of pillows and blankets, and the papers are all shoved away. Almost like the Knight bothered to clean up since the last time Dirk was here.

How to answer that question. Did he have a fight? Yes. Is it something the Knight needs to know? Is the Knight really even trustworthy enough to know about Roxy? What if he hunts her down or something? No need to mention her. Deflection, that’s the key. But with something real. No lying.

“I don’t have parents,” Dirk says flatly, sliding his backpack off his shoulder and onto the beaten dirt floor. “If I had a dad, he abandoned me a long time ago.”

Time freezes, makes an odd sound. “Oh, okay. Uh. I’m sorry for brining it up, that wasn’t cool of me.”

Dirk shrugs. “I don’t really care.” He feels himself falter on the last word. It’s true he doesn’t care that the Knight asked. But he does care, a little bit, that Senior Strider abandoned him all those years ago.

Time turns around and shifts his feet uncomfortably, before crouching onto the floor across the table from Dirk. He takes the hint and sits down as well.

“I am running away, though,” Dirk says, preparing to amp up the sympathy vote. If he acts especially pitiful, maybe the Knight will let him stay for a few—

“Oh, cool, do you wanna crash here?” Time asks, pulling an apple juice out of seemingly nowhere.

Dirk stares at him. He— he’s just gonna LET him stay, just like that? Without even earning it? He hasn’t done anything to make Time want him. He doesn’t trust this man enough to tell him about any of his friends. And yet the Knight is ready and willing to offer up his home? It’s simultaneously flattering and filling Dirk with shame.

“Why?” Dirk asks. “Come on, you have to make me earn it somehow.”

Time huffs a laugh. He leans backwards a little, taking a swig from his juice bottle.

“Whatever, dude. You’re cool, that’s really all that matters. Obviously, trusting is a big thing. I’m in mega danger already, and you’d definitely be a liability. Wow that wasn’t nice to say. Not to mention I’ve known you about a day. But for some reason, I do. Trust you, I mean.”

Time falls silent, and he’s not looking at Dirk.

What’s going on? Why would he let a totally random kid stay with him? Dirk could be working for the Condense, or planning to rob him, or... just be a totally awful roommate. Time doesn’t know. Doesn’t he care?

Why does he trust him if they hardly know each other?

Now Dirk feels guilty about how he was planning on piling on the sympathy vote. It turns out it wasn’t even necessary, because the Knight of Time is just... nice like that?

Dirk’s not nice like that.

Does that make him a bad person?

“Anyway, god, I really need to shut up once in a while,” Time says, reaching up to rub at his face. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to, kid. Wait. The hell was your name again?”

Dirk almost laughs. “I’ll stay! I’ll definitely stay. And, um, it’s Dirk.”

Time nods, and it seems like they’re almost having a moment. A... bro moment, one could say.

“Nice to meet you, Dirk. I’m—“ he quickly backtracks, “the Knight of Time.”

Dirk raises an eyebrow. “You were gonna say something else.”

Time hastily takes a sip of his juice. “I dunno what you’re talking about.”

“You were,” Dirk accuses, growing interested. “You were going to say your name. Of course you have a name, you weren’t always just ‘the Knight of Time’. You had a real name. Did the Seer of Light just always call you Time?”

Time sort of coughs a little, his drink apparently having gone down the wrong tube. “Nah, not usually? I mean when she had a really big cryptic stick up her ass sometimes she would call me that, but mostly she just called me— by my name.”

“Which was?” Dirk asks, eyes glittering as he leaned forward.

Time scoffs. “The ancient secret of ‘nunya’.”

“Nunya?” Dirk repeats.

“As in, nunya business.”

Dirk snorts and lays on the floor. “Wow. Inspiring. Anything else for me, oh great muse?”

Time nods sagely. “If you get stabbed, keep the knife in. But if you stab someone, then pull it out.”

“Ah. I see.”

They spend the hour or so, just... talking. Time had come across as some mysterious magical figure, but as Dirk watches him set up some of his own pillows a bit to the side for Dirk to sleep on, he realizes that Time is also just a regular dude.

He may be a god, but he’s not one in the traditional sense. And he was a regular human once too.

They talk about lots of things— Orange soda, puppets, and Time teaches Dirk about some things that have gone extinct since the New Earth was put into effect.

Some of the most interesting things are Pokémon cards. Like, what was even up with that? Weird.

Sometime once the sun is set and the two of them have unpacked all of Dirk’s belongings well, they sit at the table again.

“So,” Time begins, and he sets his hands on the table in front of him. “Some safety measures. Number one, are you trained to fight?”

