#defrag update tomorrow :3c

[katreal-fic]

Day 6 — for #fictober 10/07/19

Prompt: “Yes, I’m aware. Your point?”

Fandom: Homestuck

Warnings: Cursing, 2nd Person POV, Earth C world building

Part of a series. Please start from the beginning!

Characters: Dirk Strider & Roxy Lalonde

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It’s almost a twelve hour flight from Hearthstone to New City. The consort Kingdom was smack-dab in the middle of the largest ocean on the planet, the proverbial Australia-sized New Zealand of this new world if you remembered your Old World geography right, so nearly every single landmass was at least 10 hours away by plane. You fly faster than a plane, of course, but even once you hit land you have to cross a whole ’nother continent to reach Roxy’s lil developed patch of coast.

Not exactly a hop, skip, and a jump, but the remote location was half the reason you settled out here.

The other half was Jake English, but that was a handful of awkward slimy wriggling worms you’d much rather just casually toss overboard to turn into home-made chum. The fish would probably appreciate it.

Dirk > Jump Off the Shark

The original plan was to head out at four in the morning and be there by 7pm to crash whatever dinner plans Rox had going. But by the time you cleaned up your workshop--you have to keep things tidy. After all, you never know when you’ll have guests dropping in--and sent out your emails about any projects that were expecting activity in the next few days, you found yourself sitting on the edge of your roof, leg bouncing with nervous energy, looking off into the distance towards the dusk end of the sunset cascading over the--mostly--dark coastline.

You won’t be able to sleep tonight. You already know that. You hardly sleep as it is, except when you feel the weight of years you’ve never lived dragging down on you, long days and longer nights and crying babies and howling laughter winding their way into your dreams to the point where you find yourself taking random catnaps at uncertain intervals because it’s a moment of goddamn silence.

It isn’t one of those days right now though, thankfully, but on the flipside, it means you’re in for a stupidly long night.

If you bother to wait. There’s nothing saying you have to. All you told Roxy was you’d be there tomorrow.

You could leave now.

A sick set of orange and black headphones hang around your neck as you lock up behind you, killing the lights except for the courtesy red ones around the outer edges of the complex and the antennae. Your workshop isn’t on any publicly used maps, at least not the way Jake’s estate was, but most shipping lanes at least know to avoid this particular section of the coast.

You really hate that Hearthstone popped up so close to the structure. The consorts don’t bother, but sometimes troll merchants just had to shirk the commonly used ones. As if they weren’t designed to be the most efficient ones. Idiots. Always needing to go around the system. Believing they knew better than those who designed them.

Whatever. You slide your headphones over your ears, letting the laws of physics slide off you like they don’t even exist, your godly accouterments shimmering into existence over your usual black hoodie and slacks. You hate the tights, and the pants, but nothing else quite stands up to the quality of high-altitude insulation brought about by magic PJs. A thought, and you’re pulling up Booble Maps on your shades, relegating it to a small window in the upper right corner, mostly just to get your bearings. It won’t be very useful until you hit the continent, but it at least points you in the right direction.

Another thought and your headphones fill with some sweet tunes, blocking out the roaring of the wind and your own shitty thoughts as your stupid forked half-cape flaps behind you. You pull the hood up and over your head, protecting your ‘do from the wind the best you can.

You have a long flight ahead of you.

The ocean lasts forever, giving way to cliffs and mountains along the western edge of the great land of--you actually aren’t sure if they picked a name for the whole continent yet. The kingdoms don’t cover the whole giant slab of environments that makes up this particular piece of the world. You remember Dave joking about just calling it the New Land to go with New City and New Prospit and New Derse and New Skaia and The Farms and Village-by-Dong-Mountain--you get the feeling the Chess folk as a whole just like straightforward names.

You’re pretty sure everyone in that memo veto’d his suggestion immediately. You hadn’t really cared so you’d just peaced out and muted it before ever learning the resolution.

Booble maps should have it, but again, the Carapace didn’t much care to keep their records up to date. Just like the consorts. It drives you mad to think about not being able to acquire basic information due to someone else’s negligence.

You turn up the volume to lose yourself and just keep flying as the sky begins to turn pink in the east.

It’s a much more respectable hour of After Dawn by the time you touch down on the roof of a high-rise building you think belongs to Roxy and Calliope. You think, you aren’t entirely sure. It’s been forever since you’ve been out this way. Not since y’all got together and built the internet and Roxy came up with the greatest search engine name of all time.

The most recent address you found matches what you can tell of your general location, and the view over the bay--despite it being noticeably morning and not after dark--matches the picture you’d been sent in the email. So you shoot her a quick, ‘I’m here.’

Standing there in your godly PJs, slightly light headed from a 12 hr+ flight being completed in one shot. You slide your headphones off your ears to let them hang around your neck, your ears buzzing with the distant sounds of a city waking up, free at last from the mad shuffling skills your playlist had to go through in order to get you this far. Blinking in the pre-noon light, not even slightly bothered by the cool morning air or the autumn sun beginning it’s still toothless beat down on your skin. You’re a god. Radiation can fuckin’ suck it.

The door to the roof slams open. Roxy’s there in a blur of pink and white. She’s taller than you remember--almost as tall as you are now. Older than you remember--it’s been at least a year, maybe two. But she still squeals and throws herself at you, wrapping her bare arms around your  maroon covered shoulders. Her hands dig into the loose fabric of your cape. Her weight hits you, you rock back and shift to absorb it.

“Oh my gawd, you’re so early!”

“Yes, I’m aware.” You’ve hesitated for too long. A kid who barely learned how to interact with people before you fucked off into your own isolationist bubble. It takes you an embarrassingly long time to hug her back, “Your point? I did say tomorrow. Tomorrow is now today.”

“Smart alec! I told you to warn me, dummy!” Her weight lightens as she sheds her own hold on physics, and hovers to gain back the extra inch you have on her. Her hands come up and push back your hood with it’s attached tiara, freeing your surprisingly sweat soaked hair from its prison. Apparently even magic jammies had their limitations and you might have pushed it just a little bit

She leaves a big wet smooch on your right cheek, underneath your shades. Your eye twitches, but you sigh as she rocks back, disentangling the two of you and standing back with her hands on her hips. “That’s for makin’ me come up here at the ungodly hour of 9 am on a Sunday. I’ll be gracious and not punish you for also taking two years to get your cute little pantaloon’d butt out here to see me.”

“My bad,” You mumble, chastised. For a moment you see through her. A tall imposing lady, white dress and black lipstick. One of the few who could stop you, but too far away to realize that maybe she should. But you blink and it’s gone and she’s smiling at you. You let your princely get-up slide away into wherever the fuck it goes, leaving you standing in a much more reasonable--and tights-less--hoodie and slacks, “Time got away from me.”

“No duh it did. C’mon, let’s get inside and tell the peeps the good news. ARq owes me and ‘peta some ice-cream. He thought you’d chicken out.”

Of course he did. But you let her latch onto your arm and lead you inside.

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