fearofpiggies | (no subject)

(no subject)

It had been a few days of radio silence on Dib's end. His house's AI picked up the IMs he missed with 'Dib's not home, pal. He's off doing that dumb deep research thing he does. If he dies, I'll let you know' and that was the end of it.

And Eddie was right. He was doing that dumb deep research thing he did. In fact, he had been in an abandoned amusement park that had been built on top of an old factory site that had lots of fucked up deaths attributed to both places, and even more fucked up hauntings. It didn't help that some freaky cult of demon worshipers had been using the abandoned haunted house attraction as a meeting place and had been doing rituals there for years, thus inviting in literally every dark presence in the immediate area of the site. It was basically the only time Dib could be talked into going to an amusement park without getting him grousing.

When he returned home after three days of extensive research and recording of phenomena, Dib was exhausted, but satisfied with the results he'd gotten. His first order of business was to take a long shower to wash off the dried ectoplasm that had gotten on him, as well as the three-day stink of someone who slept in his car instead of getting a hotel room. He didn't bother brushing his hair back or shaving, because he'd be going straight to sleep after winding down from an adventurous weekend. Once he stepped out of the bathroom, he made his way out to the living room, sprawling out on his sofa to see what he'd missed on his social networks.

Not much, it seemed. He didn't keep a very long list of contacts; the few that he kept were in alternate dimensions, or in the vague shadow agency of the Swollen Eyeball Network.

Do you never sleep? He wrote to Sollux, having seen him actively online practically every hour of the day, over the course of about a month.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sollux' arms draped around his neck, his head falling to rest against the side of Dib's. His fingers tangled into the other's hair as he breathed in his ear and simply let him move. He was quick to become acclimated to the pressure and onslaught of not quite familiar sensation and continue on, sitting back again and looking Dib in the face. He always made sweet faces when they did anything together and watching him was one of the best things about sleeping with him. Soon Sollux was slowing down, attempting to draw it out and delay the gratification a little while longer but soon enough he had to twist some in place and tap at his fetch modus, dumping a bucket onto the couch.

Once he came, it was during those slow rolls and near graceful rocking of Sollux's body. Dib didn't let up however, knowing it wouldn't be long for Sollux, especially once the bucket was procured. He put his hand through Sollux's hair and tugged lightly, bringing his mouth against the side of the other's neck as he let out a low groan, hoping that the twitches of his erection wouldn't hurt Sollux.

At the pulsing and sudden surge inside him Sollux had to struggle to hold himself in check, his breath shuddering against Dib's ear. He wrapped one hand around his bulges and managed to aim them away from anything else as he finally came, shuddering hard and swearing quietly under his breath. Once he'd finally finished he bent to put the bucket down on the floor then fell forward to lie with his chest pressed against Dib's, giving quiet hitches whenever either of them moved as he was made hypersensitive. Once Dib was flaccid again it would be easier for him to move, but for now he was content to continue pinning him to the couch.

The cloying scent made Dib lightheaded, and in turn, made him chuckle softly against Sollux's shoulder, putting one arm casually around him with the other lazily draped down onto the cushion of the sofa. Once he did move away, having gone soft enough to slip out mostly on the basis of gravity, Dib sprawled lengthwise on the couch, taking Sollux with him, mostly because he could.

"I'm surprised you went through with that," he said with a breathy chuckle. "You're not really built for that kind of action, buddy." But it did feel good, and he wasn't really complaining.

"Well I don't really intend to walk much of anywhere anytime thoon." Sollux smirked faintly as he pressed his nose against the side of Dib's neck, his eyes falling closed. He stretched his legs out then tangled them back around the other's loosely. "If you do get up in the near future thomething to eat wouldn't go amith," he added, having completely forgotten to stop in the kitchen to get his afternoon breakfast.