Dirk shrugs. “I taught myself to use a sword from videos on the internet. But nothing much besides that.”

The Knight nods. “Alright, so training can be something we work on. Number two. Are you being tracked?”

The teenager winces and brings a hand up to rub at his chin. “No. But Jack Noir knows that I’ve been sneaking out.”

Time sucks in a breath. “Jack Noir, huh? He’ll definitely send his Green buddies after you, then. We’ll have to be on guard.”

“You think so?” Dirk asks, surprised. His mind is spinning. How many times has the Knight come head-to-head with Jack? Or does he just remember things his Seer friend has told him? Certainly he seems confident.

“Yeah,” Time confirms, standing up and going to dig something out of his chest. “Jack’ll send his lackeys after ya. Then they’ll fail, and then Jack will show up, like ‘arghh if you want something done then do it yourself’, but apparently he never actually learns his lesson about that.”

Time turns around, wielding a sword. Dirk feels himself grinning a little. It’s polished, silver, and shiny, and gleams in comparison to the Knight’s black armor.

Basically, it looks totally fucking rad.

“They’ll show up soon. And we’ll be ready for them, Dirk.”

Time’s hood lifts a little, so that Dirk can spot the matching grin on his face.

And, with perfectly comical timing, there’s the sound of an explosion somewhere out in the forest, and all hell breaks loose.

—————

For a split second, all Dirk can see is red.

Then they’re standing outside, and it’s suddenly cold, but Dirk can hardly feel the bite of the wind because he notices several things very fast.

First of all, his katana is in his hand, and it definitely wasn’t there before. Secondly, there’s definitely the sound of voices— angry voices, the nearest of which is the voice right next to him.

The final thing is that Dirk is being held by the Knight.

His feet are both on the floor— he’s standing on his own— but Time’s arm is wrapped around him protectively, stiffly.

Dirk is trapped in between the Knight’s arm and his chest armor. The man himself isn’t looking at Dirk— he’s facing the attackers and holding Dirk away from them.

But it feels... really warm. Shocking, out of nowhere, disconcerting, but warm.

If I lean in, will he think I’m scared and hold me tighter? Or would that just be weird? Is it weird either way?

Dirk doesn’t lean in to the only adult he’s trusted in years, but he does think about it, which means he’s startled when the warmth darts away from his side. He hears a clang, and suddenly everything comes back into focus.

There’s two huge thugs fighting against Time. They’re both large, green... ogres, of some sort? They’re not gross or scaley like traditional ogres. They’re cartoony, and they almost look soft. And smooth. Perhaps like velvet.

Both of them have humongous fists and guns, and both of them are going to town on the Knight.

But, amazingly, he actually seems to have the situation handled— his sword flies through the air, cutting up the monsters (who apparently do not bleed) and even teleporting around them.

The ogre things were obviously not expecting this— they’re confused as hell by the way Time keeps disappearing and reappearing in random places.

Dirk rushes into the fight with his sword raised, knowing that he has to help, but as soon as he gets there he’s overwhelmed. What’s he supposed to do?

There’s a flash, and Time is on his right, grabbing his shoulder and yanking him around.

Dirk spins and is facing a huge ogre, who he instinctively reacts to by slashing his sword around.

He slices through it’s belly, which makes the whole thing kind of deflate a little.

With a snap, he’s somewhere else, a tree away from the fight.

Time stabs the remaining ogre in the back, jumping off and disappearing before the thing swipes at that spot.

The Knight kicks under the ogre’s legs, and it collapses.

Time kicks it again. It appears to be finished.

Dirk lowers his tensed arms, feeling his heartbeat in his throat. Time walks over to him, claps a hand on his shoulder, and grimaces.

“Well. The Felt knows where I live.”

A screech from above warns Dirk of Crow before he sees the bird come soaring down. It sticks the landing right into Time’s shoulder, balancing itself and then glaring at Dirk with its beady eye. Time doesn’t react to this other then with a sigh.

Dirk eventually nods. The Felt, huh? A fitting name for such an odd, puppety species.

“Let’s go inside.”

Chapter Text

November 11th, 2011

Time shifted his weight from side to side on his feet, his legs starting to cramp up. He’d been sitting in this crouched position for a while now and it was starting to show.

The concrete of the roof under his legs did nothing to sooth him, and the beating of the sun on the back of his head only worsened his headache.

Today was three-eleven. The day the Condesce came to take over.

It was due to happen any second now— according to the visions Light had had since childhood, a huge red ship was going to plow into the atmosphere and then land somewhere in Washington.

The Condesce originally was going to come early this morning, but ever since the timeline had shifted back in April, things had changed. Light had many years to get several intricate details of this takeover— but once the weird change happened, she only had a few months to try and learn what would be happening in this new timeline.

