Life and Times of Teh Asuka

"You know, you guys could have been ordered off the field entirely!"

Dave dislikes Roxy immensely right now.

There she is, sitting on the low windowsill of what used to be a hairdresser's shop window, wearing that stupid Venice mask with the feather and swinging her legs. The thing is violently pink and sequined, catches every ray of light that manages to pierce the grime. Dave keeps losing track of her every time she stops talking.

Dave makes sure his tush is extra-cocooned in this here creaky old chair, and tries not to think about the old crusted-dry gunk marking the edges of the hair-washing basin he's propping his head against.

"We could have been ordered to be goddamn useful, too," Karkat replies before Dave can. "Not that I mind being hidden away and doled out penny by penny like the peerless treasure I fucking am, but if we're that precious, the fuck kind of sense does it make only having the two of you as guards?"

"All the sense in the world!" Roxy replies -- huh, she's still in the same spot. The feather wobbles with her nodding, the tip almost two feet over her actual head. "I got Horuss to make sure no one finds y'all..."

"And I've got my good old buddy Eridan to shoot anyone who finds you anyway full of holes!" Jake continues for her. They both turn from the window to grin.

"And if they're not dead when Jakey and Eri are done with them, I've also got Equius to beat them into the ground. Tadah."

Karkat stares at them, and then turns to stare across the dusty floor at Dave to share his total absence of admiration.

"And the brass don't have more people to spare for us," Dave finishes cynically. ( Read more... )

It's not a bad explosion, as those things get. Blows the shit out of his hinges, and makes the decorative door panels shudder and fall out of alignment like a linebacker rammed them, but it's a foot that finishes the job of knocking the door down.

His gun is -- stupidly -- all the way downstairs in the gun safe by the door. It's out of reach the second the first man rushes through -- a huge wall of a man, square and meaty -- and then the second man comes in on his heels and Dave gives it up for lost.

Under him on the main floor Karkat starts snarling, steps forward to meet the threat, but there's a machine gun in the first man's hands and Dave can see nothing but the confettied mess it would make of his non-shelled face.

"Get out of here!" he yells, and shoves the half-open windowpane out of his way and swings himself out and onto the ancient straight ladder bolted to the outside wall.

Two men on the fire escape's last landing, just under him; he hears glass breaking. One of them looks up, gun up --

Aradia rushes through him with barely a thought; the gun jams, trigger frozen in time. Dave beats Olympic records of ladder-climbing.

( Read more... )

"Is that a house, or a castle?"

Dave snorts as he gets out of the car. "Castles are prettier. This is a pile of giant cement pizza boxes, dude." The pile isn't even straight and even, there are corners sticking our everywhere.

Dirk doesn't crack a smile or even indicate that he heard as he extracts himself from the passenger's seat, even though he was the one who first made that comparison, ten or fifteen years ago. He's been monosyllabic ever since they picked him up for mandatory Strilonde Bonding Time on pain of Aunt Romy.

Crouched beside Dave on the driveway, Karkat is still staring up doubtfully.

"Besides," Dave continues, "it's not that big, just kinda sprawly."

"There's a tower."

"It's an observatory!" Roxy calls out from the other side of the bridge, and waves. Dave vaguely wonders how she heard them so well, with the little running stream between them and the waterfall just behind the corner where she's standing, but he sticks his hands in his pockets and follows Dirk.

"Oh, an observatory!" Karkat replies, sarcastic, as he makes his cautious way across. "Whew. Totally different! Especially the pompous levels."

( Read more... )

TOTAL: 29 777

haha welp another 300 words and i'd have broken 30k. oh well XD

POSTED:
-Several three-sentences-ish ficlets, posted farther down in this post (1 3392 words) some of which are covalent or sunlightverse or bt-inspired.
-Sunlightverse: Nepeta tells Equius about the new pony; chatlog (824 words)
-Vorkosigan/Psychic Wolves: Shooting Stars Will Leave A Trail (9 908 words)

WIP:
-Pale Krakens: that sequel where Dave and Karkat and Bro film a pale porn movie (1 280 words)
-Demon Patrol chapter I forget, twentysomething (1 184 words)
-Covalent 'verse, pesterlog between John and Karkat about blackrom and body dysphoria (2 885 words)
-Crash Standing chapter idk (4 202 words)
-Vorkosigan/Psychic Wolves: Sequel at Baron Ryoval's (637 words, petered out)
-BATTLEFIELD TERRA CHAPTER EIGHT >:O (7 467 words) (no teaser for that one bcs i'm evil and it's all spoilery as all fucks u.u)

( teasers and ficlets )

Chapter contains porn and OCs. Almost 11k of such. orz

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The first thing Karkat does when they finally come home is to rush up the ladder and check on his nest, wings flapping along pointlessly. (The new shell is still frail enough that they have to alternate keeping the muscles exercised and making sure no wrong movement cracks him open again, but to return home he refused to be bandaged up.)