Dib twisted around to look at the clock on the wall and then shrugged. "Could call up for some Chinese. It's pretty decent and not napkins, and they've got their afternoon special going 'til about an hour from now." He dropped back down and ran his fingers back down over the other's shoulder and arm. "Or pizza, that works, too. It'd probably be better for you than the cereal I've got, that shit's like 80 percent sugar." Or they could go to Sollux's and get real food, but that sounded like just a little too much effort just then.

"Either one thoundth good. Probably get more out of the chinethe though tho I'd thay go with that," Sollux shrugged and let himself lie sprawled across the couch, making it difficult to motivate himself to move out of the comfortable, sticky warmth. He pressed the back of his hand over his mouth and yawned widely then turned onto his back with his arm over his eyes.

Dib chuckled and slipped away, shaking his head. "Just clean up before that stuff drips on the floor, okay?" He stood, gathered his clothes, and went to wash off in a quick shower, before he called up for carryout. He was still pulling on his pants as he walked into the living room with the phone to his ear, double-checking the order as he zipped up his fly, and fixed his tank top.

"So hey, smart as it is that you want to stay out of the reach of this reality's society? I'm gonna have to go pick that stuff up in like, fifteen minutes, so 'til then, I'm putting you in charge of the place." He booted Eddie back up and said, "Eddie, keep Sollux from dying a messy death while I'm gone, okay? I've gotta pick up dinner."

"You got it, chief! Oh, I probably should mention that there's some new tripwire traps out there on the front walk since last night, from your very favorite pal in the whole world. You want me to y'know. get rid of 'em?" Eddie said with a palpable smug grin in his tone.

"If you would, yeah. Man, trip wires? He must have gotten bored and lazy." He shoved into his shoes and looked over at Sollux. "If he shows up, just spray him with a hose. He hates that."

"Didn't you tell me that water'th like athid for Irkenth?" Sollux' brow arched up some as he stood and fished in his sylladex once more for a couple of wet naps, wiping himself down then grabbing the bucket to wash out in the bathtub. He snagged his pajama pants off the floor and pulled them on before he went to do so. "Thee you when you get back then. I'll try not to pith off your houthe too much," he grinned. Antagonizing Eddie was something of an amusing pastime to him, but he refrained from it usually just so that he'd be able to keep coming over without household retaliation.

"Yeah, don't piss off Eddie," Dib said as he shrugged into his trenchcoat, looking over at Eddie's camera, smirking. "And Eddie? If you start picking a fight with Sollux, he's got permission to start trying to reprogram you to talk in a little girl voice." He bowed his head and started out the door.

When he came back, it was about twenty minutes later, and he had one paper bag full of food, and another bag of drinks. He breezed through the living room to put the food and booze down in the kitchen, noting that Sollux had cleaned off the sofa pretty well - that or it just wasn't noticeable once it was dried in the black fabric. "You'd better come get this, I can actually eat all of this on my own."

"I could do that eathily," Sollux answered as he meandered back into the room, freshly showered and drying his hair with one of the towels, his pajama pants slung low on his hips as he stopped beside the couch and bent to retrieve one of the drinks. He took a couple of long swallows as he sat down beside Dib, pulling out a couple of the containers and searching out the chopsticks. "Doubling the order probably would've been thmarter but oh well. If I thtill lived where I did before I'd invite you to thith little grill plathe I uthed to vithit a lot, you could eat your weight in jutht about anything you could put on the grillth and it wath all quality." He shrugged a shoulder and started to dig enthusiastically into one of the containers of noodles.

"Yeah, you're right, I shoulda. I guess I was on autopilot," Dib said with a tilt to his head, but he left it at that and brought his own food - still in its containers - out with him, alongside a bottle of high proof beer, turning on the TV. "So tomorrow I'll be out on a home investigation. One of those consult things, y'know. I don't charge for those, but usually, they at least send me home with a couple bucks or dinner or something. But yeah, tomorrow night's gonna be an all nighter." He shook his head. It was how he usually kept himself fed, since he put Eddie on the detail of tech support. It was technically Eddie who paid the rent, but it freed Dib's schedule up to do what he loved, and Eddie was proud of his accomplishments as a salary-earning non-human.