As a result, the pair of them had way less information then they were supposed to.

Time looked up into the clear blue sky. For instance, originally they’d been aware that Condy was bringing seventeen troops with her and was going to land at ten am sharp right above Crocker Bakery. This time around, though, all they were aware of was that she’d be late.

“She still isn’t here yet,” Light tsked, her golden hair fluttering slightly in the wind.

“Do you think the supreme overlord of several galaxies needs to be on time?” The Knight asked sardonically. He checked his watch. The three elevens on the date seem to mock him.

“We still don’t know what happened,” Light worried for about the one millionth time. “We don’t know why she’s late or what caused the timeline to change.”

“Any updates on death?” Time asked even though he knows there isn’t.

“No,” Light answered even though she knows he knows. “I think— something else is going to happen. We’re still going to fight Her Imperial Condescension in September of twenty twenty-four, but... something strange surrounds that day. It’s like I can’t even see it at all.”

Time understood what she meant. Instead of the feeling of the timeline stopping on that day, there was a different feeling entirely— like a big glaring arrow pointing to that day as extremely important, with more then one timeline reminders attached. Time didn’t know what any of them were, but they were still there. He reached down, felt the grit of the hot concrete under his fingers.

“I don’t know. It’s probably important,” Time mumbled stupidly, not knowing what else to say. Light studied him, her white dress swirling around her, nearly glowing. Her violet eyes were piercing as always.

“She’s coming,” Light said suddenly, her head turning upwards. Time tensed, the soreness of his legs forgotten.

The quietness of the day was completely lost in the sound of groaning and creaking metal. The battleship that loomed out of the sky was absolutely huge, nearly unfathomable.

It took up all of Time’s vision, until that’s all he could see, is the large red ship with the trident insignia on it.

In the city below them, mumbles turned to shouts, which then turned to panicked screams, as it becomes clear that the vessel was going to land without hesitation.

Civilians began a mad rush of panic as they all attempted to scramble away, like rats in a maze with their doom approaching.

Time and Light both tense. This is their call to action. The start of the plan.

It had begun.

The Knight of Time leapt off the building, using a very thourogh method of practiced parkour to land on the street and immediately start guiding citizens out of the damage area.

Not many people listened to him at first, being an average-looking guy in simple clothing, but once he got enough people moving the crowd followed along like lemmings.

Time caught a small girl as she was tripping and helped her to her feet. She dusted herself off and rushed over to her mother, sending a fearful glance back over her shoulder at the Knight.

Meanwhile on the other side of the block Light was doing the same thing, taking care to keep people out of the area they knew for sure will be crushed.

The two people continued their ushering until they were sure that all the civilians are cleared. The shrieks continued as the ship dips lower in the sky. Time reached up to block the sun from his eyes in order to look.

The red battleship is wickedly shaped, coming to points at the end much like her favored trident.

Slowly he noticed a loud hissing noise as the thing dropped lower and lower in the sky, which is unfairly and beautifully blue on this day. Time clenched his palms, feeling the sweat that was beginning to gather there.

There was a CLANK, and then a resounding BANG as the monster settled on the city street, somehow.

And the door to the ship opens, aliens came pouring out.

There was a fair amount of dark fishy aliens— they all have black, tough skin and frightening yellow eyes. The fins on the sides of their head flared and their gills pulsates as they screeched, rushing into the city to take people down.

The Knight of Time immediately started forward, weighing his sword in his hand. It was a legendary piece of shit, but maybe, just maybe, it’d save his and many other’s lives.

The screaming in the streets started up anew as the creatures began to attack and detain civilians. Time felt a burning in his chest, his jaw began to ache from clenching it.

They had no right to be here. In their stupid fucking purple outfits. Time was going to fight these fish aliens, and fight them well.

He rushed at them, relying only in his speed and strength. It’s hard, and it goes very badly.

Time attacked a seadweller that was accosting a young couple, and the thing immediately rounded on him with a snarl.

It had a stupid ass uniform on, purple, with some sort of unrecognizable insignia sewed on. Time didn’t care about the thing’s fashion choices, though; he’s here to brawl.

He used his sword to cut a very impressive mark through the thing’s arm. It immediately started bleeding profusely and swearing, the deep violet blood staining its black skin the same color as the uniform.

Time didn’t let it have a second to recover, he came up again with a swing to the opposite side, slicing that arm as well.

The seadweller yelled, and then pulled a sword of its own out of a holster to attack with.

That— it’s arms should be incapacitated, Time barley managed to think as he ducks and narrowly avoids being decapitated. How is it still going?