Dave's shoulder is still not to be strained, and climbing would be awkward one-handed, so once again he's right back to sleeping on the couch. He's starting to think the universe wants him to cede the space to his demon, but damn it, he is not giving up his futon under the slanting ceiling and the odd light that comes from the window.

"Marshmallows still good?" he calls up to Karkat, even as he flops down on the couch under the mezzanine.

"Uh -- lemme open the bag." A pause. "Yeah, they're still edible, though I was more concerned about rats or those motherfucking crows."

Dave snorts quietly. He can't say he was honestly worried about the marshmallows, those things last years. Okay, at least half a year. He's pretty sure he read things about that before.

The crow vendetta keeps being silly and hilarious.

"We don't have rats!" he calls up.

"Uh huh," Karkat replies, muffled and distracted, as he rummages into a plastic bag. "You keep thinking that."

Aw, man. "We have rats? Seriously? Hell."

"If they're not rats I'm not sure what else. Wall wolverines?"

( Read more... )

He's been listening to the intermittent clicketyclick for hours, he thinks, before it makes him think about maybe waking up all the way.

Doesn't want to, but the door opened some time ago (twelve minutes, thirty to fifty seconds) and he thinks there's someone else in the room? Maybe. Feels like someone's staring at him.

Maybe Karkat is hungry. Mmh. Maybe he could climb up on this (weird) bed and do his thing (mnuh dun wanna, but should) and then cuddle up and Dave wouldn't have to wake up all the way and it'd be so nice and good and warm.

"So," says a baritone voice, veiled and quiet.

The clicketyclick stops. (Keyboard? Hnm.) "What." (Oh, Karkat. Yeah. That's the noise. Keyboard and claws.)

The other voice is Bro of course, who else could it be when he's nice, safe and floaty (and not home.)

"How's the sex?"

Dave did not need his identity confirmed via choice of fucking topic. Oh no. Nope, ain't gonna wake up now. Nothing can make him.

( Read more... )

"Casualties?"

Dave shuffles his weight from knees to feet, straightens up. He tries not to move too fast; he's a bit dizzy. Blood loss, impacts with various hard surfaces, a severe case of emotional whiplash. His sister is at his back, a few feet away -- it's crazy how irrationally safe he feels -- so he keeps watching the rookies.

They're still dazed, but Grier doesn't need prompting to pull up a second wind barrier, just in case the demon on the other side of the street stops feeling like allowing them to chew the fat.

"Burnett's out, so is Crowbar. The rookies are mindfucked. Grier?"

"No injuries." Dave is pretty sure the man has a series of very nice, deep bruises, but he's not gonna feel them properly until later anyway, so they don't count. Dave agrees with this philosophy. Yep.

"And Karkat's got a -- at least adislocated wing and a probable concussion."

"Fuck you, my head's fine," Karkat mutters, which doesn't help; he sounds listless.

"You forgot someone, Dave," Rose says pointedly.

"... And lacerations on my arm." Which he needs to bandage the second he gets a minute, come to think of it, because it's not clotting fast enough and he's gonna get dizzy soon.

Anyway it was dislocated; it's not anymore. He'll whine about the swelling later. (What is it with his shoulders getting popped out all the friggin' time anyway, this is the second time since he summoned Karkat, it had better not become a thing.)

( Read more... )

950 words.

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Meulin told her Light and Seer, when Rose always thought herself Mind or perhaps Doom. (Seer, she has less of a strong opinion about. Not active at all, but the thirst for knowledge fits near perfectly.) Meulin said with Dirk's voice, and laughed too high and too loud, and does Rose trust her?

Not very much. Enough to risk this.

They're used to seeing her coming and going, the neighbors, and none of them remember that today, at this hour, none of her family will be here. (Especially not Dave. Especially not him.) None of the neighbors really care in this neighborhood, anyway.

She doesn't even step inside the Striders' apartment anyway. Cal is on the steps leading up to the roof; she arches a querying eyebrow at him and picks him up, carries him on her shoulder to the roof.

( Read more... )

This chapter contains sex. Also some ponderings about dub/noncon.

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At least Karkat has gone back to resting his chin on Dave's knee, in the week between their blow-up and Kankri's summoning. At least there's that.

There's a strange cautiousness to it now, though. Karkat will come sprawl on the couch against him, and nap on the futon, but there's -- he keeps watching Dave.

Dave tries not to notice. He often fails.

( Read more... )

Kankri's summoning is a lot less dramatic than Karkat's. Makes sense: Kankri is right here, and Karkat was ensconced somewhere in the farthest reaches of the demon realm. Kankri's summoning benefits from his own advice on the phase of the moon (waning, thanks ever so much for making everyone get up at three fucking AM, a time Dave had never seen from that end of the night) and other such ceremonial fiddly details; Karkat's was done pretty much blind.

Kankri wants to come; Karkat didn't.

They scream just as loud as each other.

( Read more... )