He grinned a little as he switched the channel to auxiliary and - with egg roll in one hand - he stepped away to pull out a console, and then opened the cabinet door to show that the door was lined with games. "I guarantee you that you will whoop my ass at literally anything you choose. I'm no gamer, I leave that stuff to Gaz."

"Then I hope that one day, I will get to go toe-to-toe with the great Gaz Membrane and thee how bad she thtompth my ath." Grinning around his mouthful of noodles, Sollux took one of the controllers out and started to search through the games, picking out one of the newer co-op shooters so that at least Dib wouldn't have to suffer the humiliation of never winning a round. He settled back down at Dib's side with one of the takeout containers in hand, taking a few bites between having to move his avatar.

After several successful rounds and every last scrap of chinese, as well as the remainder of the beers, Sollux was ready to sprawl out and do a large amount of nothing for the rest of the night, half lying in Dib's lap as he tapped on his phone.

He'd never had a premonition in this iteration of reality; it was one of the biggest draws of the place. But all at once the heavy, cold feeling fell over him and he stopped moving briefly, his expression falling. Something huge and catastrophic was going to happen, on par with the destruction of his own planet if the voices of the imminently deceased rattling through his thinkpan were anything to judge by. He glanced up to Dib to make make sure he hadn't noticed, trying to resume his former calm.

Dib had noticed, and it drew him away from his idle work of tweaking the calibrations of his HUD to look through his glasses at Sollux. He was about to ask what was up when Eddie piped up with a rather somber tone of, "Uh, dudes? You know how you asked me to keep a lookout for anything that resembled that game you really don't want to exist in this permutation of reality? Well I got some good news and some bad news."

Dib raised both brows and looked up at Eddie's screen, which floated over to show a giant emoticon frown. "So what's the good news?" He already figured that the bad news was really bad.

"Well, the good news is that the beta release isn't for another six months."

Oh goddammit. "Knew it," Sollux muttered, sitting up and rubbing a hand across his forehead as the headache settled in. He didn't even have to hear the bad news to know what it was. He looked back around at Dib with a grimace. "I know we talked about thith and all but...you have to figure out what you really want to do between now and the releathe. Becauthe ath thoon ath it'th out, thith world ith fucked."

"I don't see why I need to plan that out. I've been basically anticipating its arrival since we first talked about it," Dib explained calmly. "All I need is a second player who's good at taking micromanaged direction, and that's really all. I don't care about this world, Sollux. And besides, I'd be winding up on your side of the fenestration plane no matter what. And honestly? It'd be easier just to do it legit." He hadn't cared about earth except as the place he kept his stuff for years. "And really? If this is what it takes to get the burden of keeping it safe off my shoulders, so be it. Good riddance to it." He sighed a little. "Wish I knew where Gaz is." He shrugged at that and then looked up at Eddie's screen. "See if you can't secure two copies of the game right now, Eddie, make sure to get both the server and the player client discs, and then we'll worry about it when the release day hits."

"Then I gueth I'll thtart looking for apartmentth for you," Sollux shrugged as it was settled that easily. "Jutht remember that when you're in the Inthipithphere, you're probably going to be there for at leatht a few months if not a year or more. I'll thtill be reachable, but that'th pretty much it. Then it'th jutht a matter of either you winning your game and becoming a god, or dying and getting a new place. Now that I think about it, you can keep some of your thtuff at my plathe if there'th anything you don't want to get rid of that you can't keep captchalogued."

Edited 2013-09-05 00:00 (UTC)

"I can send Eddie to live with you, find a way to get my car and runner from here to there, but otherwise I think I'm pretty sure I can captchalogue everything else I'll need." He looked around the place and shrugged. "I don't really keep much of anything that I can't replace." He settled back in and shrugged. "I'm not exactly what anyone would call a permanent resident." He leaned back into the back of the sofa again and sighed.