Apparently the massive wounds it had suffered weren’t actually all that worrying, because he violet-blooded creature kept coming, its shrieks and growls the only noise punctuating the fight.

Time fought silently, flying around in his toes, managing to land a stab in the back of the thing.

The seadweller only screamed and yanked the weapon right out, before snapping it in half over it’s knee.

“Wow, rude,” Time said, before getting the hell out of dodge.

He practically flew across the battlefield, stopping to help whenever he deemed necessary. Saving small children, helping elders, supplying young women with baseball bats. Anything he could.

He was proud to say that at the end of the day he was able to knock quite a few fish aliens on their asses, even if they were extremely resilient.

There were some that didn’t even seem to mind the loss of some limbs.

Purple blood was begging to stain the streets, because humans were fighting back. They were standing their ground.

They were doing what they had to, and Time was actually proud.

But there was a fair amount of red blood, too, because simply put; humans were not a match for tall dark horned fish space aliens.

With an almost inhuman yell, Time leapt onto the back of an alien, grabbing one of it’s orange horns in hand and PULLING.

It didn’t break like he’d been hoping, but it did cause the creature to rear backward like a horse, before spinning around and aiming an incredibly huge laser gun.

“Shit!” Time yelled, his joints burning in protest as he threw himself to the side, feeling the heat of the missed shot.

It took hardly a second for the alien to re-aim, but in that second a woman came from behind and smashed it in the head with a piece of concrete.

The alien crumpled to the ground, dropping its weapon, and Time kicked it away with disdain.

“Thanks, Light,” he grinned at her, but then he caught sight of her face.

Her blonde hair was marred and frizzled, the set of her jaw challenging and her dress bloodstained.

But the thing that stuck out the most was the panic in her eyes.

“Time,” she flatly spoke, “Breath and Space are in Seattle. They’re fighting an army of drones also sent by Her Imperial Condescesion.”

Time’s heart nearly stopped as he caught up.

“They’re on their own— they’re going to die.”

The Knight spun around and leapt to action, but before he could get anywhere Light caught his arm.

“If you leave,” she warned, her eyes very far away, “the people here will die. They won’t all get away in time without both of us to help.”

Time froze, his instincts wavering horribly as he shook in her grip.

The deaths of hundreds of innocent people is not something Time wants on his hands. He would protect these people, he’d do anything to protect them, that’s his unofficial job.

But Breath and Space— they mean so much more to him then civilians. Without them, Time’s whole world would crush and crumble into despair.

“I can’t leave them, Light,” he pleaded, his voice cracking.

He barley registered the sounds of explosions and sirens in the distance as the seadwellers smashed windows and took the city.

His heart pumped so loud that his was his only constant, a beat for a song not sung, a rhythm he relied on.

“...I have to help our friends.”

Light nodded, and she stepped back, her gentle expression saying so many things she couldn’t.

She’d known the whole time that he was going to choose to go. He’d never do anything different.

“I’ll be here,” Light said, her dress swirling around in the chaos, looking like a tiedyed wonder as she clenched her fists with determination.

“Good luck... Time Dave.”

Dave nodded and pretended he wasn’t tearing up. He hoisted a stolen weapon into his hands, turned around, and ran.

He was hightailing it, not allowing himself room to breathe. His chest burned and his legs felt like they were giving out but he pushed on. He had to see them. He had to protect them.

He skittered to a stop under a bridge, abruptly realizing that he wasn’t alone. Two aliens stood across from him, frozen with wide yellow eyes.

Something that Dave noticed quickly was that they didn’t seem to have any fishlike qualities. The black skin, dark hair, and orange horns were all the same, but these two aliens looked distinctly non water-based. They also looked a lot more surprised to see him then the purple aliens attacking did.

That was another thing, while the army attacking them all worse the same uniform; these two were different. The taller one with long, elegant horns was wearing something akin to a green kimono with shoulder pads and quite a lot of hidden weapons. The shorter of the two was dressed in black combat gear, with the occasional silver undertone.

The aliens and the human finally blinked, and the shorter aliens hissed under his breath and raised his hackles, apparently preparing for a fight.

Dave, seeing this, responded in kind, hefting up the weapon he’d stolen.

The shorter but buffer alien snarled, and then asked in a loud and gruff voice:

“Who the FUCK are you?

And Dave, startled out of his mind to hear the absolute alien speaking English, did the first thing that came to mind.

“Uh, who the fuck are YOU?”

Hmm. But Dave— the Knight of Time— he’s not quite the right person to tell this part of the story.

After all, he wasn’t even really there.

Let’s be someone else now.

Someone... new.