"Any chance I can talk you into playing again?"

Edited 2013-09-05 00:04 (UTC)

Sollux shook his head. "I uthed up all my get out of death free cards," he shrugged. "I told you about my dream thelveth, how the only reathon I wath able to come back wath becauthe of them. Now I don't have them. The only reathon I can come back now'th becauthe of god tier. The game probably hath thomething that can override that and make it tho that I have to die a thpethific way, or elthe the entire thethion ith void." He paused, frowning some. "Do you have a dream thelf? That you know of, I mean."

"I've been awake on Prospit since forever ago," Dib said with half a shrug as he looked down at Sollux with a passive expression. "I didn't say anything about it because I don't think you need more reasons to get your head fucked up about everything you can't control. When you told me about Skaia, I immediately knew this world was strapped to a timebomb, I've just been waiting for the clock to start counting down. It doesn't matter, really; this reality has been going to pot since before I was born, and if it's going to get destroyed, at least it isn't at the hands of Zim." He ran his hand through his hair and took a deep breath, sighing it out. "So long as I can figure out where my second player is in time, I'll be fine. If I can't, I'll just jump through. But it's a moot point at this juncture. Six months is a pretty long time in the scheme of things. Being in the incinisphere is going to get stupidly boring, but I'm pretty sure I'll be fine."

"And in all of thith you're probably the motht prepared perthon for all of thith in thith particular reality tho I gueth I really shouldn't be worrying. Can't really help it though," replied Sollux with a quiet sigh of his own. He knew that worrying himself to death over Dib was pointless, especially given the multiple safeguards surrounding the end of this world. But this was his friend, and he'd seen the havoc the game could wreak on one's psyche. It wasn't something he'd wish on anyone. "Here'th hoping you find your thecond player in time, then. Jutht...be thure to let them know exactly what they're getting into."

Edited 2013-09-05 00:56 (UTC)

"I'm not sure anything can prepare someone for this game, Sollux." He put his hand through Sollux's hair and smiled. "You're worrying again. Relax. I've got this." He raised an eyebrow before standing up to go grab another beer. "I guess the only problem this makes for anybody is that when the doomy stuff happens to you guys, you can't come to my place to wait it out after I'm in the game. That'd just be putting you closer to danger." He settled down beside Sollux again, handing another beer to him. "So I guess now we're just going to have to enjoy ourselves as much as possible until then." He quirked a brow about halfway through his pull of beer. "Oh. Question. I know you hacked your chat client to show the person you're chatting with who's in the game, regardless of cameras or lack thereof. Since I'm pretty sure you'll be watching me do this shit, you're going to be actually be watching right? You know. Just wondering."

"I'll probably have to actually get you a download of the hacked chat client in order to inthure that it workth but yeah, after that'th done it'd be eathy enough for me to eyeball your every move." Taking the offered beer, Sollux leaned back against Dib's shoulder again and started to suck it down in gulps. After a couple moments he continued, "I could probably have a few otherth on thtandby in cathe you run into any thnagth. Our betht Time player'th a complete dink but he knowth hith shit. For Thpace I know I can talk to Jade. Provided she'th not distracted by tentacle monthterth."

"Oh, I wouldn't want to make Jade go out of her way to help," Dib said with a shake of his head, "She seems really busy. I feel bad that she 's already done so much for me. But if my partner and I have any questions, I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to ask." He leaned back and relaxed against the arm of the sofa, and moved in such a way that Sollux could use his chest as a pillow. "I'm no good at games, but the way you put it, it sounds really much closer to survival camping and stuff like I actually do. It's going to be pretty interesting to see what it turns out to be."

Instead of taking up his chest, Sollux leaned back until he was once more laying in Dib's lap, going back to his phone. "The firtht part of it ith, anyway. Then shit really getth good. Betht of luck to you, broham. I'll help where I can."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only